Page 10 of Verses and Blooms
“Like you would for any of your own pack?” I asked. It was probably not the time to ask that question but I couldn’t help it. I suddenly needed to know if the bond between Cooke and Vance went beyond working together.
“We are,” Vance admitted. “Sanchez is our packmate, too.”
“Do you have an Omega?”
I wasn’t really sure if Sanchez was an omega or not, but surely, he wasn’t working with all of these alphas if so.
“We do,” Cooke admitted. “Colton is our omega. It doesn’t hurt that he works for the Alliance as well. The fates knew what they were doing, putting us with someone who could understand this life.”
“You’d think they wouldn’t purposely place packs together,” I said, shocked.
“You’d be surprised what the Alliance allows, especially when some of their best agents are ready to quit for their pack. I love what we do, but this pack means more to me. Our team is important, but even more so, Sanchez wouldn’t be easy to replace. This whole operation would be shit without him. We all knew it and so did Chief. It helps that only the two of us work this close together. Colton would kick our ass if we hovered over him during missions. That’s why we love him. He’s strong, sturdy, and can handle me, if you know what I mean.”
“I honestly don’t. I’ve never given myself a chance to be with anyone without holding back. Didn’t trust it. Even with Audrey I was restraining myself the entire time.”
I didn’t know why I was admitting that to him. Maybe I just needed to get it off my chest, to have validation from someone who knew what it was like.
He studied me until understanding settled in his eyes.
“You got sent to one of those facilities, didn’t you? Fucking Alpha detention centers. Makes sense.”
I nodded. “I was sent there without a reason other than my designation and my dad’s inability to control himself. They want to act like we’re monsters who could lose it on a dime. Yet, they threw a bunch of us together in close quarters, all at the height of puberty and the teen years where emotions are all over the place. It was reckless from the fucking start. I have control, but only over myself. The group of alphas who forced me to bond were insane, they were the exact villains everyone said dominant alphas could be. I’m just now accepting that I won’t ever lose control unless I want to.”
Cooke stepped in front of me until we were standing face to face, only a foot between us. His eyes locked onto mine, not letting me look away.
“I don’t know what Ares’s plan is, but I want you to know the Alliance can protect you. All of you. We’ve got your back. We’ll get you out of this place.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” I said. They were a good group, but I had spent too long under someone else’s control.
Vance wasn’t letting me off the hook that easy. “They’ll keep you together, you know. You’d be an asset, not a liability. Most of you could work on missions, undergo training. The rest of your pack could stay in a house within the compound. Protected. We just want you to know that you have options.”
“Before we consider any of that, I’m going to guess it’s not gonna be a walk in the park to get out of this place,” I said. “The Omega Network has reach and on paper, they make us look insane.”
“The fact you guys are able to help us search will work in your favor. Now that we know the board is corrupt, not just Sanchez, but his entire team, is digging them out. They’ll be systematically tearing this place down from the inside out.”
“I want to know what they find,” I muttered. Maybe Ledger and I would have to enact some of that good old-fashioned karma he always talked about. Because they absolutely need to be taken down. Not just their careers and status, but their freedom.
Maybe even their fucking lives for what they did.
They ruined all of us here far more than the world did. Knowingly. Purposefully. All for greed and power.
We’d spent years being sedated, medicated, and beat down in every way that counted. Left alphas like Caspian to drown in their grief. Had one person not lied to him, told him the truth about his daughter, maybe he would’ve been able to get his shit together a long time ago.
If they’d let Kane know the details about his pack, maybe he would have remembered them sooner.
They didn’t care about anyone here. Ansel was stuck with alphas that could absolutely hurt him.
If they’d taken two seconds to let a non-corrupted doctor evaluate Ledger he’d have been released years ago.
No. Everyone had to go down and I was gonna make sure they fucking suffered.
The other two went back to searching and I did the same, working my way back to the front of the room, just behind the doorway. Defeat started to settle in my gut as I neared the end, knowing we couldn’t keep searching here forever.
My fingers brushed over a small cut in the stone. It was too clean and smooth to be accidental. Not to mention far out of reach of the knob or anything else that could have caused it.
“Here,” I said, voice a rasp as I fought to find the light, refusing to step away just yet. They were there in seconds, hands moving over mine then running over the cement.
They both stopped at the exact same spot.
