Mated To The King’s Gamma
Chapter 81

Chapter 81

Abbie POV

The only place I thought to go to was Azzy's room with the king. How could he rob me of my peace,I just wanted to go home and let this end. I was no good to anyone, I wasn't good enough foranyone, much less myself. I don’t know how long I laid there before I noticed Azalea laying next tome. I could see her but it was like she wasn't even there.

"Abbie?" she whispered. The look of pity on her face made the reason I wanted to end it moreevident. I was tired of people looking at me like the weakling I was. Azalea suffered enough becauseof me. Here she was trying to save me again. She has suffered more than enough because of me, sohas Tandi. Everyone has paid the price for me.

The memories kept pulling me under, replaying over and over again. I couldn't get them to stop!The butcher, Daley, Kade on repeat. It was like a hever ending carousel of horrors I couldn't escape.They were sucking me under, drowning me in misery. I should have fought harder, but I didnt. Ishould have listened to Gannon, but I didn't. I should never have gone down to that basement. Thatone haunts me the most and I felt myself sucked into it, I fought trying to forget, trying to make itstop but nothing I did worked and I found myself back there.

We were 15 and I just finished helping Azalea hang out the washing, I remember that day so clearly,remember everything. I could still feel the breeze as we walked back inside and I retrieved the mopbuckets from the closet and saw how dirty they were.

“I will quickly wash these,” I tell her and she nods Moving toward the stairs, clutching the railingtightly as she went to move on to the next chore I watched her go, her lashes tearing open andstaining the back of her dress with each movement. She paused halfway up and I chewed my lipwith worry. She had been having dizzy spells, we hadn't eaten in days and her hands shook as sheclutched the banister trying not to pass out.

“Ivy?” she had whispered. She waves me off.

“It'll pass,” she tells me yet she was as pale as a sheet. She kept climbing the last of the stepsdisappearing and I clutch the mop bucket and move toward the kitchen to see the butcher talkingto Mrs. Daley. They both stopped and glanced at me and I went to stop and turn back around.

“Be a love and help me carry the meat from the truck down,” the butcher told me. He alwayscreeped me out, something was off about him, he was always trying to touch me. I shake my head.“No I can't, I am busy,” I tell him, holding up the bucket. I turn to leave.

“That can wait, you will help Doyle,” Mrs. Daley says and I freeze, turning back to look at her.

"Go start bringing it in, I will send Abbie to help in a minute,” she assures him. I swallowed lookingat Mrs. Daley frantically. “Ma'am, I really can't,” I tell her grasping at any excuse I could when sheholds up a hand making me stop.

“You will help him, it will take you only a few minutes,” she snaps but I shake my head and startbacking up.

“You will help him Abbie, Or I will make Ivy help him,” she snapped at me and I should have knownsomething was up because she said Ivy's name, she never referred to us by name, always you, orrogue or some other filthy vile thing she would call us.

We hadn't eaten in three days. Mrs. Daley used to make us share whatever scraps were left over. Wehadn't eaten in three days. There was nothing left over for the last three days and I knew Azaleawouldn't last much longer, she was fainting frequently and each time Mrs. Daley would catch her,would accuse her of slacking and whip her more, she couldn't handle much more, she needed foodand time to heal.

"You just need to help him stack the freezers, if you do, I will let you eat with the rest of the childrentonight. A reward, I know you girls have been working hard today,”

“You'll let us eat?”

"Of course,” she smiles. I swallowed glancing at the basement door where the freezers were kept.

2

"Will only take you a few minutes, he has already put half of it down there,” she tells me and I shiverruns up my spine, I ignore it, I shouldn't have.

"So chop, chop, then you can prepare dinner and eat with the rest of them,” Mrs. Daley says. So Ihelped, I rushed around, helping carry the meat down. Taking the last box down and setting in thefreezer I turn toward the stairs just as Doyle sauntered down them, I step aside letting him pass withthe chicken he had but he doesn't.

"Excuse me,” I murmured, keeping my gaze on the floor. He clears his throat and I look up to seeMrs. Daley closed the basement door. My heart beat like a drum in my chest before I heard the TVturn up. Too loud. Too loud I thought.

The butcher reaches for me and I shriek at the look on his face before he grabs my hair, shoving metoward the back of the basement where the freezers were.

I want to leave, you're scaring me,” I tell him trying to pass him when he grabs my hair, bending meover the freezer as I struggle and kick. I almost froze in fear when I felt his breath on the back of myneck as he pinned me down.

