I heard low voices and a car door shutting as cool air brushed against my skin. I kept my eyes closed, as if my eyelids could protect me from the outside world. After Theo examined my injuries in the car, I retreated inside myself. I imagined building a wall in my head, stacking brick after brick to protect myself… to hide away.
Cold spread across my limbs and numbness found a home in my chest. I didn’t want to feel anything. The only thing I allowed to permeate my wall was my alphas’ scents. I didn’t even care that all their scents were bitter and burnt with distress. I was just relieved they were here.
Strong arms lowered me onto my bed, but I kept my eyes closed. I wanted to beg them to pile around me, to press my body against theirs so hard I disappeared into them. But a sick feeling had taken hold in my stomach. I didn’t deserve their touch.
“Josie, beautiful, can you open your eyes for me?” Ben’s voice was soft and hesitant. My omega begged me to respond to him, but everything felt frozen. Did I even know how to lift my eyelids anymore? Or move my limbs?
“Angel, please say something,” Theo pleaded. A vice squeezed my chest at the pain in his voice. I needed to make it better, but I didn’t know how.
And then, two hands cupped the sides of my face and the scent of burnt cinnamon surrounded me. The heat of Cam’s hands against my skin unthawed me enough to open my eyes.
“Baby girl,” he said, his voice a strangled whisper. His brown eyes were anguished and lined with tears. “There you are.”
I opened my mouth, but no words came out. I didn’t know what to say. How could I ever come back from this? Now they would see how damaged I truly was. Now they would finally realize they deserved better than me.
Cam’s hands continued framing my face, and I couldn’t stop myself from leaning into his touch. He held my gaze for a few long moments. I braced myself for his rejection.
“I am so fucking sorry,” he said, a tear streaming down his cheek. “I will regret not protecting you for the rest of time.”
“What?” I croaked, unable to process his words.
“I should have protected you,” Cam said, his voice hitching.
“We all should have protected you,” Theo said, carefully lying beside me on the bed without touching me. “I’m sorry, angel.”
Ben squeezed his way onto the bed, not caring that he was shoving Cam aside. He didn’t seem to have any of Theo’s hesitation about touch, pressing in so his warm body was against mine. Cam grunted in irritation, and something about the moment was so perfect, so ridiculously normal, it startled me out of my icy numbness. I lifted my hand, feeling like it weighed a thousand pounds, and ran it through Ben’s curls.
“We shouldn’t have gone,” Ben said, hiding his face in my neck. “We should have done everything to keep you away from that place. I’m sorry we couldn’t stop them.”
“Not your fault,” I whispered, leaning into him and stealing comfort from his touch. I reached out to Cam, hoping he would understand I wanted him closer. He did, moving ever so carefully until he was seated against the headboard, pulling my head into his lap. He played with my hair, gently untangling it while Theo and Ben lay on either side of me.
My omega felt content and settled between her alphas, but maybe that was the problem. Maybe she was the problem.
I wasn’t sure how long we stayed like that. I floated, feeling detached from my body and the passage of time until Theo’s phone jolted me back to reality.
“Angie’s here,” he said. He brushed his lips against my forehead. “She won’t touch you unless you say it’s okay. And we won’t leave you alone.”
I nodded, unable to do anything else. I didn’t want anyone else in my room, didn’t want anyone else seeing me like this. But my alphas wanted me to get checked out, and I wanted to make them feel better.
I floated back into my protective cocoon behind the brick wall in my mind. I vaguely registered Angie entering. Cam shifted as if he was going to move but froze at my whine.
“Okay, sweetheart, I’ll stay right here,” he murmured, propping me up gently against his chest.
Theo covered me in a blanket, shielding me from Angie’s eyes, before pulling the rest of my sweater off. Cam kept hold of my hand, murmuring praise I didn’t deserve.
My thoughts were a confused jumble.
