Page 9 of Omega's Flight

But for damn sure, I wasn't going to let there be a next time. Not with Degan. "When's your next run outside walls?" Yuri was in charge of driving the truck that was used to dispose of what little in the pack was finally declared useless and unsalvageable. He was in and out through the gates all the time.

"Why?" He stared at me for a moment, then his eyes widened. "Are you crazy?" He took Pip firmly by the back of her neck and pushed her in through the door. "Go find your brother and make sure he's not into anything," he commanded, with that push behind the words that always made me wonder if he was actually just a really weak alpha. It wasn't something betas were supposed to be able to do.

And damn, all three of them were up.

Pip frowned but she went, her strength as a child no match for my adult brother.

When she was out of sight, Yuri turned back to me. "Come home and stay with me."

"I won't leave my pups with him. And what would Estelle have to say to you shoehorning your omega brother into her household?" His older omega brother, but my ego had taken enough of a beating already today. I knew what his mate would have to say.

"The pups are his," Yuri reminded me. "You can't take them with you."

"Watch me." I folded my arms and stared at him and thought of Bax, living in the porch behind the Alpha's house for six months, living on scraps and charity until the day they tried to take his pups away. If he could do it, I can too. "Will you help, or just plan the words you'll say at my burning? Because if this isn't proof enough that he's going to go too far some day—" I gestured at my face and pulled my t-shirt up to show him the bruises growing on my ribs and my belly. "That's where it's going to end. How long before he starts in on Ann? Or Pip? Or Henry?"

I thought that was where I got him. His expression was sick as he stared at my battered body, but it was the pups he couldn't bear to watch suffer. "Where will you take them?

I already knew. "Bax." There'd been a lawyer in Memphis who'd worked with Mercy Hills. With Jason, the omega who'd started all this...change. If I could find him...

Yuri hissed a quick intake of breath. "You sure?"

I nodded and let my shirt fall.

We stood in silence for what felt like forever, then his eyes rose to mine. "Get packed. Not much— there's only so much I can hide in the truck and only so much you'll be able to carry." He pushed back through the door into the kitchen. "I can get you tabs, we've got a bunch extra in the garage. But not papers, so once I drop you off, you have to be damn careful or we'll both go to prison."

I swallowed down the fear that clamped my throat tight, refusing to think about the stories told by shifters finally released from the high-security shifter prisons. Would they put my pups in prison with me? I followed Yuri into the kitchen and glanced around the cramped room, the chipped and scarred cupboards missing most of their doors, and looked toward the front door that my mate had left through. "I can be careful. And the pups don't understand all that yet."

Yuri nodded. "Meet me at the garage at eight, I'm taking a load out then." He headed for the front door, but paused to crouch in front of my three pups, clustered in the doorway to their bedroom. "Do what your Papa says, you hear me?"

They nodded, all three of them, with the solemn appearance of a trio of owls. Yuri trailed his fingers over their heads, gave me one last indecipherable look, and disappeared out into the roadway.

I followed him to the door and watched him walk down the street for a moment, until little hands slipped into mine, holding tight.

"Are we going on vacation, Papa?" Ann asked.

I smiled down on her and then shooed her inside so I could wipe her runny nose. "We're going on an adventure," I told her.

C H A P T E R 9

Surprisingly, we had little trouble getting out of the enclave. Degan was gone, with his temper and his borrowed clothes. I kept the pups home, excusing them as being too sick to go to school, and we had a quiet morning packing the bare necessities we would take with us.

The night's sleep had done Ann a lot of good, but none of them were well and I reluctantly took my extra pair jeans out of my bag and replaced it with all the handkerchiefs I could find in the house. We were going to look so poor when we showed up on Bax's doorstep.

When the time came, I took them the back way to get to the garage, though I didn't doubt that at least a couple dozen pairs of eyes saw us going with our bags, the pups with their favorite toys clutched tightly against their chests. Yuri packed us into the truck like we were garbage ourselves, covering us with a wooden frame he'd knocked together to give us some space and room to breathe underneath the plastic bags and the random broken bits of old furniture or torn down buildings.

Just before he covered us up, he held out his hand. "Your tabs." Three sets, each one in a small envelope with a name written on it. Henry was too young yet to need to wear them, but Ann and Pip were both of an age to be considered 'dangerous' by the humans.

I took them and nodded thanks, then watched the sunlight disappear as he covered us over, until it felt like dusk had already begun to fall.

"What are those?" Pip asked, prying at my fingers to peek.

"Tabs. We have to wear them while we're outside walls," I told her, and helped her put them on. Then I put Ann's on her, and mine on my collar. I cuddled Henry close so he couldn't pick at them, because he was the kind of pup that would be curious and his curiosity usually led to something disappearing.

"Papa, will you tell us the story of Lysoonka's children?" Pip asked.

My smart girl. A distraction was just what we all needed at the moment. "Of course. As soon as we're outside the enclave. Until then we're going to be very quiet, like playing hide and seek." It was a sort of hide and seek, though a dangerous one. Truthfully, I hoped that they might doze off if they had to be quiet for a little while, it wouldn't do them any harm in the aftermath of their fevers.

The truck trundled up to the gate, then sat growling like a giant angry wolf for a few minutes while I clung to my pups and prayed no one sneezed. Then, with a shriek and a thump, the truck started moving again and I could breathe freely once more.