14. Elliott
Elliott
Iwoke up feeling like my body weighed triple what it was supposed to. I couldn’t even sit up for the first fifteen minutes I was awake. I spent them looking around, trying to remember what the hell had happened to me.
The walls of the room were painted a pale yellow.
A large, framed art deco-type mural hung on the wall across from the double bed where I lay with a plain brown spread neatly folded at my feet, and a crisp, white sheet covering me.
The dark curtains on the large window to my right were pulled open, but the shades were closed.
Peaking beneath the sheet revealed that someone had changed me out of my clothes and into a pair of plain, white cotton pajamas.
Once I was able to move, I pushed myself up, immediately putting my hand to my head when a wave of dizziness rolled over me.
When it subsided, I looked around again, this time taking in the closed door and a vase of purple irises on the nightstand by the bed.
Pushing off the sheet, I gingerly lowered my legs from the side of the bed.
Once I was sure they could support my weight, I stood, still feeling weak and heavy, and shuffled over to the window to pull the cord on the blinds.
Sunlight filled the room, making me squint and cover my eyes with my hand for a moment.
The last thing I remembered was being interrogated at that mansion by a jowly beta guy smoking a cigar.
He’d been prodding me about my omega x father, although he’d never used the term.
He’d wanted to know if I was one, too. Fortunately, I’d convinced him that I knew nothing about it.
I suppose it wasn’t too hard to believe that I hadn’t been told anything about my father being an omega x when I was a young teen.
I remembered getting in the car after that with the three betas who’d brought me there, but then…nothing. Until now.
The door opened, and I swung around, nearly falling in the process. Managing to grab the bed, I crawled onto it, defensively curling my knees to my chin, not taking my eyes off the woman standing in the doorway. She was probably in her fifties, tall, and solidly built. A beta.
“Inform Dr. Freedman the omega is awake,” she called over her shoulder to someone outside the room before entering.
“Hello, Elliott. I’m Bridget Baylor, the coordinator of ORCRO’s omega facility. I imagine you’re hungry. Dinner will be brought to you shortly.”
Dinner? “How long have I been here?” I asked, stiffening when she approached the bed.
“Approximately twenty-four hours. You were turned in as an unregistered omega and picked up at the mall in Adams, North Platte region. Do you remember that?”
I nodded. “Was I drugged after I was picked up? I don’t remember anything.”
“I don’t have that information. You can ask the doctor when he comes in.”
“What will they do with me here?” I asked.
“Dr. Freedman will answer all your questions. Are you allergic to anything? The cafeteria has prepared ham, potatoes, spinach, and a dinner roll. I believe apple pie is the dessert. Water to drink.”
“I’m not allergic to anything,” I said.
I was relieved when she left the room but wished she’d closed the door behind her.
I was considering getting up and closing it when a man wearing a white lab coat walked in.
He was of medium height, had carefully styled, graying dark hair, and a ruddy complexion as though he spent a lot of time out in the wind. Playing golf, maybe.
His smile didn’t reach his eyes. “Hello, Elliott, I’m Doctor Godrick Freedman.”
I wondered if people called him God for short but didn’t say that out loud. I didn’t want to risk making him mad. The man was an alpha, and as he came closer, I braced myself for my inevitable reaction to him.
The doctor pulled a chair up to the bed, but I felt only a slight increase in anxiety.
“Is something wrong, Elliott?” Dr. Freedman asked. His eyes looked almost black. It was disconcerting.
Someone else had eyes almost that dark…oh, yeah, Jet. But Jet’s eyes were warm and friendly, not cold and dead-looking like this alpha’s.
I shook my head.
“Don’t lie, Elliott. I won’t tolerate it.” An edge entered his voice.
I breathed in through my nose. “I’m confused because I know you’re an alpha, but I don’t scent you.”
Dr. Freedman relaxed. “That’s because I’m an altered alpha.”
At my frown of confusion, he continued, “I had my apocrine glands surgically altered to control my ruts and omega-attracting pheromones—a common operation for an alpha doctor who wants to work with omegas. All alpha doctors at this facility have been altered.”
I’d never heard of an altered alpha. I wondered how many things were known by the government that the general public had no idea about.
Crossing his legs, Dr. Freedman said, “I’ve looked into you, Elliott. You’re one of the seven omegas who were kidnapped six years ago. Can you tell me about that experience?”
