5. KATIE
Chapter five
KATIE
I dart into the hallway. No one is coming, and I already spotted a double door that is likely a stairwell. We need to get down as many flights as we can.
I don’t pause to look behind me. I trust that Maddie is keeping everyone moving forward, and there isn’t any commotion. My pulse spikes, that familiar adrenaline from running missions back in my veins. Only this time, there are no tanks and no explosives. At least, I hope not.
We make it halfway down the hallway when I hear voices drifting toward us.
I mouth, “in here,” and point to an empty room. We file in, and I hold my breath. My pulse thrums in my ears. Nurse Angela is talking to someone–the shorter nurse from before.
“The Inspector is on his way. I know, I can't believe he wants to question them personally. You’d think they’d wait for the Professor.”
Nurse Angela laughs. “Oh, you know how Cal is. He likes control.”
“I bet he does. Imagine being his Omega. I bet he likes to use his bark in bed.”
Both women giggle.
I glance back at my sisters. Molly Beth is pale, a slight wheeze on her inhales. Damn it, we don’t have her inhaler. Layla places a gentle hand on her shoulder.
Something pings and I look back out in the hallway.
“Oh, for all the gods below.” Nurse Angela shakes her head. “I swear he is the most impatient Alpha I know.”
“He’s downstairs already?”
“No, he’s already on the surgical floor. Fool. I’ll go talk to him.”
The two nurses split, the shorter one heading back toward a central desk, and Nurse Angela in the opposite direction of the stairs. For a moment the hallway is empty.
“Now,” I whisper, then take the lead. We skitter toward the doors. No one seems to notice us. Thank Jesus for people not seeing what they don’t expect.
Then I see it.
On a table inside what looks like a spare room is Molly Beth’s red inhaler.
I push open one of the double doors as gently as I can. It creaks, metal against metal squealing an alert.
“Go down two floors, then wait by the door.”
“What are you-” Layla begins, but I cut her off.
“Just go!”
I whirl back, sprinting toward the empty room. My knee shoots angry spikes of pain up my thigh. I ignore it. I slide into the room and realize it’s not actually empty.
A portly white woman in her late sixties looks up from where she’s pressing at what looks like a mounted window pane in the back corner. She furrows her eyebrows as she looks me up and down.
All of our stuff–our clothes, IDs, Maddie’s cigarettes, even my knives– are laid out in neat piles. Like a catalog.
It’s creepy.
“You shouldn't be up, Omega,” she says gruffly, but doesn't bother to get up. “Your hormones are cycling, all of you lot should be resting. Get back in bed.” She speaks sharply, like a headmistress scolding a wayward pupil.
“You shouldn't kidnap people,” I spit back, swiping both Molly Beth’s inhaler and one of my knives.
“Hey, what are you…” She stands, but I am already out the door. I sprint to the stairs and leap down them, half sliding on the railing like I’m a teenager again. I stumble with the force of my momentum, nearly crashing into Norah.
“We need to get to the bottom floors but they know we’re on the stairs now. Let’s see if we can sprint across to the elevators.” I hiss, and Maddie takes up the lead. We barrel through the hallway. It’s hard to look inconspicuous. This floor is busier, and several young women in scrubs and clipboards watch us, but don’t move to stop our progress.
We’re halfway down the hallway when a tall man with deep ebony skin and what clearly looks like a lab coat steps into Maddie’s way.
“Are you looking for something?” His words are powerful, but not threatening. His nostrils flare as he surveys the five of us.
Maddie tenses, and I can tell she’s ready to fight. But we need diplomacy, not a five finger deterrent. I pull her back to me.
“No, we just needed to stretch our legs. You know how bad bed sores can be if we lounge too long.”
He frowns, glances at his wristlet, then nods. “Don’t leave this floor. This is the last of the semi-secure floors. There aren’t guards on the lower floors.”
Fool .
“Thanks,” I say, brightly. “We’ll be careful.” I offer one of my few coy smiles. I hate pretending to be a clueless damsel in distress, but sometimes you have to give people what they expect. He shrugs and the slight tension in his shoulders relaxes.
