51. Callisto
Chapter fifty-one
Callisto
Screams wake me from a deep sleep, and I hurl myself out of bed amidst an adrenaline dump. Sounds like someone being murdered. I fumble in the dark and stub my toe on the bed base. Agony burns through my foot. “Shit!”
But those feral cries cut me more painfully and a strangling sensation chokes me as I throw open the door. “Callisto!” Ricky cries from down the hall. “She’s gonna burn the house down!”
What the fuck?
Rickon yelps, and Red barrels through the door to the nest. I stiffen as a cloud of her scent explodes through the hall. Every alpha instinct comes alive. An omega’s in heat. I slip on water splashed down the hall as I stumble to the nest.
Tears track down Rickon’s face and he nurses one bleeding arm against his chest as he swipes something off the floor. “She’s gonna hurt herself,” he cries, stricken.
“What’s going—?” One glance at the nest stops me in my tracks. The room’s destroyed; a bottle of cooking oil slowly leaks out in the center, shattered glass from the framed pictures covers the floor, pillow stuffing dots everything like snow, and pieces of wrecked lighting cable tops the mess.
A jolt runs through my heart. Did she even think to disconnect the cable before cutting through? Holy shit, she could’ve electrocuted herself. Turning, I find Rickon holding a lighter and a piece of my soul cracks. She was going to burn it all. But why?
“Where is she?” I gasp.
Rickon points downstairs. My heart breaks for him as much as Red as I fling myself down the steps three at a time. A trail of destruction leads through to my small downstairs library and when I try the handle, it’s locked.
“Red?” I knock lightly.
Rickon arrives, panting. “She in there?”
I lean my ear cautiously against the door. “I think so.” The handle rattles as I try again.
“Go away!” the omega screams through the barrier.
Rickon and I share a loaded glance. At least we know where she is, and the room has only one entrance.
Ricky shoulders me out of the way and places both palms flat against the door. “What’s wrong, Biscuit? Talk to me.”
“You can’t have it!” she shouts back. The ferocity in her voice notches my adrenaline up all over again.
Rickon squeezes his eyes shut. “Have what? You’re in heat, baby, and I just want to help you.”
She screams in real fury. “Fuck off! Just fucking leave me alone! Haven’t you done enough damage?”
Ricky steps back, like the words have dealt him a physical blow.
“Could she be tripping?” I murmur. As far as I know, no drugs enter my house, but the entertainment industry is full of it. Someone might have slipped her something at the studio.
Rickon shakes his head helplessly. “No. She’s been waspish all day but didn’t tell me her heat was coming, and I didn’t connect the dots.” He grinds his palms into his eyes. “I’m such an idiot!”
I ball my hands into fists, feeling useless, until I spy blood trickling down my friend’s arm. I can at least deal with what’s in front of me. “Keep talking to her,” I say. “We know she’s conscious if she’s talking.”
I find the medical kit under the kitchen sink and bring it back, patching up Rickon’s bleeding arm while he talks through the door. The punctures form in two distinct half circles, clearly bite marks.
He leans against the doorframe, looking defeated. “Do you want me to call the Omega Center?”
Red roars with a long, guttural sound, and bangs on the wall. “If you call those bastards, we’re over, Rickon! Do you hear me? I’ll never speak to you again!”
The broken look on his face calls me, and I fold him into my arms. “She doesn’t mean it.”
But Red hears me. “I fucking do, you rejecting piece of shit! I have rights, you know? Nobody gets to stick a needle or cock in me without my say! Got it? Nobody. Not you, not Samantha, not those Bitches. Not Ray.” Her voice cracks.
Rickon stiffens in my arms and whispers, “It’s her trauma. The heat’s triggered it. The staff at the Center mentioned it to me, but I didn’t realize—”
Deep, soul-destroying sobs come from the other side of the door. I feel them in my own chest. Everybody and everything let this omega down for her entire life. Including me.
Tears flow silently down Ricky’s pale cheeks as his body spasms along with the sounds. Every alpha instinct we have demands we comfort the omega on the other side of that door. “Unlock the door, Red. I just want to hold you,” he begs.
“No,” she chokes out, voice muffled. “I’d eat you alive. Fuck, it hurts!”
Even with the door between us, I can smell her heat haze, deep like roasted chestnuts, sweet as apple pie. My cock stirs. With a groan, I sink down onto my heels, bracing myself with a fist on the wall.
