Page 56 of The Alpha: Part Two
I pull the loaded syringe from my jacket pocket and step up to Seth's side. Flores looks at me and he's not the same man who put me through weeks of torment anymore. He's not broken enough to regret any of it, though. He isn't the type of person who understands the concept of regret.
"I would have given you a life. You would have had anything you wanted," he tells me.
"I wanted them," is my simple reply with a nod to my pack. Then I push the needle into his arm.
Chapter twenty-nine
Seth
That was one of the worst deaths I've ever seen in my life. It was more violent than anything any weapon could have produced. Holy fuck.
Desir'ee watched him convulse and scream and everything else without flinching. She watched the light leave his eyes while she held my hand. And now she smells like him and everything else that was in that unit and I need it off of her. Now.
Devon and Minos said they'd take care of the body, and Ben called someone from somewhere to clean out the unit. I don't know why he knows a clean-up crew, and I don't care. I just want to go home.
We climb into the car and Michael drives us home in complete silence with every window open. When we get home, we all go to the bathroom and get undressed, still without saying anything. Ben turns on the water and urges Desir'ee and I into the tub while Michael gathers the clothes into a thick garbage bag.
The water is hot, but we need it to be. We set to work scrubbing each other off, starting with her. I can't stand the smell on her. I scrub her skin until she starts wincing when I go back over places, then I wash her hair a couple times. She washes me after that, and I have to get on my knees so she can wash my hair. I'm the first one to speak when she starts to get out of the shower after me so that one of the twins can get in.
"No," I rasp. "Stay in. Wash them, too. I'll make us some of the tea that Talia sent." I kiss her slowly, lingering over her bottom lip, and push Ben towards the tub.
The kettle takes no less than eight hundred years to hit a boil, but that's okay right now. I need every one of those years to sit at this table and attempt to process the information Flores gave up, not to mention the fact that I just did to him a whole lot of the things that were done to me… without batting an eye.
That's what bothers me the most, that I'm unbothered by most of it. The only part I'm really worried about is that I'm pretty sure my pack and Kaleb's have a good idea of how exactly I lost my fingers and eye. They might not have the full details, not yet, but they know enough to look at me differently. Andthatis what bothers me. It's not exactly pity, but I was hoping that Talia would never know that I lost my eye because I refused to give Derek and Jay any more details about Talia, her family, or her body than they already had. Instead, I told them I was the one who contacted the Omega Institute about what we did to her. They took it poorly.
They had already been chipping away at my hand before then because I refused to give them, or any of the other rogues who interrogated me, information about the council, or about COT operations. I didn't have much information, just what I'd overheard my father say or things I had privy to as a councilman's son; but some of the information I actually did have would be dangerous to Jasper. He can hate me for the rest of his life if he needs to, but I'll never tell anyone about how he ended up at the Institute. I don't even think Talia or Devon know. Nathan could find out easily enough, but I don't think it would occur to him to look.
Jasper's family is from the Southern Territory. Correction. Jasper's familyistheSouthern Territory. They're wealthy. Like, wipe-your-ass-with-bank-notes wealthy. They travel around and donate to charities and pawn their kids off on nannies and au pairs until it's time to shove them off into whatever school or institute that best suits their current political needs. I'm not exactly sure of his family's pack dynamics, and I definitely have no business knowing as much as I do outside of that, but I am absolutely certain Jasper doesn't want his pack to know that he was pushed off and away without a thought.
I'm also certain that he doesn't want anyone to know there were no less than fourteen kidnapping attempts on him before he was shipped off to the Institute; or that he is the only remaining Nattier descendent in his generation. His family is as secretive as they are cold. As far as the rest of the world outside of registration files knows, Jasper is one of four living descendants of reproductive age. This is why his family wasn't exactly thrilled when he announced that he wouldn't be passing on any genes with his chosen pack.
