My Little Killer (Golden Sanctuary Omegaverse #3)

1. A Natural Born Killer

A Natural Born Killer

Evangeline

I can still feel the warmth of his blood trickling between my fingers.

Sticky and gross. I like using my knife.

Being up close and personal, but maybe I need gloves?

There’s nothing like feeling their wheezing breath die out, and their hearts pound behind their sternum, quickening until it can’t keep up.

It’s quieter than a gun.

Not that it stopped him from screaming.

I can’t help but smile at the memory. The look on his face as he realised he was going to die. That I was going to kill him.

Beautiful. Truly a work of art. I want to paint it, photograph it, sculpt it, to commemorate it so I can relive that moment again and again before the memory burns out. My cheeks ache from laughing, and for a moment I feel safe.

You need to keep yourself safe, Evie. You fight, you run, don’t stop until you’re safe.

The words cut through my laughter, glass shattering inside my head, splintering into places I refuse to go. And there it is. The reality I can’t escape.

Fire spreads. It burns. Hot.

My head spins, echoes chasing me.

Ash coats my tongue, choking me, clogging my throat with its tasteless, thick air.

It burns. My eyes sting, but all I can focus on through my blurred vision are the flames dancing in the glass.

The light from the flames glitters, and embers spark around it, a halo of orange, red, and yellow.

A thick black swallowing the light and creating it simultaneously.

A hand pounds on the glass, charred and bubbling black and red.

Broken fingernails scraping as if they have the desperation to break through.

“HELP US!”

A harsh, overwhelming scent breaks through the smell of burning flesh, encasing me in a cocoon of honey, cloves, fruit and wood. Whiskey!

“SIT.”

The fire dissipates from my vision, revealing a very angry August (or as I call him in my head, and sometimes out loud, Auggie) glaring at me.

It takes a moment for his words to register in the chaos that is my brain, but the moment I actually feel the command rather than only hearing it, my legs fold under me and I slump to the floor.

“You cannot keep doing this.” He sounds tired.

He looks tired. Or maybe he’s just old.

I squint up at him, my eyes following him as he paces the floor.

His hair is mostly white now, not the warm brown it was when I met him.

I like it better like this. He suits the grey.

Not that I would tell him that. No, I learnt from that mistake when it started to grow through the brown.

But it’s his clothes that give him away.

That’s the same shirt he was wearing yesterday.

He hasn’t slept. I should go shopping for him. Get him some new shirts.

“EVA.” Auggie’s sharp bark cuts through my thoughts.

I smile as big and as wide as I can. It always works on him. Apart from the times it hasn’t. But I shouldn’t dwell on the negatives. That’s how you become a sad, lonely pigeon person.

His shoulders slump, and he lets his weight fall back onto the sofa, his arms dangling on either side.

Like a corpse.

Or something equally beautiful and normal to think about.

Like a sleeping bear. That’s better, Eva.

Shuffling to my knees, I crawl across the room and make my way onto his lap. I curl up in a ball, resting my head on his shoulder and breathe in his scent. His arms pull me in, holding me tightly, scared that I might disappear or run away.

Only one of which is a rational fear.

“I’m serious, Eva. You can’t skip out on school. The Council has never been more on edge.”

Rusty guilt pours from my scent, and if it were possible for me to make myself smaller and snuggle further into him, I would. His fear and stress are evident without the added sweaty and sour scents permeating the air.

“I’m sorry.” I whimper.

“Are you?”

He holds my face between his hands, forcing my eyes to lock onto his.

“Are you really sorry, Eva? Because I think if you were, you would stop. If you were, you would be honest and tell me where you ran off to.”

I blink back tears. I want to apologise again. I want to reassure him that this time was the last time, but I can’t.

Don’t lie, Eva.

“I know where you were.”

I tear my face from his grasp and refuse to look in his direction. My chest heaves as he continues.

“You cannot keep killing Alphas. You and I both made promises to the Council, and you’re breaking them,” he sighs.

“Look. The Council has made it clear that I am responsible for you. They give you more concessions than you realise. Letting you work for them is a privilege, and they can and will take it away. There’s only so many times I can lie and reassure them that you are safe when you are running off, following Alphas that they have deemed dangerous and killing them.