“I don’t—” Red hiccups. “I don’t wanna lose control. You can’t have my haze.”
The pieces tumble into place, clicking together loudly in my brain. The impact sends me sprawling on my ass. I’ve seen the case notes—the clinical room with the leather restraints on the bed, the hundreds of bottles of haze oil. And the name Ray on my list of arrests from the omega hub.
Fuck me.
“Calli?” Rickon breathes out, resting his hand on my shoulder.
“I’m okay,” I croak, blinking through tears. But it’s not true. I’ll never be all right. Ray . A throb pulses through my heart, hot and dangerous as an electric current.
She’s so terrified of her own heats she tried to burn down the nest. They made her like this. And not only did I ask this precious, broken omega to relive all that abuse in order to testify, but I tried to guilt her into doing what I wanted. She and Ricky both said I wasn’t listening, and they were right. I thought because she functioned like a normal person that she was fine, but I was wrong. She’s been living with the pieces of herself duct tapped together and I tried to force her to peel those emergency holds right off, telling her it was just some words.
Is there an alpha alive who’s worse than me? I thought I was a decent guy, but my foundation seems to be crumbling.
Red vomits on the other side of the closed door. Broken whimpers follow the heaving. Rickon leans into the door like he wants to break it down. His messy hair sticks out in all directions, and his hands tremble.
We need a plan to help Red. Help them both. I reach for my best friend. “We need to let her know she can trust us, Ricky. Well, I mean, trust you.” She’ll never trust me again. I only had one chance. “The pheromones are making her regress to when she was a captive. Remember what I said about her haze? Hundreds of bottles. You know how to trigger maximum scent from an omega in heat?”
He looks up at me, beautiful eyes wide with horror.
I nod. “She was raped through her heats, by an alpha. Not just once or twice, but the whole time, for days.”
He groans softly. “She told me never ever to edge her with a knot,” he says, confirming what I’m saying. “I’m supposed to call the Omega Center in an emergency, but she hates that place almost as much as her past.”
I ball my fist and bite down on my knuckle. If I think too much about it, I might break first. And I blithely asked her to relive it all so I could bring the fucker to justice. Screw the case; I’ll find a hitman. But first we need to make sure Red’s as safe as she can be while she wages mental warfare.
“Our priority is to make sure she keeps hydrated and doesn’t hurt herself. I have an idea, so just stay here and keep talking to her.” I grip his shoulder reassuringly. “Your kind voice will help.”
He nods and sniffs down his tears before setting his back to the door. “I’m here, Red. I’m just gonna sit outside this door and talk a little.”
I dust myself off and head out, writing a mental shopping list.
It takes me about an hour to collect everything, and Rickon hasn’t moved from his place at the door when I return. He sits, hugging his knees, reciting lines from his favorite movies. The image he makes sets my heart aching.
“I’m home,” I say softly, realizing it’s a truer statement than I knew. Before he and Red moved in, this place was always silent and cold. But now it feels like a real home.
“That’s your plan?” he asks as I haul the power saw to the door and set up an extension cord.
I nod. “She’s not going to like it, so for now I’m just going to cut a hole big enough to pass water through. Stand back.”
He nods and gets up stiffly, flexing his legs to get the muscles working again.
“Red?” I call, my pulse spiking. “I’m going to cut a hole in this door, but not the whole thing. I promise we won’t come in.”
“No!” Panic floods her voice.
I grit my teeth and set the tool in position. “Please make sure you aren’t near the door.” If she hurts herself on the other side, I’ll never forgive myself, but her life’s at risk with the way things are.
The whir of the electrical motor drowns out everything else. Thumps sound on the other side as Red panics, kicking the nearby wall. My muscles burn as I hold the tool in place to carve out a one-foot-square piece from the bottom of the door. The wooden block plops to the floor and I snatch it away.
“See, Red? Just a hole to pass you water.” I motion for Ricky to get one of the plastic bottles and he brings it over and rolls it through the hole.
“Please have a drink, Red?” he begs. “It’s just water.”
We wait stiffly in silence as Red moans on the other side. Then she goes quiet and a minute later the plastic crinkles as she picks up the bottle.
Ricky and I share a sigh of relief. One step in the right direction.
Red moans again and Ricky flinches, dropping onto his stomach to look through the hole. “I’m here for you Red.”
I lean against the wall. One step may not be enough.