Chapter 15 Twelve
Twelve
Brea
All cops were bastards, but Detective Vikki was one I had to play nice with.
Though—dear gods—she made it hard.
To her credit, she cared. The only reason we even knew her name, let alone all the horrifying truths that now haunted us, was because she cared.
And, more credit, she’d taken a leave of absence the moment Brooks had contacted her with news of Taryn’s infiltration of Phoenix Labs.
She’d arrived to the Greysmoke Cabin a day later with all the equipment needed to establish a base of operations.
So, okay, Vikki cared.
But, holy hell, she talked in circles like a cop. Saying nothing. Giving no real answers.
We’d done our best to leave her be in the days since then.
Let her do her thing. Her computers and scanners and hard drives ate up the kitchen counter and table.
An older-model cell phone sat plugged in next to her at all times.
It buzzed once an hour with a text—from her inside source, was my best guess—which she read in under a second each time before returning to her monitors with a furrowed brow.
I hadn’t washed my hair since before Taryn’s heat.
It sat twisted into the truest version of a messy bun on top of my head.
It looked substantially less precious than Taryn’s versions.
All three of us were looking a bit worse for wear—greasy hair, days-old loungewear, stressed and weary pheromones even from the betas.
Brooks was unnervingly stoic. He’d taken it as his personal responsibility to keep the three of us fed, watered, and halfway rested. I wasn’t sure he’d actually lain down yet himself.
By the end of the first week, still locked out of the systems Taryn had risked her life to grant access to, my patience was wearing thin.
It was past noon, and Vikki hadn’t said a word to us in hours.
Brooks had made her toast and eggs, freshened her coffee, and fetched a lamp from a spare bedroom when she said the kitchen was too dark.
Actually, correction. My patience wasn’t wearing thin. It was fucking threadbare. Our pack was held hostage to further the cause, and my biggest contribution was folding the laundry that Brooks had done.
“What’s the end date on this mission?” I asked, arms crossed. “Because we will not be waiting around indefinitely for your systems to go live while our mates are held captive.”
Vikki didn’t turn toward me, still focused on her screens. “I assure you,” she said, “everything is going to plan.”
“That’s not what I asked,” I said, working hard to keep my tone under control. “I want a date.”
“Brea,” Vikki sighed, finally looking over her screen toward me, “this is why civilians don’t normally participate behind the scenes. I get you’re frustrated, truly, but—”
“Frustrated?”
Brooks threw down the dish he’d been scrubbing into the sink, face red, eyes irate. He rounded the counter to meet Vikki’s gaze.
“You know nothing if you think what we’re feeling right now is frustration.
” He swiped the back of his soapy hands across his forehead, leaving a few suds at his hairline.
“The three people we care most about in the world have their heads in fucking guillotines, all to give you the chance to get the edge on these fuckers. And all the while, all you tell us is that your bestie texts you every hour so all is well.” He scoffed, running those same sudsy hands through his curls. “With all due disrespect, fuck you.”
He stormed up the stairs, and one of the doors slammed shut. My heart clenched.
“Shit,” Vikki hissed, gliding her own fingers through her short hair.
She sat back up. “I’m sorry. Really. I wish I had more.
I wish I could give you both something to do or a definitive timeline.
But it’s a matter of waiting for my person inside to get the chip and plug it in so I can connect.
There’s, truly, nothing we can do until then.
“But the fact that contact is steady,” she continued. “That’s a really good sign. All three of them are still alive and well. Relatively speaking, anyway.”
I sighed, tensing my crossed arms even more. “I know.”
Vikki stood, walking around the counter to meet me.
She mirrored my stance, arms crossed, worried eyes cast upwards where Brooks had fled.
“I promise you,” she said softly, “my number one goal is keeping everyone safe. Taryn, Caine, Lin, all of you.” She looked sideways toward me.
“But everyone isn’t just you, either. It’s all the vulnerable omegas who’ve been hurt before, and the ones that Wainwright will hurt in the future if we don’t do something now. ”
Her eyes were earnest, from the upturned brow to the dark shadows that spoke to her constant vigil at the monitors. The wrinkled t-shirt and yoga pants she’d been wearing for days.
Vikki cared.
But she didn’t care about the same things we did.
I nodded at her with a tight smile. Without a word, I stepped toward the staircase, following my beta’s angry pheromones to a closed door on the hall. I didn’t knock—I didn’t trust him to give even me permission to enter, and I wasn’t waiting.
It wasn’t a bedroom he’d retreated to, but a library.
Small, cozy if the mood were different. A pitched ceiling and plush carpet, dark colors and soft surfaces.
The fireplace sat cold on one wall, while built-in shelves covered every other.
Two small windows sat over two cushioned window seats, deep burgundy curtains tied back that would make them their own little worlds when they were loose.
All the pieces were mismatched, but in a unified kind of way.
Kind of like our packs, I supposed.
