Page 23 of Omega Alliance

As if any of that is theirs to give.

I feel like I’m going to be sick, so I race up to my room and not only lock the door but also wedge a chair beneath the knob. I’m furious with the Alliance, with Kieran, with myself.

I wish I could sleep. I wish I could run. I wish I could do something to make myself feel better, but it’s all pointless.

One way or another, the Omega Alliance will get me back, and then my life will be even worse than it was before yesterday. Nausea overtakes me, and I empty the contents of my stomach into a small waste basket I found in the back of the closet.

I lay on the floor, hugging the trash bin and sobbing into the wet carpet. A while later, someone knocks on my door, but I’m too weak to answer.

“Sin?” Kieran calls through the hollow wood. “I’m sorry. I just thought you should know, so you could be prepared.”

I sniff as snot runs down my face in rivulets, but I don’t otherwise respond.

“We won’t let them take you, Sin. All of us are committed to keeping you safe,” he says, then waits at the door.

I hold my breath, willing him to leave, waiting. He doesn't even understand the full reason I'm upset. As an alpha, he's been raised to believe that it is his job to claim and take whatever he deems worthwhile. But I’m a person too. I should be able to make my own decisions, even when I don't exactly know what they should be. Especially then. Because the difficult decisions often end up being the most important ones.

When at last I hear the sounds of Kieran's departure, I let out a heavy sigh. They all say they’ll keep me safe, but they were the ones who got me into this mess to begin with. Some small part of them must have anticipated this response. I only know what the Alliance tells me through brief flashes of text on the walls, but the packs were able to watch for hours on end, able to access information sources like the one Kieran showed me on the tablet.

And I’m so, so angry.

They’ve made me vulnerable in a way I wasn’t before.

Looking back, my life before seems almost palatable now. I was a prisoner, but for the most part a pampered one. I didn’t like the times in the glass box or the punishments, but most of the other times I was comfortable, safe.

And now?

Before Kieran shared this info with me, I felt myself slowly easing into the pack dynamic. I was on high alert, but I wasalso beginning to see a version of the future where I could be something different than what the Alliance has turned me into.

It hurts knowing that can never be mine. That the very people I’d envisioned saving me are the ones who have now condemned me.

And by taking me, they've also now condemned themselves. We can't freely live in the open where I can be recognized, stolen away. And if anyone else returns me, Pack Thorin will surely be punished for their part in my escape.

I can’t go back to the complex. I can’t.

But I also can’t stay here. If I’m discovered with the pack, they will be made to suffer. The only chance I have is to strike out on my own.

But my original home in Ohio is a long way from here. I never knew where the Alliance was based because it all started with me and my mother. Never knew, over the past seven years, that I was in Alaska, a place that would have conjured mental images of endless snow and polar bears in the mind of sixteen-year-old me. I also know I don’t really have a place to return to. It’s such a huge world out there, and yet I have no small corner to call my own.

All that matters now is putting as much distance between myself and the Alliance as I can manage. It means leaving Pack Thorin and never seeing Dani, Jax, or any of the others again.

But it’s also the only chance I have to keep control of my own life, and it's the only way I can protect the pack from any fallout.

They thought they were saving me, but they underestimated the dragon that kept this princess prisoner. If I am ever to be truly free, I must slay the monster myself.

But first, I need to mount a second escape. And this time I can’t ask anyone else for help.

Iwait until nightfall, then creep through the house on careful tiptoes. They all said it was my choice whether I wanted to stay with them, but somehow I don’t think that’s true. If I’d have left in broad daylight, someone would have been sure to stop me, to drag me back inside.

The choice they gave me was only an illusion. I never had any more freedom here than I did back with the Alliance. I am grateful to Pack Thorin for trying to help me, even as this newfound anger lodges itself in my chest and refuses to let go.

Good.I can use my rage as fuel to propel me forward. I keep that in mind as I creep down the old staircase.

My plan is simple. I’ll stick to the forest for as long as I can, using the natural foliage to camouflage my movements. I’ll travel great distances at night, then hide myself and sleep during the day when it's more likely someone might discover me.

If someone does find me, they will surely turn me in, which means my top priority should be making sure that nobody does.

I briefly contemplate stocking up on supplies from the kitchen but ultimately decide it’s more important to make a quick and clean getaway.

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