Chapter 41
FORTY-ONE
After three days, Atlas and Athena finally come out of their heats.
I never partook in any heat helper services or assisted a friend, so the only thing I have to compare their heats to is what the internet says they’re like. And from what I can tell, they had a somewhat unusual cycle. It’s probably because they’re not natural born Omegas.
I hate that phrase.
I don’t want to call them synthetic, or created, or manufactured. I don’t want to put caveats on the type of Omegas they are, because it makes them seem less than the others.
And they’re not.
They’re different, for sure.
But not less.
The good people of the internet say that an Omega’s heat can last anywhere from three to seven days, and often, they’re entirely out of their minds, barely rational, needing to be force-fed and taken care of.
That’s not what happened with us.
Our Omegas were mostly lucid and able to have conversations with us.
I mean, hell, I trusted their lucidity enough to believe that they wanted to bond with us.
They had moments of delirious need, but they were few and far between.
I’m wrung out, for sure, but I did just spend three days fucking two people a lot.
I think exhaustion is to be expected in such a situation.
“What are we going to do about the doctors?” Atlas says, throwing himself into the chair beside me at the table.
I stare into my cup of black coffee, my brain struggling to make sense of his question. “What?”
“The doctors. From the warehouse. We never got to talk about it before we went all fuckfest. What are the Hawks gonna do with them?”
I bet I look like a catfish with how my mouth is gaping as I stare at the Omega.
“Atlas, give him a break,” Sebass says, flopping down on my other side. “I think you rattled his brain a bit.”
“You just came out of your heat,” I say, finally finding my voice. “And you wanna dive straight back into this?”
“Yeah…” He draws the word out, looking at me like I’ve lost my damn mind. “Athena and I still need closure. The heat put us back a couple of days, but I want to know what our next steps are.”
“I haven’t had enough coffee for this conversation,” I mutter, downing what’s left in my mug. Before I can refill it, a heartbreaking sob reaches my ears at the same time one of the new bonds in my chest lights up with despair.
I’m still learning how to tell the two of them apart, but since Atlas is sitting right here looking as surprised as I am, I’m guessing Athena is the one struggling right now.
The three of us nearly trip over each other on our way to the nest to check on her.
We find our Omega backed into the corner of her nest, with Harvey crouched in front of her, holding his hands out.
“I know, Athena, I know,” he whispers soothingly.
“You don’t know!” she shouts through tears. “You didn’t know her!”
“You’re right,” he continues, glancing over his shoulder at us before turning his attention back to Athena.
Charles slides up beside me, Sebass, and Atlas, speaking below his breath and under the soothing tones Harvey is using.
“He got a call from the Hawks. They did some research into the other subjects the scientists mentioned and got a hit on a missing person. Ethel Jenkins. When Harvey told Athena that Ethel’s parents had been located, she burst into tears.
He hasn’t been able to calm her down, or even find out who Ethel is to her. ”
“Shit,” Atlas swears, trying to muscle by him.
I block his path. “Ethel is the Omega they used to create us,” he murmurs.
“Omega subject thirty-four. She was in the cages when Athena got there. They were close, and Athena has dreamed about her since we got out. It…” He sighs, scrubbing his hand across his chin and the short beard there.
“It was fucked up trauma bonding, okay? It was halfway romantic, and they’d talk about going on dates when they got out of there.
Athena was so traumatized by losing her that she blocked out that Ethel died in front of her. ”
My heart aches for my sweet Omega. Having to see that on top of everything else she went through is cruel torture.
“You don’t have to talk to them,” Harvey continues. “I can have someone else tell them about what happened to her.”
“It has to be me,” she shouts, hitting herself on the chest. “I was the one who let her die.”
“You didn’t let her die,” Atlas says, finally pushing past me. “And you know it.”
“I did!”
“No, you didn’t. You didn’t let her die any more than I let them make you into an Omega, Athena. You couldn’t have stopped it.” He moves next to Harvey and sits down, close enough for Athena to touch him if she wants to.
She doesn’t seem to want to.
“How am I supposed to face them? Tell them I couldn’t save her?” She wraps her arms around her knees, the baggy black shirt she’s wearing riding up on her thighs as she cries. “How am I going to tell them the person who did this to us is still out there?”
