TWO
DAKOTA
For one ridiculous second, I stay exactly where I am, forehead still pressed to the refrigerator door. The newly found blockers feel like they’re burning a hole in my pocket, tucked against my chest like stolen gold. For a moment, I wonder if maybe, just maybe, I can pretend I didn’t hear them.
“Told you I saw smoke,” the first voice argues, clearly male with a low and rough timbre.
Great. Juuuust great. That’s literally just what I need.
Clicking my flashlight off, biting my lip in annoyance at the sound it makes, I sink into a crouch, easing the storage door closed slowly until only a sliver of light remains.
It’s an honest miracle the door doesn’t groan as it shuts, but it’s enough to slow my heartbeat in a way it does when the fear gets too sharp.
It’s as if my body decides panic is inefficient and stores it for later.
NOVAC, maybe? Trauma? Fuck me, it’s more than possible.
Either way, I’ll take the calming effect it has on my rapidly beating heart, my body stilling and my breath slowing enough that I don’t feel like my designation poses a threat to my well-being.
Leaning toward the small gap in the door, I listen to the voices out front.
“Told you I saw smoke,” the first voice argues, clearly male with a low and rough timbre.
“Everyone saw smoke, dumbass,” the second snaps. “Doesn’t make you a genius. Doesn’t mean anything good’s left, either.”
“Maybe whoever set it is still nearby,” the first counters.
A pause follows before a third voice speaks, amused in a way that makes my knife hand twitch. “Then we find them, too.”
Yeah, I don’t think so.
Ducking back a little, I focus on the footsteps, counting them as I pick apart the rhythm through the floorboards and the hallway.
Definitely three. Quite possibly even four.
Heavy boots. Careless with their movements.
It sounds like one of the idiots kicks glass across the floor, the sound so loud and jarring in the silence that I almost flinch.
Whoever they are, they’re clearly not worried about Zeds yet, which tells me two things.
They’re fucking idiots.
And they have to be armed enough to survive being idiots.
Easing back from behind the door, I scan the storage room. There aren’t any windows, there’s no back exit, and no ceiling vents big enough unless I plan to fold myself in half like an Omega-shaped origami. That seems a little excessive, even for me.
The only way out of here is through the idiots.
I sigh. I hate my life.
Swiping my tongue across my top teeth, I listen to the voices as they move closer.
“Storage back here,” one calls, and I grit my teeth against the volume he chooses to speak at. Fucker will draw the Zeds here with a sentence alone, the stupid bastard.
Slipping the keys into my pocket, I replace them with my knife, carefully maneuvering to stand behind the door.
I push my back flat to the wall, or at least however much my backpack will allow.
I’m cursing myself for not hunting for bullets so I could actually use my gun, which is feeling pretty damned useless right now. Alas, the knife will have to do.
Quiet. Close. Personal.
Three of my least favorite things.
I love that for me.
Sadly, I don’t have much time to wallow in my misfortune, because in the next breath, the door opens and a man steps into the storage room. He’s broad and filthy with a rifle hanging loose in one hand, and the scent that comes from him makes me want to gag. Sweat, leather, and Alpha.
The moment the scent hits me, my body knows before my brain does. Recognition tears through me, sharp and horrible, every buried Omega instinct inside me going deathly still all at once.
Not safe.
Not safe, not safe, not safe.
His head turns slightly, nostrils flaring, and for one single moment, I wait for the blockers to finally fail me. They hold. Well, mostly. But his brow furrows, and that’s enough.
I’m moving before he can even understand why.
My knife slams into the inside of his wrist, not deep enough to kill, but deep enough to make his fingers spasm open.
The rifle drops, and I catch it swiftly with my boot before it clatters to the floor, right before I slam my elbow into his throat and shove him backward into the shelves.
He wheezes, so I hit him again, and the bastard goes down hard. Much to my annoyance, he hits every fucking shelf on the way down, knocking over several boxes in the process.
“Dale?” someone calls from the hallway.
Fucking Dale. Of course that’s his name. He even looks like a Dale.
I snatch the rifle from the floor, checking it over by quickly running my hands over it. I almost smile when I find the safety, thanking the universe for the small mercy of the thing being loaded. Maybe the universe and I can be friends again after all.
Just as that thought crosses my mind, a second man appears in the doorway.
The rifle is pointed at his chest before he can take his next breath, and he freezes.
He’s younger than Dale, with a scruffy beard that appears patchy as hell, his eyes widened enough to display his alarm.
