Of all the things you choose in life, you don't get to choose what your nightmares are.
You don't pick them; they pick you.
- John Irving
Waking up was like being slapped by reality.
There was a boy who she had never met before, saying "You're mine" and something ugly and dead inside her chest answered "Yes, I am".
Theo wasn't talkative. He was bossy and smelt like anger, but he didn't babble like a nervous kid and before she knew it, she looked up to him. The others – Josh who was always smelling like earn and desperation, Corey who rarely talked and never smelt like anything and Hayden, full of anger and worry – sat on Theo's living room while he barked orders and told them how things would be.
"I wanna see my sister" was the first thing Hayden said, after Theo explained they had been dead. He didn't need to tell Tracy about her death, her mouth still tasted like mercury and her neck hurt.
"You will"
Hayden didn't trust him. She squeezed her eyes at him and scoffed "Valerie must be going out of her mind, I want to see her now"
"You're covered in dirty and mercury, Hayden, maybe even blood" Theo rolled his eyes and Tracy bit down an amused smile. She felt something warm bubbling in her stomach, the security of being guided and not having to decide, not have to think when everything was so overwhelming. "All you'll do is scare her"
With a still unsure nod, Hayden settled down on the couch and stared at her hands "Where's Liam?"
"Did you hear from my parents?" Josh interrupted, ignoring the glare the younger girl threw him.
"Your parents think you're missing, Josh. They didn't get to see your body and the police didn't know about your death"
"Thanks god" Josh whispered and Tracy hated him. She remembered her father and the bright blue eyes of a werecoyote. Tracy remembered waking up with a girl who reeked of relief and panic on top of her and remembered the sinking realization that her father was dead.
Theo tilted his head to look at her, light inspecting eyes that made Tracy want to run or sink on the floor crying. He could sense her emotional state and Theo opened a small smile.
"I'm ordering pizza, I'm starving"
It was a nonchalant phrase to dismantle the heavy energy on the room. Didn't work much, but Hayden went to the bathroom wash her face and hands, Josh followed Theo to the kitchen like a lost puppy seeking guidance.
Corey was still sitting on the couch, staring at his feet and he smiled when noticed she was watching him.
"Don't you have family?" the question was hard and insensible, but Corey only shrugged.
"I'll think about them tomorrow"
Tracy smiled then, the first genuine one since she was alive "I like you"
They were all too destroyed to fight over who got to shower first. Somehow, everybody agreed that Hayden should have it last. Maybe it would stop her from trying to run away that night.
Mr. and Mrs. Raeken were scared things made of shaky hands and cringes of panic. Theo handed Tracy a small bundle of clothes from his mother, let out a small smirk and put a string of hair behind her ear. It was the only attempt of comfort she had seen him show all night.
"I'll take care of you. Trust me"
"I do" and it was so absurdly true that Tracy felt small and scared. She looked herself on the bathroom, watching as dirty and mercury went down the drain.
No amount of soap could ever wash the blood underneath her nails or the taste of metal in her mouth.
"Sleep" Theo barked, because apparently now they were all children who could be ordered around "Tomorrow will be a big day"
Tracy stared the ceiling during hours. She heard Corey whimper in his sleep, heard Josh snoring loudly, both sleeping on the living room. At her side on the guest room, sleeping on a mattress carefully put on the floor, Hayden was crying. Tracy heard Theo pacing around like a guard and wondered if he was awake to stop someone from coming in or them from running away.
Hours later Hayden stopped sobbing and started snoring lightly. Hours later Theo stopped walking, opened the bedroom door to check on them and then frowned. "Aren't you going to sleep?" he whispered, eyes stopping on the younger girl curled up on blankets.
"I don't want to"
He stared at Tracy, shrugged and nodded slightly so she would follow him. Tracy tiptoed to the front of the house and sat by his side on the cold almost morning, shivering.
"What happens to us now?"
Theo stared at the sky and then smiled "We're a pack now"
"What is a pack? I mean, a human pack?" he talked like she should know all of this and Tracy felt offended and frustrate. She wanted to know everything, she wanted to have a small amount of control over her messed up life.
"None of us a really human, are we?" Theo smirked "A chimera pack is just like a wolf pack. It's deeper than family"
"Hayden and Josh don't seem to think like that"
"They will come around" there was a blue shine in his eyes, like a light in the middle of darkness and Tracy wanted to lean on his shoulder and pray he could be the savior she imagined him to be.
"You don't need to be afraid, Tracy" he put a hand over hers and squeezed it slightly "You'll be fine. Go to sleep and stop worrying"
It was a dismissal and she nodded her head, obeying without thinking.
Hours later, Tracy woke up with Theo and Josh on the ground, Hayden staring at her in panic and Corey's arms around her shoulder.
Maybe this is family. It terrified her, she wanted her dad, and she wanted to go home.
"Are you sure you don't want me to do it?"
The thought of Theo going through her underwear and picking her clothes made Tracy snort. She imagined him holding a pink skirt and rolled her eyes.
"I can do it"
Josh had been missing and his parents sobbed when he went back home; Corey had barely been dead for a day and his parents could sue the hospital for false obit; Hayden's sister started yelling and crying, but she had hugged Hayden like the girl was a baby and pushed her inside the house.
