THIRTY-SEVEN
DAKOTA
The compound literally has rules for absolutely everything.
Doors.
Meals.
Showers.
Medical checks.
Weapons storage.
Farting in enclosed areas.
Who’s allowed to walk down which hallways and who gets to pretend like the answer is all about safety instead of control.
It takes me less than a whole day to understand that Haven Ridge doesn’t run on faith, trust, and pixie dust. It runs on carefully crafted systems. And we all know systems are just cages with the necessary paperwork.
The morning after Maine comes back, I find myself sitting in a meeting room with a cracked plastic table, two guards standing sentinel outside the door, one camera in the corner, and the incredibly strong desire to gnaw through a wall just to see if anyone decided to jot that down in a report.
My hair is hidden again, hat tucked back on my head, and my bandana is pulled over half of my face like before. My scent is smothered as best as I can manage with blockers that feel like they’re losing every valid argument inside my bloodstream.
It kind of feels weird now. Wrong in a way it didn’t yesterday.
Last night, my hair was loose in a greenhouse under the warmth of grow lights.
My bandana remained around my neck and Xeon’s hands were on me like I wasn’t a walking wound, or a name in a file, or a thing to be handled with heavy doses of pity.
For a few stolen moments, I finally had skin rather than armor.
Now the armor is back.
The hat.
The bandana.
The lowered chin.
The small Beta boy outline everyone seems to find much easier to understand before I fucked it all up by daring to even exist out loud.
You’d think I’d feel safer with it all back in place, but I don’t. Too many people caught an eyeful, and too many smelled my scent. Too many looked at that small Beta boy from the road and watched something else claw its way out from under the disguise I worked hard to perfect for six entire years.
Haven Ridge has rules.
But I seem to have become the exception.
And that’s never a good thing.
Fletcher stands close to the wall on my left, arms folded and face calm in the same way mountains are calm before they send an avalanche down on an unexpected village just daring to exist. He hasn’t tried to stand in front of me once since we stepped into the room.
I noticed, and I can’t help but find it incredibly annoying of him.
Xeon is with Maine because I asked him to check whether or not my brother is still breathing without making it look like he’s checking whether or not the idiot is breathing.
Ewan went scouring for food after announcing that grief for breakfast should legally include something fried or sugary.
Kaito is still sleeping off the blood loss under the intimidating and incredibly aggressive supervision of Ellis, who has decided threats definitely count as professional bedside manner. I’m not even mad about it.
But all of that leaves Fletcher.
Big. Quiet. Southern. And standing close enough to become a wall if I ever want or need one. But not close enough to make me feel all boxed in and suffocated. It grates at me that I can feel the difference now.
Across the table, Commander Hale reads from a folder as if folders have ever saved anyone from taking a fist to the face. “You will remain in the interior wing until Mercer has finished the preliminary testing.”
“No.”
Hale’s eyes lift and I simply stare back. His jaw tightens before he declares, “This is not optional.”
Fletcher shifts, only a little bit. A single breath of movement, and then he stops himself. I feel it happen before he even speaks.
“You can explain the risks,” he says, voice low. “Then she can decide what she’s willing and what she’s not willing to do.”
Hale looks at him with an unimpressed expression that prickles at my nerves. “That’s not how compound security works.”
“No,” Fletcher says. “I’m startin’ to see that.”
A very unhelpful and distracting warmth spreads through my chest.
Rude.
Incredibly inconvenient.
Probably medically alarming.
Mercer, sitting at the end of the table with two coffee cups stationed in front of him and the haunted look of a man who just slept inside a filing cabinet, rubs at his forehead. “No one is locking Kota away anywhere.”
Hale gives him a flat look. “We don’t know whether her marker response can be tracked inside these walls.”
“Then maybe don’t solve that by locking her behind more of them,” the doctor counters.
I glance at Mercer. He looks tired. Good. If scientists are going to walk around just ruining lives like it’s just another day, they should at least look rumpled as shit while doing it.
Valeria Reyes is standing close to the door, silent and watchful. She hasn’t decided what I am quite yet, but I see the options play across her face. Threat. Victim. Asset. A problem with knives.
Honestly, that’s so fair.
Hale folds his hands over the file. “You’re connected to Dr. Conrad O’Reilly’s research, to Maine O’Reilly’s recovered fieldwork, and possibly to Vector’s tracking system. We need cooperation.”
