Page 69 of Run Omega Run
We paused at the threshold of the next corridor. I could smell the concentration of fear and chemical markers that suggested we were getting closer. My stomach flipped violently, nausea threatening. My fists were clenched, and my heart was pounding like a drum inside my chest.
“Are you ready?” Bennett’s voice was low, tight and controlled, but I felt the vibration of barely restrained anger beneath it.
“Ready,” I said, voice steadier than I felt. My hands itched to move faster, to act before more harm could reach her. My pulse thrummed in my ears, adrenaline humming.
Angus flexed his massive hands. “Whatever evil’s inside, it won’t leave alive,” he muttered low, almost to himself. Protective heat radiated from him like fire.
Dante’s deep exhale whispered through the corridor. “Stay sharp. Jude isn’t an amateur.” His frame shifted, every movement a promise of immediate intervention if the situation went sideways.
I nodded. Every step forward seemed heavier than the last. The chemical fog of fear from within the next room pressed against me before I even saw it, like a wall of icy, suffocating dread. My mind catalogued potential threats, but my gut screamed that no calculation could prepare for what we were about to witness.
We stopped just short of the reinforced door. It was a barrier designed to contain rather than secure, and the concentrated pheromone trail that led directly to its thresholdtold me everything I needed to know about what waited beyond. Steel construction with multiple deadbolts, the surface scarred by what appeared to be claw marks from previous occupants who'd tried desperately to escape whatever horrors this room contained. But the lock mechanism itself was standard commercial hardware, vulnerable to someone with proper tools and anatomical knowledge of how pins aligned under pressure. I thought back to my father, a locksmith and vigilante in his spare time.
He and Dante’s dad had taken down some of the most notorious crime lords until he ended up on my table. He’d taught me everything I know. Every detached feeling I should have felt, and still never understood when I did.
I knelt beside the lock while my pack brothers positioned themselves for optimal coverage. My lock picks moved with the same precision I applied to surgical instruments, probing internal mechanisms with fingertip sensitivity that could detect minute variations in resistance and alignment.
The first pin clicked into place with a sound like a small bone settling, followed by the second and third in rapid succession. The final pin aligned with a minor audible click, and the barrel turned to its open position with mechanical certainty.
Silence stretched between us, thick with anticipation and the unspoken understanding that everything would change once it swung open. I could feel my pulse hammering, stomach twisted. Every fiber of me braced for horror.
Bennett’s gaze flicked to mine, eyes narrow, lips pressed into a thin line. No words were needed. Angus flexed his fists one last time, Dante shifted into position, and I took a slow, steadying breath.
Then I reached for the handle.
The door swung open.
Concrete walls lined with cages. Human cages. Omegas. Young women pressed into metal like animals, ages distorted by malnutrition and exhaustion. Clothing soiled, tattered, or deliberately provocative, and designed to strip them of humanity. Rope marks circled wrists and ankles, faces hollowed by despair. Red-rimmed eyes flicked toward us, with their mouths gagged, and screams long silenced.
Some wore clothing that looked like it hadn't been washed in months, fabric stained with substances I recognized from autopsy work but preferred not to identify in this context. Others had been dressed in garments designed to advertise rather than conceal, costumes that reduced them to fantasy objects for buyers who saw omega physiology as a commodity rather than humanity.
Red-rimmed eyes tracked our movement with the hypervigilant terror of prey animals who'd learned that unexpected visitors usually brought fresh horror rather than rescue. My clinical assessment catalogued injuries that would require months of medical and psychological care, assuming these young women survived whatever healing process might follow rescue.
My heart pounded like a freight train hurtling through a dark tunnel. My breath caught, and the chemical fog of terror pressed on me, threatening to collapse every carefully maintained layer of control. I tried to steady myself. My professional detachment—what I normally relied on—crumbled almost immediately.
I inhaled sharply, sensing every subtle chemical marker of fear radiating from them, every pang of trauma that had been etched into their bodies. My chest constricted, nausea rising in my throat. I felt an almost physical pull toward each one, as if my body alone could shield them from the horrors they had endured.
And then I saw her.
Susie. In the room’s center, bound to a chair like an exhibit in a grotesque gallery. Red hair matted with dried blood. Her lemon scent, corrupted with blood, terror, and chemical markers of stress, slammed into me like a tidal wave. My chest tightened further, fists clenching. Breath caught. Rage, helplessness, and raw protective instinct collided inside me, making my pulse hammer in my ears.
I caught the tiniest movements from my pack. Bennett’s shoulders stiffened, eyes narrowed, and scanning. Angus’s massive frame was rigid, muscles taut, fists flexing subtly. Dante crouched slightly, hands hovering, coiled and ready.
Zaff Crane loomed behind Susie, knife pressed to her throat. Jude Serphent’s laughter echoed from the far wall, the gasoline scent making the air itself flammable. My stomach lurched, bile threatening. I swallowed hard, trying to steady hands that shook with fury and fear.
“You made this personal when you burned their home,” Bennett growled.
“This is business,” Jude replied, shrugging.
His casual description of murder and kidnapping as merely business transactions was delivered with the kind of matter-of-fact tone that suggested he genuinely saw no distinction between burning buildings and filing paperwork.
"Standard procedures," I said, my voice carrying the clinical detachment I applied to all professional consultations, "typically don't include murdering elderly women or trafficking children."
"Elderly women die," Jude replied with a shrug that dismissed Heather’s mom's life as a statistical inevitability. "Children get sold. These are market realities, not moral considerations. The only question is whether you profit from natural processes or get crushed by them."
Zaff’s grip on the knife was steady, professional, but I could see the slight tremor in his free hand that spoke of stimulantuse. Methamphetamine, based on the chemical markers that mixed with his natural scent, meant unpredictable reaction times and decision-making processes compromised by artificial confidence and paranoid aggression.
Jude’s lips curled at the corners as he watched us, stepping away from the wall toward Susie. "I knew you'd come for the little bitch," he said from his position across the room. His lean frame was dressed in the same expensive suit he'd worn during his previous visit to the orphanage, but now the fabric was wrinkled and stained with substances that suggested he'd been personally involved in whatever activities had taken place in this room.
