Chapter 17
Chapter Seventeen
Zeb
We get dressed in silence. My uniform is waiting. While she arrived naked, a simple dress is waiting on the hook of the cubby, not dissimilar to the one worn by our healers when off duty… only theirs is gray.
They really like that color.
Through necessity, I’ve learned a lot about the Uncorrupted, their behaviors, and ways. Some of it came firsthand through experience, but a larger body has been passed to me from spies we have in their camps, along with liberated captives.
Their nesting chambers are sick and soulless. Nesting materials are provided but rarely used. Alphas get to fuck omegas when they’ve been good little soldiers. The elites get to rut them through their heat.
Pregnancy is unheard of beyond rumor, but that’s what they ultimately want, to breed their own version of special from their alphas and our omegas. For a society that shunned our dynamic system and the Copper Virus, they’re now hellbent on creating super-beings of their own.
Thank fuck it doesn’t appear to be working out for them.
She still doesn’t meet my eyes, keeps her focus down on what she’s doing. My appearance is messing with her instincts of who I am… and even the alpha she met at the start of the mission wasn’t me.
I mean, he kind of looks like me, mostly… yeah that’s going to mess with her some more.
“You ready?”
I even hate my fucking voice.
“The others…” she fidgets, and her voice drops. “We’re saving them, right?”
Yeah, as if I hadn’t already figured that part out.
Omegas don’t have self-preservation instincts, not when there are others at risk.
I’ve heard the stories about healers driving themselves to the brink because they have healed too deeply, given too much.
Leave any of them unchecked, and they’ll be off on crusades to save the universe.
That’s why they have controllers and mates.
Can I be that man? Me, the zeta with a dozen faces, that might be variations on me, but are never quite me?
It’s too late. I’m too far gone.
She doesn’t know it yet, but Esme is already mine.
“I’m working on it,” I say.
Esme
My body feels like I’ve been put through the mother of all training sessions. Certain intimate parts of me are still sparking and tender—I could definitely do with a nap, or a healer, or just some old-fashioned pain relief that comes in the form of a pill.
But, you know, getting off this rollercoaster is taking priority.
I’ve felt worse… Not often, but nothing is broken, and I can deal with this.
Only, now that I’m dressed and we’re about to leave the room, there’s no avoiding looking at him. The visual conflicts with the sensation I feel in the center of my chest. It presents as a mind-bending experience, like you’re trying to look into a spinning vortex.
I’m not really seeing him; what I’m seeing is his aura, a kaleidoscope of swirling colors.
It’s the most spellbinding aura I’ve ever seen, and it reaches out from his body like arms seeking to wrap around me.
Protective. Just like Zeb.
“You okay?”
“Yes.” No, I’m freaking out.
His eyes narrow, but then his lips twitch. “Stop looking at me. I’m pretty sure it’s freaking you out.”
Well, damn!
“You ready?”
“Yes.”
His lips twitch again like he sees right through the lie, and somehow it reminds me of Zeb, the other Zeb… the alpha version I knew. “It’ll be okay.” And then he opens the door and hustles me out.
Two armed guards, complete with exoskeletons, are standing directly outside. My heart goes into my throat.
“I’m taking her to medical,” Zeb says evenly.
One of the guards gives me a suspicious up-and-down look. He’s wary. Jord looks like he could crush both of them without breaking a sweat, even with the exoskeleton advantage.
I guess if you’re going to pick a body to fake, this is a pretty damn good one… Also, where is the real Jord? A service closet somewhere with duct tape over his mouth, about to be discovered?”
“We have orders to escort you to monitoring for a complete evaluation,” the left guard says. “There are some anomalies in your behavior since rehabilitation.”
Zeb grunts but otherwise appears unfazed by this development.
“This way,” the guard says. “We’ll drop the omega at medical first.”
Zeb’s fists my arm. We start walking.
He’s got a plan, hasn’t he?
I didn’t ask him if he had a plan.
Why didn’t I? It’s an important piece of information. I mean, he can’t be just winging this, can he?