I inhale, trying to scent what he is, and when I can’t smell anything but the rancid stench of decay mixed with damp chemicals and Dale’s Alpha stink, I deduce that he very well might be a Beta.
“Move a single inch and I’ll decorate the walls with you,” I warn lowly, roughened by the bandana and six years of practicing.
It took some work getting my voice to sound like a little Beta boy, and the disuse helps.
Other than talking to myself, I haven’t spoken above the lowest decibel imaginable in I don’t even know how long.
It’s a good thing right now, though, since it’s making me look small and pitiful. Armed, yes, but unimpressive. Clearly not worth the trouble, that’s for sure.
The man lifts his hands slowly, eyes dropping to the rifle pointed at his chest before he looks back up at me. Behind him, a third voice asks, “Who the fuck are you?”
“No one,” I answer roughly. “Someone who’s leaving.”
“That your fire down the road?” the guy I’m holding hostage asks with a heavy dose of caution.
I pause before answering. “Nope. I’m just a really big fan of community arson and decided to check out the latest bonfire.”
Silence answers me right before the third guy laughs, and a shudder works its way down my spine. Another follows when the guy steps in behind my hostage Beta, and somehow the room suddenly feels a whole lot smaller.
Alpha. Fuck.
He’s bigger than Dale. Meaner looking, too.
That smile alone churns my stomach enough that I almost gag.
He has a mean-looking scar that runs through his eyebrow, a sawed-off shotgun in his hands, and his dark eyes drag over me a little too carefully for my liking.
Because he doesn’t eye my face, nor the rifle.
Oh no. This creep eyes my body, my clothes, the way I’m holding myself, my bandana, the hat secured to my head.
It’s like he’s trying to look through the layers.
I keep the rifle aimed at the Beta, but every important part of my attention is trained on the Alpha behind him. I’m locked in on the bigger threat in the room.
“Cute little thing, aren’t you?” he asks, his head tilting slightly as he makes a show of sniffing the air.
My jaw tightens and a fierce anger rushes through me. Thing. That’s all I am to him. Not a boy. Not a man. Not even a human. A thing. With everything in me, I hate him with a passion that could burn cities to the ground.
“Move,” I demand shortly.
“Or what?” the Alpha challenges, narrowing his eyes on me.
I jerk my head over to where Dale remains sprawled on the floor and tilt my head in a mirror image before I say, “Or Dale here bleeds out while you debate whether or not I’m bluffing.”
Dale, bless his heart, makes a garbled sound that I believe is a weighted dose of offense. It’s a wet sound, a clear indication of what state he’s in, and the scarred Alpha’s smile thins. For maybe half a second, I think he’s going to let me pass.
But then his nostrils flare. Slowly. Deliberately.
And suddenly, my blood runs as cold as ice.
The blockers are good, and the bandana helps. The room reeks of chemical rot, blood, dust, Dale, fear, and mold. But, despite my efforts, I’m afraid. And fear? That shit sharpens scents.
And I watch the very moment my life is about to grow real fucking difficult.
The scarred Alpha’s pupils widen and I react before either man in the room can catch their next breath.
I fire the rifle before the recognition rapidly becomes certainty.
Not at him or the Beta, but at the ceiling, the sound exploding through the tiny room with a brutal and deafening intensity.
Plaster bursts all around us, the two men in front of me flinch hard, and every Zed within hearing distance answers my shot with a chilling chorus of groans and shrieks.
“Are you insane?” the Beta damn near screams.
I nod only once and answer shortly, “Clinically. Thank you for noticing.”
And then I swing the rifle at his face, shove through the gap as he drops, and sprint like my life depends on it.
Behind me, the scarred Alpha curses right before I hear the horrifying blast of a shotgun.
The wall near my shoulder explodes, plaster spitting everywhere, and I flinch away from the splinters that bite through my jacket and spread fire across my upper arm.
I don’t stop, though. I continue to run, because stopping is how people die.
Stopping is how girls in oversized clothes become Omegas trapped in cages.
Without hesitation, I vault over the pharmacy counter. I grit my teeth when I skid onto the glass-strewn floor, hissing a breath when pain shoots up my knee. I don’t have time to assess the damage, though, because in the doorway that is only a mere twenty feet away, a Zed appears.
Looks like my ceiling shot worked a little too well.
“Fuck,” I hiss, and before I can think better of it, I throw the stupid damned rifle at its legs.