"Maricella, you've been here two days. It is going to take more than that for you to get better." His voice was soft and I bit the inside of my cheek, the pain making me focus.

I stared at the table, taking exaggerated breaths in and out. If I was panicking then I needed focus on breathing. "Can I see Amber?" I wanted to talk to her. About what I wasn't sure but I wanted to talk even thought the voice inside my head screamed at me over and over again.

I glanced up at him and he frowned slightly but nodded. "Okay. I'm pretty sure she is in the office. I'm not letting you walk there." He gave me a slightly stern look that reminded me of Alpha Lawrence before picking me up. I couldn't stop myself from stiffening at the contact as he cradled me to his chest. "You've exerted yourself enough today." He walked around the table, keeping it between me and Angie. I felt guilty for feeling a bit relieved at the action. I knew she wasn't trying to hurt me but nine years of sudden movements ending in pain made me jumpy and the mantras seared the inside of my skull harshly.

"Don't let that incident sour you towards Angie. She's a really sweet girl. She's just... loud and boisterous some times. She wasn't thinking back there. We never greet new pack members like that." His voice was soft and I nodded despite the fact I couldn't understand. New members for the Omegas were always a sad thing and we were never allowed to make friends. We were isolated to our sections and our quarters. It was part of the mantras and I rarely saw the other Omegas other than Ingrid but she seemed to enjoy popping up randomly, as if trying to remind me of the classroom and her lessons. Always lingering around me, waiting for me to mess up.

"I understand, Davin." The name felt sour on my tongue as it did every other time I had said it but I still forced myself to do it. He had told me I had to call him by his name and I had to do as I was told. "I just need some time to reset before I meet her again." I honestly didn't want to meet her again but I wouldn't tell him that. I worried my bottom lip with my teeth as he carried me into the small infirmary.

My fear rose up in me sharply. I couldn't break the mantras but I needed to think, to let something out. "It's okay to be scared, Maricella." He kissed my temple and pushed open a door to a small room in the infirmary.

Amber looked up from her desk. "What can I help you with?" Her face was even but I could see a bit of worry at the edges of her expression. She thought one of us was hurt. I hated making her worry, I didn't want anyone to worry for me. I wanted to be invisible again, unseen.

"Maricella wanted to see you." Davin set me down on the chair across from Amber and I pulled my knees up to my chest. I wanted to escape into the fabric of the chair, to make myself disappear.

"Oh?" She looked at me and I stared at the pen holder on her desk.

"I wanted to talk." I swallowed against the lump in my throat and she suddenly relaxed, a small smile crossing her face.

"Oh. You had me worried for a second." She turned her gaze to the male who had brought me in. "Davin, you can go. I'm sure we will be okay without you." She waved him off with a familiar gesture of dismissal. I had seen it thousands of times before at the old pack. Davin placed a hand on my shoulder and I shuddered slightly. An unfamiliar feeling washed down my spine. I didn't like the position we were in. Memories swirled around the edges of my mind.

"Call me when you are done." Davin squeezed my shoulder gently before turning and leaving the room. I relaxed as he did so before feeling guilty about it

As soon as the door closed Amber looked at me. "Are you okay?" She looked genuinely worried and I swallowed, for some strange reason I wanted to cry.

"I'm broken, aren't I?" My voice cracked slightly and she frowned. I was surprised by her reaction. I thought she would say yes without a pause but she looked confused. Everyone had claimed I was broken, that there was something I needed to be fixed.

"Broken? Why do you ask that?" She settled into her chair and I watched as she picked up a pad of paper and a pulled pen from the holder.

"Everyone keeps treating me like I'm broken. Like I need fixing." I wrapped my arms around my knees tighter and rested my chin on them. I looked at the bookcase behind her, I couldn't really see the titles but I could tell a lot of them were medical texts. I counted them, trying to silence the voice in my head. I wanted it to go away, it made my head ache.

"Do you feel broken?" She wrote something down on her pad and I resisted the urge to shrug. Apprehension filled me as that voice shouted and screamed at me. The weight of the entire world seemed to shove down on my shoulders and I glanced at her.

