A high-ranking officer is dead…
Dozens of bodies have been found…
Dozens? Really? It was three…
The stories get wilder and more elaborate the longer we are sequestered during the ascent into space. I just killed arguably the most important person in their viral program. They don’t know where the culprit is, whether it was an internal hit or an external party that’s still on board.
Hell, their version of the virus does some strange things; maybe they think it’s finally sending them crazy. Maybe these random acts of violence have been happening for a long time. It wouldn’t surprise me, and it’s not like they would advertise the fact.
Not my fucking problem. Fuck! When I get my hands on her, her ass is going to be cherry red, and she’ll be one sorry little omega.
But I’ve got to find her first.
Esme
We have taken off. The pressure, followed by a brief moment of weightlessness before the false gravity kicked in, tells me as much.
Our destination is unknown.
The door to the tiny room opens, and two guards wade inside. It takes a moment before I realize I’m their target, and when I do, fresh panic sets in. The other prisoners don’t even stir as the two guards drag me out.
They hustle me into a sterile white room, which rouses a fresh fight in me.
My resistance yields nothing. They are bigger and stronger. My armor is cut from my body before they shove me through some kind of chemical shower, followed by a tech detector.
Then they hold me down, cut my tracker from the underside of my arm, and incinerate it before my eyes.
Naked, I’m escorted to a different boxy room that smells of misery and blood with real mental bars on one wall. Prisoners are crammed into the small space, omegas mostly, but several betas and even a heavily sedated alpha, all naked like me, most of them battered and bloody. Hurt during the raid, perhaps trying to flee only to be captured.
Or maybe this is just symptomatic of how they’ve been kept.
I sit in the corner, huddled in on myself, feeling more wretched than I have ever been in my life.
So stupid, Esme.
The guards pacing outside the bars are edgy. One of them keeps checking his weapon, as if we might pose a credible threat. Another mutters too low for me to hear, but I can sense his agitation and fear coming off him in psychic waves.
They’re rattled. But I’m confused as to why this emotion lingers when we have long since taken off.
Things become apparent the longer I sit there.
Something is definitely off with the guards. Why are there guards at all…and armed? It simply doesn’t make sense. It’s not like any of us can break past those thick bars. Nor are they watching us. Instead, they’re watching the door, almost like they are waiting for an attack…
Oh, God. Is he here? On this ship?
Zeb is no ordinary soldier. I’ve already concluded he was working on a high-level mission. High enough to bring him onto the ship in the first place.
He is no ordinary alpha.He knotted me for goodness’ sake—he smacked the recruiter’s face into the desk without missing a beat. He won’t go on a rampage when he finds out I’ve been taken. That’s what a regular alpha would do. No, he’s going to be calm and collected. He’s going to be focused.
He’s going to come after me.
I put my head in my hands.
I came here to try and save him, only he didn’t need saving, did he? And now my very actions have put him into danger he didn’t deserve or need.
The cold desperation of our prison and my painful ruminations do not last for long before a greater terror comes. Alphas arrive, selecting omegas and hustling them roughly away.
“Where are they taking them?” I whisper to the younger omega next to me. Her haunted eyes and abused mind tell me she has been a prisoner for a while.
