“No, but I only popped in for a minute. You sounded like…” She flinches, reaching to give me a hug. “I’m sorry for whatever happened to you.”
God, I must have been screaming my head off to spook the unflappable ER nurse.
“It’s okay,” I tell her, pulling away and reaching for my shoes. There’s another butterfly curled up in the left one, and I tip it carefully onto the bed. “I’m just overtired. My mind gets away from me sometimes.”
“Is it any wonder, if this is what you find in your bed?” she demands, her anger on my behalf starting to replace her shock. “I don’t know who did this, but I’ll be tearing strips off them when we find out.”
“I’ll be right there with you,” I vow, my heart only starting to settle back into a steady rhythm. On the heels of my nightmare, the butterflies have hit me hard. Working in emergency medicine, we see a lot of violence, and while it’s usually inflicted against our patients, caregivers are sometimes caught in the firing line. We’re trained to look for it in the eyes of family members, to check the parking lot every night before we walk home. Plenty of people appreciate the care we give to omegas, but there are some who see it as meddling. Usually, they’re the assholes who inflicted the trauma in the first place, but every medical practice attracts its share of disturbed people. Is that what’s happened here? Did I piss someone off, or is it just a prank gone horribly wrong?
“Come into the break room and I’ll make you a cup of peppermint tea.”
I nod, my legs trembling as I follow her over to one of the tables and slump into a chair. She bustles back in no time, a cup of tea and a plate of cookies in hand. She watches me as I slowly drink it, the honey she added soothing my raw throat. “I was sent to an omega boardinghouse as a kid. It wasn’t a good experience.”
Not exactly a full confession, but Janice reaches over and squeezes my hand. “I’ve seen how much empathy you have for the really traumatized patients, so I wondered if something like that happened. I’m sorry, Abbie.”
“It was so long ago.” I stare down at the cookie that has crumbled between my fingers. “I don’t know why it still has such a hold over me.”
Janice sighs, and when I look at her, she’s tracing the bite mark on the inside of her wrist. “We’re slaves to our biology, waiting to see which way the cards will fall, and then just when we’re at our most vulnerable,peoplefail us. Those that are supposed to care forus, not our designation. It’s no wonder that leaves a scar.”
It’s my turn to reach over and squeeze her fingers. I don’t know her full story, but it’s clear she’s dealing with her own heartache. “They say time heals all wounds. Maybe we just haven’t waited long enough.”
She gives me a rueful smile. “My therapist says scars are a story of strength. That when we can honestly talk about what happened, the past won’t have such a strong hold on us.” I try to imagine getting to a place where my past will feel like a story of strength, but it’s a stretch, and I’m pretty sure Janice can see the struggle on my face. “I know it can be hard to open up, but if you ever want to talk to my therapist, she’s in the building, and she’s very discreet.”
I nod, even though talking to a civilian about the Iron Flyers is one of those rules I refuse to break. And can anyone blame me, when the club’s Sergeant-at-Arms suddenly appears in the door, his face set in a grim mask as it sweeps the room?
My heart drops into my shoes and I have to grip the edge of the table as I struggle to my feet. “Wings?”
Pitt looks confused for a moment, then shakes his head. “No, he’s fine. He’s at your place.”
“Then why are you here?”
“Goldie called me.” It’s my turn to look baffled, but when the security guard appears in the doorway behind him, a coupleof things fall into place. “You know each other. You’re a Flyer, Goldie? Have you beenspyingon me?”
Pitt steps in my line of sight, mostly blocking the sheepish security guard from my growing ire. “Tell me what happened here, Abbie. Is it a warning? A threat?”
It takes me a moment to shift gears. “You mean the butterflies? It could be a prank, for all I know. Troubled people come through here all the time.”
He glances at Janice, who’s still sitting at the table, then gestures me over to the door. I frown, but follow, Goldie avoiding my eye as Pitt says, “This is more than a prank, Abbie. If you're in danger, you have to tell me.”
“This is a complicated job, Pitt. Maybe I pissed someone off. Maybe they don’t like me treating omegas in general. I don’t know.”
Pitt takes a careful breath before he turns to Goldie. “You got the CCTV?”
“Yeah.” He nods in the direction of his office. “It's ready for you to look at, boss.”
“Boss,” I scoff as I fall into step beside them. “So, you’re really a Flyer?”
Goldie pushes back his sleeve, displaying the twin flames of the club’s emblem on his forearm. “Ark patched me in last year.”
“Wow,” I say sarcastically, “that’s some coincidence, us both working here.”
He doesn’t answer, and I stew in my displeasure as Goldie sits at his computer and brings up a video on his screen. A slim figure in a dark hoodie and a baseball cap is shown walking down the hall, a backpack over their shoulder. They walk into the staff room, and then according to the timestamp at the bottom of the screen, reappear and continue on their way three minutes later. No one else goes into or out of the room, and Goldie clicks a button, bringing up a still image of the figure.It’s grainy, and their head is down, obscuring their face. “Do you recognize this person? They avoided the cameras. Seemed to know their way around the clinic.”
I peer at the screen. “It’s not much to go on. I can’t even tell their gender from that.”
Pitt nods, but his frustration is obvious. “Try to get a better shot,” he tells Goldie, then puts his hand on my arm, steering me back towards the hall. “I'll take you home.”
I dig in my heels, which isn’t very effective when a six-foot-plus alpha is steering you down a polished hallway in rubber soled shoes. “I haven’t finished my shift yet!”
