Page 109 of Glass Omega

Crossing through the humid greenhouse, I flew up the stairs and into the open door of Perrie’s room.

It looked untouched, the swathes of nesting materials that made up Perrie’s nest still in the same configuration as we’d left it only a few hours before.

“Perrie?” I called and was met with silence.

No, no, no,my inner alpha howled as I grabbed the first bit of nest and pulled and then the next, tossing it behind me as I dug in looking for my omega.

Every bit of the space smelled of her sweet strawberry scent and I inhaled it raggedly as I searched in vain.

Perrie would scold me later for ruining her perfectly crafted nest—it was something she’d been meticulously putting together for the past week, humming under her breath while I sat in the chair by the window watching her instead of doing the work I would bring with me.

It was a sign her heat was coming soon, even if she hadn’t realized it yet.

And now the empty nest was a symbol of what I’d lost. What we’d lost.

“Edison,” Rhodes’ soft voice cut through the blazing fear that had set my mind alight. “Edison!”

This time the other alpha grabbed me and dragged me by my waist away from the destroyed nest.

“She’s gone,” I whispered brokenly to him, turning to find his dark eyes full of pain. “And I don’t know where.”

“We’re going to find her, Edi, I promise,” the other alpha swore, pulling my face into his neck.

I clung to him, inhaling the last bits of Perrie’s scent still on his skin from earlier.

“We’re going to find her,” I murmured into his skin, “but what state will she be in when we do?”

Thirty One

Confusion was the first emotion I felt as I returned to consciousness once again. My surroundings were cold and it seeped into my skin, making my bones ache as I tried to take stock of them.

Had Rhodes left the window in my room open again? The alpha usually overheated amongst all of the materials in my nest, so it wasn’t outside of the realm of ordinary for him to push all of the windows open despite the chilly autumn weather outside.

But when he did that he usually made sure I was snuggled up in between him and Edison, using them both as my own personal heaters.

Had they been pulled away for business again? Edison had been frowning more often as of late and I wondered if whatever was happening behind the scenes was finally coming to a head.

My cold surroundings weren’t the only thing that was different from my usual. The material that I was lying on was also not normal. It was stiff and scratchy, a far cry from the chiffon swathes of fabric and fuzzy soft blankets that made up my nest.

I felt groggy as I tried to parse through the details of my surroundings. Even as I was awake, I could feel the heaviness of sleep trying to pull me back under like a hand pressing my head back into the pillow.

The pillow that smelled almost anesthetic, like the detergent that hospitals used and claimed was scentless.

That was what finally brought me awake enough to realize I wasn’t home anymore.

With a jerk, I forced myself to sit up and open my eyes. The dim room around me spun causing me to nearly flop back down into the cot I was sitting on. But what I saw as I glanced around me made me shake off the feeling as the terrifying reality of where I was began to settle in.

It looked like I was in some kind of plastic room with holes popped into the wall for what I assumed was so that air could get in. Like I was some kind of hamster.

The wall behind me was at least brick and I pressed a hand into it, letting the coolness help me wake up more.

There was a metal toilet to the left of my little cot and a matching sink just past that, but it was what I saw beyond both of those that scared me the most.

My little plastic cubicle wasn’t the only one. There were at least five others, some dark and some with dim blue lights turned on illuminating prone forms curled up on cots just like mine.

“Where the hell am I?” I asked out loud, my voice rough like I’d been screaming for hours instead of just having woken up.

I still couldn’t figure out how I’d even gotten here in the first place. The last thing I remembered was feeling Edison andRhodes slip out of the nest, talking quietly before urging me to go back to sleep and then the sound of my phone ringing.

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