Track 28 Run Away Girl

The men that come from us aren't wearing masks. Which is a terrible sign. They don't care if we see their faces, don't care if we can recognize them. It means they're sure we're never getting away.

We're dragged out of the cement room, up a flight of stairs and out of an abandoned house. I catch sight of a lot of trees and look around frantically, desperate to see if I recognize the place, which is ridiculous because it's dark and what am I going to do if I do recognize it?

Nothing.

They put Vee into the back of a black van first, laying her down on the ridged floor, then me, then Sadie, so we're packed in like sardines.

"I'm sorry," I say as soon as the door closes behind us. The words have been on the tip of my tongue since both of them were carried into that dank little basement room.

Sylvie rolls her head in my direction, brows pinched together. "What are you apologizing for?"

I shake my head and flex my fingers, trying to loosen the ropes. "You were taken because of me."

"Uh, how do you figure that?" Sadie asks from my other side.

"You were only in Lake Kilrose without your packs and guards because of me. If I'd-"

"If you'd what? Not had your heart broken this wouldn't have happened?" Sylvie cuts in, voice harsher than I've ever heard it. "That's a load of bullshit."

Sadie nods. "They were waiting for their moment. It would have happened with or without you needing us. Also, if you think for one minute we were without guards, you are dead wrong." Sadie rolls her eyes. "Maddox would never let me out of the penthouse without someone watching out for me."

I frown. "But I never saw anyone."

Her shoulders move in what I suspect is a shrug. "They're good at their jobs. I don't particularly like being followed around by big hulking alphas, so they learned to blend in."

"If anything," Sylvie adds, rolling closer to us. "We should apologize to you. You're only here because of us."

It's stupid for that statement to hurt, but on the heels of my heartbreak, it does. Because I'm still an emotional wreck. It's like she's saying I'm only important in the world because of my friendship with them. No one would want me for any other reason.

See. Ridiculous.

Now is really not the time to dwell on those kinds of thoughts.

We cut off as the front doors open, the van rocks as bodies climb in and then the engine fires up.

"Aren't we not supposed to let them take us to a second location?" I ask in a whisper, bouncing around in the back of the van as it accelerates. "Doesn't that lower our chances of being found by like eighty percent?"

Sadie snorts, even though I know she doesn't think this is funny in the least. "We're already at a second location, Sor. The first location is where they took us from. We're on our way to a third location."

"Fuck," Vee groans, rolling her neck. "I'm so tired of this bullshit."

"Me too," Sadie sighs.

I sink my teeth into my lower lip. "Where do you think they're taking us?"

Vee looks at me. "We won't let them hurt you, Sor. They can do whatever tests they want on us, but they won't touch you." There's no reason for them to, lingers unspoken in the air. Because I'm a beta through and through. I'm too old to be turned into an omega, like Claudia, and besides, the cost of that procedure is too great for them to want to do it on me as a threat .

The only reason I'm here is to keep my friends in line. Which means if Sadie and Sylvie go along with whatever they want, I should be fine.

But that's not what I want. It's also not why I was asking where they're taking us.

I scowl, leaning as close to them as I can while trussed up like a pig. "I was asking because if they're taking us to one of Apex's testing facilities, maybe we can find the smoking gun."

Sadie's brows jump in surprise. "You mean just go along with what they say to get into the facility, and then break ourselves out, and find information that points to them being dickheads?"

I nod. "Yeah, exactly."

Vee tilts her head. "I mean. I'm all for it, but how are we going to do that?"

Sylvie shifts, rolling closer to me. "Maybe we can untie each other?"

I roll onto my side and fumble for her wrists, trying to reach the ropes. But the assholes have covered them in duct tape. I let out a sound of frustration, as my bound fingers scrabble against the slick surface.. "I can't- I can't get to them."

Sadie huffs a noise between a groan and a growl before she stiffens. "Hang on… wait… Swift gave me these boots."

I frown and roll onto my stomach. Twisting my head to look at her. "Okay, and that helps how?"

"Swift is a fucking psycho," she says, like that explains everything. "He wouldn't have given me a pair of boots just because he thought they would look nice."

I roll my head to look at Sylvie and find her just as confused as I am. I look back at Sadie and find her forehead pinched together in concentration. "He must have… there's a reason… Ah, there!"

