We ran down the hallway as fast as we could until we reached the stairwell that would take us down to the kitchen. I clutched the heavy briefcase and Genevieve held the poker from Glen’s office like a sword.
She slowly opened the door to the stairwell and I knew we were both holding our breath, waiting for someone to jump out at us. But no one did. It was strangely quiet.
We paused again at the bottom of the stairs. Before we could open the door to leave, it slammed open. Genevieve jumped back with a cry, barely moving fast enough to keep the metal door from hitting her in the face.
“Found them!” Mustache guard shouted, his face red with exertion and his chest heaving.
Without thinking, I put the last tab in my mouth and bit down hard. Immediately, his eyes glazed over. Mullet and another guard I didn’t know sprinted in and immediately fell under the effect of the tab.
“Go lock yourselves in the utility closet,” Genevieve said, her voice like ice.
The guards all obeyed her, filing out of the stairwell single file until they reached the utility closet and marched in, locking the door behind them.
“That was the last tab,” I muttered.
“Guess it’s the old-fashioned way now,” she responded, tightening her grip on the poker. My hands felt slippery and my arm ached from holding the briefcase.
We jogged down the hall and rounded the corner to the kitchen when a guard jumped out from the opposite end of the hallway. Before we could do anything, he pulled the trigger on his gun. Fire seared through my thigh and I screamed, dropping to the ground. All sound ceased as the pain consumed me and my vision went spotty. I heard another gunshot and I curled in on myself, positive that he had shot Genevieve.
I whimpered when I felt hands on me, pulling my arms away from my face.
“Josie,” Genevieve said, slapping my face. “Get up. We have to move.”
My eyes flew open. Genevieve was kneeling next to me, hair wild, gun slung around her back. She looked like a fucking assassin.
“The bullet just grazed your leg. It didn’t go in,” she said, hoisting me to my feet with surprising strength. I was moving in a daze and in the back of my mind, I knew I was in shock.
“Where is the exit?” she asked, keeping her arm around me. I pointed down the hall, past the kitchen, studiously trying to avoid looking at the dead guard lying in a pool of his blood on the floor. I tested putting weight on my injured leg. It fucking hurt, but my leg didn’t collapse, so that was something.
Just then, a guard appeared from the kitchen, tripping over the other guard’s body. His gun skidded across the floor and I lunged for it without thinking. The wound in my leg screamed in protest as I landed by the weapon. My vision was spotty and my head swam as I lay there, my shaky hands wrapped around the gun handle. Cam’s words flooded back to me as I fumbled with it, but my thoughts were foggy with pain and panic. Then Genevieve’s hands were on me as she urged me to get up.
A whine bled from my lips as the guard regained his footing and threw himself towards us.
“Freeze!” he barked, and Genevieve froze, her finger a hairsbreadth from the trigger of the gun in her hand. “Drop the gun.”
There was a loud thud as Genevieve’s gun hit the floor.
The guard closed in, sneering, but his expression dropped when he realized I was still moving. I grabbed Genevieve, trying to drag her frozen body, but it was unyielding. I lifted the gun with shaking hands and shouted for the guard to stand down. He tried barking at me again, but I ignored the command. Then he lunged at me and we fell to the ground. In the chaotic fumble, I discharged the gun, hitting him square in the side. He slumped to the floor next to me, blood blooming from the wound.
I whimpered in horror. I had done that. I had harmed someone.
“Come on, Josie,” Genevieve hissed, now unfrozen. I realized she was pulling me down the hall. “You did good,” she continued. “Don’t worry about him.”
I realized I was still whining. “Did I kill him?” I asked in a whisper, dreading the answer.
“No,” Genevieve responded. “You just got him in the side. He should be fine, but we need to go.”
My inner omega latched onto the authority in her voice, even if her words felt like a lie. I used her for support, my injured leg dragging uselessly behind me.
We rounded the corner where I knew the hidden door was. The dark concrete hallway looked so much more menacing than when Sam and I used to run down it, treats and champagne in hand. Single fluorescent bulbs hung from the ceiling, casting a flickering glow in the darkness.
“If this were a horror movie, the audience would scream at us right now,” I mumbled. I couldn’t feel my leg anymore and my thoughts were a confused tangle. My head lolled on my shoulders and Genevieve tightened her grip around my waist.
“This is a horror movie,” Genevieve responded. “But we are not those stupid side character girls who get killed in the first five minutes.”
“We’d at least stay alive for ten,” I said deliriously. I fought to keep my eyes open, to support myself on my good leg so I wasn’t dragging Genevieve down.
“Where is the door?”
“Just a bit further,” I responded, trying to focus my eyes and find the divot in the wall that signaled the secret exit.
