Page 28 of Hide or Die

I broke free of my paralysis, following the others out of the cave system. It was cloudy outside, which was probably just as well. Even this dreary gray light was enough to hurt my eyes after days spent trapped in the shadows. How long had it been since I’d seen the sky? I couldn’t have said what day of the week it was. More worryingly, I couldn’t have said what day it had been when we were first taken.

“It’s some distance to our transportation, I’m sorry to say.” Beckett kept his voice low. He raked an assessing gaze over me, as though trying to decide if I was going to slow them down. Then his pale eyes scanned the crags and peaks around us.

Did he expect an attack? More terrorists lying in wait for an ambush? The hair on the back of my neck prickled. The skin between my shoulder blades felt tight and vulnerable.

No gunfire erupted as we made our way down a rocky slope toward a wooded canyon. I would scarcely have credited the alphas’ ability to negotiate the poor footing with the weight of their unconscious burdens—especially while also holding their bulky automatic weapons at the ready.

After a few minutes without any further drama ensuing, we reached the relative cover of a large pile of boulders. Beckett drew a water bottle and an energy bar out of his pack, handing both items to me wordlessly. I opened the water with relief, rinsing my mouth and spitting before drinking half of it in one go. The energy bar, I stuffed into my trouser pocket—not at all sure my stomach could handle it right now.

“This isn’t right,” I said, careful to keep my voice low, as Beckett had done. “When they dragged us into the caves, it was only a short distance from where they’d parked the vehicles. They had bags over our heads, but I’m sure there was a road near the cave entrance. Or a track, at least.”

Beckett’s eyes didn’t stray from their careful observation of our surroundings. “I’m willing to bet there’s a second exit from the cave system. For one thing, we rescued the other two from some kind of lab, and none of the men we killed on our way in looked like either scientists or medical personnel.”

“You think there were other people there, and they got away?” I asked, not liking the potential ramifications of that ideaat all.

“It seems likely,” Beckett said.

We started down a particularly steep slope, scree rolling beneath my feet like jagged marbles, and I had to focus on keeping my rubbery legs steady enough not to fall. Eventually, the landscape evened out into what must have been a dry riverbed. I could see a Range Rover, or some similarly shaped off-road vehicle, parked in the distance.

Somehow, I made it the rest of the way without collapsing or significantly slowing the others down—though my vision was tunneling in, gray fog creeping around the edges by the time we finally arrived.

“Put Jax in the back,” Beckett said. “Check his vitals again and make sure he’s in the recovery position. Alex, you’re driving. Flynn, you’re riding shotgun.”

After a brief flurry of activity, I found myself in the back seat, propping Leo upright as Beckett climbed in on her other side and slammed the door. The engine rumbled to life. A moment later we were moving—heading, presumably, for civilization, where Leo would still be in heat and our secret would be well and truly out.

Leo squirmed against me, panting. Her eyes had opened to slits, but she didn’t seem truly aware of what was happening. Beckett rummaged in the black backpack he’d slung onto the floorboard between his feet and came up with a vial and a syringe.

“What are you doing?” I asked in alarm.

“She was sedated when we found her,” he said. “Under the circumstances, I think that’s not a bad plan.”

Flynn snorted. “Unless you want this pile of bolts to end up wrapped around a tree, it probably is a good plan, yeah.”

“Oh, ye of little faith,” Alex muttered from the driver’s seat.

“It won’t work forever,” Beckett said. “Not in her current condition. But we’re a good couple of hours out from our temporary safehouse, and I’d rather not make that kind of drive with an omega climbing a heat-peak and two alphas in the front seat.”

I digested that, steadying Leo against a particularly violent lurch as the vehicle juddered over the uneven terrain.

“All right,” I said slowly—not that I was in any position to object. “If you’re sure it’s safe for her. Next question. Are we under arrest?”

“No,” Beckett replied without hesitation.

I wanted to press the issue further. Ishouldhave pressed it further. There was too much here that wasn’t adding up. Why wasn’t Jax—allegedly a subjugated alpha—chemically castrated? How had a civilian government security team managed to get resources for a specialist anti-terrorist military extraction mission in a matter of days? And... asafehouse? In a foreign country?

The answers to these questions were important. It wasn’t an exaggeration to say that our lives might well depend on them. Placing us under immediate arrest before dragging us to the nearest embassy for processing and extradition to the Committee would absolutely have been the correct protocol under these circumstances. The concept of diplomatic immunity in international law was still on the books, but only for betas. It hadn’t applied to alphas or omegas for decades now.

And yet, all I could do was cling to Leo’s arm, breathing deeply to keep my churning stomach contents in place and hold the swirling gray mist at the edges of my vision at bay. Beckett drew the contents of the tiny glass vial into the syringe with steady hands despite the jouncing of the vehicle. When Leo’s perfume thickened, her eyes growing more aware and her movements more purposeful, he called for a halt long enough to sedate her again.

I spared a worried thought for Jax, curled on his side in the back. He was tough. I knew the others were banking on the extreme measures that were usually required to kill an alpha. Realistically, without knowing what had been done to him—and in the absence of medical equipment—there wasn’t anything to be done except getting him someplace safe for medical attention.

Before long, Leo lapsed into unconsciousness again, though her perfume still filled the interior of the Rover. After what seemed like forever, Alex pulled onto an honest-to-god road, and the ride smoothed out. I lapsed into a sort of fugue state; my brain having evidently decided that it was throwing in the towel for a bit.

Despite open windows and the sedative’s best efforts, the inside of the vehicle was a miasma of pheromones. Spicy cardamom—that was Flynn. Rich jasmine and sandalwood—that had to be Alex. Jax’s now-familiar ambergris and cypress was muted, soured by whatever our kidnappers had done to him. Leo’s sweet scent overpowered them all. I couldn’t get a thing off Beckett except the chemical smell of underarm deodorant—the kind that so many betas seemed to favor.

Just sit back and let the nice alphas take care of everything, my instincts tried to tell me, despite how disastrous that had the potential to be. I couldn’t give into omega weakness—I was currently the only thing standing between Leo and whatever was coming next.

My silent internal battle raged. The practical upshot was that I ended up being totally useless, my thoughts locked in an ever-tightening spiral of stress and fear. When the vehicle turned onto what appeared to be a private drive, it came as a complete surprise. I had no idea how long I’d been staring into nothing, clutching Leo’s arm like a lifeline.

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