Chapter 13
thirteen
My lips split when I exhale. Even with the mask, it feels like I’m breathing through cotton. The smoke hasn’t even been released, and already my lungs feel tight, my pulse sprinting ahead, like it’s trying to escape me.
Standing in the crowd of brothers, I carefully unclip my glowing green paint vial and stash it in my pocket. I’m not here to win points. Not tonight.
I’m here to get her out.
Above us, the ceiling creaks with movement, and dust sifts down in pale sheets around us, turning the air into something we have to swallow. The mice are running. Somewhere overhead, doors slam. Footsteps scatter. Nervous laughter ripples through the men around me.
I let my shoulders loosen. Let my posture sag just enough to blend in. Then I drift away from my brothers and angle toward the Betas.
They part without thinking. Size does that. A few look twice, but there’s no color on me. No obvious markings. I keep my head down and my pace lazy, like I’ve got nowhere better to be. As hard as it is, I attempt to fit in.
Ayan’s voice carries from the front. Too confident and pleased with himself.
“Okay, brothers. We’re ready. Counting down!” He flashes his horn. I’m sure he’ll jump in front of us as soon as he says go.
Bodies surge toward the doors, and I mingle in with the Betas like I belong… Even though I stick out like a bruise on bare skin.
The air cracks with the horn blast. Adrenaline hits hard enough to make my vision sharpen. We rush through as a group, me leaving my own guys. They’ll be fine.
I need to find Scout before anyone else does.
The house swallows us whole. Hallways splinter in every direction. Shouts echo. Somewhere nearby, a girl screams. A brother laughs too hard in response.
It’s difficult to breathe in this mask. Even harder to see. But I make out enough to follow the group in front of me.
For the first ten minutes, I tail a couple of guys until I can get one alone. By his side, he spits out comments that grow more congenial as we progress through the house.
“Maybe some in here?” he asks me, and I nod, encouraging him to enter the room.
As soon as he throws open the door, I toss my arm over his head, then pull him into my chest. I lock him in a chokehold and crush his trachea with everything I have. He kicks, flails, his heels seeking traction on the creaking floorboards. But it’s no use.
In a minute, he slumps to the ground, asleep. I unclip his orange paint vial and attach it to my hoodie. Front and center.
It takes me another five panicked moments to catch up with the group of Betas I had been following. Ones that kept saying things like, “She’s probably hiding somewhere.”
“Somewhere smart,” the other replied.
They’re looking for a specific target.
When they ignore a few crying Iotas as they scurry toward a side room, I know I’m with the right guys.
We pass a room with a few shadowy figures inside. Most of the Betas keep moving along the corridor like they know the women in there are already tagged…
But the guy bent over this woman’s body seems busy. And not in a carnal way. He gets up and creeps toward a large wardrobe on the back wall, but I pause to watch.
Something’s off.
Curling smoke hisses up from the floor, thick and white, snaking around my boots. A girl lies motionless near the center of the room, twisted wrong. Perhaps splayed out? I don’t look longer than a second…
A few Betas at my back stumble into me. But I just stand still. The man in the room is dressed differently. Like he’s wearing a cape. It’s almost too dark to tell. Especially with my mask blocking the view.
As soon as he reaches the wardrobe, he pauses and tosses a look over his shoulder toward me, gaping from the doorway, then skirts toward a side door near the back of the room.
A sob startles me. It hits me hard enough to stop me cold.
There’s someone in there.
I’m reaching for the door when it explodes open.
She springs out like a wildcat, scratching at my neck and screaming the house down. One of the beams from the next floor falls next to us as she thrashes. Plaster rains down. And despite my instinct to trap her, a smile crosses my lips.
I lock my arms around her, absorbing the blows. Scout fights like hell, and a part of me is grimly proud.
“Fuck, you’re such a fighter!” I grunt as she clocks me in the chest. That will leave a cute mark. I’ll treasure it.
One of the Betas grabs her ankles, but she nails him right in the groin. He goes down as she slaps at my arms.
There’s a room at the end I can set her down in, hide, then get her to the attic. If she’d just calm down. Carrying her there, I silently beg that she’ll let me tell her who I am and cooperate.
The second we reach the door, and I kick it in, all hope disintegrates. My heart skips a beat…
It’s filled with the group of Betas I’d been following. Maybe even more. Too many. Standing in a circle like they knew we were coming here.
