Pack of Lies, page 34
“Get away from my house.”
This time he scurried away, my aura too much for him to handle. I slammed the door and locked it, grabbing the console table that sat beside it and shoving it in front. It wouldn’t be much of a deterrent, but maybe one of the fucking bastards would trip over it.
Like hell was I giving them Thorn.
Over my dead fucking body.
FORTY-FOUR
THORN
When someone knocked on the door, I’d begun to steel myself.
They were coming for me, and they’d give Marlowe back in exchange.
Yes, it was my worst nightmare to go back to the Centre, to be forcibly impregnated for an experiment. To lose all the freedom and choice I’d had during my time with the pack.
But letting Marlowe stay in a situation like that was worse. I was in love with him, all thoughts of leaving the pack to live on my own having fled days ago. I’d trade myself for him in a heartbeat.
“Get away from my house.” Denzel’s low tone made me shiver.
Trying to stand from where the rest of us crouched behind the kitchen counter, Quentin stopped me. “I need to go with them,” I said, trying again. “It’s a ransom, except instead of money they want me. Let me go.”
“Absolutely the fuck not,” Denzel said, stalking into the kitchen.
My jaw dropped. “Seriously? He’s your mate.”
“You’re my mate too. I’m not going to trade one for the other. We’ll get him back ourselves.”
“But I’m the one causing all this trouble. I need to trade myself.”
“If you think any of us are going to let you do that, you must have been living under a rock,” Quentin said.
I couldn’t stop glancing between Denzel and Quentin. This was the most similar I’d ever seen them. Fury filled their matching eyes, both their jaws set in the same way. It was how Denzel always had his jaw set, but Quentin was usually relaxed and grinning. Not now. Their family resemblance was striking.
“How are we going to get Marlowe back, then?” I asked quietly. “I’m not going to let him get taken because of me. I love him.”
“We all love him,” Reese said. “But we all love you, too. There’s not going to be a trade. Neither of you is worth more than the other.”
If Marlowe were here, he would be thrilled to hear Reese loved him. The way he’d phrased it didn’t make it sound platonic, though that was all their relationship was. All either of them allowed it to be.
“I’m the problem, so I should fix it,” I muttered, but the fight was draining out of me.
Fight was replaced by fear. Pure terror, both over what they would do to me if they got me back, and what they were doing to Marlowe right now.
What would happen if they gave a normal omega the injection they’d given me? Would it do nothing? Would it kill him? If the Centre didn’t get what they wanted — me, back in their grasp — I imagined they wouldn’t be shy with testing any theories they had.
“Bastian and the guys are going to be here any minute. With any luck, they’ll be able to get us out of this mess,” Reese said.
They’d all chosen to ignore my insistence on fixing it.
Denzel gave a sharp nod, glancing toward the door. He’d shoved a tiny table in front of it, like that was going to do anything when whoever was outside broke it down.
“Good. Reese, you’re pack lead now.”
Silence descended over the kitchen. Someone choked on air. Jubilee, maybe?
I tried to figure out if there was any other thing Denzel could mean by those words, but nothing came to mind.
Reese must have come to the same conclusion. “What?” he asked, staring at him.
“You’re pack lead. What, do you not want it anymore? I distinctly remember you saying you would challenge me for it.”
“Yeah, and you said you would never give it up.”
“Well, I am. Want it or not?” Denzel spat the question out, avoiding eye contact with the rest of the pack.
“I want to know why you’re giving it to him,” Quentin said. “Because it makes me feel like you’re about to go off and do something incredibly stupid. Astronomically stupid, actually.”
Denzel stayed silent, but the ringing of a cell phone shattered the quiet.
Reese answered it, leaving the call on speaker.
“So, you guys have a bunch of assholes in front of your house right now,” a gruff voice barked through the line.
The voice was vaguely familiar. I recognized it as belonging to one of the men we’d met up with outside the Centre, when I’d first met the pack. Willa had gone with him to get her dampeners and weapons after we were rescued from the traffickers.
“We’re aware of that, Bastian,” Reese replied sardonically. “I called you before that situation became apparent.”
“We got a plan?”
“Not in the fucking slightest.”
“What does Denzel want to do?” Bastian asked.
Everyone’s gaze turned to the pack lead in perfect sync. He grunted and shrugged, leaving it to someone else to decide.
He was broken.
I thought I’d fixed him after he’d first heard Marlowe had been kidnapped, but this man was still broken for sure. Moving toward him, I waved off the others when they tried to stop me. My fingers grasped Denzel’s and tugged, bringing him into the group.
Was he the only one equipped to deal with this situation? Maybe not. But he was the one everyone was used to listening to, with the exception of the past few weeks since I’d arrived. It wasn’t going to work if he gave up power now when we were in the lurch. His insistence on dropping pack lead was throwing everyone else off.
“What do you want to do?” I asked, quieter than Bastian had.
Denzel gripped my hand tightly, avoiding eye contact.
“I’m not going to give orders. All it’s going to do is break down the pack bond more.”
His voice was a whisper. I was closest to him and almost couldn’t hear it.
