Her voice is scratchy, and she cringes, setting a hand to her throat. It’s possible she hasn’t spoken for months, and like everything else, her voice will take time to heal.
“It’s over, dear girl,” Mai says, a soft smile on her face.
Aimee gives herself over to Mai’s care and I take the quiet moment to slip into Ian’s arms, hugging him tightly.
“You did it,” I say, wonder in my voice.
“We did, my darling. Together.”
* * *
It takesIan a full day to unlock all the collars. One by one, the once-captive omegas find their voices again. Most speak to Graeme willingly, and the few that don’t speak to me. In time, we figure out who each of the omegas are. Many align with recent missing persons reports, but a fair few are from mainland China, trafficked here by my own villainous family, and we’re forced to rely on my very poor Mandarin to translate. Others came from Omega Rehabilitation Centers, and we’re able to trace where they come from against the ORC intake data Simon blithely steals from the centers.
Those that have families to return to are eager to do so, but it isn’t that simple.
For better or for worse, these aren’t omegas the world is willing to throw into rehab centers and forget about.
Not anymore.
The powers behind Project Halcyon know these women and the affinities they possess; they won’t let them return to their families or vanish into obscurity. Even a sovereign sanctuary state won’t be enough to protect them.
Cassian goes back and forth with his father, Gerard, trying to figure out what can be done to protect the newly freed omegas, but it’s ultimately decided that they’re safest where they are—for now. But Graeme’s safe houses are only a temporary solution.
While they’re scared, they’re also resilient. Andfuriousat what Radcliffe Industries has done to them—rightly so. Though they’re fearful, many allow Jack to record their testimonies as long as their faces will be obscured and their names withheld. Jack is gentle and patient with them, and Mai and I stay close, ready to offer comfort and encouragement if necessary.
Their stories are harrowing and heartbreaking. The injustices they’ve suffered are too numerous to count and too horrific to imagine, yet Jack and Graeme diligently take down every single detail.
There isn’t enough evidence against Rose Pharmaceuticals in the testimonies Jack and Graeme record to bring my father’s company down along with Radcliffe Industries, but there’s more than enough to damn the defense firm.
Jack disappears for a few days and when he reemerges from whatever hole he crawled into to work, he has an hour-long exposé about the facility, the collars, and the captured omegas. He’s circumspect while still telling a compelling story. Body cam clips are spliced with drone footage of the Fairhaven PD securing the facility long after the resistance had left, and through it all, the omegas that the facility once held are given a voice. Jack narrates throughout, explaining the imagery on screen. If I hadn’t been to the facility myself, if I hadn’t seen what Radcliffe Industries was doing firsthand, I would be horrified after seeing Jack’s exposé, and I only hope the world will feel the same.
* * *
Jack tendershis resignation the morning before the exposé goes live, and the moment he returns to Graeme’s small row house, Simon hits send on an anonymous email containing a link to the video to every single contact in Jack’s address book,
Though Jack never shows his face in the exposé, his voice is recognizable enough that his phone starts blowing up a mere hour later. Within three hours, Jack’s exposé is on every public and private news channel in Canada and the United States, and is gaining wide coverage in online publications around the world.
I watch the news spread like wildfire with my pack and two of the alphas who made it happen. We cram together in Graeme’s living room, bathed in the light of his ancient tube TV, Jack flicking through the channels as Simon surfaces article after article on his laptop.
All around us, the world burns.
The public demands to hear from Radcliffe Industries and the Prime Minister that let this happen on Canadian soil.
Picketers flock to Radcliffe Industries facilities around the world, and the deeper journalists dig into the defense firm, the more they find. Every new discovery damns them, and with each discovery come civil rights suits.
Rad is caught on camera by persistent, opportunistic reporters everywhere he goes, and I watch the cracks form in his golden-boy mask as he denies all involvement in the collar project. A vice president in R&D takes the fall for all of it: the secret facility, the omega test subjects, and the brutal demonstration on All Saints’ Eve.
But despite Radcliffe Industries’ fall guy claiming all culpability, Rad remains a topic of interest. It isn’t long before the mysterious death of Heather Lindstrom is front-page news once again.
His life is dissected and documented, and, one by one, people come forward. A former Fairhaven Academy student alleges sexual assault. Members of his pack’s household staff speak out about the type of young man he was—and everything they hid. The media pries back his mask and captures everything about him, just like he once captured every detail about me, stalking my every move while hidden behind mage tech.
It comes to a head when a cellphone video surfaces, and the video sends shock waves through my pack.
Someone discreetly filmed my heated argument with Rad in the restaurant in downtown Fairhaven. They caught his coarse words and my snarled rejoinder.
“There’s no such thing as an innocent omega. You’re all filthy, lying temptresses. Not one of you deserves to live as anything but a slave or breeder.”
“You fucking monster!”