Tracy's family was dead, there was no one to worry about her; no one to gain profit out of her death and no one to yell and hug her.
Only Theo, who was now offering to break into her old house and get all of her clothes.
"Alright. I'll give you some time alone."
All the time in the world still wouldn't be enough to prepare her. Her room had a police tape all over the door, but she walked past it and sighed when saw the walls covered in drawings of her nightmares.
Those nightmares didn't plague her anymore. Mostly because they hadn't been dreams, and now she knew it. Now, her father's eyes had replaced the Doctors' and every time she went to sleep she could still hear the echo of "Hi, daddy".
Tracy filled her old school backpack with clothes, purposely leaving behind the silly shirt with a picture of Queen and all of her more immature clothing.
Theo was sitting on the couch like it wasn't illegal to invade a crime scene. "Did you get everything?"
How much did she truly need to fill up that hole in her chest? The clothes, the scent of home or the warm arms of her father around her… Would she be forever empty?
"Yes"
He stood up and looked around "Do you want to take something home?"
Oh.
It was lovely. The word "home" in Theo's lips gained a new meaning. It was a nest, a place to lay her head, a place to hide when fear was too much. Tracy wanted to teach him what a real "home" was. Teach him about late nights talking, and board games, and silly habits of domesticity.
"I don't want anything"
They went home in silence. The place was desert, Theo had kicked his parents out without thinking twice and she still didn't believe they were his real parents. Corey had gone back to his house. Josh and Hayden too.
"I thought a pack was different" Tracy whispered, sitting on the couch. Theo sat by her side and took her hands into his.
"I did too"
They didn't talk more than they needed. Theo would let her pick the food, she would organize the guest room that was now entirely hers. Some nights she would wake up with him tucking her on bed and the words "Don't tell anyone" in her ears. Some nights he would yell and break apart half of the house.
To watch Theo Raeken, study him was an habit she had developed, an addiction.
It wasn't enough to stop the nightmares. It wasn't enough to stop her from waking up screaming.
"I'm moving in" the phrase is so dumb that Tracy laughed.
Corey was standing on the porch with a big bag of clothing and he had a challenging glare on those green eyes.
"You can get my old room" Theo simply shrugged, stepping aside to let the boy enter.
Having someone who felt as detached from the world as she did was good. Corey didn't have nightmares, but he didn't sleep much either. Instead he would sit with her almost the entire night and watch television.
On some rare nights, Theo would flop sit by her side and complain about "Keeping Up with the Kardashians" until one of them either laughed or changed channel.
There was no reason to smile or talk so none of them did.
"Where is Theo?" Corey whispered, leaning in to make his voice even quieter. Tracy rolled her eyes. Theo was out, there was no reason to fear his annoyance.
"Out with Josh"
"Why are they away so many nights? How did Theo even manage to get Josh talking with him?"
"Josh used to do drugs" Tracy gossiped, aware that it was an habit of an old life and loving it "I think Theo is trying to keep him clean"
"I doubt" Corey smirked and rolled his eyes "Theo would like to keeps us drugged and sedated, don't you think? Less complaining, more obeying"
She never really complained, but Tracy had seen Corey, Josh and Hayden fight Theo enough to know the rest of them did "I guess he would… You think Theo is drugging Josh?" it sounded absurd. Her alpha was furious and ruthless but he wasn't dumb enough to do such a thing.
"I don't know" Corey leaned in more "Can we even do drugs?"
"I don't know"
"Let's find out"
They end up locked on Corey's room, with the stash of weed he had brought but never smoked. She dragged it in, feeling the sweet smoke in her mouth and throat and nose.
Corey laughed of her coughing and took a blow like a pro.
"You used to this a lot?" Tracy asked, after half an hour of nothing. She had almost thought the weed was taking effect, but in reality her legs had fallen asleep from staying on the same position for so long.
"It's better now" Corey smiled back at her "I feel less… Nothing is as intense as it was before. I don't feel as sad, or as insecure or…"
"As happy?"
His smile dropped and he shrugged "It's the price you pay, I guess"
"What about that kid you like? Mason?"
"What about him?"
"Is it better now too?"
"Yes…" and then he blew the smoke as ring, falling back on the rug and sighing "No, I guess no."
"Why not?" the 'in-love' feeling was out of her reality. Aside from a few crushes in the past – in her old life, in the dream that was vanishing from her memory – Tracy couldn't imagine what love was. Maybe it was what she felt for Theo. The knowledge that she would take a bullet for him any day. Or maybe it was the easiness around Corey.
"It's easier to talk to him. I don't feel… I don't feel as out of place like I did before" He smiled when Tracy mimicked him and laid down on the rug too "But it's also worse. I want to feel the happiness, the desire and the love just as hard as I did before… With Lucas. But I can't."
'Yeah… but you still like him"
"I do"
The silence fell on the room, except from the noises of them passing the ineffective joint to each other.
"Do you feel empty?"
"Almost always"
"When you don't feel empty?" she could hear the hunger in her own voice.
