My other hand comes around and finds the badge he’s casually clipped to the hem of his shirt, and I jostle the beta just enough to distract him from feeling when I pull it free and slide it in my pocket.
Security approaches and I let go, hands up but smirking like the cat who got the cream. Drake rounds on me, but he must move funny because he winces, holding his ribs. I grin wider, seeing him nursing the bruises I gave him a couple days ago.
“I can give you another one to match it, Drakey-poo. Just say the word,” I say with a private laugh.
“Get out of my sight before I decide not to go easy on you,” the beta spits.
Flashing a little mock salute, I turn on my heel and walk off, laughing louder. God, he’s so easy to wind up.
“Pulling stunts like that will only make them watch you closer, you know,” Siren says flatly on the other end of the comms line.
“Yeah, but he’s too easy to fuck with. You’d do the same if you were here,” I fire back defensively.
“I most certainly would not,” Siren deadpans.
I roll my eyes and shove my hands into my pockets as I walk through the facility. My little wisp has a session this morning, so I’ve got time to kill before I go collect her. Every now and then, I mutter landmarks to Siren, helping them put together a more accurate map of the interior of the facility. Today, I’m wandering around some of the treatment rooms, or at least that’s what they’re labeled as. And as luck would have it, I find a mobile computer cart hanging out in the hallway outside of the rooms. Perfect.
“Treatment hallway cameras already playing a loop for you, Joker,” Siren says after I give them my location.
“You’re a gem,” I say with genuine fondness.
“Flattery won’t work on me, no matter how many times you try,” they retort, though I’m sure I hear a smile in their tone.
“One day it will, just you wait,” I say, stepping up to the cart and jiggling the mouse to wake up the system.
I scan Drake’s badge at the log-in screen, and the desktop appears, several programs and app icons on the left side of the screen.
“I’m in,” I rasp, lowering my voice.
“You don’t have to say that,” Siren says with a weary sigh.
“No, but it felt cool. Did I sound cool?”
Siren sighs again, but before I can hear their reply, a muffled scream reaches my ears from within the room next to the cart. My instincts perk up, the sound of an omega in distress calling to me on a soul-deep level.
“Joker? Did you hear me? What’s going on?” Siren asks urgently.
I ignore them for a moment, approaching the door slowly. It’s solid, so I can’t see inside, but another scream has me trying the handle, finding it unlocked. I pull it open a crack, looking inside. It takes a moment for my brain to comprehend what I’m seeing, but when I do, my blood runs cold.
An omega I don’t know is strapped down to a chair by her wrists, ankles, chest, and forehead, completely immobilizing her. Not that it stops her from thrashingand screaming, her eyes screwed up tight. Two men in white coats stand on either side of the omega in the chair, a third person off to the side taking notes.
“You’re fine, Omega Sawyer. If you stopped resisting, this would go much faster,” one of the white coats shouts over the omega, Sawyer, as she screams again.
The other doctor picks up a clear plastic mask, and my eyes follow the tube. Instead of an oxygen tank, the mask is hooked up to a clear box full of what appears to be clothes. A moment later, I have to slap a hand over my mouth as the stench of alpha in rut reaches my nose. Acrid, sweaty, greasy. Like a bad line cook after rush hour.
“Joker! Do you copy?!” Siren shouts in my ear.
Flinching, I pull back slightly from the door. “Here. Just…give me a sec,” I hiss, turning back to watch.
But I almost wish I hadn’t, not as the doctor lowers the mask over Sawyer’s face, forcing her to breathe in the rut pheromones. She screams again, my heart aching for her. Call me soft or whatever, but I challenge any person to hear those screams of primal terror and not feel even one iota of sympathy.
“No change to heat indicators,” the doctor off to the side calls out.
“We may need to up the concentration,” the first doctor says to the second.
“Let’s leave the subject a little while longer. The reaction could be delayed,” the second says, crossing his arms over his chest.
Horror fills me as they go back and forth, discussing Sawyer’s body and reactions with a cold detachment I didn’t think was humanly possible. They’re trying to induce her heat through exposure to the scent of an alpha rut. But Sawyer is too terrified by whatever flashback she’s having to respond in the way that they want. She fights hard against the restraints, so much so that I start to see bloody marks appearing on her wrists.