The Alpha (The Pack 3)

“Fine,” she declared, miffed. “But don’t try to escape from me. They’ve brainwashed you. I’ve seen it before. You don’t want to be tied down forever to a man, Jess. Not like this.”

I didn’t bother to point out that she was talking about me escaping her in the same breath she accused Dom of brainwashing me. I rubbed my temple, still feeling my link to Dom, the normally solid connection felt almost ethereal, but it hadn’t disappeared even as the distance between us increased. It was the only thing keeping me from leaping from the car and taking my chances. That and the fact that leaping from the car would definitely hurt and I wasn’t ready to add any more pain to my already aching head.

“At the moment all I care about is not pissing on myself,” I responded, being intentionally crude, knowing she’d noticed when she sent me a sharp glance.

“I know I haven’t been the best mother, but I did raise you better than that,” she retorted, shocking me as she admitted to being less than perfect, but it was the slight quaver in her voice that held my attention. “You may not thank me now, but you’ll understand one day when you have a daughter of your own. I had to protect you.” Her next words should have been impossible for me to hear and I tried not to question my newfound super hearing as she murmured under her breath, “They would have strangled your dreams, taken everything that was you and twisted it until you prayed for death.”

Her words killed any further arguments I might have made as I considered everything she must have went through to drive her to these extremes. What little I knew of the Hanleys was enough to make me shudder in revulsion at the idea of sharing blood with them. My mother’s whispered words brought the picture further into focus, along with Liam’s admission that he’d never been to school. I wondered then how my mother had found the courage to leave considering the risk of what they would have done to her if they’d caught her.

“How did you find the courage to leave?” The question slipped out before I could stop myself and for a full minute she didn’t answer.

“When I held a razor against my wrist, ready to kill myself rather than continue to be abused by them.” She swallowed and my breath caught, the pain in her voice bringing hot tears springing to my eyes, even as hers remained dry. “But I didn’t want to die, I wanted to live and to live meant I had to escape. So I did,” she finished simply, turning to look at me.

I nodded, unable to speak, and a few minutes later she turned off the road, bumping into the parking lot of an ancient convenience store.

“I’ll get us something to eat,” she said as she put the car in park, her voice perky as she asked, “What would you like?”

The sudden shift in tone made my head spin, but for the first time I thought maybe it was how she survived, how she faced the world when she wasn’t sure how she’d be received.

I licked my dry lips before replying, “Anything is fine,” I said honestly. “Water would be good,” I added and she gave me a look.

“Then you’ll have to go to the bathroom again,” she argued and I almost snapped at her before I caught a glint in her eyes and realized she was teasing me.

“I’ll steal a roll of toilet paper out the bathroom,” I told her dryly. “That way we can just stop on the side of the road.”

Her nose crinkled, highlighting the bruising I suddenly regretted, as she shook her head. “I think not. Animals pee in the woods,” she declared and her lifelong aversion to camping or having a dog began to make more sense to me. She would do anything to avoid any resemblance to the way she’d grown up.

“Fine, but I’m still thirsty,” I told her as we stepped into the store. An old man stood at the counter, a black and white television playing next to him and I stopped to admire it.

“They don’t make’em like they used to,” he told me and I shook my head. No they didn’t, I thought as the picture scrolled rapidly, the sight dizzying.

“You have a bathroom I can use?” I asked and he jerked his head.

“Out back, next to the pay phone,” he told me, his attention sneaking back to the television. “Key’s on the wall there.”

I noticed a large key hanging next to a door and headed toward it. After grabbing it, I opened the door, expecting to see the bathroom, but instead I was looking at the back of the building. I went outside, the only light a bare bulb hanging by the back door, and almost bumped into a glass box. It took a second before I realized it was the pay phone. I studied it curiously for a second and then went around, finding the bathroom.