Page 54 of Sanctuary
The alphas began marking trees, some with blue string, some with yellow. Not long after, the sound of axes biting into wood rang out across the grass, bouncing back to them from the concrete walls, a weird echo that made Patton feel unsettled and nervy. He turned to Ori, wondering if Ori felt as adrift as he did, but Ori was deep in conversation with Jason and Bram, practically interrogating them about life as an omega in Mercy Hills. He listened to them for a bit, feeling both relief and alarm as they explained how different Ori's life would be. How he could choose a job, go to school if he wanted. It might have frightened Patton if it hadn’t been for the rising excitement in Ori’s face, his fatigue-dulled eyes brightening as the Mercy Hills shifters painted a picture of his future in gold and silver. There was no way it could all be as perfect as they were saying, but it was the future they’d been talking about together since they’d run away. Even if they didn’t get everything that was promised, Patton thought—knowing Ori—that they could still find a way to be happy together. Because that was the most important thing of all.
Jason’s phone rang. He was only on it for a moment before he stepped into the shadow of the trees. “Patton, leave your bags and come with me. We’re going to make sure the guards have seen your face, so when the time comes for you to slip inside with us, they’ll think you came out of the enclave in the beginning.”
Patton glanced at Ori, who nodded. “They know their guards. It sounds like it might be a smart plan.” He leaned in and put his lips to Patton’s ear. “I don’t know how else we’re going to get inside.”
Patton nodded and turned his head to kiss Ori’s cheek. “You be careful,” he whispered, but the feeling of foreboding that colored the world darker around him wasn’t appeased by Ori’s answering nod. Reluctantly, he got to his feet and followed Jason out into the crowd, weaving amongst the other shifters until he was confused himself about where he was and which way he was going.
C H A P T E R F O R T Y - S E V E N
J ason strolled casually beside him as they walked. "We're making sure that they've seen you, that you look like one of us," Jason told him. He put a hand on Patton's shoulder and began leading him toward the loudest of the crackling thumps being made by the axes. "We'll take the trimmed branches off these and carry them back to the gate. They'll be picked up by someone still inside walls and taken to the park for the fire. This is kind of informal--we humor the humans by not having too many of us out here, they humor us by not making us get all the paperwork in place to come cut the wood for our fires. Bax is a genius at getting people to do what he wants."
Ah, that made sense. "We had to buy all ours in at Perseguir," Patton said, trying to make conversation and, maybe, find out a little more about their supposed rescuers.
"I think a lot of packs do. Bax--he used to be Alpha's Mate, until Abel was forced out of the position of Alpha--he's done a lot to change how we get along with the humans at the gate. And they're used to us coming and going now, with Holland and Bram out so much." Jason sighed and glanced up the walls to where the silver shone in the sunlight. "Better them than me. I've had enough of outside walls to last a lifetime."
It dawned on Patton just who he was talking to. "You're the True Omega!" he exclaimed.
Jason made a face. "Well, it's more complicated than that. We'll have to explain it to you at some point, but there isn't enough time now."
Patton didn't realize he'd come to a dead stop until Jason said, with a hint of impatience, "Come on, we can't just stand around." He gently tugged on Patton's arm and Patton started moving forward again, still in a daze.
At the edge of the wood, a half dozen shifters, well-muscled alphas and, to Patton's surprise, a few betas, were busy chopping down trees. One had already fallen and two shifters were moving along the trunk, trimming the branches away with neat flicks of their axes. The red-headed one looked up from his work and grinned. "Hello, darling. This your feral?"
"Jerk," Jason said, in some sort of in-joke that Patton didn't understand but which the redhead evidently found amusing. "Patton, this is my mate. His name is Mac, except when I'm mad at him."
Mac grinned even wider. "Hey, Patton. I hope your omega's less feisty than mine."
"That's two, Mackenzie Mercy Hills," Jason said, studying his fingernails while the corner of his mouth twitched. "You know, I think I'm going to be busy tonight. Until at least past the pups' bedtime."
Mac widened his eyes. Patton thought it was supposed to look like fear, but Mac's grin gave it away. "I'll be good," he promised with a chuckle and Jason leaned in to kiss him briefly.
