Page 73 of Claiming the Pack’s Omega (Riverwell Omegaverse #2)

Milo

T he flare of panic that hits me through the bond almost makes me nauseous. It's so bad that I reach up and grip the bond that Reyna left at the base of my throat. I glance at Stone and Killian, who are seated next to me, my eyes wide.

"Did you feel that?" I whisper, trying to keep my voice down.

Theo is on the stand, cross-examining one of the defense's witnesses right now.

"I did," Killian nods.

"Me too," Stone adds. "Something's wrong."

Very wrong. That kind of panic? That's the kind of panic that Reyna would only feel if she were fearing for her life.

The three of us stand up from our seats simultaneously. Eyes turn to face us as we march our way out of the courtroom. Theo glances over his shoulder and I offer him a nod.

His jaw clenches as he returns it.

No words were spoken, but he knows that we're going to go and try and figure out what the hell is going on. Based on his expression, he's just pissed he can't drop everything and tag along.

"I need you to radio the bailiff in charge of escorting our omega," Killian growls, his hands clenched into fists by his sides as he stares down at the bailiff guarding the entrance to the courtroom.

"Excuse me?" He asks, his brows drawing down.

"The bailiff. The one who escorted the last witness. Reyna Carver. Radio him."

"We think there's something wrong," Stone says, flashing his badge.

I don't know whether it's Killian's status as councilman, Stone's job as a policeman, or the general sense of urgency the three of us have, but the bailiff pulls out his radio.

"Unit five, this is unit twelve. Do you copy? Over."

Silence.

The bailiff's brows draw down in concern and he glances up at us in alarm.

Oh no. Oh, no, no, no.

I've got a terrible feeling about this.

"Unit five, please respond."

"Fuck!" Killian curses under his breath, running his hand through his hair. He immediately starts pacing.

The people passing by us in the hall are starting to give us a wider berth.

"I'm calling for backup," Stone says, pulling his phone out of his pocket.

"I'll get more people on this," the bailiff says to us. "It's not like one of us to not respond to our radios."

"She was right here," Killian hisses. The despair that casts heavy shadows in his eyes must match the expression I'm wearing.

I pull out my phone and immediately try calling Reyna. The call goes to voicemail. I check her phone's location. It's still in the waiting room she was supposed to be in until the case wrapped up for the day.

So if she's not picking up the call, then she likely never made it back to that room.

"What path would the other bailiff have taken to bring Reyna back to the waiting room? We should start there."

"Good idea," the bailiff nods.

A few minutes later and we have half a dozen people helping us search through the back hallways of the courthouse.

"This is the room they should've been in," Stone growls. The room is empty, except for Reyna's purse, left on the table. "She never made it back here. Her scent isn't fresh. We'd be able to smell something if she was as terrified as our bond was telling us."

I follow behind my two packmates, trying to tap into our bond. I can still feel her. She's terrified, but she's alive.

That's good. Alive is good.

But that's no guarantee that whoever has her right now isn't planning on hurting her soon.

The radio of the bailiff escorting us crackles to life. "Found him. He's knocked out cold. We need medical on the scene immediately."

The four of us run through the hallways to the location given to us. The scene is just as they described it on the radio: the man is crumpled on the floor, bleeding from a blow to the head.

"Looks like it was made with the butt of a gun," Stone scowls.

"You think that's what made Reyna leave without calling attention to anything?" I ask.

"I wouldn't be surprised," Stone nods.

"Hey, where's the nearest exit?" Killian says. With the amount of dominance rolling off of him, his command is almost a bark. He's barely holding himself together.

To be fair, I think all of us are barely holding it together. My fingertips won't stop tapping. I wish I had my computer at home right now. Or at the very least, my laptop. I can barely do anything with a phone. I'm practically useless right now.

"Here, let me show you," The first bailiff says, running a hand through his hair.

He only manages to bring us down a couple of hallways before another pang of terror twists in my chest. The three of us nearly gasp in unison.

"What the hell was that?" Killian growls, his eyes wide.

"Is everything okay?" The bailiff asks with wide eyes.

"Our mate. She's in trouble," Stone grits out.

Then we hear it.

A gunshot.

Coming from outside the courthouse.

Oh no. Oh God, no.

It's hard to decipher what's pain and what's fear, especially when it mixes with my own terror for Reyna.

