Chapter 27
TWENTY-SEVEN
Desperation claws at my throat.
Atlas left, and with him, our hope of Athena returning to us.
What does she need us for now that they are back together?
After only a few days together, it’s become abundantly clear that we need them. We do.
The others are going around in circles, unable to commit to a plan of action, and it’s making my skin crawl. If this were a sting op, I’d be working alongside Harvey to map out and execute our goals, but he’s too focused on repeatedly calling Slime.
Clearly, Slime isn’t going to pick up the fucking phone, and we need to try something else.
Wyatt likes to say that I am the brains of this operation. Well, if that’s true, then I need to live up to my name and figure out how to get the two of them back before it tears our pack apart.
And if I have to call in reinforcements to make that happen, then I will. I’ll take control of the situation and make the guys see that they’re spinning in circles with no hope of a positive outcome.
My voice of reason is out of practice, but I’ll use it all the same.
Will is yelling at Wyatt, spitting mad about how we handled the situation. He swears he was getting through to Atlas, that our reluctant Omega was going to nest, which apparently is an essential first step, and we’ve fucked it all up, no doubt setting both of them back in their recovery.
Healing from trauma isn’t linear, we know that, but if I’m honest with myself, I didn’t expect the setback to happen so soon. We need to help them regain the control and autonomy that were stolen from them.
Something that will help them process everything they went through.
Which is why I’m going to phone a friend.
The phone rings and rings and rings. Eventually, there is a click, and a rough voice comes through the speaker.
“Yeah?”
“Hey, Puck.”
There’s a shuffling and a few groans in the background. It’s early, but not so early that I expected Puck and his pack to still be in bed.
“What’s up, Sebastian?”
“I need your help.”
He huffs out a labored breath, and I hear coffee brewing in the background. “What with? Mav had a show last night, so we’re all pretty wiped.”
Ah, that explains the sleeping in.
“Well, Atlas and Athena are gone.”
A heavy silence stretches between us. “What do you mean, gone?”
“I mean, we fucked up. I figured if anyone knows about fucking up with their Omega, it’s you.”
I can practically hear his eyes rolling through the phone. “What did you do?” After I tell him the story, I hear a heavy mug hitting a table. “I never fucked up like that, Sebass.”
“You left Crystal in a trafficking ring.” That’s a low blow, and I know it. The situation is more nuanced than that, even if it appears irredeemable on the surface.
“Yeah, and she understood why we had to prioritize others first. And also that it wasn’t entirely my decision, now was it?”
“Whatever you say. Help me figure out how to fix this.”
Will left about an hour ago, his throat hoarse from yelling at Wyatt. My packmate sat there and took the abuse with no complaints. We all know we deserve more than a lecture.
“We messed up big time,” he says, echoing all our thoughts over the past two days.
“We did.” I’m not going to argue that. “But we can fix it.”
“How? We don’t know where they are. They won’t talk to us.”
“Ah, but we have someone they will talk to.” The doorbell rings. “There she is now.”
I yank open the door to a small, bright-haired Omega glaring at me. “You all are so fucking stupid,” Crystal says, pushing past me. “I mean, really? What made you think it was a good idea to abandon one of your Omegas?”
“We didn’t abandon her.” Charles’s dejected voice comes from the kitchen, where he is cleaning the grout with a toothbrush. When he’s upset, he finds small tasks to focus on, channeling his anxious energy into something productive. “There was so much happening at once.”
“Yeah, yeah, Puck filled me in. Do you want my help?”
“Absolutely.” Wyatt sounds pained as he stands up from the couch. “Whatever we need to do, we’ll do.”
“Right. Where’s Harvey?” The Omega looks around for our last packmate, tapping her toe. “I only want to go through this once.”
“He’s in the garage,” Charles says, hopping to his feet and leaving the frayed toothbrush on the ground. “I’ll grab him.”
Once the four of us are settled in the living room and Crystal stands between us, her red and yellow hair looking like flames around her face, she lets us in on her plan.
“Right. So, you fucked up. You abandoned one of your Omegas for the other, and in doing so, lost both of them. I’m not here because I care about the why behind what you did.
It doesn’t matter, and neither of them will want to hear it.
What they will want to hear is that it won’t happen again.
That you choose them, both of them, and always will. ”
“And how are we expected to do that if they won’t talk to us?” Harvey says frankly. He’s cleaning grease out from under his nails with a dirty white cloth.
“That’s where I come in. I will only do this for you once, so you’d better thank me and not fuck this up.
I know Athena’s brother, Icarus. We work together at the Design Clinic.
I am sure he will take my call. I will facilitate a meeting between everyone, if and only if he agrees it is in their best interest.”
“Why do we need you for that?” Harvey asks. “We can just call him at the clinic.”
“Ah, yes, that will go over well,” I tease. “Cold calls are notoriously effective, especially one where we need to win over a protective older brother after we fucked up and hurt his sister.”
The older Alpha scoffs at me but says nothing else.
