Chapter Nine
Eden
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There's eight alphas surrounding the three of them. She doesn't like those odds, but she's seen Luke go up against more than that singlehandedly and win. But then she sees the sawed-off piece of metal pipe in their hands. And her blood freezes in her veins.
They surround the three of them, the stink of aggressive alpha pheromones rising in the air around them, choking her. The men look at her with twisted hunger and she can feel their malicious intent rolling off of them in waves, the same as they had on that first day.
She was no stranger to violence. She had grown up in bad neighbourhoods, had worked in a school full of ten-year-old kids who were already blooded gang members.
But this was different. There was nowhere to run, and suddenly, faced with the possibility of Luke or Julius getting injured, the stakes felt impossibly high.
Her alphas, for their own part, don't seem scared at all. Their faces harden and they shift her so she's nestled between their backs as they close in around her in a practiced motion. They've done this before, she thinks.
She suddenly realizes she has no idea who these men once were outside this place, what lives they've lived, but even still, she trusts them with her life.
"Eden," Julius is speaking out of the side of her mouth so only she could hear him. "Stay behind us. And as soon as you get the chance, I need you to run and find Tenor."
"There's no need to fight, fellas. I can see she's yours," one of them offers, his hands opening in a friendly gesture, even as their scents stay aggressive and challenging. "We can pay. We just want a taste for yourselves. We're happy to share. It's been a long time since we've seen an omega."
He makes eye contact with her. The man is tall, with greasy gunmetal gray hair and a weak chin. His smile reveals yellowing teeth. When he sees her shivering, his eyes flash. "I could be real good to you, little girl."
"Walk away now," Luke says, his voice calm. "And no one will get hurt."
She sees the man's lip curl. "Oh, you'll get hurt alright."
And then he lunges. Eden screams, terror ripping through her. But without seeming to have moved, Luke has him on the ground, the shiv the man had been holding now clutched in Luke's hand.
And then everything happens too fast. There is movement from all sides. At one point, she hears Julius grunt an awful sound and he stumbles back towards her, but rights himself quickly, and she hears a loud clatter as another metal bar is tossed across the floor.
She thinks the fight is over for a moment, until suddenly she is caught up in someone's arms. They stink of cheap coffee and body odour and tobacco and blood and Eden gags.
She throws her whole weight against him, trying to free herself, but he has her by the hair, his other arm coming across her throat to choke her against his chest.
Her legs kick uselessly as she's hoisted against his body, and she redoubles her efforts when she feels his erection grinding into her. Oh god, please no, she silently prays. Her eyes seek out Julius and Luke, desperation rising in her chest.
And then she's falling, the ground rapidly rising up to meet her. But she never makes it, because warm arms catch her, and she smells safety and earthy patchouli and poisonous lilies as they pull her up to them.
"I've got you," she hears Julius say, the scent of his spicy bouquet reaching her nose. "You're safe, sweetheart."
When she doesn't respond, his voice turns concerned. "Baby? Eden? Are you okay? Did he hurt you?"
She feels gentle hands probing her scalp and then along her throat in a practiced motion, checking her for injuries like they've done this a thousand times before.
"Can you breathe?"
She takes a breath. Yes, she can. She nods.
"Can you swallow?"
She tries, and finds that she can, although it hurts. She nods again.
Luke breathes out a sigh of relief.
She opens her eyes. When had she closed them? She didn't know.
There were bodies strewn around them, some covered in blood, some with limbs that stuck out at odd angles.
Julius is crouching next to one, and she realizes he's removing one of the shivs from the man's leg. He wipes it on the man's pants to get the blood off of it.
"Here," he grunts, holding out the shard of sharpened metal out to her, as if he were passing her a piece of bread in the mess hall. "Tuck this in your shoe. Keep it on you at all times."
She doesn't move to take the weapon, so Julius does it for her, carefully tucking it in in her shoe so the knife is concealed by her pant leg but not at risk of slicing her.
"I think she's in shock," she hears Luke say.
Julius doesn't respond to that.
"Should we take her to the infirmary?"
"The fuck are they going to do for her? No. We'll get her some food and take her to her nest. She'll be okay there."
"She needs to shower, wash her hair," Luke says. "She's covered in blood. We're all covered in blood."
Julius growls at that. "It's not safe. You want another fight? Put a naked omega in the showers, you're asking for a fight."
"It's lunchtime," Luke reasons. "No one will be in there right now."
