14. Delilah
Chapter fourteen
I can’t see much between the darkness and my position under my bed, but there’s enough light for me to see booted feet crossing the room toward me. I cover my mouth to muffle my panting breaths, panic rising in my throat like bile. It can’t be. Not like this. No. No. No. N–
“Little wisp, it’s me. It’s okay.”
I relax at the sound of Joker’s voice, scooting toward the gap as I see the figure kneel down, the facility-issued gray sweats visible on his legs above the boots. But as I slide out from my hiding spot and look up, I freeze, gasping.
Joker’s eyes look back at me from the gap in his mask, a little tuft of ginger hair peeking out against his forehead. But there’s a large, exaggerated smile printed in bold white over where his mouth would be. He’s also wearing a tactical vest with half a dozen knives slotted along the front alone.
“What is going on? What’s this?” I ask in a strained hiss, my heart going a hundred miles an hour in my chest.
Joker laughs. “Oh, just out for a midnight stroll. Care to join me?”
I slap his arm, and he pretends like it hurts, which only makes me growl. He giggles, the corners of his eyes crinkling even though I can’t see his smile.
“Seriously, Joker. What is going on? I heard an explosion—”
“Yeah, my pack likes to make an entrance,” he replies casually.
I blink at him. He’s a patient here. They admitted him. If he was a member of a registered pack, that would have come up in the processing. “Your…pack? What—”
Joker taps something in his ear with one hand, holding up a finger between us with the other.
“What’s your status?” he asks to no one.
I gape at him, confused and angry and worried all at the same time.
“I asked you first—I’m fine. I’m…securing the exit,” Joker says, winking at me as he answers whatever voice he’s hearing.
“What—”
Joker waves his hand and I scoff at him, mouth dropping open indignantly.
“Understood. I’ll meet you at the rendezvous point in two minutes.”
Joke turns back to me, his face suddenly serious. “Do you trust me?” he asks urgently.
“What is going on?” I ask again.
“Luv, I would love nothing more than to explain everything to you, from tip to tail, but we simply do not have the time. I need to know if you trust me,” he says, voice low but sincere.
I pause for a moment, and Joker offers me a gloved hand. My head is screaming warnings at me, that this omega is trouble and nothing good can come of taking his hand. But my instincts overpower my logic, and I nod, placing my shaking palm against his.
Without another moment of hesitation, Joker pulls me to my feet, his fingers sliding into the spaces between mine with ease. We stop at the door for him to retrieve yet another knife from under the bottom gap and then we’re off.
“Stay close to me, okay? And whatever happens, just remember that I’ve got you, and I would never let anything bad happen to you,” he says, taking on that serious tone from before when he was speaking to someone I couldn’t see.
“Okay,” I reply hesitantly, holding tighter to his hand.
I can hear the other patients in their rooms, but the staff are nowhere to be found which strikes me as odd. Shouldn’t there be some sort of emergency evacuation happening? But it’s like the entire facility has gone on lockdown.
“Get down!” Joker shouts, pulling me from my thoughts.
I obey without thinking, dropping to the floor as a sharp crack fills the air and something whizzes over my head.
Joker is up and moving, charging toward the security guard at the end of the hall.
I let out a cry as I see the shotgun raised at him, but Joker closes the distance too fast, knocking the gun away.
A flash of silver and the security guard crumples to the floor, crying out in pain.
“Let’s go. Come on!” Joker yells, motioning for me to get up.
I move, my eyes wide as I try to see more in the dark. But then Joker has my hand and is pulling me along the hall. I slip on something for a moment before I get my feet under me, and I try to look down, but Joker growls.
“Don’t look. Eyes forward, luv. There’s my good girl,” he says, almost in a purr.
My instincts respond to the command even though it’s not coming from an alpha, and I fix my eyes on the back of his vest as we run out of the minimum security section and cross the common area toward the exit to the omega ward entirely.
I shriek as I hear distant gunshots, ducking and covering my head with my free arm.
“It’s okay, luv. You’re okay. Just stay with me,” Joker soothes, squeezing my hand.
There’s more shouting behind me, but before I turn to look, Joker spins and shoves me down behind a chair.
“Don’t move. Don’t look.”
I barely hear his clipped words before he’s gone, and I’m trembling so hard my teeth are chattering.
There’s more shouting, and Joker’s laugh above it all, and then a few more screams of pain before it’s over.
I don’t dare to look out to see what’s happening, not that I have the chance to before Joker’s back.
I swallow hard as he crouches down and takes my hand again, his glove wet with something I don’t dare think too hard about. We go to the main entrance, and Joker pulls out an access card, swiping it just long enough to unlock the door and pull us through to the lobby.
We stop in the open space, the front doors allowing in more moonlight than in the ward, and I look at Joker, panting hard. Everything is painted silver, but it’s impossible to miss the splatter of dark droplets on his arms and chest against the soft gray of his sweats.
“What…”
But before I can fully form words, the door to the administration wing bursts open, and four figures in all black rush out toward us.
Without thinking, I duck behind Joker, trying to get cover from whatever new threat is coming for us now.
But I realize that he's not preparing for a fight. No, he’s putting his knives back in their places on his vest.
“Joker, what the hell was that?” the tallest of them snarls, his deep voice laced with the edges of an alpha bark.
I take several steps back, or at least I try to.
Joker holds my hand somehow even tighter and doesn’t let me run.
I look up into the face of the alpha looming over Joker, my whole body trembling.
He’s dressed in all black, a similar tactical vest covering his chest, but his holds clips of ammo instead of knives.
But the thing that has my knees knocking together is his face.
Most of it is covered with a balaclava, and the skin that would be exposed is covered with a thick layer of black face paint.
All of that only serves to highlight the almost unnaturally luminous amber color of his eyes and the faintly glowing respirator covering his nose and mouth.
“Not here, Bones,” Joker snaps, unafraid.
Bones: what an apt name for the reaper-esque alpha towering over me. A harbinger of death dressed in inky black. But my whole body goes cold as he turns his attention onto me.
“Who is this?” he asks, his tone ice cold.
“We need to leave before the police show up,” Joker says, very specifically not answering his question.
Before anyone can stop him, Joker pulls me by the hand toward the door, shoving through it into the night beyond without an ounce of fear.
Moments later, the group I can only assume is his pack falls into step around us, Bones taking the lead with the rest flanking us.
The tension in the air is thick enough to cut with a knife, but I keep my head down as I let Joker lead me.
I’ve trusted him this far, and it’s too late to go back now.