Chapter 5
FIVE
Jez
I DIDN’T SLEEP. I DIDN’T dare. As promised, Gage brought me up a pile of freshly laundered blankets and pillows, the recovered gun held securely pointed at me as he ordered me to stand where he could see me while he dumped them on the end of the bed.
Then he made another trip, this time arriving with a massive double-decker sandwich, a pile of potato chips, and a bottle of orange soda balanced on a large plate.
I ignored all of it, being far too familiar with the head-games alphas played to keep captured omegas compliant.
.. and the ease of slipping drugs into food and drink.
God knew, I had plenty of personal experience with drugging people into helplessness, so I could do Very Bad Things to them afterward.
Once I was sure he wasn’t going to return a third time, I started a thorough search of my two-room prison. My head swam with a combination of exhaustion and soured adrenaline, and my stomach rumbled distractingly—trying to convince me that eating just one potato chip would be fine, wouldn’t it?
I went to the bathroom sink and drank tepid tap water from my cupped hands until my stomach stopped complaining so loudly. My search didn’t turn up much of anything useful. The bedroom area was large, but there was nothing in it, except the old metal-frame bed and a heavy wooden dresser.
I briefly considered trying to drag the bed frame over and use it to block the door. But that wouldn’t really help me at all. There were no windows, and no tools that could be used to break through the walls or roof. That door was the only way I’d be getting out of this place.
What I needed was a weapon.
The bed frame was solidly constructed; I didn’t find any metal pieces that I could break off or unscrew without a screwdriver. I briefly considered the merits of a drawer from the old dresser—but even the smallest one was heavy, and I wasn’t exactly the Incredible Hulk.
Eventually, I dragged one of the drawers into the bathroom and used it to shatter the mirror that had defied my attempts earlier... only for it to break into tiny shards that were too small to be any use as a shiv.
With a frustrated cry, I hurled the drawer at the bathroom wall. It caught the piece of molding at the corner of the shower area, where the wall jutted out. Wood splintered with a sharp crack. I stared listlessly at the damage, willing my brain to stop spinning uselessly inside my skull.
The thin piece of molding had split where the edge of the drawer had snagged it, the top half of the broken piece pulling slightly away from the wall. I frowned, moving closer to look. Small nails stuck out of the separated length, looking tiny and delicate.
I reached out and grasped the molding between two of the nails, bending it up and back until a section broke off in my hand with a snap. The split end tapered to a wicked point, following the wood grain. I touched my thumb to it—splinter-sharp.
It was flimsy, but I wasn’t going to find a better stabbing weapon in here.
I couldn’t get the finishing nails out of the molding, but a few minutes of pressing them hard against the edge of the porcelain sink at least left them bent and flattened against the wood.
The pointy end was sharp enough to pierce a hole in one of the pillowcases.
I stuck two fingers through the gap and ripped off a wide strip of the luxurious cotton fabric.
Wrapping that several times around the blunt end of the wooden spar made a serviceable handle.
Feeling a bit better prepared than I had before, I shoved the plate of food under the bed with the dust bunnies, where I wouldn’t have to look at it.
Then I had a ‘duh’ moment, pulled it back out, and tipped the contents under the bed.
It was heavy dining wear, not the disposable paper kind.
I could throw it at someone and maybe slow them down, at least.
I propped the pillow with the torn case against the bed’s headboard, shoved the makeshift knife and the plate behind it, and settled in to wait, keeping my bleary eyes firmly fixed on the door.
Hours passed. An engine rumbled up to the house. Something big and old, I thought. Not a modern car. It was the van that Gage had mentioned, I was willing to bet. My empty stomach roiled.
Gritting my teeth, I tried not to think about the omega kid with the bruised face being loaded onto it.
.. about Adrian’s eleven-year-old sister being shoved in after him.
The urge to jump up and try the attic door nagged at me.
It was stupid, though. I’d already struggled with that damned door half a dozen times during the night.
It hadn’t magically unlocked itself during the last hour.
The engine idled outside for maybe ten or fifteen minutes before pulling away. The omegas were gone, and with them, my crazy delusion of somehow engineering a heroic rescue.
My jaw clenched tighter.
More time slid by, slow and sticky like molasses.
I could barely make out the smooth purr of the next vehicle to arrive. Omegas didn’t like windows as a rule; we wanted things dark and enclosed. But right now, I could understand what betas saw in them. A window or three would have been super useful, and not just as a potential escape route.
Heavy footsteps approached up the stairs—two people, this time. I tensed, easing the handle of my shiv out from behind the pillow, where it would be hidden from view by my thigh, but I could grab it easily.
I didn’t take the plate out, or get off the bed. I doubted I’d be able to overpower two alphas on my best day, much less when I felt like I was about to pass out from lack of sleep. If they came too close to me, though, someone was getting splinters in the most vulnerable area I could reach.
A knock sounded on the door.
“It’s me,” came Gage’s muffled voice. “I’ve got the gun. Stand where I can see you. You know the drill.”
