BAY #2
That sound keeps repeating, and finally, I can’t take it anymore, so I set the guitar down and decide to check it out.
About a week ago, one of our neighbors lost their dog. They put flyers up all along the street with his picture. I wonder if that’s what I’m hearing. Maybe he got stuck somewhere in the bushes. I like our neighbors and their dog, so I want to help.
Soon I reach the edge of our property. The bushes grow thick around the fence, and I push my way through, then climb over to the other side.
There’s an empty lot next to ours, about fifty yards wide. It belongs to our neighbor, but he never does anything with it, just keeps it mowed. Beyond that, though, there’s a dark little grove, thick and shadowy.
I start walking that way, squinting because the sun’s behind me and everything ahead is drowned in shade.
Something feels wrong.
A twist of unease coils in my gut, and that weird itching on my skin gets even worse.
I stop for a second. It’s like something dark is shifting toward me, like a thin, rippling black veil. I blink, but there’s nothing there. Maybe it’s just a trick of the light after staring toward the sun too long.
The itching spreads over my skin again, sharper this time. What the hell is this? Some kind of stupid irritation or what?
Then I see it again, or at least I think I do, a dark, drifting shape moving toward me from the grove, like a tattered streak of smoke floating through the air. I blink hard, and it’s gone. Damn it, am I seeing things?
With cautious movements, I approach the grove, reaching the first line of shrubs.
There, I hesitate. Every instinct in me screams not to go in. Something deep down is warning me: stay out!
But why? I try to think logically. What could be in there? A bear? A cougar? I’ve never been the type to get strong gut feelings, that’s more of Snow’s thing. He’s famous in the family for his supernatural intuition.
I squeeze my eyes shut, take a few deep breaths to calm myself, and still try to reason it out. It’s just a grove, nothing special.
But that’s when I make the biggest mistake of my life. I let my guard down.
A tall man steps out from behind the bushes. Before I can react, he grabs me by the shoulders. Another man appears right after him, grabs my legs, and with one hard jerk, they lift me off the ground. In a blink, they drag me into the bushes with them. Branches whip across my face.
I try to yell, but the first man clamps a hand over my mouth. I thrash, kicking and twisting, trying to claw his arm, maybe scratch his face, but the other one pins my arms down.
They drag me deeper into the trees, farther and farther away from the grove. About a hundred yards ahead, I can see the edge of the state forest stretching for miles to the south.
Those moments when they’re carrying me are a blur of shock and disbelief. It doesn’t even feel real. My life has always been calm and safe, boring, even. The only real drama I remember was when River ran away.
So maybe that’s why my brain can’t process what’s happening. It’s like I’m watching a scene from a movie, like reality just glitched.
They stop in the shadow of tall trees.
I’m thrown to the ground, and when I try to get up, a brutal kick slams into my chest, knocking the air out of me.
"Don’t move, or you won’t get out of here alive," the taller one says coldly.
"What do you want? Money? My parents can pay you!" I shout.
The shorter man laughs, a rough, throaty laugh. His head’s shaved, a few teeth missing, and there’s a faded tattoo on his neck.
It’s the first real look I get at them. I don’t recognize either. Both look around fifty, still strong and broad-shouldered. There’s no way I could fight them off.
I’m a skinny fourteen-year-old still in the middle of a growth spurt. Fighting isn’t an option. I’ll have to talk my way out of this.
"Who are you? What do you want from me?"
The shorter one keeps chuckling while the taller guy says, "We might as well tell you. We’re old friends of your dad’s. We came here to settle some unfinished business from the past."
"I don’t get it. What kind of business? Like a debt or something?"
He smirks. "You could call it that. He took a lot of money from us. We once won the lottery, but he robbed us of most of it. We managed to hide about half a million, but the rest well, I’m guessing a good part of it went into that lovely property your family lives on."
I stare at them because I honestly don’t understand any of this. I know nothing about my dad’s past. He once told me his story wasn’t the best, but that I would learn all the details when I turned eighteen.
Still, driven by curiosity, I asked Jordan, our housekeeper and my uncle, what he meant by that.
Jordan told me I should patiently wait for my dad to tell me himself, because, and this is his exact quote, Dad wants our childhood to pass without a shadow that would put the burden of knowing what happened in his life before he met my father.
