Page 124 of G.O.D.S Omnibus

My muscles start to loosen up, and I follow Jolie out a back entrance. The creepy pedo-van we used for our assignment screeches to a stop beside us. Jolie opens the door and helps me in.

“Hold on tight, fuckers.”

“Why is Colt here?” I mumble to Jolie.

“He’s the getaway driver, but we have a few more additions on the way out.”

I turn and look at the door when I hear it open and the rest of Colt’s team files out with Chester, Kai, Brennan, and Trace. Kai smiles at me and runs to the van.

Everyone piles in, and with how many bodies are in here, there is no free room. Jolie crawls into the front with Colt and Blayne sits on one of her guys’ laps. I want to say his name is Van, but I have never given a fuck enough to bother asking names. There are very few teams that would even interact with us; they know who we are and what we are capable of.

What Jolie doesn’t realise is she has shown them our weaknesses, ones they could very well use against us one day if Mr Z pits them against us. We’re not here to make friends; we can be friendly towards other teams, but everyone knows thescore. It’s your team above all else and we are sworn to that. If any of these people had to choose between a team member or Jolie, they wouldn’t hesitate to take her out. But they’re not stupid enough to try unless they’re ordered to because our wrath wouldn’t be worth it.

Colt floors it and we all tumble into each other, our energy depleted after a gruelling twenty hours locked inside those walls. Our cuts and bruises are already beginning to heal, and in the extra few hours that we would’ve been locked in there, they would have disappeared. Only broken bones take a few days to heal; cuts and minor injuries take no longer than a day.

Brennan sits and hangs his head. I know days like this take it out of him; they make him memorise so much and then test him. His brain needs to rest, cataloguing that much information sends him into an overload. Trace is similar—facial recognition requires him to look over multiple files of faces. If he spots someone he has seen before, he’ll know the exact time and place. Kai, this is like a game for him. He likes to pull the piss and tell the security he can see their cocks using his x-ray vision. And Chester, that bastard gets off on causing pain, lashing out at whoever tries to run him through punishment. He refuses to use his gift; he thinks auras and telepathy are for pansies. But him having a good read on people really helps us, even though he can’t see it. His ability to be able to get into someone’s head is a gift he should be wanting to access, but Chester is a hard man to convince.

Colt flicks on the stereo and changes the station until “Eagle Rock” by Daddy Cool catches his attention. He and Jolie belt out the lyrics and laugh as we pull out of Olympia and onto the main road. He makes a pit stop to drop his team off to their cars, then we continue home, singing along to a bunch of old Aussie songs until we pull into my driveway.

We all groan as we pile out and head inside. “Um... so that problem in the morgue, you might want to attend to it straight away.”

I raise a brow at Jolie. “What did you do?”

“Nothing.” She shrugs. “I just watered it and it smelt so bad. Colt helped me, though, to stop that problem.”

I look over at Colt. Damnit, now he knows. “Ease up, dude. No judgement here. I would have done the same thing. Actually, that’s a lie, I would have killed him there and had a huge mess to clean up.”

I turn my back on them and stalk down to the morgue, swinging the door open. The smell of vanilla burns my nose and see at least a hundred car air fresheners scattered around the room. The lamb chop song is on repeat through the sound system until Jolie squeezes past me and turns it off.

“He pissed his pants,” she mutters, twisting her nose up in disgust. “I saw a drain on the floor, so I hosed him down and found something to kill the smell. The guy at the servo must have thought I was weird asking to buy an entire box. Oh! Colt gave the guy a catheter, so he’d stop pissing himself. I could hear the scream from upstairs.”

I snort as I move into the room and closer to the table. Martin is still firmly strapped down. I remove the blindfold and the gag from his mouth. His eyes blink open in sheer horror.

“Make it stop,” he begs.

“Don’t worry, you’ll be meeting your maker as soon as I have a shower.”

I put the blindfold back on, shove the material back into his mouth, and secure it down with some new tape. Jolie skips from the room, clearly in a good mood. I hit play on the old MP3 player on my way out and shut the door.

“What are you going to do with him?” Jolie asks.

“Harvest his organs. There are buyers for them on the black market.”

“Do you even need the money?” she questions as we hit the top of the stairs and walk towards the living room.

“No, but the girls we save will need the money to start fresh. What a full cycle that will be.”

She laughs, the melodic sound carrying through the hall. We enter the living room, where the others are draped over the couches, and Jolie takes a seat next to Kai. He lays down, placing his head in her lap, and she runs her fingers through his hair.

“Well, I’m out. I’ll see you at school,” Colt says, jumping to his feet. I wait for a smart-ass comment from him, but he must realise no one is in the mood. Jolie waves and he waltzes from the room.

“So, I’ve decided I’m going to forgive you,” she announces to the quiet room. We all turn and look at her, waiting for the “but.”

“Is there a catch?” Kai asks, gazing up at her like she’s his world.

She sighs. “No, I just realised after today that you really had no control, especially if that’s what happens when you disobey an order.”

“Today was child’s play compared to what happens when a team really fucks up, Jolie. This was just a warning for us that there is no excuse, and using you as one will not be tolerated,” Brennan adds.

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