Page 2 of Two For the Show
“We need to tell the others.” I’m impressed that my voice doesn’t crack with emotion as I say it. When I turn to leave the room, Quinton snags me by the arm with a surprising amount of strength for someone with Alpha Rot.
“We need more information first. It’s better to go in with all of the details before we lay this on them.”
I shrug his hand off and shake my head in resignation. “What more information is there? She left us, Quinton. She didn’t even say goodbye.” I lower myself to the edge of her bed, still feeling as if I am breaking an unspoken rule of being in this space despite her nest being gone.
Quinton’s face lights up. “We didn’t look for a note! Maybe she left one for us.” He’s out of the room, and I hear banging and clanging from the kitchen, like he’s digging through drawers and opening cabinets.
If she left a note, it would be in plain sight, not shoved in the back of her silverware drawer. I have to let him look, though, or he’ll never let it go.
After about ten minutes, I hear a quiet, desperate exclamation. “Oh, holy shit.”
I’m on my feet, out into the living area before the last syllable leaves his lips. “What did you find?” Quinton is shaking, holding a cell phone, and not looking away from it. He doesn’t answer me. “What is it, Q?”
When he finally tears his attention away from the phone, despair crumples his handsome face into something nearly unrecognizable. “She left her cell phone.” He pushes the device into my hand, and when I look down at the screen, my stomach fucking plummets.
Unknown
Tell Rich I said hi.
“One of our own did this?” I growl. “Someone in our fucking troupe told her ex where to find her?” It doesn’t matter if they don’t know her history. This place has sheltered people through warrants and desperation. We have provided a home for the homeless, a shelter for those in need of protection. This is not the first time someone fleeing an abusive situation took up sanctuary under the big top. It’s just the first time that person was an Omega.
We take care of our own at Cirque de Mordu.
Or, rather, we used to.
It makes me sick that someone I hired and trusted is the reason we no longer have our Omega.
Quinton takes the phone from me and pokes around on the screen. His voice is strangled as he holds it back out to me. “Gets worse.”
Unknown
See you soon, Alex.
It takes everything I have not to throw the phone against the wall.
She’s gone, and someone in my circus is to blame for it. Her ex pack now knows where she’s been, and will nodoubt descend upon us with a swiftness to claim the woman they think they own.
It’s a small comfort to know that she didn’t leave because of us. I have no doubt she saw those messages and high-tailed it out of here, her fight or flight instincts overriding everything else and screaming she had to leave.
Why didn’t she come to us and tell us what was going on? We could have protected her from them. We would have done anything to keep her safe.
But am I really surprised she ran without a conversation? I accused her of being flighty, told her I needed to prepare for her to desert us. Why would she come to me with the urge to run and hear me say “I told you so” to her face?
This is my fault.
She wasn’t going to come to me. It’s hard to trust anyone after what happened to her, much less someone like me. Someone who made her feel unwelcome from the moment we met.
“We need to figure out who is responsible for this,” Quinton states plainly. “We’ve got a fucking rat infestation, and I’d love to be the exterminator. They cost me my girl.”
Resolve trickles down my spine, and I nod. I fucked up by not claiming her, not welcoming her with open arms. I’m going to do whatever I have to to get her back here so I can be the type of Alpha she deserves.
The Prime Alpha my pack needs.
“Call a troupe meeting. Everyone. Not just the performers. I want every fucking person under the big top in fifteen minutes. Anyone not there is fired.”
I don’t havelong to track down my other pack members before the troupe meeting, but luckily for me, the three of them are in Dario’s trailer. I slam the door open and interrupt their conversation.
“Did you find her?” Dario asks hopefully, his blue eyes bright. “Is she okay?”
