Chapter 21 Eighteen
Eighteen
Taryn
My body was not my own.
Every inch of it ached. My pulse pounded behind my eyes, under my fingernails, between my legs. Another cramp gripped my belly, less intense than they had been. Still sucked, though.
It must be close to the end, then. It had to be. I couldn’t survive much longer.
Please, fuck, let it be over soon.
I squeezed my eyes shut as another wave of heat and pain crashed over me, my vagina woefully empty as another spike took me over. The room was fuzzy, blurred, sometimes not even there.
Desperation that was mine rankled through me like loose change. Need knot. Need alpha. Need need need need—
Urgency that wasn’t mine pulsed through the two throbbing points on either side of my neck.
A bang crashed through my skull like a wrecking ball, pulling a whine out of me. My body jostled, joints firing painfully until I was still again.
More heat enveloped me. The scent of blackberries would’ve been soothing if they didn’t smell rotten and moldy. I looked down toward where my feet should’ve been, but there were no feet. Floor moved below me. But no feet.
I was flying.
No…not flying. Floating?
Had I actually died? Was I leaving my body?
No. I looked down into my lap, curled my fingers. I could still curl them, so I had to be in them.
We approached a set of silver rectangles, and I caught the meager reflection of myself in the matte finish.
A chest. I was tucked against a warm chest. Lin’s warm chest. My brand new bond mate, who even now pushed cool, soothing serenity toward me, like fresh mint. I relaxed slightly against him. Even if his body heat only added to my own too-hot skin.
The doors—oh! they were doors! elevator doors!—dinged open, and we entered.
Radio static sliced through my head. I whimpered.
Voices surrounded me, fast and urgent. They had been from the moment of the bang before I’d begun flying. I swallowed, closing my eyes and trying to focus on making out the words.
“—chopper inbound in eighteen minutes.”
My brain struggled to keep up. Chopper? Like…knives? Why would they need knives?
Surgeons used knives. Maybe they were going to cut the pain out of me. I sighed with relief, sinking back against my blackberry carriage.
Unnerving movement made my stomach flip. Another ding, and the doors opened again. I cringed into my alpha's chest at the harsh whistling that pierced my eardrums. My hair whipped, the air too harsh on my skin.
Wind?
“You’re okay, sweet omega,” Lin whispered in my ear, shielding me. Somewhere behind him, I heard some vague bangs and grunting. “We’re going home.”
Home. Tears burned behind my eyes. “Brea? Brooks?”
Lin’s smile was so beautiful. “Yeah, honey,” he said, voice shaking. “Yeah, we’re going to Brea and Brooks.”
Adrenaline made my body fuzzy, but sharpened my mind. I looked around as best I could. Hazy lights surrounded us. City lights. City at night. Lin wore scrubs. I was back in that horrid gown.
The ground was rough concrete. Walls surrounded us, but the sky opened above us. And the walls weren’t right. Shorter than my knees.
“ETA?” Caine’s voice called out. I looked over Lin’s shoulder. He and the guard were locking a huge chain through a door handle, the not-quite-black night sky a matte background behind them.
Roof. We were on a roof.
“Eleven minutes,” the guard replied. He motioned to Lin. “You three, out of view of the door.”
Caine grabbed Lin’s arm and pulled us behind an ugly metal cube off to one side. The guard slid down behind another such box across the roof from ours.
The wind muted my breaths. Lin cradled me. Caine held my hand, running his thumb over my knuckles.
Something banged on the chained-up door.
“Shit,” Caine muttered, moving so that he sheltered me entirely from view. He scanned the sky. “C’mon, asshole, if there was a time to be fucking punctual…”
Another bang. So loud. I covered my ears. Warm hands rubbed over my back.
Two loud metallic bangs, and footsteps flooded out on the other side of our hiding space. Then a horribly familiar voice spoke.
“You have nowhere to go from here,” the doc shouted over the wind. “End of the road. For all of you.”