I was looking for a way to move my pack ahead in the registration process for omega consideration before everything happened with Talia, and stumbled on some files that mentioned the Nattier pack. I was curious. I read the files. Jasper's family donated a couple million to the Institute to convince them to accept him. The original rejection letter stated that his acceptance would put the rest of the omegas at the Institute at risk, but between the donation and Jasper's natural talents, they eventually took him.
That's the kind of thing that he might not want broadcasted. It's also the kind of thing that will get your fingers cut off a bit at a time. After what happened with Talia and what I witnessed at the compound, I wasn't giving any asshole a single word that would put an omega at risk. And I'd really rather Jasper not know that I lost any part of myself because I wouldn't give the rogues any information that would put him or his family at risk. I don't want him to feel obligated tonothate me.
I thought about how unbothered I am about interrogating Flores the whole drive home. I thought about it while Desir'ee was scrubbing me down. I didn't think about it at all while I was massaging soap across her skin, but I'm thinking about it now. It's because he hurt her. It's because he hurt Ben and Michael. I think if he hadn't hurt my pack, I might have been reluctant to slice pieces off of him and I'd most likely be squeamish about the whole thing. But he hurt my pack, and he left ugly bruises on my omega, so he deserved so much worse than he got. The only thing that actually bothers me about what I did to Flores was everyone watching me do it and feeling how much I didn't want everyone to know what happened to me hurt Desir'ee. Sometimes the bonds aren’t a blessing.
Tea. And snacks. Talia sent some of their omega tea over with Kaleb, along with a note instructing all of us to drink a cup because of its supposed calming effects. I'm not an expert on making tea, I pretty much just put the bag in the cup and pour water over it, but I am decent at snacks. I'm making cinnamon-sugar toast with enough butter to cancel out any health benefits associated with that omega tea and a bowl of sliced apples. That's what my mom made when I was upset as a kid. It's my version of comfort food.
The toast comes out of the oven just as the shower shuts off; and by the time I'm carrying everything into the bedroom my pack is already in bed. I put the big cookie sheet I used to cart the tea and snack on the dresser and roll my neck before I look at Desir'ee and the twins. They don't feel alarmed or upset. They feel, for lack of a better word, numb. Well, not Desir'ee. She feels worried, but in an abstract way rather than sharp concern. When I open my eyes, they look the exact way they feel; and they're all looking at me expectantly. So, I start distributing tea.
"Talia said we all needed to drink this," I inform them, handing each of them a mug. "It's still hot, so be careful. I made us toast, too. Like my mom used to make me when I was a kid. And apples." Then I sit on the corner of the bed with my own mug gripped tight in my fist, and we drink tea and crunch toast and apples without saying much of anything, being very careful to not get crumbs everywhere.
Michael collects everything and takes it all back to the kitchen when we're finished. I'm still sitting on the corner of the bed, and we still haven't talked about anything. This can't fester. I'm not sure what this reaction is, but I can't let it get worse. "I need someone to tell me something. What are we thinking about right now? What's bothering us? Tell me so I can get us past whatever this is."
Desir'ee fidgets with the blanket and licks her lips. "I don't need you to tell me how you lost your fingers or eye. I don't need the story. But I need you to know that I think it's awful and I hate that it happened to you. So much." Her lips quiver around the last few words.
"Hey," I say, moving up in the bed to stroke her hair and touch her cheek. "It's alright. It was worth it. I'd lose them all over again if I had it to do over. I don't care about missing pieces."
"But you felt upset, like you didn't want to do it to Flores."
I nod, still running my hand over her hair and neck. "I was upset, but not because of Flores. I would have done worse to him, but we needed all that information. I was only upset because I didn't want you to imagine someone doing that to me."
"Why did it happen to you?" Michael asks, sliding back under the blankets next to Desir'ee.
I sigh and sit back up, then I hold up my hand with the missing fingers. "I lost these a little bit at a time because I wouldn't give my first pack, or the rogues they worked with, the information they wanted." I point at my empty eye socket. "I lost this because I gave them an answer they didn't want."
Surprisingly, the next question isn't what the information was that I wouldn't give up, or what was the answer I did give. "Your pack did that to you?" Ben asks, his voice thick.
