Page 35 of Dodging Bullets

The clack of his keys went still. “He was trying to sell Omegas?” I knew he’d heard me, but he was just clarifying, like a good little hacker.

“Yes. We rescued her from beneath the warehouse. She was from some cult, and…” I trailed off. How did I sum up how fucked up her life had been in a concise way, without laying all her own stories bare? “They didn’t respect Omegas. They sold her to Anthony Smalls, like she was a runt from a litter of puppies.”

A soft growling sound came down the line. I suspected Toledo might be a Beta, but he was hard to pinpoint, and honestly, his designation was the least mysterious thing about him. “You want me to back-end his communications, find out who he was talking to? Maybe who the middle man was?”

See. Smart.“Ideally, but the cops will already be knee-deep in all of Anthony Smalls’ technology. I don’t want you to broadcast that you’re looking. We didn’t exactly tell the cops we found her. She was so fucking traumatized, Toledo. The idea of handing her to the cops, for them to grill her about what happened, and potentially send her back? It wasn’t a risk she wanted to take, and neither did I.”

His fingers were still flying across the keyboard; I could hear the soft noise of them in the background. “I’m going to ignore the fact that you think some lazy cop would even see me coming, but I’ll be careful. I’ll check the usual places for mentions of selling Omegas, but it’d be hard to narrow it down to your girl.”

That was the point that really hurt. Because Polly might have been saved, but a lot of Omegas weren’t. It made my stomach turn. “I hate that.”

There was a pause at the other end of the line. “Me too. We should do something about it.”

I tilted my head. “Perhaps we should. Let me secure my Pack first.”

“Your Pack?” There was a sharpness in his voice, and I knew my next answer would decide what side of Toledo’s Line of Good and Evil I stood on.

“She knew nothing about how to be an Omega, or the urges and behaviors she might experience. She accidentally force-bonded my Alpha, Llewellyn.”

The soft gasp was the closest I’d ever come to hearing Toledo shocked. “She attacked him?”

I screwed up my nose. “I wouldn’t say attacked. More like her Omega knew that he was injured, uh, emotionally, and wanted to fix it in the most basic way possible. Like I said, she didn’t understand the urges in her body. They were taught that Omegas were worthless, and that giving into the urges was basically sacrilege.” I rubbed a hand down my face. “I can’t even tell you how fucked up it was, Toledo.”

He hummed his agreement. “But everything worked out okay in the end?”

The bubble of happiness in my chest wanted to shout our contentment from the rooftops. “Yeah. Turned out her Omega was smarter than all of us combined. They became each other’s safe place.”

But Toledo was silent on the other end, only the gentle hum of computer fans and the soft clicking of keys audible for a few moments. “Okay, I’m in. I’m just copying the case reports from the Anthony Smalls trial, including from Forensics. Is there anything else you want me to look for, while I’m playing here in Big Blue’s backyard?”

Jesus, he was so casual about hacking the police databases. I was pretty sure that if he was caught, it’d be guaranteed jail time.

“Actually, there is one more thing. Can you search for any reports over the last twenty-five years where kids have been dumped with no known ID or relatives? Perhaps in the same place repeatedly. They’d be from twelve up to seventeen or eighteen, I guess. My bet is most of them would already have been designated Alpha, if that helps you narrow it down.”

“What thefuck,Max?” Toledo sounded beyond outraged. I had him invested now. The abuse of kids, animals, and Omegas? That was in the pitch-black area of his moral compass.

“They’re evil, Toledo. Help me bring them down, and I’ll owe you one.”

There was that soft growl again. “I’ll do this one for pleasure. You owe me nothing. Give me four days.”

Twenty

Polly

The warmth of the sun was making my skin itch where Doodles lay curled up beside me. I was on a quilt in the Packhouse’s backyard, and the little dog was in heaven. He’d tried to lick the inside of my mouth at least a dozen times before he calmed down and fell asleep in the sunshine.

The guys were all busy, even Llew, and I found I didn’t mind being alone for a moment. I could feel Llew’s bond right there, pulsing in my chest. Max was working in his office, and Rio had taken Llew to an appointment with his financial advisor, now that our bond had settled him enough that he could leave the house without going feral.

The last week had been almost normal, which gave me hope that this would be what my life could be like forever now.

“Rufio…” the bird cooed beside me. He’d crooned at me until I’d let him out of the cage, and when I told him we were going outside, he kept screeching “FLYYYY HIIIIGH FREEEEE BIRDDDDD YEAHHHHHH!” but kind of melodically, like he was singing. I’d grabbed a handful of the nuts he enjoyed, and some kibble for Doodles, and we’d gone outside for a picnic.

When Rufio had flown from my arm to the tree, I’d panicked, but he’d come right back. I’d given him a nut as a reward, andwe’d repeated the process several more times, until I was pretty convinced he wasn’t going to take off and I’d have to tell Max that I’d lost his pet.

Now he walked along the ground, ripping up the grass and combing his beak through my hair and Doodles’s fur.

I had a book on twenty-first-century technology, which was both amazing and terrifying, as it read like a science fiction novel rather than a textbook. Rufio kept trying to chew the corners, his thoughts on the advancements in robotics clear.

The backyard of the Barrie Packhouse was large, filled with trees and shrubs and curated gardens that I never saw anyone tending to, though someone must, because it was beautiful. There were fruit trees in the back corner and eight-foot-tall fences, so I couldn’t even see the houses on the other side. It was like an oasis, and I decided it was my new favorite spot outside my nest.

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