Page 7 of One Way Out

I don’t think it was really even him who killed those guys. Fine, it was probably his body, but I don’t think his mind is intact enough to understand what he’s done.

The rabid alpha’s head tilts. It’s creepy and animalistic, and it gets hard to breathe with his heavy stare focused on me, but I know I have to get myself into that cell somehow.

“Just take a few steps back.” I raise my hands, giving a shooing motion.

“Now! We don’t have time for this shit,” McCabe growls.

I can’t be sure what he’s doing, since he’s behind me, but it sounds like he digs in his pocket, possibly looking for the key to Valor’s cell.

“Please?” I whisper, gesturing again for him to move back. I want to tell him I’m trying to save his damn life, but he wouldn’t understand.

I try again, this time ensuring the word comes out as a whine.

It doesn’t work.

Why isn’t it working?

Alphas bark, and it forces betas and omegas into motion, but an omega’s whine is supposed to have the same effect on an alpha.

“Please, Valor. Back up.”

He snarls, bringing both hands up and rubbing his temples.

My eyes ache like I’m about to burst into tears, but I try one more time. “You have toback up!”

Several eternities seem to pass, but he finally steps back. His head shakes violently, and he spins around, stomping to the back of the cell.

Once he reaches the back wall, he sits on the floor in the same position he was in when we found him.

The blood on the backs of his hands and down his arms makes me shiver. There’s no way all of that belongs to him, and my brain thinks it would be a lovely time to replay the flashes of those dead bodies all over again.

McCabe moves around me, pushing a key card into the front of the cell. The clicking sound makes me jolt, and he doesn’t waste any time, tugging the door open forcefully. It slides to the side, and the next thing I know, he’s shoving me into the cell.

I stumble, tossing my arms out to catch myself if I fall, but it’s unnecessary. I’m able to right myself as the door rolls closed.

The clicking sound feels especially ominous.

My head swivels, taking in the beds on the right wall.

Calling them beds might be a stretch.

It looks like a piece of concrete with two thick metal bars at an angle connecting the wall to the end of the ledge that I think makes up the sleeping space. There are two of them, one on top of the other, and they both have what looks like a one-inch-thick piece of foam that must count as the mattress.

“Here, this probably won’t help, but at least you’ll have it,” McCabe says.

I spin even farther to find him shoving something through the bars. It looks like a blanket, some towels, and his other hand moves through, dropping a bottle of water.

Well, that’s generous.

I have no desire to ever use a water fountain on the back of a toilet, which is how the one in here is set up.

A scratching sound comes from behind me, and I turn just in time to see Valor barreling toward me.

He doesn’t aim for me, though.

Instead, he stomps to the bars, lands against them with athump, and makes a mad grab for McCabe.

The guard staggers back, cursing as he avoids Valor’s hands stretched through the bars.

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