Page 13 of Your Wild Omega (The Feral Actress #2)
Chapter ten
Callisto
It’s a four-hour drive out of the city to the shutdown trafficking hub.
Agent Brett Walens, the agent who rescued Red, agreed to bring me out after overhearing me asking about the place.
It seems everyone in the agency’s saying good things about the lawyers brought in to assist with the prosecution.
Probably because we’ve been getting positive results in the trials so far.
Just not in Red’s case.
Brett parks the car outside a gloomy tunnel barricaded off with metal fencing and OCB caution tape.
A warm spring sun shines down on us as we get out to look around the woodsy outcropping.
Although green grass covers the rocky ground underfoot, heavy vehicles clearly tore up the area in the past, leaving deep wheel tracks.
It feels like Red’s been in my life for a long time, but in reality, she’s only been free for a few months.
The agent shades his eyes. “Looks a bit different now.” He waves at the dark tunnel as he unlocks the temporary gate.
“When we came for the raid, this opening was hidden behind a roller door painted to camouflage with the rest of the hillside. I tell you, these fuckers are as sly as they come.” Brett switches on a flashlight and points out the blast marks as we step into the shadowed mouth.
The strong white beam cuts through the dark as we follow the tunnel, making me feel edgy, as if we’re on a real sting mission.
The back of my neck tingles with alertness and I scan over my shoulder regularly until we reach the facility’s entrance.
Brett uses a special keycard to get through the dented metal door and then labors over a fuse box, muttering to himself as he figures out which switches control the lighting.
Bright white lights tick on one at a time, moving away from us down a long corridor.
“What was your impression that day?” I ask as we follow a polished concrete hallway. The speckled flooring curves up to meet walls painted a pale lemony color, with wooden handrails bolted on at waist height.
“Well, on first impression, it looks the same as a hospital, right?” He lifts his nose and sniffs.
“Bit staler now without the AC running, but it smelled like one, all disinfectant and whatnot.” He points ahead.
“But the deeper you go, the more horrors appear. Rooms with electronic locks requiring a keycard to get through.”
“The omegas’ rooms?” I ask.
“Yeah.” He pauses at an intersection and turns.
“Down that way, the guys found fully equipped surgery rooms and science labs. Most of the stuff is with the evidence team now, but the way the forensics guys talked about it, these bastards experimented with cutting-edge memory manipulation, and even bond altering.” Brett touches his fingers to his shoulder and shudders.
I can’t see it through his uniform, but given his comment, he must have a bond scar beneath.
It’s rare for alphas to accept a bond mark from another alpha. While a bond gives access to the other person’s emotions, it can also allow a degree of influencing, especially if the bond-giver has dominant tendencies. It would require a lot of trust to willingly enter that arrangement.
The idea weighs on me as I follow Brett. I can’t picture myself ever submitting to another alpha. I’m more the dominant type, at least verbally, so whenever I thought about a pack, I imagined I’d be the prime alpha.
But then I went and rejected my omega.
If I’d kept her by my side, would she have taken my name? I snort softly. Red Wren doesn’t have the same ring as Red Jones.
Brett clears his throat, drawing my attention back to the inspection. “So, up to this point, it still seems like a medical facility, right? But the true hell hides way in the back.”
We march through some long, twisty corridors, but the agent seems to know exactly where he’s headed. When I ask, he flashes a wry smile.
“That day’s kind of imprinted in my skull. And not in a good way. While all the action happened back in the first wing, my partner and I came down here to check for back exits. That’s when we heard her.”
He stops in front of a door and his chest heaves with a deep breath. He flicks a light switch on the outside wall and pushes the door open, beckoning me to go ahead.
In front of me is a stark room, three or four yards deep and the same wide.
A stainless-steel counter with a sink runs along the end wall, facing a padded bed bolted to the floor.
My heart sinks. Thick leather wrist and ankle restraints dangle over the edges, and another for the neck arches near the head of the bed.
Even months after it’s been vacated, Red’s haze scent clings to the walls and the padded bed.
Other, fouler odors leach through the paint and scratches mark the back of the door, along with dull red stains.
Blood. My throat closes up, the walls seeming to shrink even with the light on and the door open.
Brett leans on the doorframe, ensuring we won’t get accidentally locked in. “This is where we found the omega called O-11.”
“How—” My voice cracks and I try again. “How long was she in here?”
Brett shakes his head sadly. “Hard to know exactly, but there was a full bucket of excrement, suggesting weeks, if not more. She said she had months-old haze on her. The smell was unbearable, and the light made her scream.” He strokes around his nose and winces, clearly picking up traces of the captivity scents.
Then his mouth curves up with a hint of a smile.
“First thing she did, after cursing us out for taking so long to find her, was demand a shower.”
He offers me a pair of gloves and I tug them over my hands before stepping further inside. My hands twitch as I lift my phone to take pictures—the OCB has official photos for prosecuting, but this is personal now. Every piece of evidence will help me build a picture for the jury.
