Jet
Iwoke up in a cold sweat, my heart pounding. The cabin was quiet except for the soft snores coming from the bed next to mine. Our cabin was the largest. As ranch manager, Anson had his own room. Joel and I slept in a room together.
I’d been having a nightmare. The government had come to the ranch, and several men were dragging Elliott away. He was calling me for help. Then his face turned into Clayton’s, and that’s when my eyes popped open and I sat up.
Once my breathing slowed, I quietly got up so as not to wake Joel asleep in the other bed and went into the small kitchen to drink a glass of water.
On my way back to the bedroom, I stopped to look out the window.
I caught a flash of light to the right followed by an answering flash to the left—the half-hour signal from the guards on duty that all was well at their respective posts.
Tonight, it was Kirk and Emma out there.
Back in the bedroom, I lay down again, trying to wipe all memory of the dream from my mind. In the end, though, I couldn’t go back to sleep.
A half-hour before my regular wake-up time, I gave up trying and went to take a shower. As I left the house less than ten minutes later, I heard Anson’s alarm go off in his room.
At the ranch, Eric was already making breakfast, and, as luck would have it, Dallas sat at the table drinking coffee. I’d told myself that whichever therapist I could get an appointment with first would do, so after pouring myself a cup of coffee, I sat down across from him.
“Hi,” he greeted me.
“Hi. I’m glad I ran into you. I was wondering if I could make an appointment. I’ve, uh, been having a lot of nightmares lately.”
Dallas met my gaze across the table. “Of course. After hours, I assume. What’s the best time for you? Today’s good for me.”
“Is seven-thirty too late? Elliott should be finished with his chores by then.”
“That’ll be fine. You’ll have to come by our house. We have an extra room we sometimes use as an office. Bedtime here can be a little chaotic.”
I knew he was referring to the kids, Kate and Jeremiah.
Eric chuckled as he placed a few creamers and packets of sugar on the table. “You noticed, huh? Sometimes it takes all three of us working hard to get the two of them down and out.”
Chuckling, I told Dallas I’d be there. I looked at my watch. “I’d better go. Elliott has the chickens this morning. See you later.”
Taking my coffee with me, I walked toward the omegas’ quarters.
The morning air was pleasantly cool as the sun topped the horizon.
Above my head, birds were making a racket in the trees as they did every morning, like a crowd getting together for breakfast. I felt better for having made an appointment with Dallas.
I wasn’t looking forward to talking about my issues, but I had to face the fact that I needed help with them.
Otherwise, the nightmares were going to start affecting my work.
Plus, my subconscious had clearly made a connection between my brother and Elliott.
If I was going to keep Elliott safe, I needed to work that out.
I’d been surprised when Laura called me yesterday to tell me that Elliott was uncomfortable with changing guards every day and chose me to be his permanent security.
Surprised, but pleased, thinking that maybe I’d earned a little trust from him.
Later, when he’d shared his sandwich with me and then didn’t freak out when I touched him to save him from hitting the dash, I’d really been encouraged.
It felt good that perhaps I was helping him to get over his fear of alphas.
When I reached the omega house, Elliott was waiting outside for me.
“Good morning,” I said.
Elliott’s mouth curved into a small smile. “Morning.”
“Am I late?”
Elliott shook his head. “No, I just got ready early. I didn’t sleep well. Weird dreams.”
“Same,” I said.
“Really?” he asked.
I nodded. I wasn’t sure why, but I wanted to share this with Elliott. I guessed I just really wanted him to know he wasn’t wrong about trusting me.
“I dream about my little brother a lot,” I said.
Elliott’s face softened.
“His name was Clayton. He was cute and kind of clueless and had been my responsibility since our parents left us when I was eighteen and he was fourteen.”
“Where did your parents go?” Elliott asked.
“Who knows? They were drug addicts and never paid much attention to us.”
“I’m sorry,” Elliott said sadly, like he could relate to the pain buried deep within me.
“Thank you. It was what it was. I don’t think about it much anymore.”
“Still, you deserved to have a good family,” he said.
Taking a deep breath, I told Elliott the hardest part.
“Clayton was an omega. I did my best to keep him safe. My parents never registered him, and when he started his heats, I lived in fear that someone would find out. I had to work to put food in our mouths and keep our apartment, so I had to leave him at home alone a lot.”
