Page 60 of Beta Lies and Cursed Lives
Caius raises a brow at him. “No one can get through this blast door or surrounding walls, I assure you.”
I stifle a grin as Rai’s eyes go white. The control panel comes to light with flashes of light, and just as the door unlocks with a loud, echoing boom, a little white spark leaps from one of his eyes. They’re back to their beautiful onyx when he purses his lips at me in humor.
“Interesting trick, but,” Caius tosses something from his pocket through the now open doorway, and with a bright flash, it explodes in mid-air, making me shriek. “Can you disable the defense system?” His brow raises in challenge.
Rai’s expression grows serious as his eyes go white again. The slowest minute passes when another spark pops from his eye, and another. Then a different sound echoes beyond the door, and Caius gives a nod of approval when he turns back to Rai. “Good. You’d be excellent at infiltration.”
Rai frowns, his now dark eyes angry. “That’s what they trained me for.”
Caius hums before he passes through the door, leaving Willow to wave us through. I take Rai’s hand firmly in mine as we walk down the dark, narrow hall. When the heavy door closes behind us, I put my free hand on the wall and find rough brick, my fingers skate over a dip of mortar before light fills the arching corridor. Bare bulbs hang from above us, one every few feet, emitting yellow light.
It takes me a moment to realize the hall is headed down and not across, the incline decreasing enough to feel it in my ankles, but not enough to make us slip. The floor is laid with the same brick as the walls and arched ceiling, giving the impression of being in a never-ending tube leading into darkness below.
I’m sure we don’t need to, but we all remain silent during our descent. By the time we reach the bottom, it feels like hours. What greets us beyond the shadows is like something out of spy movies.
An enormous room filled with computers and monitors, all of them on. The room is cool, and the hum of a climate control system fills the air. The ambient lighting is dim among the bright screens and flashing colorful lights all around, covering the walls around the few doors there, leading to places beyond.
This room has drywall, and what spaces aren’t covered are some light hue that changes color with the light from the screens around it. One large screen in particular catches my attention.
“That’s one of the academy’s training grounds,” I say, pointing.
Willow nods as she approaches. “We could only get one camera to show us the grounds. It’s mounted quite far from the perimeter wall, on a tall tree. This is the max zoom.” She turns her serious blue eyes on us. “We are going to take the academy and the juvenile facility in three days.”
Rai’s hand squeezes mine as Colt joins us, standing on my other side and placing a hand on the small of my back. “Why then?” he asks.
“We’ve been setting this plan in motion for years,” she explains. “We had to wait for all the pieces to fall into place to avoid bloodshed.”
“Rush them and kill all the Betas,” Colt seethes. “Who give a fuck about them?”
Willow looks at him, an angry glint in her eye. “Have you already forgotten the collars in the twenty-four hours you’ve been without them? What do you think would happen to the collared if we rush in, killing indiscriminately?”
Colt winces and looks down.
“It isn’t the Betas we’re concerned about; it’s our people. There is a kill switch in both buildings that can either release all the collars in the vicinity or detonate them all. We have people on the inside who are working to ensure things go the right way, and we save all those people.” Her eyes narrow on me, then each of the three Alphas at my sides and back, where Aubrey stands. “I need you all to tell me everything. Tell me what you know, even if it seems unimportant.”
We do as we’re told.
Colt translates for Aubrey, who goes first, stating he was the first one of us all to enter the academy. Then Colt and Rai fill in information as they quickly recap the last decade or so.
None of the information sounds particularly important to me, but Willow listens with rapt attention to every detail.
In the middle of the stories, Caius approaches me with a bottle of water and some pills. “Willow said you had a headache,” he tells me without looking me in the eye.
“Thank you.” My voice is soft as I take the items from him and catch his gaze flick up to my eyes for the briefest moment before he retreats to a desk at the center of the room and busies himself with a computer there.
After I take the medicine, I drink more water before passing the bottle to Colt, who has been doing the most talking. He takes it with a grateful smile, and we finally get to my entry into the academy.
I explain I’d been on the run with my father, how we’d both been captured, how I need to find him. Free him.
Willow nods, eyes tight. “Do you know where they took him?”
“Tenebrosa.”
Her body stiffens before she nods again. “You help us, we’ll help you.”
I blink in surprise, then hope compels me to word vomit the rest of my story, including the male Omega I witnessed executed. It’s Colt who tells them about the pack that Beta Councilman commanded to be executed in front of us all, and Rai explains we escaped because Aubrey was about to be taken away, and how we did it.
“Is the helicopter in working condition?” Caius asks from behind his screen.