I loop my arm through Maddie’s and we walk slowly, like women just trying to make their rounds. An amble, not a march. Calm, sedated, like good little patients.
“We need to get to those unguarded floors. I know they’ll be watching the stairs. I think if we take the elevator down three or four floors, we might be able to sneak down the stairs the rest of the way and then out a side entrance. This seems like a functioning hospital at least.”
Layla tosses her hair over one shoulder. “This seems too easy. Why have unguarded floors? And why warn us?”
“Who the fuck cares? We just need to leave,” Maddie hisses.
“There could be Alphas, and if what Nurse Angela said is true, they could scent us and lose their control,” Norah says.
I shake my head. “Nor, I love you, but this is all a crazy cult scheme, okay. Forget about the Alpha-Omega thing. We need to get Molly Beth home.” I slide my hand from my robe pocket and pull out the red inhaler.
“Here.” I hand it over and she smiles.
“Thanks. I was feeling tight.” She takes a quick puff, inhaling deeply, then closing her eyes as she holds the medication inside her lungs, before slowly exhaling. I wish I knew how to help her more. But getting her home to her doctors is the best way to help.
I recite that like a mantra. Molly Beth home to her doctors. Norah home to her books. Layla home to her yoga. Maddie home to her kickboxing. And me… home to an empty apartment and an uncertain future.
We reach the end of the hallway, just an open lobby area with the nurses' station between us and the wall of elevators.
“We don't want to run or look suspicious. We’re going to hit both up and down buttons, then casually get in on the down car.”
“Yes Captain,” Molly Beth says, offering a genuine smile.
Layla nods, but she’s looking around, her blue eyes wide. “This place is huge, Katie. How could a cult hide a facility this big?”
“I don’t know.”
It’s a massive undertaking, to be sure. But how else can we explain all of this… nonsense? The implication is too big, too incomprehensible to even entertain.
Alphas. Betas. Omegas.
Humans are not like animals. We did not descend from shifters. This is just a pocket of intense hallucinatory madness and when we get home, I can report everything I know to the FBI. My chest tightens again. What if we can’t…
Focus on the mission, Wilder.
We emerge from the hallway and head toward the stairs. Other people are milling about, and a few pause to stare at us. One woman's nostrils flare, and I wonder if we smell especially bad. Or if whatever body spray Norah and Maddie have been using is catching their attention.
We’re halfway across the lobby when the elevators open, and a voice reaches my ears.
“Angela, I just got the call. What do you mean that you have a bunch of orphaned Travelers who are Omegas? You know Loren is going to have a field day. You should have called him first.”
The man stops just outside the elevator door, the collar of his navy blue peacoat still popped up against the weather outside. He isn’t exceptionally tall or handsome—a few inches taller than me, midnight black hair cropped short at the sides and a bit longer at the top. His features are sharp, almost pointed. He is like some angry elfin page-boy, without the cap and breeches.
I take several steps back, pushing my sisters to follow backward into the quiet hallway. My movement alerts him to us and he turns the full force of his midnight gaze on me.
The scent of crushed fir needles and sweet lime surrounds me. Sweet and fresh, washing over me like a wave. My chest flutters and I feel my breaths coming in pants, my core tightening with a hunger so strange yet so familiar. Everything in the lobby fades to the corners of my vision.
“Holy Mother of Wolves,” the man breathes, staring at me. His dark eyes are endless.
Nurse Angela darts from beside him into the mouth of the hallway, closing off our escape. But I am frozen, my attention fixed on the man before me.
“ Damn. Callum, they are supposed to be upstairs on one of the Beta-only floors. Ladies, you need to get back upstairs now !” Nurse Angela says but her words are fuzzy, like they’re coming from a long way off.
Callum .
This man swallows up my entire focus. This sharp, angular, angry man. This stranger in a blue peacoat – a dress coat. A uniform, I realize in the tiny functioning pocket of my brain. Fir and citrus tickle me to attention. My body softens even as all my core muscles knot further, not painfully but with longing.
Callum.
I mouth the name reflexively and he jerks, as though I’ve hit him.
Before I can line up all my thoughts into any kind of coherent order, he lunges.