"You ready to haul a few trees over to the gate?" Jason asked.
Mac looked Patton up and down, as if assessing his ability to hold up his part of the bargain, or of a tree for that matter. "I might cut this in half and we do part of it at a time."
"I can carry it," Patton rushed to say. He had a perfect opportunity to prove he could be useful right at this very moment--he wasn't going to pass it up.
"You sure?" Mac asked doubtfully.
"I'm sure," Patton replied in as firm a tone as he could muster. "I've been plumbing for the past couple of years. Lots of digging and hauling things. I can carry a tree."
Mac raised his eyebrows. "Quin's going to love you." He flipped the axe end for end in his hand, catching it neatly as it spun. "Let me get the branches off and we'll load my too-feisty mate up with them, then we'll head off for the gate and put Quin's crazy scheme to the test." He bent to hack at the tree without waiting for a response. Patton watched mesmerized as the gleaming axe head sliced through the air and skimmed the trunk, clipping the branches off with a sharp 'snick, snick' of steel against wood.
All around him, the sound of other axes biting into the live wood echoed through the air, punctuated by an occasional cry of warning followed by the crash of a tree falling. Mac worked along the trunk with the kind of precision that made Patton realize how often they must do this. Monthly, for sure, because the pack usually held a fire to celebrate the moon on each full moon night. Somehow, watching this, he began to wonder how he would fit in with this pack, with so many skilled members to make use of. What would he and Ori have to offer? Then he glanced up and caught Jason watching him.
"When I first came here," Jason said, his words slow and carefully chosen. "I was convinced that I was giving up everything. I climbed over the walls with the idea that I would do some spying and I would leave if they were too frightening. Bax and Holland have been hearing some of the stories they're telling about us. Don’t believe everything they say. Change is frightening, even if it is for the better." He shook himself, then bent to start gathering the branches his mate had lopped off the tree. "Here, help me with this, it'll go faster."
Patton began picking up branches alongside him. "We've heard some stories." He wondered why Jason was bringing this up, and if that meant the stories weren't true, or they were worse than he'd heard. His heart began to race and he could tell from the change in the way both Jason and Mac held themselves that the other two shifters had picked up on his surge of fear. "Heard you sold yourselves to the humans."
Jason snorted. "That old chestnut," he said in a voice that dripped with derision. "You could say that, if by selling ourselves to the humans we take enough money to build a hospital and send more of us to school, and in exchange we start teaching the humans about our culture." He laid out a wide strip of canvas with cloth handles sewn onto each of the short ends. "Put the branches on this, it's easier to carry them this way." He did exactly that with his own, and Patton followed suit, still wary, but now confused as well.
Well, shot for a sheep as for a lamb, right? "So you are taking money from them." He kept his tone from being accusing, but only just barely. There was standing up for yourself, and then there was stupidity in the face of alpha rage, and he had Ori to think about.
"Yes," Mac said, standing back to kick at the tree trunk and roll it over so he could trim away the last of the branches. "According to Quin, it's our money, originally. From the land that one of the original packs gifted to a human, with an agreement that the human would take care of it until we could find our way outside these damn walls again." He swung the axe in a clean arc, swiftly shearing off the last of the branches. "He's paying the money back. Mostly on his terms, but his terms are to the pack's benefit at the moment. We'll worry about the rest of it later."
Huh. Patton tucked that information away to discuss with Ori later on, trusting Ori to put it together with everything else they'd learned and come up with the right conclusion. And it occurred to him that they'd already escaped one enclave--they could escape another one too, if they needed to. And if they did, maybe he really would take Ori to Canada this time. Realizing he had other options released a tension in his body he hadn’t even been aware he was carrying, and he bent to pick up his end of the tree trunk--heavier than it looked--with a much more optimistic view of his and Ori's future.
Jason walked beside him as they made their way across the rough ground between the wood and the enclave gate, chatting lightly about Mercy Hills and asking Patton how he liked being a plumber and what things Ori was interested in. The tree got heavier and heavier and Patton's answers grew shorter and shorter as the effort to keep from dropping his end of the log took up more and more of his attention. His point of view shrank until all he could see was the log and all he could think about was how heavy it was and how slippery it seemed to be becoming, despite the rough bark.
