FORTY-NINE #2
Of course she’s there now. No announcement, no footsteps, no basic respect for the laws of appearing on a scene. Just Ellis, standing next to Mercer with a medical bag in one hand and her annoyance stamped on her forehead like a flashlight for the stupid and stubborn.
Dakota blinks at her. “What the fuck? Did you just crawl out of the wall or something?”
“I considered it,” Ellis answers with a shrug. “The wall seemed cleaner, honestly.”
“You spooky bitch,” Dakota breathes. That gets a lip twitch out of the hard-to-please pixie with awful bedside manner, but then Tiny Terror mutters, “Anyway, send all of your reports to the complaints box.”
“There is no complaints box,” Mercer points out.
“Oh, there will be when I’m done.”
Ellis looks at Dakota from where she stands, her mouth flattening. “That’s terribly bold of you, given that you’re currently being held together by spite and poor circulation.”
“Damn, diva. Knock a girl when she’s down, why don’t you?” Dakota groans, and a laugh moves through the crowd. Small, shocked, and alive.
I cling to it tightly.
Valeria orders the courtyard cleared and secured. Not empty, just secured. There’s a difference, and I like her better for understanding it.
Xeon carries Dakota to the low concrete steps outside command and sits her down as carefully as if the whole compound was made of blades and freshly sharpened spikes. He crouches in front of her for a second, searching her face.
She blinks at him, still pale and trembling. And then she whispers, “Found me.”
His throat works around a harsh swallow, but he nods and says, “Always.”
Something in her softens around that single word. Maybe because he really did find her. Maybe because, with Xeon, finding her has always been a choice made in complete silence.
Maine sits on her other side, one arm hovering around her shoulder until she leans sideways and lets him touch her. The guy folds around that permission like it’s the only thing keeping him upright, hugging her to his side with a shuddering sigh I can relate to.
He stays crouched in front of her for a moment longer, quiet eyes searching her face.
Fletcher stands at her back while Kaito takes her other side. I stand in front of her once Xeon rises, because if she starts to fall, I need to be where I can catch her. Not that she’d appreciate my really good planning, but beggars can’t be choosers.
Hale is brought to the courtyard in cuffs. He looks smaller without command wrapped around him. Still annoyingly neat. Stiff as a board. And still wearing that expression men wear when they think consequences are just interruptions in their lives.
Two members of the senior council stand near Valeria’s guards, pale-faced and silent. One of them blatantly refuses to even look at Dakota, and the other keeps staring at Hale like he’s a locked door they’ve only just realized was hiding a fire behind it.
Good.
Let them watch too.
Hale’s gaze moves over the crowd and then lands on Dakota. For one second, something like satisfaction crosses his face. It’s gone just as quickly as it appears, but not quickly enough.
Maine goes rigid next to her. His arm tightens around Dakota’s shoulder, and for one bloody awful second, I think he might try to stand with her still tucked against him. Kaito reaches across and catches his wrist before he can move and Maine snarls at him. Kaito doesn’t let go, though.
“Don’t give him a reaction,” Kaito says quietly. “He’s taken enough.”
Maine shakes, and then stops. Just barely.
Hale straightens. “This is absurd.”
I smile, but it doesn’t feel nice on my face. “Oh, lush. Strong start.”
Valeria stands beside him, rifle lowered but ready. “Commander Aaron Hale, you are accused of conspiring with an external hostile group, compromising compound security, facilitating the abduction of Dakota O’Reilly, unauthorized handling of NOVAC cargo, and endangerment of Haven Ridge residents.”
His mouth thins. “You have no understanding of what I was trying to prevent.”
Dakota laughs. It’s hoarse and painful and perfect.
Everyone looks over at her and she lifts her head.
“What?” she rasps. “You were trying to prevent me having choices?”
Hale’s eyes settle on her. “I was trying to prevent one pack from making a decision for the whole species.”
Fletcher’s scent flares hard enough that several step back. Dakota raises one hand without looking at him. Wait. So Fletcher waits. That only makes the crowd watch that little bit harder.
Hale notices, too. His face tightens and he practically spits, “Looks like she has you trained.”
“No,” Dakota argues. “They listen. I can see how that would confuse you.”
A few people inhale sharply and I grin despite the fear still crawling around inside me.
That’s our girl.
Hale’s voice hardens. “Humanity is dying. Omegas are almost gone. NOVAC wasn’t born from evil. It was born from desperation. From good intentions. From the knowledge that without drastic action, we would lose any chance at a future.”
