Page 3

Ten Years Ago

I’d heard the crash when it happened. There were always crashes of small drones being piloted around the acres of family land around Peachtree City, Georgia. Sitting under a large tree as I worked through yet another medical textbook hoping that I would take in the information from sheer osmosis. I’d re-read the same page several times over on cesarean cuts, but my mind could only think about how everything was geared toward human anatomy in these books. I didn’t think anything of the crash again until I heard a whimper.

Swinging into action, every day was a learning day when I was still trying to get my degree. I loved all hands-on experience I could get, and someone hurt was the perfect situation for me to try and help.

By the large red-brick wall, a bright contrasting blue snake slithered up the walls, leaving a trial of blood almost like it was a slug leaving behind slime. It dropped, twice while I watched it attempt to work its way up the wall again. And in the bush where it landed, a hand forced out of the greenery and the whimper came again.

“Hello?” I called out.

The voice came back strained but incoherent.

Approaching it, I knew this was someone who shouldn’t have been on our land. “Are you hurt?”

It hissed. “Stay away.”

“No,” I said, forcing myself forward into the bush, spreading the branches apart to see a man with a large bloody line, jagged through his face, jaw, and slashed down to his collarbone. “You’re going to need stitches.”

He hissed again, he intense green eyes had vertical slit pupils for a second, just as his tongue had been forked.

“Firstly, you’re in no position to refuse,” I told him. “And secondly, I don’t think you’re here because you’re working on the garden. If you want to die, I’ll leave you, but the last thing we need is a dead body on the property.”

“I just need a minute,” he said, his eye twitching as his pupils shifted back to vertical slits and once more to regular circular pupils. “I’ll start healing. I—” He dug his hands into the soil. “I’m going to.”

“Jeez, all you Alphas are the same, huh?” I sighed, dipping to a knee in front of him in the bush. “You’re going to need to stop struggling and let me help. You’re only going to make it worse for yourself. Whatever healing abilities you have, I don’t think they’re going to kick in. You’ve been injured.”

I looked around. There didn’t appear to be anyone with him, or anyone calling for him. It was possible they were in shifted forms.

“I can’t go to the hospital,” he spat.

“Don’t worry. I’m a nurse, well, in training,” I told him, and spotted more blood cling to the fabric of his shirt under his collar. “I need to assess the damage to know what I need.” Unbuttoning his shirt, I spotted a red-ink tattoo, raised on his tanned skin. Two ouroboros snakes connected to each other.

He tried to protest and hiss, but he couldn’t move. From my initial inspection, he might’ve broken his collarbone. It could’ve happened from a fall over the wall, but the slash seemed intentional, and less like an injury sustained from crash landing here.

***

I could barely sleep with all the thoughts about the Serpentine Syndicate. I hadn’t thought about them for many years. It was entirely possible they were still in operation and I wasn’t imagining things. I didn’t want to think about how much they must have grown since my last encounter with them, but if my memory of Vasilis Vepres was anything to go by, this was going to be a lot tougher than I expected.

Vasilis had been caught in an altercation near my family’s home in Georgia, he’d sustained injuries that would’ve seen him dead if I hadn’t been there to help nurture him back to health. I’d stitched him up and let him live in the guest house where I made him nutrient rich broth that saw him on his feet. I didn’t learn about how dangerous he was until after he was back to full health.

The following morning was back to clear skies and a heat that sopped up all the wet earth, forcing it back to the arid sands once again. I made my way closer to New Eden, wondering if that’s where the van with the two snakes had been going. My gut told me that’s where they’d been headed.

There were fewer places to pitstop for refueling or food on the way. Most ghost towns around Nevada had become tourist attractions where people would come together and cosplay their Western fantasies where they walked around in Stetsons and chaps. It was almost like all the fun was being drained out of the environment.

According to my paper map which I played close attention to now that my GPS was truly dead and phone had zero signal, I was only thirty minutes away from the New Eden site. And almost as if my prayers had been answered, on the side of the road, a small seedy looking bar next to a gas station and convenience store were within view.

The parking lot was full of motorcycles and vans, but not the van I’d seen last night, and none of them had the snake decals. I was disappointed, an questioned what I’d seen last night. Maybe it had all been a fever dream brought on by the humidity of the heavy rain.

Outside the bar, two women stood under the awning, spritzing themselves with water in one hand and fanning themselves with a small mechanical hand fan in the other.

“Hey, stud,” one of them said.

“You looking for a little fun?”

Humans. They were covered in marks from scratches to bites. “No, thanks,” I said, passing them to walk inside. The bar was cool, blasted by air conditioning from all angles. I sighed, barely noticing at all the people inside turn to me, as if I’d walked in on a private meeting. They were a mix of Alphas and omegas here.

A burly man in a leather biker jacket stood behind the bar. “What can I get you?” he asked, grabbing a dirty glass and rubbing inside it. “We don’t do cocktails, if that’s what you’re after.” He offered a wry smile, and looked at the tables of people behind me.

“I’ll take a bottle of water,” I said. “Or cola, whatever you’ve got in that fridge behind you.”

He slammed the glass down on the counter behind the bar. “You don’t want a beer?” he asked. “You’re best of getting something on tap. It’s expensive otherwise.”