“What is the status of finding Tyler?” I ask Sebass, not troubling to keep my voice down. Athena startles at my voice, but doesn’t seem upset that we’re here. She stares at our pack mate expectantly.
“I reached out to Blaine Sloane to help me and Clicks in locating him.” Sebastian crosses the nest and props himself up against the wall beside Athena. “I haven’t had the chance to check in with either of them.”
“Has anyone thought to check with the assisted living facility Tyler’s uncle is in?” Atlas asks suddenly. “Maybe he’s been going there. He used to visit once a week.”
Sebass sits up straight. “His parents didn’t have any siblings. I researched his whole family.”
Atlas shrugs. “Maybe a family friend that he called Uncle? I can’t remember the name of the place. I went with him once, but it was a while ago. It was in Pine Haven, I think.”
“Why are you just now telling us this?” It’s hard to keep the upset from my voice. We’ve been spinning in circles, and this is exactly the information we needed.
“When would I have? It’s not like you’ve included us in any of these discussions. I had no idea what information would be relevant to you.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Harvey says, dragging his words out.
“We’ve got the information now. Sebass, get on it.
” The scarred Alpha turns back to Athena.
“If you insist on being the one to talk to them, we’re going to come with you.
You’re going to have your whole pack behind you while you do this, okay? You will not be alone.”
She sniffles, and it breaks my heart. She’s gone through so much in such a short amount of time, and if I could do anything to promise her that the hardest part is behind her, I would.
But we both know that’s a lie. What she’s going to have to do today will be one of the most difficult things she’ll ever do.
“Okay,” she says quietly. “Okay. Let’s not make them wait, then.”
Piled in the SUV, Athena tells us stories about Ethel.
About the strong woman with the slight lisp who made sure Athena didn’t lose hope.
I don’t think I’m the only one who wishes I could’ve met her. I wish I could hug that Omega tightly, thank her for taking care of mine, and place her in the arms of her own pack.
Things don’t always turn out how you wish, but they’re always going to turn out, and you’ve gotta figure out how to live with it. No matter how hard it is.
“I have something to tell y’all,” I say, fingers tightening on the steering wheel. I keep my eyes on the road, not wanting to look back and see my pack’s reaction. Harvey sits beside me, and he reaches over and gently squeezes my knee, knowing what I’m about to do.
“I’m gonna step down as pack lead. I think it needs to be Harvey.”
There’s a heavy silence in the SUV, and I hold my breath. I don’t know how my pack is going to react to this, or even how I want them to.
“Okay,” Charles says. “We’ll get the paperwork updated and the power of attorney changed. It’s a good time to do it, since we’re going to need to register Atlas and Athena as part of our pack.”
“Shit, yeah, we need to do that. I wonder if I could backdoor into the system and do it myself,” Sebass muses. I chance a look back at my packmates, wrinkling my nose at how unbothered they all seem.
Charles has his nose in his phone and one arm around Athena, who is reclining into him and playing with his fingers. Sebass and Atlas are shoulder to shoulder in the back, looking surprisingly relaxed.
“That’s it?” I ask, turning my blinker on and taking a right into the Hawks’ compound. “No arguing over who it should be? No trying to fight me not to step down?”
Atlas snorts. “C’mon, Wyatt, we all know that lead Alpha is a paperwork thing. I don’t know how you all did things before we came along, but this is a democracy, not a dictatorship, so the title is a formality.”
“It doesn’t bother y’all?”
“Not at all,” Atlas responds. “It doesn’t change much of anything except how the government views us.”
“A necessity in the eyes of the law,” Sebass adds, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “Because we’re very good at working within the confines of the law.”
Athena snorts. “Now I know that’s a lie,” she teases. “Because if it were true, we’d be heading to the police station right now.”
“The government is compromised,” Charles says, shoving his phone in his pocket.
“We tried to do things the legal way several times, but eventually, it all gets buried. Power corrupts, and it’s even worse than you would think.
Police are paid to look the other way if they’re not taking part themselves.
Elected officials only work in their own best interest.” Our most rigid packmate touches the side of Athena’s face.
None of us is in a rush to get out of the car and face what’s waiting for us, but we know it’s going to be worse for her than for anyone else.
“If we had done things the proper, legal way, we wouldn’t have gotten you two in time. There is no place for the law in a world where it’s enforced selectively. It becomes another tool to hurt those who are the most vulnerable instead of protecting them.”