Page 65 of Fight or Fly

TWENTY-FOUR

Alex

THAT VOICE. I knewthat voice. It had been a part of me once—the other half of my whole. And it was here, in this place that should have been a house of horrors, but that we were now supposed to believe was a haven.

Irina Pasternak. The omega I’d mated, pupped, and then lost to the Committee. She was speaking to Leona McCready, mere yards away. Discussing accommodations, her voice as cool and unaffected as though she were nothing more than Nikolayev’s pet soldier. As though she hadn’t once been...mine.

I could hardly breathe for the pain of it.

Leona was thanking her for coming... because I’d demanded to see her. Because I hadn’t really believed it was true. I wasn’t entirely sure I believed it now. What were the odds I was still in Sloane’s interrogation room, unconscious and delirious from my injuries? Perhaps the rest of this had all been a dream?

More low voices, and then footsteps approached. I would have to open my eyes and look soon. Any second. Any second now...

The boots stopped beside my cot. I couldn’t scent her. They’d taken everything that had made her an omega. That had made hermyomega. They’d taken ourpups. I tensed the muscles in my broken hand, pulling against the pins and stitches holding bones and ligaments together—using the pain in an attempt to ground myself.

“Alex,” she said.

I opened my eyes. My former mate stood before me. She looked much as she always had—serious gray eyes too large for her elfin face, honey-blonde hair done up in a regulation twist. But there were new lines around her eyes and at the corners of her lips, just as there were around mine.

“Well, this is awkward,” she said.

There was a heavy beat of silence.

“How can you be here?” I asked. “How is any of this real?”

“I imagine it’s all a bit of a shock,” she agreed. With a quick frown, she glanced over her shoulder. “Let’s have this conversation somewhere more private. I assume you can walk?”

My hand itched like termites were crawling beneath the skin. My back was a blank canvas of drugged numbness that whisperedbad. But my legs seemed fine. I heaved myself into a sitting position on the edge of the cot, finding my balance slightly off thanks to one arm being strapped against my chest.

Irina stepped back, giving me space as I rose on unsteady legs. The room stopped spinning after a few seconds, so I gave her a cautious nod.

“This way,” she said, and headed toward a door in the back of the infirmary.

I followed, being careful of my body in a way I’d never needed to before. I’d been injured from time to time, of course—but never like this. I’d never had to be stitched and patched back together with steel pins and thread.

I really wasn’t enjoying it so far.

Irina led the way to what seemed to be an examination room. It was unoccupied and had a lock on the door, which she engaged. I sat down in the single chair, mostly because trying to stand held the possibility of a humiliating collapse at some point. Irina leaned hipshot against the functional row of cabinets that held a sink and several drawers.

“You have questions,” she said. “I can’t answer all of them, but I’ll answer what I’m able to.”

I couldn’t read her face or body language, and that was new. No unregistered omega managed to sneak into the armed services without being an exceptional actor, but she’d never hidden herself fromme. Fresh disquiet rose in my chest.

Questions. Where to even start?

“How?” I asked, the single word encompassing most of what I was so desperate—and terrified—to hear.

Her chest rose and fell on a deep breath. “How did I survive?”

---