“Are you planning on being an asshole about it? Because otherwise, I’m pretty sure everyone is perfectly happy to listen to you,” I said.
“This is my fault, and my track record isn’t—”
I shut him up in probably the only way that would stun him enough to get him to listen to me.
I kissed him.
His lips were frozen for a long moment, but then he responded. He grabbed the back of my head and kissed me back, and it felt like everything I’d been waiting for from him. Denzel was, of course, still an asshole, but he’d at least had enough personal growth to realize he was wrong. And I finally felt I could trust him because he hadn’t given me up. Not even for Marlowe.
When I pulled back, we were both panting and he was staring at me. Something relaxed in his expression, making him look more youthful and less world-worn than usual.
“You’re the best person to fix this,” I murmured. “After that, I’m sure everyone will freely allow you to give up pack lead if you want. But shaking up the pack right now isn’t the fucking answer. Dumbass.”
Unease passed through his expression.
“Ava wasn’t your fault. No one could listen to the story of what happened to her and believe that it’s your fault. Her death was the result of society being fucked up, and that’s it. You are perfectly capable of saving Marlowe, and you will.”
My words got through to him. A little bit. Enough to propel him through the crisis, hopefully. One sentence from me couldn’t replace years of therapy, but it was a push in the right direction.
Clearing his throat, he tried to piece his harsh expression back together and failed. There was still a tiny smile quirking his lips when he spoke. “Get us the fuck out of this house, Bas,” he said.
Bastian, unaware of the soul-searching and averted crisis on this end of the line, grumbled about waiting ten years for that answer. “Be ready to book it, and make sure to tell Marlowe I apologize for the bird feeder. And the peace and tranquility of the neighbourhood. I knew you would only be able to live in this suburban paradise for so fucking long before something happened. I warned you assholes, too.”
The line went dead.
Everyone stood, ushering me to the front door. No one gave me a weapon. To be fair, I’d proven I wasn’t the most trustworthy holder of one when I’d shot holes in the ceiling at the Centre. If things had gone badly, that could have brought down the roof onto their heads.
When tires squealed, Denzel took that as the undiscussed signal.
We swung the door open and sprinted to the black van sitting in our driveway. A smoke grenade was obscuring the view of everything beyond the broken bird feeder. None of the other guys could see us. It was shocking there was no gunfire, but I assumed no one wanted to risk hitting an innocent in suburbia.
In the back of the van, Willa sat in a giant bulletproof vest. She smiled wryly at me when I barrelled in, leaving room for the guys behind me. The back door was slamming shut a moment later, tires screeching again.
“I thought you were going to be going out on your own!” I exclaimed.
It was difficult to stabilize myself while the van was turning at insane speeds, even while I was sitting down.
“These assholes are hard to shake,” she said with a roll of her eyes.
“Did these guys not give you what you needed?”
I turned my glare at Denzel for a moment, but he threw up his hands. Reese and Denzel looked as surprised to see Willa as I was.
“It’s far too complicated of a story for a rescue mission. Long story short, I work with them now.”
Considering how adamant Willa had been about surviving on her own, I was curious about the ‘long story.’ She was right, though. Saving Marlowe came first.
If only we had any idea how to do that.
“Does anyone have a plan?” I asked, peering over to the pack.
Jubilee had been silent for ages, his hands trembling and fidgeting with his clothes and weapons and anything else within reach. He had the least weapons of all of them, probably for that reason. Quentin was staying close to him, likely as a comfort mechanism so our sensitive scientist didn’t topple into a full-blown panic attack.
Reese’s expression was dark, his phone against his ear as he hovered on the far side of the van. I imagined he was reaching out to his contacts. Would any of them be able to help with something as sophisticated as shutting down the Centre? My understanding was they were all involved in underground fighting. Then there was his father. He’d been tight-lipped about what kind of man he was.
I doubted anyone who intentionally created rogue alphas was all that stand-up of a guy.
Denzel was the one to speak, only showing the smallest of hesitations.
“We’re going to tell the world about the Centre. I was hoping to do something with more finesse, so none of us would have a spotlight, but this is too dire to avoid the easiest route. You and Jubilee are going on a popular internet talk show, and we’re going to blast it as far as we possibly can.”
“How do you intend to get us on a talk show?” I asked. “My face is on missing persons posters. Any producer would call the police before letting me speak live.”
“No producer. The only one we have to convince is Marlowe’s scent match pack, and that won’t be as hard a sell as you’d think.”
I had to take a second to backtrack through what he’d said. “I’m sorry, Marlowe’s… what now?”
FORTY-FIVE
MARLOWE
Being kidnapped wasn’t really as bad as I’d thought it would be.
Maybe it was because I was a VIP. Who knew? But the van I’d been dumped in? Clean. The men who escorted me out of it? Polite, honestly. I’d done exactly as they’d asked, of course, which might have something to do with it.
I would rather not get bloodied and bruised by fighting back at this stage. It would make any future efforts at escape a thousand times more difficult.