"This is a safe place right? Nothing can hurt me here?" I didn't want to say anything unless she said it was safe. I felt a tightness in my chest as she looked at me, it was the beginnings of a panic attack. I wanted that feeling to go away. I wanted to feel safe.

"Yes, Maricella. This is a very safe place. This is a place where you can say and do whatever you want with no punishment." At her words I relaxed and let out a tiny sigh of relief. The tightness disappeared and I closed my eyes, swallowing. "You heard me talking to Jace this morning, right?" I nodded and cracked my eyes open, examining the room from beneath my eyelashes.

"Yes." I let my knees go and rolled down the sleeves of the too large button up shirt. They flopped over my hands and I wrapped my arms around my knees once more.

"You heard the term brainwashed then?" She tilted her head and as I looked at her through my eyelashes I felt secure. She couldn't see me looking at her.

"I did." I had heard her say it but it didn't mean I believed it. I had been trained, not brainwashed. It was my position in life, the only one for me.

"Do you believe you have been brainwashed?" The pen tapped against the pad and she looked expectant. I shook my head slowly. She didn't look shocked or even surprised by my answer. "Okay. Do you know the definition of brainwashing?" She was writing on the pad again and I frowned slightly. I understood the concept of brainwashing but I never really thought about the definition of it.

"Not really." I shifted in the chair and she looked up at me.

"Brainwashing means to make someone adopt radically different beliefs by using systematic and often forcible pressure. Would you classify the Omega's Mantra as a radically different belief?" She was looking at me, trying to gauge my reaction to her question but I shrugged. It was a very different set of beliefs and rules, I figured it could be classified as radical.

"I guess so." I grasped my right wrist with my left hand and let my eyes open a bit more.

"And your lessons, did they isolate you? Keep you separate from others, from people you cared about?" She tapped the pen against the pad gently and I blinked rapidly, thinking about the cold and damp room that I had been locked into for months at a time and slowly nodded. Ingrid told me Alpha Lawrence would never come looking and I believed her. "Did the lessons monopolize your perception of the world? Did they focus your attention on one thing and only one thing and make you question your sense of self?" I was starting to feel slightly uncomfortable but I nodded. I didn't like remembering the classroom or the lessons. I wasn't supposed to have memories.

An Omega has no memories.

"Did your lessons make you feel exhausted and debilitated or even degraded? Were threats a large part of them? And did your teacher seem to make you believe they were omnipotent and did they make you do trivial things?" She was asking a lot of questions that were bringing up very uncomfortable and slightly terrifying memories but I nodded to each of them. "You agreed to everything I said, Maricella. Everything I just asked is standard practice in brainwashing. How can you not be programmed into believing a radical set of beliefs when you, yourself, agreed that your lessons included all of these things?" I froze in my chair. I didn't know what to say. My lessons were supposed to be lessons but Amber was saying that they were for the express purpose of using my mind as clay to shape what they wanted and to get me to believe whatever they said. I pressed my hands to my head as it started to throb.

"It's normal for victims of such abuse to not realize or deny the existence of these types of uncomfortable truths. You aren't broken, you are a victim. You were the victim of a heinous degree of abuse, Maricella." There was sympathy in her voice and I tried to process her words. I wasn't broken, I was simply a victim. "When you were hallucinating, you spoke of your time in something you called the classroom. Do you want to talk about it?" Her voice was soft but I shook my head frantically. I didn't want to go back there. Those were memories that I knew were best to be forgotten. They made my stomach churn and my head swim with panic.

"That's okay, we don't have to right now." Her voice was soothing and a small silence fell. It was almost uncomfortable but I preferred it to her asking me about the classroom. "Jace told me that you ate some spaghetti. How was that?" She sounded curious and I pressed my forehead to my knees slightly.

"I panicked." It was the truth, two clashing Omega's Mantras had made me panic because of uncertainty. It hadn't been fun, despite how good the spaghetti tasted. I lifted my head slightly and stared at the plaid fabric of my pants. I wondered for a moment about who used to own them.

"I heard and he said you went into your box. Did it help?" She was curious and I returned my gaze to the pen holder. There were seven pens that I could see inside of it.

