35. Samuel

35

SAMUEL

B OOM!

Like a damn horror film, I shoot upright in bed with no warning.

"YOU MOTHERFUCKING PIECE OF FUCKING SHIT!"

How drunk am I? I ask myself as a hulking Emmitt breaks my door off its hinges and flies toward me.

"Shit!" I gasp, tumbling backward off my bed. I land in a dizzy heap on the floor, but my embarrassment quickly scurries away in alarm when I see my pack brother still advancing on me with murder in his eyes.

"I'M GOING TO KILL YOU!"

Jumping to my feet, I stumble over my broken door and sprint down the stairs like my ass in on fire. When I look behind me, Emmett is bright fucking red and rushing after me like a damn bull.

I believe him. He will kill me if he catches me.

Skirting into the kitchen, I rush to the other side of the island just as he gets close. Like a couple of children, we race each other around the counter; me trying to keep his murderous paws off my bare back, and him trying to rip my spine from it.

"Emmett, dude, what the fuck?!" I sputter, unable to catch my breath. "Stop!"

He lunges again, a snarl shaking me to my core. You'd think my alpha side would step in and put our pack mate in his damn place, but no, the fucker is absent. If I focus a little, I think I can feel him throttling me from the inside too, just like Emmett clearly wants to.

Never have I feared Emmett, but with his black hair in disarray on the top, his canines on full display, the specks of gold leached from his eyes and his muscles rippling beneath his tank top, I'm fucking terrified.

"Alpha."

That one word, a soft plea from my brother, halts the beast opposite me. Daring to take my eyes off the one trying to kill me, I glance at Oliver, who looks like he's been sitting at the dining room table the entire time.

"Care to fucking explain?!" I heave, while keeping an eye on Emmett.

"YOU KNOW WHAT YOU DID!" Emmett roars, and I finally take a really good look at him. Gone is my best friend, the boy I grew up with and the man I admire. In his place is a feral alpha.

Where are you?! I shout into the void where my alpha instincts should be, but nothing answers back. If anything, I'm pretty sure he turns his back on me with a huff.

"Explain," I grit out, trying to keep my cool so the bastard doesn't leap the counter.

Oliver looks me in the eye, and what I see makes me forget all about the danger at my back. My little brother is laid bare before me, no longer shielding himself with sunshine and rainbows.

He's a boy again, not the fun-loving beta everyone enjoys.

"Amaya," he whispers.

Fuck.

"You kept me from her."

The Oli before me is the same sixteen-year-old brokenhearted boy who lost his scent-match. Scratch that, whose scent-match left him.

I scoff. "Of course I did! I'm not going to let her ruin us again." A tear spills from Oliver's lashes. "I was protecting you!"

"BUT WHO WAS PROTECTING HER?!"

Christ, my fucking eardrums.

"Emmett, do you only have one fucking volume right now?!" I snap back, getting frustrated.

A snarl rises from his chest, but before he can act on the violence pouring from him in a whirlwind of sharp mint, Oli halts him again.

"She's an academy omega," the beta says, his tone void of the lightheartedness I've grown to love about him. Even when it pisses me off.

"Yeah," I huff and roll my eyes. "Was she bragging about all her daddy's money and her prestigious education?"

As my eyes stare at the ceiling, my attention moves off the predator hunting me. With no warning, my attitude puffs out of me in one winded breath as my back slams onto the table.

I grunt, light sparking across my vision when my head snaps back into the wood. My vision clears, but it's not Emmett's face I see above me, it's Oliver's. Neither of my pack mates holds me down or even touches me, but I can't move under my baby brother's tormented gaze.

"The Premium Designation Academy, Sam. That's where she's been all this time. And don't tell me she's lying because we didn't hear it from our omega," Oli's voice cracks. I still don't move, confusion and utter fear curling around me. "We heard it from the police officers who were at her home tonight. The same home we sold to her and didn't know it, but you did, right?"

I stay silent, still watching my brother relive whatever trauma he's endured tonight.

He nods and whispers, "You knew. You kept us from meeting her. Manipulated me away from my scent match. But that's not even the worst part."

I want to ask him what the worst part is, but his trembling lower lip keeps me frozen. I'm so damn scared to hear what he has to say that I wish I could press pause on my life and let it just end right here. The only thing that keeps me here is my alpha slamming against my heart, forcing me to live through whatever pain I'm about to want to die over.

"The worst part, Sammy?" Sammy, the name they called me when we were kids . "Is that I hated her too. I hated Amaya so much for rejecting me, yet the entire time I was just a selfish kid who overlooked all the signs."

"What signs?" I whisper.

"That she loved us. Our best friend, our Amaya, loved us so much. We were family. A pack. She never would have abandoned us. Our omega was sold and abused for years. That's why there were cop cars in our neighborhood tonight. Because Amaya is so traumatized that her nightmares woke the neighbors with her screams of terror."

Wetness drips into my ear, but I soon lose feeling. I lose everything.

"So you see," Oli whispers, standing and looking down at me. "Amaya never left us, she was taken from us. And we blamed her. Hated her. And all along, we were wrong."

With that, my little brother and my best friend leave me there on the table to drown in my own puddle of tears and self-hatred.

I should have let Emmett kill me .