Chapter 4 After the Storm

Amelia's POV

I didn't know when the pain disappeared.

It was strange. Like my body had gone numb. Everything below my waist still throbbed faintly, but it felt... distant. Like it had happened to someone else. Someone I didn't know anymore.

I didn't even feel the ache between my legs anymore. Maybe it was the adrenaline. Maybe it was the shock. Or maybe my heart had absorbed it all.

I just ran.

I didn't change. I didn't stop. I flagged a taxi, my trembling fingers waving desperately, lips too numb to even speak. The driver glanced at me once, brows furrowed at my disheveled state and the fear in my eyes, but he didn't ask questions. He just drove.

The moment we arrived, I flung the door open before he could even stop fully. My heels slammed the ground, my legs nearly giving out beneath me. I ran through the hospital doors, down the corridors I already knew by heart.

"Room 306," I mumbled, over and over.

My body moved like it had a mind of its own, possessed by panic. My chest was rising and falling so fast I could barely breathe. My throat felt like it was closing.

When I turned the corner, I saw the nurse. Her face was pale, her eyes wet and full of sorrow. And then I saw the doctor. Standing beside a gurney. A white sheet.

A white. Damn. Sheet.

I stopped.

Everything stopped.

My breath hitched.

It was like my head was burning. Like my brain had caught fire, and my thoughts were melting.

My feet dragged forward, every step heavier than the last.

"No," I whispered. "No. No. No."

My mother.

My mom.

Covered.

Still.

Lifeless.

Dead.

I dropped to my knees, a broken sound escaping from my throat, a wail so raw it didn't sound human. The pain cracked out of my chest, and I couldn't hold it back. My fingers reached out toward the sheet, trembling violently.

The doctor rushed forward. "Amelia, please..."

"No!" I shouted, my voice shrill, tearing from my throat. "She can't die. No. This can't be true!"

Two pack hospital staff stepped in. They had to hold me, one by each arm. My body bucked against them, trying to get free. I screamed again, legs kicking, arms flailing. My fingers clawed at the floor as they tried to drag me back.

"I have the money!" I sobbed. "I got the money! I did everything, I did what he said, she can't die!"

But she was already gone.

The war was over.

And I had lost.

We had always been outcasts. Omegas. The kind they spat on, pushed aside, ignored. My mom had been banished from her pack, treated like garbage, like she didn't matter. And I, her daughter, born into that same rejection.

But she never gave up.

She endured everything for me.

And now she was just... gone.

They took care of the funeral arrangements. I barely listened. I sat in the waiting area, my hands clenched into fists so tight my nails dug into my palms. I couldn't cry anymore. My body was empty, drained.

But then, as I watched her casket lower into the ground, it hit me again.

My scream broke through the cemetery air.

I broke down, throwing myself against the dirt, trying to follow her into the earth.

It took three people to restrain me again. The world spun. My heart felt like it had cracked down the middle.

She was all I had.

Now there was no one.

No one.

And no one to blame either. This wasn't some villain I could stab in revenge. It was an illness. A stupid, cruel illness.

But still, my fury burned.

Should I fight the Mafia King?

What would be the point?

He didn't kill her.

But he made me sell myself.

And in the end, it didn't even matter.

I stormed into my tiny apartment, throwing everything I could grab. A flower vase shattered against the wall. The mirror I hated, because it reminded me of what I looked like last night, crashed to the floor. I screamed and screamed until my throat turned raw.

"I hate everything!" I shouted to no one.

I wanted it to end.

All of it.

I rushed outside, barefoot, hair wild, mascara still dried down my cheeks. I ran into the road. No hesitation. No fear.

I stepped into the middle of traffic, arms stretched wide, daring a car to hit me.

"Do it!" I shouted to the headlights. "Just end it! End everything!"

A horn blared.

Tires screeched.

But then..

A force slammed into me from the side, knocking me onto the pavement.

I landed hard, the wind knocked out of my lungs.

A voice called out, panicked, urgent. "Are you okay? Hey! Can you hear me?"

My blurry eyes blinked up.

A man.

Leaning over me. His hands gripping my shoulders, shaking me gently.

I looked at him, dazed.

He was tall. His eyes, dark and sharp, were wide with worry. His jaw clenched tightly, the muscle twitching. His chest rose and fell as if he had been running for miles.

Then he shifted slightly.

The collar of his shirt fell open...

And I saw it.

The scar.

Jagged. Pale. Just below his jaw.

My breath caught.

It was him.

The man from the hotel.

The client.

The one who had taken my body, my first time, and left like a shadow.

My eyes locked on his face.

And then I saw it clearly.

His face.

He was beautiful.

Devastatingly, sinfully beautiful.

Not just in a surface way, but in a way that made my soul freeze. There was something dark and haunting in his face, like he carried storms behind his eyes. His brows were furrowed, lips parted, breath shallow.

"You-" I breathed, barely a whisper.

My wolf stirred sharply inside me, lifting her head with sudden awareness.

It's him, she whispered.

My heart skipped.

What?

Why was she reacting like this? Why now?

She had been silent all night... and now she was clawing at my insides, desperate and certain.

He's the one.

And I..I didn't understand.