Page 40 of Scapegoat

They lay on the bright green grass, discarded. No, dismissed. I couldn’t even bring myself to put them in the compost heap. My eyes darted around, my heart pounding hard as I scoured the paddock around me, but all I saw were sheep, grass, fences and the sky. I was alone and was that a good thing or a bad thing? I didn’t bother to think about that, tossing the rest of my coffee out onto the grass before slamming the door shut behind me.

I grabbed my clothes, books, little keepsakes I couldn’t bear to leave behind and then dragged my suitcases out from under my bed. The bed linens were stripped and shoved into the ancient washing machine in the laundry to run through the cycle. I put away clean dishes in the cupboards and washed the few that were dirty, putting them away as well. I scrubbed the cottage clean of me. And when the suitcases were set up by the door and the place was stripped bare, I stepped out of the cottage, anxiety pinching in my gut, somehow sure the boys would come round the corner of the cottage, that they’d lain in wait all this time.

But to do something like that would indicate they cared, and I knew that couldn’t be true. If they did, they’d have chosen me. If they did, they’d… I pulled myself away from that thought just like I jerked open my car door. Flinging myself behind the wheel, I turned the engine over, once, twice, the old thing not keen to get going in the morning. But once it roared to life, I eased it out onto the dirt track and up to the gate, shooing the sheep away as I opened it, then got back into the car to drive it through.

But if I thought I’d find any relief when I got to the Hamilton place, I was mistaken.

Mrs Hamilton (call me Vicki) came out of the house, holding her hand up to shade her eyes, smiling when she saw it was me.

“How are you, love?” she said. “It’s good to see you. Fancy a cuppa?”

“Ah, Vicki, I came down here to talk to you about—”

“Come inside,” she urged as she steered me towards the house. Her kids were grown and gone from the district and it seemed to me that she got lonely out here, just her and her husband. “We’ve got some new shearers we’ve just put on, and thank god they turned up. The bigger farms out west are taking everyone right now, offering stupid money to get their sheep shorn. Not enough kids wanting to do the job anymore and the old fellas’ backs are giving out.”

Her stream of words washed over me as she ushered me into the house. I heard masculine voices coming from the kitchen, but didn’t realise who they belonged to until I stepped into the room.

Fuck.

If I’d thought yesterday had been a gut punch, seeing the three Campbell boys sitting around the kitchen table with Mr Hamilton (George, love), each man with a cup of coffee in his hands, hit me much harder.

“The boys here said they knew you, Kai,” Vicki said as she bustled around the kitchen. “It’s why we thought we might give them a try. I mean, beggars can’t be choosers and all that, but if you know them…”

Her words faded away as the kettle began to whistle, the high-pitched sound echoing in the whine in my head, one that smothered all other noise. George looked up as the three men got to their feet, each one staring at me.

“Kai?”

Vicki held out a mug for me to take and I did so almost blankly, just staring at her, then at the guys, and that’s when the Hamiltons started to get suspicious. Humans didn’t have scent to help them identify threats, so they had to use observational skills instead. And George and Vicki seemed to detect the tension in the room.

“Do you know these boys?” George asked, a more serious tone affecting him.

“Yes.” I smiled, the same kind of social smile I plastered on my face when dealing with difficult customers or petulant bosses. “We went to school together. They weren’t shearing back when I knew them but…” I could almost hear Vicki and George sucking a breath in. “They were always strong and fit, and I admit it’s been a while since we caught up—”

“Maybe we should do that right now.” Xavier took a step forward and I had to lock my muscles down tight to stop myself from scuttling on out of the house. “It’d be good to have a chat. We’ve got a lot of news to share from home.”

“You’re all from Stanthorpe, right?” Vicki asked. “That’s a lovely little place. We passed through it on the way to Melbourne. Well, if you want to catch up, maybe you can show the boys the bunk house, Kai? It’s off behind the shearing shed.”

“Of course.” I smiled and then set my coffee down on the kitchen bench, no more able to take a sip from it than I would a cup full of vomit. “Come this way.”

I waited until we were outside, daring a sidelong look at the main house and, only then, when I didn’t see the shadow of either Vicki or George, I turned on the three of them.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” I hissed, keeping my expression polite, even if my tone wasn’t.

“We told you yesterday,” Xavier said, stepping closer, then stopping when I threatened to back away. “We need to talk.”

“About what?” I crossed my arms, though keeping an eye on the main house as I faced the boys down. “How Stanthorpe is going? How the alphas are slowly handing over more control to you?” I swallowed hard but it didn’t shift the lump in my throat. “How things are going with you lot and Anna. Mum must be so pleased.”

“I wouldn’t fucking know.” Jayden’s voice was too loud, too sharp. “The alphas kicked Abigail out of the pack the minute they inspected Anna and realised she wasn’t an omega. They said what we knew all along, that she’s not our mate. You’d have found that out if you had stuck around.”

“Why?” I felt like my eyes sparked like a cut electrical cable. “It doesn’t matter if she’s an omega or not. You claimed her. Those bites mean something.”

“Like the one on your neck?” Atlas looked me over way too slowly, taking in my loose ponytail, my slubby jumper and jeans, the thick sheepskin moccasins on my feet keeping them warm, then settling on the bite visible on my neck. I pulled the collar of my jumper up to cover it.

“If there’s no real connection between people, a bite is just a fucking bite,” Xavier said, with a frown. “The alphas worked out what your mother did real quick. We only claimed Anna because she smelled like you. Those were your bites. It should’ve been you—”

I couldn’t listen to this. I couldn’t. He was saying exactly what I wanted to hear, what I’d thought so violently after my first shift, but… That had been two years ago. They were different people now and so was I, so I turned on my heel and marched across the Hamiltons’ lawn.

“Bunkhouse is this way.”

---