I feel his calloused fingers skimming my thighs as he gripped my tunic and yanked at it tearing thebottom open.

Then the sting of my flesh as he ripped my underwear down and felt the warmth of my blood as itcascaded down my legs when he shoved his way inside me and made me scream. His hand closedover my mouth to muffle me. His scent was putrid, like rotting meat and steel as I choked on thebreath stolen by the pain.

“I have waited so long for this!” he groaned, using his other hand to hold my head against the coldfreezer top. The taste of his fingers as he muffled my screams of agony made me gag and retchThe voices above us coming from the TV grew louder, and I knew Mrs. Daley turned it up so thekids wouldn“t hear me. The tune that played at the start of it I would never forget. It taunted me as Itried to focus on it instead of the agony tearing up my backside as he raped me. It felt like itstretched on hours before he was finally done. I remained frozen in place staring off at the wallcovered in cobwebs as I heard him zip his pants before he pressed his lips to my cheek. I squeezemy eyes shut. “Good, girl, hopefully by next week you'll be ready for round two" he purred before Ilistened to his footsteps climb the stairs.

I couldn't move. I was paralyzed with fear, paralyzed with the humiliation I felt as my bloodstreamed down my legs, I wanted it to stop, when I noticed the rope hanging on the wall. My handsshook as I reached for it and tossed it over the banister above before dragging a chair over to it as Imade a noose. He would come back for me, he would come back. So I slipped it over my head.

I wouldnt let him do that again, I thought as tears streamed down my face. The chair wobbles and Iam about to take a step off when I hear the door open. Fear momentarily paralyzes me againwondering if he came back when I see her.

Azalea had stepped into the basement and ehr eyes roamed over me and widened in horror as theytake in my torn tunic, my thighs covered in blood. Then the rope around my neck.

“Abbie,” she had whispered, taking a step toward me but I shook my head, I couldn't. I wouldn't livelike this.

"Go, Ivy," I sobbed, my shoulders shaking with each breath I took and tears rolled down her cheeks.“Not without you,” she chokes. I shake my head and she moves closer before looking around theroom. She moves toward a chair and places it next to mine. She climbed up on it and loosened thenoose, slipping her head in beside mine.

“More than my life. Mine isn't worth living if you aren't in it, if you go, we go together because amnot without you,” she tells me.

We both jumped, but the rope didn't hold our weight. I felt the burn of the rope as it slashedthrough my neck and our heads clanged together before we hit the floor.

Azalea POV

I could feel every beat of my heart through every pulse point in my body. I could hear it in my earsas the scent of her blood wafted to my nose. I follow her scent, and the blood drops on the floorbefore replaceing Abbie soaking wet and lying on the bathroom floor. Her ear pressed to the tiles asshe stared vacantly at the bottom of the sink bagin.

"Abbie?" I whispered, my heart breaking at the sight of her. I hadn't seen her like this in ages. Notsince she first returned home and before was after what the butcher did to her.

Abbie doesn't answer, and I watch a tear slip down her cheek. When I saw Gannon, I had firstthought he hurt her, and I am sure he did, but not in the way I first thought. I thought he hadmurdered her, but the moment I stepped into the bathroom, I realized she had hurt herself.

She had been through so much, and everyone broke, though I didn't think it would ever be Gannonthat would cause her to snap. We were all waiting for it. I knew it would eventually come because, atsome point, everything weighing us down and suffocating us becomes unbearable.

We just dealt with it in different ways.

Kyson, with his drinking, me with the way I shut down and turned everything inward. Liam with hissick games of torture and then Abbie. Abbie always fights hers because there is no comeback fromthe sort of vice she fights, and that is death.

I kneel on the tiles before lying down beside her, resting my head on the tiles beside her. Sheblinked at me, and by the hollow look in her eyes, I knew she was somewhere else, somewhere faraway. A place that lives inside us and haunts us, plagues and destroys us, the past.

Moving my hand, I swallow as I place it on her cold cheek, brushing my thumb below her eye. Tearsfilled her eyes but didn't fall as she just stared back at me. “I can still feel it,” she murmurs.

“Feel what Abs?” I whisper.

“The noose. It's still there, so tightly wound I can't breathe,” she whispers. I touch the scar behindher ear, the one that matches mine, a death we almost shared.

“I can feel it growing tighter, digging into my skin and burning through my flesh. I can feel the wayit slides over my skin, growing tighter and tighter. Feel my blood rushing in my ears. I don't want tofeel it anymore.”

