Chapter 42
FORTY-TWO
I pull at the collar of my dark blue shirt. It feels too tight, even though I know it’s fine. It’s a standard crew neck.
“We’re right behind you,” Sebastian whispers in my ear as he squeezes my shoulder. “We’ve got you.”
Behind this door, Ethel’s parents wait to hear the worst news they’ll ever receive.
I’m sure, by now, they know that she’s dead. How could they not? If I feel the loss of her like a wound, they must be close to bleeding out on the floor.
My hand shakes as I grab the knob and turn it.
Three men rise to their feet, staring at me like I hold all the answers in the world.
And I suppose I do.
But they’re not the ones they’re going to want to hear.
The smallest man, clearly the Omega of the three, takes a step forward. He looks the most like Ethel. I’m sure when he smiles, his eyes would crinkle at the corners like hers did. His full pink lips would probably quirk up unevenly at the sides, too.
“Are you going to tell us what happened to our daughter?” he begs, wringing his hands.
One of the Alphas, a broad man with light brown skin and honey-colored eyes, places a hand on his Omega’s shoulder. “Please, they’ve kept us waiting long enough. Just tell us.”
“I’m Athena,” I say, my voice trembling. Part of me wishes I could draw this out, that I could gently give them the news after several minutes of softening them up.
Except there is no softening this up.
“I’m so sorry, but Ethel died.”
There are a few things in life I will never forget.
At the top of the list is the sound a parent makes when they find out their child has died.
It’s a sound so unnatural that it makes every part of a person revolt.
They may have known, in their hearts, that she was gone, but a tiny piece of them held onto the possibility that they’d hold her in their arms again.
My grief for Ethel is nothing compared to that of the three men who are supporting one another through the worst thing that will ever happen to them.
There is nothing I can do to make this moment easier for them. They don’t know me or my pack, and nothing I say right now will make this hurt less. Part of me thinks I should leave, allow them to live in their grief, and process this on their own.
But I can hear Ethel telling me how close she is to her family in the back of my mind, and I know she wouldn’t want me to leave them alone. She’d want me to give them whatever comfort I can.
“I… I knew her,” I mumble. Their sniffling sobs nearly drown out my words, but I know they heard me. “I was taken, too.”
The third man, an Alpha with grey hair who hadn’t spoken yet, squeezes his fists tight, not looking up from the ugly wooden table in this soulless meeting room.
“Where did they take you?”
“To a warehouse. We were experimented on.”
I tell them about waking up next to Ethel, and the way she answered my incessant questions and tried to keep me calm throughout such a horrifying ordeal.
“I realize that I barely knew her,” I admit, finally allowing myself to sit down across from them. My pack has stood sentinel behind me, lined up against the wall in silent support. “Six days isn’t that long. But I cared about her so, so much.”
Her Omega father, Trey, as he introduces himself, tries to wipe away the tears that are rapidly falling. Charles pulls a handkerchief out of a pocket and hands it to the grieving Omega, momentarily stunning me.
Who carries a handkerchief?
“She was like that,” Trey says. “She made friends everywhere she went.”
“I wouldn’t have made it without her,” I say honestly. “If she hadn’t been there when I woke up, I would’ve given up. She gave me the strength to push on, to stay alive.”
“Why… What was the point of it?” The grey-haired Alpha asks. “What were they trying to accomplish?”
Do I tell them that their daughter died so I could become an Omega?
That they stole her DNA to make her the basis of a virus that can forcibly change the designation of Betas?
Indecision paralyzes me, and I look at my pack for backup. Harvey catches my eye, and understanding fills them. He nods, silently encouraging me to do whatever I need to do. What I think is right.
“They were trying to figure out a way to turn Betas into Omegas.”
A gauntlet of emotions flashes across their faces, but eventually, the one with the honey eyes speaks.
“And did they succeed?”
I reach across the table, placing my hand over his.
“No, they didn’t.”
I sit in the massive meeting hall on the Hawks compound, hands twisting nervously in my lap.
Nitro, the Hawks president, Valkyrie, the vice president, and Boots, the road captain, stand in front of me, all scary in their own ways.
Nitro is a massive Beta in his sixties, with faded tattoos and a stern disposition.
Valkyrie is an Alpha around my age and keeps her hair short and her temper shorter.
Boots towers over all three. The Alpha is broad, the definition of tall, dark, and handsome, but I’d have to throw terrifying in there with the adjectives if I wanted to be precise.
“Why did you lie to the Jenkins family?” Nitro asks, voice full of faux calm.
I stare at my hands, not wanting to look at my pack. I’m sure they’re all wondering why I did, too. I need to answer for it, but I’m afraid that once I speak my logic out loud, it won’t make sense to anyone else.