Now those words come back to me. What if these people are part of that shadow?
"So what do you want from us, money?"
"Sure, that’s obvious, but that could be hard to pull off, and we’d have the police back on our backs again. We don’t even know if we want to get involved with that. What we want is the sweet taste of revenge. We’re not the kind of people who forget a grudge."
The taller of the alphas, the one who has been silent until now, stands with his arms crossed and then says,
"I have to admit, dear Lake produced a litter of really handsome kids. You’re probably growing into an alpha, but that face of yours is seriously cute… a beautiful alpha? Really fucking pretty… Looks like a case of good genes from the parents."
Only now, watching them, I notice a family resemblance between them. Could they be brothers?
"Did my dad do something to you in the past?"
The first one who spoke to me, a shorter guy with a tattoo, shrugs.
"You could say that! Because of him our whole lives fell apart. We let him go willingly, our dealings were closed, but he simply couldn’t forget and move on.
Instead of being a good, obedient omega keeping his mouth shut, he started talking to the police, and then…
the infamous Omega Red Line Agency got involved.
Everything went downhill, unfortunately for us.
The agency’s lawyers picked us clean and threw us in jail.
But… now we’ll at least take a little of what’s ours… "
I still don’t understand what they mean. I just stare, trying to find a way out of this, to say something that will save me, to say something that will fix everything, to turn back time so I never walked into this grove. Why didn’t I listen to Dad’s intuition and stay close to the house?
The taller, quieter alpha pulls something from the backpack on his shoulders. It’s a camera with a long lens. He flips the screen toward me and shows a photo of… my dad sitting on the patio.
My heart stops.
"I have to admit, True Mate magic has kept your dad in perfect shape.
He doesn't seem to have aged much from when we first met him…
What a sweet little omega he was, so innocent and delicious.
We may have broken him a little, but your father seems to have fixed everything right up, now our precious Lake is blooming!
The lower alpha chuckles menacingly.
"We're going to enjoy sampling his sweet hole all over again!"
I feel like I'm about to faint… My voice is trapped in my chest, I want to scream, I want to say something, but all that comes out is a silent cough, my whole body burning up.
Finally, I manage to croak out a protest.
"N-No! Please…"
"You don't get a say here, kid. You'll wait here quietly with us until your daddy gets back."
"No! Please, you can't hurt him, my dad… my dad is the best person in the world! He's…"
"No begging, little boy. It's useless. We'll do whatever we want with him. Now shut up."
Both alphas laugh coldly, their eyes empty, faces frozen in cruel masks devoid of humanity. Did they already have it before? Or did the prison just make them worse?
The shorter alpha stares at me, eyes squinting as if he’s thinking something through, then leans down toward me and growls,
"You know what? Maybe I could consider giving up your dad’s hole… but I’d need a replacement, ‘cause years in prison leave a man starved…"
I stare at him like he’s some kind of alien.
His words barely register, all this talk about sex…
it’s not a topic I think about much. Just faint, hesitant flickers in my mind over the past year, maybe two.
Sure, I jerk off sometimes in the morning, still…
sex? It’s not something I can actually picture happening to me. But what are they really demanding?
I know what rape is.
And it hits me, that’s what they want.
My whole body trembles, every part of me is shaking, my throat painfully tight, my head spinning like I’m about to pass out.
The taller alpha shoves the camera display in my face, my dad’s thoughtful, beautiful face, his long braid draped over his shoulder. It’s like a punch to the gut.
"I see it’s finally sinking in. So here’s your choice: we leave your daddy alone… but we take your virgin ass instead."
From what they’re saying, I’m starting to piece together what must have happened in the past. They hurt my dad once, and only after that did he meet my father and turn his life around.
I can’t let that happen to him again. After all, I’m an alpha, young, but that means something.
Our duty is to protect omegas… no matter the cost. That’s how my father raised me.
I clench my jaw. "Leave my dad alone. I can’t… I can’t let anything happen to him."
"Oh, how noble! Looks like we’ve got a little guardian angel here. A true protector! I’ve heard Fate sends them down to Earth from time to time to save the innocent, to protect the world from doom, and all that bullshit."
The other one chortles loudly, but I stay silent, clenching my jaw as hard as I can.