Reluctantly, I told him about the kidnappers breaking into our home, killing my sire, and forcing me to go with them.
“And your birth father?” Dr. Freedman asked, although I was pretty sure he knew the answer.
“I think he was taken, too,” I said.
“Why do you think that?”
“I overheard the kidnappers talking.”
Dr. Freedman waited for me to elaborate.
“They said something about him that made me think they took him. I don’t remember exactly what.”
Dr. Freedman tilted his head to the right, staring at me. Did he know I was lying about that last part?
“Are you certain you don’t remember what you heard them say?”
I thought fast. “Something about a ransom.”
“A ransom?”
I nodded, swallowing hard. “My father’s family has a lot of money. But they must not have known that my father was cut off from the family.”
“But that was your other father, wasn’t it? Your sire?”
“My birth father was raised in the same family.” I hoped I hadn’t hesitated too long before saying that. It was the truth, anyway.
Dr. Freedman looked displeased, but he went on with the questioning.
“Where did the kidnappers take you?”
“I don’t know where. A cold room where there were other omegas who had been taken from their homes, too. But I was only with them a short time before they took me somewhere else. An apartment.”
“Why did they do that? Single you out from the others, I mean.”
I wanted to snap at him that the kidnappers didn’t see fit to fill me in on their plans, but he looked like he’d like nothing better than to hurt me if I made him angry. “I don’t know,” I lied.
“Are you sure you don’t know, Elliott?” Dr. Freedman asked, dark eyes boring into me.
I nodded without hesitation.
Sighing, the doctor reached into his pocket, and the next thing I knew, pain like I’ve never felt before electrified every nerve in my body.
I screamed, my body stiffening and my head hitting the wall.
The pain intensified marginally before abruptly ceasing, leaving me panting and trembling on the bed.
“Reconsider and answer again, please, Elliott,” Dr. Freedman said.
I couldn’t remember the question. The room was tilting. Sweat ran down my forehead, dripping underneath the collar of the pajamas I was wearing.
Dr. Freedman had caused that horrible burst of agony. How? He’d done something when he reached in his pocket, and I had no doubt that he would do it again.
“P-please repeat the q-question,” I said, my voice hoarse from screaming. No one had come to the open door to see what was going on.
“Certainly. Why did the kidnappers single you out?”
I closed my eyes. “T-they said something about omega x. They thought I was one.”
“And why might they think that?” Dr. Freedman pressed.
“They s-said that my b-birth father was one.”
A young, male beta holding a dinner tray entered the room, and Dr. Freedman stood.
“That wasn’t so difficult, was it, Elliott? Eat all of your dinner. I’ll be back shortly to talk with you some more. Be thinking of any questions you might have for me because it will be the only chance I give you to ask any.”
When the doctor walked out the door, the young man set the dinner tray on a rolling table like I’d seen used in hospitals and moved it to the bed within my reach. The nametag on his shirt read Rory.
“Are you okay?” he asked, glancing at me sprawled on the bed. I couldn’t imagine what I looked like.
Arms shaking, I pushed myself to a seated position. My nose burned with unshed tears. I couldn’t trust anyone here.
Hold it together. You’re here for a reason.
“Yeah. I’m good,” I croaked.
“Are you sure? I could call Dr. Freedman back in.”
“No,” I said quickly. “Don’t. Please.”
Rory looked at me strangely before opening a straw and inserting it into a glass of water and handing it to me.
I drank most of it in several long gulps. “Thanks.” My voice sounded a little better. “How long have you worked here?”
“A few months,” Rory said.
The ham smelled good, and my stomach growled again, but I felt so off after what just happened, I wasn’t sure I could eat. Dr. Freedman told me to eat all of it, so I’d better do it. Picking up the fork, I speared a piece of ham and put it in my mouth.
“Are you sure you’re okay? You’re really pale, and your hand’s shaking so much, you can barely hold the fork,” Rory said.
He reminded me a little of Trey—tall and thin with freckles. His eyes also had the same watchful look about them. A sudden wave of longing for my omega friends washed over me, and I had to stare at the food on my plate until I could get myself under control.
“How’d you get this job?” I asked, stopping Rory as he was about to leave. I wasn’t sure I’d get any useful information out of him, but I had to try.
“My uncle works for the government. I graduated high school recently and wanted to work some before I started college.”
