Page 79 of Broken Omega

I lay down on my side on the cold tiles of the kitchen area to check under the cabinets. A cursory glance reveals my phone has gone all the way under. I can just barely see the edge of its sparkly gold cover.

My hand barely fits under the gap. I can’t reach far enough to touch it. My fingertips don’t even brush the edge.

Getting back to my feet, I let out a sigh as I look around the kitchen.

My gaze lands on a spatula, and I start to smile.

Turns out cooking utensils might be handy for something.

For the first time in six years, I use the spatula that’s been hanging on the wall by the oven since I moved in. I push it under the cabinets, scooping up my lost phone and rescuing it from death by dust-bunnies. I pick my phone up and deposit the spatula into the sink, along with the thin trail of dust it scooped up.

It’s probably the first and last time I’ll ever find a kitchen utensil useful.

I wipe the surface of my phone before I unlock it.

Texting Lana, I ask what she knows about last night.

She’s probably super busy with all the calls she’ll be getting asking what’s going on, but she usually keeps her cell phone in her purse if it’s not on her desk so I’ll hear back whenever she has a second.

I put the phone down on the table.

It’s been a while since I ate, and considering I was ordered to do so by an EMT last night, I figure I’ll start by finding something edible in my fridge. After picking out a bottle of water and a fruit pot, I go sit down and start my healthy breakfast while I stare at my phone and half-listen to a shitty daytime soap opera that’s on the TV.

When all that’s left in the fruit pot are grapes, I go back to the fridge and take out a yogurt.

My phone buzzes on the table when I’m grabbing a spoon from the drawer.

I rush back around to the table, dropping the spoon and yogurt onto the table with a clatter.

Lana isn’t texting, she’s calling.

I pick up quickly. “Hey.”

“Hey,” she says, her voice quiet. “Are you okay?”

“I … Um, yeah. I’m okay.”

“I heard they almost took you away in an ambulance last night.”

“Oh, that. I might have fainted slightly when I found the bodies.”

She sucks in a breath. “You found the bodies?”

She didn’t know. I guess probably no one knows. I mean, besides Henry and maybe some of the other guards. Whoever he might have told. Some of the Omegas probably know something.

Everyone who went to the social was out there when I was with those EMTs.

“It’s a long story,” I tell her. “Do you know anything about what happened?”

“It’s all been coming together in pieces, but as far as I can tell, Frank Palmer was here.”

“Wait. I heard that last night, but that was just a rumor …”

“It was on the news this morning. He’s dead. He did what he did out here, and then he tried to kill another woman. He was caught and killed by one of his own kids. You know how he has a ton of them …”

“Because he was a rapist before he was a killer.”

“Yeah, so, that’s what happened. Are you seriously okay?”

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