Page 38 of Hangman's Knot
She presses a button beneath the table and Eden hears a buzz somewhere outside the door. The same guard is back and the alpha female stands up and approaches him, saying something in a low voice.
He says something in response but Eden doesn't hear it. Theguard ushers her back out, not replacing the cuffs this time, and then he is escorting her back towards the general part of the prison.
They take multiple winding turns, but they were not going back the way they had come, they were not going back to that hell contained in four tiny concrete walls that were constantly closing in around her.
Heads turn and noses sniff at the air as she walks through the halls, but she ignores them all. There is a magnet inside of her, somewhere behind her navel, and it is dragging her to its other half. Nothing else exists except the pull towards them.
When they step onto their cell block and Eden catches the first whiff of their scents, she cannot stop her feet from running, stumbling over each other in her haste to get to them.
She's in front of their cell, and then they're there, all three of them. She cannot hold herself up any longer, cannot keep her legs beneath her before she collapses to the ground in front of them, shaking and crying. As if she knows she is safe now, and they will protect her.
They're all around her, soothing purrs and comforting touches. She crawls in the nearest lap she can find, twining her limbs around him and holding fast. It's Tenor. She knows just from the scent of him, and she breathes in gasping, sobbing mouthfuls of his woody scent.
It takes ages before she stops shaking, before she can bear to pull her head out of his neck and look at any of them. They stay with her, not asking anything, not demanding anything. Their touches are soothing and familiar and warm.
"Eden," Julius' voice is soft, like he's trying to tame a wild animal. "What happened? Are you hurt? Do you need to go to the infirmary?"
Her whole body aches and she feels as if she is the emotional equivalent of two-day old roadkill, but she isn't hurt. Not in the way they were asking. They were always so worried for her. Always taking care of her. Her heart feels like it might explode.
"I-I'm okay. I'm okay," she repeats, reassuring both them and herself. "A lawyer was there. She says I'm going to get out the day after tomorrow. She's having my case overturned. Did you hire her? You did, right? Thank you."
Her voice breaks as she says the last word, and that's all she can say. She doesn't have any more energy to do anything except hold onto them like they're a life raft.
She probably sounds insane. Is it possible she had hallucinated all of that? She didn't know what was real or not anymore, except them. They were real, and they were here.
They don't respond to what she had said, but she can almost feel heavy wheels turning fast in all of their minds.
She'll be out the day after tomorrow. She wants to cry. She would finally be free of this place. Finally free... of them.
She does cry then.
But they're all there, soothing purrs and warm hands on her, calming her down.
She relaxes into them.
Home. She was home.
Home wasn't a tiny studio apartment with a second-hand overstuffed brocade chair and a tiny nest in the corner anymore. It was them.
Chapter Fourteen
Julius
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Eden is clinging onto Tenor so tightly her arms and legs are trembling with exertion. Her whole body is trembling, their cell filled with the bitter tang of omega tears.
None of them had slept in days, not since she had been taken away. They had spent hours trying to offer the guards or the warden bribes, but they had just laughed at them and threatened to send them to the SHU too if they didn't get the fuck out of their faces.
The three of them had called every lawyer they could think of, but whatever corruption there was that allowed an omega to get thrown into a place like this, it went deep. None of them would take her case. Once they heard about it, none of them would even talk to him.
Finally, one took pity. They gave him the number of a woman who they said wasn't currently practicing law but might be able to help him.
The woman who had answered the phone had had no interest in talking to him until he had frantically blurted out that there was a female omega in the men's prison with him, and then thewoman was suddenly very interested in his story.
She had spent an hour asking him carefully detailed questions about everything he knew about Eden, everything she had told them about the altercation with the police officer, her non-existent trial, and finally her time in the prison with them.
When he hung up, it was the first time he felt he had been able to take a breath since she had been dragged away.
