12. Joker
Chapter twelve
I’m leaning on the wall outside of the room where Delilah is having her therapy session, arms crossed and glare leveled at the frosted glass.
In my ear, the pack is having a heated debate about how to complete the mission in light of the new information Siren managed to glean when they hacked into the facility’s mainframe overnight.
But I’m hardly listening. My mind keeps replaying all of the details Cross read to me from her patient’s file in the wee hours of the morning.
The countless hours of attempts to get her to recall what she’d seen on the night of her pack’s murder. The medications they’ve tried and eventually stopped. The torture they’ve subjected my little wisp to under the guise of therapy.
“We can wait until the next auction, pretend to be high profile alphas and—”
“No.”
My voice isn’t the only one that cuts off Siren’s suggestion, Bones and Phantom joining me. Though I suspect their reasons for not wanting to wait that long are vastly different from mine.
I’d been toying with the idea of asking Delilah to leave with me once the mission is complete.
But knowing what I know now, she’s coming with me whether she wants to or not, and regardless of what my pack says.
Spending time with her has convinced me that there’s no part of my soul that could stomach leaving her behind in this hellhole.
But the longer she stays here, the higher the risk that either she or I could be forced to “graduate” next month, which I’m not even willing to entertain.
“How the fuck else are we supposed to get into the building?” Siren snaps, irritated.
“Blow a damn hole in the wall if you’ve got to,” I grumble, only half joking.
“Joker that’s too—”
“Actually, hang on a second. That’s not the worst idea,” Cross interjects over Bones.
There’s a brief moment of silence over the comms, and I can picture the expressions of confusion and alarm on the others’ faces as if I was standing beside them.
“Look at the map. The medium security wing is really close to the tree line, and there’s got to be a blind spot in the cameras over here,” Cross says, not that I can see what he’s referring to.
They start to debate the plan further, but I can see shapes moving behind the frosted glass of the door across from me.
“Joker out,” I mutter quickly, reaching into my ear to turn off my comms.
As the door opens and Delilah walks out under her own power, I let out a relieved sigh.
But then I catch the glare of Dr. Stuart over Delilah’s shoulder, which makes me grin.
He doesn’t like me, not that I’ve given him a reason to.
He’s canceled our sessions until a med schedule can be worked out to make me more “receptive.” Too bad for him I haven’t swallowed a single thing any of these quacks have tried to shove down my throat over the last week or so.
Delilah finally notices I’m there, and my heart does a little flip as I watch her entire face brighten, a smile pulling up the corners of her lips. I can’t help but smile back, pushing off the wall and striding toward her.
“There’s my beautiful little wisp! I missed you,” I chirp, wrapping an arm around her shoulders and guiding her away.
The color of her cheeks when I make her blush is becoming my favorite color in the whole world. I smile a little brighter, laughing when she tries to hide her face.
“I missed you, too, Joker,” she mumbles, still fighting her smile.
“Good. You should miss me. I’m a delight,” I reply, throwing her a wink that makes her roll her eyes.
“You are impossible,” she says with a little laugh in her voice.
“I am impossible not to love. There I finished that thought for you,” I fire back, not missing a beat.
That only makes her laugh harder, which in turn makes me laugh.
Whatever shadows might have fallen over my wisp while she was in that room with that fart cloud with a psychology degree fade away by the time we reach the common room and our favorite spot.
It’s raining today, so we’re stuck inside, which only makes me want to be outside more.
I’m sure one of the weirdos I’ve spoken to here has probably made a note of that in my chart.
I’ll have to ask Siren to look at what they’re saying about me later.
When we reach our couch, I flop down in Delilah’s usual spot and open my arms for her to come cuddle.
And to my surprise and relief, she doesn’t hesitate, curling up into my side and resting her head on my collarbone.
We’re quiet for a while, which I’ll admit freely is new for me.
Usually, I can’t sit still for more than a few minutes without having something to focus on.
But I find myself enjoying the peace my little wisp brings to my restless soul.
Oh, yeah. I’m definitely keeping her now.
“Have you ever thought about what you’d do when you get out of here?” I ask softly, twirling a piece of her silk-soft hair around my finger.
Delilah hums thoughtfully, pausing before she speaks. “I haven’t. If I’m being honest, I don’t know if I’ll ever recover enough to be released. And even then, I don’t want to end up…”
I growl softly, reflexively holding her a little closer. Little does she know she’s never going to worry about being sold to the highest bidder again. Not while I’m around.
“But just dream with me for a minute. If you could go anywhere, where would you go?”
She looks out through the window, the rain pattering against it softly, drowning out the constant background chatter of the staff and other patients. I give her room to gaze out, while playing with her hair and leaning my cheek against the top of her head.
“I’d like to be near the ocean, I think. Or another big body of water. Being able to put my feet in the water whenever I want might be the closest that I’ll get to heaven,” she answers after a few more long moments of silence.
“Oh, sweetness, I’m sure we can find other ways to get you close to heaven,” I say, a low chuckle undercutting my words.
I don’t miss the catch in her breathing, or the brief but distinct scent of chocolate in the air around us. I lean closer, nuzzling into her neck, searching for the sweetness under the ash and bitter tannins I normally smell, but it’s gone.
“Joker,” she exhales breathlessly, a little anxious tint to my name even as she clings to me like I’m going to float away.
“Too much? Or…not enough?” I whisper in her ear, running my fingers down the outside of her arm.
She shivers, and I see the goosebumps rising on the skin of her throat. God, she’s so responsive to these simple touches. I can’t imagine how starved for closeness she must be.
But as I look closer at her skin, I see the fading but still distinct scars of her old bond marks: three sets of teeth marks clustered right where her right shoulder meets her slender throat.
My own bond mark pulses on my inner thigh, a tugging in my chest accompanying it.
Bones needs me, but I don’t want to let Delilah go.
Not when she clearly needs me, too. But every moment I delay, the tugging in my chest becomes more insistent, like a meat hook in my navel.
“Wait right here for me, okay beautiful? I’ll be right back,” I whisper, dropping the lightest of kisses on her throat before I pull away and head toward the bathroom.
Once I’m inside I tap my comms back on with a growl.
“This better be good,” I snarl under my breath.
“Do you want to try that again, but minding your tone?” Bones snaps, a subaudible pulse of dominance flooding me.
I sigh and run my hands through my hair. “I was in the middle of something, Alpha. What’s going on?” I ask, only adjusting my tone to be marginally less petulant.
“We’ve got a plan, and you need to be here for the brief. We’re moving tonight.”
I turn off my comms briefly to let out a string of creative curse words, frustration and disappointment filling my chest as I turn it on again. Briefings last forever, and usually I zone out, but this time I’m going to need to pay attention, so I know when I’ll be able to break off to get Delilah.
“Give me ten minutes,” I grumble lowly.
“Good boy,” Bones purrs.
The usual butterflies I get when he calls me that fly a little less enthusiastically today as the line goes dead. I pause for a few minutes before going back out to the common room, giving Delilah a lame excuse before trudging my way back to my room.