Page 18 of Ruined Omega

CHAPTER 7: TALIESIN

In the darkness of the little bedroom, I hold Hines’s body beneath mine, pressing one hand over her mouth to keep her from shouting. She is shivering with startled nervousness.

Gradually, she stops struggling beneath me. The smell of her scent mingled with my own excites and arouses me. My cock swells and throbs with desire, and my animal instincts are screaming at me to claim her body—by force if necessary. It would be so easy to pry her soft thighs apart and bury myself to the root in that tender hole that I can smell so very clearly right now.

But I must master those urges. This is neither the time nor the place for pleasure.

Although my throbbing balls disagree with me, there are more pressing matters at hand.

“There’s someone in your home,” I repeat. “And they are not the police.”

When I sense that Hines understands, I slowly draw my hand away from her mouth. I’m ready to cover it again at a moment’s notice if she should try to scream. She does not.

“Who is it?” she whispers, her voice barely louder than a breath.

“Don’t know. Come look.”

I lead her into the front room. Her tiny body is almost completely swallowed up by my trench coat, which she is wearing. She looks cute like that. I would probably smile under less dire circumstances. Now, however, I steer her toward the window and guide her to peer out from the shadows. With the lights off inside my hideout, nobody can see in. But we can see them well enough.

In the street below, a cadre of men are milling about. They are clad in black—black caps, black t-shirts, black tactical pants, black combat boots. They are armed with automatic rifles, also matte black, and they have high caliber polymer-frame pistols holstered on their hips as well. Their vehicles, four black sedans, have blocked off the streets the way cops would do. But there are no lights, no badges, and no yellow tape.

Like I said, these guys aren’t cops.

There are more of them inside the building. I can see them moving around inside Hines’s apartment, the yellow-white circles of their flashlights licking along the walls and floor as they search her sparse dwelling place.

Beside me, Hines’s body suddenly grows rigid.

“Oh no!” she whispers.

She moves to the telescope and drops her face to the eyepiece

“Oh no, no, no…”

“What is it?”

“My computer!”

Even without the aid of the telescope, I can see into her apartment well enough. One of the flashlight beams has fallen on her small, fastidiously neat desk and the compact laptop computer that is lying there closed.

The not-cop moves closer to it. Opens it.

“You can get a new computer,” I say.

Hines pulls back from the telescope and stares up at me with a worried look. Something in those big, round eyes filled with fear and concern stabs at my heart.

“You don’t understand,” she whimpers. “There’s information on that computer, Tal. Valuable information. If it falls into the wrong hands…”

I turn back to the window. Across the street, the man has powered up her computer, and the screen is glowing softly as the operating system boots up.

“Maybe these guys aren’t the wrong hands,” I suggest. “We can’t be sure.”

But as soon as I say it, I know it’s bullshit. Whoever these guys are, they definitely aren’t on our side. I hate to think what would be happening to Hines right now if they had caught her at home. That thought heats my blood and tightens my scowl.

“Please,” Hines begs. “Tal, we have to do something.”

“Do what?” I ask.

Across the street, the guy is now tapping at the keyboard. He seems to have been thwarted by the login password.