Trent drew his hands into fists, frustration soaking into him. Hewantedto keep walking. He wanted to tell them to fuck off, that this wasn’t his problem.
He remembered the last real time they’d talked, when Trent had broken down and told them he was leaving the FBI, when he’d thrown in the towel. He’d needed them then, but what had happened?
They’d taken the move as some sort of insult and kept right on going with their own lives.
But then he thought about the omegas he’d helped, the ones he’d trained up from nothing, and there hadbeen a few who had tasted the life the omegas in that auction would be subjected to.
“I can tell you where she probably works out, given how she fought, but that’s all you’re getting from me.”
Daniel crossed his arms, the scowl looking odd on the alpha’s face. Daniel didn’t scowl as a rule, or at least he never had in their long friendship. “You can’t just turn your back on this. It’s important.”
“I told you before, I’m out. I can’t do this again. It nearly fucking dragged me under last time, and you want me to jump back in? Just pick up and follow because you tell me to? Where the hell have you two been for the last eight years?” The question escaped before he could censor it.Fuck.He sounded like a jaded woman, not a man whose friends had moved on when he didn’t fit into their lives anymore.
He didn’t take the words back, though.
Kyle answered him. “What did you want us to do? You decide one day to quit, to just uproot your entire life. Did you want us to do it, too? To give up everything we wanted because you decided it was too hard? We were more than friends, damn it, and you were the one who decided to change it all. You can’t be pissed when we didn’t follow where you decided to go.”
Trent tore his gaze away, hating how neither of them was wrong. Trent had changed the rules, but fuck, Kyle and Daniel had damn well disappeared, as if Trent wasn’t worth even sticking around for. Years of working together, of living together, of taking women together like some fucking little family and all it had taken was quitting the FBI for them to wash their hands of him?
“It doesn’t really matter, does it? Who cares anymore who did what or why or whose damn fault itall was. It’s eight years too late for those conversations. You guys decided you didn’t need me a long time ago. I see no reason why that should change now.” Trent went to walk past them—to where, he didn’t know, since it was his gym.
Kyle caught his arm. “Remember that last case we had?”
Of course he did. It haunted Trent like his own personal poltergeist, keeping him up at night, springing out of the darkness when he finally thought he was free. It hit him like it always did, right in the gut as he recalled the body of the omega in the hospital room, the woman he couldn’t save. Her blood had seemed so dark against her pale skin. “Yeah, I remember.”
“Well we’re trying to save a lot of women from that same fate. Are you really going to turn your back on that? Can you live with yourself knowing that they might all die, and all for your pride?”
No doubt Kyle knew the answer before he asked. Trent looked like a fucking monster, but he wasn’t one, not by a long shot. “Fine,” he growled out. “Tell me what you need.” He turned and jammed a finger in their direction. “But let’s make this fucking clear. I’m helping forthem, not for you. I want you gone as soon as possible.”
“The feeling’s mutual,” Kyle said.
Look at that, we can still agree on something.
* * * *
Alison loved her gym.
Okay, so it wasn’thers, but she spent so much time there, it felt more like her place than her own apartment.
Only her cabin made her feel better, but she hadn’t been back there in over six months.
You know it’s too dangerous.
If she ended up targeted by the slavers, she wanted there to be no connection to anyone. It was why she’d cut ties, why she’d made sure no one could trace her back to the people she cared about.
Her feet struck the treadmill as she ran, sweat running down her back, soaking into her sports bra.
Her failure the other night, paired with her reaction to those alphas, had her needing to run herself to exhaustion just to deal with it.
When she did this, when she pushed her body to its limits and forced it to adapt, she didn’t feel like such a failure. She didn’t feel weak or useless or anything.
Still, today might have been abitmore than usual. The owner of the gym had cast her a few concerned looks—probably didn’t want her passing out and hitting her head—but she waved off his concern as she guzzled down more water.
The steady thump of her feet against the treadmill belt helped relax her. Music in her headphones drowned out the world around her.It let her sink into the rhythm of her steps, into the simple movements that made her feel free.
At least, it did until her machine stopped. She came forward, catching herself on the console, her eyes flying open. Had she accidently pulled the emergency stop? Had she broken the damned thing?
Nope. Even worse.
