26. I wasn’t prepared
CHAPTER 26
I WASN’T PREPARED
Anthony
H ow many excuses can I make up for why Sadie isn’t answering our calls? How much can I say when we open the doors to the gym and she’s not there? What excuse am I going to come up with about why the fuck Paxton’s office door is jammed shut?
I’m just as freaked out as the rest of them but I’m not going all toxic macho man like Paxton who already broke down the door and smashing the chair that had been blocking it.
I’m not quietly losing my mind like Cameron who hasn’t stopped rubbing his chest like he’s having a fucking heart attack as he gets PTSD flashbacks of being lost from the squad.
And then there is Jace, who is three shades lighter than usual, and hasn’t stopped asking if we should call the police because he doesn’t have any plan for what to do about our missing omega.
“It smells like bleach.” Cameron whispers the words when we step into the office and it makes our backs straighten.
It does smell like bleach.
Fucking Christ. Sadie baby, where are you?
My head is thumping as I look around, trying to catch any sign of her. Hating that all I come up with is that the window is cracked open and that could have been because Paxton had bean burritos for breakfast one day.
It doesn’t put Sadie in my arms, where she should be.
Paxton grabs his phone, slamming it on the desk as he taps away at it. None of us understand what he is doing until all of a sudden he’s in a security app that Cameron came up with a few months ago for our new development, and is logging into a feed that shows us standing in his office.
“You have cameras in your office?” I ask, shocked because I know there aren't cameras in any other part of the gym.
I also know that there weren't any cameras in here a month ago. Sadie started coming here and she changes in here since we’re still working on a changing room for her and other omegas. Which means Paxton has been getting his very own Sadie show.
Sneaky fuck.
Paxton doesn’t respond.
Instead, he rewinds until we watch Sadie walking in, changing into her gym clothes. It goes empty as she works out in the gym and then she’s back in the office, stripping off a shirt until she is only in a sports bra and leggings.
She’s so goddamn good looking.
All sweat slicked and flushed cheeks as she pulled out the scale we use for fights. She’s looking down at the number with a frown marring her face. It's like she’s upset with what she is seeing.
Sadie and I go to the gym a lot together.
She jokes that I just go so that I have an excuse to touch her and because I always rope her into showering with me after a quick rinse off before she gets a real wash down from Pax. But I like going to the gym with her because she gets this determined look on her face, where she looks like she can take on the whole world.
Her confidence, the way she gets so excited when she goes up a weight in lifting or when she does five more minutes of cardio. The way she comes alive and sees how strong she is, feels the power she has.
It’s the sexiest thing in the world seeing her believe in herself.
The showers are a bonus.
“She lost so much weight she has to buy new clothes.” Cameron says as Paxton pauses the video, looking up at him.
We had already covered this in the morning but now, seeing her weigh herself it’s like it’s just hitting us about how many changes she’s been through.
How come we didn’t notice this sooner? Were we so focused on just being with our omega we didn’t see the way she was changing around us.
“Maybe we should go to the mall.” Jace is looking at us, searching for confirmation as he tries to make a plan.
He needs a plan and is spiraling without one. But we all are fighting demons right now and can’t even focus on the way each other is feeling.
“Do you think we should have talked about her body?” I cringe as it comes out of my mouth because honestly, what business is it of mine to talk about a woman's body?
Her body is sexy no matter what. I’m attracted to her smart mouth and the way her presence puts me at ease.
Sadie is hot .
She was hot 20 pounds ago.
She’s hot now.
The only thing that changed is now people would see her as more conventionally attractive because they are fucking idiots.
But maybe Sadie likes the changes in her body.
Likes the muscle she’s gaining and needs reassurance from us that we like it too. We failed her by not letting her know how perfect she always is. By not buying her clothes that fit her sooner and anticipate her needs like good alphas would.
“We’re going to have a long fucking chat with the princess. Right after I fucking microchip her so she never goes missing again.” Paxton snaps, finger jamming into the phone again.
A microchip feels aggressive but I’m not about to argue with him when he’s like this.
The video speeds up and the next thing we see is Sadie throwing the door open, moving shit to barricade herself inside the office . Her breathing is frantic and even with the small video it’s clear how she’s upset.
