“How do you know?” I ask, intrigued. Any chance to learn more about Noah is something I wouldn’t pass up.
“Valak told me before.” It looks like he’s about to say more, but my phone rings and I don’t miss the small smirk of satisfaction on his face. Noah closes the door to my Wrangler, and then he walks away, giving me privacy to take the call.
“It’s Gabriel from the Alliance, checking in to make sure everything is going okay.” His voice is easy to distinguish compared to Valak’s and Noah’s. Gabriel’s is similarly rich and deep, but it’s full of teasing too. “And to give you an update.”
“Thanks for your help before,” I interrupt, remembering that the last time we spoke I forgot all my manners.
He waits for half a second before answering. “I know you were stressed out, so don’t sweat it. Besides, we’ve got a bit of a more pressing issue.”
“With me?” I ask, cautiously hoping for clarification before I know whether or not to start freaking out.
“Yeah. Before you get caught up in a million what-ifs, let me tell you what’s going on and what your options are.”
My stomach dips and I react instinctively, hitting the central locking system to lock Ares and me away from the others.
“What’s going on?” I snap, losing my manners again.
“Back at the carpark, Val did a sweep of your Jeep and he found someone had placed a pretty sophisticated tracker on it. I think that’s how they knew where you would be.”
I counter immediately, because one thing I’m not, is sloppy. “Or so they would know where I was going. I didn’t stop anywhere, not even at a set of lights on my way there tonight.”
“Had you left your car unattended?”
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
Hmmm, here comes the tricky part. Well, the hard part, although it’s easier to lie using the truth.
“Not that it’s relevant, but I was at the Broken Cube concert.”
“Oh, really?” he asks, sounding surprised. “Why?”
“Do I need a reason?”
“Not at all, they’re okay, not my style. We can talk about why you were at a concert by yourself later.”
“Or maybe not,” I say back. A fair bit of spice in my response.
I hear a rumble from him, like a mix of a growl of frustration and a chuckle. “Yeah, you and I are going to get along just fine. Which is lucky.”
“And why is that lucky?”
“Well, see it’s standard procedure when you call for assistance we bring you to the Omega Wellness centre.”
“And yet you started the discussion saying we could talk about my options, but now it really doesn’t sound like you think I have one,” I reply back.
“Under normal circumstances the other option is that we go back to yours and we set up there. But my guess is since you won’t even give me your name, I’ve got sweet fucking chance of getting your address.”
This time it’s my turn to laugh. He’s forthright, which is a relief. Some people skirt the edges of bullshit pretending to be something else, but not him. He’s like a wrecking ball.
“You got that right,” I scoff before the both of us sober up. “Now tell me about the under normal circumstances.”
“Not over the phone. Now look, I know what I am about to tell you kind of sounds shady as hell, because it does, but I’m asking you to trust me and the alphas in front of you.”
I grunt a response at him.
“I’ll take that little weird noise as a win,” he says, and I swear to god I can hear the smirk in his voice. “The people that tried to abduct you have raised about a million red flags on my shit-o-meter, and I’m not wanting to insert any of your details through the Alliance computers because of it. Although at the same time, I’ll be using some information just to keep up appearances.”
