We had been hanging out playing video games when she called. Summer was about to start and she had been invited to a graduation party. She shouldn’t have been drinking, but at least she was responsible enough to call Jacks for a ride. She told him she didn’t want to call the dads because they would be mad at her since she wasunderage. So, the four of us piled into Jacks’ beater and away we went. It took us about half an hour to get there—the party was out by the lake, a bunch of drunk idiot kids doing drunk idiot kid stuff.
The police and ambulance were already there when we arrived.
Janey had been waiting for us outside. In theory, it was safer than risking passing out around a bunch of drunk idiots, but apparently someone found her half nodding off, waiting by the road, a small defenseless omega. Not as defenseless as she seemed, they were able to retrieve blood and skin samples from her nails where she had scratched and bitten hard enough to draw blood. Some of the blood was hers, apparently alphas don’t like being denied, and they hit her, hard and repeatedly.
Not that they needed samples, really. The guy was still there, bleeding from several deep scratches from the face and chest where she tried to escape as he….
He was her ex–a college guy she had dated briefly, but broke up with a couple months ago. Apparently he had been stalking her, found out where she was going to be. He came out himself to “talk.” Try to get her to take him back. She wasn’t taking anybody back now. He hit her too hard.
No summer vacation, no college, no future pack or family.
No Janey.
When Jacks saw the blood and semen he lost it–completely off the deep end. It took three officers to pull him off. I’m not ashamed to admit, we were no help. Xan was the only one of us who was able to maintain any composure and he was wrapped around Jacks in the back of thecruiser, rocking them both and purring as hard as he could for his best friend.
We tried, at first, but…the longer we were there the harder it was to hold back. There was a mess to clean up, police all over, the ambulance’s lights continued to strobe as they cleaned the guy up. Stitching his chest and face up from Janey, and suturing his eyebrow from where Jacks attacked him. They said they needed to stop the bleeding before he could be taken to jail.
Why the fuck should he get patched up and sent on his way when he had snuffed out the bright light that was our sister? I saw Gabe move first, he was built like a big, lumbering bear. He pushed aside the barricade and started towards the ambulance, but the police from earlier were watching, and after Jacks they were better prepared.
They bundled Gabe into another patrol car, but they were so busy with him that they didn’t notice me. I circled around, behind the car–through the crowd of drunken gawkers, staring at the white sheet that covered our sister. Around the front of the ambulance. They didn’t see me lift the scalpel from the EMT cart. They finally saw when I jammed it into the guy's eye socket, and he started screaming.
But by then the damage was done…just like Janey. I couldn't kill him, there would be no coming back from that, but I could deal with an assault charge. Temporary insanity at seeing my pack sister’s corpse, at hearing the devastated screams of my brother–yeah, I am pretty sure I could swing the insanity plea.
Igot slammed to the ground, but I wasn’t fighting. I’d done what I needed to do. I'm not sure where the extra police came from, but they were on me then. Looking up I could see the EMT was staring down at me, horrified. Fair enough, I’m not proud of my actions, but this fuck shouldn’t get to walk away with nothing but a few scratches.
Jacks was screaming again in the back of the cruiser with Xan still clinging to him like a koala, Gabe was throwing himself against the inside door. I couldn’t see them well from where I lay pinned to the ground. But I could hear it all. Two people were sitting on my back, to keep me from moving, cold metal around my wrist. I didn’t struggle, I knew I would get caught, but I couldn’t just sit there. There’s movement to the side and something slams into the back of my head.
When I came to in the hospital, my pack brothers were in the room with me. Apparently one of the beta officers got a little too overzealous with a baton and nearly cracked my skull. I was being held for observation due to the possibility of a concussion.
My family came the next morning to bring me home. Mom was crying—I don’t know if it was because of me or Janey.
Her funeral was the following week, the last week of school. None of us bothered to finish the semester. It all seemed so unimportant by then, and Jacks couldn’t be around people. He blamed himself too much. If he had just gotten there sooner. If we hadn’t finished the kart race before leaving.
There were less than five minutes between her phone call and his car pulling out of the driveway, we went straight to pick her up,we all know that there is no real way we could have gotten there in time.
But Jacks still blamed himself. He retreated, just disappeared into his own mind. His dads were no better, so they couldn’t really be there for Jacks either–but we were. Xan stayed at his house most days, sleeping over. If his parents had a problem with it, I never heard. He made sure that Jacks ate, slept, and showered. Gabe and I were there when we could be, but I had to deal with police and court stuff, and Gabe was my support. Thankfully I was still underage enough to be treated as a juvenile, so I didn’t go to jail.
By the end of summer most things had returned to normal. Everyone else seems to have moved on, forgotten about her. But Jacks had lost a lot of weight, despite all of Xan’s attempts. We went back to school, but he kept getting into fights. Finally, he broke a classmate’s arm, and was expelled. The guy deserved it. He had decided to be a dumbass and talk shit about Janey.
Jacks didn’t bother with any sort of school after that. His dads were essentially gone, they didn’t talk to him–or anybody else for that matter. So we took him to stay at Gabe’s house. Gabe’s parents were cool, and it was right next door anyway. But Jacks was broken.
The guy who killed Janey, that fucking murdering rapist. He was 19 and he only served a few years in prison.
”Shouldn’t have his life ruined over one mistake.” was the defense.
Life went on for everyone else. Not for Jacks, he was just stuck. And not for the rest of us, who were stillwith Jacks. He was, for all intents and purposes, our baby brother, we wouldn’t leave him behind.
Chapter 21
Xan and I take Candice in to file the police report. She's nervous and twitchy, and I can’t really blame her. This is all sorts of fucked up. She says she made some announcements online on the forum for her job about her car and apologized again for delays. None of them know about her being an omega either, so she’s trying to balance how much information she gives out.
A few of the people she works with stepped forward, offering words of encouragement, or money to help pay for car repairs. She says she isn’t comfortable taking charity. One person blew up her chat with messages while we were waiting at the police department, insisting that they could help, and wanted to send money for support after everything she has been through.
I’m tempted to take the phone away and tell them off.Weare here to supportouromega, she doesn’t need some random person online doing it.
Taking some deep breaths, I need to calm down. They don’t know she’s an omega, they don’t know she’s a female. They don’t know she has a pack now. I try to take all this in stride while still paying attention to Candice and the officers she’s talking to. It’s taking all my control not to growl at some of these assholes who are getting too close to her.
The officers who saw her when her tires got slashed are there too, more alphas. I didn’t pay attention before, but they’re too close right now, giving our girl shit for not coming in sooner.