I have no idea what she's excited about, but that doesn't really matter. If it means whatever she's discovered will help us get out. "Sor, can you reach my feet?"

"I can try." Sadie pulls her knees up so I don't have as far to go, but space is limited and it's hard wiggling around in a moving van without the use of my limbs to help. I'm sweating by the time I can touch her boots with my hands. "Carefully," she says, looking down her body at me. "Do you feel it?"

"I don't know what I'm looking for!" I all but hiss. The van slows down and we all tense, thinking maybe we're at the end of our journey, but we all roll into each other as it takes a corner. Something sharp cuts into my thigh and I curse. "Shit!"

"That's what you're looking for," Sadie says. "Sorry. I should have warned you." I glance over my shoulder toward her boots and see a thin three inch stiletto-like blade sticking out of the toe.

I snort a laugh. "Of course Swift would give you footwear that includes weapons."

"He's such a little psycho," she says fondly. "Fuck, I love him so much. There's probably more if you can find them."

I nod my understanding and carefully search her boots for more blades, trying to avoid the one already sticking out of her shoe as I do.

"Should you cut through the ropes?" Sylvie asks, her whisper just barely reaching me over the rumble of the engine.

I shake my head. "No. We want them to bring us into the facility, right?" When they're quiet, I glance up at them. "Right? If we don't bring them down, they'll just keep coming after you. With Apex's resources, it'll be for the rest of your lives. What if they come after your kids?"

Sadie blows out a breath, while Sylvie nods. "Yeah, we want to get into the facility."

"Then we can't free ourselves now."

They murmur their agreement, and I go back to searching Sadie's shoes for weapons. "It might have been nice," I say when I nick my hand for the fourth time as I extract a third knife. "If he had shown you where all the blades were."

"I might have, um… jumped him after he gave them to me," Sadie mutters. I glare up at her, while Sylvie chuckles and shakes her head. "What? I like gifts!"

"Most omegas do," Vee agrees easily as I slither back up their bodies, hair sticking to my skin with sweat.

"I got one for each of us," I say under my breath. "I'm sure there are more in your boots, but my hands are all cut to shit."

The next few minutes are full of us maneuvering so I can pass a knife to each of them and then wincing as we conceal the blades under the rope and duct tape on our wrists.

"Once we're in," Vee whispers as the van slows down once again. "Start cutting the ropes as best as you can. Hopefully, we can be free before they separate us."

Sadie nods. "If they get us into an actual exam room, they'll use a more advanced way to tie us down, so we need to be free before then."

I nod my agreement and all of us tense when we come to a complete stop. The engine revs for a second and the van backs up. "This must be it," Sadie whispers, making my stomach roil with nerves and nausea.

"Alphas first," I say, hating the words, but knowing they need to be said. "We have to take them out or we'll never get away."

Sadie grunts in confirmation while Vee repeats, "alphas first."

"Hey," Vee says in her steady way, even as her scent turns bitter with fear. "We're going to get out of this." I nod again, even though I'm not entirely sure I believe it. But I'm sure as shit going to try. I refuse to let my friends suffer any more than they already have. They deserve for this to end, to be happy.

I'll do everything in my power to see that happen.

The doors open and rough hands reach for Sadie first, pulling her out and setting her on her feet. She struggles a bit, but not enough to actually get away, because that's not our plan any longer.

As I'm pulled from the van, I look up, trying to see where we are again, to catch my bearings, but it's impossible. I only see a large gray building, a set of metal double doors. It only takes me a moment to realize it's a loading dock. Like we're supplies that have been purchased and are now being delivered.

I guess that's not far off.

As soon as I'm shoved through the doors, I begin working at my ropes, sliding the tiny blade back and forth over the bindings and hoping like hell I'll be able to get them free, hoping Sadie and Vee will be able to as well.

Six guards usher us into the bowels of the building, two next to each of us. I watch Sadie's hands in front of me, the blood from the cuts on her fingers, making me wince. But a few scratches are worth getting out of this.

The guards don't seem to notice that she's bleeding, or that I am, for that matter. Or maybe they do, but they don't care. They're completely at ease as they guide us further into the building, no doubt sure that the guns on their hips and the threat of an alpha bark are enough to keep us under control.

Two of the men with us are alphas.