"Yes." I shifted my gaze to the bookshelf behind her and started counting the number of books I could see.

"That's good and you figured out how to deal with two of your clashing mantras?" She wanted to hear that I had, she wanted to hear that my lessons weren't as deep as she feared but I knew better than to lie about it.

I shifted my gaze to the dusty potted plant in the corner. The urge to clean it made my fingers twitch. "No." I flinched at how blunt I sounded.

An Omega must never say no.

The words filled my head along with that ever present angry voice. I wondered if she would ever leave my head or if she would stay there, screaming at me for everything I did wrong.

"Then why did you eat the spaghetti?" Amber sounded so confused and I flicked my gaze to hers before letting it fall to the thin chain she had around her neck.

"Because Ingrid couldn't hurt me and no one was looking." I wanted to shrug but I refrained. I almost wanted a nap. I seemed to tire easily and it would be nice to lie in bed, even if I didn't sleep.

"Who is Ingrid? You've mentioned her quite a bit." Amber's pen scratched across the pad and I blinked several times. There was a lump in my throat that I swallowed against.

"She was my teacher." I didn't want to talk about her. Well, I knew I wanted to talk about her and all that she did but I wanted to do it on my own. I didn't want the questions aimed at me.

"In the classroom?" Her voice was low and I nodded, tears in my eyes as I hide my face in my knees. I didn't want to remember that. "She is the one who trained you to be an Omega?" I let out a heaving sigh before thinking about how to change the subject.

"I remembered something." I lifted my head slightly and looked at Amber's mouth. I was surprised she wasn't wearing lipstick. The female pack doctor at Alpha Lawrence's had always worn lipstick. Actually, a lot of the female pack members had worn it. I didn't understand the concept of it. Why paint your lips such vibrant colours?

"Pardon?" She seemed genuinely confused by the change of subject and I felt mildly accomplished. I had succeeded in my taste of diverting the conversation.

"I remembered something after I tasted the spaghetti." I thought back on the memory and tried to ignore the tightness I felt in my throat.

"What was it?" She seemed pleasantly surprised and almost eager to hear it and I felt a small smile lift the corners of my mouth before it slid off nearly as quickly.

"Alpha Lawrence and I were in the kitchen and I had just finished a plate of spaghetti because it was my favourite. I asked for more but he said no. He told me I needed to save room for the chocolate cake him and I had made. He went to clean my face but I wasn't letting him and he sang me a silly made up rhyme to the tune of Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary." I blinked back the sudden tears and opened my mouth for a moment before closing it and swallowing. "I called him daddy and he said he loved me." I met Amber's gaze and burst into tears. I hated how emotional I was feeling. I hated how much it hurt that I couldn't remember my memories. I let myself cry for a few moments. Amber said nothing and I was grateful.

"Spaghetti was my favourite food and he was my daddy and she took it all away. She made me forget in the classroom." I pressed my hand to my mouth before anger filled me. It was a hot and burning rage and I jumped to my feet. My chest burned and I heaved out deep breaths. Tears still streamed from my eyes but I was no longer crying. "She chained me up, my hands above my head and showed me pictures. She asked me if I remembered them and when I said I did I was whipped with a cane until my back bled. She did it over and over again until I had forgotten my daddy and I had forgotten everything she had told me to never remember."

"She took it away from me! She took him away from me. I hate her so much. I hate her and I wish she would die because she is there inside my head screaming at me for everything I do wrong. She is inside my head and I can't get her out!" I was screaming the words out and I grabbed my head and let out a loud and long scream of rage before I hit the floor. I wrapped my arms around my chest and started sobbing once more. The hurt in my chest was nearly unbearable. Nine years of bottled up anger and frustration had been pushed to the surface. Every angry thought I ever had pushed away hitting me all at once.

"What the hell is going on?" It was a loud shout as the door flew open but I held myself tighter and heaved out loud angry sobs.

"Shush!" Amber's shush almost had an order for silence and I felt the sobs subside and the burning anger returned. I looked at the ground, gritting my teeth. My body burning with the uncontrollable rage that was boiling under my skin.

