My limbs shook and ached as I scrubbed the floor. I did my best to focus on the motion, trying to get lost in it, to jump my mind into auto-pilot. When I could lose my mind, let it go blank with the monotony, I could escape the hollowness of my chest, the yawning abyss it had become. I did my best to adapt, to push through it, but it was like a slow descent into a space I knew I couldn't come out from.

I had started to throw up my meals. As sparse as they were, I needed the food but it was getting harder and harder to keep everything down. The lack of it made me feel weak and dizzy. It was why I was trying so hard to lose myself in the work, to lose myself in the motions. Back and forth, back and forth, again and again, Back and forth, back and forth. I was trying so hard but the dizziness and the trembling in my limbs wouldn't let me drift away.

"You are missing spots, Omega." Ingrid's voice was heated as she hissed the words at me. I flinched under them, dipping my scrub brush back in the pail and looking for where I had missed. It was getting worse. I was making mistakes. The thought made me anxious, bile rising up in my throat. I couldn't make mistakes. I dashed some water across the floor, scrubbing at every inch I could reach, ignoring how sodden my dress was getting. I needed to make sure it was clean.

Ingrid thumped her boot against the floor. She was watching me with that all knowing gaze, searing through me with it. She knew I would make a mistake and she was waiting for the perfect moment when I did. My back still ached from the caning I had received. I had missed clearing dishes from one of the rooms I had cleaned. A lonely cup and a spoon, tucked away, but I had missed it and I had been punished. I was sure my back was still heavily bruised. My healing was no longer existent.

"Omega..." At the taunting voice I refused to lift my head. I needed to clean the floors and I knew she was just wanting an excuse. I dipped the scrub brush back into my pail and before I could take it out a shattering sound had me jumping. "You missed a spot." I slowly lifted my head at her mocking tone, a flower vase lay cracked and broken on the floor by her feet. Its contents strewn over the area I had scrubbed. My face paled and I slowly crawled towards it. Another mess.

An Omega must never let anyone clean up an Omega's mess.

My heart hammered in my chest as I slowly started to pick up the broken pieces. I needed to clean up the mess. It was in my section, it was my mess. The mantra circled my brain, tightening the words around my skull until it ached and threatened to explode.

An Omega must never let anyone clean up an Omega's mess.

"What the hell?" At the angry voice I gave a sharp gasp turning quickly in fright to see which pack member I upset with my actions. A searing pain slashed through my palm as I completed the movement and Ingrid pushed off from the wall.

"She is a clumsy thing." Her words were bored and my eyes finally managed to land on the shifter who had spoken.

The blue eyed male glowered at Ingrid darkly. "I watched you drop that." He puffed himself up, his eyes growing darker with his displeasure to her actions.

Ingrid bowed her head meekly. "It was an accident." An accident. The words ran through my mind, mocking me over and over again. Ingrid was good at the deception she was playing.

"That wasn't an accident. I watched you do it." The male wasn't backing down, getting further into Ingrid's space, making her shrink even further into herself. She only used that position for the pack. The pack saw her weak meekness and the rest of us received the cruelty she had naturally. "You are a cruel old bitch." He spat the words out at her and I quickly turned my gaze to the floor at the heavy insult. The blue eyes male never was one to mince his words.

A throbbing in my hand made me turn my head to look and when I did I nearly threw up. My palm was gashed open, blood flowing freely from the cut I had given myself in my panic at the blue eyed male's arrival. "Jesus christ!" The exclamation was heavy and the male was immediately by my side, grabbing my wrist. He ignored how I flinched as he quickly squeezed the bleeding appendage before looking around frantically.

The contact with him made me feel strange, uncomfortable. It was the same feeling as when he looked at me. It was something he did often since he had met me. Not only had he watched me but he had started finding reasons to try and speak to me. Then he had started bringing me things. He had started small, a pillow for my bed, a make shift bed frame he had seemed so proud of that I couldn't tell him no. He had recently started to bring me flowers and small trinkets.

It was strange for me because while I enjoyed the things he did for me, my emotions were always so contradictory. Something in my shunned his attention, shunned his worry, shunned his interest. It was that same feeling that caused me to throw up after I ate, caused me to be unable to sleep. I was trying to adapt. I was but it was hard.

"Mary Mary." A hand touched my face and I reeled back, reality slamming into me. My heart thudded and I tried to stand up but my legs buckled underneath me. My head swam with dizziness, black spots danced in my vision as my legs gave out. He pulled me close, shushing me slowly. "Its okay. We need to get you to the doctor." I shook my head frantically, doing my best to ignore the black spots in my vision as my rapid heartbeats send a new wave of pain over my hand and up my arm as blood pumped out of the deep cut.

