Page 30

Six Months Later

We’d set up in a small parcel of land in Montana. I hadn’t realized just how cold it got here, but the clean air was incredible. I’d promised the omegas opportunities and life beyond what happened to them from the Syndicate. That led me to setting up a small town, or village of sorts on the land I’d bought. It wasn’t too expensive for the woodland area, but there were many stipulations to it. In the end and in a short period of time, I’d been able to build twenty log cabins across the land and give each of them to the kidnapped omegas, some didn’t want to live out here, but others took the opportunity to be around nature and not pay rent. Thirteen in total were being used, including ours, which was double the size of their cabins.

Recently engaged, I shared the largest cabin with Vasilis, who was now going to Silas. It was his current name of choice, and we waiting for it to grow on us. He’d since grown out a bushy beard and dressed in checkered shirts like a lumberjack, and with the force of one too.

In the kitchen of our very insulated cabin, I cooked up a storm. I never just cooked for the two of us now, we were cooking for the entire village, not out of obligation, but because we were a community that helped each other out. But tonight in particular was special, the meal was going to be held our house and all thirteen omegas who’d decided to live with us were joining.

“Has the court decided what’s happening?” my fiance, Vas-Silas asked as he came in from the cold, bringing in a nice chill with him. He settled his snow covered axe by the door. “I think I’ve cut enough of the wood store up we’ll all have enough to last us through to the next week.”

“Not yet,” I said, presenting him with a spoon of soup from the pan. “My aunt is going to call when they know, but we’re pretty sure they’re going to find them guilty.”

It wasn’t quite a televised event, but everyone was paying close attetion to what was happening with Vasilis’s mother, Medusa, and Puglise, the other high standing member of the Syndicate were going to be charged with. A lot of conversation had centered around finding Drakon and Vasilis, but nobody was going to point their finger in his direction, and we were all pushing the narrative that they’d both died, even if I’d seen Drakon’s snake shifted form slither off out of the underground entryway.

The feast I was helping to prepare was a hopeful one to celebrate the arrest and the punishments we were sure would be doled out. Everyone was preparing something like a potluck specifically.

“When do you think we’re going to find out?” he asked. “Some of them were asking.”

It had taken all of them a little time to get used to speaking with Vasilis, even through all of his name rebrands. They knew who he was and what he’d been part of, and slowly, over the last six months, each of them had grown to speak with him and think of him as a different person completely. IT was true, he was a different person now to wheoever had been inhabiting him all that ago.

“Probably in the next hour,” I said. “My aunt said there isn’t really a set time they’ve got to decide on these things. It could go on for days if the jury doesn’t all agree. I think, I’ve no clue, I’m trying not to think too long or hard about it.” I went back to the pot of soup and stirred it a little more. It was mostly done. There was bread in the oven that needed to be taken care of as well, but that was on a timer, and I wasn’t going to open the oven doors until that timer dinged.

Vasilis pulled off his snow-covered jacket before hugging me from behind. “It could use a little bit more garlic,” he whispered in my ear. “We have that wild garlic growing out back.”

“Oh, I didn’t realize you were a professional chef,” I said, smacking his hand from trying to get more of the soup.

“I didn’t realize you were.”

I scoffed. “All of those courses say otherwise.” My new thing was cooking. It was the way to the heart and soul of a person. I’d gone from nursing, to investigating, and now, I was cooking.

“I’m sorry, baby,” he whispered, smooching the side of my face.

Just as I tried to combat him again with the hot spoon, another reminder that he shouldn’t be in my kithen, the phone rang.

We both fell quiet as it rang again, and thonly other sound was the bubbling of the soup pot.

“I think that’s her,” I said, gulping hard.

Everything was about to either come crashing, or we were going to be setting fireworks off—in the clearing, and not anywhere near the trees. We didn’t want a national accident.

My aunt ws on the other end of the phone.

“Sophia,” I said. “Is everything—”

“Guilty!” she screamed. “They’ve been found guilty. Twenty-five years. Both of them. And anyone found with the Syndicate tattoos will be brought in for questioning and potentially added to serve out a similar sentence.”

As the words went in, I wanted to both scream and sigh. Vasilis waited for the answer. I was happy with it, but I had to remembe that it was his mother they’d locked up now. I couldn’t show too much joy. But as I gave him the results, he physically jumped with joy, nearly knocking the light fixture from the ceiling.

“And you need to get that tattoo lasered, like yesterday,” I added.

But it wasn’t like anyone was coming to our neck of the woods. We would survive for now. And for tonight, we would celebrate because the heads of the snake had been chopped off. Clean.