TEN #3
My pace quickens rather than slowing, every single survival instinct within me screaming at me to turn back around and run in the opposite direction.
But that’s the thing about survival instincts, though.
People act like they’re clean, like they show up with instructions and a helpful little map.
Mine never do. My instincts are in a perpetual state of argument.
One says run, the other says hide. One says supplies and blockers, the other says men.
One says don’t let the bleeding Alpha behind me see me notice I’m scared, and every single one of the fuckers is loud as a foghorn in my mind.
And not a single one of them is actually helpful.
Kaito keeps up with me without comment, which is actually pretty impressive since he looks like one gust of wind will tear open my stitches out of sheer stubbornness.
We dart across the road, dip through a narrow alley between a pharmacy and a bakery, then hurdle over a drooping fence in a courtyard almost swallowed whole by trash cans, weeds, and the rusted skeleton of a kid’s climbing frame.
As we pass the pharmacy, I notice a sign that hangs in the corner, swinging softly with the breeze. The windows are smashed, shelves stripped bare, and a faded poster near the door shows a grinning woman wearing workout gear and holding a bottle of vitamins.
GET A BOOST IN YOUR ENERGY TODAY!
Apparently the apocalypse has developed a liking for irony. Fucking A.
The deeper we move between buildings, the thicker the smoke grows. And then the smell hits me next. Burning fuel, scorched metal, hot oil, and blood. But under it all is the rotting, sour scent of Zeds starting to gather, the smell spreading through the air like its very own virus.
My stride slows as I reach a corner, and I drop into a crouch the moment I come to a stop. Kaito stops behind me, not touching or crowding, but close enough that the heat of his body presses against the wet air at my back.
Peeking around the corner, I take in the sight before me.
The helicopter has landed in the road between two apartment blocks.
It’s on its side, tail bent awkwardly, and one rotor blade snapped and buried through the windshield of an old, beat-up car.
Smoke is pouring from the engine in a waterfall of thick, gray billows, and the cockpit is crushed beyond repair.
One door hangs open by the skin of its teeth, and something inside sparks with angry little flickers of light.
Bodies lie near the wreck, two in flight gear but only one is moving. I can’t tell if he’s alive or turning. It’s too hard to tell from where I’m crouched.
But my attention is drawn away by a duffel bag that lies under a broken section of the door, straps caught on twisted metal.
Another pack sits a few feet away, probably launched out of the helicopter on impact.
The mere sight of them both makes me a little greedy, but the practical part of me sharpens to a point.
I could try and get one. Maybe. I mean, if I moved fast enough and if the bodies around the crash didn’t move faster.
It’s only that thought that keeps me pinned to the corner that keeps Kaito and me hidden for now.
After all, this crash isn’t just a crash anymore.
It’s turned into bait, and whether the people who fired it down know it or not, everything with teeth, lungs, or enough desperation is going to be drawn here.
Then movement passes my peripheral from the far side, and I turn my head enough to spy three men stepping onto the road from another angle. Each of them armed, and each of them Alphas. I know it before my brain fully understands how I know.
The first is tall, broad, with dirty-blond hair cut short.
He’s wearing black camouflage pants tucked into heavy-looking combat boots, and a scar cuts across one cheek.
He carries himself like a weapon that was taught discipline from a very young age, and my brain instantly goes to military.
Not the costume kind, or the swaggering dumbass with a stolen vest and a dream, but the real, trained, tightly controlled kind. The dangerous kind.
His gun is raised, though his finger isn’t recklessly hovering over the trigger.
I watch as his gaze sweeps windows and balconies, the wreck and bodies, and then the mouth of the alley.
It’s like he sees the whole place as a map, but not because he’s afraid of it, but because he’s already deciding how to survive it.
The second Alpha is tall, too, but leaner.
His black hair is damp against his forehead, and brown eyes scan the crash with a quiet kind of focus.
Hoop earrings catch the faint light when he turns his head, the silver glistening slightly with every turn of his head.
His movements are softer than the first, but not weaker.
There’s something careful about him, something almost gentle in the way he watches the wreck before raising his gun.
It doesn’t make him safe, that’s for sure.
Gentle things make you lower your knives.
The third has dark brown hair a little too long, headphones resting around his neck, and a look on his face that makes me think he’s about two seconds away from saying something deeply unhelpful.
His body, however, is ready. Knife in one hand, gun in the other, his eyes moving constantly.
His body is relaxed in the same way a tripwire looks harmless until your boot catches it.
Three Alphas. Three unknowns. Three very big reasons to leave.
And my stupid, betraying body reacts before my mind can give it permission.
Fear explodes through me, and not a small flicker of it. This is a full-body detonation. It’s like I’ve stepped on a landmine of fear, the emotion pulsing through me with no way for me to stop it.
The blockers hold for maybe half a second before they fucking crack, and my scent spikes. I feel it happen. Feel the nauseating little burst of sweetness sneak under the smoke, rain, rot, and burning metal.
All three Alphas freeze at once and their heads turn in tandem. Not fully toward me, not yet, but definitely in my direction. The blond one’s nostrils flare, the one with earrings grows lethally still, and the one with headphones lowers his chin, eyes sharpening dangerously.
Behind me, Kaito stops breathing entirely.
Fuck.
Fuck, fuck, fucking fuck.
I back up too quickly, and Kaito’s hand lifts. He doesn’t touch me, simply hovers his hand near my shoulder as though he hasn’t got a clue whether he should steady me or keep his distance.
He chooses the latter before whispering, “They scented something.”
“No shit, Sherlock. Your powers of observation are out of this world,” I hiss back, voice thin and thready under my bandana.
My pulse is going crazy now, too. My skin prickles under my clothes, and my Omega has fully risen in my mind, panic throwing scent into the air like some fucked-up distress flare because biology is a back-stabbing bitch with no survival training whatsoever.
I clamp down hard on it. Or, at least, I try to.
The problem with scent is that it literally doesn’t give a shit how hard you clench your teeth. It doesn’t care one bit that your brain is screaming no. It comes from the softest, stupidest, oldest parts of you. The parts that still think survival means being found by the right set of teeth.
What a load of crap. I don’t believe in a good set of teeth. They all bite, after all.
The three Alphas across the road start scanning suddenly. There’s nothing casual about it, either. It’s not like they’ve simply smelled the coppery tang of blood or the ashy scent of smoke. They’re like predators who’ve caught a thread that will lead directly to me.
Kaito shifts half a step, placing his body between me and the corner without fully blocking my escape. It’s another careful move, and another problem I don’t have time to unpack right now.