Finding Aria Cole

Chapter 5: Trapped in Darkness

Pain was the first thing I noticed.

I could feel it everywhere. In my head, my legs, my skin, my bones. Everything felt like I was on fire, like I had been broken into a thousand pieces and then painfully stitched back together with all the wrong pieces. I couldn’t move to save my life and my legs felt too heavy and unresponsive to carry my weight and my eyes ached from the light that came into the room.

The second thing I noticed was the emptiness.

The deep hollow emptiness that filled the place where my wolf's presence should have been. The feeling gnawed at me, a reminder of everything I had lost. I tried reaching out to her, calling her, but there was nothing. Just silence. Just that void.

I tried to open my eyes this time a little slower, so my eyes could adjust to the light. My vision blurred, as the world around me spinned in and out of focus. I was in a room—dark wood walls, high ceilings, and a large window with heavy drapes that let in slivers of light. The air was cold, almost clinical. I didn’t recognize any of it.

Strangers walked in and out, faces I didn’t know, didn’t care to know. They spoke in hushed voices, gave me sips of water, changed my bandages, and adjusted the blankets around me.

I didn’t say a word to any of them.

All I did was lie there, my world crashing from within as I was left to my thoughts, a reply of everything that had happened up until this moment pressing down on me, trapping me beneath it. The pain in my body was unbearable, but it was nothing compared to the ache in my soul. I wanted to scream, to tear my way out of this miserable shell, but I couldn’t even manage that.

I was broken.

My wolf was gone. My legs were useless. And all I could do was lie there, a fragile, pathetic mess. I didn’t even have the strength to cry anymore, though my eyes had been wet for days, tears sliding silently down my cheeks as I stared at the ceiling.

And then there was him.

He came every day. The man they called Alpha.

I didn’t know who he was, but I could sense the power radiating off him every time he entered the room. His presence filled the space, suffocating and heavy, like the air itself bent around him. He never spoke to me. Never gave me anything beyond a passing glance, unlike the others who came and tried to speak to me all he ever did was look.

He looked at me with so much pity. Disgust. Anger. His eyes were always burning into me as though he was trying to figure me out and find. If possible, fix whatever was broken about me and then send me off.

Every time he looked at me his eyes were sharp and dark, his annoyance deepening like I was some puzzle he couldn't solve or discard.

He would pace the room, his movements controlled, predatory, his frustration palpable in the way his muscles tensed and his jaw clenched. He’d look at me, then turn away as if my existence physically pained him, then he’d storm out, leaving a string of harsh commands for whoever was taking care of me.

I didn’t understand him. I didn’t understand why he kept coming back, why he bothered to keep me alive or why he saved me in the woods that night.

I didn’t want to be alive.

I wanted to die.

I wanted to escape this hell I’d been thrown into, this existence where my wolf was gone, my body broken, my heart shattered. Every breath felt like a punishment, every second stretched out into an eternity of pain and despair.

Why wouldn’t he let me die?

I didn’t care who he was. I didn’t care about his rank, or the pack, or why I was here. All I cared about was the suffocating emptiness inside me, the weight of the rejection that still clung to my bones. The way Ethan had looked at me when he’d thrown me away like I was nothing. The way I’d failed—failed my wolf, failed myself.

Failed everyone.

Another tear slipped down my cheek, hot and bitter. It didn’t matter how many of them came. It didn’t matter how many times they tried to talk to me or changed my bandages or whisper among themselves, none of it mattered any more, because there was nothing left for me, only death, and they kept death away from me.

No matter how much they tired, I was already crushed. Ethan made absolutely sure of that and there was nothing anyone could do about it.

I was already dead. A ghost. A shadow of who I used to be.

The door creaked open, and I knew without looking that it was him again. The Alpha. His presence filled the room instantly, the tension in the air shifting like it always did when he entered. My breath hitched, my muscles tensing as I waited for the inevitable—the pacing, the heavy glares, the silent fury.

He stood there for a moment, watching me. I could feel his eyes on me, burning holes into my skin. My fingers curled into the sheets, my heart pounding faster despite myself. I hated that I noticed him at all. I hated that I could feel anything.

But then, something different happened.

He didn’t pace. He didn’t storm out. Instead, he just stood there, staring at me longer than usual, his presence a constant pressure against my already fragile state.

The silence was unbearable.

I turned my head slightly, just enough to catch a glimpse of him through my blurry vision. He was standing by the door, his arms crossed, his jaw tight. His eyes were darker than usual, his face set in a grim expression I couldn’t read.

Why did he keep coming back? Why did he care?

“Why… won’t you let me die?” The words slipped from my lips, barely a whisper. I hadn’t meant to say them, but once they were out, I didn’t regret it. I was too tired to regret anything.

For a second, I thought he wouldn’t answer. His eyes flickered, a brief flash of something I couldn’t name passing through them. But then, his face hardened again, and he turned away from me.

He didn’t speak. He never did.

Instead, he walked out of the room, the door slamming shut behind him.

And I was left alone. Again. Trapped in this endless cycle of pain and silence.

I closed my eyes, the tears coming harder now, my chest aching with the weight of it all.

Why wouldn’t he let me die?