“Do you like it?” I asked. “Working here, I mean.”
“It’s okay. It’s just a job.” He studied me. “We look about the same age. Have you graduated?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Online.”
He nodded. “So far, I’ve seen only younger omegas here. Just kids—like thirteen or fourteen-years-old. But they’re hardly here for long before they’re gone.”
“Where do they go?” I asked.
“Who knows? Isn’t there some place they go until they’re old enough to be mated?”
“Oh, yeah,” I said, even though I didn’t believe there was such a place.
“Are there any here now?” I asked, eating a bite of mashed potatoes. My stomach revolted, but I managed to keep it down.
“Nah.”
“Do a lot of people work here?”
“Not really. It just seems to be a stopping place where the omegas get physicals before moving on. I don’t even work here full-time.” Rory looked me over. “You must be unregistered. Otherwise, why would you be here? I guess they’ll get you mated right away.”
I put down my fork, unable to eat another bite. I definitely didn’t want the spinach. I pushed the plate away.
“Yeah. Rory, can you take this tray before Dr. Freedman comes back? He wanted me to eat all of it, but I’m feeling sick.”
Giving me an odd look, because obviously Rory didn’t know about the doctor’s pocket torture device, he picked up the tray and left the room with it.
Sighing, I fell back on my pillows. The heavy feeling I’d had when I woke up had subsided, but after what the doctor had done to me, it had been replaced by nausea and weakness.
A few minutes later, the torturer himself strode back into the room.
“Finished eating already?” he asked.
A sudden fear hit me that the doctor had passed Rory in the hall and inspected my plate.
“I ate what I could, but I feel like I’m going to throw up,” I said, every muscle in my body bracing for that horrible electrifying torture. I didn’t even know what it was he’d done to me.
Just please don’t do it again. Please.
The doctor sat down in the same chair he’d vacated earlier. “Thank you for telling the truth, Elliott.”
I let out a breath. So, he had passed Rory and was testing me.
“Have you thought of any questions you have for me?” Dr. Freedman asked.
I tried to think. My mind felt numb.
“Can I ask anything?”
“Yes. I might not answer, though.”
“But I won’t be…punished?” My gaze drifted to his pocket.
“This time, no.”
“Um, are there a lot of omegas here?”
“No. They don’t stay here long.”
“Was I drugged before being brought here?”
“Yes.”
“Why?” I asked.
“To insure your cooperation on the flight here. Anything else?” Dr. Freedman raised an eyebrow.
“What are you going to do with me? I-I don’t know what happens to unregistered omegas.”
“Their families are fined, but in your case, you don’t have a family.
You said you were on the run. I’m surprised you haven’t been caught before this.
I was going to question you intensely in that regard, but something has happened that’s pleased me a great deal, so I’m going to bypass that.
Would you like to know what that something was? ”
I nodded.
Dr. Freedman smiled one of his cold smiles.
“When you were brought in, I examined you.”
At the thought of the man removing my clothes and touching my body, a cold, nasty feeling slithered over me. Reaching for what remained of the water Rory had left for me on the bedside table, I took a sip from the straw to settle my lurching stomach.
“I discovered something on your body that has answered a long-asked question. Are you aware you have a freckle on your shoulder? Just here.” He reached over his own shoulder and patted the back of it.
Fuck.
I shook my head.
“I suppose you wouldn’t see it unless you used two mirrors, and why would you do that? It’s rather peculiar—shaped like a star. I’ve seen that mark before, on several people. It seems that your father isn’t the only omega x in the family.”
So, he’d already known when he was questioning me. He’d just been playing with me, seeing what I would tell him. I would have to be careful around him.
I kept my face blank.
“Elliott, you may or may not be aware of what that means. You have abilities that could be very helpful to society. Those kidnappers were on the right track years ago, but they had no idea how to tell if you were omega x like your father, who reportedly wasn’t ashamed of what he could do and showed off. That cost him his family.”
I sat up and immediately regretted it when my head swam. Putting my hand against my forehead, I squinted at the doctor, whose cold smile turned absolutely evil.
“Do you know where my birth father is?” I asked.
“That’s a subject for another time.” Dr. Freedman stood up. “Get some sleep, Elliott. You’re going to have a very busy day tomorrow.”
It wasn’t until he was gone that I realized he’d never answered my question about what would be done with me.