Our parents didn’t neglect to register my brother out of concern for the government’s intentions, but rather because they were perpetually zoned out on drugs by the time it became apparent he was an omega.
I suspected by that time they were only managing to keep us in our shabby apartment by stealing and whoring themselves out.
The only reason they didn’t whore out me or Clayton was because at that point I’d grown bigger and stronger than my dad, whose formerly tough body had been ravaged from years of drug abuse.
Also, I suspected that they still retained enough sense to realize that if anyone knew Clayton was an omega, it would bring unwanted attention to them.
I didn’t tell Elliott any of that, though.
Instead, I told him about the area Clayton and I found behind the wall of my bedroom that ran throughout the building like a maze.
Clayton spent his time in there when I couldn’t be at home with him.
But, during one of his heats, Clayton left the safety of our apartment.
When I got home from work, I searched all night and the next day and couldn’t find him anywhere.
Elliott looked upset. “What did you do?”
“I hoped he’d come back. When I wasn’t working, I continued to look for him. After a month, I quit my job and asked the SOS for their help. But Clayton never turned up.”
“That’s why you became a special ops alpha,” Elliott correctly deduced.
I nodded. “It was the only thing I felt I could do for him at that point—become a defender of omegas of sorts.”
Clayton would be twenty-two now. I didn’t have much hope he was still alive.
“Thank you for telling me that,” Elliott said.
“Thank you for listening.”
We’d started for the chicken coop while we were talking.
Elliott went in to get the morning eggs while I checked my phone for messages. Dallas had confirmed our appointment that evening.
When Elliott returned, we walked to the goat pen, and he asked me to hold his apron so the goats wouldn’t break the eggs in their excitement to see him.
When I took it from his hand, our fingers brushed, and he jerked his hand away and nearly dropped the apron.
Fortunately, I caught it. I pretended nothing had happened and stood leaning against a nearby tree while he brought the goats out of their shed and fed and watered them, trying not to be disappointed at his reaction.
I’d noticed that Elliott seemed very fond of the goats.
I’d seen him talking to them and petting them many times in the past. Once, when I was waiting for Camp outside the barn, I watched him with them for almost half an hour.
His apparent favorite was an all-white Saanen.
It was cute as hell the way Elliott combed the goat’s scraggly beard while he told him how handsome he was.
That particular goat trotted up to Elliott immediately upon being released from the shed and nudged him with his muzzle until Elliott scratched behind the goat’s ears. I was amused when I heard Elliott call him “Steve.”
Fuck, Elliott was adorable.
I couldn’t help thinking that it was something Clayton would do. It hurt, as always, to think about my brother, but after sharing my story with Elliott, the pain felt a little lighter.
After tending to the goats, Elliott checked on his garden.
“Oh, good. Somebody took the weeds to the compost pile while I was laid up,” he said.
I didn’t tell him I’d done it, but I was pleased that he was pleased. Taking some baskets out of the shed, he knelt in the garden and began harvesting kale, lettuce, and radishes.
“Would you like some help with that?” I asked him. “I feel pretty lazy just standing here.”
“Sure,” Elliott surprised me by saying. When he looked up at me in the early sunlight, his irises held a myriad of greens. So beautiful.
I blinked, wondering why the hell I thought that.
“What do you want me to do?” I asked him.
Elliott bit his bottom lip, considering. “You could pick the radishes over there,” he said, indicating the rows of radishes at the other end of the garden.
I smiled and grabbed one of the baskets. “Anything I should know?”
“Just make sure that the top of the radish is showing, otherwise don’t pick it yet. Pull it out with a kind of rocking motion.”
“Okay.” I took the basket over the rows of radishes and he demonstrated with his hand.
I soon got the hang of it. I’d never done any gardening but found it pleasant to kneel in the soil and pull radishes. Something about being so close to the earth felt revitalizing. I shared the thought with Elliott, and he agreed.
“That’s exactly why I love gardening,” he said, smiling at me.
And why did my heart beat so hard when he did that? I couldn’t say that had anything to do with my little brother.
Careful, Jet.
I’d filled two baskets with radishes when the loud clanking of an iron bell Eric had recently installed on the back porch announced lunch was ready. Straightening up, I winced when sharp pains shot up back. Shit, who knew you needed to do stretches before gardening or you’d end up crippled?