She realizes he's touching her, running his hands up and down her arms and back, pausing his circuit to hold her hands between his. She realizes how cold her hands are, how warm and big his feel when they surround hers.
She's shaking. Is it really that cold?
Oh, maybe it's because she's wet. Her polyester jumpsuit is sticking to her body with fluids but she refuses to think about what they might be. She refuses to look down. The idea chills her to the bone, but it's not really that cold.
No, Luke said she was in shock. That must be why she's shivering. People do that when they're in shock, right? Her thoughts feel disconnected and jumbled, like they've all been shaken up and put back in wrong.
Julius acquiesces. They leave quickly, stopping by their cell to grab a change of clothes.
She vaguely realizes what a miracle it is they don't see anyone in the halls to stop them. A guard, another prisoner, anyone to notice all the blood on them. Or maybe they do, and she just doesn't notice.
Luke and Julius comment on how quiet it is, their voices rumbling with uneasiness too low for her to make out what they say. Concern sours their scents.
The showers smell strongly of mold. There is not much privacy, just small waist-high barriers between each shower stall. It wouldn't do anything to cover her. But there is no one in here at this time.
Luke turns on one of the faucets and undresses her and then himself, then leads her under the spray. It's warm, and she realizes how violently her whole body is still shaking now.
Luke and Julius both begin to purr, sandwiching her between them and maneuvering them in the stall so almost all the water lands on her, but they don't seem to care.
One of them makes quick work of washing her hair while the other soaps up her body.
She can barely feel it, her head floating so far above her body she thinks it might hit the ceiling.
They don't do more than a cursory scrub of themselves, just ensuring the stink of blood and alpha aggression is rinsed off of them before they step out of the stall.
One of them wraps her in a rough towel and dries her quickly before the other helps her step into a clean jumpsuit.
She doesn't see what they do with the dirty ones.
Her body feels heavy and numb. She can't quite move her limbs right and her feet drag as she walks. They guide her out of the nasty mouldy shower room and back through the hallway towards her nest. She'll be safe in her nest. It smells like them. Like their pack.
It will be safe there. She repeats the thought over and over again.
"Hendricks, Jameson, North," a guard barks, jogging up to them as they're exiting the showers. "Hold up. Random search!"
Luke and Julius meet each other's gaze quickly before averting them, a silent discussion taking place between them again but Eden can't find it in her to care enough to try and decipher it.
They line up against the wall and place their palms flat against it, ensuring that Eden is positioned close enough between them to feel their body heat.
Eden feels herself somehow still shivering, despite the shower having begun to warm her up. When would it stop? It feels like she's going to throw up, even her stomach is shaking.
Did they put that knife back in her shoe? Was she about to be sent to solitary? She didn't know if she could survive it.
But the guard doesn't actually search them beyond doing a cursory pat down to them, taking extra time to feel over Eden's ass and breasts in a way that makes her squeeze her eyes shut, tears leaking out the sides.
"You three been by the east block hall lately?"
"We were there after our morning work shift," Luke says evenly, his voice carefully casual. "And then we came here and decided to have a shower before lunch. Worked up a sweat at the welder and all."
"And when you were there," the guard growls, "did you happen to see eight bodies on the floor? Alphas. Quite the mess."
Luke feigns surprise. "No, sir. We didn't see anyone there."
"You're telling me," the guard says, "that sometime in the two minutes after you left the east block, someone put eight bodies on the floor, and you don't know anything about it? You didn't see a thing?"
"We were in the showers, officer," Luke repeats.
The guard grunts, clearly not believing them, but apparently not caring enough to pursue it further. "If I find out differently, the three of you will be spending an awful long time in the hole, and your omega here is gonna' have a lot of time alone to think about her choices, isn't she?"
And then he walks away, leaving Eden standing there, her heart racing and her stomach in her throat. The threat in his tone was clear. She was fucked. Probably literally.
She doesn't know how they get back to her nest. All she knows is a feeling of comfort when she's finally tucked into the blankets that smell like her pack.
Julius folds himself in behind her, and he holds her to him like he's a life vest and she's drifting in the middle of the ocean.
He tries to purr, but it comes out too much like a growl and she feels her fear rising again.
But then Luke is there too, sandwiching her in between them again, and his purr feels like a warm blanket.
They hold her so close that she can hardly breathe between them and she thinks it might be the only thing holding her together.
Sleep drags her under like a cinderblock tied around her ankle.