36. Roseland
Roseland
It doesn’t matter how many times I go over the information, I can’t make it fit, and I can’t sleep while the threat remains against her. Last night, while Sage was keeping her busy, Rolly, Pix, and I went out to check out the names on the list.
Of the eight names, there wasn’t a single person who could be Father.
One is sick with an illness that makes physical movement hard and painful.
One has a beta he lives with all the time and has done for the last three years.
Another was out of the country. Two more of them were sick in hospital during the periods we are looking at.
There was a movie star who was on set, and the last person had an airtight alibi working for the paramedics on shift.
We went over it, again.
And again.
There’s nothing we missed. And yet, somehow, whatever Merle saw on that street remains locked in her mind where none of us can reach it.
We’ve run out of options, run out clues to follow and threads to chase.
Tomorrow, or today, when we get up, we’re going to have to shove Merle back into that nightmare and see if she can help us again.
And I don’t want to do that to her.
I hear sounds outside the window. It’s a scrape and a click.
Sounds I recognise. My eyes flare wide, and I sit up.
Sage reacts instantly, his eyes shining in the dark.
I reach out and place my hand over Merle’s mouth, dragging her out of bed.
It takes me just a minute to get her into the roof cavity.
She struggles and fights as I push her into the hole and darkness, her eyes stare back, wide and full of panic.
Sage pushes past me and jabs her in the neck with one of his needles he keeps on him. She collapses, her eyes drifting shut.
“We’ll come back, just hide,” I whisper.
We pull everything back and turn, Sage’s hand finds mine.
The police swarm through the corridor.
“Put your hands up. Don’t move!” The guy in front booms. They have guns on us and are holding plastic riot shields. Only their eyes are visible, hard eyes of people worn down by years of fighting crime.
I lift my hands up slowly and put them behind my head, turning smoothly to show them my back and kneeling.
Sage does the same.
He glances at me, and I shake my head.
Don’t resist. We’ll be in there longer if we resist.
They get us cuffed and carry us out of the house. King, Blaze, and Rolly come next.
“Where’s your mother?” an officer sneers at me.
Oh, this is bad.
“Probably on another holiday, we don’t talk anymore,” I say nonchalantly.
“Why is that? Got something to hide?”
“Because I got fired. She said she was ashamed of me and to get out of her house until I fixed it. That was seven months ago.”
He barks a sharp, disbelieving laugh and shoves me into the back of a squad car.
It’s strange being on this side of an arrest.
Except, they don’t seem to have any reason for why they have us. And they don’t seem to have realised who they have arrested either.
In the cells, we sit quietly, not speaking, just watching. I imagine killing all of them as they sit around and laugh. Each second winds me tighter and tighter.
Merle is alone. We left her alone.
The midday light is shining through the window when I hear a voice I didn’t expect to hear. I stand up, still not used to the unpleasant smell.
“Fuck the hell off out of my face, peasant.”
Rolly chuckles.
“Rory!” Bonnie snaps. “Sorry, officer, he’s a bit moody.”
“Whatever,” Rory says. “Where’s my dickhead cousin? Hey, little psycho, you forgot your meds! I don’t want to see you back in a psych ward.”
“Fuck you, Rory!” Rolly growls.
Cyn walks into sight and goes straight to King. “Are you okay?”
King nods, but his lips are so tight they are almost white.
“Did they hurt you? Because if they hurt you, I will make sure you have a collection of sacked police officers.” Cyn looks so incredibly earnest that several cops pale and step back.
Kota rushes up to the bars and pretends to cry. “Oh, my poor baby.”
Blaze snarls.
“You look all muzzed. My poor, poor brother.”
“He’s your brother?” A cop says in a high, frightened voice. His washed-out blue eyes and acne gets very visible on his chalk-white face. “Look, I didn’t sign up to get on the bad side of the Myles family. You have got to fix this, Boss.”
Kota turns, glaring. “My older brother, can’t you see the resemblance? How did you not realise you were arresting Blaze Myles?”
“No. Not at all,” the cop says faintly. “Listen, Boss, I think you need to get them out of here.”
The boss, a white-haired man with a white mustache that is twitching, gives a tiny shake of his head, but he looks sick.
And then Vale walks in and goes straight to Sage, with Bonnie beside him. “Cousin.”
I think Boss might just pass out.
“Hey, sorry about all this. I’m not even sure what they are charging us with.”
Vale nods and glances scathingly over his shoulder, looking at the group of police.
“Why are you holding my family?” Vale barks with absolute command.
Several of the cops step back, the rest hunch their shoulders and try to look really, really small.
“Well, I mean, we went for that one and that one.”
They point at Pix and me.
Bonnie whirls. “You’re arresting my brother and his scent-matched alpha, who used to be a cop and got fired because of dirty, ingrate cops?”
The cops gape at her.
“I have proof of your boss taking bribes and blackmail and setting up my friend,” Bonnie says and smiles serenely. “You really should do your homework before you fuck with the family.”
I stare at her. What is going on? I thought Bonnie and I would always be on opposing sides. I thought we would never, ever get along.
The family?
Are we family now?
“How dare you?” The guy in charge says with shaky bravado. It doesn’t help that he’s put a whole desk between us and him.
“How dare I? How dare you, sir!” Bonnie barks.
Several very official-looking people swarm into the station, and suddenly, we’re out of the cage, and the police are inside, shouting and screaming their innocence.
When Vale stalks past, they all go quiet, pressing against the far wall.
All I care about is our omega. My heart beats, and I hear their names. Raven, Dove, Merle, Kestrel, Jay, Raptor. They are helpless.