“I’ve got a drive ahead of me,” I said. “Speaking of, actually, any chance you’ve got information on what’s happening in New Eden?”

The bar fell silent with the exception of the low thurm and buzz of the air conditioning units. The man behind the bar in his loose cutoff denim top, flexing his sand dirt muscles and the symbol from the van. Those two snakes were here. I didn’t know if I was in the belly of the beast, but the beast was here, and I didn’t know if Vasilis would be, but suddenly, I could smell him in the air. He was both sweet like a fresh apple, and rotted.

“New Eden is a dead zone,” he said. “You’re not going to make it there, if that’s your goal. I’m not saying that to be an asshole. You are probably best turning around out there in the lot and going home.”

It was conflicting with the information in my brain, the idea that they were kidnapping omegas, but also the idea that they didn’t want me going there. I assumed they would’ve told me to keep driving and let me be ambushed on the road. Or maybe the ambush was already prepared in the bar.

The man grabbed me an icy cold can of cola and passed it across the bar to me. “Are you refueling as well?” he asked.

“I wasn’t sure if that was functional.”

He nodded. “Yeah, of course. This place is full service.”

“Do I pay you or do I pay the machine out there?”

The man smirked. I didn’t know what he was trying to suggest, that I go out to my car, that I leave, that I stay for this small talk. The room was still quiet, even with all the hushed voices around me. I didn’t know if they were getting closer, but they were definitely talking about me. The hairs on my neck and a tickle at my inner ear were on the verge of driving me crazy.

The bartender leaned in. “Nothing good will come out of this,” he said. “Not for you. If you’ve got any senses going for you, get back out there, start your engine and just go. It’s a dangerous place for an omega like yourself.”

Sipping the cola, the bubbles on my tongue had my eyes rolling from the hit of cold. “I’m pretty sure I can handle myself on the road,” I told him. “I’ll take your words under advisement. But, if you know anything about New Eden, I’d like to know. Please.”

He looked around and back to me. “There’s nothing there for you kid,” he said. “You’re best off leaving.”

“Why?” I asked. My tongue firm between my teeth. “I know you’re—” I glanced and nodded to the tattoo on his arm. “Are they operating?”

A single nod, but his eyes were filled with fear, for me, or for him? “Save yourself, before it’s too late. The Rotmor will get you if they don’t.”

Before I could ask him another question, a single bullet shot, smashing into the glass behind his head. He ducked and scurried off behind the counter.

Both groups of people in all the same matching biker jackets stood and circles me. The one who’d fired the bullet moving closer, his gun still out. A red headed man all of it attempted to being tamed and pushed back inside a black bandana.

“Now who am I going to pay for this soda to?” I asked.

He approached, his teeth blackened, the stench of rot without any of the sweetness I’d smelled on Vasilis all those years ago was present. “Someone will take his place,” he said. “But you heard the man. You should be on your way.”

“I’m going to New Eden,” I said.

He shook his head. “It’s a dead zone out there. I don’t see why you’d be going that way. But if you want to, I’m sure my guys here can make a little hog tie between our bikes and drive you there ourself.”

“What’s going on there?” I asked.

None of them had an answer. None of them wanted to answer, from their hums and grumbles, I was on the right path. I was keeping it mostly together. The last thing you could show an Alpha was fear, they fed on that shit.

“You don’t wanna know,” another man said, pushing through the crowd. Shorter with red hair. His mouth was covered in the same darkened substance that coated his lips and teeth. “But you can tell whoever you work for that nothing is happening.”

They knew something about me then. “I work for?”

Another red head, a woman made her way through. “We ran your plates the minute you parked,” she said. “Soren Quillen, private investigator, and of relation to the family who own QuillAir. You should leave. This doesn’t concern you.”

That’s why they didn’t want me in here. I was too high profile for them to kidnap li they had the other omegas they’d snatched up from the streets with the promise of money. They couldn’t do that to me. They knew, or at least they assumed someone would have a search party out for me if I went missing.

“Then you’ll know that I don’t really listen to people,” I said. “Now, I’ll be going to New Eden one way or another, whether you tell me what’s there, or you let me find out for myself. That’s up to you.”

They all fell silent.

“It’s the Serpentine Syndicate, isn’t it?” I asked. “That’s what you’re all out here trying to protect.”

The first man, seemingly their leader nodded slightly. “If you know that, then why do you want to go?” he asked. “They’ll rip you limb from limb.”

“Well, you said it yourself. I’m a Quillen. Anything happens to me, my family will come down on you with the full force of the law,” I told them, not quite sure it was true, because it would take them a while to even figure out what happened to me. It wasn’t like I clued any of them in on what I was doing. “So, why should I go?”

“The Rotmor,” another one of them said. “It’ll kill you, eventually.” The man tapped a cane in his hand, resting his entire body on it. “Will crumble your bones from the inside, turn them into blackened sludge. Please, leave.”

The more they told me, the more I planned on going to see what the fuck Vasilis had done with his life. He owed me answers. I’d saved him from death, he owed me more than just answers. He also owed me every single omega he’d taken, and whatever Rotmor was.

“I guess I’ll—” I began as the door of the bar open, the glass layer smashed.

Behind the light, standing like a god, carved from marble. A figure I’d recognize anywhere in the world. Vasilis Vepres was here, and the second everyone else noticed him, they scattered into corners of the bar.