FORTY-NINE
EWAN
By the time Haven Ridge comes into view, my hands have stopped shaking.
I can’t say that’s necessarily a good thing, because shaking means the fear has somewhere to go.
Somewhere honest. Stillness means I’ve only gone and packed it away with all the other stuff I plan to deal with later.
Probably never. Very likely at the worst possible time, like if someone says something mild about passing the salt and I decide to have a full-blown mental collapse right there at the dinner table.
Assuming we ever get to sit at a dinner table again. And assuming Dakota even lets anyone cook for her without her threatening to supervise the veg.
My headphones sit crooked around my neck, one side irritatingly cracked from the fight and the padding smeared with a streak of blood that I’m choosing to believe doesn’t belong to her.
They’ve survived six years living among the infected, shitty weather, terrible music, and my very questionable coping skills, but apparently it’s Vector that almost did them in with a single kidnapping.
Typical, honestly.
Dakota is half-conscious in Xeon’s arms when we reach the south service road and that part is sitting heavily on my shoulders.
Not because I’m jealous, because I’m not.
I don’t mind that he’s carrying her. What’s bothering me is the way he’s carrying her so carefully, like she’s something breakable and sacred and will literally bite him if he so much as moves wrong.
Which, to be fair, is a valid concern to have.
Dakota has always possessed some crazy-strong feral cat energy.
Her head rests on his shoulder, with Maine’s hat placed back on her head, the brim low enough to cast her face in more shadows than the night does.
Blood streaks across her cheeks and more blood coats her hands.
Her wrists look red-raw from the restraints, the black polish has cracked over split nails, and her breathing keeps hitching every time the drugs try to drag her under only to sharpen again when one of her bonds pulls her back.
Mine.
Kaito’s.
Fletcher’s.
Three threads wrapped around her in a cocoon, three frantically panicked anchors trying to hold her in this diabolical world that tried to take her from us.
And then there’s Xeon. Carrying her in silence, face blank in a way that isn’t calm at all. He found her without ever needing the world to make it easy for him, and that should matter. It does. It matters way more than I could ever say.
Dakota stirs against him, her lashes fluttering. Then she rasps, “Still kidnapped?”
My chest breaks apart right there and then, right before patching itself back together roughly.
“Nah,” I tell her, keeping my voice even enough that it disguises the residual panic I can still feel thrumming through my body.
“Super dramatic rescue completed. Got some mixed reviews but overall good score. The viewers liked the explosions. Strong opening, messy middle, solid end. I don’t recommend it. ”
Her mouth twitches. “Did I rate it?”
I sigh. “You called it mean.”
“Then five stars for you,” she mutters before her eyes slide closed again.
I laugh once and it hurts. It hurts everywhere.
Fletcher glances over from where he’s walking ahead, rifle in hand and blood dried over his jaw. “She awake?”
“She’s insulting our high-quality cinematic rescue, so yeah,” I tell him casually.
“I gave it five stars. Don’t be greedy,” she grumbles without opening her eyes.
I flash a grin at Fletcher and he rolls his eyes as he says, “Good.”
That’s all he says, but cedar and leather pushes through the bond, steady and rough. Kind of like relief layered in razors.
Maine walks on the other side of Xeon and Dakota, close enough that his shoulder keeps brushing Xeon’s. He hasn’t stopped looking at her since we left Vector’s burning camp behind us, almost like he thinks if he blinks for too long she’ll vanish again. A very reasonable fear to have, honestly.
Kaito carries the recovered NOVAC drives in a sealed case taken from Vector’s transport truck.
He has blood on his sleeve that doesn’t belong to him and probably not from the same person either.
The man surprised me with how brutal he is when there’s something vital on the line for him to fight for.
I’ve seen the guy as calm and quiet, intense when it comes to anything Dakota.
Never would have anticipated the level of intensity, but I can’t say I’m upset about it.
His face gives nothing away, but the bond through Dakota keeps echoing with a quiet, lethal kind of focus.
Valeria’s guards meet us before the outer gates. They stop when they see us.
Well, actually no. They stop when they see her.
Dakota O’Reilly, dragged right back out of a Vector cage and brought back under her own goddamn name.
The compound must have expected a rescue party or something.
Maybe a body, or maybe nothing. Instead, they get a bloody Dakota drugged off her absolute tits, bruised, raging, and very much alive.
They get Maine walking beside her. They get three bonded Alphas moving like anyone who even thinks to sneeze wrong around her will lose their noses.
