Chapter 3: House of Horrors

Margot

I know Ezra well enough now to know that he hates it when I have a nightmare. I’m not sure how much our one-way bond allows him to see and feel, but I know it’s enough that it brings a haunted look to his face.

And he may have tried to hide his retching in the shower, but I still heard it, so I waited to eat with him, hoping that, together, we could both manage to get our food down. It worked, but I don’t think either of us is feeling very good as we leave Ezra’s pack lands and head to Joshua’s.

“Would it be easier for you if we stopped at your mother and father’s pack lands first, Margot?” he asks me.

Would it be easier for me to see my childhood room, the place where I was just as powerless as I was in Joshua’s packhouse? The place where I watched my father berate my mother daily, forcing her to submit to his rule regardless of how she felt about his decisions?

“No. Thank you, Ezra,” I say, not looking away from the landscape that is going by much too quickly outside the car.

He reaches over and takes my hand. “You’re not weak or alone anymore, Margot. You are a strong woman. You killed the man who tormented you for years. He is gone and you are here, surviving, ready to give his pack, his things, to someone of YOUR choice,” he says.

“Well, technically, it’s whoever wins the competition.”

“No, it was your choice to allow that. But if you decided that our omega, Ryan, was the one who deserved your old pack, you could give it to him. It’s your choice, Margot. Joshua has no say in it. He has no voice. You have all the control now.”

When he says it like that, it sounds like I should feel empowered, but I don’t. I don’t feel that strength. I only feel the pressure, the weight of going back. But I know it has to be done.

When we drive onto my old pack lands, the dread in my gut is like a dead weight, threatening to bring up everything I ate earlier this morning.

“You are NOT alone, Margot. You are not weak. You are not bound to that man. You are a strong, powerful woman. A woman who is in control of her own destiny and a woman who gets to decide the fate of this pack,” Ezra says, his voice, and probably Thorin’s, growling with the intensity of his words.

When he pulls up to the packhouse, I can see that no one has been here in the year or so that it’s been since I killed Joshua. The planters in the front of the packhouse are overgrown with weeds and the perfectly manicured lawn from before is now wild and unkempt.

The packhouse is dark and it not only looks abandoned, but it also looks haunted. I stare at it, fighting with myself to get out and face my fears.

Ezra, to his credit, sits with me, but remains quiet. He lets me fight my demons, lets me argue with myself about going back into that place that is the source of all my nightmares.

“Let’s get this over with,” I finally say. I know this isn’t the end of it. Next week, I’ll be here with hundreds of contenders for the competition. Because I used to live here, I’ll be the one giving the tour of the packhouse. They won’t know the torment I suffered here, but I will.

I step out of the car and begin to walk to the front steps. Almost instantly, Ezra is there, grabbing my hand and pulling me to a stop.

“I told you, Margot. You’re not alone. I’m going in with you. I’ll stay by your side. I won’t leave you alone, not for a moment.”

When I look at him, his eyes are burning with an intensity that I’ve only ever seen after I’ve had a nightmare. I realize that the look he’s got is more about what he’s NOT saying than what he is saying. Right now, what he’s not telling me is that he’s willing to walk through hell with me, carry me, if necessary, to make sure that I make it to the other side. 

Something about that brings me enough comfort that I feel like I can do this. It may break me, but at least I’ll know that I did it. And I know that with Ezra’s help, I’ll make it to the other side.

We walk up the steps, and Ezra pushes open the door. It squeaks, the hinges complaining about being opened after so long without being used. 

Stale air blasts out of the packhouse, leaving the scent of dust and disuse behind.

“It will need to air out,” I say, my mind on autopilot.

“We can open some windows before we leave,” he says.

When we walk in, it looks like the pack members were just swooped out of this space suddenly. There are jackets resting on seat backs that are now covered in dust. The kitchen, when we walk further into the packhouse, looks like it was left without being cleaned after a large meal. The scent of rotting food is long gone now, but the remnants of the meal linger all around the kitchen and when we walk into the dining room, they are there too.

I know, because I live in Ezra’s pack, that most of the people who used to live here have moved to his pack. There are other packs where my previous pack members and my mother’s were offered as a place to live and they agreed, but most of the pack members came to Ezra’s pack as the closest pack to this one.

“It feels like a time capsule,” I murmur.

“It does. When you killed Joshua, everything must have just stopped. It feels like time stopped in here,” he says, looking around.