Theo lifted my arm to show Angie the wound. I would have yet another scar marking me as defective. Angie gave him instructions on how to clean and wrap it. It stung when he touched it, and I bit my lip to stop myself from crying out in pain.
Ben’s thumb ran along my lower lip, rescuing it. “You don’t have to keep quiet for us, precious,” he said.
But I was scared that if I let out what I was feeling, the emotions wouldn’t stop until they drowned me.
My alphas inspected my ribs, rolling me to my other side to ensure I didn’t have any other injuries.
“Josie?” Angie asked.
I didn’t respond. Guilt curled in my stomach—I wanted to say something to this omega who had done so much for me, risked so much to help me. But my brick wall soared to the sky, walling me in.
“Josie, I’m so sorry to ask this, but did they touch you anywhere else?”
All my alphas stilled and it took me a moment to piece together her question and my alphas’ reactions.
Then it clicked.
I shook my head and Ben breathed a sigh of relief and hugged me close, careful not to aggravate my side. I wasn’t sure why Glen and Dr. Bishop hadn’t done a pelvic exam… or worse… but I guessed they had other priorities today. I had the vague feeling that they had said something about Jericho, but I couldn’t remember what it was.
I reached up to touch the bandage Theo had wrapped around my arm and realized they had sealed the device in instead of taking it out.
“Want it out,” I whispered.
“I’m so sorry, I can’t take the device out,” Angie said, sounding pained. “It will alert Glen if we do. But I promise we’ll find a way to…”
“No,” I shrieked. “Get it out, now!”
My chest constricted and I felt like I was suffocating. I thrashed around on the bed, trying to free myself from the blankets piled on top of me. I screamed, panicked that I was trapped again.
Someone pulled the blankets off and Cam pressed me close to his chest. I fought his hold, my body unsure of whose arms were around me, until he started purring. The vibrations soothed the ache in my heart and my limbs softened. Cam ran his hand up and down my back in a rhythm too quick to be soothing while Ben pulled his shirt off and slipped it over me, enveloping me in his scent.
“How do we know it will alert him?” Theo asked. “He could just be lying to scare us.”
I forced my eyes open. Angie stood by the foot of the bed, wringing her hands. “It matches the intel the Alliance gathered a couple of weeks ago…”
Cam cut her off with a snarl. “The Alliance knew about this and did nothing?”
Angie blanched, taking a stumbling step back.
My omega whined at seeing her scared. I lifted my hand to pat Cam on the chest and he placed his hand over mine, caressing it. He tilted my chin to meet his gaze, and my breath caught at the fear and pain in the depth of his eyes.
Cam turned back to Angie.
“Sorry,” he muttered, giving my hand a small squeeze.
“I don’t think anyone knew this was going to happen today, and certainly not to Josie,” Angie said softly. “I’m sure Amirah would have tried to warn you. We got intel a few months ago that these new devices were in development. I’ve been working with an Alliance team to figure out how to combat the device technology. I didn’t realize when we first met, Josie, that you were the one who gave the Alliance the original device. We used your old device to develop the alpha tabs, but when we realized Glen’s larger plan, we started trying to develop a way to disable the technology in these new devices.”
Her words floated to me as if through a fog. I didn’t care about disabling the device.
“Please take it out,” I said, lunging forward to grip her arm. “Please, I can’t stand it.”
“We’re so close to having the serum ready to disable the device,” Angie said. “And I promise, the moment we take down this government, I will remove it for you.”
My lip trembled, and I pressed my face to Cam’s chest.
“There’s another thing,” she said hesitantly, her voice sounding like it was traveling through water. “Our research suggests that the device will interfere with the formation of a bond.”
“What?” Theo hissed.
“As long as the device is inside her, any bonds will be… distorted, incomplete.”
She kept talking, but I couldn’t hear her words anymore. I was stuck, trapped once more in a body that had betrayed me. My vision of a future with my alphas, bonded and happy, vanished before my eyes.
