Chapter 16 Deaf Ears and a Stolen Voice
Deaf ears and a stolen voice
I escape from the creature fairly easily. I don’t know what it was, but I do know it wasn’t the wolf. It was something else that lived here, something wild. Something that had hooves instead of paws and sharp teeth that tears at flesh.
I’ve stumbled into an area of the city that has a rectangle area of green in the middle, where there are no buildings. It’s wild and overgrown, but I climb up into the trees to hide and watch.
Hours pass as I wait for the creature to show itself. It’s a game of who will move first. At last, it gets up from where it was sitting in plain sight, its skin rippling until it returns to a blue roan colour and trots off, letting out an enraged scream that turns the city silent.
I’ve seen images of what that used to be, too. One of the horses that’s been touched and changed by the Ravage Virus.
I stay until dusk just in case, and then I slip down from the tree. I have no idea where I am or what direction I need to go in to get back, but the horse won’t be around at night; its weakness is its eyesight.
I creep around in shadows, paying more attention to the world now that I’ve seen some of what is lurking here. But a block from the green sanctuary, I find Mordecai leaning on a wall waiting for me.
“That was dumb,” he snaps out.
I shrug. “You’re all alive.”
He explodes into action, catching me with a hand in the middle of my back, towing me up against him. My heart slams against my ribs as I draw in that delicious scent of him, drowning in it, until I don’t know up from down. A whine slips from between my teeth, one we both ignore.
He bends until our noses are almost touching.
“I can’t decide if I’m impressed or enraged.”
“Because I saved you?” I scoff.
“Kaida,” he warns in a deep tone that says he’s close to the edge.
“You saved your omega, why do you even care?” I spit at last. As soon as the words escape, I regret them bitterly.
“She’s not my omega, she’s just an omega I know and—” he stops, his face twisting in frustration. “It’s part of the story.”
“I’m getting tired of this story, Mordecai,” I snap at him.
“I’m getting tired of it, too.”
“Fine. Where are we going? Which way back to your band of misfits?”
I want to see Jarek and Cadel. I need to know they are okay.
He steps back, putting some much-needed space between us. I don’t trust him right now, and I trust my body and its reactiveness to their presence and his in particular even less.
“This way.”
I follow closely behind him.
“Does your omega know she’s not your omega?”
Mordecai groans. “Kaida.”
“Keres,” I correct.
“Kaida,” he says, ignoring me. “We’ve talked about it repeatedly, but she gets scared, and her nature reaches out to the familiar.”
“You must be really familiar.”
He flashes his white teeth in a deadly smile. “Are you jealous?”
“Yes.”
He stops but doesn’t turn around. His scent gets stronger, warmer, almost turning the air into a hug. I lean towards him, unable to help myself.
“I think that’s probably one of the hottest things anyone has ever said to me. Right now,” he breathes hard through his nose. “Right now, it’s a good thing you aren’t in my head because you’d run so far and so fast because, Kaida, I would bond you and make you mine right here in this rubble.”
My stomach tightens, my thighs tingling. I curl my fingers into my palm and squeeze, trying to get the biting pain to stop my reaction.
“You clearly need to expand your horizons if that impresses you,” I say, but it comes out strangled, my voice too high, and my sweet scent gives me away.
“In a heartbeat, you and I, we can do that later, when we survive.”
My mind blanks, and I find myself gaping at him, unable to stop the burn that suffuses my face and neck.
“That confident, are you?” I bark.
“The connection between us is something much more and much stronger than I first thought.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” I say dismissively.
“There is nothing between Taryn and me but a common goal to undo the evil that has befallen the world. But what is between you and I…that’s a sure thing that’s going to be explored, leisurely and with great attention to detail,” he promises.
I stare at him with wide eyes, fighting to get my brain back online and put this alpha back at arms’ length away from me. “She’s your savior?” I ask mockingly.
“Kaida,” he chides.
“You’re in trouble if she is. She’s terrified of her shadow.”
He gives me a look, an exasperated look that is so familiar it shoots an arrow of pain straight into my chest. He’s never looked at me like that before, but I know I’ve seen it.
“Have we met?” My lungs freeze, and my body locks. “I feel like we’ve met before.” I don’t even know what I’m saying.
His eyes widen slightly. “I don’t think we have.”
There’s a crushing disappointment, but he reaches out and runs the back of one finger down my cheek. Flashes of memory hit me, and my eyes close as I fall into the feeling. When I open my eyes, he’s inhaling my scent and looks like he’s lost in the same memories.
“I do think I know you, though I’ve never met you,” he whispers.
The air catches fire as we stand there, connected by our confused gazes and the small touch of his finger on my cheek.
I remember where we are, a chill crashing through this tenuous feeling. We were so distracted that I almost forgot where I was. For a moment, I forgot!
Too dangerous.
I step back, breaking the spell completely and step around him. He catches up and walks by my side. I avoid looking at him completely because, seriously, what is the point? Finding a person like him out here, in a time like this?
Ridiculous.
Why get involved? I’ll just end up doing something that ends his life faster.
We’re walking past a massive white building when I hear a sound that shouldn’t be here.
I turn my head and watch the darkness. It happens again, but this time, I recognise it. It’s a moan, the kind of sound someone makes that is guttural and raw. A sound someone makes when they are in so much pain words are beyond them.
“There’s something in there,” I say.
Mordecai weighs the situation before he nods, agreeing to my unspoken request.
“Let’s check it out.”