“Do we leave it like this, or do we have someone clean it up?” I ask.

“Leave it. When the omegas come in to help cook for the competition, they can decide what to keep and what to toss. I’ll make sure they know that anything that isn’t salvageable is okay to throw out,” he says.

We walk to the back of the packhouse. The pool that once was the focal point of the pack’s parties is now green, and it looks like it’s become infested with frogs and probably snakes. Even back here, what used to be a well-maintained space is now overgrown with grass as high as my waist.

“I’m not sure this pack is worthy of being won,” I say, turning away.

“Anyone who agrees with you is welcome to step down and not compete. But I doubt others will feel that way. It’s a lot of work, yes. But it’s an opportunity for someone to become an Alpha, something that doesn’t happen very often.”

“Except with us. It seems to happen a lot with us,” I say, dryly.

We walk through the omegas’ quarters, then the warriors’ quarters as well as the conference room and offices.

When I can’t put it off anymore, we walk up the stairs to the Gamma floor. We walk down the hallway, looking in the rooms.

“There’s a lot of space here for pregnant she-wolves. We have quite a few now, so that’s good. The unmated wolves can sleep outside, but the mated wolves, especially those with young pups and pregnant mates, will want to have a space to sleep away from the elements in case it rains or is cold during the competition,” he says.

“Very true.”

We make our way to the Beta floor and it’s much the same as the Gamma floor. There are a couple of rooms that need to be cleaned out, but overall, it will be a good space for people to sleep for the next two weekends.

Finally, we make our way to the Alpha floor. I stop at the end of the hall, looking at the place where all of my nightmares originate.

“Talk to me, Margot,” Ezra says softly.

“I don’t think I can do it,” I say, so quietly that I’m not even sure he can hear me.

“Then I’ll go for you,” he says, releasing my hand that he’s held throughout every part of this. He takes a step forward, but I stop him.

“No.” I close my eyes, fighting against the fear that threatens to claw away my insides and the nausea that threatens to make me vomit my fear all over this floor. “I have to do this.”

He steps back and wraps an arm around my waist, pulling me against him. I didn’t realize how cold I was until I feel the blazing heat of his body against mine.

“Then, I’m with you, Margot. Always.”

I nod, still staring at the doorway of my nightmares.

We make our way to the door that was the bedroom I shared with Joshua.

Ezra reaches out and puts his hand on the doorknob. “Ready?”

I close my eyes and take a deep breath, willing the tears that are burning in my eyes to go away.

I nod, my throat so tight that I can’t speak.

When the door opens, I expect to smell his scent. I expect to smell Joshua. But his scent is long gone from this room. Instead, it smells like it did when we walked into the packhouse downstairs, stuffy and dusty.

However, when I open my eyes, I see it across the room, the place that was my hell.

I stop, unable to move forward, just staring at the small space where I spent so many hours, so many days. The place of my nightmares.

Ezra releases me, and I instantly miss the warmth of his body.

“Stay here,” he says softly. His voice is tight, full of anger and another emotion I can’t name. He walks to the room, the space where Joshua used to lock me when I didn’t give him a pup every month.

I watch as Ezra extends his claws and swipes them over the bolt lock that is dangling on the door. It clatters to the floor with a sound so loud it makes me jolt. Then, Ezra opens the door and steps inside.

He has to duck. The space was never meant to be comfortable. It was meant to punish. 

I couldn’t stand up straight and neither can Ezra. He’s larger than I am, so his body barely fits inside the small area.

“How long, Margot? How long did he force you to stay in this space?”

His voice is devoid of emotion and somehow, that makes it sound more deadly.

“It would depend.”

“On?”

“How angry he was.”

“What did you do? When you were in here, what did you do?” he asks.

“I sat on the floor, covering my head with my hands. Sometimes I would rock, trying to keep myself from falling apart.”

I watch as he tries to sit, pulling his legs up to try to make them fit. They don’t.

I can feel the heat of his fury blazing off him even from here.

“What is this?” he asks, his voice deceptively calm as he points to the pot that Joshua kept in the space.

“My toilet.”

He slowly stands, struggling to get up from the small space. Then, without a word, he walks over to the bed and rips the sheets, blankets, and pillows off of it. He grabs the mattress and begins dragging it from the room.

“Ezra?”

He stops to look at me, and his eyes are dark with anger and pain.

“We’re going to burn this,” he says before walking out of the room, dragging the mattress behind him.