I raise an eyebrow. “Then how about you try asking nicely.”
“This is nicely.”
“Nah,” I scoff. “This is politely threatening me with really shitty fluorescent lighting.”
Fletcher’s mouth doesn’t move, but his eyes certainly do, and I catch the amusement in them before he banishes it again. I’d be offended, but it’s kind of nice having someone actually appreciate my work.
Hale exhales through his nose. “You might not understand the scale of what exactly is happening here.”
Oh, lovely. There it is. The compound voice. Calm. Heavy. Certain. Full of authority that means shit to me. Men with folders love sounding like the world is too big for anyone else’s teeny-tiny brains.
I lean forward. “I think I fully understand the scale. I lived outside your walls for six years.”
The room falls quiet then, but not because I’m wrong. It’s because no one likes being reminded that their safety has an address. It has a pin stuck in a map on the wall.
Mercer clears his throat. “We can do this without turning her into a prisoner.”
Hale’s eyes suddenly cut to him. “Can we?”
Oh, this fucker.
Before Mercer can answer, the door opens suddenly. There’s no knock or announcement, just a man stepping into the room as if hinges are just things that mean something to other people.
I don’t know him, and that’s the first problem. The second is that he looks at me like he already thinks he does.
He’s broad-shouldered and clean in that compound way I’m starting to distrust, dark hair cropped close to his head and boots that have been polished enough to spit on the apocalypse.
His shirt is standard-issue, but he wears it like a second skin, sleeves pushed up and collar hanging open just enough to turn regulation into a mere suggestion he can opt in for.
Two men linger behind him in the hall. They’re not guards, because they certainly don’t stand like guards. They stand like men waiting to be impressed by whatever the hell this asshole does next.
The newcomer’s gaze moves over the room with a casual ownership I don’t like.
Hale.
Mercer.
Valeria.
Fletcher.
Then me.
He pauses there, not long enough that anyone polite could call it staring, but long enough for my skin to pay attention.
His eyes meet the brim of my hat, then the bandana over my mouth, and the line of my throat above the fabric.
Then he dips lower, and then back up, only slower this time.
Like he’s cataloging details and placing them into boxes while enjoying the process.
My stomach gives a small, brutal twist. Not with fear, but recognition. Because this is a different predator only with the same appetite as all the rest.
“Commander,” he says. “Heard there was a security review.”
Hale’s irritation sharpens to a point instantly. “Davis. This is closed.”
Davis. Oh, great. A name for the walking, talking rash.
“Didn’t look closed,” Davis counters.
“The door was literally closed,” I point out.
His gaze flicks back to me and there’s curiosity there now. That, and a heavy dose of amusement. Worse, there’s interest. It’s the kind of interest that doesn’t ask for permission before it morphs into attention.
“Well, look at that,” he says, smiling. “You talk.”
“When the mood strikes. It keeps men from assuming I’m just a part of the furniture.”
Fletcher shifts beside me then. Still not in front or behind, but right next to me. Davis notices the movement and his smile deepens as if he’s just learned something of value. Like he’s storing useful information away for later use.
I hate him on sight, which is honestly very efficient of me.
Hale stands. “Get out.”
Davis doesn’t budge. Not even an inch. “People are talking.”
“People should hydrate and brush their teeth,” I mutter.
His smile flickers then. Good.
“An outside survivor comes in with NOVAC markers, a missing field lead returns half-dead, and suddenly half of the west wing smells like a distressed Omega,” he recites, his eyes dropping to my bandana. “That often results in drawing out people’s curiosity.”
Every single muscle in Fletcher’s body falls still, and so does the rest of the room. Not because Davis guessed something he shouldn’t have, but because he had the audacity to say it out loud.
My body becomes very calm then. The kind of calm that scares the people who know me.
Unfortunately, Davis doesn't know me.
Yet.
Hale’s voice cuts sharply across the room. “Davis.”
“What?” Davis says lightly, raising both of his hands. “The compound has protocols for unbonded Omegas. Especially unstable ones.”
There’s the word of the day.
Unstable.
A little hook hidden in a sentence.
My fingers twitch under the table and Fletcher notices it. He doesn’t reach for my hand, and he doesn’t tell me no. Instead, quiet enough for only me to hear, he says, “Door’s behind you. Window to your right. I’m at your left.”
Information, not commands. Options.
The warmth in my chest heats to dangerous degrees, and I hate that too.