They load up fast, professionals doing what they do best. I keep the bird steady, eyes scanning for threats, but the compound stays quiet. Nothing left alive to cause problems.
"That's all of them," Elias reports a few minutes later, already starting work on the most critical patients. "We're clear."
I lift off immediately, banking hard toward the extraction point. In the cargo area, twelve rescued souls huddle together, some crying, some silent, all free. The team works among them, Elias handling medical needs and Carlisle acting as his assistant. Bane is organizing supplies and making sure everyone has water and blankets.
"There's a plane waiting," I tell them through the intercom. "You're going somewhere safe where you can recover, figure out what comes next. No one's going to force you to do anything you don't want to do."
One of the omegas, the young woman from the first cage, looks up at me. "Why?" she asks. "Why did you save us?"
The question hits harder than it should. Why do we do this? Risk our lives, operate outside the law, paint targets on our backs?
"Because someone should have done it sooner," I answer honestly. "Because what happened to you was wrong, and somebody needs to make it right. Because you matter."
She starts crying then, but it's different from before. This is release, not fear. Hope, not despair.
Bane steps in to comfort her, even though he's clearly not as confident at the task as he is running into a building full of hostiles.
We all have our strengths and weaknesses.
The landing strip appears ahead, nothing fancy, just a dirt runway carved out of wilderness. But the plane waiting there represents freedom, a chance at a life beyond cages and cruel alphas who see omegas as property.
I set down smooth, and the transfer begins immediately. Bane's contact—one of the few clean cops left in this cesspool who reported the facility to us in the first place and enlisted our help when his superiors insisted on looking the other way—waits with a medical team and counselors who specialize in trafficking victims. Real help, not just a band-aid on a bullet wound. Help we're simply not equipped to give.
"You did good today," the cop tells Bane as they shake hands. "Twelve more souls saved."
"Twelve out of thousands," Bane replies grimly. "Drop in the fucking bucket."
"Every drop counts," Elias interjects, his voice muffled behind the mask. "We can't save them all, but we can save these twelve. That has to be enough for tonight."
We finish helping the omegas onto the plane, and then watch it taxi and take off, carrying them toward something better. Not perfect, considering nothing ever is, but better. Safe. Free.
"Come on," Bane says finally. "Let's go home. We've got three days to rest before the next intel comes in."
I fire up the Blackhawk one more time, my team loading up for the flight back to base. Twelve saved tonight. Who knows how many more still out there, waiting. The math is depressing as fuck, but I can't think about that. Can only focus on the ones we can reach, the ones we can save.
That has to be enough.
It's never enough, but it has to be. And it's why I joined the Psychos to begin with.
The compound burns behind us as we fly away, charges Bane set ensuring nothing usable remains. No evidence, no trail, just ashes and justice.
Twelve drops in the bucket.
Better than nothing.
Always better than nothing.
Chapter
Four
JUNIPER
The blankets smell like home. Like Felix. Like blood we've washed out a hundred times but somehow still lingers in the fibers, metallic and sweet.
I drag another armful into the closet, my fingers trembling with need that has nothing to do with murder and everything to do with the fire building low in my belly. The nest is almost perfect. Almost. Just needs more of him, more of us, more of everything that makes this converted warehouse loft feel like the only safe place left in a world full of sharpened teeth.
My hands find his shirt in the laundry basket—black, of course, because Felix owns exactly three colors and they're all different shades of darkness. I press it to my face and inhale deep, letting his scent flood my system. Clean winter mornings. Diamonds cutting through skin. That artificial alpha musk he wears like armor, amplifying what's already perfect about him.