But the real story cements in my mind as I run my fingers over the leather belts, finding one wrist restraint roughly sawed through—the picture of Red’s past, when she was trapped in a dark room, praying for her alphas to come.
I lean on the bed, winded. Overlaying this room comes the image of the nest in my apartment, trashed beyond recognition with the string lights cut and pillows snowing across the floor. A small dark room the same as this one. No wonder she can’t even walk past it without twitching.
And the way she screamed and cried through her heat like she was being murdered. Because she nearly was, so many times.
My omega spent months in this dark room before rescue, trapped by these restraints as that devil alpha fucked and edged her while others stuck needles into her.
And I asked her to relive the ordeal, saying it was just words.
Suddenly I can’t breathe. I rest my hand on my chest, gasping as my entire body tightens so hard my bones might break. I drop to one knee, hunching down to get smaller, balancing against the edge of the bed. Tears rush down my cheeks to catch in my beard.
The fact Red’s walking around smiling and talking is a miracle. No, it’s the result of her sheer determination to move forward, and her impeccable acting skills. I can’t blame her for clinging to Zack and refusing to put him back in a cage for any reason. And I thought she was nuts.
I’m the insane, misguided one.
A warm hand rests on my back. “Hey. You all right, Callisto? Is it chest pain?”
Fuck, yes, my heart hurts, but not for the reason he’s thinking. “Just . . . give me . . . a minute,” I wheeze. What did Ricky tell me to do? Breathe. Look at my fingers. Count.
I roll my fingertips together, examining the knuckles as I count to three over and over, gasping in snatches of air. I glance under my arm at the open doorway. Ricky promised there’s enough air in the room for me to breathe, but this space is smaller.
Gradually I lengthen the counts to four. For a long time, I fear I’ll be stuck this way for eternity, quivering on my knees and clinging to Red’s captivity bed like it owns me. But I promise myself over and over it will pass, and then it does, fading so slowly I don’t notice the loosening at first.
My hands ache from clenching and my ribs feel bruised, but finally I can draw a deep breath. I fall onto my ass and stretch out my numb legs.
“Sorry, man,” Brett says, passing me a water bottle he got from who knows where.
I eye the seal, but it snaps cleanly as I twist the lid. “Thanks,” I mutter. My hand quivers and the liquid spills over my lips to run down my neck and chest.
The agent sighs. “Damn. I should have warned you more.” He swivels on his heel and clicks his tongue as he looks around. “They’re some twisted shits all right.”
I nod, leaning back against the wall near the door. Red would have sat here too, braced against this very surface, waiting for rescue. “My hat’s off to you for doing this on the daily,” I tell Brett.
His mouth wrinkles. “Thanks. We get some dark days for sure, but no matter what the omegas have been through, my takeaway is that we got them out.” He eyes me up and down, and squats to take the bottle from me when my hand quivers. “It really affected you, huh?”
“She’s my scent match,” I admit softly, pointing the water bottle toward the bed before passing it to him.
“Oh, fuck.” His eyes widen and the color drains from his face. “I thought you were just her lawyer.”
I laugh bitterly and rest my head on my arms, braced over my knees. “Yeah, that’s all I am, because I was too busy with my work to—” Fuck, it hurts.
He drops his hand on my shoulder momentarily, keeping silent.
I bet he of all people would understand that we humans are complicated beasts.
After a few minutes, I pull myself together and get to my feet.
I snap more photos around the room, locking my exhausted emotions down behind a wall of numbness.
If I chose my work over her, then I at least need to make sure I deliver on these cases.
Once I’ve finished taking pictures, Brett gathers some samples from the room, gouging out chips of paint and cutting a section of the padded bed as well as the one dangling strap.
“I’ll send you my detailed notes from the day, with everything the omega said,” he mutters as he drops them in an evidence bag.
“Hope you can lock the fuckers away forever.”
“Me too,” I say darkly. “Let me get another picture of that strap before you bag it.” The opposing counsel will want any evidence not collected on the day thrown out, but this case will go down to a jury, so let them see the straps that held my omega in place.
As we leave the compound, breaking out into daylight once more, Brett clears his throat.
He tosses his keys from one hand to the other as he catches my gaze over the car roof.
“It’s not my place to comment, but that omega struck me as a real survivor who knows her own mind, the kind who won’t let any shit stand in her way. I suggest you don’t give up either.”
I nod, acknowledging his comment, before folding myself into the passenger seat.
He’s right. Red won’t give up on anything.
I tell Brett I plan to catch some sleep on the way home, and he passes me a cushion from the back seat. I nest it against the seat belt and headrest and close my eyes.
If Red’s willing to commit a crime to rescue one of her alphas from prison, isn’t there a possibility she’ll give me another chance? She let me help her through her heat, after all. She wants me—I just need to step up my game.
Instead of criticizing her choices, I’ll become her biggest supporter. I’ll court her with the same level of determination she’s had to survive.
Then she’ll accept me as her alpha.