8. Joker
Chapter eight
“Target acquired,” I murmur into my earpiece, trying to keep a straight face.
Siren lets out a long, exasperated sigh that doesn’t help my attempts. In their defence, I have been speaking in spy-lingo for the last half hour. God forbid I want to get into character.
I keep my eyes on Dickhead Drake as he walks toward the meds station, getting ready to drug everyone up for the day.
And, like the poor, victimized sheep they are, my fellow omegas line up for their morning doses.
It turns my stomach to see them do this, but maybe it’s better that they aren’t aware of the horrors happening around them.
Keeping my head on a swivel, I join the queue, going through my plan in my head one last time. Get the badge, find a computer cart, get Siren access, and return the badge before anyone notices. Easy peasy lemon squeezy.
“Taking these willingly today, Thaddeus?” Drake snipes at me, handing me the little paper cup with two plain white pills in it.
I have to stop myself from gagging at the sound of my given name, my smile tense. “You don’t like it when I play hard-to-get, Drakey-poo?” I reply in a mocking baby voice, sticking out my lower lip in an overexaggerated pout.
Drake rolls his eyes, looking away just long enough for me to tip the cup up, letting the pills fall deliberately short of my mouth, dropping into my waiting hand. I slip them into my pocket before Drake notices, and I take a big swallow of water before showing my open mouth.
“Good. Now be a good boy and find someone else to harass,” Drake says, reaching his hand out to pat my head.
My patience snaps, and I grab his wrist, shoving past the cart and twisting Drake’s limb behind his back.
“If anyone is going to be a good boy, it’ll be you. And I bet you’d look so fucking good on your knees for me,” I hiss in the nurse’s ear, applying more pressure and making Drake gasp in pain.
My other hand comes around and finds the badge he’s casually clipped to the hem of his shirt, and I jostle the beta just enough to distract him from feeling when I pull it free and slide it in my pocket.
Security approaches and I let go, hands up but smirking like the cat who got the cream. Drake rounds on me, but he must move funny because he winces, holding his ribs. I grin wider, seeing him nursing the bruises I gave him a couple days ago.
“I can give you another one to match it, Drakey-poo. Just say the word,” I say with a private laugh.
“Get out of my sight before I decide not to go easy on you,” the beta spits.
Flashing a little mock salute, I turn on my heel and walk off, laughing louder. God, he’s so easy to wind up.
“Pulling stunts like that will only make them watch you closer, you know,” Siren says flatly on the other end of the comms line.
“Yeah, but he’s too easy to fuck with. You’d do the same if you were here,” I fire back defensively.
“I most certainly would not,” Siren deadpans.
I roll my eyes and shove my hands into my pockets as I walk through the facility.
My little wisp has a session this morning, so I’ve got time to kill before I go collect her.
Every now and then, I mutter landmarks to Siren, helping them put together a more accurate map of the interior of the facility.
Today, I’m wandering around some of the treatment rooms, or at least that’s what they’re labeled as.
And as luck would have it, I find a mobile computer cart hanging out in the hallway outside of the rooms. Perfect.
“Treatment hallway cameras already playing a loop for you, Joker,” Siren says after I give them my location.
“You’re a gem,” I say with genuine fondness.
“Flattery won’t work on me, no matter how many times you try,” they retort, though I’m sure I hear a smile in their tone.
“One day it will, just you wait,” I say, stepping up to the cart and jiggling the mouse to wake up the system.
I scan Drake’s badge at the log-in screen, and the desktop appears, several programs and app icons on the left side of the screen.
“I’m in,” I rasp, lowering my voice.
“You don’t have to say that,” Siren says with a weary sigh.
“No, but it felt cool. Did I sound cool?”
Siren sighs again, but before I can hear their reply, a muffled scream reaches my ears from within the room next to the cart. My instincts perk up, the sound of an omega in distress calling to me on a soul-deep level.
“Joker? Did you hear me? What’s going on?” Siren asks urgently.