“There it is!” I gasped, gesturing with my hand. Genevieve picked up her pace, dragging me towards the spot in the wall.
And then my heart stopped.
Standing at the opposite end of the hallway was Dave.
Nausea rolled over me as my body remembered the last time I had seen him walking me down a similar hallway to hell.
His eyes widened in shock as we stared at each other.
I looked for the gun I’d been holding, but my hands were empty. I must have dropped it.
“What the fuck are you doing?” he hissed, glancing over his shoulder.
Rage filled me, clearing the haze of the pain and shock my body was experiencing. I had trusted him. Clementine had trusted him. And he betrayed me.
“What are you doing here?” I shot back.
Genevieve squeezed my arm so tight I knew it would bruise.
“I should have known you’d be working for Glen now. You are scum,” I said, cringing when I realized how loud my voice was.
“I had no choice,” he said, taking a few steps towards us.
Panic flooded me. We couldn’t retreat down the hall—the only way we would escape was through this door. Every pounding heartbeat was a reminder that time was running out.
“There’s always a choice,” I said, tugging Genevieve’s shirt to signal her to move us closer to the exit. She obliged, shuffling us carefully towards the door. “You chose to betray us, to betray me.”
“Glen has my sisters,” Dave said. “You have no idea what that’s like!”
A red haze of pure, feral rage fell over my eyes.
“I don’t know what it’s like? I’ve been tortured and abused. My alphas are dead!” My voice broke and I clenched my hand over my chest to keep myself together. “You are pathetic and weak. I know the shit you told Clementine. What did you think would happen when you started working for Glen—he and his cronies would get you closer to the power you deserve as a big, strong alpha? Your sisters would be fucking ashamed of you.”
Dave gripped his gun, his acidic scent assaulting me, but mixed in with his rage was a deep, sour shame.
“If you care about your sisters, you’ll let us go,” I continued, not giving him a chance to respond. “You owe me. You could have warned us what they were going to do at the DC, and you didn’t. You just fucking led me down that hallway.”
“They promised me they wouldn’t hurt you, just that they needed you away from your alphas for a private interview,” Dave said, unable to meet my gaze.
“Then you’re a fucking idiot,” I snarled.
Genevieve inhaled sharply. I knew I was being careless, but I couldn’t stop. I expected Dave to lift his gun or at least run at us. But instead, he seemed to curl in on himself, defeated.
“You’re right. I am. If I could go back and change it, I would.”
“Then make it better now,” Genevieve snapped. “And let us go.”
“He’ll catch you,” Dave said.
“Give us a head start,” I said.
Dave shifted his weight, looking uncomfortable.
“Either you’re sorry for what you did and are going to make it right, or you’re exactly the piece of shit I thought you were,” I said.
“If I let you go, Glen will kill my sisters,” he snarled.
“Not if we rescue them first,” I said.
Genevieve threw me a panicked glance. Now Dave could tell Glen what we planned to do, but I clung to the hope that Dave’s love for his sisters was strong enough for him to keep his mouth shut. Either Dave would let us go, or I would taunt him enough to kill me. Living as the omega slave of a vicious pack while my alphas lay dead was a worse fate than death.
“What are your sisters’ names?” I asked, desperate to keep him talking.
He glanced over his shoulder again before turning back to me. “Why should I trust that you’ll help them?”
“Because unlike you, I’m not a spineless sack of…”
Genevieve elbowed me in the side, forcing me to shift my weight to stay balanced. I whimpered at the pain, blood dripping down my leg.
“Shit, sorry,” she said.
Dave looked upset by my injury, and I remembered how kind he’d been when Pack Madden had bruised my wrist on the interview day.
“I know what it’s like to be trapped as an omega. Your sisters deserve better. We all deserve better. Do this and be worthy of them.”
Genevieve’s hand caught on the small, hidden latch. She propped me up against the wall as she pulled hard. The wall moved with a loud clunk, revealing an opening perfectly cut from the concrete. I wanted to help, but I could barely keep myself upright. I could feel the steady stream of blood trickling down my leg.
“You won’t get far,” Dave said. “You’re injured, and Glen won’t stop hunting you.”
“Let him try,” Genevieve spit out, startling Dave and me.
“Margaret and Jennifer,” Dave called out as Genevieve dragged us out the door, a shock of cold air hitting my skin.
I turned and met his gaze, giving him a curt nod before shutting the door solidly behind me.
Genevieve tightened her hold on me, dragging me away from the house. She didn’t stop as we headed into the woods. “Once we get further away, I’ll bind your leg.”
The scent of the outdoors was like a drug, and I kept huffing it in deep breaths. The greens of the leaves spun around me and I almost had the urge to giggle.
“The world is blurry.”
“Keep it together,” Genevieve hissed.
