CHAPTER 42: CHAPTER 42

The silence after his words was worse than the sound of his boots. It pressed in on me, thick and suffocating, like invisible hands clasping over my mouth and nose. I couldn’t breathe properly. I couldn’t think properly. All I could hear was the echo of his voice his real voice and the other one, the one that slid inside my mind like venom.

"Mine.

It pulsed with each heartbeat, branding itself into the marrow of my bones. Alpha Zach stood there at the foot of my bed, too calm. Too composed. He looked as if nothing had happened, as if Elizabeth hadn’t dared to challenge him, as if I hadn’t collapsed in front of them both like a pathetic rag doll. And then he moved. Not closer. Not over me. Just... away. His boots clicked softly against the floorboards as he crossed to the door. My lungs stuttered. Relief tangled with dread. The latch lifted. The hinges creaked. He stepped out, slow and unhurried, like a predator that had decided its prey couldn’t run far. And then the lock slid shut behind him. I sagged back into the mattress, trembling so violently that the blanket rustled. My hands clutched at it as though it were a lifeline, but even the fabric felt like another chain. He hadn’t touched me. Not this time. He hadn’t needed to. His words were enough to leave me pinned and bleeding inside. Because it changes nothing. Elizabeth thought she had saved me, but she hadn’t. She had only carried me from one cage to another, and he had followed, unseen shackles dragging behind me. My throat burned with a sound I didn’t let out. A scream. A sob. I didn’t know which anymore. I pressed my hand to my mouth, squeezing my eyes shut, but his voice still threaded through.

"Inner voice: Crow thinks she guards the toad. But the toad is mine. The toad croaks only when I squeeze it.

I whimpered, shoving the heel of my palm against my temple as though I could crush his voice out. But it clung tighter, like claws hooked into my skull. Was I going mad? Or was I already there? The door rattled gently. A knock.

"Elie?" Elizabeth’s voice. Warm. Human. Alive. "I’ve brought water."

My heart lurched. I scrambled upright, wiping furiously at my wet cheeks. I didn’t want her to see. Didn’t want her to ask questions I couldn’t answer. The lock turned. The door opened. And just like that, the atmosphere shifted. Lighter. Softer. The wolf had left, and the crow stepped in.

Elizabeth crossed the room, a jug and cup balanced in her hands. She set them on the bedside table and perched on the edge of the bed. Her palm brushed my hair back again, and I nearly flinched not from her touch, but from the memory of his disgust at it.

"You poor child," she murmured. "You’re pale as the moon. Drink."

She poured the water and held the cup to my lips. My hands shook too much to take it myself. The cool liquid slid down my throat, easing the dryness but not the fire beneath. I drank greedily, as though I could drown his voice, but it only curled deeper inside me.

"Inner voice: Crow feeds my puppet. Crow thinks water cleans rot. Foolish bird.

The cup slipped. Water splashed onto my chin, soaking the blanket. Elizabeth tsked softly and dabbed at me with the cloth she’d used earlier.

"There now," she said, like I was a child. "You’ll be alright."

But I wouldn’t. Not while he existed. Not while his shadow loomed just beyond the door, waiting, always waiting.

I wanted to tell her. To beg her to take me far, far away. But the words stuck, strangled by terror. If I said them, he’d know. He always knew.

Elizabeth studied me for a long moment, her lined face firming. "Elie," she said, voice low but steady, "you mustn’t let him grind you down. Do you hear me? You’re stronger than he thinks."

Stronger. The word should have given me hope. Instead, it twisted. Because part of me wondered if she was right. Not in the way she meant, but in the way The crazy Alpha whispered. Strong enough to last. Strong enough to break and still crawl back. Strong enough to be mine even when your mind shatters. And a laugh bubbled up, sharp and bitter, before I could stop it.

Elizabeth blinked at me. "Elie?"

I clapped a hand over my mouth, but the sound still leaked out half sob, half giggle. Tears streamed down my face, and I shook my head violently, unable to explain the madness clawing inside me.

Her arms went around me, pulling me against her chest. I froze at the sudden warmth, at the unfamiliar comfort. For a moment I let myself sink into it, but even there, his voice coiled.

"Inner voice: Crow hugs the puppet. Crow thinks embrace untangles strings. How sweet. How useless.

My body went rigid. My hands balled into fists against her back. If I screamed, she’d only think me hysterical. If I confessed, she’d only think me insane. Because wasn’t I?

The psycho’s voice lived in me now. His commands, his laughter, his threats they weren’t just echoes anymore. They stitched themselves into the hollow parts of me, where my own thoughts should have been.

Maybe Elizabeth was right. Maybe I was stronger than he thought. But that strength didn’t belong to me. It belonged to him. And the more I tried to fight it, the more it twisted me into something I didn’t recognize.

