“It’s funny,” he started, his eyes cold and cruel. “Until yesterday, you held your head high and spoke with indifference but now –“ He stopped with a quick burst of laughter. “Now you seem dead.” His eyes twinkled. “I wanted to see you broken but it’s no fun if you break this easily.” A menacing expression took over his face.
He stepped closer to me, forcing me to take a step back. My back hit the cold railings.
“Do you now know your place, Carrot?” He snorted with a grin fit for the devil’s lips.
I always knew my place. Never once did I attempt to reach higher than my status. I didn’t even ask them to pay attention to me nor did I ask them to love me. When they hit me, I told myself it was because I deserved it and when they took food from my table, I urged myself to do better, to be better.
Red Lake was never my home and I knew that even as a child. I had no family here, no purpose and no relevance. I thanked the Alpha and his Luna for letting me stay in the pack even when I did not shift at fifteen like every other wolf.
I knew my place in this pack. My place was to serve but no matter how hard I bent over, it wasn’t enough. I didn’t like to bow my head. Bending over to please these people hurt me but I learnt my place early so despite how difficult it was to swallow my pride, I did it all the time, to the point where my pride was easier to swallow because it was almost nonexistent now.
“Am I not talking to you, Carrot?” My gaze snapped up at the sound of rage in Noah’s voice.
I blinked up at him, his outline a blur in front of me. He was too close, dangerously close and despite how much I hated it, my body was attuned to his. The heat emanating from his body warmed the cold spreading inside me but it was not enough. The cold was greater. It spread faster.
Carrot.
It was my name. Not a nickname but the name I was given at birth by my mother who promptly abandoned me in the hospital. I didn’t have red hair so my name had no justification. Did my mother like carrots? Did she eat a lot of carrots while pregnant with me? Or did she hate carrots? I’d never know because I never met her.
“The Luna asked me to arrange her bedroom,” I responded in a monotone, hollowness spreading inside me. “If you’ll excuse me –“ I tried to step past him but he stopped me.
“You saucy chit,” he growled with eyes flashing. “It would be better for you to jump.” Strong hands shoved me and my world titled on its axis as I went into free fall.
For a split second, my mouth opened in a scream and I reached up a hand trying to grab at him, at the railing, at anything. When my widened eyes met his laughing ones, the scream died in my throat and the cold void inside me spread. I closed my eyes and everything faded to black.
**
Beep. Beep. Beep.
An incessant and annoying sound reached me through the darkness. After the sound, pinpricks of discomfort pushed into my skin. My throat burned and my head pounded a rowdy rhythm.
“You’re awake.” An unfamiliar man stood beside me with a blinding white dress and a subtle scowl. “Do you know your name?” Even in my ringing ears, he sounded impatient.
“Carrot,” I mumbled with a tight throat.
How was I still here? Noah pushed me off the balcony and though it was only a one-storey, I thought I was done for. So, except the afterlife looked like a hospital ward, I didn’t die.
“Yes, Carrot.” His gaze grew even sterner. “How many fingers am I holding up?”
“Two,” I responded. He pursed his lips and jotted something in his notepad. The waves of anger wafting off him made me shiver. The cold inside me earlier had receded, leaving me with a clear mind. “What –“ I wanted to ask the doctor what happened but he cut me a sharp look.
“Why did you do it?” He asked, the words bubbling from his lips as if he’d tried hard to keep them at bay but failed.
“Do what?” I blinked in the face of his anger.
“Why did you jump?” He shouted. “Because of you –“ His brown eyes lit up with unconcealed rage. “As a pack, we have helped you despite your irrelevance to us and when it’s time to do one good thing for the pack, you attempt to kill yourself.” He glared at me.
“A – Attempt what?” I asked with a dumb expression. Laughter bubbled up from inside me. “S – Sui - ” The laughter burst out, my entire body burning with pain as I laughed. “Is that the story?” Tears spilt from the corners of my eyes as I laughed. My laughter turned to sobs in a second.
“Alpha Noah hasn’t eaten a meal in the week since he found you jumping out of his mother’s balcony. That’s how much your actions traumatized him.” The accusation shining in the doctor’s eyes would make even an innocent man feel guilty. “How could you be so cruel? Is this how you repay us for taking care of you all this time even if we didn’t have to? You’re not even a member of Red Lake pack but we helped you!”
It was true that I wasn’t a member of Red Lake pack. It was possible that I had a pack, a family out there, but I didn’t know of them. According to the stories I heard, my birth mother came to Red Lake pack heavily pregnant and distressed. Her boyfriend left her when he found out she was with child so she came to Red Lake pack to escape the grief.
They say my mother was a beautiful woman so Alpha Howard let her stay but the minute she gave birth to me, she ran from the pack, abandoning me with them. It was the reason I served them so diligently. I didn’t have a home or a family and didn’t know a life outside of Red Lake pack. Despite how bitter I felt having to serve them as a cheap servant, I didn’t have anywhere else to go if they kicked me out. So I endured. I wiped my tears silently in my room and came out every morning with my head held high and my heart heavy. The bullying, the abuse, the humiliation, I endured it all because I had nowhere to run to.
“Thank you for keeping me,” I answered the doctor.
For the longest time, I felt I had to repay Red Lake for keeping me but now, I realized I had long since paid my debt. I earned my keep in this pack, worked through rain and sunshine to cater for the wolves in this pack without pay or appreciation. They gave me the protection of a pack but I would be better off in the wilderness.
“What are you saying?” The doctor sneered. “How can a nobody like you be so arrogant?”
It was my greatest flaw in the eyes of the wolves of Red Lake pack. No matter how much I bent over, my back remained stiff and no matter how much they beat me down, I still rose from the dirt with my head held high. I didn’t know why or how I did it but something in me couldn’t stand me wallowing in dirt and pity. I wouldn’t call myself a fighter but I fought to retain even a shred of my dignity.
The door burst open before I formed a reply for the doctor. Noah rushed in with eye bags surrounding his bloodshot eyes. “You’re awake.” His shoulder hunched forward and relief echoed in his voice.
“You tried to kill me.” I felt a peal of familiar maniacal laughter bubbling in my throat.
No matter what these people did to me, I never considered taking my life. It was a flitting thought I had the other day, one that I didn’t let take root, but Noah Howard – he pushed me off his mother’s balcony.
“What are you saying?” It was the doctor that jumped to his defense. “You tried to kill yourself because you didn’t want to mate with Alpha Norman. Do you understand the stigma that puts on us as a pack? Do you know how much talk has been circulating about Alpha Norman now!? A lowly omega would rather kill herself than be his mate!” He turned red in the face as he shouted, spittle flying everywhere.
“Doctor,” Noah called in a cold voice. “Please, leave us for a minute.”
“I haven’t conducted the necessary checkup yet –“ The man argued but one look from Noah had him clamming up, going as white as snow before he nodded and scrambled out of the room, shutting the door with Noah and I alone.
The air of regret and anxiousness around him faded and his downturned lips rose to form the ghost of a smile. He still looked tired but his eyes were alive as he smirked at me. Then he opened his mouth.
“I told you I would break you completely, didn’t I?” Sadism gleamed in his eyes as he smiled.