Did they?
Do they know who I am?
I set her down on the stained mattress in the center of the room, one arranged for this very reason, I suspect. It’s lifted off the ground by a bed of cinderblocks. The walls are lined with brothers, all ready to go. To take their turns with her.
She continues to fight me, even as the crowd surrounds us like a looming threat.
I hold up a hand and shout, “I got this! Back off. I’m tagging her.”
Luckily, they do. For the moment, anyway.
Points for being the biggest guy in the room.
With the smoke, the masks, and the noise, no one’s looking too closely.
Too focused on getting off. Getting her tagged.
Following their orders, which they must think I’m performing.
They’re distracted, and that’s enough. For now.
This wasn’t part of the plan, but I’ll have to improvise…
No one touches her but me.
I adjust my grip, angling my body to block her from their view. My back to the far wall, hers to the crowd. She’s shaking now, fingers knotted in my black hoodie like it’s the only thing keeping her upright. The guys linger too close around her sides and head.
She finally settles enough that I can lean in as the smoke rises around us, covering our legs. Most of the Betas unzip and start stroking their dicks.
“Lay back, Scout. All my boys are getting a turn to tag you,” Ayan sneers as he shows off his face. At least I now know which of these assholes he is.
I need a distraction here. But while I wait for that, I tug her jeans down and slip them off, letting them drop into the dark smog below us.
Leaning in, I repeat a whispered, “I’ve got you. Stay with me.”
This could go either way. The guys around us could figure out that I’m not with them at any time. Or she could cause more of a scene and get us both caught.
Flashbacks to the dungeon in Theta fill my brain, and I shake my head to get rid of them. Not now…
She’s frozen. Terrified and clawing at my shirt. Body shaking violently. Fuck! I hate this. But hopefully, if she sees me…all of me, then she’ll know what’s up.
I manage to unzip as one of the guys grows brave enough to come closer and reach for her wrist. I only stare at him until he backs away a few paces.
“Hurry up! We need our turn,” someone yells from the left.
They’re getting restless. My neck bulges as I strain to hide what I’m doing between her legs.
Fortunately, the cloud of fog has risen so high, they can’t see her. Or me very well. It’s the only thing that’s light around us. Our tops remain dark. And below? Covered in puffy cotton.
I slip a condom from my pocket, praying no one sees me tearing it open.
My heart almost bruises my ribs with how hard it pounds.
Gripping her under her knees, I tug Scout closer, using her thighs to cover up what I’m doing.
She whimpers and releases a sob that gets caught in her throat until she glances between us.
Slowly, carefully, she looks up at me, staring into the mask with a question covering her face.
She knows.
The piercing at my tip should be a clue. And she’s gotten close enough to my cock to know it well now. She swallows, then relaxes into me, hands finding their way toward my abs until I flinch at how good it feels. Despite how clammy her palms are.
I manage to glide the condom on and press myself between her thighs. Her cotton panties are dry, but I hook a finger to slide them aside. Her body is so close, warm, and supple. Frustration grows from deep inside me.
I want us to be somewhere else.
Anywhere but here.
A beach. A bed. Anywhere but this disgusting mattress surrounded by these pieces of shit, all acting like carrion birds circling a body that isn’t dead yet.
But this is what we’re doing. So I make the best of it, casting steely warning glances toward anyone who ventures closer. A few of the guys pick up their pace, rapidly jerking themselves and aiming for her hair, her back…anywhere they can reach.
I use my arm to pull her butt closer to me, toward my thickening dick still covered in my condom. I’m suffocating inside it. They don’t make these things big enough for me. And I usually just bust through them.
Scout’s hips open wider to accommodate me, and I know she’s thinking I’ll use her here. Maybe rescue her for Delta.
This isn’t ideal. Not the way I would have wanted it.
But I slide my shaft through her pussy without entering. Gripping the back of her neck, I force her to writhe on me as I plunge through her. Careful and steady. Every stroke up makes my skin tingle. I’m too tense to claim her. And wouldn’t. Not with all these guys around like a murderous audience.
Her fingers clutch my sweatshirt, and I hold her like she fits, eyes scanning the room like her armored sentry.
“I got you,” I repeat.
This time, she understands.