Page 109 of Rot In Knotty Pieces

“Are you sure?” I ask.

“Yes.”

“Okay. So, in this picture, there are thirty people. Three dogs. Signs for perfume, a musical, and omega suppressants. There are five lights, all the ones we can see are red, and five trees.”

“What if it’s the place? What if she recognises it?”

“It’s possible, but judging from the way she reacted, I think it was a person,” I say. “It was too intense, too visceral. She saw something that really, truly terrified her, and there’s only one person that scares that omega that much.”

We all sit on that, quietly stewing in the rage and hate that her fear stirs inside us.

“All right. Thirty people. So, let’s see what we can find for each other, then,” Blaze says from the shadows. He walks into the room in a loose shirt that billows when he moves. It’s open down to beneath his pecks, and he’s got a pair of jean shorts that cut off at his knees. It’s strange and adorable how he makes everything he wears attractive and somehow ethereal. Blaze is gorgeous. It doesn’t help that he looks like he’s walked off the set of a historical drama, with black silken hair without a strand out of place.

“How?”

“Social media. Face scanning technology. Check the databases. Roseland, can you still access the database?”

“No, I’m locked out.”

“All right-”

“But there’s someone who owes me a favour. We need to narrow it down, though. There are too many people.”

“Okay. Well, rule out children and women.”

“That leaves ten. Seven of them are middle-aged, two elderly, and one is in his mid-twenties.”

“Rule out the one in his twenties.”

Pix leans in over my shoulder and squeezes the screen out so the pictures are blurry. He studies each person.

“Rule out this person.”

“Why?”

“He’s bonded. This person wouldn’t be able to hide that disinfectant smell from his significant other.”

“Which leaves eight.”

“That’s enough,” Roseland says and pulls out his mobile phone. He walks out of the room with the tablet, while King pads back to the room where she is sleeping.

I stand up and stretch.

Our omega walks out, head up, eyes bright, she glances around almost coldly. It’s amazing how quickly I narrow down who she isn’t. Jay, Dove, and Merle are out. Kestrel always wears humour and softness in her eyes. Which means this is Raptor or Raven.

She looks at Pix and smiles widely.

Raptor.

It took me five seconds. Is that how quickly we’ve adjusted? I think if someone had told me before that I would be living with someone with a disorder like hers, I would have struggled to see how it could work, but it does. Easily.

All those personalities, though all different, are part of her, and I love all of her. Why wouldn’t I accept them?

We’re a strange pack.

But it works.

I stalk towards her. She clocks me in seconds, turning to face me, watching as I move towards her.