Page 33 of Sawyer

Besides, Sin hid the papers taped to Jenny’s station at the club, so I’ll have to come back for those. Unless he left them lying out…

I look around the room and concentrate on places I think he would have thrown them, like the table behind the couch with a little bowl for keys.

I don’t find the papers, but I do find my phone.

Who grabbed that?

Distracted, I grab the phone and unlock it, finding several missed calls from my sister, one from my brother, and two from Freddy. I read the transcripts from the voicemails. My sister just wanted to check in and make sure I’m alive.

She’s been growing increasingly worried about me since I took this journalism job, always fearful that someone is going to hunt me down and kill me, which is absurd. She’s an omega. She is the one who needs protection. Honestly, I’m just glad the castle allowed her to have a phone in the last year so she can check in, but that goes both ways, and I missed our check-in the previous night. I shoot off a text to tell her that I’m okay.

The one from my brother is more of the same, so I let him know I’m alive and well and safe.

The last messages from Freddy are a little more chilling, and when my eyes run over the words, I’m convinced that the little device didn’t transcribe them right.

I press the phone to my ear to listen to the first one. “Sawyer.” Freddy’s voice is a hushed whisper. “I covered for you, and you never checked in last night. I just need to know if you are okay. Please check in. I’m worried. This isn’t like you. You always check in with me, always. How could you do this to me?”

What the hell?

Deleting the message, I look around the room, ensuring all is quiet before I play the next message. This one is from a couple hours ago. It’s nearly seven in the morning, so it came through at five.

“Sawyer, I fell asleep. I’m so sorry.” He clears his throat. “Listen, Haven burned down last night, and they found two bodies. My sources tell me the deltas just stood there and let it happen. Some were even smoking. I know you think I don’t know you worked there, but I know who you were, Sawyer, or should I say Lotus? Fuck, I’m sorry. Look, just call me. We have to be at the station by eleven tomorrow. Let’s have lunch and talk. I care for you. Just call me, bye.”

Freddy has always been an emotional beta, stuck in the ways of his parents, who were both betas. He moved here from the Northern Province a long time ago. Hell, he’s followed me from the beginning, and I’ve always known he had a crush on me, but his tone sounded more obsessive than normal.

I shouldn’t, because something about his voicemails sets me on edge, but I text him that I’m okay and I’ll see him in the newsroom at eleven.

This means I need to get my ass in gear to make it on time. Maybe I can borrow Rumor’s keys. They are just lying there in the dish.

It’s as though he left them there for me.

He must have.

I snatch them up and dart to the door, not looking back once because I don’t need that kind of guilt on my conscience.

I unlock the door and slip out, keeping my eyes down as I lock it back up. Feeling like I just completed the impossible, I spin around and slam right into a wall, bouncing back against the door and making it sound like I just knocked.

“Oomph,” I squeak out.

“Steady now.” A man reaches out and grabs me, steadying me. “Are you okay, miss?”

Eyes wide, I stare at a broad, muscular chest that belongs on one of those sexy magazine covers. Clutching the keys and my phone to my chest, I slowly lift my gaze up and up to find a smiling face staring down at me, and that’s when everything goes to hell.

Before I left home, my mom used to make these chocolate mint holiday cookies. Just thinking about them makes my mouth water and my head spin with want. They were fudgy little bite-sized bits of heaven that always made me salivate while I waited for them to bake. I remember watching the oven with an impatience only a child could pull off.

I’d wait eagerly as they cooled, but only enough so that it wouldn’t burn my tongue entirely when I bit into them.

It was like biting into a chocolate peppermint lava cake. Fudgy, brownie-like cookies and bits of peppermint chocolate would explode on my tongue.

That is what this alpha smells like, and the longer I stand there staring at him and taking in gulping breaths of his scent, the deeper the scent gets.

He smells like home.

Worse, he looks like a superhero. “Superman.”

“Excuse me?” he asks with a dimpled grin. This man will kill me softly, and I’d beg him to.

“Hi, yes, I’m fine. Great to see you, whoever you are. I’m just going to, you know…” I point to the SUV at the end of the walkway. “Skedaddle.”

---