Quick footsteps grew louder, until Caine stood behind me and the sound of fist meeting flesh made me flinch. A gun cocked. Caine froze.
“Up,” the new voice said.
Lin grasped me to his chest, standing from his kneeling position with me still in his arms. Caine stood in front of us, hands raised, another guard with another gun pointed right at him.
Neither was our friendly guard.
Sure could use a friend about now.
The doctor meandered our way, reproach in his gaze. “I’m disappointed, Ms. Maddox,” he said. “You’d performed so well. I had high hopes for our journey together.”
Well, excuse the fuck out of me.
Lin and Caine stood at attention, our fresh bonds vibrating with fear, with fury.
All thoughts of pain and the torment of the last who knew how long disappeared from my mind. The obscuring cloud of exhaustion and misery dissipated. Clarity unlike anything I’d ever known overwhelmed me.
Hilt would kill them. Then he’d take me back. Keep me in heat until I died screaming.
Fuck. That. Noise.
There was no time to second-guess, no time to waver in indecision or fear.
With everything I had left, I threw myself forward out of Lin’s unsuspecting grip.
Cement bit into my hands and my knees. I ignored the stinging pain as I scrambled up, making a clumsy drunken sprint to that too-low wall.
I stepped up, heart pounding as I looked down at the busy street many, many stories below.
Little lighted ants milling about beneath us.
My ears rang as I turned to face Hilt and the guards, who stood frozen along with my horrified alphas, five feet back from my perch.
I swallowed hard, stepping backward until my heels felt the very edge of the ledge.
“Stop!” Hilt cried out, eyes wide and panicked.
Funny, that he stood on solid ground and panicked, while I hovered an inch away from death and felt so calm.
This was always the only way out of this place. I’d denied it for a while, deluded myself that some miracle would come to save us all and bring us to a safe and happy place where none of the bullshit could touch us again.
Standing literally on the edge, body weak and wavering with nothing but air and concrete below, the truth finally won out. Fresh strength pushed through my veins.
“Think you’ll get anything useful off my body from this height?” I asked, raising my voice to be heard over the howling wind.
Hilt cursed under his breath, and his guard took a step forward. I moved one foot backward, my toes gripping the concrete of the ledge and my heel hovering over a deadly drop.
“No!” Hilt shouted, pulling the guard back. “She’s mad enough she’d fucking do it.”
I was, too. Finally, after so long just running and looking over my shoulder, just submitting to their torture, I had the power. I had leverage over them. He had reason to do as I told him for once.
Heart pounding, I called out, “Let them all go free. You do that, I’ll step down and you can have me until I rot. Any funny business, I step backwards. Got me?”
Doc glared at me with hatred, white coat askew, chest heaving with angry breaths. He raised his fist, the silver of his fancy handgun glinting in the sunlight.
Pointed it at Caine’s head.
My heart stuttered, crashed, burned.
“You jump,” he seethed, “and I’ll take your debt out of their flesh. You remember the deal we made when you arrived, I assume?”
Chills cascaded down my body like a million icy needles. Terror for my alphas prickling over every inch of me.
Hilt interpreted my silence as consideration. “Step forward now,” he said, tone slightly more placating, “and they’ll each get a quick shot to the head. And we’ll leave the two others alone as well. You have my word.”
A hysterical half scoff, half laugh burst from my lips. The threat of killing my pack wasn’t the incentive to obey that this jackass believed it to be.
The world tilted sharply one way, then the other. My body swayed. I blinked, trying to steady out our rocking stage.
I swallowed, boning up to call his bluff. “I’d still be gone.” My voice trembled, but it was loud. “Besides, an omega splattered on your doorstep?” I shook my head. “A lot harder to explain away than the missing ones.”
Something evil flashed through his eyes at my words, his hand tightening on the gun.
In the distance, the low hum of whipping blades sang out like an angel’s chorus.
Chopper.
Not knives.
Helicopter.