Rejected Mate and Following Fate - Awakening Book
Chapter 44: Get Up

It feels like it's been hours since the doctor left, and I did exactly as I was told. I ate the food and Idressed in the grey sweats, and sweater, put on the socks, and oversized boots, which baffled mecompletely as to why I needed them and all the undergarments in the bag, and now I'm pacing mycell wondering if I imagined they had any importance. Maybe he really was just being thoughtfuland giving me items to aid comfort, and I was looking for something that was not there because Iam so desperate for an out. I rummaged the bag, and food, wondering if maybe he left some sort ofsomething, like a key card for me, and came up with nothing except confusion, convincing myself Iimagined it completely.

I can't stay here like this, watching her sleep the day away, and if all he is going to do is take testsand fill me in with stories that screw up my head, then this is hopeless. I'm trying to process all of it,and I can't swallow it right now, doing what I do best and pushing it to one section of my brain for alater date. When I can handle how awful it makes me feel. Right now, I need to stay focused andreplace a way out of here on my own.

When Juan gets here, I'm all but useless against him and his men and can’t do crap about anything,especially not him, as long as this damn building holds my ability to turn captive. And Sierra overthere “hey thanks for rendering my gifts useless at a time in my life that I could actually really beusing them, and then getting yourself knocked out so I can't access them. Stellar planning!

A seer who doesn't predict the possibility of not being able to give a girl back what's hers if yourbeloved mate comatoses you! What kind of seer is that? And what kind of witch binds her own childand leaves them motherless for ten years if she saw it all coming? If Colton had the ability to seethings, and not been bound, maybe he could have found her a long time ago and avoided all ofthis. None of this was smart planning on her part. It's really messed up.

I stop my erratic mind brewing and moving around, only to watch that same female come and tendto Sierra's machines, pausing my manic foot stomping around my small space as she disappears justas quickly without looking my way. I can sense her apprehension the whole time she’s in there,keeping her eyes averted, obviously uncomfortable they have a prisoner down here and I watchclosely at what she does before scampering off, acting like I wasn't over here staring. Not that shedid much to watch. Pressed some buttons, check some fluids, move Sierra's bed up and down, andrearrange her position to avoid sores. Prop her pillows, and turn her on her side, before pressingsome more buttons, changing her bed sheet, and leaving her alone again. Basic care, and nothingtoo exciting. I guess I'm thankful they do at least show her some compassion and tend to herfrequently, turning her and such.

No matter how much I stand and glare like some kind of creepy psychopath at Sierra, nothing iswaking that woman up, let alone will power. I can’t imagine what eight years in an induced comahas done to her to be honest. What state her mind and body would be if we did wake her up andnow, I'm starting to doubt if that is plausible at all. For all I know, the drugs over the years havewasted her mind to mush anyway. Her body has been inactive for so long that I'm assuming instantrecovery is not going to happen, and if she’s even capable of being woken after so long. In abuilding where her powers have been bound, then she’s mortal and susceptible to all the damageand harm an induced coma would do to a human in eight years.

Not to mention the fact she’s lost almost a decade of her life, and what would coming to do to hernow? Last time she saw Colton he was a nine-year-old boy, and now he's a stocky, arrogantlyhandsome man ... or the making of one anyway. That is bound to mess her up and disorientate herif she wakes up, and ten years ago was just yesterday in her mental timeframe. The world haschanged so much, and her mate has brought our mountain to ruin in that time. Our people aredivided by class, and worth, and the Santos rule with fear.

Maybe I was never supposed to wake her up. Maybe she left some other way for me to get back mygifts and I just had to replace her?

My train of thought is interrupted as a lunch trolley is pushed down from the elevator, and leftoutside my door shortly after the woman exits, but the guard, another Santo looking asshole, shrugsat me with a distasteful smug expression, butts up against the glass with his shoulder and let's hiseyes lazily walk over me. Pure creep oozing from every pore. It's the idiot who was sat at the deskupstairs, when Deacon informed him I was to be fed the same mealtimes as the rest of the facility.“I was told to give you lunch, but the doc stopped me and said you can't eat anything until he'staken some sort of sample....so, I guess I leave it here and it gets cold. Enjoy. Not that I would adviseeating it later.” He smirks, clearly happy with his sad position of power. A total omega wolf, lowpecking order, and looking for any kind of upper hand to scrape him from the bottom.

I scowl at him, the smell of steak and soup wafting through the glass and even though he thinkshe's getting some sort of power kick by leaving it out of reach, I don't even want it. I ate the foodearlier, and it does confuse me that the doc would insist I ate that, and not this, it's not really beenlong enough to even feel hungry yet. I don't get the sudden urge to tell me not to eat now.

I guess Deacon has briefed his sub pack on who, and what, Juan says I am, and they are all part ofthe Alora fan club right now, given the way this asshole is acting. I can almost taste his dislike, andthe creepy way he's eyeing me up like a main course on his dinner menu, giving me bad vibes. Hereminds me of that jerk Damon, who used to watch me, all through school and tried to get at me ina hallway for a grope and forced kiss. He was a perverted creep who liked control over girls, muchlike this idiot.

