Chapter 33 Twenty-nine
Twenty-nine
Taryn
Hello, and thank you for calling Corinth Wainwright’s office on Capitol Hill. How can I help you?
And thank you. Have a great day, ma’am.
Dorian was a gangly middle-aged supermarket stocker, who had a cousin who was able to get their hands on any kind of omega supplements you could think of. Heat control, suppressants, pheromone dampeners, the works.
Dorian was supposed to be our Farendale connect before my reluctant Registration, introduced by our last supplier, a stay-at-home mom who never told us her name.
Dorian was fucking useless.
Apparently whatever blind spot Cousin de Dorian had exploited to pinch meds? Fully un-blinded. Which meant Dorian’s supply had completely disappeared basically overnight, which meant I couldn’t connect him to Sheyna to help her unnamed omega in need.
No, he knew of no one else who’d have what I wanted. And no, he didn’t know when he’d be back in the biz.
Which had led me to a private browser and a deep dive on how to access the dark net. If Wainwright could use that shit to hunt me like an animal, then I sure as hell could use it to get healthcare to someone who needed it.
Which in turn brought me to the back of the mall parking lot, waiting for a beta to make a drop.
A drug drop.
I was waiting to pick up drugs from a drug drop.
In the name of omega liberation?
Yep. Definitely in the name of omega liberation.
I’d had sense enough to pick an early afternoon meet time, when the sun was high and bright.
Moderate traffic bustled in and out at regular intervals.
The corner of the lot I’d pinned and sent him to rendezvous was far enough from the hubbub to avoid casual lookie-loos, but near enough for some backup in the absolute worst case scenario.
Though, admittedly, worst case scenario had never held less meaning to me than it did these days. Just a side effect of surviving a little bit of hell, I supposed.
My hands hid in my jacket pockets. In one, I clutched the personal alarm I’d bought inside the mall an hour ago. In the other, I gripped one of those pointy medal things that, if what it could do to cardboard was any indication, would at least bruise a potential assailant.
“Sylva?”
I turned toward my grandmother’s—ahem, my—name. A lanky male beta approached, light-colored hair buzzed nearly to his pale scalp. Fuck, he looked younger than me.
That was a weird feeling.
Why was I more ooged out by the fact that my buddy-in-crime here looked barely twenty-two than the fact that I was out here, on my own, with my pack none the wiser, buying his wares? I’d expected my stomach to be knotted and writhing with anxiety. I’d expected to feel guilty, even.
I didn’t, though. It was…almost a rush.
With a fortifying breath, I stood to my fullest height—all sixty-two inches of it—and pulled my shoulders back. Going for confident, take-no-shit, knows-what-she’s-doing.
“Yep. Got ‘em?”
“Got cash?”
With a silent prayer, I uncurled my fingers from the stabber thingy and grabbed the cash that also lay in that pocket to hand it over. He took it, counting it quickly.
“You’re short.”
“What?” I half-shouted. “No way. One month, one-fifty. I counted it three times.”
“Price went up,” he said. “One-seventy-five.”
“The fuck?” Of course it did. And of course I’d come with exact cash which, in hindsight, was stupid because why wouldn't I expect a drug dealer to scam me? I ran my free hand through my hair. “I don’t have twenty-five more.”
“Then you don’t have a deal.” He turned to leave.
“Wait! Wait,” I called, hurrying after him. “Just…just gimme a second here, okay?”
Smelling desperation, he paused, giving me time to work through the exactly zero backup plans I had. My fingers clenched around my personal alarm.
Shelf price, eighteen-ninety-nine.
And pokey stick, twelve-eighty-nine.
“Okay, I need fifteen minutes and I’ll have it. Stay, like, right here.”
“Shoot, hon,” he said with a skeezy smirk, “stay right here, you’ll have it in half that time.”
I suppressed a shiver and pasted a wan smile on my face. “Sorry. I have murphrees. It’s like herpes but worse. Super contagious. And painful. And deadly. Nothing you want.” Before he could claim that he, too, was afflicted with the entirely fictional murphrees, I bolted back into the mall.
Personal alarm: returned.
Those nerves I’d expected earlier? Yep, they’d arrived, all squirmy in my belly like worms after a rainstorm.
Should I even go back out there?
Was this the part of the horror movie where I had the chance to get away clean, only to waltz right back into the monster’s lair, to the fury of everyone watching at home?
Potentially.
An omega in need, I reminded myself. Someone else is already in their monster’s lair. They need this.
On my way to return my metal bestie Jabby McStabby, my phone rang.
Brooks.
Shit.
“Hey sweetness,” he said the moment I picked up. “You look cute today.”
I froze, eyes scanning the crowd until a familiar head of curls caught my eye.
Fuck fuck fuck fuuuuuuuu—