The Omega And Her Triplet Mates

Chapter 6: Hurt

For most of the night, I’d replayed every stolen touch, every heated glance, every second we’d spent together. I could still taste him on my lips, could still remember the feel of those lips and his tongue between my thighs, my cheeks grew hot just thinking about it. I felt giddy with excitement, I’d convinced myself that whatever existed between us was real.

I should have known better.

The next day, when I saw Jax, I went over to him, and when I tried to take his hand, he pulled away from me roughly.

A cold dread settled in my chest.

We were in the television area, it was almost empty, occupied by only two other patients who were too absorbed in the flickering screen to pay us any attention. The stale air smelled faintly of disinfectant and old coffee.

I was sitting on the sofa when Jax angrily stood up and gave his back to me. When he next turned around, his face was completely cold and devoid of any emotion.

The warmth I had seen in his eyes was gone.

No teasing amusement.

No wicked charm.

Nothing.

His face was carved from ice.

Fear prickled across my skin.

“Jax, what’s wrong?” I stood up and tried to reach out to him, but he grabbed my arm and slammed me up against the wall and snarled, “don’t f.ucking touch me. We are not a couple.”

The low growl in his voice sent a shiver down my spine.

His fingers tightened around my arm.

“We made out, that’s it, nothing more.”

If my heart could have crawled up my throat and fallen onto the floor to die, it would have.

He had completely changed, this wasn’t the man who’d been so gentle and sweet with me yesterday. This was a beautiful monster wearing Jax’s face, and I didn’t understand why until his next words.

“You wanted to experience what it was like to kiss and have foreplay. You got to experience that with a guy you’ve been crushing on the moment we met. I did you a favour, now you owe me one.”

I looked at him, feeling completely heartbroken, humiliated, and confused. “What do you mean?” I asked tearfully.

“Now you owe me one.”

The way he said it made my stomach drop.

Not because of the words.

Because of how easily he could hurt me.

As though breaking hearts was second nature to him.

Maybe it was.

I’d almost forgotten where we were. Forgotten why he was here. Forgotten that monsters didn’t stop being monsters simply because they smiled at you.

Smirking at my expression, he said, “you get on with Pete, he trusts and likes you, which is how you got him to get the keys for you to the patient’s files. Carol stopped letting me play with her after we almost got caught by another nurse, so I can’t sneak the keys from her anymore. She doesn’t have the keys I want anyway.”

I was still confused, and he carried on, “I want you to get the keys that open all the doors in this place. Hagrid is usually the one who always has them on her, but she’s sat on her fat a.rse at the desk. I’d offer to f***k her, but she’s way too suspicious, she would know I’m up to something.”

“You’re like a genius or something, why can’t you figure it out yourself?”

Stepping away from me and letting go of my top, he said, “I don’t have the f.ucking patience, she’s too suspicious, like I said. She likes Pete, thinks he’s a sweet old man, me, on the other hand, she hates my f.ucking guts, and there’s too many wereanimals to try and wolf my way out of here.”

I stood up straight and muttered, “why can’t you ask him yourself instead of using me to get to him?”

He grinned.

The sight of it made something twist painfully inside of me. Less than a day ago, that smile had made my stomach flutter.

Now it felt like a knife.

“Don’t take it personally, Rose. I’m f.ucked up, we both know that.” He shrugged. “Pete f.ucking hates me too, and he’s one paranoid f.ucker, thinks everyone’s out to get him. But he’ll listen to you though.”

I didn’t think I could hold the tears in much longer, so I went to walk away, but he grabbed the back of my shirt and yanked me back roughly against the wall.

“You owe me, Rose.”

The words landed like a s.lap.

Not because they were cruel, but because part of me had genuinely believed what we’d shared had meant something.

“Fine, whatever,” I muttered and pushed past him and rushed to my room. I collapsed onto the bed sobbing.

How could I have been so stupid! He was a psychopath who was incapable of love, and I had fallen into his trap like some stupid teen with a crush.

Jax wasn’t kind.

He wasn’t safe.

He was nothing but a beautiful monster.

I had fallen in love with someone who would never feel that way about me in return, and my heart felt like it wanted to explode into a million little pieces. I cried and cried and felt like I would never stop until eventually, at some point, exhaustion took me over, and I fell into a fitful sleep.

When I woke up, my pillow was damp beneath my cheek.

I went outside and saw Jax sitting in the television area, pain hit my heart, and I quickly walked past him.

I felt strong arms wrap around my waist and heard Jax’s voice whispering into my ear, “I’m sorry for being a p.rick. You’ve been nothing but sweet and kind, and you didn’t deserve that. I’m so f.ucking sorry. I do want to get out of here, but I don’t need to be a c.unt about it, so here I am, begging you to forgive me.”

Relief so huge hit me full in the chest, and with a big grin, I spun and wrapped my arms around his waist.

When I looked up into his eyes, he leaned down to press his lips against mine, but I didn’t feel anything.

I blinked my eyes a few times and opened them blearily. Looking around, I found myself lying in my bed, and realization hit me. It had been a dream.

Pain hit me all over again. I curled up into a ball and couldn’t bring myself to move until a nurse came in and forced me out to eat.

I grabbed my tray and refused to look around for Jax but he found me anyway when I sat down. He sat opposite me, and with a grin, asked, “so when are you going to talk to Pete?”

