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Would someone like Acker have had a vested interest in making sure she got her little lab rats even if she knew she could have solved the entire problem?

Huh.

That’s something that requires further research. But if she did know, well, maybe that’s a clue to the way we could fixallof the omegas and alphas in this facility.

I steal some sedatives and then I let myself out of the room.

As I’m walking down the hall, a security guard is coming down the opposite way. I give him a wave and a smile.

He looks me over, not smiling back.

So, I become even more relaxed, projecting as much of an air that I’m supposed to be here as I can.

“You’re here late,” he says.

“Am I?” I take out my phone to check the time. “Well, headed home now. You have a good night.” During all of this, I have not stopped moving, because I’m projecting that everything’s fine, just fine. I cross him, heading for the elevator.

“You too,” he calls after me.

As I climb into the elevator, I know that’s probably not a good sign. That guy is suspicious. He wasn’t suspicious enough to stop me this time, but he’ll remember if he sees me out of place in the future.

Damn it.

lotus

I WANT TObe on Calix’s lap. I missed him. I realize I am drawing strength from this between us, this bond we have. He lets me sit on his lap, eager to be close to me, eager to give me whatever I need.

But I feel something else from him, a strain.

He is not meant to be the only alpha bonded to me. He is meant to share that bond. He needs me to get my other bites.

We are in the kitchen of the punishment house, and Striker is the only one there, because Arrow is out collecting Knight.

Arrow came back at one point, to tell us that Knight had gone off with some alpha to find out information from an omega here on the compound. We thought he’d come home after he’d gotten whatever he could out of her, but he never came back. Arrow said he was doing a lot of thinking.

Finally, when Calix got home from work, I told Arrow to get Knight back here.

Calix sets a plastic bag on the table. I can see the syringe, complete with needle, and the drug that will be injected, in it.

“It’s a sedative,” Calix says. “We can knock her out. If there was a clear sort of drug there that caused longterm amnesia, I would have taken it. But if there is, I don’t know what it is.”

“No, of course you don’t,” I say, snuggling in to him.

He absently rubs at his bite mark on the back of my neck.

It makes me purr.

He purrs back.

“Okay,” speaks up Striker. “Well, so we think the idea is a nonstarter?” I told him that I’d communicated it to Calix somehow.

“No, not saying that,” says Calix. “I think it requires more research. We need to understand why it affected you guys the way it did. Was that a freak accident or was it something preventable? I was thinking that if they knew what the variable was, they wouldn’t have given it to people with that variable.”

“But she might have,” I say. “Because she said this thing to me about how you sometimes have to make moral sacrifices in the search of scientific truth. And if she thought she could learn things, she’d do anything. Anything at all. How many omegas did she have you guys kill, anyway?”

Striker flinches. “Too many. But you’re right. That’s exactly who she is.”

“Yes,” says Calix. “Believe me, I’m right there with you. So, I thought, okay, well what if she did know, and what if we can find that data somewhere. I got into the network and I have access to all the files.”