I did what I think is right, but will they agree with me?
“I couldn’t sit there and tell them I am only an Omega now because their daughter died.” I shake my head sadly. “I didn’t want them to look at me and see someone who took her place.”
“That wasn’t your call,” Valkyrie says roughly. “You’re asking my entire crew to be in on your lie now.”
“I didn’t think about it like that,” I answer honestly. “All I could think about was whether that information could help them in their grief, and I couldn’t see a way it could. What good could come from them knowing?”
“A parent deserves to know the truth,” the vice president continues. “Do you have kids?”
“No.”
She shakes her head and looks away from me with disgust. “Then you couldn’t possibly understand what losing one is like. Who are you to make that decision for them?”
Harvey steps forward and places a hand on my shoulder. His touch emboldens me. “We’re destroying the records from the lab, right? That’s what you’ve been doing?”
Boots grunts in affirmation.
I turn my eyes back to Nitro, imploring him to see reason. “Then why would we want anyone to know this type of change is a possibility?”
The room is so quiet I can practically hear my pack breathing, but that’s probably my imagination. When none of the Hawks’ leadership says anything, I push on.
“I don’t want this to happen to anyone else.
If people find out there is a way to turn Betas into Omegas, they’ll stop at nothing to recreate the experiment, and more people will die because our society is fucked.
Omegas are both revered and despised. Betas are forgotten, Alphas are worshipped.
It’s fucked, all of it. Why would we even put the idea in people’s heads? ”
“There will always be talk,” Nitro says, crossing his arms over his chest. “And you and Atlas are proof it happens.”
“So we lie!” I jump to my feet. Seeing Ethel’s parents, feeling their grief, has woken up something inside of me that refuses to be silenced. “My sister-in-law presented at thirty-two. I’m thirty. Atlas is…”
Oh shit, I do not know how old Atlas is.
“Thirty-three,” he supplies, chuckling.
“Atlas is thirty-three,” I continue, as if it isn’t ridiculous that I’m bonded to an entire pack of people without knowing something as basic as how old they are.
“My brother is a doctor. A geneticist for the Design Clinic. He can lie and say we were both late presenters. Provide us with the paperwork to match hers. No one has to know.”
“It’s not a bad idea, Prez,” Harvey says, wrapping his arm around my waist. “If we find Tyler, we’ll have our hands on everyone who had direct contact with the facility where they were experimenting on my Omegas.”
“I’ve been all over the net and I’ve found nothing about this that has any legs,” Sebass says from the row behind me, where he’s stretched out next to Atlas. “Nothing solid that could be replicated, or even seems like it has the smallest basis in reality.”
Valkyrie wrinkles her nose. “I don’t enjoy lying to grieving parents, Prez,” she says, turning to Nitro. “It feels wrong.”
“But it makes sense.” Boots’s voice is so deep that it nearly vibrates the floor. “There’s always going to be people wanting to make more Omegas, and the skin trade isn’t going anywhere. But keeping this to ourselves could save others from being snatched and turned against their will.”
Nitro scrubs his hand down his face, tugging on the end of his mostly salt with a little pepper beard as he does so.
“Okay. Find Tyler. See if he’d been given the results yet, if he even knows it worked.
I’ll make sure Clicks has destroyed anything those bastard doctors had recorded.
And I’ll put a gag order on the crew to keep their mouths shut about this. ”
Charles steps up beside me, weaving his fingers with mine. He may be out of place here in his suit and tie, but his calming presence is precisely what I need right now. “We’ll handle it, Nitro,” he says stiffly.
“Athena,” Valkyrie says as we turn to leave. She takes a couple of steps toward me. “I’m sorry for snapping at you.”
“It’s okay.” I mean it. I’m not upset with the way she spoke to me at all.
“It’s not, but thanks. I…”
I hold up my hand, stopping her. “You don’t have to share your trauma with me. I’m not upset.”
Her shoulders visibly deflate, and she nods before clapping me on the shoulder. I jolt a little at the contact. “Alright then. Let’s get this nastiness wrapped up then, yeah?”
Harvey shoulder checks the vice president playfully. “We’re good at cleaning up our own messes, you should know that by now.”
As we’re walking out of the meeting hall and climbing into the SUV, Sebastian’s phone rings.
“Hold up, it’s Blaine.” He mashes the screen. “What’s up, bro?” he greets, resting the phone between his ear and shoulder before ushering me into the back seat with him. “No shit?”
Everyone climbs into the car, but Wyatt doesn’t start it. We’re all holding our breath, waiting to see what Blaine has found.
Sebastian hangs up and startles a little when he sees all of us staring at him.
“Well?” Atlas asks.
“We found him.”