Page 19

After what I’d gone through, I knew what those omegas were dealing with, and popular sayings were a thing for a reason. Cut the head of the snake and everything else will crumble. It was going to be a hail Mary of a shot considering everyone was now going to be on alert, but I wasn’t going to let any more omegas go through the pain of not having control of their bodies.

“And I will agree,” I said to Vasilis as his face dropped with the realization we would be murdering his brother. “We need to save the omegas first. So, you’re going to need to distract your brother. You’re not going to kill him. That what I’m going to do, just so we’re both clear on that.”

He nodded. “I don’t want to leave you alone.”

“I’ve got claws. I’m the cure. Nobody is going to want to get near me when you tell your brother that little bit of information,” I said, raising my hand and through my nail beds sharpened claws pushed through. They were upsized from my shifted form. I rarely partially shifted, but this called for it. “I need you to push his focuses away from the omegas. Tell him I plan on killing the soldiers, one by one.”

“What happened to the plan of you needing to call your friends and tell them to stay away?”

“If we’re lucky, we’ll get this done quickly, and my friends won’t have even touched down,” I said. “Unless they charter one of the fast jets, but even then, I’m going to focus on what’s happening in front of us right now, not what could be happening.”

I understood my mind was all over the place with thoughts, back and forward with what I wanted. The decision was made, the goal was set, and I would become a murderer once it was all done. I’d never killed anyone before today, but after going through everything in that bed, and knowing what those omegas were going through, there was no alternative now.

“You know, I’m gonna have to try my hardest not to hurt my brother myself,” he whispered, stroking a hand against the side of my face. “And what excuse will I use?”

“I’m obviously stronger than anyone gave me credit for,” I reminded him. “Unless you don’t remember what I did with that metal bar.”

Vasilis leaned in close, pressing his forehead against mine. I wondered if this was some ability he had to read my thoughts through. I didn’t get any of his thoughts from the act, so I couldn’t be too sure it was just a one-way street for him. “You best get dressed then. The alarms are going to keep going until you’ve been found. If I tell my brother you escaped, then he’ll believe me. But Naja will no doubt have some form of camera tracking everything. So—”

“Take her tablet. Destroy it,” I told him. “We need to blind them at every corner now. We can’t be weak, waiting for them to make the move against us.”

“You’re right.”

“And you should probably bite me again, maybe get some of my blood on a cloth, just in case. I don’t want you reverting back.”

“You’re very smart,” he said, furrowing his brow as he stared at me. “If I never got on board with your plan, I wonder what you would’ve done.”

“Lucky for you, you don’t have to found out.” I pressed a kiss against his stubbly cheek. “But let’s just say, you might’ve been at the other end of that metal bar,” I whispered in his ear.

“I thought you weren’t going to tell me.” He nibbled at the bottom of my ear. “But I think I’d have put up a fight.”

Raising my hand with the claws, I tapped the end of his nose. “I’ve got more where this came from.”

“Yeah, but you can’t poison people,” he said.

“But I’m obviously immune to whatever poison you carry,” I reminded him. “And if I’m immune to yours, then I’m probably immune to whatever other snakes live here.” I shouldn’t have been too cocky about that considering I didn’t know for certain where my immunities lied, or how I had them.

The alarms continued, keeping us from having a moment together. Vasilis dressed me in his nice clothes, the ones that smelled just like him. It was divine to inhale him, but I couldn’t find myself being caught in another heat cycle, or better described as a cyclone of hormones. I knew he didn’t want to leave my side. We went over the plan, again, and again until he eventually left the room. I waited before as was the plan. Five minutes went by, pacing, the alarm continued to go off. Ten minutes went by, I’d downed an entire bottle of water from the stack. The alarm continued.

At the twenty minute mark, the alarm stopped, and I walked right out of the room. I couldn’t use the same excuse that I was Vasilis’s assistant anymore. I didn’t know how many people were in on the secret that I wasn’t his assistant, and that I was in fact an omega here trying to free all the other omegas.

I recalled the map I’d seen in the doctor’s lab, and it was the first port of call. Depending on how long it had been, those vials of blood would be around, and I could get some closure on what was going on in the blood Vasilis was being made to drink.

Soldiers walked by with their heads down, everyone was focused, and not a single person looked up at me. The alarm had everyone on alert, but I didn’t exactly stink like a typical omega, especially not while in the best disguise, a disguise of the senses.

Through the porthole window into the doctor’s lab and office. Doctor Payne was alone, looking over a book and papers. The hallway was clear at either side. I walked in, and darted right for him.

“You shouldn’t—” he began. They were his last words as I slashed my claws at his neck, severing an artery in the process. He tried to compress it, but it didn’t work, the blood continue to pulse out between his fingers and spray the room.

The black clothes the Syndicate wore made more sense now. I couldn’t even see the blood on my skin. Although a mirror on the far side of the room informed me that he’d sprayed my face. It was war paint of sorts.

“You over stepped,” I told the lifeless body on the ground. “You’ve been playing in a world you shouldn’t have even been allowed to spectate.” I grabbed a white lab coat and wiped my face before laying it over Doctor Payne’s body. I didn’t want to see it again.