He gives me a side look as if he can sense my agitation. I widen my eyes and shrug as if to say, What are we doing?
His lips curl up on one side in a smirk that reminds me of Zeb, the real one… is that the real one… why do I suddenly suspect that it’s not? What does he even look like?
Oh, my God! I’m in love with a man, and I have no idea what he looks like.
Maybe he really is bald…
A hysterical giggle bubbles up as we come to a stop next to an elevator bank.
One guard scans the access place. His colleague leers at me.
The elevator arrives with a ding.
“Don’t look at my woman,” Jord, aka Zeb, snarls.
We step inside.
“Your woman?” the guard squares up to Zeb.
Tension spikes.
The doors shut.
The other guard fingers the handle of an immobilizer rod, which I only now notice slotted at his hip. “Don’t fucking start, either of you. Jord, you know she’s not yours. This is what happened last time. It’s why your ass ended up in rehabilitation.”
The elevator hums.
The tension in the confined space skyrockets. Zeb’s eyes take a casual sweep over the elevator panel. He growls deep and low.
I jump.
The guards jump.
What the hell is Zeb doing?
“He’s fucking glitching,” one guard snarls, ripping his immobilizer rod free.
Zeb shoves me behind him. The rod slams into his shoulder. He grunts, swings. The first guard hits the elevator wall hard.
I yelp and duck.
The second guard swings. The rod connects with Zeb’s neck. He grabs the guard by the throat and slams him into the doors hard enough to leave a dent.
Another fizz of electricity sounds as the rod connects with the side of Zeb’s neck.
God, he’s hurting him!
Tsing’s training kicks in. I focus on the guard’s aura and push calm.
The rod drops, his head rolls to the side, and his expression turns dreamy right before Zeb slams his palm into his face. Blood sprays, and the man crumples to the floor.
“Whatever the fuck that was,” Zeb says, taking the guards hand and slapping his palm awkwardly against the plate controlling the elevator panel. “Do it again—for everyone but me—the moment the doors open.”
He shakes out his dead arm and hits the button marked COMMAND DECK.
“Command deck?” I stammer. “Shouldn’t we be trying to find the prisoners and get off?”
He gives me a look, rolls out his neck, and straightens his shoulders. “There’s only one way we’re getting all our people off.”
“There is?”
He doesn’t answer. The double elevator doors open onto a command deck, and a dozen sets of eyes swing our way.
The walls of the elevator are painted in blood. A fair amount is on me, I realize in horror.
And Jord, aka Zeb.
Shock grips the room for a heartbeat.
Then pandemonium explodes.
Someone slams the alarm. Amber lights flash across the ceiling. A shrill whoop, whoop erupts, reverberating through metal walls and bodies alike.
“Lockdown initiated… Lockdown initiated,” an electronic voice warbles in a loop.
People scream, stumble, and surge. Some run toward us, while others rush in a haphazard manner every which way.
Except me. I can’t move and I can’t breathe.
Zeb charges. The elevator doors start to close, and he leaves me here… trapped inside a small, confined space with two guards who may or may not be dead. And copious amounts of their blood.
No thank you!
I bolt forward, slipping through the gap just as the doors snap shut behind me.
Two Uncorrupted guards in exoskeletons slam into Zeb with bone-crunching force. The whirr of hydraulics cuts through the chaos inside the room. My stomach drops. That sound is one of nightmares, and rarely something I get up close and personal with.
Blood drums in my ears. I duck sideways, flattening against the wall as they collide in a blur of violence right in front of me.
One exo-enhanced soldier wraps an arm around Zeb’s throat, hauling him back. The other slams blow after blow into his gut.
“Now would be a good time,” Zeb grits out, voice strangled with effort.
He twists, grunts, and drives an elbow into the ribs of the one choking him. The grip slips just enough. With a roar, he hauls the man up and over his head, then hurls him into the one in front of him.
Metal crashes against metal. Sparks fly. Both guards go down in a tangle of limbs.
Now?
Now…Shit! Now!
