Page 43 of Defiant Beta

“What changed your mind?” he asks, immediately moving to climb in the backseat as I slide in the front and Xavier takes the passenger seat.

“I remembered how useless cops can be.” I slam the door shut and start the engine.

Delilah is not our omega. She is not an omega at all. But that doesn’t mean she isn’t worth saving.

I put her in harm's way.

I need to be the one to pull her out of it.

“And the investigation?” Levi’s sleepy green eyes meet mine in the rearview mirror.

I start up the engine. “Delilah is alive. That means we still have time to save her.”

I hope.

That’s all any of us can do right now.

Hope that we’re not too late.

Mid-morning, the school is quiet. All the teachers will be teaching or in the faculty office. Our route out of the school is clear as I pull out of the parking lot and head down to the front gate, where a police car is parked outside.

The cop nods at me but doesn’t stop me as I press my fob to open the gates.

“What do you think she was doing here?” Xavier asks as I drive away from the school.

“Convincing omegas to leave,” Levi responds.

I wrench my eyes from the road the second it’s safe to do so. “What do you mean?”

Levi gazes back at me steadily. “I overheard some of her conversation with another omega. She said the school was a gilded cage. That it was best for an omega to decide their own future.”

“That’swhy she doused herself with perfume and risked getting arrested for criminal damage by setting fires?” I ask.

Levi nods.

“Shit.” Xavier sits back in his seat, the leather creaking. “I thought she was just here messing around or whatever. Not…that.”

A car horn blares as the red light turns green, and we continue to Lucas Security headquarters.

No one speaks for a long, long while.

“She was here to help omegas.” My fingers tighten around the steering wheel. She told me in my classroom when I threatened to expose her if she didn’t leave.

I thought she was lying, but she wasn’t.

She was here to help omegas, and I might have gotten her killed.

“We’ll find her in time,” Xavier reassures me.

“You mean like we found Aly in time?”

He doesn’t respond.

We reach their mansion on a quiet, tree-lined street in thirty minutes. It’s early. Most people are at work, so the lack of traffic made for an easy drive.

My phone vibrates in my pocket. I ignore it, slowing the car as we approach a gate I’ve entered before. I wind down my window, reach out a hand, and press the intercom button.

“Lucas Security,” a young male voice is tinny from the intercom.

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