My brain was focusing on the rational and ignoring the emotional. Mother had taught me to do that. There had been so many events I’d been forced to sit through, hating everything about them and trying not to cry. The draconian upbringing had been good for at least one thing.
When I was pushed unceremoniously into a room with a bunch of other omegas, almost all with gold eyes, I had to take a deep breath to avoid losing my cool.
It was definitely the Centre that had me, with this many gold eyes in one place.
The breath let loose, but the other omegas were all staring at me like they had questions and I was the holy grail of answers.
“Have you seen the weather forecast? It’s supposed to be sunny all next week,” I squeaked out.
Then I collapsed onto my knees, hyperventilating.
I’d been attacked on the street, drugged, and kidnapped. Leighton had been… Oh goodness. Not killed. She couldn’t be dead. My parents wouldn’t stand for that, so I might be a less valuable hostage if they killed my sister to take me. Was that accurate?
I didn’t know anymore.
But she wasn’t dead in my brain because I wasn’t capable of processing the possibility right now.
So, I was kidnapped.
Leighton was alive.
I’d been taken… Well, at least an hour from the cafe. The drugs had worn off at a certain point, and I’d started counting seconds.
Another habit I’d picked up during all those stuffy social events. Counting down the minutes to when I could go home.
I pressed my head to my knees, rocking back and forth.
There were coping mechanisms for my anxiety attacks. I knew them, damn it. Thinking happy, stable, cozy thoughts. Counting. Focusing on my breathing. None of them were coming to me.
Every breath I took was faster until I felt like I couldn’t breathe at all.
My throat was closed. I choked on a gasping breath. Was I going to die of panic?
A hand on my back shocked me enough I managed to inhale, eliminating that possibility. I jerked upright, staring at the man who was now holding both hands up in surrender.
“Damn. Sorry. You good?” he asked.
I was not at all good.
How could anyone be ‘good’ in this situation?
All the other omegas were resigned, though. They’d gotten through this panic phase a long time ago.
“Not really,” I mumbled.
The man shrugged. He appeared to be the calmest, and the oldest. Only by a few years. He couldn’t be that much older than Thorn.
“I guess that’s expected. Why did they take you? No offense, but you’re a little old to have just revealed as an omega.” He squinted, raising an eyebrow at the marks on my neck. “And you’re claimed. You’re basically the opposite of who they usually experiment on.”
“I’m not an experiment.” My voice wavered because I wasn’t overly confident in that. “I’m being held for ransom.”
He looked skeptical.
“They want Thorn back,” I explained. “Two. You called her Two here.”
His eyes widened and a girl shoved her way to the front of the room. I hadn’t seen her before. She’d been hiding behind everyone else. It was clear why. There was a nasty bruise on her face, darkening the skin around her eyes. She wasn’t wearing the same clinical clothes as everyone else. Hers were high-end.
“Thorn?” she asked, her voice a croak.
The man looked between her and I, unsure what to think. “You both know Two?”
“I’m her scent match mate,” I said.
“She tried to save my life,” the girl said.
It clicked in my muddled brain. Who she was. “Wait, you’re Jessica?”
She nodded.
Thorn had been wrecked over having to leave Jessica behind. No one had been able to figure out what happened, or why she hadn’t been able to escape when Thorn and the others did.
“And Two is Thorn now…” the man hummed. “It suits her. I’m Three.”
The name rung a bell. He was obviously a fellow test subject, the number identifier and gold eyes giving that away. Had she mentioned him? Possibly. She’d always wanted to save her friends from the Centre, and if they had sequential numbers he was probably the closest thing to a friend she had.
“And I’m Marlowe,” I mumbled after a pause. “Where are we? This isn’t a medical centre.”
“After the Centre was attacked, they moved all of us. They had to pause all active experiments, and we’ve been locked up in this room ever since.”
I cringed. We weren’t even at a medical site, which would make it more difficult for my pack to find us. I had no doubt they were looking. There was nothing coming through the pack bond, the distance between us too great when combined with the tenuous bond, but they were looking.
They wouldn’t give Thorn up, either.
I couldn’t figure out why the Centre had even bothered to take me, because there was no way I was going to be traded for her.
Not by anyone in our damn pack.
Maybe they hadn’t known we loved her. They might think this was all just us helping her out of the goodness of our hearts, and not out of love.
“Is anyone coming to save us?” Jessica’s voice was small. “They saved her last time. Your pack did. Are they going to do it again?”
I fought back a cringe. There were no promises I could make to this girl, none that I wouldn’t feel guilty about.
“If she’s his mate, she’ll come for him.” Another girl spoke, one of the only ones with eyes that weren’t gold. She reached out to hold Jessica’s hand. “They fucked up by bringing him here, where she can save all of us at once.”
“Twelve, we shouldn’t live on false hope,” Three said.
He crossed his arms over his chest. The man was more intimidating than a normal male omega. His aura was different, too. Whatever they’d done to it had made it feel… off. I couldn’t get more specific than that. I wasn’t a seer.
“My name isn’t Twelve, it’s Belinda,” she said.
“Here, your name is Twelve. They hear anyone calling you Belinda, and we’ll all get a few days solitary confinement.”
