Page 55 of One Flew Over the Omega's Nest: Part One
I had never even seen a grown man move the way he did.
After that, we were inseparable all throughout school, up until he was recruited into special ops for the military. He still can’t tell me exactly what he got up to, but I knew enough to tell that he’s been working as a mercenary since he got out, and still has the skills he’s been honing the last twenty years.
With the uptick in omega disappearances all over the country, Sam took my call seriously. When I talked about paying him, he brushed meoff, saying that we’ll find someone who will pay to see the Thornfield Asylum to be put down once and for all, but to not tell my father.
My father, the very good friend of Walter Brooks, and the one who insisted I take this position in the first place.
“We need to figure out where that door leads, that much is obvious. It could be where they’re hiding the lab that they’re using to make the drug.” The drug we need a sample of to take down this whole institution, plus all the plans and notes regarding its creation.
“I want to know what she’s doing,” Sam grumbles, starting to pace. “I mean, she’s a serial killer, West.”
I roll my eyes. “She’s a vigilante. Everyone she killed deserved it. Rapists, molesters, abusers. She has not killed a single innocent person.”
Five years ago, those words never would have even made it to my brain. I was a kid, fresh out of school with my degree and a positive outlook on life. Since then, though? I’ve seen the horrors and hells of the real world, and am all too aware that some monsters can only be defeated one way.
Sam lets out a breath. “Yeah. I know. Even her dad…” He shakes his head. “How can someone do all that shit to their own kid?”
The thought makes my stomach turn. I had already looked at her file before she came here, of course, but then she had recounted first-hand some things that weren’t eveninthere. Telling me about it didn’t seem to have any effect on her either. Like she was talking about the weather or something.
Classic case of post-traumatic disassociation.
“Makes sense that he was her first victim.” The word victim is sour on my tongue even if that’s technically what he is. Most people immediately associate it with being innocent, but that was definitely not the case with her father.
That much is evident by the circumstances of his wife’s death, which was classified by police as a case of breaking and entering. Something tells me that’s not the full story.
As if to prove my point, Sam snorts. “Victim.” He shakes his head. “Man used his influence in the shitty little backwater town they lived in to get away with almost-murder.” He stares off into the forest for a moment. “There’s something about her, West. It’s throwing me off. I can’t…I can’t think straight, and I swear…I scented her. Before they upped her dose or whatever they did…apple, cinnamon, and vanilla. I was an asshole yesterday because she keeps trying to flirt with me, and I’m afraid…” he trails off, sighing as he runs a hand through his hair. “I’m afraid I’m not strong enough to resist whatever pull there is. I know it makes me a sick fuck, lusting after a patient that’s nearly ten years younger than us.”
This would be a great time to tell him about some of the theories I have, but I’m not sure if he’s ready to hear them yet. Especially not the fact that Hayden Pierce told me the exact same thing about her scent when she was passed out and he was panicking in my office.
I haven’t scented her, but I have a beta nose. It would be rare, even if we weren’t in an experimental facility that pumps the residents full of gods-know-what. What I can’t deny, though, is how she instantly calmed in my hold when I pulled her off Tilly in the cafeteria.
If I’m right, if she means to all of us what I think she does…well, things will be a hell of a lot more complicated when it’s time for this place to fall to the ground.
“Sam…” I shake my head. “As a doctor of the mind, I officially diagnose you as ‘not a sick fuck’. At least, not for anything Jo related.”
He barks a laugh. “You got it bad too, huh?”
I grimace. “I plead the fifth.”
Sam chuckles. “Well, at least we have another lead now. We’ll have to do some digging—we don’t even know what’s on the other side of that door. If we get in, it could immediately be a guard room and then we’re busted before we figure anything out. I’ll get into the system and see if I can dig in far enough to find some kind of blueprints orsomething.”
I purse my lips, unable to shake the feeling that Jo is after the exact same thing we are. “We should bring her in.”
He looks at me like I’m going crazy. “You…want to bring her in?” he asks slowly, staring at me.
I shrug. “She might know something. She’s loyal to a fault, and she likes us.” She tries to hide it, but I can tell. She feels just as drawn to us as we are to her. The way that she reacted to Sam helping Tilly off the ground confirmed that.
On a daily basis, it takes damn near everything in me to not take her in my arms and show her just how wild she makes me. Is it unethical to have these thoughts about my patient, who is nine years younger than me? Abso-fucking-lutely. It’s also what had me making the possible connection in the first place.
“She’s wild,” he argues. “Reckless. Impulsive. A complete hothead. And apatient.”
“I have a feeling that she’s none of those things. She just wants everyone to think she is.” My mind goes back to the words she said to me during our very first session.
"What if I told you that every single alpha I killed was in preparation to come here? What if I said that I left a trail on my thirteenth kill, purposely connected myself to each murder, then waited patiently outside the burnt remains of Daddy's old trailer for them to arrest me? What if I told you, Doctor Monroe, that I stabbed Doc Nelson in the leg withmy shiv because I needed to get here, and that I'm runnin’ out of time? Would you call me delusional?"
She said she needed to get here, and if she’s poking around the abandoned wing, that means she must be after the same thing we are. It would make the most sense to work together.
The only thing is, she had said she was running out of time. What the hell does thatmean?
