Page 54 of The Alpha: Part Two
I just smile at him.
"Like I said, we've got some questions for you," Michael clacks the pliers again. "And you're going to answer them."
Seth steps forward, wearing his mask from the festival. "Where are the omegas being held?"
"What omegas?" Flores counters.
"The omegas you stole. The omegas you took from their packs. Where are they being held?"
Flores closes his mouth and glares around the room. Seth nods at Michael, and Michael tips his chin at Ben. Between the two of them they get his mouth open. "Last chance," Michael taps on a tooth. "Where are they?"
Flores does his best to spit at Michael.
"I'm so glad you didn't answer," Michael says. "I've been looking forward to this." Then, instead of going to work on the tooth, he slides the pliers up the side of Flores's face to the shell of his ear and captures the upper part and slowly tightens his grip. Flores doesn't react at first, but when Michael starts pulling the pliers towards the floor Flores begins cursing and screaming. Ben nods at Michael and he abruptly releases the ear.
"Where are the omegas?" Seth repeats.
Flores snarls and spits in Seth's direction. Seth tips his chin at Michael and it begins again with Flores's other ear. They go through a couple more rounds without Flores saying anything more than a few belligerent curses, then Seth raises a hand.
His heavy sigh bounces off the walls of the holding unit. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out his knife. It's not one of those obscenely huge hunting knives, just a run of the mill pocketknife. "I'm going to give you one last opportunity to answer every question we ask. If you don't give us every drop of information we need, you will no longer be subject to Michael's kindness and you will endure mine. Where are the omegas?"
"Fuck you," Flores screams.
"Alright," Seth drawls, and nods at Michael. "Watch her. If it's too much, take her out for a break." He flicks open his knife and looks down at Flores. He nods at Minos too and Mallory next to with the same message. "You're out of chances. Every time you don't answer a question, you will lose something."
My breath hitches. Seth's fingers. His eye. This is how he lost them.
"It's okay, Desir'ee," he says over his shoulder. "It's alright. Hold on to Michael."
He starts with a pinky. He slits the nail down the middle and pries off half of it. "Where are the omegas?" Flores doesn't answer, and Seth pulls off the rest of the nail.
Seth rolls his shoulders and tilts his head from side to side. "The thing is, Flores, I can do this for a long time. Hours. Days. I'm good at it. I have experience on both ends of this kind of thing. I know what works and how it works. I've got a pretty good idea of how long it takes, and we're just getting started." Then he moves to the next finger.
By the time it becomes apparent that Flores can hold out past losing a few nails, I'm shaking. Not because it's too much for me, but because of the thoughts racing through my mind about how it must have been for Seth. Did his old pack cut off his fingers and take his eye? Did they take a lot of smaller, less permanent things first, just like this? How long did it go on? My poor, poor Seth.
I don't want him to do this anymore. I don't want him to think about what was done to him while he does it to someone else. I want to find the omegas, but Seth is real to me. He's more important than they are, and I don't care how selfish that makes me. I tug on Michael's shirt, and when he looks down at me, I hand him the syringe with the serum. He gives me a quick nod and walks over to jab the needle into Flores's thigh.
It takes less than five minutes for it to take effect. In Flores's declined state, his mind is more susceptible to fear and paranoia than we anticipated. By the twenty-minute mark, Flores is screaming about the ‘demons’ in the room and begging me to protect him.
"All you have to do is tell me where the omegas are. Give me a location and I'll ask them to leave," Seth says.
Flores's face twists from terror to desperation. "The Northern Territory. I don't know where they go after I send them out. I just know they go to the Northern Territory. We keep the best ones, though. For ourselves. And the councilmen."
I glance at Mallory. I can't see her face, but I can see her hand clinging to Alpha Minos's. Their story was sad, but sweet. They made it sound like he rescued her, but she's still a trafficking victim and he's still a councilman. "What do you mean, the councilmen? Which ones?"
"You said you'd make them leave!" Flores cries.
Seth hums, nodding his head. "I did." He turns away from Flores and towards Devon, Minos, and the others. "Will you leave?"
"No," Devon answers.
Seth turns back to Flores. "There. I asked. Now answer Desir'ee's question. Which councilmen do you keep omegas for?"
"All of them," Flores sobs. "For money. For property. To look the other way. We trade them for power. Please make them leave."
My head whips to Alpha Minos, but Michael leans down to kiss my temple. "Just wait," he whispers.
"And what about Minos? I met his omega. She's one of yours," Seth continues, pressing his knife against the tip of one of Flores's fingers.