Something that might not care, one day, if his voice stopped sounding like chains and started sounding like home. Elizabeth pulled back, studying my face. Her eyes narrowed slightly, suspicion flickering there. But she said nothing. She only smoothed my hair again and whispered, "Rest now, child. I’ll sit with you awhile."

I nodded, because it was easier than speaking. Easier than telling her she couldn’t keep the wolf out. Because I already carried him inside me.

I lay down, curling on my side, the blanket tucked beneath my chin. Elizabeth hummed softly under her breath, a lullaby I almost remembered.

But over it, beneath it, inside it his voice murmured still.

"Inner voice: Sleep, little puppet. Sleep in your crow’s nest. When you wake, the strings will pull again. Mine. Always mine.

My lips moved silently in the dark, forming the word I hated, the word I couldn’t stop.

"Mine."

Sleep dragged me under like a tide I couldn’t resist. Elizabeth’s presence beside me was a fragile shield, her soft humming lulling me into slumber. My body, exhausted and trembling, finally gave up its fight. My eyelids fluttered closed, and the world shifted.

At first, it was gentle. Almost merciful. I was back in the white-walled corridor of the hospital. The smell of antiseptic filled my nose, sharp but familiar. My white coat flapped lightly as I walked quickly between patients, charts clutched in my hands.

"Dr. Elaine! Thank you!" a patient called, smiling weakly from his bed as I passed.

I turned, warmth blooming in my chest. His color was returning, the fever broken. I had stayed up for thirty-six hours straight to make sure the right medication was administered, the right interventions made. And here he was, alive.

My colleagues waved as I moved down the corridor. "Elaine, coffee later?" one of them teased.

I laughed. The sound was bright, unbroken. Not the hollow giggle that slipped through my lips now in this cursed life. Real laughter.

And then my cat. A tiny gray ball of fur wound itself around my ankles, purring, rubbing insistently against my legs. "Whiskers," I whispered, crouching to scoop her up. She pressed her soft head beneath my chin, and my heart swelled. Home. Friends. Patients who trusted me. A world where my hands healed instead of trembling in fear.

I wanted to stay. Oh God. But dreams don’t last. The corridor stretched. Warped. The walls darkened, streaks of red slithering across the white paint like veins. My friends’ faces blurred. Their laughter twisted into whispers.

"Mine.

The patient I had saved sat up in bed. His smile split too wide, his mouth opening unnaturally, and Zach’s voice spilled out of it. Corpse puppet. Dance, omega. Break again. I stumbled backward, clutching Whiskers to my chest, but when I looked down my cat wasn’t a cat anymore. Its fur fell away in clumps, revealing strings. Strings that wrapped around my fingers, binding me.

And when I tugged them my own body jerked. I wasn’t holding a pet. I was holding the strings to my own limbs.

I screamed. The hospital walls collapsed inward, dissolving into shadows. Only his eyes remained, burning through the dark. I knew them. Zach.

I woke with a gasp, my chest heaving, my throat raw. And there he was. Sitting in the chair beside my bed. Watching me. His gaze locked on me, unblinking, as though he had been there the entire time, waiting for the moment my eyes snapped open. The shadows clung to his sharp features, making him look carved from night itself. His posture was relaxed, almost casual, but there was nothing casual about the intensity of his stare. I froze. My body refused to move, pinned by that gaze as surely as if he had pressed me to the bed with his hand.

"You dream loudly," he murmured at last, his voice velvet over steel.

My lips trembled, but no words came.

Had he seen me? Had he heard me? Did he know I had just been clutching strings tied to my own limbs, watching him crawl through the faces of people I once loved?

He leaned forward slightly, elbows resting on his knees. "Tell me," he said, almost softly, "what did you see?"

I shook my head violently, hugging the blanket to my chest like armor. I couldn’t tell him. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.

His inner voice slithered through me anyway.

"Inner voice Saw the corpse. Saw the strings. Saw what you are. Puppet knows it cannot run. Puppet knows it dances for wolf alone.

A sob clawed at my throat, but I bit down on it until my teeth ached. He tilted his head, studying me the way a surgeon studies an opened body fascinated, detached. "You look as if you’ve woken from hell. Do you know why, omega?"

I shook my head again, furiously, my nails digging into the blanket.

His smile curved, slow and cruel. "Because even in your dreams, you belong to me."

The words sank deep, like needles threading into the torn edges of my mind.

I wanted to scream. To throw something. To claw at him until his calm expression shattered. But my body betrayed me, trembling, frozen, obeying the leash he had tied around my soul.

Elizabeth had left me believing I would rest. She hadn’t known he would come back, that he would sit in the darkness and wait for my sleep to betray me.