Adjusting - 10. Chapter 9 - Flashbacks

“Mommy?” I called out. “Daddy?”

No response.

Suddenly, I heard a loud cry from the last door on the right. My heart stuttered for a moment before I ran as fast as my legs could carry me down that hall. “Mommy!” I yelled out, fearing the worst.

I reached the door and paused, listening to what was happening inside. I heard constant whimpers and whines, scaring me even more. “Mommy?”

I slowly reached out and grabbed the doorknob with a trembling hand. “Daddy?"

I opened the door and froze in shock. A man with a long knife stood in the middle of my parents' bedroom, covered in blood. And at his feet...

"Mommy?" I whispered, trying to figure out why she was acting like she was asleep when her eyes were wide open.

"Daddy?" I choked out, tears steadily streaming out. "Please, wake up!"

"They won't," the man said, twirling the red-stained blade in his hands. "But if you want, you can be with them."

I nodded quickly, wanting to be wherever Mommy and Daddy had gone.

A Cheshire cat grin stretched across the stranger's face. "Excellent. All you have to do is come with me, and do what I say."

"Adrian."

"Adrian!"

"Adrian!"

I jumped slightly and opened my eyes to see green ones staring back at me. I flinched in reflex, and the eyes instantly retreated, showing an entire body that was connected to them.

"Thank God, are you okay?" Alex asked with his eyes filled with worry and his hands up to proclaim his innocence.

I sat up in my bed and slid backwards until my back hit the head board before drawing up my legs, resting my elbows on my knees, and hiding my face in my hands.

"Just give me a moment," I mumbled to Alex, trying to fight away my tears.

A minute of silence passed, the only movement coming from me wiping away the evidence of my silent sobbing. A couple of seconds more, and I felt the bed compress as Alex sat down beside me.

"Please, tell me what's wrong," he quietly pleaded me.

I buried my face further into my hands and shook my head, acting like a child.

"Please?" he practically begged as he began to run his fingers through my hair, calming me slightly.

"I'm worried, Adrian," he quietly said after a few moments of me ignoring his plea. "Yesterday, you reacted so violently to my touch. You can barely handle touching anyone but me, and now I find out that you have nightmares?"

I lifted my head slightly so I could peek at Alex. His eyes betrayed his anxiety, with his eyebrows drawn together and his green orbs shining with concern.

"What happened to you, Adrian?" he asked me.

He moved the hand that had been running through my hair so that it now cupped my cheek. A few tears fell from my eyes and he gently wiped them away with his thumb. I took a couple of deep breaths and closed my eyes.

"When I was seven, I found my parents dead in their bedroom."

I heard Alex gasp, and I hurried on, eager to finish my story so I could be alone again.

"Their murderer stood in the room, and he convinced me that if I went with him, he would reunite me with them."

I squeezed my eyes tighter in a hopeless effort to rid the man's face from my mind. His long, greasy black hair, his soulless eyes, the splatters of my parents' blood on his otherwise pale skin, and especially that malicious wide grin that haunted many of my nightmares.

"I saw the bodies of my pack members went we left my house with some other people, only one of them from my pack."

My friends, my grandparents, and those I had seen but never spoken to. Their bodies had littered the ground, in both wolf and human forms. The man who walked with us from my pack had been the beta-in-training. He had sold us out for power and glory. He didn't show an ounce of regret as he walked past the corpses of his own parents and siblings.

"I later learned that the stranger called himself Hades. I doubt that was his real name, but he had a strong dramatic flair mixed in with his demented personality. I was forced to call him Master."

More memories of that wicked smile, the feeling of him pressing himself against me, the hard smacks I got whenever I disobeyed flashed through my head at rapid speed.

"I was his servant in whatever way he wished, whenever he wished it."

I could feel hot tears slipping down my cheeks as the memories became more specific.

The first time he raped me.

"Stop crying, you little bitch. I know you like it."

The first time he told me I'd never meet my parents again.

"They were glad to be away from you, anyways. Why would they ever love you?"

The first time I tried to run away.

"You can never get away from me. You're stuck here with me, pet. Always."

"I finally broke away from his makeshift pack of rogues three years later. I've been on the run ever since."

After his initial gasp of shock, Alex had remained silent throughout my life story. Now, sensing that I had finished, he switched positions on the bed and pulled me in for a tight hug. I clutched at his shirt, years of pain falling from my eyes in liquid form and staining his shirt. He rubbed my back and murmured encouraged words as I let go.

Finally, after what seemed like hours later, I stopped sniffling and pulled away from Alex. "Sorry," I whispered, wiping off my face and refusing to meet his eyes.

Alex gently cupped my chin again and forced my head upwards to look at him. "Never be sorry," he said seriously. "You have every right to cry. What that bastard did to you..."

He trailed off and squeezed his eyes shut, letting out a huff of breath as he did so. Once he calmed down, Alex reopened his eyes and gave me a soft look of regret and pity.

"I won't push you like that again, I promise."

I hated the pity in his eyes, but nodded anyways. I knew there was nothing I could say or do to change his mind.

“Alright,” he said, suddenly standing up from the bed and leaving me to plop down onto it. “Get dressed and come downstairs. Breakfast is ready, and Jude is waiting for you.”

I told him I’d be down in a moment and he left, shutting the door softly behind him. I took a couple of minutes of my solitude to think.

Why did I tell him?

My only guess was that after so many years of loneliness and fear, I was latching on to the first person who was nice to me and actually stuck around. I had met a few nice rogues during my years on the run, but my time with them was short, and I knew better than to get attached. But know, my heart’s chains and locks had dissolved, and it had hastily attached itself to Alexander the first time the man had shown care for me.

Shaking away my thoughts, I did as Alex said and dressed before going downstairs for breakfast.