Cold Little Heart || L.S

Chapter 11: Nest [part I]

"Harry," The female therapist sat back, "what is it –that you have done –what makes you so worried that someone will not love you like you love them?"

"I was nineteen when I was asked if I wanted to be a leader. After four months I was asked if I wanted to be involved in the torture sector." He closed his eyes, "When I saw it happen, for the first time, I was scared. –I did not just watch, I learned –I grew numb to it." He held out two hands, face up, "Physical torture creates psychological torture –one will not be without the other. When I break someone's finger –when I make it feel as if they are drowning –they will never be able to live without remembering what I have done to them." Harry crossed his hands again, "you can close your eyes –and you can be given pain killers for your physical ailments. You can be given physical therapy to walk again –talk again. But," He looked out the window, "you cannot run from your own mind."

She nodded slowly.

Harry watched a car go by.

"An alpha, one time, begged me to stop –he begged me so much –he cried so hard. He gave me all the information I needed. Begged me to kill him –he was eighteen, he was a son of a leader," Harry's eyes formed tears, "I watched every bone in his body break under my hands, I watched his brown eyes cry –and I could only see myself in them –begging to be free." He shut his eyes before any tears could fall, "I kept him for three days –every day doing something worse. I sent him back home –broken –inside and out, because it was my job." He looked at the therapist who reached for tissues. "Because I was serving the people I loved. –How would you tell your child you tortured people when they ask you what you did for a living –how can you tell them that you destroyed a person while still letting them live?"

"Were you tortured, Harry?"

"Broken bones, waterboarding, sound torture –all of it." He stared at nothing, "burns, beaten, choked –name it." Harry shrugged carelessly, "no one could capture me, when someone did capture me it was because I let them." His lip shook, "his father was so angry, sad –near death. I only closed my eyes so that I would not see his son in them. I only closed my eyes because that was the only torture that I could feel. –Eighteen, leader's child –thrown into something he should not have been in. It is scary, you are trying to do well by your people." He pressed his lips together, "everyone is fighting for something. I am killing you so that you do not kill my people, and you are killing me so that I do not kill yours."

"It was simply your job, Harry."

"I can see blood on my hands that you will never be able to see. Killing is welcomed at times." He snorted, "If I put you in a box too small, with a hole the size of a coin, and fed you drops of water through that hole once a day –I can make you do anything for me. I can make your brain rot, I would be your god –sleep deprivation, sensory deprivation, psychological regression and I do not have to put a hand on you to make you lose your mind. If I gave you a gun, you would kill yourself without thought."

She swallowed.

"I want to find a family who will love me, for me. I want to tell them what I have done, I do not want them to fear me –I want them to feel safe and confident that I am a good alpha –a good alpha husband and father." He put a hand on his chest, "I want stability and happiness for myself, for my past, for my future." Harry's eyes boiled over with thick tears. "I want to hold my omega so close and never let them go –I want my child to smile when they see me and want to be near me. I want love -. I resigned, I left even when I was begged not to." He slapped his chest, "I did it for myself, for my mind –for that family that I pray to have." He stared into open space, "I do not want them to fear me –what I am capable of. I need them to see me –not that."