Anarchy Found (SuperAlpha, #1)(39)

“I found a town.” It wasn’t really a town, but the modern-day version of gypsies. “Of circus people. They had a collection of trailers and one was unlocked. It had all these dirty blankets. Thick, quilted cotton blankets. And they smelled like engine oil and transmission fluid. But once I stacked half a dozen over top of me, they were warm.”

“Did anyone see you use it?”

He doesn’t say what he’s talking about, but I know. “No. I was all alone when I pricked the needle into my neck, the same way you pricked me dozens of times before. And when I woke up, I was nobody.”





Chapter Twenty-Five - Lincoln




I have never let myself imagine this moment. I have never pretended that there was anything in my future but revenge and death. Warm summer days filled with planning. Cold winter nights filled with stalking. No matter what day it was, no matter what time it was, no matter how many times I wished things could be different, I have never let myself imagine this moment.

Molly starts trembling so I squeeze her tighter. She’s crying, but trying hard not to. And if I give in, if I stop being Lincoln for just one second, I might break too. “I missed you the second you turned your back to run.”

“You have no idea how that felt for me. How terrified I was.”

“I don’t know what it was like to be you. But I know what it was like to be me. I know what it felt like to inject you with those drugs at school and watch you go insane. Watch you try to scratch the skin off your body because you were hallucinating. I know what it was like to be the reason you banged your head against a wall until you were bloody. I know what it was like to hold you tight, have you spit in my face, call me evil, call me monster, call me devil. So maybe making a little girl run into the dark woods in the middle of the night wearing a nightgown was a pretty horrific thing to do, but it was a lot better than hurting you for the rest of your life.”

She turns around, reaching for my bare shoulders, gripping them tightly and shaking me as she stares into my eyes. “You’re not listening. You don’t get it. You ripped me in half, Alpha.”

“Don’t call me that.”

“Why not?” she challenges. “That’s who you are.”

“That’s not who I am, it’s what I do. And I don’t want to hear it from you, Molly. I can’t even take it.”

She sighs, giving in on that point. “You were mine and I was yours and that’s the only thing I knew to be true back then. And then you threw me out like trash.”

“Thomas was gonna make me kill you, Molly. We had a discussion and this was the only answer. I’m sorry, but you have to believe me, I did my best. I swear, Molly, I did my best.”

She starts breathing hard, her chest rising and falling faster and faster as the seconds tick off. “So you chose them over me.”

“I chose you, Molly. I—”

“Stop calling me that!” She screams it and her words echo off the ceiling of my bedroom cave. “Molly is made up! Molly is the name they gave me when I was eight. Molly is that girl who grew up with them. I’m Omega.” She stares daggers into me. “I’m your Omega.”

The rage and pain inside her make me want to close my eyes and beg God for help. Help me make her understand.

“I’m…”

“Don’t even say it,” she growls. “Don’t even start with the sorrys. You were the only thing I had.”

She flips her body around so she’s not facing me anymore, like she’s ending the conversation. And even though I know she wants me to give her space, she doesn’t need space. She needs close. She needs love. She needs me. Not Alpha… me.

“Molly—”

“Omega,” she says again. But this time it comes out small and sounds like defeat.

I let out a breath of frustration. “Omega. Fine. But I don’t want to be called Alpha. I’ve spent a lot of years coming to terms with Lincoln and that’s who I am now. Whether I like him or not, that’s who I am.”

“What’s that even mean?”

I lie there, silent.

“You have an anarchy patch on your leather and those murders I’m investigating—”

“It’s not what you think.”

“Then explain it to me.”

But I don’t want to explain it to her. Not yet, anyway. “Just… just let me be here with you, OK? Just let me enjoy this.” She takes a deep breath, her back pressing against my chest as I try to hold her closer. “I never forgot about you. There has not been one night that I didn’t put my head on this pillow and wish to see your face in my dreams at night.”

“You don’t want me to feel betrayed, so what am I supposed to feel? What, Lincoln?” She turns to face me again and there’s just enough light from a computer screen on the far side of the room to make out the shine of tears on her cheeks. She wipes them away and sniffles.

“Your life was… bad?” I ask her, so afraid of that answer.

“Some,” she admits. “But most of it was good. Will, Wild Will, he was my brother after they found me in the trailer. I don’t know how long I slept, but they told me no one had checked that trailer in days.”

“Did they call the police?”