13. Where Is She?
Where Is She?
Grayson
It had been three weeks since the barbeque. Three weeks without any sign of our scentmatch. Her scents had faded from Oren's nest and he'd reluctantly washed the bedding in there.
We all longed for a glimpse of her, but all we saw were the damn alphas leaving for work every day, the beta leaving occasionally and sometimes all three would go out with their other omega, Candace.
There was no sign that Emilia even existed.
That is, until one day, I was getting home from an early morning shoot and saw the delivery truck pull up to the house next door.
Curious, I paused on the sidewalk, watching the door as the delivery guy lifted his hand to knock.
Before he could even touch the door, it flew open and I saw Emilia glance around furtively, say something to the delivery guy and then quickly pull the big boxes into the house.
The door was shut before I could even think to call out to her.
The next day, I went over and rang the bell and Candace answered. She was in a cute babydoll outfit that showed far too much skin for my liking.
"Oh, hi! Grayson, right?" She beamed at me, cocking a hip. "From next door."
"That's me," I said, trying to keep calm. "I was just coming to see if Emilia is around."
"Oh, she's been sick," Candace said. "Poor thing can't even get out of bed."
"What's wrong? Is there anything we can do?" I asked, suddenly worried. I'd seen her yesterday and she'd seemed fine.
"Some autoimmune thing. I don't really understand it, but basically just rest and relaxation is key." She tossed her hair. "What did you want with her anyway?"
"We had some fun with board games the other day. I thought she might want to join our tournament this afternoon."
"Board games? Aren't those a little old-fashioned?"
"We enjoy them." I gave her another tight smile. "Can you let her know we hope she feels better, please? And give her this. She can text when she's feeling better." I held out my business card.
"Of course. I'm sure she'll be thrilled to have this." Candace gave me a big grin and closed the door. I could see through the wobbly glass as she tossed my card in the garbage. Bitch.
Trudging back to our place, I stomped inside. Oren immediately picked up on my mood. "What the hell got into your pants?"
"I just went to see if I could talk to Emilia and Candace gave me some song and dance about how she's too sick to move. But I saw her open the door and pick up large packages yesterday."
"Maybe you should have helped with the packages."
"That's not the point. She was fine 24 hours ago. And now suddenly she's an invalid? I don't buy it."
"We can't just barge in there and demand to see her," Oren pointed out. "You're the one who wanted more proof."
"That was Santi and I know we can't. I just don't like her being cooped up 24/7."
"Me, either. Is there a legal way to get her out?"
"We should wait and talk to Santi, he's the one with the connections," I said. As much as I wanted to barge into the house and scoop our omega up, it just wasn't safe. Not yet. We could be in a shit ton of trouble if we didn't abide by the freaking rules.
"We'll keep an eye out for her," Oren told me. "Maybe she'll be in the back and we can accidentally let Gertie get through the fence again?"
But the hole had been patched up when we took Gertie out to play fetch. I peered over the fence, but there was no sign of Emilia anywhere.
When Santi and Jude got back, we all sat at the kitchen table to discuss the issue.
"We don't know that she's not sick. Autoimmune disorders can be pretty severe and come on suddenly," Santi said, playing devil's advocate.
"She's not sick," Jude stated. "That bitch is just hiding her."
"Okay, so we need a way to contact Emilia. Does anyone have her number or social media info?" Oren asked.
None of us did, but Jude quickly jumped online to search for her.
"This is a delicate situation," Santi reminded us. "Taking someone else's omega can get us in hot water and we don't need that. It could end with her going back to ORC and that is the last thing we want. Let me do some digging and figure out how to do this properly. If she even wants out."
"We wouldn't force her!" Oren looked shocked.
"I would." Jude shrugged. "She might be brainwashed. Getting away from those people is her best chance at a good life."
"And she's our scentmatch," I pointed out. "The chances of her not wanting us are pretty low."
"But not zero." Santi sighed. "Just let me figure some stuff out, okay? You can try to contact her online, but let's keep going to the house to a minimum, so we don't get their suspicions up."
"I think we should invite them over again," Oren said. "Then one of us could slip over and see where she is."
Santi rubbed his stubbled chin. "Just, hold on for a week or two, alright?"
"Fine," Jude and Oren both grumbled at the same time.
I knew how they felt, but we had to hold out. Santi would figure out the best way to get our omega home to us.
***
A month later, we were no closer to finding out what had happened to Emilia.
We'd caught a glimpse here and there through a window while walking by, but the two times we tried to talk to her at the door, we were turned away.
She was still weak from the illness, they said. I didn't buy it, but what could we do?
We'd even invited them over for dinner one night and Oren had gone to knock, but the house was dark and silent and Emilia didn't come to the door.
"I think we might have to accept the fact that she doesn't want anything to do with us," Santi told us one evening as we sat on the back deck. "We know she's been in there and she could come to the fence if she wanted to."
"But we're her scentmatches!" I frowned.
"I want to hear it from her," Jude declared. "She can tell me she doesn't want help. Or us."
Oren nodded. "That's only fair. She can't just avoid us forever."
"She can," I pointed out. "She has. It's been weeks since we've talked to her."
"I do have one idea," Santi said tiredly.
"What's that?"
"We can call for an omega wellness check. One of the Omega Protection agents will come out and see if she's alright."
"They'll know it was us," Jude said.
"So what?" I shook my head. "Let's do it."
"One more month," he urged. "Then I'll call it in. It's going to cause some serious issues between the two packs."
So, we settled in to wait another month.