“Okay, and what do we do once we get to the meeting?” Charles asks, sounding as desperate as I feel. “How do we tell our Omegas that we didn’t mean to hurt them?”
I cough, ruffling the back of my hair. “Okay, so I have an idea, but you guys can’t be mad at me. That’s why I called Crystal in.”
Wyatt narrows his eyes. “What’s the idea, Sebass?” He sounds as skeptical as Crystal looks.
She doesn’t think the guys will go for this, but we have to try.
“I may or may not have arranged for them to visit the doctors who experimented on them.”
As expected, my pack is not happy about this.
“What the fuck were you thinking?” Wyatt shouts, jumping to his feet. “You want to march them in front of the people who hurt them?”
“Who agreed to this?” Harvey growls. I knew he’d be the most upset out of all of them, considering the Hawks are the ones holding the doctors, trying to get answers out of them to track down who is in charge of this entire operation. “Why the fuck would you go behind my back like this?”
“I know they’re your crew, Harvey, but I knew none of you would agree to this.
Puck worked it out with Nitro. Crystal is going to get Atlas and Athena and bring them to headquarters if they decide to confront the doctors.
We can be there to talk to them afterwards.
But we have to let them do this. They need this. ”
“No, they don’t,” Charles hisses. “Crystal, you should leave. This is a pack matter.”
Crystal snorts and throws herself into an armchair. “Nah, I’m not going anywhere. I’m here as the voice of Omega reason.”
“This is going to make their nightmares worse.” Wyatt’s southern accent gets stronger when he’s upset, and it’s thick right now. “They’re gonna be re-traumatized.”
“Sometimes, you have to face your monster to heal,” Crystal says gently. “I know that better than anyone.”
“And how’s that healing going for you, huh?” Charles deadpans. “Last I remembered, you slaughtered a man in cold blood less than two months ago.”
Her lip curls as she bares her teeth at my packmate.
“Yeah, and I’d do it again. I faced my demon and came out on top.
If someone else had taken him out, I’d always be worried that he was lurking around a corner.
At least now I know for sure Kieran Cobb can never hurt me again.
I sleep like a fucking baby with his blood on my hands, thanks for asking. ”
Silence rings out over our living room as Crystal’s words sink in.
We all know that life wasn’t easy for her in the Conglomerate, even if it wasn’t anything like what Atlas and Athena went through.
She was forced into bonds every time she went into heat for four years.
When we organized her removal from the organization, we knew it would create chaos and potentially lead to a power vacuum.
The extraction didn’t go to plan, and we had to move up our timetable because of the little wrench Crystal threw in the plan by killing Kieran. During the chaotic aftermath of that is when we lost Atlas and the other Omegas.
Since then, the Hawks have stepped in and taken over most of the Conglomerate’s businesses. All except the trafficking arm, which we know the leading player is Tyler, Crystal’s friend and Atlas’s ex-boyfriend.
The Hawks are still working on tracking him down, but obviously, nothing has come of it yet. Hopefully, the doctors who experimented on Atlas and Athena can point us in the right direction.
“You have to let them do this,” the Omega says quietly.
“I know it seems dangerous, and your Alpha instincts are up in arms about putting them so close to their tormentors again, but they need this. They may not even realize how much they do. This will go a long way in showing them you trust them and care about them.”
“I still don’t see how.” Wyatt crosses his arms over his chest, a surly look on his face. “How are they going to connect us taking them to face their abusers with us caring about them?”
“Because it’s like visiting the scene of a crash,” Harvey says quietly.
“It took me two years, after I was all healed up, physically, I mean, to go back to where my wreck was. I needed to see it for myself. I thought that if I saw the place where my life was changed, I would remember the pieces I had forgotten. That maybe it would help the nightmares if I could see it all clearly.”
“Did it help?” Charles asks in a broken whisper. “Going back and seeing it?”
The other Alpha shrugs. “Yes and no. I’m glad I did it, but in a way it reopened old wounds. I had to come to terms with the fact that it was just a curve in the road. It wasn’t a monster. It was a strip of asphalt that changed my life.”
Charles sniffles, wiping his eyes. “But these are monsters. Monsters experimented on them. Why do they need to see them again to know that?”
“Because it’s got to be worse not to remember,” I say with certainty. “They don’t know why, or even what really happened. How can we expect them to embrace who they are now if they don’t know how they got this way?”
“I don’t like it,” Wyatt growls.
“You don’t have to,” Crystal says, pushing to her feet.
“You do have to be there for them. That’s what got you into this mess, right?
Not being there for Athena?” When we don’t answer her, she pushes through.
“Make up for that now. Be there for them. This won’t be easy, but they need it.
They need to see that those men are not monsters.
They’re people who did monstrous things.
This isn’t a fairy tale. Cinderella didn’t put on that glass slipper and immediately heal from the trauma her stepmother and sisters put her through.
The prince held her hand while they watched as birds pecked out their eyes. ”