A second voice grumbled something, too low to make out. I ignored the ‘stand’ part, staying right where I was on the bed. The lock outside clicked. The door swung inward, revealing Gage with the gun pointed at me, and the red-haired alpha—Heath?—standing behind him on the landing.
Gage came in, frowning.
“You didn’t use the nesting stuff,” he said, sounding almost... disappointed?
“Fuck you,” I told him. “How’s your precious pack leader?”
Heath stalked inside, radiating crackling anger. I made a subtle move to wrap my fingers around the shiv handle, hating the way my instincts tried to uncurl as the scent of whiskey and baking bread swirled around the room in a cloud.
“None of your goddamned business,” Heath snapped. He stretched out a hand toward Gage, palm up. “Now, give me that gun. I’m getting some answers.”
My heart thudded into a panicked, uneven rhythm as Gage wordlessly handed over the small pistol. My hand clenched convulsively around my pathetic shiv as he strode forward, stopping out of arm’s reach and pointing it at my heart.
There was no way I could spring up and stab him before he pulled the trigger. I froze in place, unable to move.
“Tell me your name,” Heath said.
My lips worked soundlessly for a couple of seconds before my brain connected.
“K-Kit,” I stammered, frantically trying to remember the name on the fake ID I’d been carrying. “I mean... Katherine, uh, Katherine Christenson.”
“Bullshit.” Heath thumbed the safety off. The barrel of the gun moved smoothly downward, pointing at my right knee.
My vision swam. I’d seen the aftermath of a kid getting kneecapped, a couple of years ago when I’d stumbled onto the scene of a gang retribution.
“Try again,” Heath said, his tone dangerously flat. “What’s your real name?”
“It really is Katherine Christenson!” I squeaked, fighting my freeze response. The need to sink through the mattress and the floor below was like a living thing, squirming in my stomach.
“Sure,” Heath gritted out. “And I’m the fuckin’ Keebler Elf. Who sent you after Knox?”
The final words cracked across me like a whip—an alpha bark.
The urge to spit out Adrian’s name was almost overwhelming.
I clamped my teeth around it, only my freeze response keeping the word from slipping free.
Trembling, I stared up at the alpha looming over me with what I hoped was defiance, but was probably just abject fear.
Heath snarled and pulled the trigger. I screamed and braced for agony as the explosion of noise deafened me.
None came.
A little puff of smoke rose from a blackened hole in the mattress, a few inches away from my leg. The smell of gunpowder joined the confusing cocktail of pheromones in the room.
“What the fuck, Heath?” Gage said, striding forward and grabbing the gun from his packmate’s hand.
My ears were still ringing, but the noise of the shot had slammed me back into possession of my body.
Knowing it was stupid, I lunged up from the bed, shiv in hand, and darted around Heath.
Grabbing one meaty shoulder with my left hand, I jammed the point of splintered wood against the side of his neck with my right.
“Put down the gun and let me out of this house, or I’ll stab this straight through his jugular and laugh while he bleeds out!” I yelled, my voice high and wavering.
Heath made an angry noise and reached up, wrapping strong fingers around my wrist and yanking the shiv away from his throat. He whirled and shoved me back onto the bed, where I went sprawling. Somehow, the shiv was now in his hand, rather than mine.
I bared my teeth at him and scrambled upright—ready to go for the plate, even though I knew it wouldn’t do any good. If it gave one of them a black eye, maybe it would still be worth it.
“I told you,” Gage was saying. “I think she’s just mentally ill. Doesn’t seem like you’re gonna get anything out of her this way.”
Heath was breathing hard. His forest-green gaze pinned me like a bug. “Right. Because mental cases spend their spare time making knives out of the room furnishings.”
Gage shrugged. “I dunno. Maybe they do, if they’re scared enough?”
Heath turned on him. “And what do you suggest we do with her?”
Gage hesitated. “I mean... we can’t let her go. She saw the omegas downstairs. And she might know how to find this place, I guess.”
Spoiler alert—I didn’t.
Heath made a noise of pure frustration. “Wonderful.”
“I say we keep her here until Knox gets better,” Gage went on. “He’ll know what to do.”
So, Knox wasn’t dead, then. Pity.
But Gage was still talking. “Guess we’ll need to get some stuff for her, in the meantime. Clothes and things.”
“‘Clothes and things’?” Heath echoed in disbelief. “Did this scent match eat your fucking brain?”
But Gage plowed on. “Look, I know one of us has to go back to the hospital while the other stays here to watch her—but you could call that beta kid you like so much, and have him pick up stuff for her. What’s his name? Tony?”
An unexpected pang shot straight through my black and shriveled heart.
Tony, the same first name as my one-time friend. The sweet guy whose life I’d probably ruined by trying to save him from his attacker. Idly, I wondered what my Tony would think if he could see me now.
The sad reality was that he probably wouldn’t be surprised in the least that I’d ended up like this. And somehow, that was the thing that broke me. With a stifled whimper, I slithered off the edge of the bed and onto the floor, burying my face in my hands.