6. O-11
Chapter six
O-11
I grunt with effort as I scramble to find the zipper on the cushion practically glued to my fingers. Zippers are a must-have because we omegas make such a mess in our heats. Everything needs to be machine washable.
The fact I’m coherent enough to think this way means my heat must be ebbing. This hell always last for three days, or so I’m told. I wouldn’t know because to me they’re just a never-ending blur of pain, screaming, and needles. And a fucking bastard who edges me with his knot until my scent glands are drier than the Ohara desert and burn like someone filled them with molten glass.
Fun.
I work the zipper into position and saw at the leather strap. It falls into a ridge on the inside of the cuff, which I’ve been carving at every time I got locked in here the past six months. Could be a year. Time doesn’t mean much in this tiny box of a room that presses in on me with every breath. I’m lucky the bitches haven’t noticed the fraying on the base of the leather yet.
If I don’t get loose, I’ll end up drowning in my body fluids one of these days when they leave me strapped down for too long. I already have bedsores on my back and hips.
I pant from the effort of twisting my fingers sharply around to reach the leather, but I tell myself it’s flexibility training. Anything can be accomplished with the right mindset, and I’m the master of mindsets—I have at least three separate mental voices besides my own, after all. Not counting the dozens of movie roles I’ve studied over and over.
The out-of-reach whispers of my alphas keep me company as I cut at the leather with the zipper’s tiny metal ridge, panting with exertion. One murmur has a bold voice, oozing confidence with a melodic tone. Sometimes I feel sure I’ll catch a few words, but I never do.
Woven through that honeyed voice is a second tone, gentler, which likes to laugh. At least, I think he’s laughing. Could be crying.
The third? That one’s like me. Living with a permanent snarl vibrating through his skull. Or hers. Who knows?
Sweat makes my skin slippery and the tiny metal shard skids, cutting the quick on my nail. I grimace and adjust my grip. I saw again. The leather edge snaps apart and I laugh with victory before working my arm back and forth to tear the pieces open. I won’t be able to hide the damage when my tormentors come back, so escape is now or never.
My skin’s rubbed raw from the sawing by the time I get the cuff loose, but it’s so worth it. I yank my arm free and roll to one side, jerking on my other arm restraint. The loose neck restraint bobs against my shoulder as I drag myself upright, working the blood into my aching lower back. My haze stench stifles my nose as I find my clothes heaped in one corner and drag them over my aching limbs.
Omegas reek so bad during heats. Even me.
I dig one of the stolen Uno cards out of my pocket. It’s a Wild. I snort softly as I jimmy it through the door lock, and it slips open. Not my first rodeo. Okay, might technically be my first successful escape, but when I think about all the action and spy movie roles I’ve absorbed, I’m an old hand at this. The Bitches think they’ve shut down all my avenues of escape, so I doubt they’re even monitoring the hallways closely. They’ll think I’m still at the mercy of my heat, and I haven’t tried anything for several months to lull them into a false sense of security.
This time, I’m getting out.
I sneer at the empty room that stands witness to my torment before sliding out into the deserted corridor. The nest wing is a long walk away from the main compound, so it stands to reason it’s gotta be located on an outer fringe of the compound.
If I can find the exit, I can disappear out into whatever wilderness is outside—be it manmade or natural.
My heart flutters with sick nervousness as I creep down one hall and turn a corner. The big metal door at the end looks too bulky to be an internal door and my breath catches with hopefulness. The little scarred omega, O-18, said whoever gets out first needs to check with the authorities to see if this place is legitimate, so that’ll be my task.
O-4, who’s missing, won’t be able to—no way do they have anything good planned for an omega like her with such a powerful scent. My heart aches. I should’ve warned her about the dark underbelly of this place, but then I’d have been punished and her fate woulda been sealed sooner. It’ll be a shock to her system to learn how depraved mankind truly is.
But right now, I only have enough energy to worry about myself, and precious little of that. Escape first. Get help second.
A surveillance camera presides over the door, and I drag a broken chair out of a pile of junk to balance precariously on as I cover the viewpoint with the Uno card while I turn it to face down the hall. That done, I attack the deadlock, which thankfully is all manual and none of this modern digital shit. They’ll probably save that for the main entrance. It doesn’t want to turn, so I shove my shoulder against the door to release some tension, setting off a fresh batch of aches.
A few moments later, the lock gives, and I heave the heavy door open. I grunt and stumble. My heat might be waning, but the effects still linger in my body, making me sluggish and dizzy. A gust of icy wind rushes in through the opening, cleaning the foul, stagnant odors from my nose. Light filters in at an odd angle, highlighting a big drain in the floor that smells of moss. A whine slips between my teeth as I follow the light beams upward. Way upward.
Shit!
A silo tunnel towers above me, slits of light filtering around a lid or rain cover ninety feet overhead. Rust flakes peel from the rickety ladder scaling the slimy concrete wall and I swear rungs are missing higher up. Will my jelly arms hold me for a climb that high?
I laugh softly under my breath. Who do I need to be to make that climb?
Olivia Hunston could do it, playing the femme fatale Aurora in Alpha-Spy 15 with a stab wound in her side. I gather my actress’s aura around me and nod with conviction. I haven’t come this far to give up now.
