21
calix
WE MAKE FOOD later, but the atmosphere is subdued.
We eat. We watch TV.
It’s getting later, and I hesitantly say that we need to be sure that Lotus is getting regularly knotted, because whatever happened with her earlier, I felt it. We’re not bonded. We don’t have bites, but I felt her pain. She was in agony, needing us. My body instinctively knew she needed us.
I don’t want her to get that way again.
So, then we have sex.
We do it on the bigger bed this time, in the room with the splintered door, and it’s subdued too. Lotus gets two knots again, but Striker and Knight are inside her while Arrow and I take turns in her mouth.
Then we all sleep.
I have an alarm to wake up early to drive back to Cedar Falls for my shift in the morning.
But I’m awakened earlier than that, in the wee hours of the morning, by Knight, dragging me out of bed.
He takes me into the bathroom, shuts the door, puts on the noisy overhead fan and starts talking to me in a low voice. “I’m coming with you when you go to the facility today. I’m going to get Acker.”
“Wait, you’re what?” I say.
“I’m going to be in your car when you wake up. They won’t know where I am, and you pretend I’m not there. I’ll leave a note saying I remember I have cash stashed around here and that I’m going to get it. Hopefully, they’ll just accept that.”
“To be clear,” I say, “you’re going to kill Acker? Because I thought we discussed that, and I thought everyone decided that wasn’t a good call.”
“Well, if everyone does it, it’s different.”
“I think they want their revenge,” I say.
“No.” He shakes his head. “They really don’t. They don’t want more blood on their hands, and I can see that. I don’t care, though. It needs doing. I can do it. It won’t damage me, do you see that?”
He was in the mafia, I remember, so I guess he’s hardened and has no issues with violence, so, okay. I look him over, realizing this man is my mate, and he kind of scares me.
“And,” he continues, “I can do it in a way where it never gets traced to anyone. I can dump her body somewhere that no one finds it at all. She’ll just disappear. They never even have to know.”
“If they don’t know she’s dead, how does that help?” I say. “Besides, what if we need her to fix you guys?”
He considers that. “You think we can be fixed?”
“If she did psychological damage to you, maybe she can undo it,” I say.
“I’ll ask her,” he says. “If she can do it, I’ll make her tell me how. And then I’ll kill her.”
I hesitate. “Okay, look, I’m just not sure if this is a really great idea—”
“You think I’m asking you, but I’m not. I’m telling you what’s going to happen,” he says, folding his arms over his chest. “You’re going to do what I say.”
I lick my lips. Right, okay. Implied threat there. Do what I say or else. But this man is my mate. Will he hurt me? He’s tall and Italian and hairy and has arms the size of tree trunks and yeah. Possibly will hurt me. “I think you should talk to the others before you make this decision for them. I don’t think they’re going to appreciate it.”
“Doesn’t matter,” he says. “This is what’s best for them, even if they can’t see that.”
“Yeah, they’re going to hate that attitude even more. And if I helped you, they’re not going to be pleased with me either.”
“You just send them to me if they give you trouble,” says Knight.
I sigh. “Right.”
“I get you don’t like it,” says Knight. “Duly noted or whatever.”
“But you’re going to do whatever you want, and if I get in your way, you’ll hurt me?”
“I never said I was going to hurt you,” he says, rubbing his forehead. Then he fixes me with a glare. “Don’t get in my way, though.”
Right.
lotus
I TRY TO wake up when Calix does, but he tells me to stay in bed, and I’m too warm and drowsy and happy to be snuggled into the scents of my other mates to try too hard to get out of bed.
I drift off again, and when I wake up, it’s much later in the morning, sunlight streaming in through the windows, and I’m all alone in the bed.
I get up, thinking that we need more clothes as I pull on what I’ve been wearing from the Dollar General, and I find only Striker and Arrow at the table, remains of their breakfast sitting out.
“Where’s Knight?” I say.
“Yeah, that’s a problem,” says Striker. “But get some food, huh?” He nods at the stove, where there’s sausage links in one skillet and scrambled eggs in another. Some buttered toast is on a plate. “The rest of that is for you, baby girl.”
“What’s a problem?” I say, putting food on my plate.
“Knight’s up to something,” says Arrow. “He left a weird note, and Striker and I think it’s bullshit.”
I sit down at the table with my plate. “Tell me about the note.”
Striker slides it across the table to me.
I read it. “Well, maybe he does have another place with money close by. That safe house was in New Jersey. This is New Jersey. It makes sense. Why is it weird?”
“He wouldn’t do that without us,” says Arrow. “He’s not that kind of guy. He’d want us to be along for the ride in case anything went wrong. He sure as hell hasn’t volunteered to do anything for the pack on his own before this, has he?”