"Why don’t you have it ... you could obviously use some extra energy boosts. I mean, if the chase inthe forest was anything to go by.” I give him the same friendly passive aggressive attitude that I giveDeacon, and he grins, ear to ear, as though he's too stupid to realize it was a dig. Annoyingly smug,and if he wasn't such a jerk, he would be kind of cute, in the whole Colton way.

Damn, I really need to stop doing that. Comparing every hot Latino to him, then replaceing faultbecause it's not him. I get it. I still give a rat's ass and I still miss him constantly, and every darkhaired, dimpled, and dreamy eyed, hot Colombian, brings him back to the forefront, but god....timing. If he was Colton, he would let me out in a heartbeat, and he would never throw such a smuglook at me for something so absurd. If Colton was here, he would know what to do about this wholemess, he always seems wiser, like he has the answers and he probably would be handing this idiothis genitals back about now.

I can't fault that part of Colton, even when he was a jerk in our youth. Apart from that one time heshoved me out of his way for epically tripping in front of him and his entire rabid crew, he neverreally went out of his way to be any kind of ass to people for no reason. He was always soeffortlessly superior and seemed aloof, and quiet, like he was better than us. It was all in the lookshe gave, rather than the verbal content, but I guess he does have a sort of intimidating way abouthim, even when he doesn't mean it.

A proper bro type, who hung with his pack, and played sports, and walked around like Danny fromthe movie Greece. Everyone looking up to him and kissing his ass when he waltzed by. I guessmaybe he was not very sociable with those outside of his sub pack, because that's not who I knownow and his memories, they don’t show an asshole like that either. Colton doesn't like to get closeto people outside his own circle, and I guess it's because he lost so many in the war, and then hisown mother.

He has a wall up, and he keeps everyone outside his pack on the other side of it. I guess that's whyhe tries so hard to make his father proud, because he loves him, even if he’s not worthy of beingloved, and that's not Colton’s fault, that's Juan's. Colton’s flaw is trying to be this perfect Santo wolf,with a weight of responsibility on his shoulders that one day he will lead. He follows the rules, thelaws, and the word of the Alpha without conflict, as he's meant to, and even puts all of that over hisown desires. I guess a leader does have to be that way, ingrained greatness, where his heart can'talways lead and it only further cements the fact that he'll be the best for his people one day, but forus, not so much.

I get back to my previous activity when smug smiley guard walks off, getting bored with mydisinterest in him and go back to pacing the room and looking for any kind of tool, or helpful itemto get out. It didn't last long and enforces the fact he's an omega and low in the scale of things.Used to being ignored and dismissed and quietly slinks off. Thankfully, as I have no mind space forasshats. I'm uptight, worn thin, and agitated about my current predicament, with so many warringemotions coming at me from my own mind.

The cupboards are full of medical crap, bandages, and nothing even sharp or useful. It's practicallyan empty room and anything with real weight is bolted down into concrete floors with steel pins.There's nothing at all that could be of any real use, let alone as a weapon of sorts, and I end upthrowing my cushions against the glass in frustration when my anger piques and I can’t contain itanymore.

I have so many swirling emotions that I don't know what to do with. A vibrating energy pulsingthrough my core, and I'm mentally up and down and all over the place. One second, I want to cryand lie down and sob, then the next I'm angry, furious, boiling over, and want to slash Juan into athousand, tiny, bloody pieces, for everything that brought me here, and my entire life since theywent to war. Just when it feels like it reaches overwhelming levels and I can't breathe for thesuffocating need to expel this hatred physically, in the next breath, I'm calm, and logical, and tryingto plan a way out. I can't keep up and it's exhausting.

Time alone to think and let it sink in has done nothing except get me riled and upset, and yes, I'vecried buckets. I sat in a huddle in the corner for a good twenty minutes and sobbed my heart out,while it felt like it was breaking all over again. Much like when I left Colton, and found myself alonewithout him, and no choice but to keep going. Soon as the doctor left it's all I could do ... for me,my mother, my brother and father, my family, my pack. For the mate I can never have.

I cried until my nose ran, and I couldn't breathe, and I drenched the upper part of my gown,because I was still wearing it at that point and the cold wet spreading across my chest on thin fabricwas strangely comforting. Mirroring how my soul felt and how it was seeping into every pore. I felthopeless, and weak, and broken, and I have no idea how to get past that.

It was for Colton and Sierra too, for their pain, their loss, and this whole god damn mess. For the lifeI should have had, the family I should have still been with, and the mate I would have imprinted onin another life and been allowed to be with. It would have still been Colton, that's what the fatesdecided a long time ago, but I would never have had to leave him, and I would be with him now,safe in his arms and calmed by his touch. Guided by that wise part of him that always seems to havean idea about what's going on. Only it failed him when he needed that gift the most.