The lab was full of research, and I couldn’t take my time like I wanted to go around and investigate every nook and hidey hole to find the good stuff I knew they were hiding. I knew they would’ve had information on every omega brought through the doors. And they did. In a ledger. Each of the omegas was listed with their location of capture, the money deposited into their accounts, blood types, ages, and whether they’d had a child before. Alongside being an omega, they all had one other commonality, none of them could shift.

“Fuck,” I muttered, flipping through pages. This had been going on across the other states. There were already cases they had written in the notes, calling it a success and a failure. After another moment of rummaging, I uncovered what they were changing, and what they’d done differently at each of the other compounds in Arizona and California.

‘ We now know that infecting the omegas wasn’t transferring the Rotmor successfully. They were infected with all the negative traits and none of the immunities. These omegas have been terminated and a new crop of omegas should be brought in where newly Rotmor infected omegas are forced into carrying the offspring of the Vepres family. We believe this is the only way to preserver the lethality and deadliness of the disease can successfully be transferred without all the downsides. Vasilis Vepres is our case study.’

Vasilis was the difference now. He’d been played, every moment of his life, until right now, until whatever they had planned for him here. He needed saving just like those omegas.

The door opened. I clutched the ledger and notebook as I dipped to hide beneath one of the partition screens. I’d killed my second person, and I was well on the way to adding more and more to that figure if I had to.

“Doctor Payne must’ve already left,” a voice said before leaving and the door shutting behind them.

I stayed behind the partition for a moment longer, shuffling in my crouch across to the space in the screen. I had a clear view of the door, and they had gone. Everything was set to high alert, I couldn’t stop for even a second or get caught and I was probably more hassle than another omeg to keep alive. In reality, capturing me could’ve been a bargaining chip, I had a rich family, I had blood that seemed immune to the Rotmor and poison.

After being sure nobody had stayed behind because Doctor Payne’s body had been visible, at least his legs were, even with the lab coat over him. I stood, and to my surprise, I’d been crouched in a squat for nothing.

I grabbed a map and kept my back flush to the wall with the door. If someone came in now, I’d be prepared to strike, at least with one hand. My other hand was keeping the ledger to my chest. I couldn’t lose that.

From the map, I was able to plan where I had to go to see all the omegas they’d taken. They couldn’t have put them further away from each other even if they tried. There wasn’t any rhyme or reason to the layout, except for the canteen which seemed functional in the center of the compound.

“Ok, Soren, you’ve got this,” I said, preparing to leave. “Wait. The blood.” I couldn’t see the machine, and I’d already spent too long in here. The longer I stayed, the more I risked being caught.

Only one soldier was standing in the hallway, he was walking away from me, he hadn’t even noticed me. I walked in the opposite direction and placed myself on the map. The third base room for the omegas was up ahead after several left and right turns.

The tunnels were probably strategy to keep their enemies out and their captives in, I was both it seemed. The closer to the omega bay, the more soldiers I saw walking around, and still none of them looked at me longer than a couple seconds.

I tucked the ledge down the front of my slacks and folded the map before slipping it into a pocket. The omegas in this room were all awake, whining and moaning about the pain they were feeling. The soldiers on watch in that room seemed indifferent to their sounds, standing around in the center of the bay, they were talking to each other.

There was little time for me to make any hypotheses and try out any experiments. I had an idea, and if it worked, this would go a lot more smoothly.

From scent alone, all three soldiers stood to salute me as I walked into the bay.

“How long have they all been like this?” I asked them. “You know the rules, right?”

A woman, standing forward from the three soldiers nodded. “Yes, Sir. They’re dosed twice a day with injections. We’re waiting on Doctor Payne before they get their next dose.”

“Waiting on him to tell you to inject them?” I asked.

“No, he checks them,” the man at her side said.

“Well, they’re all—” I looked around the room, each one of the omegas were sat upright in the bed. Those with longer hair had become knotted and unkept. They had cream sacks, acting as clothing, and it was covered in spittle and blood. I had to keep my composure in the face of it all. “They’re all definitely infected.”

“Yes,” the woman continued. “I don’t know what he checks them for, but I know they are checked before they receive another injection. It usually calms them down for an hour.”

“Do you three just stand and watch them?” I asked. “I heard about the omega that pulled out its own eye. Was that from here?”

They glanced to each other before nodding back at me.

“They were taken from the room,” they said.

I saw one bed that was covered in blood, and the doctor’s lab didn’t look like it had been performing any type of surgery. I was afraid to ask what had happened to the omega in question. I feared I knew what had happened to them, and I didn’t want to be affirmed.

“Killed,” another added.

“Great,” I said, my teeth gnashing together. “Well, I’m here because I want to check each of them. If you want to make sure the injections are ready for them. I don’t want them to miss their dose because of Doctor Payne.”

They nodded and turned. At least they were obeying me. Now, the tough part. How was I going to cut myself, feed it to the omegas, and keep them from getting another injection without any of the soldiers noticing, and without anyone who’d seen my face walk through the doors?

It was going to be a challenge, but I’d once given CPR to someone for five minutes until their heart restarted. I could absolutely bring these omegas back from the brink as well.