“Yeah,” I said, my tongue feeling thick and numb. “That. Give me that.”
This far away from Jez and Heath, the effects of her pheromones were already starting to wear off. But I needed to be able to get close to them again without losing my shit.
Tony set the bottle down and started searching through the plastic drawers until he came up with a sealed syringe and needle. “Intramuscular, right? Because if it’s intravenous, I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing.”
“Jus’ stick it in my arm,” I slurred. “S’good enough.”
Tony squinted at the tiny print on the side of the bottle. Apparently satisfied, he squinted at the markings on the syringe and nodded. “Okay. No big deal. Just a little jab.”
I peeled off my jacket as I watched him draw up the dose through the little rubber membrane on the bottle lid. He let out a breath and came over to my left side, shoving my shirtsleeve out of his way. I barely felt the needle going in, past the clamoring inside my body formate-pack-sex. The contents of the syringe were cold, but they still burned as they spread outward from the injection site.
Tony backed off and looked around uncertainly before placing the spent needle on the countertop. “Better?” he asked.
“About the same,” I told him. “But give it a minute, and I’ll be able to get close to them without freaking out.”
Tony nodded. “Look... I don’t want to be the one to tempt fate. But if there are cameras recording everything in this place, doesn’t that mean other people might be watching? And if they know what’s been happening, isn’t there a pretty good chance of them showing up with a bunch of musclebound guys and guns?”
“Uh-huh,” I agreed. “There sure is. Which is why we need to get Jez and Heath, and get the fuck outta here.”
Tony blanched. “O-kay. And... how are we going to do that, exactly?”
I closed my eyes, trying to force my gray matter to work.
“We need the van,” I muttered.
“There’s a van outside,” Tony pointed out. “We could steal it, I guess?”
But I immediately shook my head. “I don’t want anything connecting us to this place, once we leave.” Thoughts were coming more easily now. I pulled out my recovered phone. “I’ll get our van here.”
I texted Bud, the driver who chauffeured Knox’s limo in addition to helping us run recovered omegas to safety.
How fast do you need it? came the reply.
Triple your hourly rate if you can get it here in twenty minutes, I replied.
“On its way,” I told Tony. “Next order of business—I want to do a search of this warehouse before we leave. That kid who ran off didn’t come outta nowhere. Can you keep an eye on the lovebirds while I do that?”
Tony blanched. “Maybe you should watch them while I search.”
I patted my shoulder holster. “I’m the one with the gun. You don’t have to go in with them or nothing. Just camp out in the hallway where you can yell like crazy if anyone tries to go in or out.”
The kid looked like he’d rather pull his own toenails out by the roots, but after a short hesitation, he nodded.
“Don’t take too long,” he said.
I knew I should probably be more worried about the fact that his panties were in a twist... but whatever his problem was, he was going to have to deal with it until we were safely out of this shithole. Pulling my gun, I gave him a final nod and headed out for the quickest search I could manage.
Dampeners or no, I gave the hallway where Heath was knotting our mate a wide berth, sticking to the areas that seemed to be in use. My first major find was a room set up with tables and a dozen or more CCTV screens. The setup was powered by another one of those big portable battery-powered inverters, with a spaghetti tangle of extension cords and power strips.
It took precious time to sort out the file storage system, and there was some shit on there that seriously made me want to puke. I clenched my jaw and sorted through the folders until I found the footage they’d taken of Heath and Jez.
I had to pause and rewind the part where Jez nearly chewed an alpha asshole’s hand off at the wrist, then stabbed him in the neck with his own knife despite the fact that her wrists were bound together.
Jesus H. Christ. That was another corpse for her collection.
When I was pretty confident that I had everything I needed, I wiped my packmate’s files and left the rest for the police. Because as unhappy as it made me, the police were about to become involved.
One of the cameras was pointed at a cell full of underage omegas packed in like sardines. And while I might want a perfect world where Tony and I could whisk them away to safety without the additional trauma of getting chewed up and spat out by the legal system, they weren’t exactly going to be able to share the back of the van with Heath and Jez.