The world explodes into action around me, but I stay frozen in place.

The bailiff immediately starts speaking into the radio.

Stone does the same, pulling out his phone and speaking with someone on the other end of the line about shots fired.

Killian starts running, following along the flickering neon exit signs.

I feel fucking useless. So fucking useless. I'm so terrified I can't even move.

I imagine Reyna bleeding out from a gunshot, her storm gray eyes devoid of life. I wouldn't be able to live with myself if we lost her. Especially if we lost her like that.

I grip my head in my hands, tugging at my hair until my scalp burns. The pain grounds me just enough to get some sense back.

I imagine her smiling up at me with that mischievous grin of hers, her cheeks flushed from her heat. The moment right after she made me hers. Her bonded mate. Her alpha.

I shake my head. I have to pull myself fucking together. Reyna needs our help.

Before I know it, my feet are pounding against the ground as I follow Killian.

I just barely make it around the corner quick enough to see the exit door slamming shut behind Killian. Maybe I need to exercise more. My heart is pounding right now and I can't really tell whether it's from the adrenaline or the running.

I push the exit door open with a bang and freeze. Killian is bent over, dry heaving.

Next to a body.

A dead body.

No way someone can survive a gunshot to the head like that. His eyes are bugging out from his skull, bloodshot and unseeing. Underneath him on the pavement is a pool of blood and broken shards of bone and bits of gray matter.

I've seen a lot during my time on the internet, but seeing a dead body in real life? Smelling the metallic scent of blood in the air?

That's different.

I'm dry heaving right next to Killian. If I had anything in my system, I would've thrown it right back up.

"Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit," Killian gasps, running his hands through his hair. He can't tear his eyes away from the body.

The exit door slams open behind me.

"Oh, fuck," Stone hisses. He pulls his phone out and starts yelling into it. "We've got a dead body on the scene, I repeat, we've got a dead body on the scene."

Stone grips both of our arms and tugs us away. Probably because he can see that neither of us is in the headspace to do so ourselves.

He's the most composed of the three of us right now. Which makes sense, considering his job. I think this is the first time Killian and I have ever seen a dead person in real life. Or at least a dead body in this condition.

"Are you guys okay?" Stone asks, gripping us by the shoulder. "I remember my first time seeing something like this. It shook me up for a while."

"You—you do this kinda thing on the regular?" I ask him, my eyes wide. "You're so—you're so calm."

"I'd say you get used to it, but you never really do. You just get a little more numb each time," Stone shrugs.

Sirens sound in the background, and a couple of cop cars pull into the back parking lot.

"I should go and debrief them on the situation," Stone says, pulling away from us.

"No. Wait," Killian says, his voice strained. He grabs Stone's arm with an almost desperate grip. "I know him. I can identify the body."

"You do? Fuck, I'm sorry, man, that sucks," he says, rubbing a hand over his hair.

"His name is Carleton. Carleton Davenport. He's one of Maximus's friends. They go way back."

Stone and I both inhale sharply.

"And he's connected to Reyna's disappearance," Stone growls. "Somehow, at the very least. Which means?—"

"Which means my brother is involved somehow, too," Killian hisses.

"Fuck, okay, I'll tell my men that," Stone nods. "We'll get to the bottom of this. I'll send some people to investigate Maximus. If he's a part of this bullshit, he's not getting away with it."

"We need someone to go tell Theo," Killian says, scrubbing his hand over his face. "The courthouse will probably shut down for the rest of the day."

I wipe my clammy forehead with the back of my hand and take a shaky breath. I have to pull myself together. Everyone here has something they can do to help. I need to step up to the plate, too.

"I'll go see if I can get access to the security footage. There should be cameras that caught part of what happened," I add.

"Perfect," Stone says, clapping a hand on both of our shoulders. "We'll come meet you in the security room when we're ready to reconvene."

The courthouse is in chaos. There are bailiffs and police everywhere, trying to keep people calm. Shootings like that don't happen. Not here. People are unprepared for this sort of thing.

I'm sure the courtroom where Theo was working is going absolutely crazy right now, especially with the amount of media and the number of reporters in that room.

I try and wipe the image of that man, lying in a pool of his own blood, out of my mind.

"You okay, man? You look a little pale," the first bailiff we talked to asks me. He was gracious enough to guide me through the chaos and bring me to the security room.

"I'm fine," I say, shaking my head.