Survival is one option; it always is, but it’s not always the right option, I think as I follow him, and I have never been able to walk away from an omega in trouble.
Mordecai inches forward, pulling out a crossbow and loading it. We sneak up against the walls, and I press myself to the cold surface as more and more sounds inside become clear.
Slipping inside the building and into the dark is like stepping into another world. The sounds of people get loud, a soft sobbing and haggard gasps. Someone walking around, heels clicking on the hard ground.
We’re standing on a higher level, with a circular floor that opens onto a view of the level below it. The floor was marble, I can see in some spots, and there’s a stage with rotted seats arranged around it.
On that stage is a sight that makes me want to throw up. Three women are hanging by their wrists, but they are bloody, half dead, mutilated corpses. As I watch, I realise the one that looks strange has a dislocated hip and is missing her arm from the elbow down. She’s not breathing.
“Why are you doing this?” the omega on the left cries.
“Because you are omegas. Scum. Whores. You corrupt with that scent, beguile the innocent, poison souls. You all carry the Ravage Virus.”
“I don’t have any diseases!” she shouts. “It was seven hundred years ago!”
“You destroyed the world, but we won’t let you destroy us!”
I finally manage to spot the beta. He’s lounging on the stairs, eating an apple, and looking completely calm and unaffected.
She sobs harder and then trails off. Her foot is facing the wrong direction, and she’s got all these strange marks on her. The beta gets up and pulls a metal rod from a small fire he’s got burning. I didn’t even see it.
With sudden clarity, I realise what those marks are. Every pledge and up carries one of these metal objects to brand the designation of omega on our skins so we can never hide. I reach down, sliding my fingers across my own brand.
The other woman wakes up and thrashes violently. She opens her mouth, and there’s nothing there. No tongue, no teeth.
He stole her voice.
Tears track down her cheeks.
“I think…hmmm, yes, I think we’re going to have to remove those eyes.”
Mordecai grabs my knee and stabs the air in the direction we came from. He holds up the crossbow and aims it down there. I hesitate and then nod slowly.
I get up and backtrack as fast as I can.
“Someone save us!” the omega screams.
My heart races, thuds, aches. ‘Someone save us’ echoes in my head. There is no one to save you. Everyone is already lost.
There’s silence, and then Mordecai bursts onto the street, grabbing my hand, and we run.
I don’t say anything, but I keep hearing those words. With every step and every heartbeat, I hear those words.
Mordecai helps me through the bushes and back into the school, where I find myself pulled into Jarek’s arms. He hisses and makes grumpy sounds as he squeezes me tightly. I cling to him, allowing myself this weakness.
“Don’t do that again, Keres.”
I bury my face in his shoulder, shaking and trying to push the memories of what I’d seen out of my head.
The memories of what they did to me is one I will never be able to get away from. I’ll never be able to recover from. Once they do that to us, is there any life we can live after?
Jarek clamps a hand around my wrist and tows me back to the school, ignoring Mordecai with a frigid, icy disdain. Bear approaches, pulling me into a hug before I can stop him. He’s ripped off me and, to everyone’s surprise, faces a growling Cadel.
“Hands off,” the half-feral alpha growls.
“Sure,” Bear says, still smiling. “You did well, Keres. You saved Taryn. We knew that you would.”
I stare at him, confused. “What?”
“You’re going to help us, aren’t you? Help the resistance? Oh, I can’t wait for you to hear everything.”
I glare at him, but he’s unaffected by my hostility. He’s like a child, all excitement, locked in his own bubble.
“Feed these people and set up a room for us. It’s time to tell Kaida Keres our story.”
“We’re not normally this dramatic,” Legion says. “Bear is just excited to have you on board.”
“I’m not on board,” I snap.
Legion smiles wryly. “We all say that, but it’s not so much a choice anymore. You’re either with the Beta’s Path or not.”
I stare at him, looking at the downward tilt of his lips and the strain in his eyes.
“What were you looking for out there that you didn’t find?” I say, taking a wild stab in the dark.
Legion turns his head towards me, really slowly. “So perceptive.”
“Yes, and wary. Stupidity gets people killed, and I want to live.”
“Indeed.” There’s a twinkle in his eye that makes me think he knows something different, but I’m not entirely convinced this omega is sane. He taps his finger to the side of his nose, refusing to answer further.
I turn away with a huff, unsure what to make of him. There’s a certain wariness I feel around him. Something that makes me feel on edge. But a familiarity, too, like if I let go, we could fall into a friendship that is older than time.
He knows too much, but he’s not saying.
I don’t like people like him. They get people killed, too.
I turn away and follow my alphas into a room that Bear closes behind me.
“I am so thrilled to see us all here together.”
I look around and find that other than Cadel, Jarek, and Mordecai, Legion and Bear, the new omega Taryn is here, along with Marshall and Banks. It’s a crowd of people, but they all look resigned.
Instead of taking a seat, I lean on the wall at the back of the room and cross my arms over my chest.
“Right. Let’s begin,” Bear says. “Mordecai, catch Keres up on what is going on, please.”
Mordecai turns, moving until he’s a few feet away from me. He reaches out but stops before he touches me. His expression is gentle, so gentle. Nerves flutter through my stomach, and I stand up straighter.
“Just say it.”
He opens his mouth, but nothing comes out.
“Just say it, Alpha!” I shout.
“Alphas and omegas are on the brink of extinction. If they succeed in killing us here, it’s over. For all of us.”
The only sound in the room is my pained gasps.