Page 4 of The Night Movers: Season One

Ridley shook his head, trying to keep his feet beneath him as the truck swayed. “No!” he cried, choking on the helpless feeling gathering in his chest. “I appreciate what you’re doing. I do. But you don’t understand. I can’t go. I can’t leave town. Not yet. Not until I find her.”

“Find her?” Titus echoed. “Find who?”

“My sister,” Ridley said breathlessly. “I can’t leave until I figure out where they took her.”

Titus stared Ridley down, those sea glass eyes burning their way through him. Ridley remained as he was, refusing to give even an inch. This wasn’t negotiable. He had to get back to the city. Liberty Point was at least a two-day drive from there. He’d never make it back on his own.

“Maybe hear him out,” Diesel said.

Titus shot a glare at the bear, then sighed, dropping back into his seat and gesturing for Ridley to do the same. “Explain.”

Ridley clenched his jaw shut. Was he supposed to spill everything to four strangers just because they claimed they were there to help?

Titus gave another long-suffering sigh, then said through gritted teeth, “Explain or we’ll just dump you at the next meeting spot and you can be someone else’s pain in the ass.”

Ridley scoffed. “Like you won’t do that anyway? ”

Titus’s nostrils flared and he sat forward, elbows on his knees, invading Ridley’s personal space.

“Listen, Strawberry. We’re the only thing standing between you and a dozen guards who will take you back to the facility and brand you a runaway.

That is, if Kinsey and his men don’t kill you first so you can’t snitch. Choice is yours.”

Tears of frustration pricked at Ridley’s eyes.

He’d never felt so fucking helpless in his life.

“Five weeks ago, my sister presented as an omega. She went to the facility just like she was supposed to. She never came back. I know she went in—I took her there. I watched her enter. The facility had no record of her. Someone erased it. Someone like you. Though I’m guessing they didn’t have good intentions. ”

“You went to the same facility?” Ryker asked.

Ridley nodded. “I had no leads. So, when I presented a few weeks later, I figured it was a sign. They wouldn’t let me past the door unpresented.

Even though I’d been fighting with them for weeks to give me information about my sister, they didn’t seem to recognize me when I got there.

They herded me through just like all the others. ”

“And you ended up getting taken by the same guards?” Diesel asked. “That’s a helluva coincidence. No?”

“They weren’t the same guards. I know that now. But I knew they were who I needed. I put myself in their way on purpose.”

“So, Kinsey isn’t the one who took your sister?” Jensen asked.

“No. I don’t think so. My sister and I look just alike. They would have been more eager to reunite us. ” He looked at Titus. “Like you said, a matching set would go for a lot more money. If they knew where she was, they would have used it to taunt me. I would have seen something.”

“Seen it?” Jensen repeated. “Is that your thing?”

Ridley glanced at him. What did it matter if he told them now? “Mm. I can see the future. Sometimes, I can read people’s thoughts.”

Titus tilted his head again. “I gotta ask: what was your plan, Strawberry? ”

Ridley wanted to hate the nickname, but every time Titus said it, pleasure shivered through him. Ridley wanted to touch him, bury his face in his scent gland, bury his claws in his skin and mark him. Except, Ridley didn’t know him, and Titus had a scent patch on and Ridley didn’t have claws.

Ridley tore his gaze away. “I just needed to find her. I had no leads, nothing to go on. Nobody even acknowledged she’d ever existed. My only option was to do what she did, get taken by whoever took her, and, hopefully, end up wherever she ended up.”

“What if you ended up somewhere worse?” Jensen asked. “You could have ended up on the block or at a breeding farm or…worse.”

Ridley shot him another dirty look. “As long as my sister was there, I didn’t care. I don’t care. Together, we’d figure it out. We’d form a plan. Despite what you think, omegas aren’t completely helpless. We’ve survived alone together most of our lives.”

Ridley’s body shifted as the van rolled to a stop once more. Titus looked at the three omegas. “We’re here.”

The double doors swung open, revealing three people waiting just outside in heavy coats and hats—two female alphas and a male who appeared to be in his mid-forties, maybe older.

The three girls eagerly left the van, allowing themselves to be herded into a waiting gray SUV. Ridley stayed where he was.

The man looked back and forth between Ridley and Titus. “What about this one?”

“I’m not going,” Ridley said stubbornly.

Titus gave Ridley a pleading look. “You gotta go, Strawberry. Listen, I promise I’ll— we’ll —look into your sister’s disappearance. One of our connections likely knows where she ended up. If we can, we’ll get her out and bring her to you.”

“Not good enough,” Ridley said. “I’m not going without her. Take me back to the city and dump me somewhere. I’ll be fine.”

Titus let out a breath through his nose like an angry bull. “Are you crazy? I’m not being hyperbolic. Are you literally nuts? You have to be. You don’t even know if your sister is still alive and you’re going to risk ruining your entire life for…what? A maybe?”

