Chapter 11
CHAPTER
ELEVEN
TROY
“She’s fine, Troy,” Dr. Walsh reminds me. Glancing at him, I watch as he changes the sheets on Alisa’s bed. There are streaks of blood here and there and I force myself to take a breath.
My ear is pressed to the bathroom door, listening in case she needs anything.
This is where my ability to be rational ends.
I detangled her hair, rinsed it, and then stepped out to allow her privacy to shower.
She tossed her clothing out of the curtain as I closed the door, and my anxiety is concerned she’ll fall, despite the chair she’s sitting in.
“I know,” I grunt, refusing to move.
“Troy.” Pack Mayor is in the hallway, and I can feel their restraint from here.
“I’m struggling,” I confess.
“So are we, but we need to be careful,” Lyle continues. “There’s no way to know the extent of her trauma. Scaring her won’t help our situation.”
“She mentioned that the last time someone used her full name was when she was fourteen,” I remember. “Alisa is what, in her mid-twenties? It’s hard for me to tell. If she was taken at fourteen, that’s a long damn time.”
“It is.” Lyle rubs his face angrily, and I begin to feel the fury the three of them have been trying to lock down. “Easton is going to begin looking at missing persons reports for girls with dark hair over the past few years. Not everyone reports missing children.”
“In what world don’t they?” I rasp, my voice breaking.
“The mafia world,” Dr. Walsh grunts. “They prefer to handle things on their own, Troy. We don’t know if she ran away or was taken. We can’t risk her family deciding they want her back if they aren’t good people.”
“We?” Silas asks.
“There’s a reason I didn’t leave the Accetta family earlier,” he says.
“I get attached. I have connections for medical equality, but no patients anymore outside of Rosalia. She’s going to need long term care.
As hard as it may be to see, Alisa got lucky.
She will be able to heal the wounds those men left on her.
The hardest part of this will be her mental health, gentlemen.
She’s surviving on willpower for now and hasn't been able to process everything yet.”
“I’m waiting for her to break,” Easton admits quietly. “She’s holding everything together for now.”
“Alisa is very closed off. I tried talking to her while I was detangling her hair, but could see when she shut down. She seems to think she’s a bad person,” I say.
“Pack Tremaine’s omegas told me Alisa didn’t make friends at the club they were held at,” Silas explains.
“She focused on putting herself in the best position to avoid the owner’s wrath.
There were rumors from the other girls there that she was known to stab someone in the back if it meant protecting herself. ”
“What kind of club was this?” I ask.
“A sex club,” he says. “All the omegas there were bought at auction and the owner manipulated their heats cycles, ability to get pregnant, and played God with their lives.”
“I need to run those blood tests tomorrow,” Dr. Walsh breathes. “I promised she could get pregnant again and didn’t think about possible sterilization.”
“Sterilization would have brought down her value,” Easton grunts. “He would have been an idiot to do that.”
While I know he’s speaking abstractly, it still makes me angry to hear him speaking about Alisa like this. She’s not a broodmare.
“I didn’t mean it how you’re hearing it,” Silas adds. “Stand down, Troy. You know how important consent is to us.”
“It’s not a bad idea to see what kind of manipulation she’s up against,” Dr. Walsh mumbles to himself. He finishes making up the bed and then begins to pull out what he’ll need for the blood tests.
He’ll send them out tomorrow for evaluation. It’s simply too late to do much else until then.
“You were out late. What were you doing?” I ask Lyle and Silas. I’m more interested than accusing. I know they had shit to do today.
“I was at Pack Tremaine’s home gathering information, but that turned into a meeting with the Five Packs.
Some videoed in so we wouldn’t overwhelm Pack Tremaine’s omegas since it’s so late.
Lyle joined us after he finished up in court,” Silas explains.
“The warehouse is all patched up and we have new tenants chained inside its walls. There are people watching them for us.”
“That’s very organized crime of you,” I mumble.
“Nothing gets done in this city unless you’re willing to color outside the lines,” Easton says. “Lyle is the most straight laced among us, but even that’s a cover.”
“I keep everything from hitting the fan,” Lyle says. “We’ll leave her kidnappers on ice for a few days while Alisa gets her strength up. She knows enough for now.”
