“Are you feeling sick?” Panic filled me as I pressed a hand to her forehead and to her neck and found that she was clammy to the touch. “Tibby, talk to me.”
Instead of speaking, I watched her hand lift until she pointed up, and I caught my first glimpse at what had made her react like this.
On top of one of the neighboring buildings, was an electronic billboard, and on that billboard was a picture of Tibby with the words “HAVE YOU SEEN ME?”
What the fuck?I could hardly believe my eyes as I took in the billboard. Cobb joined us on the terrace, barking into his phone as he glared up at the billboard. “Get that shit down, ASAP. I don’t care how you do it, Emerson, just get it down!”
Tibby was still silently staring up at the billboard with faraway eyes as her lips mouthed the words: ‘have you seen me’ over and over. I stepped in front of her, blocking her view of the billboard and putting my hands on either side of her face, “Tibby, sweetheart, please look at me.” My slippered feet crunched on the glass of the mug that she had dropped.
My words didn’t seem to be enough to get through to her though, instead, she just stared right through me as if I didn’t exist, and she was still looking up at that damned billboard.
“Tibby!” I never barked, it wasn’t in my nature, but something about the way that she had gone far away was really scaring me.
Omegas could almost never resist a bark, and Tibby was no different. She blinked once, and then twice, before finally drawing in a deep shuddering gasp and immediately going into panic mode. Her hands gripped my forearms tightly as if she was afraid that I was going to disappear if she let me go.
“We have to go. We have to get out of here. He knows where I am.” Her words came between ragged intakes of air as she lifted her foot to begin to walk. Remembering the glass, I didn’t let her put her foot down, choosing instead to sweep her off of her feet with a grunt.
“Matteo put me down,” Tibby protested weakly as I strode away from the terrace, Cobb following closely behind me. “You don’t understand. He’s coming for me, and you are all in danger, he knows exactly where I am and he’s going to hurt you all.”
I ignored her protests as we reentered the living room and I deposited her on the couch, “Cobb, can you please grab the first aid kit from underneath the sink?” I asked as I began to prod at her feet which, just as I had feared, had been sliced open by the glass mug. I cursed under my breath, and used my phone flashlight to see if there were any shards left in the soft soles of her feet.
Cobb handed me the white metal box, and I pulled out all of the things that I would need, gauze, tweezers, hydrogen peroxide, and Neosporin.
“You’re safe, Tibby,” Cobb reassured her and sat down next to her pulling her in close, but despite his confident words, the beta looked as rattled as I felt. I didn’t understand how the bastard was able to put his little taunt on one billboard let alone, based on what I’d heard of Cobb’s conversation, multiple billboards throughout the city. I was pretty sure he didn’t have access to funds like that, which meant that he had a certain level of skill when it came to computers and technology.
“I’m not safe though, am I? He knows exactly where I’m at, he’s like a wild animal that’s decided that it wants to play with its food rather than just kill it and get it over with.” Tibby’s eyes filled with tears that she angrily swiped at with her fingers, “I hate that this asshole is making me feel this afraid. It isn’t fair.”
I put on a pair of gloves and began to extract the tiny slivers of glass from Tibby’s feet, wincing every time that she hissed in pain. The cuts weren’t too bad, but she had definitely stepped in the glass before I made it out there to pick her up. They’d be sore and tender for a few days, but there wouldn’t be any lasting damage.
“If it makes you feel any better, it doesn’t seem like he knows where you are exactly. At least thirty other electronic billboards were hacked into and changed sometime last night.”
I shot Cobb an incredulous look, how the hell was that supposed to make her feel any better? That made me feel the complete opposite of better, in fact, it made me want to grab Tibby and run for the hills, trial be damned.
Of course, my little omega never reacted the way that I thought she would, instead she sniffed and asked: “Really?”
“Really. He’s trying to mess with you, but we would never ever let anything happen to you.” Cobb pressed a kiss to her temple, and her body seemed to finally relax as I finished fishing glass out of her foot.
I sanitized her foot with the hydrogen peroxide and used a q-tip to lather Neosporin on the cuts before wrapping it and pressing a kiss to the gauze. I looked up and met her eyes which were finally dry and less panicky. “Try not to hurt yourself, Tibbamagoo. My soft little heart can’t take it.” I stood up from where I’d sat on the coffee table and gave her a chaste kiss. I was glad that everything had calmed down pretty quickly, and I was just putting the first aid kit away when Aria burst into the room and wrecked our temporary calm.
“Turn on the TV.” She told Cobb who scrambled to grab the remote, “Local news 6.” She added, a grim look on her face.
Cobb flipped the channel until the TV screen was filled with a generic-looking blonde woman who was sitting at a glass table. Next to her head, a graphic of Hezekiah Jordan’s mugshot filled the screen.
“Breaking news. This morning our news station received an anonymous tip after strange billboards began to pop up all around the city of San Francisco.” A photo of one of the billboards with Tibby’s face on it flashed on the screen and Tibby’s gasp of dismay filled the room.
“Our investigative team was able to confirm, just moments ago, that the woman pictured is an omega named Tabitha Sinclair. Who, according to court documents, was one of the five original trial witnesses. Not only that, but this young omega was actually a child bride of the famed cult leader. We do not know yet why her face has popped up all over the city, but with the trial only three and half weeks away we are curious: Who exactlyisTabitha Sinclair?”
“Son of a bitch!” Cobb cursed as his phone began to ring and he answered it with a harsh hello. “Yeah. Yeah. Of course, I just fucking saw it, Emerson. You get Director Cruz on the line right fucking now.” He growled into his phone.
Aria was glaring at the television screen as the phone, which she’d been holding in a white-knuckled grip against her chest, also began to ring. Aria glanced at Tibby, who’d gone completely silent as she stared at her face up on the TV screen, before pointing at me. “Call Theo and tell him to get his ass back here. This is about to turn into a media shitshow of nuclear proportions.”
I didn’t need to be told twice, and I snatched my phone off of the coffee table, tapping Theo’s contact picture. The phone rang a couple of times before he answered.
“What’s up?”
I didn’t bother to say hello, instead I just said: “You need to get back here, ASAP.”
Theo’s tone immediately shifted to serious, “what’s going on?”
