The two-hour drive out of the city had been torture. Adrenaline coursed through my veins, leaving my arms and legs trembling. I kept looking in the side mirrors, convinced someone was following us. But there was no one. Our plan had worked.
Lilah, Sam, Gerald, Donovan, Terrance, and I stayed up until the early morning hours to finalize the plan. It all hinged on the alpha tabs. Luckily, Lilah brought a large supply of them with her.
Charlie had hacked into the courthouse security system. The government had already assigned a transport van to take my alphas to the Facility, even though they hadn’t been sentenced yet. Justice, my ass. Charlie found where the van was parked on the security cameras—right next to the courthouse backdoor and a long line of dumpsters.
Before the sun was up, I doused myself with de-scenter and dressed in all-black workout clothes, tucking a dozen alpha tabs into my pockets, shoes, and bra. Terrance drove Sam and me to the courthouse, and the three of us snuck across the dark parking lot to the transport van as the first rays of morning light chased us. Charlie had looped the security camera footage so no one could see us.
That was how, once again, I found myself crouched behind a trash can, hiding from alphas.
We sat silently in the dark. The stench of the trash burned my nose, but focusing on it kept me grounded. I was balancing right on the edge of panic. Sam encouraged me to sleep, but terror kept my eyes open. There were so many things that could go wrong. The tiniest misstep could be enough to keep me from my alphas and jeopardize all our safety.
Once it hit nine o’clock, Sam turned on the live stream of the sentencing on his phone. My breath caught as I saw my alphas in the courtroom, separated from each other as they had been throughout the trial. I tried to focus on the judge’s words, but I felt dissociated. Nothing felt real. Those were my alphas. Mine. And I should be with them.
Sam squeezed my hand. “Take a breath,” he murmured. “This gets them a step closer to you.”
The judge’s voice came through the phone’s tinny speaker. “I have reviewed the facts of this case and am deeply disturbed by Pack Ashwood’s treasonous behavior, made worse by their blatant manipulation and abuse of a vulnerable omega who will now spend the rest of her life trying to recover from their actions.”
I seethed, rolling my eyes.
“Therefore, I am assigning the maximum sentence to reflect the grave nature of this crime and to prevent any alphas from acting the same way. Cameron, Theodore, and Benjamin Ashwood are hereby sentenced to serve three consecutive life sentences in the Designation Facility—one life sentence for each crime. In the Facility, these alphas will no longer pose a threat to society.”
Even though I knew it was coming, my breath still caught in my throat. What happened next was something I didn’t expect. As the guards grabbed Cam, he let out an agonized roar, swinging his cuffed hands towards the first guard and breaking his nose with a sickening crunch. I held my breath as chaos ensued, resulting in six or seven guards lunging at Cam, throwing him to the ground, and injecting him with something. I bit down on my fist to keep from making noise but couldn’t stop a piercing omega whine from slipping through my lips.
“Turn that off,” Terrance growled, and Sam moved his phone so I couldn’t see.
“No, let me see,” I hissed, digging my fingernails into my palms.
Sam shook his head. I growled, needing to see what was happening to my alphas, but I also understood his reasons for not letting me. I needed to be focused enough to drive the van, and what I had seen already had me shaking with rage and fear.
“Okay, they have Theo and Ben now, and they’re carrying Cam out. Looks like they injected him with something to knock him out. We need to be ready,” Sam said.
I forced myself to take deep breaths, flinching as the courthouse door slammed open.
Out walked my alphas. Real. Alive. And very fucking angry.
“Watch it!” Theo snarled.
Sam immediately clapped his hand over my mouth, preventing any noise from escaping. My heart beat so fast I thought it would explode. Theo. I blinked tears from my eyes. I never thought I would hear his voice again.
The van’s back door slammed open, and the guards yelled at Ben and Theo to get in. I heard another loud thump and I cringed, wondering if they had thrown Cam in.
I had thought sleeping in the cage in Glen’s dungeon was torture, but I had been wrong. Being feet away from my alphas and unable to speak to them, touch them, was the deepest form of torture imaginable.
The van doors slammed shut.
“Have fun driving these assholes,” one of the guards growled. “Fuck, my nose is fucking broken.”
“Stop being such a pussy,” another guard said with a snort.
The courthouse door opened and closed again. I met Sam’s gaze and nodded, and he removed his hand. This next part was all on me.
“I need a smoke before we go,” one of the drivers said.
I pulled a tab out from my pocket, fisting a second one just in case. Terrance and Sam pulled masks over their faces. They might still be slightly affected by the tabs, but they had both reassured me it would be alright and they trusted me.
I placed it in my mouth, biting down right as I stepped out from the dumpster.
Two guards were standing by the van. Their eyes widened when they saw me and then went blank a moment later as the tab started taking effect.
“Give me the keys,” I demanded, proud of myself for keeping my voice steady. One of the alphas pulled a set of keys out of his pocket. I ran my fingers over them. One was clearly the van key, and the other looked like a handcuff key.
“Get in the dumpster,” I said, turning back to the dazed guards.
The two of them walked towards the dumpster in a trance. I clenched my jaw, hating this. No one deserved to have their decisions taken away, but as Lilah had reminded me last night, sometimes war required us to fight dirty. Plus, we had all agreed we wouldn’t harm the guards. The two of them opened the dumpster and obediently climbed in.
Terrance and Sam had slightly glazed looks on their faces, and neither was moving.
“Lock the dumpster,” I told them, biting my lip. Terrance pulled out the padlock and did what I said.
“Thanks for your help,” I whispered. “Now go drive home and stay safe.”
Sam shook his head, trying to shake the effects of the tab. He pulled me into a quick hug, wishing me luck, before walking in an even, measured pace towards the car with Terrance.
I slipped into the van. The whole exchange probably took three minutes, but I was terrified someone had seen us. I turned the van on and pulled out of the lot, my hands clenching the steering wheel during the drive. The only thing that grounded me was Lil O’s newest pop song. I almost pulled over multiple times to reunite with my alphas, but Sam’s instructions had rung in my head: get to the safe house first. Once I got to the wooded trail, I relaxed a tiny bit. The van bounced underneath me, almost lifting me from the seat, and I hoped my alphas weren’t being knocked around too badly.
I hadn’t let myself imagine our reunion during the drive, still half convinced something would go wrong. But as I pulled up to the end of the path and saw the purple marker on the tree that Amirah told me marked the trail to hike to the safe house, I finally let myself feel the excitement I’d been keeping at bay.
I threw the van in park and rounded to the back, unlocking the door with shaking hands.