Pix squeezes my hand. I can’t leave yet. The others can, but they are still fighting to keep me. So, I turn to Pix and lean in to whisper to him.
“In the crawlspace of the roof. Send word when you’re safe.”
Pix disappears. Bonnie watches me, and I find myself inclining my head to her in gratitude.
“We’re family now,” she says.
Well, knock me down with a feather.
“We are?” I say carefully, not letting even a tiny bit of that surprise show on my face.
“We should be friends,” Bonnie says, and her eyes bore into mine.
“Okay.”
“Pix is happy.” It’s said so matter-of-factly that I don’t trust it for a second.
“I hope so; it is my intention that he is always happy.”
“You saw his nest?” The shrew question is designed to trap someone who is claiming him but hasn’t, in fact, survived Pix’s nest because we know no one has.
No one but us.
“His web? Yes, it’s beautiful”
The tightness around her eyes relaxes.
“Welcome to our family, officially, Aaron Roseland.”
She leans into me and squeezes my forearm before she walks off and picks a fight with the remaining police.
Sage and Vale stand side by side, red hair and silver. They have very similar builds, but other than that, they really don’t look anything else alike.
“Sage, we need to go,” I say urgently. “We can’t leave her alone.”
The cops in the cage try to stop us. Shouting and threatening.
We all turn, staring at them.
“What are they doing?” Bonnie murmurs.
Rory glances at Rolly. “Is there something they don’t want you to see?”
“No,” Rolly says violently, his eyes getting cold. “There’s someone who’s completely alone. If she is gone when we get back, I’m going to come and fix this problem.”
The room gets silent.
“Did you threaten me?” The boss roars, with all his years of command, he expects that he will cow Rolly.
What an idiot.
Rolly grins but doesn’t respond. Only the whomp, whomp, whomp of the ancient ceiling fan makes a sound. The cops withdraw deeper into the cells, unwilling to challenge him.
Bonnie gasps. “Go, you have to go.”
We don’t wait a second longer; we run.
“Call us. If you need, we’ll come.”
When we walk in, my heart is pounding. I don’t know what I’m expecting to see, but the last thing is Kestrel and Pix sitting on the couch cuddling.
She sits up and frowns at me. “You drugged me!”
“Sorry, Kest.”
“You’re going to be.”
She flings herself at me and cuddles into me, purring. I kiss her head and feel a part of me relax.
I must be paranoid. I’m relieved but uneasy. Something doesn’t feel right about what happened today.
“Why did they take you?”
“Just a misunderstanding,” Blaze says lightly, brushing it off.
“Oh?”
“It’s all sorted now. All right, what is for dinner?”
He meets my eyes over her head, and I know he feels it, too.
I can’t shake the feeling that something is wrong. There’s just something about what happened today that is freaking me out. It keeps bugging me. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it.
“We should leave,” King murmurs.
I glance up at him. “And go where?”
He grunts. “I don’t know, but we should go.”
I think about it for a moment, and then I agree. If he is uncomfortable, too, then we should go. The whole pack has been on edge since we got back, and we’ve been sitting around quietly.
“Let’s go!” I say out loud to the house.
I walk into the lounge and find Rolly and Blaze sitting beside each other, eating popcorn.
“Let’s go, now, leave early, hit the road.”
Blaze looks at me, and he looks unusually tired. But he stands up, yawning. Rubbing his eyes.
“Bloody cops. They need to come at decent hours. Okay, but let’s eat first.”
He makes ramen for all of us. We sit at the table, each of us quiet, just pushing our food around. A yawn grabs me, and my jaw cracks, startling me.
“I’m just going to go have a nap,” Kest whispers. She stands up and staggers away, walking until she disappears into the bedroom. Her steps dragging.
Weren’t we meant to be doing something?
What is wrong?
King who is the only one still eating, looks like he’s falling asleep at the table.
Shit. Something’s wrong.
I stand up, and the room tilts violently.
“What is this?” I say, and my heart pounds, fear clearing my head just a little bit.
I grab the wall and go into the lounge where I find Pix on the floor.
“Pix? Get up, are you okay?” Even me shaking him doesn’t wake him. He’s exposed. I have to hide him.
I strain, trying to lift him, but I almost pass out. This isn’t working. I shove him under the couch, but I can’t get him under there, so I pull down a blanket and cover him.
I shove to my feet, collapsing on the couch, then force myself up again, stumbling into the kitchen.
Blaze is passed out on the floor. The tap is still running, water overflowing the sink.
I turn off the tap, my eyes blurring. My attempt to crouch ends up with me kneeling in the water, panting.
I shake him, trying to wake him, but he will not open his eyes.
My dizziness is getting worse, and standing requires so much effort that I have to hold on to the bench.
I stumble and find King face down on his plate of food. I turn his face so he can breathe and stumble on. Rolly, where is Rolly? He can help us.
He’s in the bathroom, a thin line of blood spreading into the warm water of the shower. I turn off the water and cover him with a towel, wishing I could do more.
When I stumble into the bedroom, Merle is passed out on the bed, and I can’t rouse her. Sage is sitting in the bedroom, in the dark, hidden.
It’s like he put himself there before he went to sleep.
I stumble out.
Need to get to Pix's phone. Call Bonnie. Get help.
I stumble and go down, then try to crawl. I struggle and haul myself, hand over hand, but I end up on my side, staring at the wall, knowing I’ve failed.
He has our omega.
Shit.
And then the drug, whatever it is, drags me into its inevitable hold.