Chapter 22 - Nathan #2
My bedroom door swung open, and I realized what was wrong. There was an unfamiliar scent in the space, something almost oppressively earthy. A Beta, one I’d never met before.
“Hey, Dr. Manalo.”
The man waiting in my bedroom was slim and shorter than me by a few inches, wearing a pair of jeans and a black hooded sweatshirt, damp from the rain.
He’d pulled it tight around his face, but it didn't totally conceal his ash brown hair and narrow, somewhat ferrety face. His posture was relaxed. Even the hand holding a gun by his side looked casual. “You’ve been playing detective, too.”
“Who are you?” I asked. I’d frozen just inside the threshold of the room.
“The cleanup crew,” he said. His voice was bored. “Where is Bridget Crawford?”
“I don’t know,” I said quickly. This was technically true. I didn’t know Maggie’s address.
“Hm,” he said. “Yeah, I don’t believe you.”
“I haven’t seen her in a week,” I replied, which was also technically true. I backed up, trying to leave the room, and was suddenly looking down the barrel of a gun.
He held his hand perfectly steady. “Where are you sending the data?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Deny, deny, deny. The adrenaline pumping through my veins made everything stand out in sharper focus.
“You’re a bad liar. Dr. Davis has you on camera fucking with his computer.” The man was younger than I’d originally thought. Just a kid, really. But that didn’t make him any less terrifying.
“I was just doing what I was told,” I said.
“By Detective Soren Murray? Or maybe it was his Omega, Maggie?” He studied my face and must have seen some kind of reaction. “Yeah, we know about them. But Bridget isn’t at the Murray Pack house anymore, so I’m kind of hoping you can tell me where she is.”
Relief flooded through me. “I thought she was still with them.”
The kid’s smile turned cruel. “Wrong answer. I guess you won’t be helpful after all.”
The biological imperative to survive relies heavily on the release of adrenaline and cortisol, both of which occurred in higher percentages in Alphas.
And I also knew the “fight or flight” reaction was actually more nuanced.
There were plenty of studies showing there were four F’s: fight, flight, freeze, and fawn.
And research also showed that Alphas, when confronted with danger, were much more likely to respond with aggression, while Omegas were prone to freezing, and Betas fell all across the spectrum.
In the end, I was no different from most Alphas. As he sighed and lifted the gun a bit higher, I launched myself at him. Yes, I was inexperienced, but I had the advantage of size. And hopefully surprise.
I was wrong about the surprise. He reacted quickly, dropping to the floor, so I overshot him and landed roughly on my bed. A shot rang out, louder than I expected, and I scrambled free of the mattress. In the absence of any immediate pain, I would keep fighting.
My bark needed two things to be successful: eye contact and an audible command. Without these two things, an Alpha’s bark would have little to no effect. And even under those circumstances, sometimes an Alpha still could not compel any kind of behavior. I had one chance.
The man was waiting for me as I leapt off the bed and landed in an ungainly crouch. “Drop the gun,” I barked as soon as my eyes met his. “Drop it now.”
The effect was instantaneous. He dropped it, but not before he’d squeezed the trigger again.
Pain seared across the outside of my left forearm as the gun fired, then toppled end over end to the ground. I threw myself over it, scooped it in my right hand, and sprinted from the bedroom as fast as I could.
I could hear him pursuing me as I fled the apartment and barreled down the staircase. When I burst out onto the street, I turned, panting, expecting to see him close on my heels. No one followed me, but I did stumble backwards into a group of women, clearly on a night out.
“What the fuck, dude?” I’d knocked one woman to the ground. She stared up at me from a dirty puddle on the sidewalk, indignant. But when her eyes landed on the gun cradled in my right hand, she scrambled backwards.
“Sorry,” I mumbled and jogged up the street. I wasn’t wearing a coat, but the rain had slowed to a drizzle so I wasn’t immediately soaked. The gun was slippery in my hand. There was only a matter of time until someone called the cops on a bleeding, armed Alpha running the streets.
I needed a safe place to figure out my next move. Without thinking, I followed the familiar route to my gym. I ducked down a side alley before I got there, dropped the gun unceremoniously into a dumpster, and entered the lobby.
The young man behind the counter barely acknowledged me as I scanned my membership tag. Thank god I’d kept my keys in my back pocket. There was a decent crowd on the floor, which made sense for after work, so I headed for the locker room, cradling my throbbing forearm in my other hand.
It was empty. I locked the door behind me. I would have to be quick.
Blood dripped down my forearm and over my hand. For the first time, I examined the wound. I had no medical training, but it didn’t seem to be serious. I could move all of my fingers and make a fist.
I fished my phone out of my other pocket and called Soren.
“Detective Murray,” he answered in his clipped tone.
“I believe someone just tried to kill me,” I said, and recounted the last few minutes as economically as I could.
“Fuck. We need to get you out of there,” he said as soon as I finished. “You can’t come here, but I’ll make a few calls. Go to this address and wait.”
After I hung up, I hunted for a first aid kit. One was stashed in a supply cabinet, and I wrapped the wound. It needed to be cleaned, but speed was more important.
A veil of unreality had dropped over me. It couldn’t be my shaking hands wrapping a gunshot wound. But then who else’s hands could it be? My mind kept fracturing, trying to go back to the point before I’d opened my bedroom door, even while I desperately tried to focus.
I started trying lockers, hoping I’d find one unlocked. I got lucky and pulled out a large black coat, emptied the pockets of a wallet and keys, and walked out as casually as possible.
A police car whizzed past, sirens blaring, as I gained the street.
The address Soren gave me was for a 24-hour drugstore. It was about twenty blocks away, and I normally would have taken the train. But the thought of being trapped underground was unbearable. So I walked.
After a few blocks, the drizzle stopped and the crowds on the sidewalks thickened, making it easier for me to blend in. Adrenaline kept my steps quick and my mind focused.
When I reached the drugstore, I checked my phone. No calls. I debated calling Soren again. Instead, I bought antibiotic cream and a pack of gauze at the self-checkout, then barricaded myself in the dingy bathroom to clean the bullet wound.
The gash was under my elbow. It was still oozing blood, but had slowed significantly. I gobbed some Neosporin on it then re-wrapped my arm.
A pounding on the door made me jump.
“Hey man, you can’t do drugs in there,” an exasperated male voice said. “I’ll get written up and I’m this close to being fired.”
“I’m not doing drugs,” I called back.
“That’s what everyone says. Just don’t fucking die in there, please.”
I washed my hands and shrugged the coat back on to hide the blood that had soaked my shirt.
In the bluish light of the bathroom, I looked pale and tense, but other than that I didn’t think anyone would be able to tell I was in the throes of shock.
After a few minutes, I left the bathroom and checked my phone. It had been eight minutes.
My phone vibrated in my palm.
“Where the fuck are you?” Soren snapped.
“I’m where you told me to be,” I said. “By the bathrooms.”
“Don’t move.”
Thirty seconds later, Soren emerged from an aisle. He looked incensed.
“What’s wrong?” I asked. “Is Bridget okay? They said she wasn’t at—”
“No. Not here. These people are more determined than we thought. And Bridget’s made it very clear you’re not supposed to die.” His tone implied that he didn’t much care either way.
“But you’re the police. Shouldn’t you be able to find them?”
Soren’s glare could have melted a glacier. I snapped my mouth shut before I said anything worse.
“Doing our best there, bud. But in the meantime, I’m supposed to take you to Bridget. You good with that? Or do you have any other opinions?”
I shook my head. “I do not.”
“Good.” He turned on his heel and, after a split second of indecision, I followed.