“What do you even care?” Ridley asked. “I’m not your responsibility.”

The older alpha looked at Titus. “What do you want to do? We’ve got to get on the road. Every minute we sit here we risk getting caught by patrols.”

Titus sighed and looked at the other three men.

Ridley heard the opening and closing of a door, then a blond man with pool blue eyes and a slightly bent nose appeared.

“What’s the fucking hold-up? We’re sitting ducks out here.

Phantom says there’s civil militia out here running patrols.

” He looked at the older man, nodding once. “Cain.”

“Steele,” the man said by way of acknowledgement before looking back at Titus. “What do you want to do?”

Steele frowned at Ridley then looked to the others like he was trying to piece together what the situation was.

Titus seemed to make some kind of internal decision, sighing and scrubbing his hand over his face before he said, “Go on. Get outta here. We’ll take him with us and figure it out back at the yard.”

Cain looked at Ridley. “You sure you don’t want to go with us?”

“Want and can’t aren’t the same things,” Ridley said. “Thanks, though.”

Titus clenched his jaw, the muscle there ticking. To Cain, he said, “Be safe out there, man.”

Cain gave another nod. “You too.”

Steele returned to the passenger seat up front with the driver.

The slamming of the doors felt permanent, like they had closed the doors on Ridley’s entire future. But he wasn’t giving up on Ren and he wasn’t trusting a bunch of strangers to look for her in their spare time. He had no idea what he would do now.

Titus was right about Ridley being in danger. There was no real safe space for an unclaimed omega.

Even with scent blockers, nobody would mistake someone like him as a beta.

He couldn’t fake a claiming bite. He had no money.

Omegas weren’t permitted to work. He could voluntarily go to a brothel but they would take all his money for room and board and he’d be forced to sleep with anyone who had the money to buy his time.

He gnawed on his lip until he tasted blood, trying to keep his heart rate down. He was sure they could smell the sour scent of his distress in the small space, especially with no other omegas scents to compete with.

He was so in his own head that he didn’t even realize Titus moved until his thumb touched Ridley’s chin, tugging his bottom lip free. “You’re hurting yourself.”

Ridley opened his mouth to tell him he was fine, but his breath punched from him as a vision dragged him under. These men, all of them, sitting around a room with low light and a dingy couch. None of them wore their hoodies, making the marks on their neck obvious.

They were a pack.

An official pack.

There was another man Ridley didn’t recognize with them. He had the same mark as the others. An alpha like the others. He had rich brown skin and lochs pulled back in a half-pony. He was one of them, too. One of their pack.

His vision blanked, then another appeared, this one much different. Ridley, naked on a bed with all of them surrounding him, each of them sinking their teeth into him at the same time. Claiming him as their pack omega.

Ridley’s eyes popped open, and he jerked away from Titus, his eyes wide.

Titus looked spooked. “What? What?!” he said again.

“Did you see something?” Jensen asked. “What did you see?”

Ridley’s head spun, his heart rabbiting behind his ribs. His visions were never wrong. Limited, but never wrong. He looked at each of the men in turn. These men—these alphas—were his. He could feel his breaths coming harder, faster.

Being their pack omega would keep him safe.

Well, it would keep him safe from the outside world.

They would keep him safe. But he didn’t know these men.

Just because they helped omegas escape the city didn’t mean they were good people.

It didn’t mean they wouldn’t use him roughly, wouldn’t treat him poorly.

He looked at each of them again. Somehow, the idea didn’t unsettle him.

If anything, it turned him on. This was why he’d been so drawn to them.

He belonged to them. He blushed, then looked away, which may have been embarrassing had his vision not been so clear.

Right.

Jensen asked him a question.

“Well, what did you see?” Diesel asked, leaning in like he was hoping for some kind of juicy details.

“You…wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” Ridley said faintly.

“Try us,” Ryker said, watching him with serious dark eyes.

He wanted to refuse, to stay strong. But he had no choice.

“I belong to you,” Ridley said, voice barely a whisper.

They all stared at him with varying degrees of shock before Ryker asked, “What does that mean, exactly?”

“It means I’m your pack omega,” he said, hand closing over his mouth like he was trying to remind himself to stay silent.

“Yeah, we don’t do that,” Jensen said. “We would never drag an omega into this world.”

“I dragged myself,” Ridley couldn’t help but point out.

“Your vision is wrong,” Titus snapped. “We don’t keep omegas in the house. It would start a war.”

“My visions are never wrong,” Ridley said. “Incomplete, maybe. But never wrong. I can show you.”

Titus’s gaze locked with his. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, I can show you exactly what I saw,” Ridley explained.

“You can…share your visions?” Ryker asked.

Ridley gave a stilted nod. “I think so, yeah. I-I’ve done it before. Can I show you?”