Chapter 12
Chapter Twelve
Esme
Metallic restraint cuffs are fitted onto me with practiced efficiency.
They bite into my wrists. Not enough to break skin, but enough to remind me that I’m a prisoner.
The ship is huge and terrifying. I’m marched down corridors that are dimly lit and saturated with the reek of their alphas.
The thrumming noise the ship makes as it readies for takeoff generates a deep, pervasive sense of stress.
I’m dumped in a small holding room with a dozen other prisoners. All are dynamics in thin shifts with dead eyes and the sickly aura of abuse. My mind is in overdrive, wanting to soothe their hurt. But I can’t give myself away. If they find out I’m more than a standard healer all of us are screwed.
I know what they’ll do.
How they would torment the other prisoners, make me heal them, and then torment them all over again…
probably torment them in front of me. They do that with physical healers, but they do worse to those who can heal the mind and spirit.
The body can take a lot more repetitive breaking than the mind can.
As for the spirit, that is something you really don’t want to abuse on repeat.
I prayed never to find myself a prisoner, but I got the training for the eventuality so I would be prepared.
I can’t willingly play a role in hurting these people more than they’ve already suffered; I just can’t.
Zeb was here. I can sense the remnants of his presence. But he’s gone now, and I want to curse my stupidity. I came to the ship for him. Chased after him like a reckless fool… like a bonded omega might.
But I’m not bonded, and he’s gone. Whatever his mission was, he either completed it or aborted.
He’s going to be furious when he learns I disobeyed him.
But not as furious as I am with myself. If only I had stayed doing my job in the medical section, helping the people we managed to save.
And after that, I might have hoped to be reunited with him again.
One more memory to store up before the separation, when the two of us would take some downtime before being allocated to someone else.
Tears trickle down my cheeks, but they fall silently and are mine alone. The other prisoners are passive, their ability to cry long since scoured away.
Zeb is on the ground.
And I’m on a ship bound imminently for space and an Uncorrupted base. He’s probably tearing up the place before they sedate him because losing an omega, even one bound to an alpha temporarily, destroys them every bit as potently as it destroys an omega to lose her alpha in the field.
Zeb
I hit the ramp just in time. The ship is already lifting off the ground before the ramp is completely closed. I follow the line of soldiers as we double-time it into the belly of the spacecraft.
There’s an edge-of-chaos vibe. I’m pretty sure that’s down to me, and the chatter that breaks out among the soldiers confirms it.
A high-ranking officer is dead…
Dozens of bodies have been found…
Dozens? Really? It was three…
The stories get wilder and more elaborate the longer we are sequestered during the ascent into space. I just killed arguably the most important person in their viral program. They don’t know where the culprit is, whether it was an internal hit or an external party that’s still on board.
Hell, their version of the virus does some strange things; maybe they think it’s finally sending them crazy. Maybe these random acts of violence have been happening for a long time. It wouldn’t surprise me, and it’s not like they would advertise the fact.
Not my fucking problem. Fuck! When I get my hands on her, her ass is going to be cherry red, and she’ll be one sorry little omega.
But I’ve got to find her first.
Esme
We have taken off. The pressure, followed by a brief moment of weightlessness before the false gravity kicked in, tells me as much.
Our destination is unknown.
The door to the tiny room opens, and two guards wade inside. It takes a moment before I realize I’m their target, and when I do, fresh panic sets in. The other prisoners don’t even stir as the two guards drag me out.
They hustle me into a sterile white room, which rouses a fresh fight in me.
My resistance yields nothing. They are bigger and stronger. My armor is cut from my body before they shove me through some kind of chemical shower, followed by a tech detector.
Then they hold me down, cut my tracker from the underside of my arm, and incinerate it before my eyes.
Naked, I’m escorted to a different boxy room that smells of misery and blood with real mental bars on one wall.
Prisoners are crammed into the small space, omegas mostly, but several betas and even a heavily sedated alpha, all naked like me, most of them battered and bloody.
Hurt during the raid, perhaps trying to flee only to be captured.
Or maybe this is just symptomatic of how they’ve been kept.
I sit in the corner, huddled in on myself, feeling more wretched than I have ever been in my life.
So stupid, Esme.
The guards pacing outside the bars are edgy. One of them keeps checking his weapon, as if we might pose a credible threat. Another mutters too low for me to hear, but I can sense his agitation and fear coming off him in psychic waves.
They’re rattled. But I’m confused as to why this emotion lingers when we have long since taken off.
Things become apparent the longer I sit there.
Something is definitely off with the guards. Why are there guards at all…and armed? It simply doesn’t make sense. It’s not like any of us can break past those thick bars. Nor are they watching us. Instead, they’re watching the door, almost like they are waiting for an attack…
Oh, God. Is he here? On this ship?
Zeb is no ordinary soldier. I’ve already concluded he was working on a high-level mission. High enough to bring him onto the ship in the first place.
He is no ordinary alpha. He knotted me for goodness’ sake—he smacked the recruiter’s face into the desk without missing a beat. He won’t go on a rampage when he finds out I’ve been taken. That’s what a regular alpha would do. No, he’s going to be calm and collected. He’s going to be focused.
He’s going to come after me.
I put my head in my hands.
I came here to try and save him, only he didn’t need saving, did he? And now my very actions have put him into danger he didn’t deserve or need.