The crusty metal digs into my palms as I grasp the first rung and step up. The winter air turns the metal chilly, but it’s bearable. Not so bad. I reach for the next step. A dozen rungs up, my muscles seize and I loop one arm through the square to rest for a moment. If I’m too slow, the Bitches will come back for the last few hours of my heat and catch me. Time to hurry up. If I’m playing a spy character, a bomb would be ticking away in the building under my feet.
I use that thought to push myself as I grit my teeth and climb, trying to ignore the waves of fever still clamping my belly. That’s the heroine’s stab wound, and I’ll get medical treatment when I’m out. Nothing else exists except the rust under my hands, the sweat running down my back, and the desperate need to put one hand above the other and haul myself up.
Life is pain; therefore, I am still alive.
I’m three-quarters of the way when I step up and the rung snaps off beneath my foot. I scream as I swing into the ladder with a thump, my trembling arms taking my full weight. The broken metal bounces against the concrete and falls with a loud clang, echoing around and around the silo.
I squeeze my eyes shut, quivering all over as I cling to the ladder. A sharp, hot sting scorches through my face and when I dab my fingers to my forehead, they come away bloody. I probably haven’t even had a tetanus shot since I was a child.
A setback like this would never stop a spy. I grit my teeth and make the last climb to the top without incident, pushing under the domed rain cover and tumbling over the lip of this air exhaust or whatever it is.
The scent of damp earth and trees washes through me, clearing the haze fog completely. A chuckle escapes me as I flop on my back and stare up at the weak golden sun partially hidden by pine branches. I made it out. The trees overhead wave in the breeze to welcome me as I lie grinning and bleeding on their floor, my breath misting a little in the cold air.
As I sit up, a whiff of nicotine hits me, followed by licorice, and I spasm all over. Dread poisons my stomach at the sight of Ray leaning on a rock nearby, watching me as he smokes like he doesn’t have a care in the world.
Our eyes meet and he grins lazily. “Does the sunlight feel good, hellcat? Enjoy it while I finish my cig because you’ll probably never see it again.”
The spy let her guard down. I always hate that part in movies when the heroes stop to talk at the critical moment when the trap is about to spring. Fuck that!
I take off, tripping over my own feet in my haste as I tear downhill between the trees, slapping away overgrown ferns. My legs shake so badly I don’t have a frog’s ass chance of escaping uphill, so down it is. I run like the devil’s on my heels, because he is.
Ray’s laughter and heavy footfalls chase me.
How far to civilization? My breath wheezes with every lunge, and dampness seeps into my flimsy indoor shoes. Mentally I mark a big tree ahead as my goal, then another as I reach it. All that matters is moving at top speed.
But my top speed slows with every step.
A thickset arm catches me around my waist, dragging me off my feet and I scream. Ray slings me to the ground, bracing his arms on either side of me, and dampness soaks through the back of my shirt instantly.
“We’ve had our fun, ‘Lev.” He pauses to catch his breath, which roars hot and disgusting across my face. “Now it’s time to go back inside and finish your heat.”
“My heat’s broken!” I spit out.
He drops his nose and inhales near my throat. “Not quite.”
“Let me go,” I whine. “Please.”
Ray smirks. “Then who’s gonna pay my bills?”
I chase down the tears by lunging at him, teeth bared to bite off his other earlobe. He grabs my hair, and I scream as I rebound, pain exploding across my scalp. “This is personal, now,” he growls, easygoing manner evaporating. “I think you need some time to reflect on your actions.”
Ray hauls me to my feet and twists my arms painfully behind me, frog marching me uphill while still pulling on my hair. “You think you don’t like the nest now? How about two months spent in there all by yourself, shitting into a bucket?”
Spies don’t beg, not even stupid ones who let their guards down. I fight him with all I’ve got, silently begging lightning to strike him or a tree to fall so I can push him underneath. A spy would have a team of snipers in the pines ready to cover her exit, but this agent’s been undercover so long her team forgot she existed. Everyone abandoned me.
When the exhaust tunnel comes into view, Ray shoves me to the left and follows a ridged track for a hundred feet before stopping in front of a cave. “Take a deep breath of that fresh air, ‘Lev. It’ll need you to last a lifetime.”
“Fuck you!” I hiss, because I can’t smell anything past his charred licorice stench. “Your mama fucked a sea slug to make you!”
He chuckles and swings me into the cave, where a bunch of trucks with lifted suspension line up beside an elevator door. I squeeze my hands tight, feeling the raw skin blistering on my palms from the horrendous climb. All for nothing.
Bitches One and Two wait for us at the bottom of the elevator. The first asshole slaps me straight across the face. “Wasting our bloody time, you bitch!” She swings again and Ray doesn’t stop her like he did before my heat as she unleashes her heavy palms across my flushed cheeks. I stagger.
Torture for the spy? I won’t say a word. Won’t let on that my alphas are here in my mind, trying to hold me together.
At least until they carry out their threat of two months’ solitary confinement in the dark, with the stale scent of haze and licorice lingering on the walls—then I scream.