We can’t see who is on the other side but Paxton’s chair gets moved and she’s diving under the desk like she is trying to find a place that feels safe.
I don’t like this.
I don’t like seeing our girl curled in a ball and trembling with obvious fear. The way her lips are moving like she’s having a conversation with someone, her hands over her ears as she blocks out whatever noise she is hearing.
She’s terrified.
And then she freezes.
A heavy sob leaves her throat and she crawls out from where she was hiding under the desk. A wet puddle there because she was so scared that she-
“Oh Sadie darlin’.” Jace’s voice is laced with the heartbreak that we’re all feeling.
Watching her sobbing, cleaning herself up with tissues and changing out of her wet clothes is going to be burned into my mind for the rest of my life.
I never want her to feel like this again.
Her sobs and tremors make me want to wrap myself around her, kiss her dozens of times and remind her how perfect and special our girl is.
All I can think about was how we prioritized work over our omega and how I would never, ever do that again. There would be other projects and things we could pursue. We had made enough money to be comfortable. Sadie was worth it. More than anything else. She was what truly matters.
Cam is rubbing his chest harder now and it’s like I get sympathy pains because it feels like my heart is shattering too. No one should feel like that, especially our fucking girl. It feels like torture watching her try to put herself together when she’s struggling so much.
We watch as Sadie crawls out the window and how just minutes later we show up, out of screen and just out of our reach.
We just missed her.
The four of us are quiet as everything we just saw sinks in deeper.
None of us know what to even say because we just watched the girl that I’m sure we’re all falling for just break apart when we weren’t with her.
Someone had made her feel unsafe in a place that she should have felt safe in. Someone had triggered her in a way that shattered our girl and we hadn’t been there to beat the ever living fuck out of the asshole.
To see her so terrified.
Awful .
“We should go to the mall,” The words come out of my mouth, earning me a glare from Paxton, “Sadie is going to act like this didn’t happen. She doesn't know about the cameras. She doesn’t know we know something happened here.” They all are thinking about it but they know it’s true.
Sadie doesn’t want anyone to think she’s weak. Or that she might need help.
She got so used to doing everything alone that now she doesn’t always understand how to lean on us to carry some of the weight with her. We don’t expect her to just hand over everything to us but we want her to know she can share as much as she wants and that we can handle that.
“You’re right,” Cameron says. He looks at the window she crawled through and squeezes his eyes shut.
When Cameron used to have PTSD flashbacks, when we first discharged, his mouth would move just like Sadie’s had been doing. We had found him on more than one occasion, shoved in a closet in a ball as he mouthed the situation silently. In his head it was full volume.
He sees her pain and feels it as real as he feels his own.
We’re going to need a bigger bed because I’m sure we’re going to be all together tonight.
No one is going to leave Sadie alone.
No one is going to leave Cam alone.
We have each other now and it’s time we rely more on each other. That’s what it means to be pack and we need to show them both that.
“Let's get going.” Paxton stands, shutting the window and locking it as he turns, heading out of the office and glaring as he looks around the gym like the person who hurt our girl would be stupid enough to hang around.
I’m sure he’s going to be installing more cameras after this.
In the car, I wonder how we should play this.
Paxton is going to want to confront everything head on. He needs to know what happened so he can dish out whatever he thinks would be fair justice.
Cameron is just going to want to touch Sadie, make sure she’s okay. He needs to feel that she is safe and not suffering to ease some of his own feelings about things.
Jace is going to make sure this never happens again and enact some sort of schedule so our girls never alone again. He will need to know what happened so he can make us all follow some new safety chart that we’ll find in our emails tomorrow.
And me, Christ .
I just want to tell her I love her and that I’m crazy about her. I want to make everything okay for her and it’s crushing me that I don’t even know howthe hell to even do that.
“We should split up,” Jace is forming a plan, calming down as we pull up to the mall and parking, “We each head to a different floor and side. The mall has only two floors and one left and one right side. I can take the top left. Cameron can take the bottom left. Paxton will take bottom right and Anthony will take top right. If we don’t find her in the next twenty minutes, we call the cops.” He visibly relaxes with aplan in place. Even a fallback plan for his just in case scenario.
It’s a silent nodding game, all of us in agreement. Getting Sadie is the most important thing.
