Chapter 7 Rumors #2
It’s a snapshot in time of a world left decimated, broken, and ruined. I wonder what the people who died here would all think of the way it turned out. Were they as bloodthirsty as the human hunters we run from?
We travel for hours before I call a stop.
The omega stumbles to a wall and leans against it.
She brushes her sweat-damp hair back from her face.
She’s breathing hard. It occurs to me she looks exhausted, with black circles under her eyes, and she’s too thin.
Her wrists look like I could snap them. I reach into my pocket and pull out the last of my food.
I can’t tear my gaze away from her as I approach and hold it out to her. I glance at the alphas guiltily, but they watch her eat with the same obsessive fire I do.
“Who are you?” Mordecai asks, not rudely.
I’m tired of fighting, tired of the distrust, so I open my mouth and just let my story pour out.
“Jarek Listborn. I lived in a tent city with my parents until they were snatched when I was twelve. I lived with kids after that, and we stole to survive. Until, one by one, they got snatched up or joined the Path. And then I was on my own, travelling and trying to stay one step ahead of those bastards. Sadly, I was caught when the person I helped ratted me out. Apparently, gratitude is dead these days.”
Keres turns her shadowed gaze from me to Mordecai. “And you? How were you caught?”
Mordecai sighs and rolls his shoulders. “I am Mordecai Haspian. I lived in a little village that didn’t see any of the Beta’s Path until I was fifteen.
They took a third of our people and raped and murdered another third.
Those of us who survived did so only because we ran.
I had a little sister, but she didn’t make it.
She was only just starting to show her scent. ”
My mouth tastes like ash. I try to imagine what he went through and have to force myself to stop.
“After that, I joined the Resistance and accidentally got picked up while I was trying to rendezvous with our leader,” Mordecai says simply. He hasn’t looked away from her, but I don’t think he’s telling the full truth either.
“Cadel?” I ask, fascinated with the mostly silent and aggressive alpha.
“I can’t remember.” His confused and defensive growl comes out, and I shrug.
“Keres, tell me your story,” I say in a singsong.
“Everyone knows my story.”
“I highly doubt that.”
She purses her lips and folds her arms over her chest. “Fine. I’m Kaida Keres. I have been on the run from the Beta’s Path for years. As far as I know, I am the only person to escape the citadel. And there’s nothing else exciting about me.”
I step towards her, stopping when she tenses. We’re going to work on that.
“Now, baby, I find that so incredibly hard to believe.”
She tosses her hair but can’t meet my gaze, though her scent has sweetened the air. I grin at her where she can’t see it.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers, lifting her eyes to meet mine.
I frown. “For what?”
“For meeting you here, now, before we die.”
I’m already shaking my head, ignoring Cadel’s deep growl and Mordecai’s wordless protest.
“I’m not planning on dying, and I’m not planning on letting you die either,” I say confidently. “Don’t you worry; you and your alphas stick with me, and I will get you out of here.”
Her eyes are pools of the softest silver. I could stare into them forever.
“They are going to come after me; I’d be a prize.”
“So. What.”
Her eyes lift and lock with mine, and I let her see my confident smile. I let her see my attraction, my intent, and the dangerous alpha that I am. I lean in, cupping my mouth.
“There’s an exit,” I whisper.
“What?” she startles, a tremble going through her body. I want it to be because I’m so close and not because of what I just said, but I can’t be sure.
Mordecai stiffens. “What?”
“There’s an exit,” I repeat, looking at all three, one at a time. “My mother was helped by a woman in here. They both escaped together.”
“What are you saying?” Mordecai hisses, stepping up and fisting my shirt.
“She escaped and came to a village where she met my father, but she was in Foreen. She was an omega in this city for four weeks, and she got out. They moved to the tent city when I was two, hoping to hide me better.”
I grin at them.
“Are you sure?” she whispers, leaning towards me. She reaches out and grabs my wrist, and I look down at the point of contact, thinking I could die happy right now because my omega just touched me for the first time, and it’s everything I ever dreamed, no, so much more.
“Yes. My mother told me every day in secret how to get out of this city. Every day she whispered it to me and made sure I never forgot it.”
“Wow!” Mordecai says. “You need to come with me to the Resistance.”
I turn on the alpha with a glare. “No, I need to get our omega safe.”
“If we can save people—” Kaida says.
“I don’t care about people, I care about you!” I say to her. “Look, I know we’re strangers, but I’ve seen the kind of happiness we can have and the devastation when one of us dies. Now that I’ve found you, don’t ask me to give you up.”
She stares at me, pale and trembling, looking ethereal in the gathering darkness.
“We’re strangers.”
“We’re scent matches; we’ll never be strangers,” I correct with a growl. “You know it, I know it. These two would know it if they pulled their heads out of their asses.”
She shakes her head. “We have to help people if we can. How can we walk away and live if others die for us?”
I glare at the wall behind her, frustrated, but then I shrug it off, lightly bouncing towards the building and plucking a white flower that I then put behind her ear. She’s watching me like she’s not sure if I’m crazy.
“Fine. Let’s be heroes, and then we can get you out and be happy.”
“Sure,” she says, turning to keep me in sight.
Cadel turns, his head cocked to the side. “Someone’s coming.”
I whip around, watching for any sign. “We need to get off the street.”
“Why, aren’t they—”
“We don’t know who they are, Keres. There are a lot of desperate alphas who will do anything to live up the last few minutes of their lives or get something they can barter with. You would be an excellent bartering item, and you also are a beautiful, desirable omega.”
She whips her head towards me, her face full of fear. Those heavy and disgusting implications sit in the air between us. Her eyes shadow, and she tenses.
“So, let’s get out of here, shall we?”
Cadel grabs her wrist and drags her down the street and into an alley. I give Mordecai a smile that I hope he interprets as a truce and then follow.
We’re deep in Foreen, and the dangers are everywhere, but for the first time in my life…I have hope. Stupid, stupid hope.