"This needs stitches, Mary Mary." His voice was firm and seemed to come from far away. I blinked rapidly, swallowing convulsively as I fought back the bile that rose up to touch the back of my throat. It was bleeding too much, I could feel it dripping off my finger tips and the memories that rose up made the panic and anxiety that much worse.

I wasn't allowed to see the doctor. The doctor would tell. "Not the doctor." I couldn't go there. The doctor would tell and no one was to know. The cut would heal, it would. I needed to remain useful. I could bandage myself up, I could tie it off and it would be okay.

"Then we are going to the Alpha. What she did was cruel." He started walking down the hall and I shook my head rapidly, trying not to follow, digging my feet into the floor in an attempt to remain unmoved.

"No!" Alpha Lawrence couldn't know. The voice in my head screamed at me loudly. He couldn't know. He couldn't know. he couldn't know. Something bad would happen if he knew. I would be sent back. I would be taken back to it.

The classroom.

A heavy shudder of icy fear ran down my spine and I felt my breathing turn even more harsh and ragged. The black spots intensified in my vision, threatening to send me to the floor.

The male stopped walking me forward but he kept his hands on me. "He needs to know." His voice was low and soothing and I shook my head, the panic robbing me of my voice. I couldn't go back to the classroom. After all these years it still haunted me, still sat as a beacon of despair and ruin. That room was like death. People went there to die, to cease to be. "We can't leave this." He squeezed my hand gently, sending a rolling wave of pain up my arm as it danced along my nerves.

He started walking again and I made a faint noise of protest, resisting him. He shushed me gently as if trying to soothe the heavy fear and panic that made my heart beat rapidly against my rib cage. "Its okay. We are just going to the bathroom for the first aid kit." His words filtered through the the static-y haze of panic in my brain. The haze wasn't unlike the painful buzzing I got when Lucas found himself in the company of another female. I prayed that he wouldn't today. I couldn't handle that with everything else.

My hand hurt and my back ached. Despite the pain from my hand taking center stage, the bruising on my back was still there and how the male was holding me pressed against the worst of the lashes. I kept my mouth closed as I stared at the floor, carefully placing my feet on the hardwood, doing my best to focus on walking. I could ignore the pain. I could.

He lead me into the bathroom before guiding me to sit down on the side of the tub. He grabbed a towel and pressed it to my hand. "Hold this tight, okay?" He was staring at me, I could feel his gaze against my skin but I kept my eyes downcast.

An Omega's gaze belongs on the floor.

"Yes, sir." I gave a faint nod, holding the towel close to my hand, ignoring the pain it caused and the red that was seeping through the white towel. I knew I would need to soak it t get rid of the blood. I couldn't let it get stained.

"You can call me Bennett if you want, Mary Mary." His voice was forcefully light as he said it and I glanced up as he walked towards the sink.

"Thank you, sir." He always told me to call him Bennett but I knew the mantras, I knew how much Ingrid saw. if I slipped up with him, then she would know and I couldn't go back to the classroom. I couldn't do it again. As much as he wished for me to use his name I knew that lesson well. I doubted I could ever forget it.

I could hear him let out a sigh and I let my gaze fall to the floor, I could see blood spots marking a trail from me to the hallway and my heart lurched. I needed to clean it up. I went to slide off the tub when the blue eyed male returned, setting the first aid kit on the toilet as he opened it. I felt trapped as he grasped my towel wrapped hand and slowly pulled the bloody fabric away.

"I need to clean my section, sir." I couldn't look at the gash on my palm as the cold air brushed it. I knew it was bad and I knew it would make me queasy to watch it bleed, to see my skin split open like I knew it was.

"You need this to be fixed up first." He grabbed some gauze and placed it onto the wound. I stared at the floor as he did so, I didn't like him near me, I didn't like the uncomfortable feeling that made my hollow chest seem off. That feeling was terrible and I wanted it to go away. I didn't understand it and all I knew was that he made me uncomfortable when he was close.

My hand throbbed hotly with pain and I stared hard at the droplets of blood that had splattered on the floor. I would need to get used to the pain, to the strange feelings the male gave me. I would need to push harder to adapt. my stomach rolled and twisted as the throbbing pain in my had grew worse but I fought back the nausea as best as I could.

I didn't have a choice and hope was slowly fading for me. I needed to adapt because I knew it was do or die.