"What happened?” I whisper, needing to know. I couldn't help her if I didn't know what put her backin this dark place. A place I had only escaped from recently myself.

“I can't be what he needs me to be,” she says, sniffling. She wipes her nose on the back of hersleeve. “He shouldn't be punished because I am broken,”

“You're not broken, Abbie,”

“But I'm not whole either. He deserves better than that. He deserves better than what I can give him.So does Tyson,” she says.

“And what does Gannon need, Abbie?” I asked, and her brows furrowed. “A mate. Someone to lovehim that won't hurt him as she did,” Abbie whispers.

“Who hurt Gannon?”

“She did. She didn’t want him, and I couldn't have him. It's the same.” her words confused mebecause I didn't know of this woman she spoke of.

“Gannon wants you, Abbie. Tyson wants you. And me? I want you, Abbie,” I tell her, but she slipsback away to some dark place again while I fight to bring her back. When I hear movement behindme, my eyes dart toward the door to replace Gannon silently slipping into the room

He moves behind her and sits on the edge of the bathtub. Abbie, though, doesn’t even notice him.She was not here in the present.

“I don’t know how to help her,” he admits through the mind-link. But I was as baffled as he was. Iwas no doctor, no shrink, and I knew Abbie would never spill her secrets to strangers. So I knew wewouldn't get far with that suggestion.

I turn my attention to Abbie. She shivers, and her teeth chatter. She was drenched, soaking wet, andlaying beside her had drenched me. She was soaking my clothes with her blood, yet she had

no open wounds. I lift her shirt slightly; she doesn't even respond to me touching her whenGannon's voice flits through my mind.

“She slit her wrists in the bathtub. I found a bottle of wolfsbane beside her. She drank it so shewouldn't heal; I had no choice,”

"Wolfsbane? Where would she get that?” I ask him, but I see him shrug. “I never got a chance to askher,” he replies, and my eyes flick back to her distant ones.

I grab her wrists, seeing the long thick scar running up each one, now closed, but by the thickness, Iknew they were deep. I swallow and lift her hand, kissing her fingers.

"Come back to me, Abbie,” I urged, but she just blinked. So instead, I lay beside her, holding herhand and reminding her of every good little memory we shared. Talking to her just so she knew Iwas here until she returned to us. Hours I laid on that floor, hours Gannon remained next to thebathtub, and I could feel Kyson nearby, yet couldn't hear Tyson, so I figured Clarice or Liam had him.“Abbie?” I whisper, and she blinks.

"More than my life,” I whisper for the hundredth time today, only this time she reacts, and her eyesmove to look at me.

“We made a pact. You need to come back to me Abbie, or I will come with you. No matter where Iwill come with you. Remember that.” she shakes her head.

“You don’t want to go where I have been. The things I have seen, the things they did,” shewhimpers.

"What they did, Abbie. They can't hurt you anymore. I won't let them. Gannon won't let them. Theyaren't coming back. They are gone. Everyone from the past is gone. They are dead. We are stillbreathing, so don't let them win,” I tell her.

“They already did. They don't have to live with what they did, but I do, and I will live with it for therest of my life. I will live with it, not them, me. And me living with it makes them live with it. I can'tdo that to Gannon and Tyson, don't you get it? I can't, Azzy.” she says, sitting up. Her eyes burnedwith rage.

“I don't want to live with it. I don't want to force them to live with it!" she screams at me.

“I can't, I can't,” she breaks, and I suck in a breath when she suddenly loses it.

She starts clawing at herself, ripping herself to pleces and ripping out her hair. Abbie lost it. Shebroke and broke some more, and it broke me seeing her give up because that's what she was doing.Rage bubbled in me as hot as hers while Gannon grabbed her, but she screamed. Blood-curdlingscreams echoed off the tiled walls as her anger tose, and she started attacking Gannon as he triedto stop her from destroying herself.

“More than my life, Abbie! You promised!” I scream at her just as I feel hands grab me, trying to haulme away. Sparks rush across my arms, and I feel Kyson hold me.

“Let me go!”

“She will hurt you,” he says, but I pull out of his grip. “Seeing her like this hurts me,” I tell him.Scrambling toward her, she thrashes, kicking me, and Gannon pins her arms by her sides while try tostop her kicking legs. Gannon grunts when she tosses her head back, but his grip doesn't waiver.Even when the back of her head connected with his nose.

