Page 97 of Captive Omega

Chapter 28

Resa

Something buzzes on my bedside table and thumps to the floor, scaring the shit out of me.

Two words keep playing on repeat in my head.

Your men.

Isaura called them my men, and with the speed they all spun to the door I pushed open, eyes concerned, looking all for the world like they were the anxious fathers of my child.

After the tension of this morning, my absolutely shocking display with the greasy fries and burger, and the nap that soon followed, I was in no fit state to do any of the research I’d been so eager to do before.

I’d come up to my room and gone back to the bedrest I’d complained I didn’t want to do anymore.

Now it’s night, and I can’t sleep.

I hang over the side of the bed, sticking my arm in the gap between the bedside table and the bedframe to root around for the thing that scared me to death.

My cell phone.

I haven’t called the people in my life who must wonder what happened to me, but I have reasons.

One word from my mother and I would abandon this mission I’ve set myself to find Dexter Pieter, go home, crawl into her arms and let someone else deal with this mess.

I can’t do that.

No one knows what I know, so until I’ve done what I need to do, I have to stay strong.

I pick up the cell phone, note the near dead battery and plug it in to charge.

But I don’t put the phone down.

I don’t call Henry for other reasons, but maybe I should. Maybe listening to his voice, even if it won’t compel me to go home like Mom’s voice will, will remind me of something I’m in danger of forgetting the longer I remain under this roof.

This isn’t my life, and these men are not mine.

Garrison and Blaine might be my scent matches, and my attraction for Vaughn might be deepening into something distinctly not friendly. But Pack Lucas is not mine, and I should not forget that.

So I call Henry.

It’s the middle of the night, and he would have left his phone to charge in the kitchen, on his counter the way he always did, before he went up to bed.

There’s no danger he will answer this call, so his voicemail will pick it up.

You’ve been gone for two years, Resa. No reason he still has the same habits now as he did back then.

The only thing about calling someone I haven’t seen in two years is the number. I get that wrong twice. First time, an old lady picks up and I immediately hang up. The second time, it’s just one long beep, signs this number doesn’t exist.

I sit for a moment, thinking, and then I try again.

As expected, it doesn’t ring at all. It goes right to voicemail.

“You’ve reached Henry. Please leave a message and I’ll call you right back.”

He sounds the same. Exactly the same. Brisk, a little cheerful, but professional.

It’s like being picked up and shoved back in time.

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