Dr. Walsh snorts and I get the feeling he disagrees.
The bathroom door finally opens and he rushes to help her back to the bed. Her hair is wet and I bite my lip.
“Can one of us dry your hair?” Silas asks, his eyes on the wet fabric on her shoulders and back from how damp her hair is.
“It takes ages for it to dry,” Alisa deflects with a tired shrug.
“I’ll get a chair from the kitchen,” Lyle grunts.
“You didn’t say no,” I explain as Lyle disappears down the hall. “Your pajamas are getting wet from your hair.”
“I should have put it up in a towel but I’m so tired,” she groans.
“No one will hold it against you if you fall asleep,” Dr. Walsh says, watching her carefully. “I’d like to draw some blood to run those tests we discussed earlier. Is that alright?”
“Mmhmm. That’s fine,” she says, her eyelids heavy again. Showering took a lot out of her. “I want to know what effects all the experimentation has had on my body.”
“Any hints what I should look for?” he asks.
I can hear Lyle outside of the room, and know he’s holding evidence of his presence back.
“I know there have been scent and heat blockers as well as birth control, but some of those things have failed without anyone to keep them up to date. I can’t think of anything else that came in the form of a medication recently,” she muses.
“I’m sure something has been jostled from being electrocuted over the years. ”
“Electrocuted?” I ask, my heart pounding in my ears.
“Clara, the auction madam, enjoyed keeping us on our toes. There have been others that simply wanted to watch me scream for their own fucked up reasons,” she says. “Fear is a large part of getting people to do what you want them to.”
“In the auction world? Yes. In the civil one? That’s only true in certain conditions,” Lyle says, making himself known as he enters the room with the chair. “You’re weaving on your feet, please sit.”
I’m close enough to see when her legs stop holding her, and I reach out to catch her before Dr. Walsh can. The woosh of her breath tells me she believed we’d allow her to fall, and I gaze down at her as I hold her closely.
“You’re pushing yourself too much,” I growl softly.
“But I’m clean,” she shrugs. I can smell the mint from her toothpaste one of my alphas put out for her and I can’t fault her logic.
There’s a pleased smile on her lips now that she’s showered and no longer wearing the weight of dirt and blood.
“I don’t know very much about the civil world. I don’t think being homeless counts.”
“In this city? The auction hunters are here. A woman named Avery is finding new omegas for her inventory,” Lyle says, finding a good spot to put the chair down. “The streets definitely aren’t civil.”
Silas slips past me to get the hair dryer, and I know I need to put Alisa down. I just can’t yet. Fuck.
I live for a loophole. I find them all the time while playing hockey, though I tend to be a rule follower in my life. Unfortunately, being the good guy hasn’t helped me very much.
Sitting down in the chair Lyle provided with Alisa, I ignore the rules of propriety. At least if she falls over, I can keep her upright.
“Avery.” Alisa hisses the word like a cat and I widen my eyes.
“Who the fuck is that?” I ask.
“A crazy ass omega working with Madam Clara,” she grunts.
“She was working with her. Clara is dead now,” Lyle states. “Pack Tremaine killed her. Do you know how long they’ve been together?”
Alisa’s brow furrows as she tries to remember before nodding slowly.
“It was after Chase and Winter left. I mean…I think his real name is Bellamy. Old habits die hard, sorry. He went by Chase for most of the time I knew him. Madam Clara was teaching Avery how to run an auction house. I think she wanted a partner in crime.”
“We’re still trying to kill Avery but she’s a fucking cockroach. The bitch won’t die,” Easton says with a shudder.
Everyone has migrated back inside the bedroom and Alisa has her head on my shoulder. I tell myself it’s because she’s tired and it doesn’t mean anything. I need to move slowly, I can’t freak her out.
Fuck if it isn’t hard to move any slower than I already am. There’s a bite mark on her shoulder I can see as her shirt shifts, and it’s red and angry. There’s no way for me to know how old it is, but I can see the teeth marks.
My eyes move up to meet Easton’s and he inclines his head. I’m sure there’s murder burning inside of my usually gentle eyes. I wonder how hard it is to pull someone’s teeth out, and if it’ll change me as a person to listen to the screams emitted as I do it.