“Stop. We are trying to help you.” I tell her, but she continues to thrash, this time kicking me in thechest and sending me flying back into Kyson. Anger and grief at seeing her like this licked throughmy veins. Burning hotter than the sun. It makes my skin prick with the intensity of its searing heat,and I lunge at her. My hands clamp on the sides of her head.

“Stop!” I tell her, and she freezes instantly. Yet her following my command didn’t shock me. It wasthe glowing of my hands that did before I am plunged into memories that I know aren't mine.Memories I know are hers.

I blink around, my surroundings evaporating as new ones take shape, nightmares, things I wish 1could unsee, yet I couldn't bring myself to pull myself out of her head.

Trapped, just like she was. Trapped in the past, that was darker than an abyss. Tortured and broken. Icould hear their voices distorted as if they spoke underwater, yet I knew it was Kyson and Gannon.Tingles rush up my arms, and I felt like I was having an out-of-body experience.

Yet instead of looking down at myself, I looked down at Abbie in the tub, where she tried to killherself. Her wrists slashed open, and she truly believed she was hurting them by being here. Yet thedevastation of Gannon replaceing her told a different story as he tried to save her.

Yet all while I watched her bleeding out, the walls of her bathroom were no longer tiled but filledwith every bleeding memory, every tainted word, every bad thing painted on the walls here, bearingher tortured soul to me. I wanted to escape these memories when they weren't even mine. Icouldn't imagine them being mine and the horror she lived with.

Yet the longer I stayed, the more I found I couldn't pull myself out of her head, out of herconsciousness. I was trapped, and I was drowning in despair. I couldn't take it. I needed out; wantedout. It was too much, too much pain. Too much suffering for one soul, too much pain for one toendure.

My heart broke for her, over and over again, until I was left as dead inside as she was. I screamedinside, writhed, trying to break free, yet I had no idea how I was even here, how I invaded her likethis.

"Kyson!” I screamed, trying to break free. I wasn't sure if I screamed his name aloud or only in myhead, but sparks rippled violently over my skin before his voice was in my head.

"Give me control of our bond,” he kept repeating, trying to manipulate it as he did my aura, but thiswas different. My bond was breaking, untrusting from the feelings swirling inside Abbie becomingmine. I had become her, trapped within her. Yet Kyson prompted and coaxed me.

"Whatever you're doing, you can control Azzy,"

"You used power to get in there. Use it to get out.” his words made no sense because I don'tremember doing anything. I just remember being angry at her, angry she was giving up.

She promised. She promised! “More than my life” this was not my life yet. I was trapped in the pastthat was hers, not mine. We shared it, but not every trauma. I look around the room I am in,

the walls of her destruction closing in.

“This is not me. This is not Abbie,” I breathe, closing my eyes. This isn’t Abbie.

“Breathe, Azzy,” Kyson murmurs in the distance, only this time, when I open my eyes, the walls areno longer painted with her darkest fears. No, they were decorated with every memory I had of her,every good memory. The night of the festival when we danced in the attic together.

Playing in the sun when our parents were with us, painting with the children, the apple fight, hersmiling face, and as my memories began to paint the walls, I felt her wake. Felt her adding her own,her and Gannon. Tyson. A small cottage with wildflowers and pebble footpaths and her mother.Tile by tile, we built the walls up that kept her going, kept her strong, the little things worth fightingfor until the blood evaporated and the bathroom was clean, and it was just us. Just us and everygood thing we remembered.

“More than my life,” I whispered to her as my heartbeat slowed and I could finally breathe.

"How are you doing this?” she asks and tears brim and spill in my eyes.

“I have no idea,” I choked, seeing her whole and smiling.

“But it's time you let it go,” I tell her.

"How?"

“By letting me replace the feeling behind it,”

“You can do that?” she asks, glancing around at all her memories. “I don’t know, but I feel like can,” Itell her, holding up my hand. It glowed subtly.

“What are you doing?” she asks as I step closer to the walls of her mind. “Reinforcing thesememories and overriding the others,” I whisper, pressing my hands to the tiles, and we are floodedwith white light. I gasped, being thrown back into the real world, and I was shocked to replace myhands in the same place, one on each side of her head.

“More than my life,” Abbie whispers, her vibrant green eyes peering back at me.

“Always more,” I tell her when I feel something dribble down over my lip. “Azzy?” Abbie frowns, herhand reaching toward my face just as I feel my eyes roll into the back of my head.

Previous Chapter

Next Chapter