Finally, she came to a stop, and we both tumbled to the forest floor. I lay back on the ground, the damp pine needles acting as my bed.
My mind wandered. Hints of the dark sky peeked through the tree branches. A flash of lightning illuminated our surroundings for a split moment. A drop of rain landed on my face. I raised my hand as if I could touch the sky.
“The rain should cover our scents,” Genevieve said. I realized she was ripping her skirt into strips. “Josie, talk to me.”
I opened my mouth to say something, but all that came out was a whine.
“You were amazing in there,” she said. “And I wish you could rest, but we have to keep going. Do you know anywhere we can go? I have no idea what part of town we’re in.”
Her words came to me as if through a fog. I heard a chattering of teeth and realized the sound was coming from me.
“I think you’re in shock,” Genevieve said, tying a strip of cloth around my thigh tightly. “And I’m very sympathetic, but it’s also very inconvenient right now.”
I snorted out a laugh. “Sorry for being an inconvenience with my gunshot wound.”
Her head appeared in my field of vision. “You always were a bit dramatic.”
“Fuck off.”
Genevieve grinned. “Since when do you swear?”
“Since I left the DA. Also, my alphas think it’s hot.”
Her smile fell. “Were you happy with them?” she whispered.
“So happy,” I whispered, the lump in my throat stopping me from saying anything else.
“I’m so sorry,” Genevieve responded.
There were no more words to say. The loves of my life, my soulmates, were gone. And with them, my hopes for ever getting a happily ever after.
She finished binding up my leg and helped me get into a seated position. She framed my face with her hands, forcing me to look at her.
“You want revenge for their deaths, yeah?” she asked, a dark glint in her eyes.
“Yes.”
“Good. The first step is to get us the fuck out of here. Now, do you know where we are?” Her words were sharp, forcing me to focus.
I remembered Genevieve had grown up about an hour outside of the city. Navigating to a safe location was all on me. We were fucked.
“We’re in Forestside,” I said, looking around at the woods.
Dizziness assaulted me as I turned my head. I glanced down at my leg, averting my gaze when I saw blood already seeping through the binding. My skin felt blistered and burned.
“Aptly named,” Genevieve responded dryly.
“My parents don’t live too far from here,” I said, fighting the urge to lie back down.
“Well, that’s not helpful,” she said.
The rain fell harder now, the smell of the pine trees and damp forest floor permeating the air.
“Josie, focus!” Genevieve whisper-yelled, gripping my face between her two hands. “If we don’t move now, they’re going to take us back.”
Her words cut through the haze and offered me a moment of clarity. A flash of memory of a car ride that felt like a lifetime away. A dress and the smell of my alphas surrounding me, and the stupid anxiety I’d felt about what I looked like. I’d give anything to be that girl again.
“Pack Turro. They live in this area.” My mind wandered to Donovan’s painting, to that feeling of solidarity I had felt when reading his note. “He’ll help us,” I said with more confidence.
“Don’t know who the fuck that is, but sounds good to me. Let’s go.”
Genevieve forced me to my feet, throwing her arm under my shoulder to support my weight.
“The briefcase?” I asked, looking around when I realized I had dropped it at some point.
“I’ve got it,” she said, holding it up. Relief and gratitude washed through me.
“I’m glad you’re here,” I said, tightening my hold on her.
“Which direction?” she asked, a soft smile on her lips.
“I’m not sure,” I said, trying to wrack my brain for any details I could remember about their location. “We passed Glen’s on the way to their house,” I said, desperately trying to remember details from the cocktail party. Most of what I remembered from the drive there was Cam’s hands on me, his protectiveness as he made me go over the plan. “It was on the righthand side of the road.”
“So we need to go in this direction?” Genevieve asked, pointing to our left.
“Maybe?” I responded, my lip trembling.
“Better than nothing,” she said.
We made our way through the woods with painful slowness, the mud cold against my bare skin.
“I’m sorry,” I gritted out as I stumbled for the millionth time. The rain was coming down hard, making it almost impossible to keep my footing. Genevieve’s arms shook from exertion.
“I’m going to bind our legs together,” she said. “Like we’re doing a three-legged race.”
She propped me up against a tree and tore more fabric strips from her dress. Her skin was turning blue from the cold. She tied my bad leg to hers and put her arm around my shoulder. “We’ll step at the same time. That way, I can support your leg better.”
We shuffled along for what felt like hours, growing colder and wetter, before I finally collapsed.
“Sorry, sorry,” I sobbed to Genevieve, who tried to pull us back to standing before she dropped to the ground with a muttered curse.
I drifted in and out of consciousness, trembling and vaguely aware of Genevieve dragging me. Through the thick haze of pain and cold, I heard shouts and felt hands on me before succumbing to the darkness.
