THIRTY-NINE #2
“You knocked. You gave orders. You know where we are,” Ewan says, his voice light, which somehow makes it that bit deadlier. “So let’s start with your name before we all stop pretending like this isn’t creepy.”
The man’s mouth tightens. “I don’t think there’s any need for that.”
“See,” I say blandly. “That makes me think there’s a big, fat, whopping need for it.”
His eyes dart to mine, irritated now.
Good.
I like irritated better than I like excited. Excited gets people stabbed.
“Medical,” he says again, like he has a level of authority that will make me obey. Joke’s on him. I was never taught how to obey shit. “Now.”
“Who sent you again?” Ewan presses.
“Hale.”
“Huh. That’s funny,” Ewan says. “Because you said commander’s orders before, and now you’re saying Hale, but you’re still not giving us your name. That’s a whole lotta fog for a single corridor.”
The man’s nostrils flare. He smells like sweat. Like metal and lies. Or maybe that’s just my paranoia putting on a little jazz number with a fancy hat and gloves and expecting applause.
The bond tightens. Ewan feels my body go colder. His hand brushes the back of mine, not holding, just checking.
I answer by shifting my knife against my palm.
The man looks down. He sees it and his expression changes. There. That little flash right there. It’s not surprise. That shit is calculation.
“Fine,” he says. “You want to make this difficult, make it difficult. I’m not the one who’ll answer for refusing medical clearance.”
He turns and walks, not far, just enough that he expects us to follow.
Ewan’s eyes meet mine. There’s no trust in his face now. No easy joke waiting on the tip of his tongue. Whatever joke he might have tried to conjure dies before it can even form. Because he feels it too. The wrongness. The careful structure of a trap pretending to be an order.
And we’re about to walk into it anyway, because the only thing worse than a trap you can see is the trap waiting for you after you refuse the first one.
We step into the hallway together.
The air outside is colder than Ewan’s room, harsher against my skin.
The compound feels brighter out here. Too bright.
Cameras sit black-eyed and blinking in the corners.
Doors sit closed, but not all the way. A crack here, a shadow there, the entire place acting like it’s not listening to every sound.
I keep my shoulder close to Ewan while the man walks ahead of us like he’s expecting obedience from people he has never bothered to know.
“Medical is the other way,” Ewan decides to point out as if we weren’t already aware this shit is just a lie wearing a trench coat.
The man doesn’t stop. “Temporary checkpoint.”
My hand tightens around my knife, but Ewan’s doesn't move. The bond burns hotter, though, when he asks, “Temporary where? Narnia?”
No answer.
Not even a bad one that we could have mocked.
The hallway stretches ahead of us, all tiles that morph into concrete and old light and the sour smell of recycled air. We pass one junction, and then another, and my skin prickles with every step.
“Stop,” I say.
The man does.
Too quickly.
Behind us, a door opens. I don’t turn right away, because I already know. The air changes when a trap stops pretending, finally flinging the trench coat away like a ridiculous villain with too much dramatic flair.
Two men step out behind us, both with shock batons low at their sides.
Not guards.
Not official.
Not strangers either. Because I saw those fuckers standing behind Davis only yesterday, guarding the hallway like dogs waiting to be praised by their master.
My pulse slows.
Funny how that happens. Fear doesn't always make me shake. Sometimes fear gets very, very polite.
Ewan exhales only once through his nose before he murmurs, “Yeah. Thought so.”
The bond flashes bright with alarm, and that’s before Davis steps out from the shadow of a half-open supply room. Of course he does, because every villain needs a theatrical entrance, right?
His smile arrives first, then the rest of him follows after. “Morning, Little Omega.”
My stomach drops.
Ewan doesn’t move in front of me and, if I’m being totally honest with myself, I love him a little for that.
I hate that I even have the room to know it, but it sits under my ribs without any regard for my sanity.
He stays beside me, shoulder close, hand loose, and ready.
Not blocking my choices, and not turning me into something to be hidden behind his body.
“Davis,” I say blandly. “I’d say this is a surprise, but your dramatic timing has all the subtlety of a corpse in a bathtub.”
His smile thins.
One of the men next to him raises his baton and the one in front does the same.
Not guns. Shock batons. Close-range weapons. Control weapons. Tools for bodies they want to keep alive.
My skin crawls, and Ewan sees the same thing I do. Maybe even feels it through the bond. His concern presses into me, hot and sharp and careful.
Davis glances between us, his gaze pausing on the collar of my shirt, on the place where Ewan’s bite is hidden. His expression shifts, only slightly, but I see it.
The new bond isn’t quiet. Not to an Alpha looking for it. Smoke and clove cling to my skin, threaded through wild honey and rain, and that’s exactly what Davis smells when he inhales.
His mouth twists.