They get Xeon carrying her like his silence has finally decided to become a threat.
They get a sealed case of stolen NOVAC cargo.
And behind us, on a stretcher dragged by two of Valeria’s men, they get Vector’s puny leader, unconscious and tied so tightly that his hands have gone pale.
Yeah, I know, I’m pissed about it too. I hoped for a more gruesome end for the wrinkled asshole.
Hell, even Dakota liked my idea of leaving him on the ground with a lure on his chest and fast Rots racing through their burning camp.
Unfortunately, the two guards grabbed him before he could suffer.
I’m upset about it. It’s a new bruise and it hurts when I press on it.
Bunch of fucking spoilsports.
People gather at the gate as soon as they open. Medics, guards, civilians, Omegas hidden behind doorframes and cracked windows. The whole compound is watching.
Before, they looked at Dakota like she was something rare and dangerous.
Something valuable. A problem with pretty pale hair and a pulse.
Now they look at her and see the blood. They can see the restraint marks and the hat and the fact that Vector took her and she came back with their camp collapsing behind her.
Not untouched, not unhurt, but not owned. Never owned.
Mercer pushes through the crowd first, and his face goes completely white the moment he sees her in Xeon’s arms.
“Medical,” he demands roughly. “Now.”
Dakota lifts one hand weakly from Xeon’s chest and points at the stretcher behind her. “That fuckface first.”
I choke on a sound that almost breaks free, amusement battling with lingering fear and anxiety.
Mercer blinks. “Dakota.”
“If he lives, he talks. He has files.”
Her voice is absolutely ruined, but everyone still hears it, and the whole crowd goes quiet in a ripple I can physically feel.
Fletcher steps closer. “Darlin’, you need treatment.”
“I need a chair,” she corrects with a rasp, her head still resting on Xeon’s shoulder. “And then I need to sit back and relax while I watch the bitch boy with the clipboard crumble like a wet paper bridge.”
I smile at Mercer. “She means Hale.”
“That’s what I said,” she mutters.
Mercer’s eyes close for one very tired second before he says, “I didn’t want to believe he could do something like this.”
Valeria appears from command with two squads at her back a second later, and her face tells me enough. She’s already started digging. Good stuff.
“Commander Hale has been detained,” she says stiffly.
A murmur travels through the crowd while Dakota rolls her head to look over at her. “Ah, so we’ve all figured it out then?”
Valeria’s jaw flexes and something in her eyes shutters.
“You were taken through a restricted route opened with command-level access. Three west-wall patrols were reassigned thirteen minutes before the breach. The generator shed hatch was unlocked remotely. Hale’s private channel contacted an unidentified external signal less than an hour before Vector moved. ”
Kaito’s eyes sharpen and Fletcher goes impossibly still. Maine looks like he might actually fall apart.
I ask, “Right. And Porter?”
“Dead,” Valeria answers bluntly. “Two other faction members alive. Restrained. Five more under guard pending questioning.”
Dakota exhales slowly, but there’s no relief in it. There’s something colder in the small sound, and it matches her voice when she says, “Bring Hale out.”
Mercer stiffens. “Absolutely not. You’re drugged, injured, and in need of immediate care.”
Dakota turns her head to him and it’s slow. So slow that it’s genuinely scary. Even off her knob and hurt, my girl is absolutely terrifying. I fucking love it, especially because I’m not on the receiving end of it.
That’s the only reason why I feel bad for the guy when she says, “Mercer.”
“Ooh. I just got chills,” I whisper, and I catch Tiny Terror’s lips twitch only once. It could have been nothing for how quickly it disappears again, but it counts.
The doctor’s mouth tightens and I almost feel sorry for him again. Almost.
Then she says, “I was strapped to a chair by people who called me cargo and considered me a walking womb they could use. If I go ahead and hide in medical before everyone hears what he did and why he did it, men like him are going to keep whispering over my body about how much money they can get for it.”
Her words hit hard, and they hit every fucker around her. Because not only are they ugly and heavy, but they’re true. Mercer looks like he’s been slapped with his own conscience.
Dakota’s hand weakly curls against Xeon’s chest, her fingers gripping his shirt, and commands, “Chair first. Public second. Needles third.”
“Second and third should swap,” Mercer mutters.
“Needles should come first,” Ellis interrupts and I turn to find the red-haired demon standing there with her perpetual look of disapproval.