If they think I can’t keep you safe, they’ll take you away from me. ”

No.

“With the new Council laws, they could make you attend Golden Sanctuary full time, like every other student, dorms and all.”

Dorms? I think not. I can’t imagine anything worse than dorms. All those tiny prison cell apartments stuffed against each other. It’s not natural. No room to think, no room to breathe. Constantly monitored.

And school.

Every day.

With other Omegas.

I can’t do it.

They all know what they are doing. They have direction, and all I am is lost. The classes are great and I am genuinely doing well but I want nothing more than to fit in, to find a friend and belong, but I’ve been going to school for three years now and I’ve not spoken to a single other person the entire time.

At first, it was excited nerves, then it became clear that I wasn’t like the others and they all knew each other, lived together.

I was the weird outsider, the girl who sat in the back of class two days a week.

The longer it went on, the harder it got.

I could feel them looking at me, whispering and speculating, and I couldn’t just sit there. I had to run. I needed to be safe.

“You stole a Council confidential folder. Again. You killed a Council Alpha target.”

“I was bored,” I whisper, hoping that the pathetic excuse sounds better than it feels to say.

“Eva—”

“If I could just have another assignment, I would feel better. I would be better.”

“You just had a job last month. It usually takes you longer to get this restless. Is everything okay?”

I squeeze my eyes shut. School is hell at the moment.

Everyone has started going on dates, and they stink.

It’s hard enough to be surrounded by the scents of countless Omegas.

Add on the school staff, and it’s barely tolerable, but now the scents of Alphas cling to everything. It makes me want to rip my head off.

Rip their heads off. Accurate, but not helpful brain.

“I’ll talk to them. I’m not going to let them force you into school full time. I won’t let them take you from me. Okay?”

The pressure on my chest lifts, and I can breathe again.

“If—”

Spoke too soon.

“—you promise to be good and go to school on the selected days and stay the whole day. No more running, and definitely no more killing.”

I fling my arms around his neck, and let the gleeful cherry scent burst around me.

“And you’ll get me another assignment?” I add meekly.

“Don’t push your luck. Now get comfy. Your shows on, and if I’m forced to watch this shit, I’m going to need you to explain to me again how exactly these people are famous.”

It’s not Auggie’s fault. He has done more for me than anyone. But he thinks he can fix me. I think I was born broken. Why else would an Omega kill her Alpha parents? It’s my first memory, clear in my mind today as it was years ago.

How I burnt them alive. I locked them inside and let the fire spread, and when they screamed, I laughed. That’s how they found me. Staring through the shattered glass that was the window, laughing. There was nothing left of them.

Why would I do that?

The Council didn’t know what to do with me.

Can you imprison a child? Do you let them go free?

They thought it was a one time thing, that maybe the fire spread and I ran away scared.

They gave me every excuse they could think of to rationalise it to themselves.

They packed me up and treated me like any other orphan.

Only I didn’t stop with my parents.

I couldn’t. This voice inside my head keeps telling me to fight with everything I have, to kill, to keep myself safe.

I don’t go around killing Alphas every day. But now and then I come across a bad one, angrier than most, with a look in their eyes that tells me that they’re capable of horrible things, and they stay with me. A lingering thought I can’t get rid of. I obsess, and eventually, I kill.

The Council has tried giving me other things to do, and while it does distract me for a while it’s nothing compared to the calm, the silence I feel in my brain, the complete sense of safety that envelopes me when they die by my hand.

But they’ve had other issues to deal with lately, and an Omega that is technically doing them a favour by killing Alphas they have already put on a watch list isn’t high on their priorities.

I am Auggie’s priority, though. That man watches me like a hawk.

He and his little Council spies seem to know everything I do, sometimes before I do it.

“Who’s that again?” He points at the TV.

“If you haven’t learned by now, you never will. Just watch and enjoy.”

“What is there to enjoy? They’re all yelling at each other.” He pokes me in the ribs, pulling a laugh from me.

“Hey, I shut up and watch when you put on those superhero films you like.”

“You most definitely do not shut up nor do you watch, plus those movies have flying dogs and people with laser eyes.”

“I do like dogs.”