And they are a danger. The danger.

All it would take is one alpha bark and the three of us would be putty in their hands.

I feel my ropes give around the time I notice Sadie's loosen on her wrists. Awareness tingles on my skin, and I wait for a beat, two, just in case Sylvie doesn't have hers undone.

But then she shouts, "Now!" and my muscles move without thinking, yanking my arms forward as I barrel into the alpha behind me, next to Vee. My only thought is to keep him from talking, from saying anything. I thrust my little knife up under his jaw as he roars, but don't give myself or him time to really feel the moment. I yank the knife out and stab him again, this time in the neck. One of his gigantic hands comes up and clutches at the wound as blood bubbles from his lips.

The whole attack probably only takes about nine seconds, but it feels like it takes forever. An eternity.

I spin, searching for the next alpha, ready to take him down, but he's already down, bleeding from a similar wound as the one I gave. The betas are gaping at us in shock, but it won't take long for them to get over it and draw their weapons. "Run!" I shout at my two best friends.

I watch as Sadie punches a guy in the throat, holding her little knife between her fingers and Vee knees, one of them in the nuts, before they take off. I'm right on their heels, ignoring the roared demand for us to stop.

My heart thunders in my chest. What the hell was I thinking, suggesting this? Why the hell did they go along with this?

There's no way we're going to get away. No way we'll survive. Every instinct tells me to run back the way we came, to leave the building and get as far away as we can, instead we run deeper into the maze of hallways.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck," Vee chants under her breath as we run. I'm right there with her but needing to save my breath for the burst of exercise and exertion.

Sadie draws up short at a door, using the swipe card on the lock I hadn't even realized she stole from one of our guards. The light flashes red and she swears before trying again, this time slower, more deliberate. It flashes green, and she lets out a hoot of triumph before she yanks open the door and we all tumble inside.

"There're cameras everywhere," Vee says, leaning against the door and shaking her head. "We're not going to get out of here."

Sadie moves forward toward a desk with a computer on it. "Shut up, Vee. We are going to get out of this. We just… We need to move fast."

She clicks on the computer and the screen lights up. "Sor, come see if you can find a zip drive or anything in these drawers that we can save some information on."

I do as she orders, hands shaking as Vee presses her ear against the door. My hands are shaking, blood drying and flaking on my fingers as I yank open drawers and fumble through them.

Nothing.

No zip drive, I can see.

Although… there is a slim black box about the size of my hand.

"I have no fucking clue what I'm doing," Sadie grumbles, hands hovering over the keyboard for a moment before she snatches up the phone and presses the receiver to her ear.

"What are you doing?" Vee hisses.

Sadie shrugs. "Calling for help."

I almost smack myself in the face, because… well, we should have done that as soon as we found a room with a phone rather than trying to find a smoking gun. She dials and then puts the phone on speaker when it rings.

Her nose wrinkles as she clicks around on the computer.

The ringing stops and Sadie lets out a whimper when a harsh voice says, "You better have good fucking news for me."

"Ethan?" Sadie chokes, and there's some kind of noise on the other side of the line, a growl and a sob of relief.

"Heartbreaker. Where the fuck are you?"

Sadie rolls her eyes, apparently her moment of omega-ness over. "In an Apex Facility. We're fine. We got away from the asshole guards. I'm pretty sure I killed one of them. Sorrel too."

Nausea makes my mouth water unpleasantly at her proclamation, while he makes a proud noise on the other side of the line. "Of course you did, heartbreaker. Of course you're saving yourself."

Sadie preens under the praise and Vee makes a rolling motion with her hand, like ‘get on with it.' "Listen, we want to get some information off this computer to take down Apex and we don't have your skills. Can you walk us through it?"

There's an increase of sound on the other side, people talking loudly or shouting and then Ethan says, "I can do you one better. If you give me the computer serial number and the IP address, I can handle it from my side. And then you can focus on getting your asses out of there."

"Deal," Sadie says, following his instruction on the computer.

I pick up the black box, holding it up to Vee. "Is this an external hard drive?"

She eyes it, then shrugs. "It looks like it could be, but I'm not exactly a technical wizard. Just bring- Do you hear that?"

