“You didn’t?” he said, trying to appear nonchalant.
Gaze dropping, Ru shook his head. A pained expression crossed his pale features, and his chin started to tremble. “I don’t… I don’t know what to do, Pember. She… I can’t get out. She just keeps telling me I’ll go to prison if I don’t do what she says.”
Shaking the water off his hands, Pember took a breath and gripped Ru’s shoulders. He looked so small hunched against the sink, and his cropped black hair was even more patchy than before, probably from stress. Pember wanted to rub his back and tell him it was all going to be alright.
Tears gathered in the other omega’s eyes as he gripped the chipped sink. Pember cupped his face with both hands.
“Ru, please, what is it?”
Ru sniffed, his voice thick with tears. “I met her after… after I was—in the car. She was at the clinic collecting some other swabs. She… she took me home. Said she’d take care of me and?—”
Ru started crying, fat, wet tears streaming down his face and dripping onto Pember’s sleeves. He was shaking, the despair in his eyes making something crack in Pember’s chest. Gathering him into his arms, he held him in a tight embrace. “It’s okay,” he said, stroking the back of his head.
It wasn’t okay. It was never going to be okay.
Pember wanted to rip the recording device from underneath his collar and just hold him. To be there for him as a genuine friend as his world crumbled.
“She said… she said they would all be quick, clean. Like with—” He swallowed and rubbed his face across Pember’s shirt. “Like with Felix. But then… then she introduced me to Leo and…”
The words fell away as he collapsed against Pember’s chest, a loud wail tearing from his throat. Pember swallowed over andover again, struggling to hold back his own tears. He could do nothing but hold him, rub his back, try to make him feel safe for what could possibly be the last time.
“And that’s when our merry band took off, isn’t it, babycakes?” Pember flinched, gaze flicking to the door as it slowly creaked open.
“Maya,” he whispered, holding Ru tighter. “Maya, what have you done?”
She smiled, lips curling back, making her teeth protrude. “What haveI done?” She spat out a laugh and stopped a few feet from them. “Something that every other omega in this shithole wants, Pem. Perhaps not what your little covert team wants to hear from their white van at the end of the street, hm? Or the guy sitting in the bar?”
Pember’s eyes widened.
“Do you think I’m fucking stupid?”
“Maya, I?—”
“You must do,” she chuckled, shaking her head. Licking her bottom lip, she stepped to the right and put her hands in her pockets, looking relaxed, almost casual. Pember’s eyes drifted to them as he pushed Ru behind him.
Maya laughed. “What? You think I’m gonna hurt ya or something?”
“Aren’t you?” he snapped back.
She dragged her hands out, pulling out the pockets. Empty. Pember let out a breath.
“Why would I? What’s done is done. You aren’t my enemy. I know it’s over. I know that. I just wanted to see the look on your face when you knewfor certain. I wanted to know if you got it, even just a little bit. I can see that you do.”
She gave him a little smile, one that was almost childlike as she twirled her braid around a finger.
“You understand,don’t you? You may notagreewith it. You may notlikeit, but you understand it. Don’t you, Pem?”
Pember walked him and Ru backwards, stepping out of Maya’s reach. “I’ll never agree with murder. Never.”
Maya smiled. “But youunderstand it, don’t you? We all do.” She raised both hands as though speaking to an audience.
Pember’s eyes flicked to the door again. He fucking hoped Blake’s team was about to burst through at any moment. “Who’swe?” he said, trying to keep her talking.
Maya sucked her teeth. “Don’t play dumb, Pem. You know who. Us. Omegas. Every fucking victim to suffer at the hands of an alpha. I told you when we had sushi that it wasn’t a job interview. I lied. I wanted you to join us, you were ripe for the fucking picking, but then you fucked an alpha and suddenly you had stars in your eyes.”
Pember’s nostrils flared as his back hit the hand dryer. “You’re angry. I get that, but?—”
“But what? But killing isn’t the answer? Murder won’t solve anything? Well, it solved something for Ru, didn’t it? And Leo. And Sal. And—” Maya’s dark eyes darted away and she licked the side of her mouth. “Anyway, do you see? The alphas are learning. They understand now what we’re capable of.”