People are surging in a chaotic melee. The alarm is still whooping. The two downed guards find their feet and launch themselves at Zeb. I dive for cover, finally finding the presence of mind to do what needs to be done.
Zeb
A guard slams me into the closed elevator doors, making them buckle under the force. The other is fumbling for his lost immobilizer rod.
I get my fingers round the throat of the asshole who’s got me pinned. He pummels my ribs.
A wave of weakness hits me. I lose my grip on the asshole trying to crack my ribs, but his momentum falters too.
We slide to the ground in a tangle of limbs.
The bastard is on top of me. His exoskeleton makes him fucking heavy and I’m struggling to breathe.
It takes a hot second to shut out the mind games coming from Esme’s.
Whatever she is doing to distract them is working.
I roll out from under the heavy fucker and rip out the power connector with my bare hands—not an easy feat. His cry is steeped in panic. They’re like downed turtles without the power.
I snap his neck. Stagger upright. My boot slams down on the side of the second guard’s skull, hard enough to make something crack. My ribs are screaming. Then I feel it—a hit to my back, sharp and electrical. Some other dick has just zapped me with an immobilizer rod.
Big mistake.
I whirl, rip the rod from his grip, dial it to full, and shove it straight into his gut. He screams like a fucking banshee and flails about. Around us, the room turns to chaos. Some captives are slumped unconscious, others giggling in a state of hysteria.
Time to take control.
“Esme, talk to me,” I bark, eyes sweeping for movement or threat. “Are you hurt?”
“No,” she replies, but her voice trembles. “No, I’m fine.”
Good. I start corralling the room, dragging, shoving people into a corner, and tying people up with whatever I can find: belts, sleeves, cables. The two guards are down. The third man who took a full voltage hit is out, but alive. I bind him and drag him over to join the rest of the crew.
The alarm’s still blaring with the internal lockdown engaged.
Now I just need to reroute this ship before Uncorrupted command figures out what’s happening and scrambles support.
“You can stop now, Esme,” I call out. “I need to talk to them.”
The ones still conscious come down fast from whatever mind-trip she hits them with. Terror blooms across their faces as they take in the scene… There’s a fair bit of blood on the floor and me... And the guards are gruesome in their death.
I home in on the captain—a smug, hard-jawed bastard with a non-dynamic chip on his shoulder and a sneer on his lips.
“What is the meaning of this, Jord? The omega? Again? You won’t make it off the ship with her. They’ll hunt you down and—uff!”
I fist his throat, slam him back against the wall, then drag him over to the control panel.
“Not trying to escape, genius. I’m heading straight into hell and I’m taking you with me. I just need your palm print. Now, you decide whether I use your hand while it’s still attached to the rest of you.”
He stiffens. The sneer is gone. “What do you want?”
“Palm to the plate,” I growl. “I’ll do the rest. And don’t start thinking, asshole. Ripping your arm from its socket and leaving you to bleed out is still an option.”
His trembling hand slaps onto the plate. The console pings to life.
I shove him in the direction of his buddies and enter a course straight into the heart of the Empire.
“That’s… that’s a course for the center of the Empire,” he mutters, face turning pale. “Jord, we’re all going to die! You’ve just plugged in the coordinates for Chimera!”
“So I have,” I say, initiating hyperdrive. “And you’re all coming with me.”
As we hit light speed, reality bends and then snaps back into focus.
“They will blast us out of space! They will kill us all! They will…” He’s building up to full hysterics. His bound buddies in the corner are all screaming with renewed terror.
I shut that shit down with one solid punch to his face. He crumples.
At least the screaming has stopped. The alarm is still blaring but I don’t dare to try shutting it off. If I fuck up and accidentally reverse the lockdown it’s going to get real busy real quick in here.
“Zeb?” Esme’s voice is tentative behind me.
I turn, close my fingers around the back of her neck, and drag her against me.
“The ship’s in lockdown. No one moves. No one escapes. I’ve plotted the course for home,” I say, keeping my voice low and for her ears only. “They won’t fire on us, baby. Not when they scan my signature. This vessel—and everyone on it—is about to become property of the Empire.”