I ignore them for a moment, approaching the door slowly. It’s solid, so I can’t see inside, but another scream has me trying the handle, finding it unlocked. I pull it open a crack, looking inside. It takes a moment for my brain to comprehend what I’m seeing, but when I do, my blood runs cold.
An omega I don’t know is strapped down to a chair by her wrists, ankles, chest, and forehead, completely immobilizing her.
Not that it stops her from thrashing and screaming, her eyes screwed up tight.
Two men in white coats stand on either side of the omega in the chair, a third person off to the side taking notes.
“You’re fine, Omega Sawyer. If you stopped resisting, this would go much faster,” one of the white coats shouts over the omega, Sawyer, as she screams again.
The other doctor picks up a clear plastic mask, and my eyes follow the tube.
Instead of an oxygen tank, the mask is hooked up to a clear box full of what appears to be clothes.
A moment later, I have to slap a hand over my mouth as the stench of alpha in rut reaches my nose.
Acrid, sweaty, greasy. Like a bad line cook after rush hour.
“Joker! Do you copy?!” Siren shouts in my ear.
Flinching, I pull back slightly from the door. “Here. Just…give me a sec,” I hiss, turning back to watch.
But I almost wish I hadn’t, not as the doctor lowers the mask over Sawyer’s face, forcing her to breathe in the rut pheromones.
She screams again, my heart aching for her.
Call me soft or whatever, but I challenge any person to hear those screams of primal terror and not feel even one iota of sympathy.
“No change to heat indicators,” the doctor off to the side calls out.
“We may need to up the concentration,” the first doctor says to the second.
“Let’s leave the subject a little while longer. The reaction could be delayed,” the second says, crossing his arms over his chest.
Horror fills me as they go back and forth, discussing Sawyer’s body and reactions with a cold detachment I didn’t think was humanly possible.
They’re trying to induce her heat through exposure to the scent of an alpha rut.
But Sawyer is too terrified by whatever flashback she’s having to respond in the way that they want.
She fights hard against the restraints, so much so that I start to see bloody marks appearing on her wrists.
“Joker, status. Now. What is going on?” Siren asks firmly.
I back away, letting the door close to muffle the sounds for a moment. A chill runs down my spine, and I have to swallow the bile trying to crawl up my throat.
“An omega. They’re…they’re torturing her,” I whisper faintly.
Memories start to float forward in my mind. Snarls and skin slapping, the stench of alphas too far gone, blood. So much fucking blood. Sobbing. Screaming.
“I have to help her,” I say after a moment, cutting across whatever Siren might have been saying.
“Joker. Stop. Now.”
Another chill runs down my spine, my limbs freezing as I go to step forward. Siren’s voice resonates in my ear, my instincts obeying instantly to their alpha bark.
“Finish the plan. Leave the omega. She’s not our problem,” Siren says, still with that overwhelming force of will.
“I need—”
“Go to the computer, Omega.”
I lurch forward, my limbs animating on their own, moving me back to the computer cart. I try to fight off the bark as Siren orders me through giving them access to the facility’s mainframe, but it’s like I’m a puppet, unable to do anything except what they say.
“Now walk away, Omega.” Siren barks after we finish hacking the system.
And even though I hate every microsecond of it, my feet move inexorably away from Sawyer and her torture chamber and back to the common room. Only then do I feel the compulsion fade.
“You’re a cunt, you know that?” I grumble at them when I sink down onto the couch near the window.
“We have a job to do. It would do you some good to remember that,” Siren replies coldly.
Before I can retort the line goes dead. For a long moment, I consider going back to help Sawyer, but I’m exhausted from fighting against the alpha bark. And even when I do feel a little better, Delilah emerges from her session looking like death warmed over.
When she reaches me, I hold out my arms and without protest, she curls up against me, hiding her face in my shirt. My plan solidifies as I keep her close for the rest of the afternoon.
I might not be able to save every omega here, but I’m sure as shit going to save this one.