Mercer looks sick and Dakota’s face empties. Not in the way NOVAC empties it, but more out of grief.
“Good intentions made the dead,” she reminds the stupid prick.
The courtyard goes silent but the ponce doesn’t back down. “Science failed. That doesn’t mean the goal was wrong.”
“The goal was ownership.”
“The goal was survival.”
“You keep using those words like they’re one and the same,” Dakota rasps, her lip tugging up in the smallest snarl.
His expression sharpens. “Because sometimes they are.”
“No,” Dakota says.
It’s just one word, small and unsteady, but it cuts him cleanly.
“No,” she says again, stronger this time. “They’re not the same. Not even close. Survival is food. Medicine. Shelter. Community. People choosing to help one another even when the world has turned its back on them.”
Her breath catches and I take a step closer. She shakes her head once, telling me not yet.
I stop.
Her fingers tighten around Maine’s as he rests it on her arm, still tucking her close to his side. With a little more confidence, she continues. “Ownership is what men call survival when they want the benefits without asking for permission.”
A sound moves through the crowd. Not a loud sound and not soft either. Recognition, maybe. The kind that has nowhere comfortable to go.
Hale looks around and sees it and I smile slowly. Good. Let him see where this leaves him.
“She is reactive to NOVAC markers,” Hale announces, voice rising for the first time. “Her blood could change things. Stabilize things. We can’t afford sentiment.”
“I’m not sentiment,” she snaps suddenly, her voice cracking over the yard like a whip. “I’m a fucking person.”
“You’re potentially the first Immune Omega we have ever seen.”
There it is.
Public.
Sharp.
Dangerous.
The word ripples through the courtyard. Immune.
Mercer swears under his breath and Ellis goes very, very still beside him. One of the council members says something too quietly for the rest of us to hear, but Valeria turns her head just enough to make him shut up.
Good.
I feel Dakota’s fear strum through the bond, fast and bright, and buried under rage before it can own her.
She pushes herself up until she’s standing, Maine’s arm sliding from her shoulder. Fletcher moves like he might reach out and hold her up, but she doesn’t lean back. Not yet.
“I might be,” she says. “And if I am, what I choose to give might help people.”
Hale fucking leaps on that shit. “Exactly.”
Her eyes narrow. Oh, she’s fuming now. “I wasn’t agreeing with you, you clipboard-hugging dick-licker.”
A startled laugh breaks out from someone near the back of the crowd, and I have to put a hand over my mouth, wiping the smile away. Now is not the time, Ewan boy. Not the time. But it also kind of is, because my girl is a funny little cactus.
Hale flushes red, fury bleeding into his face. “You’re behaving like a child.”
“And you’re behaving like every other man who thinks putting humanity in a sentence makes him less of a kidnapper.”
That shuts him up beautifully.
Dakota’s voice shakes again, but she keeps speaking.
“My body is not compound property. My blood is not public stock. My heat is not a resource. My bonds are not weaknesses you get to manage. My future is not something you can trade away just because you memorized a few scary speeches about survival.”
The courtyard holds its breath and Dakota looks at all the people watching.
Not at Hale.
Them.
All of them.
“If I give blood for research, it is because I choose to. If Mercer tests anything, he does it with my consent, in front of me, with my name on it and my limits written down. No secret samples. No codes. No outside transfers. No sharing my information with anyone unless I say yes.”
Mercer nods instantly. “Agreed.”
Ellis nods too, sharper and meaner. “Written consent. Witnessed. Logged. Locked.”
Dakota points at her weakly. “See? Even the spooky wall ghoul understands paperwork.”
Ellis doesn't even blink. “The spooky wall ghoul also understands preventable blood loss. Just throwing that out there. For anyone, you know, bleeding.”
Then she gives Dakota a pointed look that goes ignored.
Hale scoffs. “This is naive.”
Dakota turns back to him. “No. Naive was thinking the woman you sold would come home quiet.”
Oh, that one lands beautifully. I could fucking kiss her for it.
Later. When she’s not concussed, drugged, bleeding, and actively scaring the piss out of a courtyard full of people into rediscovering morals. What a queen.
Valeria looks at Dakota with a clear face. “What do you want done with him?”
Hale stiffens. “You can’t be serious. She’s compromised.”
“She’s the victim of your crime,” Valeria snaps coldly, choosing her side without having to utter the words. “And the person you tried to remove from this compound without explicit orders, sound reasoning, or consideration for her free will.”
“I did what command required.”
“Don’t make me laugh,” Dakota says through a tired scoff. “You did what control required. Step off that pedestal you’ve placed yourself on.”