“Tomorrow,” I answered quietly.

He gave that boyish laugh that I loved so much, causing me more pain, and said, “hey, don’t look so defeated, it was fun, and we can still be friends. I’ll even take you with me when I get out of here if you want.”

I scowled at him and didn’t answer, but hope still filled me at his words. If he still wanted to be my friend, and if I left with him, maybe he could possibly end up feeling more than just friendship for me? I mentally shook myself. Stupid false hope. Dangerously stupid.

Convincing Pete wasn’t hard, especially when I agreed he could come with us, and so he went off to do his job.

I waited by the wall, and Jax came over, leaning back against the wall with one foot back against it and arms folded.

“Pete’s coming with us,” I said, staring straight ahead. I felt his gaze settle on me.

“For f***k’s sake, Rose, too many of us will be suspicious, and it will be way more f.ucking likely that we get caught that way.”

I shrugged my shoulders and saw out the corner of my eye him sneer at me.

“Fine, whatever, he can be bait, or you, I don’t really care. If either of you get caught, I’m not stopping to help.”

I snorted. “I wouldn’t expect anything less.”

He laughed at my response but didn’t add anything else.

I kept my gaze fixed on the floor, refusing to look at him. It was easier that way. Every time I looked at Jax, I remembered the way he had kissed me, the way he had held me, and the cruel reminder that none of it had meant to him what it had meant to me.

Pete was back in less than twenty minutes.

Jax stepped forward and muttered, “s.hit, that was quick.”

Pete glanced nervously over his shoulder before producing a large ring of keys from beneath his cardigan. The metal jingled softly in the quiet corridor.

Jax took the keys and looked at the both of us with a grin. “You ready boys and girls?”

Pete swallowed visibly.

I wasn’t sure I was ready either. My stomach felt as though it was full of stones.

Still, nodded.

There was no turning back now.

We had to act fast. In less than an hour, the nurses would begin escorting patients back to their rooms for the night. The moment, Hagrid—as Jax called her—realised her keys were missing, the entire hospital would be thrown into chaos.

I still had no idea what her real name was.

Jax had clearly come up with the nickname because of her frizzy, curly hair and heavily overweight six foot frame and the fact she was a werebear.

While she was sitting at the desk watching the small television set, we followed Jax’s lead, quietly sneaking past her and to the door at the end of the hall. It was locked, of course, and Jax had to go through six keys trying to find the right one. When it came to the seventh, I hissed, “hurry up!”

“I’m f.ucking trying, there’s like a hundred different f.uckers here.” Finally, he got it open and locked it behind us. We rushed down the hallway and came to another door.

The hospital felt much larger than it ever had from inside the ward.

The fluorescent lights buzzed overhead.

Every shadow seemed threatening.

Every distant sound made me jump.

It took Jax almost as long as the last door to find the right key, and I was seriously starting to doubt this would work. When it opened, we followed the directions on the hallway walls, turning left to see stairways leading down.

“Down,” Jax ordered.

We ran down three flights of staircases until we reached another door. Jax shoved it open and we found ourselves faced with a nurse.

“What the hell are you guys doing out here?” He looked furious and, at 6’3 terrifying to me.

Jax somehow slipped past him, and I followed suit.

The nurse was overwhelmed on his own and didn’t know who to grab first, he wouldn’t risk shifting to his animal form out in public.

He grabbed Pete’s shirt as I slipped by, and I faltered. He had helped us massively, and I couldn’t turn my back on him. I went to run back to try to help him, but Jax yanked the back of my top, making me fly back against his chest.

“No!”

I tried to push him away.

“We can’t leave him!”

Jax’s tightened his grip on my arm tightly and pulled me away.

His jaw was clenched.

“He’s f.ucking done, Rose.” The words were harsh. But there was something in his eyes that looked close to regret.

“The best thing we can do for him now is get the f***k out of here, so his work wasn’t in vain.”

He ignored my protests and dragged me away, he didn’t stop running until we were outside and a mile away from the hospital.

I was almost dying and collapsed to the floor exhausted when we finally stopped.

Jax s.lapped me on the back and breathlessly declared, “we f.ucking made it!”

When my heart slowly returned to a normal rate, I got up and looked around in awe. It had been almost three years since I had seen the outdoors.

The sky stretched endlessly above me.

Clouds drifted lazily overhead.

The evening breeze brushed against my skin.

Fresh air filled my lungs.

I was free.

If I had been in any other ward, there would have been a pretty garden for me to get some fresh air, but the north side was for patients considered too dangerous to be let out of their wards for any period of time.

I got up and started walking down the road.

“Hey, where the f***k are you going?” Jax asked jovially.

“Anywhere that’s away from you.” I was too hurt, and anger started to fill me up. He had used me, and not only that but taken the one thing I had wanted to lose to a special someone…my first kiss.

I was more angry at myself for being so dumb and naïve to think that a gorgeous guy who could have easily been a supermodel would want someone like me.

Jax muttered, “suit yourself, dude.”

I walked and walked until I found the town center, and finding a wall, I slid down against it to rest. I hadn’t thought this through.

I had nowhere to go.

No money.

No plan.

Obviously, there was no way I could go back to my Mother’s, and I had no other place to go.

Freedom suddenly felt a lot less simple than I had imagined.