"I don't feel as empty around Mason. The void is still there, but not as big"
The conversation with Corey struck in her memory. Maybe love was the key to feeling whole again.
But there was no one to love and no drugs were effective to give her the same high.
Josh dropped by one day and explained Theo had taught him how to feel something. "It's pain" he had said, sitting on the roof with her and gazing at the stars. Hayden and Theo were yelling inside the house and it was almost common by now.
"Pain?"
"Yes. The trigger for feeling again, it's pain." He shrugged "Maybe it has something to do with our healing factor?"
"Like a wound in our minds?" it was poetical to be so broken that her body saw it like a literal injury.
"Yeah, I guess. He electrocuted me when I was trying to get a hype"
"He electrocuted you?" even for Theo it sounded pretty insane and cruel.
"I absorb energy, chill" Josh laughed, nudging her shoulder "But it still hurt."
"How does it help at all?"
"After… After the shock of the pain passed… I could feel everything. Happiness, anger, lust, sadness… I was missing even feeling sad"
She had never related to anything like that and after Theo yelled and growled, kicking Josh and Hayden out, Tracy locked herself on the bathroom and waited until she could hear Corey sleeping and Raeken leaving.
Cutting herself would have been easier with a blade, but she was terrified of it, so instead Tracy used her nails.
The first three cuts were symmetrical and careful, but after the forth one and still feeling nothing, desperation sank in and she scratched her arm until there was blood all over the white floor.
And there was still nothing. Could she be just so broken that nothing would ever work? Corey's trigger was love, Josh's was pain and hers… Hers didn't exist.
She was fated to kicking and screaming and feeling numb.
"You're smelling like blood" Theo commented, when she came down for breakfast. Corey had spent the night out with Mason and they both knew it, but nobody mentioned it. Tracy didn't want to expose one of her only friends and Theo didn't want to talk about how possessive he really was.
Somehow, they accepted it as ordinary and moved on.
"I'm on my period"
Theo rolled his eyes and glared at her "Dried blood and… old"
"I have no idea of what you're talking about" but there were still healing cuts on her arms, so deep that Tracy was lucky she could even move her left hand.
"Show me" Theo leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms "Tracy, show me what you did"
He wasn't asking, he was ordering, and Tracy felt all of her nerves submit immediately. A part of her mind was yelling and yet she rolled up her left sleeve.
Theo looked at her unimpressed, smelling like disgust and mostly annoyance "You too"
"We're all broken here, Theo" she pulled her sleeve down "We deal how we can"
"Did it help?"
"Don't you have to go to school and pretend you're a normal person?"
"Did it help? Answer me"
And the words spilled from her mouth without consent "No, it hurt and was useless. I'm still broken"
He sighed, stood up and put a hand on her shoulder "You should have told me"
"You're not my father or my friend. You're my alpha, my owner. I'm not supposed to cry on your shoulder, Theo"
The harsh words made him flinch, but his hand on her shoulder squeezed harder "C'mon, we gotta go"
It's not an order, but her feet obey and her mind goes. Maybe he can help. Please, maybe he can help.
"Your triggers are different" Theo explained, hand grabbing her and leading the way "When was the last time you felt something?"
"When I killed the man on the hospital"
"You're trigger is pain"
"Not it isn't" Tracy shook her head "My arm is enough proof"
"Your trigger is pain. But not yours" Theo smiled and they entered his bedroom, the one he had taken from his 'parents'. "C'mon, punch me"
"No"
"I'm not angry, just do it"
"No" Tracy frowned, tried to pull away. He was her alpha, her superior. The animal trapped under her skin knew it was wrong.
"Hit me" now he was ordering and her fist met his face before Tracy could fully understand it.
"Why can't I control myself?!" Fury was the first emotion to come back and she didn't even notice it.
Theo smile, spat blood on the floor "It's the Kanima part" when her eyes got huge and she grabbed him by the shirt, pushing Theo against the door, he laughed "Don't worry, Tracy. I didn't force you into doing anything you didn't want to do already"
"Did you force me to kill the man on the hospital? Did you… Did you order it without me noticing?" she punches his stomach and Theo leans forward, trying to catch his breath.
"No" he groans "I told you I'd do it. I didn't order you shit"
"What did you force me to do?"
"Nothing" He smiled, twisting her arm, only for Tracy to get on his back and kick him to the floor. She knew he was letting her beat him up and sadness took anger's place.
"You're telling me I'm a murderer because I want to?"
"There's nothing wrong with a little blood on our hands" Theo pushed her to the floor, tried to get on top of her, only for Tracy to grab his head and punch it against the bed frame.
It's pleasure now and she felt dizzy, the will to fight going away slowly. She was high on how much things were going on inside of her. Theo fell sit, puts his nose back on place and tried to clean the blood from his face.
"Can you feel it?" his eyes were dark and she blinked, his face almost blurred by how much her mind was swirling.
"Yes" she was breathless "I can feel everything"
Theo smiled, leaned back against the bed frame "Cause pain once in a while, little things, and you should be fine"
And now that all those emotions were washing over her, Tracy focused him and understood. What she felt for Theo wasn't love, was gratitude.
"Thank you"