TRAUMA

Freya's POV:

It looked oddly familiar.

A squint was enough for me to remember where I was.

I was back at home.

Was this real?

It looked real, but how could I be so sure when my new friend wasn't even real?

There was no way I was going to ever trust myself anymore.

The sitting room was just like how I had remembered it.

Alcohol bottles everywhere while the couch looked in disarray.

A crashing sound from the bedroom caught my attention, so I walked towards it. My footsteps made no sound but I could hear my heart thumping loudly.

“Don't you get it, you this freak?”

It wasn't my father's angry voice that made me gasp, it was those words.

I could remember them as clearly as day.

I could hear myself breathing heavily as I reached for the doorknob to check what was happening inside.

I guessed right.

It was a memory.

I was kneeling in pink shorts and a matching tank top with my hand clasped against my left cheek, which was definitely red.

My disheveled hair was enough to tell that I had gone through a fair share of violence.

Fragments of other moments and screams clashed with the one. I clenched my chest as I tried to calm my heart down, but it didn't listen.

“Can't you be normal like everyone else?” My father asked before he landed another blow on me.

There was only little that my twelve-year-old body could take and watching how helpless I looked, broke me further.

“I-i-i thought he w-

A slap from my father cut off the younger me and that snapped something in me.

My body moved before I knew it and with tears running down my cheeks, I ran towards him as I screamed, “Leave her you psycho.”

My hit didn't land on him.

I turned around in confusion and stared at my hands. That was when it clicked.

I couldn't control anything in this world.

A tear dropped on my hands that I had stretched out, followed by another one, then another.

There was nothing I could do to save my younger self and that made me feel pathetic. I couldn't do anything but stare at the traumatic scene before me.

When I couldn't take it anymore, I closed my eyes and clutched myself tight. I couldn't stop hearing my screams.

Why did it have to be this memory? It felt like heaven was playing me.

“Stop imagining fake people,” my father said as his belt slashed through the air, but his words hit me deeper.

Stop imagining fake people.

Amara.

Even with my eyes closed, I started to feel my world spin as if it was spiraling out of control, but I still didn't open my eyes.

I was too scared to see what was out there.

“Freya!” Duncan's voice echoed in the background, but I couldn't get out of the abyss.

“Freya, open your eyes!”

It felt like the darkness was engulfing me and suffocating me at the same time. It made it so hard to breathe.

I tried to snap my eyes open, but it felt like they weren't mine. I could feel someone shaking my body as sparks flew through my veins.

The electricity from it made my eyes fly open abruptly.

A gasp escaped my lips as I looked around my environment, waiting for my father to suddenly appear from a corner.

I was in a room. An unfamiliar one that left me confused as I tried to remember what had happened.

Amara…

There were three people in the room and two were complete strangers dressed in medical clothes.

My eyes stayed on the woman, then the male nurse behind her before it landed on Duncan.

He seemed a bit different, especially his olive skin that seemed to glow a bit.

“Where-

My throat felt so dry and hurt that I had to cut myself off.

“She needs water,” the doctor stated the obvious and a glance from her was enough command for the male nurse.

“You scared the shit out of me,” Duncan said the moment the nurse walked out.

A frown appeared on my face as I tried to understand the sudden display of affection. Something was suspicious about it, but I couldn't place a finger on it.

“I'm sorry,” I said with a coarse voice and watched him wince.

“I think you need to rest a bit,” Duncan offered as he stood up from the corner of the bed he sat on.

The sudden absence of his warmth made a protest find its way to my throat but I swallowed it down.

I knew what this was.

That memory helped me figure it out. I was simply affection-starved all thanks to my father and now that Duncan was giving me a bit of attention, I wanted more.

He stood tall, almost the same height as Lucien.

Lucien…

As if he had heard my thoughts, he said with a sigh, “I'll inform Lucien as-

“No,” I yelled out before I realised it.

The frown that appeared on Duncan's face made me look at anywhere else but him.

I soon heard whispers and, from my side view, he was talking to the doctor with a serious look that made me forget my plan to avoid eye contact.

With a firm nod, the doctor left the room and I looked away once more but I wasn't fast enough.

“What did Lucien do?” Duncan asked, his jaw tightening as his eyes darkened a bit.

His tone had an effect that made a chill crawl up my spine.

He didn't sound like Duncan. He sounded like a werewolf.

I wasn't sure about the right way to put it but when he commanded me to look at him, I did it without thinking twice.

“I'm only going to ask one more time before I go to that bitch ass myself… what did he do?”

The intense look he had made me so nervous that I started to play with the white duvet that covered my body.

“Please, just let it go,” I muttered, hoping he would let it go.

“Okay,” he said with a nod, but the look in his eyes said otherwise.

He nodded one more time before he stormed out of the room.

It was clear that he was going to confront Lucien, which meant Lucien would be here before the end of the day.

I let out a sigh as I slid back into the bed, waiting for the nurse to return with my water as my mind wandered to several places.

Amara.

Lucien and Duncan's drama.

And the most disturbing of them all… the memory.

Something was weird about me and that didn't sit right with me.

It felt so real and too coincidental.

The door to the room swung open but instead of the nurse, it was a naked woman.

She sashayed her way towards my bed, her two firm boobs giving a little bounce with each step she took.

There was something about her aura that I couldn't depict. However, her red hair reminded me so much of Laura that it made my skin crawl, although she seemed way younger.

“Are you my brother's new whore?” She asked with a smirk.