Page 19 of The Runaway
But he couldn’t return to bed yet either.
Instead, he pulled on his clothes and let himself out of the room, heading down the stairs and out the front door. A short walk across the yard would calm him down, then he could go back to his room.
Outside, a full moon lit the yard, giving him plenty of light to see by. Avoiding the barn and its quiet, hay-filled temptation, he walked over towards the betas’ cottages. They would all be asleep this time of night, and if he was quiet, he wouldn’t be disturbing anyone. He reached the first cottage and was about to turn around and head back again when a shadow moved, over by the omegas’ quarters. Gabriel froze, gripped by an instinctive fear.
But then the shadow moved again, and he could make out a slender form, kicking at the rocks near the building. Connor.
Connor looked up just then, and Gabriel saw him tense. “It’s all right,” he said, loud enough for Connor to hear him. “It’s just me.” There was no guarantee that declaration would actually help. He was an alpha, and Connor was likely terrified of him. He walked slowly towards the lad. Connor backed up a step or two, then held his ground. But he was tense and alert, and Gabriel stopped before he got too close. “Are you okay?” Connor nodded, staring at the ground and kicking at another rock. Then he looked up, gazing out across the field. “Are you leaving?” Gabriel asked. He made sure there was no hint of censure in his voice. As much as he wanted Connor to stay, the idea that he’d decide to keep running was no surprise.
But Connor shook his head. “No,” he said, his voice thin and uncertain.
“I wouldn’t be angry if you said yes,” Gabriel said. “Not that I want you to leave. I think it would be better for you to stay. But I’d understand if you didn’t want to.”
“No,” Connor said again. “I just couldn’t sleep.”
Gabriel nodded. “Yeah, I definitely understand that.”
“Do you want me to go back inside?” Connor offered, though he didn’t sound enthusiastic about the idea, so Gabriel shook his head.
“No. You can stay if you like. I don’t mind.” Perhaps he should have offered to leave himself, but the thought of his large, empty room was still smothering him. He wanted to ask what was bothering Connor, but the answer was all too obvious, and he didn’t want to force him to talk about it.
Connor looked him up and down. “What are you doing out here?”
“I have nightmares,” Gabriel told him, not bothering to disguise the truth. “Sometimes taking a walk helps.”
“Yeah,” Connor said. “Me too.”
They both lapsed into silence, but in the moonlight, Gabriel could see the confusion on Connor’s face. “You’re kind of unusual for an alpha,” Connor said eventually. He was fidgeting, arms wrapped around himself protectively.
“How so?”
“I just asked you what you were doing, and you first of all didn’t tell me to mind my own business, and secondly, you actually told me. Alphas don’t answer to omegas.”
“No, I suppose they don’t,” Gabriel admitted. “But the thing is… I was in the army until a couple of months ago. I was injured just before the war ended, and I was discharged afterwards. But I saw some things during the war – terrible things – that made me think about life, and what it means to be an alpha, and… Well, I guess I didn’t like the conclusions I came to. So I don’t really think that being an alpha is all that important anymore.”
“What things did you see?”
God, had he really just asked that? “I don’t think repeating them would be particularly useful.”
“I only ever had one friend,” Connor said, more confident now. He sounded almost angry. “And she was sold, and I never saw her again, and then I was sold, and I’ve seen omegas be beaten to death and their arms broken and one who had her tongue cut out, and another one who had his fingers cut off. So I don’t think your stories are going to be any worse than mine.”
Gabriel stared at Connor, his eyes dark in the moonlight and full of so much despair and pain it broke his heart. Feeling suddenly old, he sat down on the stone step leading into the kitchen and sighed. “You’re probably right. Do you think it helps to talk about it?”
“I don’t know,” Connor said. “But if I can’t tell anyone, then it’s like it never happened, and no one cares, and no one knows, and I think that’s worse.”
“You seem like a very wise young man,” Gabriel said.
“I’m not that young. I’m twenty-five.”
Gabriel’s eyebrows rose. “Really?”
“Yeah. I’m just small, cos we never had enough to eat.”
“I’m twenty-seven,” Gabriel said. “But most days, I feel like I’m fifty.”
Seeming more relaxed now, Connor sat down on the step, near Gabriel, but not so close that they actually touched. “What did you see during the war?”
The memories trickled up into his mind, but this time, they didn’t overwhelm him. “Too many things. I saw omegas being mated to death. Sometimes they would service twenty alphas in a night. I saw them beaten for the slightest complaint. We marched across a battlefield once, and the English were throwing grenades at us. I saw omegas with their limbs blown off, still alive, some of them on fire. They buried them in mass graves. Some of them weren’t even dead when they buried them. I’ve seen omegas with their limbs rotting off because no one could be bothered to treat their wounds. I saw a group of men forcing an omega to drink their piss and laughing when he choked. I saw a woman with her bowels ripped out because an alpha had knotted her and then got bored before his knot went down, so he pulled it out and pulled half her guts along with it. And I’ve seen every rank of the army from the newest soldier to the highest general turn a blind eye to the atrocities done to our fellow human beings, because giving a shit was simply too much hard work. Honestly, I think I’ve just given up on the human race. We’re a dreadful species, and as far as alphas are concerned, I think most of us deserve to burn in hell.” He finally trailed off, not daring to look at Connor. He’d probably just scared the shit out of him all over again.