“You’re growling,” Alisa sighs, lifting her hand to press against my chest. “This isn’t helping me stay awake.”
“Then I won’t apologize for it,” I grumble. “If you’re tired, sleep.”
“Not yet.” Alisa turns her head to look at the men in front of her and carefully shifts her weight in my lap.
“There are three other people who escaped with me when we ran from Madam Clara’s.
I haven’t seen any of them. I thought about it long and hard in the shower, and wanted to know if there’s a possibility of finding them? ”
“If you give me their names and descriptions, I can see what I can do with the police department,” Easton says.
“You’re a cop?” she asks, her jaw dropping.
“I was for a little while after I retired from hockey, but I was giving Lyle and Silas too many gray hairs,” he chuckles, his fingers sinking into Lyle’s grays beside him as Lyle makes a face.
“I’m a police dispatcher now. I take calls for them and work odd hours.
It gives me the ability to find out what’s happening in my city. ”
“Oh.” She’s adorable and seems to mull that over for a moment. “Thank you.”
“Of course. Any last words before Silas blow dries your hair?” he teases her. The hair dryer reminds me of a space tool. I bet it’ll be loud as hell. Silas is armed and dangerous with a round brush too.
Running my hand through my much shorter hair, I smirk as I think about his many talents. My teammates immediately clocked my haircut and gave me shit about it. Apparently, my dark and brooding look was being discussed by both men and women on social media, which isn’t much of a surprise to me.
Hockey players are fun to ogle, I get it. It’s part of the allure of the boy aquarium.
“Do you need me to get up?” Alisa asks me.
“I don’t need to leave yet,” I murmur. “You can get comfortable.”
Silas waits for Alisa to nod and then he turns on the blow dryer. I don’t have a clue how or when he learned how to blow out someone’s hair, but it’s coming in clutch. Despite how long I’ve known this pack, they still manage to surprise me pretty often.
Dr. Walsh takes this opportunity to get the blood he said he needed, and then he’s bustling off with it.
Alisa’s head drops forward a couple of times, and I cradle it to keep her from hurting herself.
Easton and Lyle leave and return while Silas works, and I notice they have wet hair and are dressed in sweats and a t-shirt.
After a long day, there’s nothing better than changing into something more comfortable.
Alisa is completely asleep by the time Silas is done and I pick her up to return her to bed.
“How do you know how to do this for her?” I ask quietly.
“I knew you wouldn’t be able to resist asking,” he chuckles, turning off the bathroom light. “You know I have younger sisters, right? I can braid hair too. I’m rusty as fuck at it, but I’m sure it’s like riding a bike.”
Dr. Walsh snorts quietly to put in his two cents as he hooks up Alisa’s IV again, while I hide my smile.
“Are you spending the night, Doc?” Silas asks.
“Yes.” He parks himself in the chair where I was and gets comfortable, allowing his eyes to close.
“Please don’t park yourselves outside of my patient’s bedroom door.
It’s creepy, and none of you are spring chickens.
Troy, you have games to play and need to sleep in a bed.
I do not care who’s it is as long as it’s not near Alisa’s. ”
The old man is calling us old and clingy. Wonderful.
“Fine,” Silas sighs. “My back is still pissed at me for my hallway vigil.”
“I only speak the truth, even when it’s difficult to hear,” the doctor mumbles.
Rolling my eyes, I leave the bedroom slowly and Silas turns out the lights as we walk.
“I don’t like it either, but we can’t crawl into her asshole and live there,” he mutters.
I will never get used to how colorful their phrases are.
“So we’re sleeping upstairs?” I ask.
“Nope, that’s too far.”
Following him into the den, I find that Lyle and Easton went on ahead of us to begin putting sheets on their giant modular couch. This is a much cozier room than the living room.
“It’ll be a little tight, but I can tell you like to cuddle, Troy,” Lyle teases me. “Get ready for bed and we’ll have our first official sleepover.”
Chuckling, I agree as I look for my duffle bag. I packed knowing I’d want to spend the night with them. Now, if I can do more than stare at the ceiling for hours, I’ll be happy.