Page 118 of My Unhinged Alphas
For one stupid second, I want someone to tell me this is all a mistake. That they got the wrong girl. That I can go home, shower off the smell of this room, call my friends, and go back to being forgettable.
Knox is the first one to move. Not closer. Just enough to make it clear the conversation isn’t over. “Sit down,” he says.
I laugh under my breath, brittle and tired. “You guys really love saying that like I’m going to find it comforting.”
“Sit,” he repeats.
This time I do it. Not because he told me to. Because my knees feel weak in a way I don’t trust, and because I’m starting to understand that if I stay standing, I’m going to break in some humiliating, very public way.
The mattress dips under me. The lamp on the nightstand throws weak yellow light across the room, making all three of them look harsher than they already are.
Havoc stays by the wall, arms folded, watching me like I’m a match he’s waiting to see catch. Vale doesn’t sit. He just stands there, still and intent, eyes on me in that way of his that feels less like looking and more like being held in place.
Knox stays nearest. “Tell us about your past,” he says.
I stare at him. “My past.”
“Yes.”
“What kind of question is that?”
“The kind I’m asking.”
I let out a breath and shake my head. “I don’t have some dramatic backstory.”
Havoc huffs a quiet laugh. “Everybody says that right before the dramatic backstory.”
I ignore him. “There’s nothing to tell,” I say. “I was in foster care. I moved around. Then I aged out. End of story.”
Knox doesn’t blink. “Start before that.”
“I can’t.”
“Can’t,” he says, “or won’t?”
Something hot flares in me then. Anger, maybe. Or panic wearing anger’s face.
“I don’t remember before that,” I snap. “That happens sometimes, in case your weird secret society didn’t cover basic childhood trauma.”
Silence. Not the empty kind. The listening kind.
I hate it.
Knox’s voice stays even. “How old were you when you entered the system?”
“I don’t know exactly.”
“Approximate.”
I rake a hand through my hair again. My scalp aches where my fingers keep catching in the same place. “Four,” I say. “Maybe five. Somewhere around there.”
“Any names?”
I blink at him. “What?”
“Foster parents. Social workers. Anyone who stood out.”
I shake my head. “There were too many.”
