Page 6 of All Saints Day
“You know, sweetheart—even though Seb was able to get his hands on the good shit, it’s been a long time since your last dose of suppressants.”
My heart jumps into my throat. This is a threat, a bait—yes, but it’s also the first time I’ve had anything close to a concrete measure of time since I’ve arrived. If I’m in danger of coming up on a re-dose period… that means I’ve been in captivity for over three months.
I let out a sob as the realization hits me. A blessing and a curse. An anchor to reality—but a reality where I have been tortured and brutalized for over three months. I know that I will not last another three.
Especially not if I’m expected to endure a heat not only separated from my fated mates, but denied any knots or locking, on top of the touch starvation.
Heat denial is dangerous for any sigma or omega, but heat denial for fated mates? It’s more likely than not to be fatal.
I don’t want to think what I would say or do at the whims of Francis Stone under the influence of my heat,but I’m just as afraid of the alternative—burned alive by the fever of my own heat-sickness should he deny me in this sterile white hellhole.
“Oh, the things I’ll do to you,” Frank sighs wistfully, squeezing a bit of soap into the bucket—frothing the waters with the sponge before wringing the icy cold suds over me.
Chapter 3
Dennis
Ihave been getting to the office earlier and earlier—my duty piece never leaving its place in the holster against my ribs.
Every time I catch a shadow out of the corner of my eye, I wonder,Is this it? Is this where I get jumped by the Windmill, or my own fucking co-workers? Erased from the equation with hardly the blink of an eye.So far, though—I’ve emerged unscathed.
I nearly jump out of my skin when Gertz filters in behind me at the coffee station, one of his big meaty hands clapping over my shoulder as he greets me warmly.
“Hey McBride! How are those legs doing after running twenty-six goddamn miles?” Gertz chuffs, elbowing me out of the way to pull a tiny plastic pod of dark roast from the rack—setting a faded “#1 Dad” coffee mug on the counter.
“Twenty-six point two,” I correct him coolly, even though my pulse is racing.
“You really are a son of a bitch, McBride—have I told you that lately?” He shakes his head with a laugh. “I don’t run anywhere except to the fridge for a beer during commercials on game day.”
“That’s what you’ve got a wife for, isn’t it?” Compton pipes in from behind us—strolling into the office with his expensive Italian leather briefcase, the tang of Cuban cigar smoke wafting up from the lapels of his wool car coat as he weaves past us to his office.
It takes every ounce of my self-control not to reach for hiscollar—to start pummeling his face without mercy until he begs for life; taking me directly to wherever he and the Windmill are keeping Louise. Instead, I simply laugh at his shitty joke and watch him disappear into his office.
It’s been months of this, pretending that everything is fine while I’m on the knife’s edge of losing control. Unsurprisingly, Compton took me off any follow-up on the Zeitnot and the preliminary reports of possible foul play coming out of halfway houses, methadone clinics, and rehabs around the country. No doubt he doesn’t want me remotely near the truth. While I’m certainly still expendable, I’m more difficult to get rid of now than I was before the other recent losses in our department. To explain another unexpected death after losing Tenant and, ostensibly, Louise—would be more than even the Windmill could handle without inter-agency issues.
Instead, I’ve been tasked with investigating a series of homicides that more-likely-than-not are not the work of a single serial-murderer, but rather a task spun up to keep me busy on a case that could be turned into something high-profile and newsworthy.
My real work has been going on outside of office hours.
I have been collaborating with the vigilante group known as the ‘Saints’ in the hopes of helming a rescue mission to retrieve Louise from an undisclosed location.
One of my tasks has been to help Cazimer Rybecki, the crew’s ‘hacker,’ gain access to Compton’s work machine as well as his personal smartphone.
While I’m hardly incompetent when it comes to computers and personal electronic devices, computer security is hardly my strong suit. I explained to Caz that while I had pretty much unprecedented access to the man himself—along with his office—I seriously doubted my own abilities when it came to any kind of device or security penetration or hacking in general.
Cazimer had simply laughed and explained I had nothing to worry about.
“This is perfect! You don’t need to have any kind of ‘hacking’ skills to get us everything we need!”
“How do you figure?” I’d challenged, not seeing a solution.
“Now-a-days, there’s O.MG cables and shit. If you can change out a charging cable—or get the man to do it himself—we’re good as gold.”
“An O.MG Cable?” I had echoed, completely baffled.
“You know the little wire you use to plug your laptop or your cellphone in to charge?” Caz asked patiently.”
“Like a USB C or something?” I blinked.
