Page 52 of Defiant Beta

“Any of you getting a bad feeling about this?” Xavier asks from the backseat of Vince’s Audi.

He’s thinking of Aly. So will Vince, and so am I.

“Mercy said the guys were young. This isn’t the same thing,” Vince says, driving.

“The Asylum membership passed from older to younger. Byron Wentworth involved his son in it,” I say. “This could be what’s happening here.”

“This might be something else,” Xavier says after a thoughtful silence.

I mutter, “No one camps out outside a school for omegas without thinking about it in advance. Especially now that most free heat clinics have security to stop what was happening before.”

As we drive along the empty streets littered with abandoned shopping carts and burned-out cars, it's almost noon, and I still can't see any sign of Della.

The vehicle in front, a matte black Jeep with tinted windows, abruptly swerves to the right, and the driver hits the brakes. Garrison, Vaughn, Blaine, and Resa scramble out.

Resa leans against the front of the Jeep, one hand covering her mouth, and tears in her eyes.

I see it as Vince swings the car behind the Jeep and flings open his door.

A body.

Face down—vivid red lines crisscrossing a pale, freckled back.

The Haven Academy girls' uniform consists of a dark red plaid skirt, a short-sleeve white blouse, and black knee-high socks. That’s what I’m looking at here, minus the white blouse and the socks. Her skin is ashen white.

I have no memory of getting out of the car.

I’m outside, breathing through my mouth, but the stench of the place—rotting food, urine, and other foul waste permeates the area.

Vince stands beside me, face blank. I don’t see Xavier, probably behind me.

This can’t be happening again.

Garrison drops to his knees beside the body. This isn’t his first time being close to one. His expression has barely changed. He reaches out a hand, presses his fingers to her pale throat.

“She’s still alive.” Garrison’s three words propel us all into action.

We take off our hoodies and coats to warm her up. Blaine calls for a paramedic. She might not survive the ride to a hospital. Garrison carefully, oh so carefully, turns her onto her side. Her lips are blue.

Past and present merge into one, and for a split-second, I have no fucking clue where I am.

We keep her warm. Garrison checks her pulse every two minutes. None of us takes our eyes off her, and we wait, holding our breath until the paramedics arrive.

They sweep us aside with ruthless efficiency, slipping a mask over her face after checking her pulse. They pull back the coats we used to cover her, place her on a stretcher, and drape her with a dark blue blanket.

She’s in the back of the ambulance within five minutes of the paramedics' arrival.

She’s alive.

Somehow, she’s alive.

Chapter 17

Della

Everleigh is crying.

She has her head down and her hands over her face.

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