The cold desperation of our prison and my painful ruminations do not last for long before a greater terror comes. Alphas arrive, selecting omegas and hustling them roughly away.
“Where are they taking them?” I whisper to the younger omega next to me. Her haunted eyes and abused mind tell me she has been a prisoner for a while.
“A reward,” she says bitterly. “For the soldiers. They get their pick. Some have favorites. But most don’t care.” Her dead eyes linger briefly on me. “You’re new.”
I nod. “Yes.” I did something really stupid and walked right into their hands. “I was picked up during the battle.”
Her gaze holds empathy before it empties. “Your controller will lose his mind… Assuming they didn’t kill him.” She blinks away tears. “They let their alphas rape me while mine was forced to watch. Let him suffer through it for days. Then they killed him.”
My inhale is sharp.
“Gather your strength,” she cautions. “They will come for you, just as they will come for me. Their experiments take on many guises. Letting their alphas rut us keeps us malleable, or so they believe. Our bodies may react to them, but our minds never do. There will come a day when you don’t want to survive anymore, when you just want to die. I crossed that line a while ago…”
Another two guards arrive while I’m still reeling from her words, and they take an omega between them. God, are they going to share her?
Panic crawls around under my skin. My fellow prisoners are tense as fresh voices draw near.
But a plan begins to form in my mind. Zeb may or may not be coming. But my current situation is more pressing.
They killed her alpha after forcing him to watch her be raped.
I need no further education on the ruthless nature of our enemy. What I’m considering is unethical, but I suffer no reservations about using any trick at my disposal.
It’s not something the Empire likes to linger on, but omegas have some skills in manipulation.
Especially those of the mind healer variety, although even regular healers have some abilities.
Not a skill to test on our alphas. I’ve heard the cautionary words from my fellow healers who made that mistake, and how it often ends with an edging session that has them praying for mercy.
How alphas are relentless in teaching an omega her place if she dares to try manipulation on them.
Still, these are not our alphas, are they? Their scent is only the beginning of what’s wrong with them. The affliction goes so much deeper, as I know.
Two years ago, when Dr Tsing was still in charge of the viral program, I was called in for some testing.
They had an Uncorrupted alpha in their possession, and I was told to befriend him, to use any means within my repertoire to make him fall for me, to believe without any act of intimacy that we were mated, and he must protect me.
The whole episode left me nauseous. Maybe they were testing ways for captured omegas to better survive, or more likely, how to weaponize our skills.
I’m alone here—maybe not quite alone, but that is yet to be verified. I’m a prisoner on a ship full of enemy soldiers, and I need an advocate in my corner.
“You’re planning something,” she whispers. “If they find out you’re not a regular healer, you’ll be in a worse situation than you already are.”
My eyes shift to meet hers.
She shrugs subtly. “My spirit is broken, not my mind. As for my body, I’m a healer, and we can take a lot before that gives out.
I won’t give you away if you’re worried about that.
Looking out for each other is the only thing we have left.
” Her expression turns fierce. “Nothing they ever do will take that away.”
My heart breaks. But it also rises in hope. Maybe foolish hope, but nevertheless hope.
Her spirit is wounded but not broken. There is a fierce tendril that anchors her into her physical body.
“Your name?”
My question catches her off guard.
“Ashanti.”
“That’s a beautiful name,” I say softly.
“As you have surmised, I am not purely a physical healer, and I have some skills in reading aura. Ashanti, I say this not to give you false hope, but as a solemn vow. You will get out of this, and when you do, when we’re back in the Empire, and you are given an opportunity to recover with your choice of spiritual healers who can love you until you find yourself again, ask for Dorian. ”
I met Dorian a long time ago, when we passed through the healer initiation program together. He is one of the most amazing spiritual healers I have ever met, and I know instinctively he will be perfect for Ashanti.
Her smile is small, like she has forgotten how to. “Dorian, huh? Sounds like he’s something special.”
“He really is,” I agree, but I’m already casting my gaze and mind over the two men outside who appear to be non-dynamic guards, supervising the cell opening when the alphas come to collect their prizes.
They are both calmer now, if still watchful.
There is clear deference every time an alpha arrives.
I steady my breathing. Instinct tells me that neither of them is a good option; I need to wait for the right alpha, which does not give me much time to assess each one as they arrive.
Should I still try with the non-dynamic? Would it even work?
While I’m caught undecided, a third man arrives, and a hushed conversation takes place between the three of them.
The newcomer is an alpha, but younger. He doesn’t have quite the same sickly undercurrent of the men who picked me up in the field, nor in those who have been appearing to drag omegas out of the cell.
A deeper inspection tells me he’s newly awakened, if anyone can even use the term awakening about their kind.
Maybe they’ve changed the virus since the alpha I met under Doctor Tsing’s watch, or maybe it takes years and time before they turn into abominations.
I probe his mind gently, familiarizing myself with him. He has authority over the other two despite his younger age, but he wears his authority unconvincingly. I release a very light tendril of arousal. His nostrils flare, and his eyes skim over the prisoners before they land on me.
“What are you doing?” Ashanti hisses in a low voice.
The young alpha’s posture stiffens, and he quickly looks away, only to lick his lips and snap his eyes to me once more.
Something the twitchy guard says to him draws his focus back to the other man.
But he’s interested. In me and not in the other omegas present.