Five minutes later, I’m scouring the top floor of a mall. Half of me is wondering if people actually go here anymore because it’s mostly dead and the few stores on my floor are predominantly prom dress stores. Which cuts down my searching by half.
There’s three stores I can see Sadie shopping in: a lingerie store, H&M, and a pet store where she’d buy a dog that she’d snuggle with and the four of us would have to take care of because what else could we do .
After the day she had I’d buy her whatever fucking dog she wanted.
There’s updates on the group chat about no sightings as I confirm she’s not in H&M.
My heart is pounding fast as I walk into the heavily perfumed air of the lingerie store.
Any other day, being here with Sadie would be a knot brain dream of mine.
I’d love to have her in the fitting room, trying on the lingerie I pick out for her. Spoiling her with pretty pieces and knowing she’s wearing something sexy under her clothes that I got for her would get me hot every single time.
Even with the shit show going on my dick still jumps at the thought of doing that.
“Excuse me,” Sweet Sadie’s voice rings out. All polite and good will poured out of the dressing rooms. I froze when I looked at a silky cobalt blue number I wanted to buy her, “I think I need a size smaller.” Her voice is a whisper as the attendant nods her head at our omega.
“Of course! Do you want me to do your measurements for you?” The girl working is all chipper and in a good mood. I’m thankful for her kindness right now because I’m sure that is exactly the sort of attention our Sadie needs.
Moving closer, I watch as the door is pushed open and Sadie lets the girl into her space.
Since I am a dickhead and didn’t want my friends all barging in and creating a scene, I don’t bother sending a text to them letting them know Sadie is safe. There is still time in Jace’s deadline.
This is an asshole move on my part and I tell myself in five minutes I’d let them know I found her.
Five minutes wasn’t that long in the grand scheme of things.
“So you’re not a double D anymore. Your band is also 34 inches not 40. You should be wearing a 34 D. In bottoms I’d go with a medium and for your body shape, you really have the perfect hourglass figure so I’d- ”
“Really?” Sadie’s voice is so soft, like she wasn’t sure if the girl was lying to her about how god damn perfect she was, “I mean-”
“Babe, you’re a smoke show.” Okay the beta sales attendant might be flirting with our girl and I didn’t love that but I did like that she was building her up, letting her know that she was perfect.
Do you tip people at stores? I would like to give her a very big tip for being so nice. Especially knowing how much Sadie needs it right now.
“Let me pull some pieces for you. Give me five minutes, okay?”
The next thing I knew the girl was on the sales floor, searching for her sizes but I am quicker.
Grabbing that blue cobalt number in the 34D, a sheer mesh slip, a pantie and bra set, and several things I was envisioning my teeth being used on, I spin into the dressing area. Knocking on the door Sadie is in and watching her push it open. As soon as it opened a little, I was inside, locking it behind us as she looked up at me with her mouth in an O.
“Hey baby bro, overheard your conversation and picked out some things for you to try on.” The way she just blinks at me, like she wasn’t sure what I was doing here.
But I am pulling out my phone, figuring my five minutes were up, as I sit down on the tufted stool and text the group chat that I found her.
Part of me wants to keep it to myself where we were but Sadie is still blinking out of her daze, grabbing the bra and pulling it on without even questioning me. Maybe she is trying to figure out her story of what is going on to tell us.
I’ll give her the chance to tell whatever sweet lie she needs if it gives me a few minutes watching her dress that perfect body is sexy things.
It is a black corset style bra, covering her ribs in silky ribbon before going into the silver grommets. Lace and a push up material that makes her tits look amazing. She grabs the matching thong I picked out, rolling her eyes and instead grabbing just a plain pair of black silky panties, tugging them on and tugging off the tags.
I snap a picture, letting the boys see the swell of her ass and the way she looks in the mirror, her body on display. Maybe seeing her would ease some of the worry everyone is feeling.
A knock on the door made her stop, opening it an inch as the sales women held up a few things she had grabbed for her.
“Oh, I see someone is helping you, “ She flashes me a friendly smile, probably knowing better than to remove an alpha from his omega.
Sadie is my omega.
Did she know that?
“Do you want to wear that out?” Sadie nods in response and a second later the beta moves to cut the tags off for her so she can ring it up with her purchases.
