Lock Step (Omegaverse Case Files #3)

Chapter 1

DEPARTURE

Taylor

Well, shit. Who invented Mondays? Mondays were never great.

Never even good, actually, and today’s Monday was definitely not going as fucking planned.

One minute, Taylor had been balling up cardboard fingerprint slides and lobbing them across the field for the police dogs.

The next he found himself shoved into a briefing room full of stone-faced alphas from a different police force.

Falkington, according to their epaulettes, and just why the fuck Falkington were in West Newton was anyone’s guess.

The door creaked and their own inspector stepped inside the briefing room, his shoulders hunched and police-issue chequered tie hanging loose around his neck. Johnny straightened in the seat next to Taylor, his black eyes hard with concern.

Taylor sniffed, because someone, someone was pumping some serious fucking alpha pheromones into that room, and he would have preferred to snort bleach straight from the bottle than have it offend his nostrils for a second longer.

Breathe.

Shit.

The inspector sat at the desk in front of them, making Taylor’s knee begin to bounce uncontrollably. Johnny clapped a hand around it, squeezing it hard.

“Your firearms, PC Campbell. Put them on the table,” the inspector said, lips wet as he spat out words at a machine-gun pace.

Taylor reflexively brushed two fingers over the holster at his hip, his nails catching on the familiar fault in the stitching. He stared at the inspector from across the desk, watching how his eye twitched.

When Taylor didn’t answer, the inspector back-handed a pen pot and stabbed a Biro into the surface of the desk. Taylor jumped as ink splattered everywhere.

Okay, the inspector was mad. Big mad, if the way his fangs protruded was any indication. He was diabolically ugly, too. Terrible comb-over, massive moustache and about fifty hair-filled moles across his face.

The moustache did look soft though, like a fluffy brown caterpillar, and Taylor had the sudden urge to push his fingers through it. Perhaps he’d slide them into the inspector’s nostrils. Perhaps he’d be able to hook out his brain. There’d be blood. A lot. They’d need an ambulance and—

Suddenly, the pens were all over the floor. Dozens of them. Biros everywhere. One rolled under the inspector’s chair and—

“PC Campbell, what’re you—”

Someone pinched his arm.

“Stop spacing out,” Johnny whispered next to his ear.

When Taylor blinked, he realised he was underneath the desk on his knees with twenty or so pens in his hands and an eyeful of the inspector’s crotch. Johnny was under it too, staring at him with tight annoyance as the short coils of his black hair got squashed against lumps of old chewing gum.

Fuck.

Disgusting.

Taylor took another breath. A deep one. “Pens,” he said, as the room pulled back into focus. “Why am I…”

The computer virus in his head was gobbling up his brain cells again, making it impossible to think straight. It was the inspector’s fault. Obviously. He should have known better than to ambush them like that.

Or maybe Taylor was the problem.

People usually said he was the problem. And he didn’t actually have a computer virus in his head, of course, but it was what his dad used to say.

“Not the fucking time, dude,” Johnny whispered through gritted teeth. “Forget the pens and give your piece to the boss.”

Taylor sniffed—man, the boss had the smelliest feet; popcorn or cheese or something—and carried on picking up the pens.

“I’m not giving him anything, JP.”

He went to reach under the inspector’s chair, but Johnny gripped his arm. “You don’t have a choice, Tay.” He jabbed a thumb over his shoulder to the five sets of combat boots closing in behind them.

Taylor scoffed, sitting up but banging his head hard enough to rattle his teeth. “Ouch,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck.

“Now,” Johnny whispered, digging his fingers into Taylor’s shoulder. “Before they fuck us up.”

Eventually, Taylor managed to form a coherent thought long enough to back out from under the desk, only slightly bumping one of the other officers’ legs with his arse.

He grinned and looked up at him, debating whether to twerk his way to standing just to piss the boss off even more, but reconsidered when the other officer didn’t smile back. Not even a twitch of the lip.

Miserable fucker.

Taylor’s brain was fried. Well and truly scrambled like the eggs he and Johnny had had for breakfast that morning.

“I’m not going to ask again, PC Campbell,” the inspector said, fingers gripping the desk so hard the veins on the back of his hand popped out. “Firearms. Now.”

Taylor’s gaze slid back to the desk. Then to the other alphas in the room. Back to the boss. Then finally back to the table. Johnny’s Glock and Taser were already laid out, cold steel next to bright yellow plastic.

Clearing his throat, Taylor said, “Seriously, boss?”

Johnny made a choked sound from behind him, and when Taylor glanced over his shoulder he saw that he was looking up at the ceiling.