"She made me forget my life and I hated him too. I hated him for not seeing it so I pulled away and she made it worse. Every time she saw him be nice to me, every time he tried to hug me or show me affection she would beat me with the strap until I was black and blue." I dug my fingernails into my skin. "Loving him hurt me. Letting him care for me hurt me. I couldn't let him because she punished me for it." I felt my hands shake and I bolted to my feet, my hands clenched into shaking fists against my arms. My chest was heaving as I gave another loud scream of rage. It was like I saw red as I started pacing wildly my weakness momentarily forgotten in my adrenaline fueled rage.

"She punished me for everything, even things that weren't there. She took my life away, my memories, my freedom, my will, my power, my choice, my daddy. She beat me until my mind was a blank slate that she could fucking carve up with the fucking Omega's Mantras. She carved them into me until I bled. I bled for those stupid fucking words and she had the fucking audacity to get me fucking banished. That fucking bitch." Without thinking I swiped everything off of Amber's desk with another scream. I grabbed my head, fisting my hair in my hands as I gave another long scream. It felt nice to finally let everything out. To let it all pour out of me in one continuous motion.

"She broke more fucking Mantras than anyone else. She broke them but she was never punished because she was the lord and commander of us all. She was the one that held the straps and the canes. Six months in that fucking classroom before he came back. She had me for six fucking months. Six months where she could beat me with everything she had before she had to rein herself in and she fucking loved every second of it."

My chest heaved heavily. "She is a twisted old bitch who enjoys making others feel pain." I was seething with rage as I lifted a leg and kicked the chair I had been sitting on across the room. The action felt good and I wanted to kick something else. "Someone needs to put her back into her place. Someone needs to make her bleed like she made me. Someone needs to give her the lessons she gave me and have her learn what a true Omega is. She fucking tortured me for six months before I was let out of that fucking room. Six months. I was ten! What the fuck did I ever do to deserve that? What did I do? What the fuck did I do? I didn't fucking do anything!" I screamed the last word before closing my mouth with a snap. A thick silence fell, the only sounds that could be heard was my laboured breathing.

"Maricella?" Uncle Jace's voice was low and I twisted my head, locking my gaze with his. He looked concerned and he held out a hand. At the gesture reality snapped into me and I felt exhausted, tears welled up in my eyes and without a word I started crying. My legs buckled underneath me and I lay on the floor, sobs shaking my entire form. "Shhhhhh, it's okay, little one." He sat down beside me and pulled me onto his lap. I wrapped my arms around his neck, burying my face into his shoulder, crying out the hurt I felt at what I had acknowledged.

"What is going on? I heard screaming." Davin sounded concerned and I tried to muffle my sobs but it wasn't working. I needed to let it all out. It felt good to let it all out.

"Maricella left denial and jumped feet first into anger." Amber sounded slightly impressed. "I don't know what triggered it but I do know that these fits of rage might happen frequently. At least until she learns how to actually feel her emotions and deal with them as they arise." I tightened my grip around Uncle Jace's neck. My heart hurt, from the rejection or the fact I had been the one to push Alpha Lawrence away I wasn't sure. I had pushed him away from me, tried my hardest to break the bond because of Ingrid.

"I don't understand." He sounded confused and I took in a shaky breath before lifting my head.

"An Omega must never show emotion." I looked up at Davin through blurry, tear filled eyes. I blinked before letting out a shuddering breath and resting my cheek on Uncle Jace's shoulder. He rubbed soothing circles on my back and shifted me so he could pick me up.

"She's dismantling her isolation box, Davin. This is going to be a long process for her. She could be stuck on anger for a very long time or she could fall right into depression. She has suffered severe physical and mental abuse. The scars it has left will never truly heal but we can help her cope with them." Amber sounded almost sad and Uncle Jace held me to his chest. I could feel his heart pounding against me, I let out a small sigh and relaxed into him.

"Let's go watch tv." He muttered the words out and he carried me from the room and towards the living room. I closed my eyes but pulled my eyebrow down in a slightly frown. I needed to be where it was calm and quiet.