Page 2 of Ruin Me Knot
"Run faster, you little bitch." Hardwick shoves me so hard I stumble. My shoulder slams into a door frame, shock blooming.
"If you wanted me to run a marathon, you should have fed me more than once every couple days," I grind out, biting down on a whimper.
Her eyes spark at my audacity to speak back to her, but the joke’s on her. After this mess up, there’s no way she’ll let me out of my cell. So I can be as mouthy as I want. I literally have nothing to lose.
The good senator yanks my arm hard enough that something pops. Her mouth twists into its usual cruel lines. "Have anything else to say,Omega?"
I have plenty, but none of it can escape my gritted teeth.
We reach the end of the corridor. Hardwick drags me around a corner, slamming me into a wall of her personal enforcers. Synthetic Alphas built for moments like this, hidden until hell breaks loose.
"Stop them."
Her guard dogs surge forward, thick-necked and hungry for violence. Their bodies reek of chemicals, something sharp and artificial that burns in my nose. They’re not real Alphas, just Betas pumped full of designer drugs, angry they didn’t draw the right genes. Even the Hulk would piss himself just looking at these guys.
I have when they’ve come for me. Literally.
They’d do anything for Hardwick. And they have.
I drag my heels. It doesn’t take effort. My legs are nothing but noodles. The only thing keeping me upright is Hardwick’s bruising grip on my arm, her fingers grinding bone against sinew.
I don’t fight. Not when every stumble yanks a fresh bolt of fire through my shoulder. I want her to slow down because those terrifying Alphas are coming for me, but what waits for me if they don’t stop Hardwick is a far worse fate. I don’t have to be a shonky psychic to realize that the worst of both worlds are in my near future.
Violence rolls down the hallway. Dull, heavy thuds that rattle the walls, bodies slamming into walls. A sharp scream tears out, then dies just as fast. The floor trembles beneath every impact. Chaos chews its way closer by the second.
"You worried you’re gonna look bad for your polls, Senator?" I let the question hang, smug as I can manage, despite my feeble state.
Her lips curl into a bitter smile and fear claws at my ribs. "Not as worried as you should be, Omega.Follow."
The word cracks inside my skull, shredding self-control from my body. My muscles snap against my will, doing what she’s ordered, a prisoner in my own body thanks to my shitty biology and her Alpha bark.
This is why I despise being Omega. The way Alphas can strip me of self-control with a single word is fucked up. One bark, and my body isn’t mine anymore. Theydecide and I obey, no matter how much I fight it, no matter how bitterly I rage inside. My body is my prison. Forced obedience I can’t change.
I tried to make myself deaf. To muffle the world so deep nothing could control me.
I failed.
Hardwick caught me before I could shove the pen through my eardrums. Her bark lives in my bones, neither forgotten nor forgiven. The senator hauls me down the maze of corridors, her grip unrelenting. My body continues to move. I should be too weak to walk but her bark roots into some hidden pocket of strength, her silent puppet with a noose around my neck.
We head downstairs, the sound of fighting absorbed by the building before it’s lost. We descend, until the air tastes like oil and exhaust. The parking lot is brutal with light. The stink of gasoline, singed ozone, and something acrid fills my lungs.
I’m sweating through what’s left of my clothes, trembling so hard my teeth knock together. My palms are slick, my knees quake, but the bark pushes me on. My body won’t quit, even if every piece of me is screaming to stop. I want to collapse, melt into nothing, but still I keep going, straight into hell, one foot after the other.
The lab’s synthetic Alpha guards ring a black limo she marches me toward. Hardwick shoves me into the back seat and climbs in after, keeping me close. Two of her pumped-up Alphas flank her, boxing her in on either side like loyal hounds, while the others claim the front. One behind the wheel, the other riding shotgun. We lurch forward in a cloud of exhaust, tires screaming against concrete. The car charges up the ramp, then we’re gone, swallowed by the night.
The traffic is light. It doesn’t take us long to find our way to the freeway. When we hit the on ramp Hardwick explodes. "How the fuck did those Alphas get in? This wasn’t supposed to happen!" She slams her fist into the headrest so hard the driver flinches. Her breathing comes in short bursts, eyes untamed with the kind of rage that devours everything in its path.
She shakes her head. "Axel, the arrogant idiot. He had one job. One damned job." Spittle flies from her lips as her mouth twists into something vicious. "Him and his useless pack. Worthless, all of them!"
Her voice drops, a growl deep in her chest as she pins her gaze on me. "And how the fuck was Emma there? You three were always trouble. I should have gutted you all, cut my losses and let the rats take what was left."
She would never have done that. Not when our sole purpose was to provide herself, Mercer and Turns a hefty profit. I block out the rest of her vitriol. She doesn't make sense, words running over each other, looping back as she rants.
I’d happily dive out of the car and save her the angst of putting up with me, but the meatheads jamming me between them would stop me at my first move.
She isn’t just angry, she’s unraveling, her mask dropping away to reveal her normal state. Terror locks me tighter in my skin. My lungs barely draw air, the animal part of me trying to flatten into nothing. In this moment, she’s nothing like the woman with the pearled smile and careful words she shows the public. This is when her true monster raises its ugly head and I’m the punching bag.
She stabs at her phone. "Looks like it’s up to me to fix this disaster."