Praying, probably.

Johnny did that a lot.

“Yes,” the inspector said, snapping the pen that was still in his hand clean in two. “Gun and taser. I’ll take your fucking PAVA if you aren’t careful.”

Taylor sighed, shooting Johnny one final look of disapproval before popping open his holster and withdrawing his handgun. There was a moment of tension as the other alphas pulled in closer, the smell of stale sweat and gun oil radiating from their stab vests.

“Alright, chill out,” he murmured, blowing out several short breaths.

He thought about drawing the moment out, making them all sweat some more, but Johnny laid a hand over his wrist and forced the gun onto the desk with a thunk.

Taylor’s hand looked like a pale, freckled spider trapped under Johnny’s dark counterpart. And Johnny had a dozen bracelets looped up his forearm, the jumble of coloured plastic beads making it look like he’d been to an exceptionally productive kids’ party.

Eventually, Taylor slid his hand free and unclipped the taser, giving it a little twirl around his forefinger like a gunslinger before setting it down on the desk.

He flicked the inspector a look that said, ‘happy now?’ as Johnny righted the plastic chair that lay abandoned on the shitty blue carpet tiles, and pulled Taylor down into it.

“Let’s just cut to the chase, boys,” the inspector said, pushing a piece of nicotine gum around his mouth. “I’ve kicked the can down the road for as long as possible. Your disciplinary records are shite and I’m afraid running over the custody cat was the final straw.”

Taylor threw an ankle across his knee, the stiff Kevlar plates of his stab vest creaking in the quiet room. “Purrlock survived, didn’t he? Jesus, why’s everyone so upset about a bent tail?”

“It’s not about the fucking cat!” the inspector shouted, spitting the gum onto the desk. Taylor wrinkled his nose, and the inspector flushed as he swept it onto the floor with the side of his hand.

“It’s about taking naps on shift, not turning in paperwork, eating the superintendent’s fucking birthday cake, for Christ’s sake!”

Now that had been some fantastic lemon drizzle.

The inspector rubbed the deep wrinkle between his eyebrows. “Look, the force gave both of you grace after Samantha passed away. I know it hit you lads hard, but you had a cushy job in Major Crime and you blew it.”

“Murdered,” Johnny said, leaning forward and resting his elbows on the desk. His bicep twitched beneath the rolled-up sleeve of his black tactical shirt, showing off the toned line of muscle.

Fucker had arms to die for, whilst Taylor’s were kinda flabby.

“She was murdered, boss,” Johnny continued. “She didn’t pass away. We were with her that night.”

The inspector’s nostrils flared. “I know, PC Ateba. And her absence is felt every damned day.”

The inspector had that right. Samantha had been the bitchy, short-tempered face of West Newton Police Station. In fact she had been so good at being bitchy and short tempered that the number of people reporting crimes at the front desk had gone down by seventy-eight percent.

Except, then she wasn’t there anymore. One night they’d been having drinks with her at Tokyo Treasures, and then poof.

Gone.

Dead as fuck.

The inspector let out a long breath. “Look, there’s no easy way for me to tell you this. But, due to your continued piss-poor behaviour, you aren’t just being booted back to patrol. The Chief Sup wants you out of West Newton.”

The words hung heavy in the room, the air turning thick as rice pudding. It made Taylor’s head swim, and he blinked rapidly as though developing yet another agitated tick.

The other officers shuffled behind them, one coughing on his neck. Taylor’s lip twitched over one fang, somewhere between a smile and a snarl.

It couldn’t be right. They’d always policed West Newton. In fact, they were so good at policing West Newton they’d been moved into the Major Crime unit.

Head hunted, that was what the inspector had said.

Taylor opened his mouth. “But—Major Crime—you said—” The words didn’t quite come out how he wanted.

The inspector clenched his teeth. “I said you’d been promoted just to get you both out of my report-writing room. Honestly, lads, you’re fucking useless.”

Taylor’s jaw was turning numb, so he rubbed it to try and get some of the feeling back. His eyes slid to Johnny, but Johnny was just staring at the inspector, chin dipped to his chest, gaze unmoving. His hand crept under the desk again, palm ghosting over Taylor’s thigh.

Taylor fidgeted, knowing full well what that touch meant. Let me handle this.

“I would ask where,” Johnny said, sucking his teeth. “But judging by these lot, I’m assuming Falkington.”

The boss picked at a loose thread on the cuff of his white shirt. “Yes. D Division. You start tomorrow. These lads will escort you out.”

Johnny drew in a breath. “D Division?”

The inspector nodded. “Dingly Heath. Leave your kit downstairs and—”