Chapter 2 #2
If they fed me a substantial meal, I’d feel almost halfway to human again.
“Why am I getting a shower now?” I can’t stand the unknown in all of this. I like to be in control in all aspects of my life.
Since Tyler visited yesterday, both Athena and I have been on edge. We don’t know what they have planned for us, but we heard that they’re going to let us out of our crates at the same time.
This is our chance to make a break for it. We may not get another one.
We’ve done our best to map out what the facility looks like based on our limited glimpses and whispered plans back and forth.
I think Athena may be starting to have hope that I will deliver on the promise I made when we first met.
For a bit, I held out hope that the Pack Lupine guys would rescue us. And while I wouldn’t turn their help down, I think the likelihood of them finding us is so slim that we have to focus on saving ourselves if we ever want to be free of this hellhole.
We have to get out of here. I won’t accept any other outcome.
The longer Athena is here, the more I worry she won’t be able to heal from this. She’s already showing worrying signs of dissociation, where she’ll seem to leave her body, and it takes ages to help her return.
Maybe she’d come back faster if I could touch her.
Tonight.
No matter how this turns out, I will get to hold her in my arms for the first time tonight.
It’s the only thought that keeps me going.
The guard leads me back to my cage after I dress in a clean medical gown. Athena is already in hers, her dirty blonde hair still wet, but her peachy skin clean and red from where she scrubbed it.
“You look beautiful,” I tell her, and she blushes fiercely.
“You’re just saying that because I’m the only woman you’ve seen in a month.”
I rest my arms on my bent knees. “Nah, you know that’s not true. When will you accept that we’re a pair, you and me? Atlas and Athena. I’m pretty sure they wrote myths about us.”
“Athena was a virgin,” she snarks. “She was not paired with anyone, and certainly not Atlas. I’m pretty sure they were on opposing sides.”
“Ah, but history was made to be rewritten, or whatever the saying is,” I say dismissively.
Her head drops, and I can feel the sadness radiating off her in waves. I don’t know what I did to put that look on her face, but I wish I could undo it. After a moment, she tilts her head back to look at the ceiling. Her green eyes are lined with silvery tears, and she hugs her knees to her chest.
“History was written by the victors,” she says quietly. “My brother, Icarus -”
“I can’t get over how your parents gave you two themed names,” I interrupt.
She chuckles hollowly. “Ugh, tell me about it. Even his cat’s name is on theme.
It’s a whole thing. Anyway, if he were here, he would tell you the actual phrase is 'history was written by the victors, and he'd go into a long explanation on the origin of that phrase or its popular uses. Some facts you never knew you wanted to know, and sometimes it gets annoying to hear the history of absolutely everything, but it’s been almost seven weeks since I’ve heard one of those spiels, and I miss it.
” She sighs, and the tears fall down her cheeks. “I miss him.”
“We’re going to get out,” I remind her. “We’re going to get out, and you’ll get to see him and listen to his lectures again, okay? And I’ll be right there beside you, learning something new.”
She nods, finally turning to look at me. “Do you believe that, Atlas? You really think we’ll get out of here?”
“I know it,” I say emphatically.
It’s not a lie. I won’t allow this to be the end of the line for us. I need to know her outside of these four walls, and I’m going to do whatever it takes so I can. “And once we get out of here, I’m going to take you to dinner. To the Colombian restaurant that I told you about.”
“I’ll hold you to it.”
The door behind us clangs open, and two people walk in. They don’t speak as they come to our cages, syringes in hand. They stand on either side of us, and even though we both try to struggle away, knowing that this time things will be different, the needles enter our skin, and everything goes dark.
I’m more comfortable than I can ever remember being.
Wherever I am, it’s soft and warm. I’m nestled in a bundle of pillows, and the lighting is so low I can barely make out their color.
The room smells like one of those soda waters where someone thinks about a fruit when they package it—the barest hint of pineapple in the air.
It smells so lovely and fresh after weeks in a dank warehouse.
A groan beside me makes me blink and roll over.
Athena is waking, struggling to sit up in the pile of pillows and blankets.
She’s no longer in her hospital gown. A pretty pink negligee barely hides her body from me.
Her thick thighs and soft belly draw my attention first, and I whip my eyes away from them before I can let my mind run away from me.
Now is not the time for thoughts like that.
We need to figure out where we are and how to get out of here.
She’s still blinking like everything is hazy, and I can see the moment her vision clears, registering that I’m here with her.
“You’re naked,” she hisses, gesturing at my body.
Oh, fuck. I look down and see my cock, half hard from staring at her gorgeous body. I snag a pillow and put it over my crotch.
“You’re nearly there, too.”
She pulls a plush blanket tightly around her body. “Where are we?”
Now that I’ve got my wits about me, I try to take in the details of the room we’re in. The floor is entirely padded, and the ceiling is low. Soft lighting and furnishings evoke memories of my time with my Omega friend Crystal during her heat.
“I think we’re in a nest,” I say as I stand up and carefully walk around the room, my head nearly touching the ceiling.
“Why are we in a nest?” The question is rhetorical, and she knows it.
No one is here to answer me. As I circle the room, I notice cameras in each corner and a door that fits flush with the wall.
When I try to move it, nothing happens, of course.
“They’ve locked us in here,” I tell her as I sit down, our knees touching.
I duck my head closer to hers so I can whisper, hoping the cameras don’t pick up our conversation.
“While I appreciate the comfort after sleeping on the cold concrete for a month, I’m not feeling too confident about their reasoning for putting us here. Or our ability to get out.”
“What could they possibly want with us? We’re Betas. Why would they think we’d want to be in a nest?” She moves a few pillows around before settling in.
I figure it can’t hurt to get comfortable since we have no idea how long we’ll be here. I should soak it up while I can, in case we don’t get out of here.
Two of the pillows around me are stuffed too full, so I throw those aside in favor of ones with velvet-like surfaces. I snag Athena around the waist and pull her into my arms for the first time.
A feeling of overwhelming rightness courses through me.
She was made to be in my arms. This is where she is meant to be, forever.
I’m never letting her go.
The fresh pineapple scent thickens around me. Are they pumping synthetic Omega pheromones into the air?
But I shouldn’t be able to smell an Omega, even if the pheromones are synthetic. Betas can’t scent match.
Athena nuzzles her head under my chin, getting comfortable as we lie together in the nest, relaxed for the first time in ages.
“Is it wrong to say that this is nice?” she whispers.
I brush her hair away from her face and lean down, pressing a kiss against her forehead. “It is nice. I couldn’t think of anyone I’d rather be here with.”
And it’s true.
And not only because of the “kidnapped and trapped together for a month” thing.
It feels like this was all supposed to happen so she could end up in my arms.
If I believed in fate, maybe I’d call it that.
But Betas don’t get fate.
A soft crackle of static fills the room, followed by the tinny voice of our doctor. “Presenting subjects B-twenty-one and B-thirteen. Both have undergone conversion protocol and shown favorable DNA outcomes. Phase three to commence. Heat inducers to be released into the atmosphere in three….
“Two…
“One…”