Page 29 of The Alpha: Part One
"No."
There's silence on the other end of the call. Well, relative silence. Ben must be standing on his porch; I can hear the sounds of his neighborhood. I can only imagine how stressed he and Michael must be trying to take care of Desir'ee inside a house surrounded by a busy neighborhood. Maybe I'm just spoiled by the seclusion of Corso's property. Devon would lose his mind in that setting, I can just see that vein throbbing right now.
"Please."
Fuck.
How am I supposed to refuse Ben now?
For him to beg…
No. I can't. It's hard enough when Talia goes into heat and I'm holed up in my apartment. I can't. It's too hard for me. I hear or smell her, or any other omega approaching their cycle and I panic. I can hardly stand to get out of bed when Talia or Jasper are in heat. I can't. I'd be useless to the twins and Desie. I can't function with thick walls and open air between me and an omega in cycling, I'd never make it inside the same small house. Hell, I can barely call it a heat, I have to call it a cycle or something to keep the panic at bay.
"Ben... I… I just…can't. I'm sorry."
"Why not? You don't have to do anything but be an extra presence with a set of eyes." He laughs after he realizes what he said, "you know what I mean."
I do know what he means, but I still can't do it. And I can't bring myself to tell him why not. All I have to do is think hard enough about that table squeaking and I shut down. I haven't told anybody, not even Kaleb, and certainly not any of the doctors, but I can't even have sex with anyone outside of a cycle. Not an omega, not a beta, not an alpha. Not anybody. And I've tried. I haven't been able to really function sexually since what happened with Talia.
"Can you just sit outside?" Ben asks, dragging me back from the past. "You don't even have to get out of your truck. You can text us if you see anything. Just knowing you're around would keep him away because of who you are."
That… might make a difference. Maybe. Fuck. "He?"
"Lopez."
Goddammit.
I don't know how to handle this. Ben's right. All I have to do is sit on their porch with all my diplomatic immunity and council weight and nobody will fuck with them. But I don't know if I can do it. Fuck. If Lopez comes at them while Desir'ee's cycling, he'll bring everything and he'll take her. And that will destroy her. The twins, too. It's so little to ask, but still so much. Fuck. Ben doesn't understand what this is going to cost me. "I'm coming. I'll sit on the porch. Don't open the door when I get there. I'll text you so you know I'm there."
"Thank you," he says, relief heavy in his words. "We'll put out some blankets and food and stuff for you."
"No!" I hear the bite in my tone and soften it, he doesn't understand. "No," I say again, "don't. I'll bring my own, I'm good. Don't open the door. Could you put on some music or something? Will that stress her?"
There's a pause, but he does respond. "No, she's pretty far gone. Nothing like that would bother her anyway, we're used to noise. You sure? We've got extra stuff we can give you."
"I appreciate it, but I'm good. Just keep the doors locked and shut. I'll be there soon."
I sit in my rental truck for about two hours after I text Ben to let him know I'm here. I'm terrified that I'll still hear or smell something that will render me incapable of doing the job they're trusting me with. It's the dead of night now. None of the kids from earlier are running around screaming at each other and their parents. The traffic has died down to nearly nothing. If I could just stay in the truck for the next few days, I would. But I can't. My legs are beginning to feel buggy and I'm going to need a bottle or a bush sooner rather than later. I open the window and sit in the cab for half an hour longer before I steel myself and get out.
I don't smell anything, can't hear anything that might cause a problem, so I get out to see if I've got an empty bottle in the back of the truck. A car goes by at a crawl. I don't want to be paranoid, it is late at night, but it definitely slowed down past the twins' house. If anything like that happens again, I won't have a choice. I'll have to take up a prominent and obvious position on the porch.
I walk down the sidewalk a few feet and come back to take a lap around the truck when, sure as shit, the same busted little shitbox comes rolling back down the street.
Goddammit. Fuck.
The beep of the truck alarm setting echoes off the houses in the neighborhood might have the same effect as nails being hammered into a coffin. It feels the same. Suffocating. Piercing. Confined. With every step I take toward the house my blood pressure increases and by the time I take the three steps up onto the porch, my shirt is clinging to my back with a cold sweat. I'll just sit on the porch. Right there in that ratty, old lawn chair. I'll sit here long enough to be seen and then I'll go back to the truck.
It's going to be okay. It's going to be fine.
If I pull the chair to the center of the porch, right in front of the door, it will be painfully obvious why I'm here and what I'm doing. So, that's what I do. I sit there in that nearly threadbare canvas chair for what feels like years with my elbows propped up on my knees, just waiting to see if that car drives back around. Maybe it wasn't the same car after all. Maybe I was just imagining that it slowed down when it went past. I'll sit here and collect dew and damp until I'm sure the twins and Desir'ee are safe, then I'll go back to the truck.
Wishful thinking. The same car crawls down the street again, closely followed by a much nicer one with blacked out windows. They don't exactly stop in front of the house, but they slow down enough that I know I made direct eye contact with whoever was in the backseat of the nicer car. I felt the dissonant chord of it travel down my spine. They were here to take her. I don't know what they were going to do with the twins, other than kill them because that's the only way anyone could take her from them, but they were definitely going to take her. They saw me, though, and left. Good. Motherfuckers. This might be the first time in my life that me just being me has been a good thing. Well, the second time. The first time was at the dinner mixer.
I text Ben. They need to know someone is watching their place.
The same car drove by three times. I'm on the porch. Everything is good. Yall ok? Need anything?
A few minutes go by and Michael texts me back.