I stand, grabbing the things I had brought in for her to try on along with the things the attendant brought with her.
“Everyone is on their way here,” Sadie’s eyes meet mine, the fear so clear in them that I reach out, squeezing her hand. She must know we have been looking for her. “We just didn’t know where you were, Sadie baby. Scared me half to damn death.” I nuzzle into her as the sales attendant clears her throat trying to prevent this from going further.
My eyes lift to hers. I know she probably had to break up plenty of couples in this situation but I still need a minute with me omega. I’m holding up everything that was picked out.
“Can you start ringing this up? Also if you could grab a robe and a slip too? Whatever you think my omega needs or should have feel free to add in to the purchase. Thank you.” I turn back to Sadie as the door closes.
No one is going to argue when you throw some money around.
“Ant-”
“Shhh, hey. I want to spoil you. I like dressing you. And after the scare you gave us today I think I deserve to have a win. Okay?” She wraps her arms around me, her head on my chest as she squeezes her arms around me.
Poor Sadie.
I wanted to fix today for her, give her a win too. Show her that I cared about her, even if it was something material.
“And just so you know, you’re fucking gorgeous. I’m going to make this outfit my new background. Fuck .” The way she scoffs, not believing me.
I’d fix that.
I’d fix it so she knew just how god damn perfect she was. Everyday my affirmations would be around what a divine goddess my omega was. Everyday until the affirmations turned to just a fact in her pretty head.
“I should get dressed before they all arrive. I’m sure Pax is going to be furious. He's at the mall looking for me.” She looks at her phone next to her dress on the ground, not bothering to open it, “I just…lost track of time after working out.” The lie stutters free from her lips and I let her have it. This isn’t the place to bring it all up. I’m kissing her forehead as I nod.
“No one is mad at you. I think you just scared us. That’s all. We can talk about it tonight at home.” She nodded again, the relief in her eyes made me want to stay with her but I moved out of the room heading to the registers to pay.
As I swiped my credit card for the purchase that definitely had more than a few things added to it, my three pack mates came in. They are looking at me with four bags full of lingerie and sleepwear for our girl with confusion written across their faces.
Jace scowls at this, like he is mad that I had bought her something. Or maybe he didn’t think this was really the time to do any shopping.
Cam is moving past me, having spotted Sadie as soon as the door opened and needing to have his arms around her.
“Brat.” He mutters the nickname into her hair, arms around her as she melts into him.
It is obvious he is her safe space. The way she just let her tension ease as he wraps himself around her. His neck moves, carefully scent marking her like he needs to make it known that she’s his. It makes me realize again how good we were doing this together.
That we were all in.
Paxton looks around and then back at me, watching as I nod at him and he understands that she is doing okay. He knows her well enough to know Sadie wouldn’t just talk about what had happened yet. He just wants to make sure she’s not still breaking down .
But we all want to get her home, in a place where we feel like we have some control.
With their hands entwined, Cam finally starts leading her towards us, out of the store and looking around the mall.
“Do you have more shopping to do?” For someone who was just freaking out, Cameron seems to have this all under control.
I thought he was going to demand that we head home with her right away. He must be doing it for our omega. He wants to put her at ease, like this is all just a planned shopping trip and not a rescue mission.
But there is relief on his face when Sadie shakes her head.
“I’m tired.” She’s traumatized and hiding it, “I just want to get home and take a bath.”
She shivers once. A sign she’s not doing great but recovers when Cameron pulls her so she’s under his arm as he rubs down her arm. The touch is soft, soothing strokes as he does a purr for just her to hear.
Paxton is tense and Jace wants to touch her but he’s been quiet since he came up with a plan. Neither of them are going to try and get Sadie away from Cameron. They know he needs her right now.
The pair of them are starting to spiral and I want them to stop freaking out.
We have Sadie with us now.
We’re headed home.
We have all weekend to talk with her and to work through this.
Sadie’s hand grabs my elbow, sandwiching herself between me and Cam. I look up to see the way Jace looks at us, how he looks away too quickly and I can see it starting to happen already.
We all want Sadie.
We all talked about sharing Sadie but the reality is this isn’t always an even split.
At moments like this it just feels a little more uneven. And I worry that it’s going to be too much.