Brooks sat on the black velvet loveseat, legs curled up and arms wrapped around them, his forehead pressed against his knees. I eased the door shut, and he simply shook his head into his knees. “I can’t believe I let her do this.” The words were muffled, but I still caught the warble in his voice.
A teensy, tiny part of me wanted to gloat in his guilt. On multiple occasions I’d been tempted to knock him out like I almost had on the rooftop patio the first night we all met. He would actually deserve it this time.
Except he didn’t.
The plush cushion threatened to swallow me as I sat beside him. I grabbed one of his hands that clawed at his bent legs, and unfurled the fingers so I could thread them through mine. “Since when have any of us let Taryn do anything?” I asked, trying to infuse even a little levity into my tone.
Must’ve worked. Brooks chuckled before giving a wet sniffle. His head turned so he could look at me, laid atop his knees. “She could sass the frown off a clown, without a doubt.”
I smirked, stroking his curls away from his eyes. “She could charm a frog from a bog.”
“Could woo a coo all the way to the loo.” He loosed a heavy sigh as he sat up, bent knees falling open so he could cross his legs on the deep-set sofa cushion. His hand never released mine. “And probably still write a better kids’ book than we could.”
I smiled. “Probably.”
My draw to Brooks was different than the rest. He was a beautiful man, there was no denying it.
And, sure, sharing a bed with him and the rest of our pack sure hadn’t sucked thus far.
But when it was just him and me, I didn’t yearn to undress him or touch him in any way other than to soothe his worries.
I loved him as much as I did the others. Just somewhat differently. My sweet beta, my friend.
He looked up at me, those beautiful hazel eyes so heartbreakingly sad I nearly wept on sight. “Vikki doesn’t care about Taryn,” he said softly. “Or Lin, or Caine. She won’t fight to get them out.”
My thumb smoothed across the back of his hand. “She cares…in the way that she cares. But you’re right,” I whispered, cutting off his reply. “Which means we need to make some plans of our own.”
Vikki hung up the phone with a muttered curse before downing her coffee.
My heart pounded against my chest. “What is it?”
She sighed. “The others are safe. That was my connect inside the DA’s office. They’re as impatient as the two of you for an update.”
I doubted that very highly, but I held my tongue.
We’d given Vikki a wider berth since Brooks’ outburst two days ago.
I knew she felt badly about setting him off…
and I twisted that guilt to finagle a few key pieces of intel from her for our own purposes.
Like the fact that she was in talks with some mysterious figure at the district attorney’s office, ostensibly to build out a case against Wainwright Corp.
using whatever bombshells we managed to steal from Phoenix.
“What is it they’re waiting for?” I asked in as conversational a tone as I could manage.
Vikki typed a few things onto the keyboard. “She’s got someone on standby to help decrypt and protect whatever we’re able to get off the lab’s servers.”
I swallowed, keeping my face neutral. “And this someone can be trusted?”
Vikki shrugged. “I trust Gail. Empathy aside, if she can nail Wainwright for half the shit we know they’re up to, it’ll make her career.”
I stowed the name away to follow up on later.
We lapsed into silence, and I wandered through the kitchen, which was now entirely covered in computers, tablets, charging cords, hard drives, files, maps, papers galore.
One half-folded map sat to the far side of the counter, half the page climbing the wall like a sheet of ivy. With a quick glance at Vikki to confirm she was engrossed on her computer, I leaned over to peruse.
It showed the whole region—Remington State and the surrounding southeastern states.
Remington City took up the largest portion of the map, north and northwest of the massive Greysmoke National Park, where we currently stood.
The small city of Pockston sat tucked in the far southeastern corner. Farendale on the far west.
Yep. I’d gotten about as far away from home as I could’ve without leaving the state.
The other handful of major cities filled the space around and between—Fort Matamir, where Lin’s family lived. New Gilden, neighboring Farendale. Serenity Falls. Springvale. Sorizen.
A black X stood out on the map in the northwest of Greysmoke National Park—the cabin. Other X's marked a few key places in Farendale.
But what drew my eye was the green circle in Remington City, in the thick panhandle that extended over most of Greysmoke. As though my pack were calling to me from that tiny dot on the map.
I stared at the map, memorizing the precise location of the pin as best I could; if I pulled out my phone to snap a pic, Vikki would notice. While we’d reveal our plans to her eventually, flying under the radar felt like the right move at this point.
A notification beep sounded from behind me.
“Holy shit.”
I rushed to Vikki’s side, looking at the monitor. A login screen had appeared, black with dark gray entry fields for authorization number and password.
“We’re in?” I asked, heart pounding.
Vikki pulled one of her tablets over, scrolling through a handful of files before pulling up a table of credentials. Her hands shook as she typed some in, little stars filling in the fields. We both held our breath as she hit enter.
The screen went blank.
Then folders appeared.
“Yeah,” she breathed, half laughing with hysterical adrenaline. “We’re in.”