“Well,” he drawls. “Someone was quick.”
Ewan’s voice goes low. “Walk away.”
Davis barely looks at him. “You first.”
“Nah, I’m good.”
And then a baton snaps toward Ewan. He manages to dodge the worst of it, but not all. Electricity crackles against his side, blue-white and ugly, and it sends him to one knee with a strangled sound.
The bond screams, but not with pain exactly. This is worse. This is shock and fear. His fear. For me. It tears through the thread and slams harshly into my chest so hard I completely forget how to breathe.
Ewan.
My vision whitens at the edges with something I don’t understand just as the man closest to me swings my way with a baton.
He’s too slow.
I break his wrist first.
There’s a sound.
Small bones giving up.
He screams.
The other man grabs my arm.
Bad choice.
Very bad choice.
His fingers close around my skin, and something old wakes inside my blood.
Not anger.
Not fear.
Not instinct.
Older.
Colder.
NOVAC moves. That’s the only way I know how to explain it. Not like a thought, but like a door opening in a part of me I didn’t build.
My scent changes.
I feel it happen.
Wild honey vanishes under something sharp enough to taste like copper. The air around me seems to tighten. The lights flicker once, or maybe it’s just my vision that does.
The man holding my arm says, “What the hell?”
I look at his hand.
Then at his face.
And I’m suddenly not in the hallway anymore.
I’m in my body, but I’m not driving it the way I usually do.
Something else takes the wheel and grips it with both hands.
Efficient.
Quiet.
Horrible.
I break his wrist, too.
More small bones giving up.
More screams.
The scream doesn’t matter.
Threat.
Remove.
I take the baton from him before he can drop it and drive it into the throat of the man behind me.
Not hard enough to shock.
Hard enough to crush.
He folds around the ruin of his breath and drops.
The first man swings with his good hand.
Too slow.
I put the baton through his knee.
He goes down squealing.
The sound scratches at the far edge of me, but I can’t get it.
Nothing can.
The hallway sharpens until every detail becomes useful.
Distance.
Pulse.
Weapon.
Exit.
Threat.
Remove.
“Dakota!” Ewan shouts.
His voice hits the bond. I feel him trying to reach me through it.
Smoke.
Clove.
Pain.
Fear.
Not of me.
Never of me.
For me.
It burns at the edge of the cold thing moving my body, but it doesn’t stop it.
One of Davis’s men launches at my back.
I turn before he touches me.
My knife is in my hand.
I don’t remember pulling it up.
I slice him open from ribs to hip.
Warmth hits my arm.
Blood floods the hallway in a smell so thick it should make me gag.
It doesn’t.
He collapses with both hands pressed to himself, eyes huge, mouth gaping open and closed around a sound that never forms a word.
Davis backs up.
Good.
Finally.
He reaches for something on his belt.
A restraint loop.
A collar.
A little strip of ugly black tech meant for throats.
My throat.
The cold thing inside me goes still.
Not quiet.
Still.
Davis runs.
I follow.
Not fast.
Not rushing.
There’s no need.
My knee doesn’t hurt.
My arm doesn’t hurt.
My body is a map and every route leads directly to him.
He slips near the turn.
I catch him by the back of his jacket and slam him into the wall hard enough that the plaster cracks.
His head snaps back.
His hand scrambles against my wrist.
“Wait,” he gasps.
The word means nothing.
He smells terrified now.
All the sour rot of entitlement and sweat-lined fear.
“You need me,” he says. “The council—”
I hit him once.
His nose breaks.
He chokes.
“The compound—”
I hit him again.
Teeth clack.
Blood spills over his lip.
“Omega,” he wheezes.
My head tilts.
The cold inside me narrows to a single point.
I drag him closer until his face is inches from mine.
My bandana has slipped down at some point.
I don’t know when.
I don’t care.
He sees my mouth.
My teeth.
The bite on my neck, only half-hidden by my collar.
His gaze latches there.
Hate flashes through his fear.
“Ruined,” he whispers.
I smile.
I think.
Then my knife goes into him.
Once.
Twice.
Again.
Not wild.
Not messy.
Precise.
The way Maine taught me to aim for things that mattered.
The way surviving taught me to stop before pity got me killed.
Davis drops when I let go.
His body folds badly.
A puppet with cut strings.
The hallway rings with silence.
No.
Not silence.
Voices.
Footsteps.
Someone shouting.
Ewan calling my name again, hoarse now.
Then Fletcher, hard and sharp.
Kaito, lower and deadly.
Xeon, quiet enough to make even the air afraid.
Maine.
Maine sounds like he’s breaking.
I look down.
My hands are red.
My shirt is red.
Blood drips from my fingers and onto the floor in soft little taps.
Tap.
Tap.
Tap.
Four minutes, maybe.
Less.