“Yeah, but… I don’t know, we had a moment last night,” says Striker.
I’m chewing on a bite of sausage. I swallow as soon as I can. “Should we talk about that?”
Striker glances up at me. “Sorry I fell apart. It hit me is all. Hit me hard. I wanted to be a person who devoted my life to helping others, and those poor omegas. I was no help to them at all. I was the worst thing that happened to them.”
“Cedar Falls was the worst thing that happened to them,” counters Arrow.
“But think if it hadn’t been us assigned to Lotus,” says Striker. “Some other alpha would have ripped her to pieces—”
“That didn’t happen,” says Arrow. “We didn’t do that to those omegas, anyway, Acker did.”
“We did it,” says Striker, sighing.
“I mean, we did it, but we didn’t have a choice,” says Arrow. “She fucked with our heads. We were helpless and she turned us into what she turned us into.”
“Yeah, well, that’s why I think that’s where Knight is,” says Striker.
“Why?” I say.
“Because he agrees with Arrow, I think,” says Striker. “He blames Dr. Acker.”
“Don’t you blame her?” I say.
“Sure,” says Striker. “She’s a very bad person. But what you both are thinking is going to happen isn’t going to happen if we do something to her.”
“What are you even talking about?” says Arrow.
“I’m just saying, revenge never feels like you want it to feel. It never changes anything. It’s one temporary moment, that’s all, and then everything is just the same as it was before. Well, except usually, someone else is dead.” Striker has a cup of coffee and he takes a drink of it.
It’s quiet.
I get up, looking to see if there’s coffee. I find the pot and rummage around for a mug. I pour myself some coffee, and doctor it up with sugar and milk. Then I come back to the table to find my alphas both just gazing at me, lips parted.
“What?” I say, sitting down.
“Fuck, you’re beautiful,” says Arrow.
I blush in spite of myself. I sit down with the coffee. “Um, so you think Knight’s going to try to kill Acker?”
“He definitely is,” says Arrow.
“Yeah, we’re both on the same page about that,” says Striker. “But Arrow thinks it’s a good thing and I think we need to try to stop him.”
“Oh,” I say.
“I don’t think we need to protect Dr. Acker,” says Arrow. “But I do wish Knight hadn’t decided to do this on his own. So, I’d be fine going up there to help him do the job. But there’s you.”
“We can’t leave you alone,” says Striker. “So, we’ve been sitting here arguing all morning.”
“I can help,” I say. “I mean…” I shrug. “Sorry, Striker. I know you’re on this whole turn-the-other-cheek kick, but I want her to suffer. She hurt all of you, and she sent you after me. She wanted me dead. I don’t have any love for that bitch.”
Arrow chuckles. “Yeah, of course.” He puts his arm around me and kisses my temple. “You’re a badass omega, right?”
“Aren’t the omegas in the Polloi all badasses?” I say, grinning at him. “I mean, you know the stories, right? When the explorers first made contact with the Polloi, hundreds of years ago, they kept thinking they were being detained to wait for their chieftain because they brought in a woman, but she was the leader. It took them forever to even understand that they were going to be doing their negotiations with a woman, because they couldn’t even make sense of that kind of idea. So, I think I can help.”
“Yeah,” says Arrow.
“No,” says Striker, shaking his head.
“You forbidding me to help?” I say, raising my eyebrows at him.
“As if I could forbid you anything,” he says. “You’ll do whatever it is you want to do, Lotus, but I don’t want us going back to Cedar Falls. What if we all get captured again? What if we get killed? What if we can’t protect Lotus? It’s too dangerous. We’re safe here, and we’ll stay here.”
“You wanted to go save Acker before,” says Arrow.
“It’s not about Acker,” says Striker. “I don’t care about that woman, but I do care about us, and I don’t think going after her for petty vengeance is worth the risk. All I was saying was that I could go after Knight and stop him before he got in any trouble. That was all I was saying.”
“And I said I wanted in,” says Arrow.
“But then you were going to help Knight,” I say. “So, why don’t we all go? We can take a train up there, can’t we?”
“It’s doable, yes,” says Arrow. “We haven’t looked up exactly what the best way to do it is.”
“It’s pointless now,” says Striker. “We’ve been sitting here and arguing too long. He’s already there. If we do take public transport, we’ll never make it there in time to stop anything.”
“You’re just saying that because you think it’s too dangerous,” says Arrow.
“I’m saying it for both reasons,” says Striker. “Besides, Calix told us that we need to keep our omega knotted, didn’t he?” He looks me over. “What do you think?”
My body tightens. “Umm… no fair.”
Striker laughs.
Arrow kisses my temple again. “Definitely no fair. I’m all distracted now.”
I eat a bite of eggs.
“Finish your breakfast, sweet girl,” urges Arrow in a very low voice.