She pauses, tilts her head and listens. I do too. Sadie is busily typing at the computer, the sound of her clicking and the faint noises filtering through the speakerphone the only sound in the room. And then, I hear it far off, but likely not too far off… The sound of sirens.

"The police?" I whisper, hope igniting in my chest. We're going to survive this. They're going to get us out.

"No," says Ethan. "You're going to get yourselves out. Do you hear me?"

Apparently, I said that bit out loud.

"Yep, baby. We're on it," Sadie says. "Do you need anything else from me here?"

"No, heartbreaker- I'm sorry, what the fuck did they just say?" There's a muffled sound on the other end of the line. "Logan, what did they just say?"

Another muffled noise, like the phone is being fought over, and then Ford's voice comes over the line.

"Vee, pipsqueak." The omega at the door lets out a choked sob and stumbles closer to the desk.

"I'm here, Ford."

He lets out a beleaguered breath. "Good. Good, baby. But you need to get out of there now. We just overheard the police say they're going in with flash bangs."

I blink at that. "But this is a laboratory. There are chemicals. Lots and lots of… explodable chemicals."

"I know," he grits out. "Ethan's working on getting any of the doors between you and the outside open so you won't have to use a keycard."

I nod, already moving toward the door again, pressing my ear against it while tucking the hard drive into the waistband of my shorts. I don't know if it'll be worth anything, but I'm not going to just leave it behind, either. It could be just what we need.

Though with my luck, it's probably blank.

Ethan's voice comes out of the phone, fainter than before. "When you leave the room, go right. Straight down the hall, take the third left and then an immediate right. You should see the doors to the outside there."

I close my eyes briefly to remember the directions.

"There will be guards," Ford says, like we don't already know that. "So I need you to be careful, pip. Come back to me in one piece, yeah?"

My throat gets tight, my nose sting, tears prick my eyes. It's really not the time, but goddamn, I wish someone would say that to me, care about me enough to make demands like that. I swallow around the lump in my throat and push down the loneliness I'm sure I'll feel for the rest of my freaking life.

"Don't worry, Ford," I say, making sure my voice is steady. "I'll make sure she gets out safe. Both of them." I add for Ethan's benefit.

"You too, Sor. Get yourself out safely too."

I make a noise of agreement, though I know without a doubt if it's between me and one of my best friends, I'll make sure they get out before me. They're omegas with bonded packs and I'm… well, just a beta with no hope of a real future besides working at my parent's restaurant.

"We're on our way to you, Cherrybomb," Swift shouts over the phone, sounding feral. He probably is seeing as his omega is once again in danger. "Gonna rip them apart for you."

"You say the sweetest things," she coos, and Vee rolls her eyes.

"We've gotta go."

"Love you," Sadie sings into the line before hanging up and rushing toward me.

I hold up a hand, telling them to wait as I carefully inch open the door and peek out the door. Empty. I resist the urge to let my shoulders droop in relief.

We're a long way away from being safe.

I peek again and then push the door open all the way, motioning for Sadie and Sylvie to go ahead of me. Almost as soon as we're in the hall, the sound of multiple booted feet pounding toward us reaches our ears. "Shit," Sadie curses, taking off at a run, leading the way. Vee and I are right on her heels, me bringing up the rear, protecting them with my body as best as I can.

Panic explodes in my chest, right along with the sound of gunshots from behind us. All three of us duck our heads, like that will help.

"Careful!" a male voice growls. "We don't want to kill the omegas."

Not the omegas. But me? I'm expendable.

Like always.

We skid around a corner and my worn down shoes with no grip slide out from under me. I hit my knees hard, and my best friends curse when they realize I'm not right behind them. "Fuck. Sorrel, get up," Sadie urges, scrambling toward me.

I know I need to, but my bones feel bruised and I'm so fucking tired. But they need to get out. Now.

"Go," I say, pushing at them when they come back for me, knees screaming from the impact on the hard tile. The sound of footsteps behind us gets louder. "I'll hold them off."

"Jesus, Sorrel!" Vee tugs on my hands. "We're not leaving you to get yourself killed."

"Move your fucking feet!" Sadie hooks her palm under my armpit to get me standing, then they both urge me forward. "We're so fucking close."

The three of us shriek and duck when a wall explodes next to us, the sound of a gunshot making my ears ring at the same time.

"Fuck!" I scream, pushing them ahead of me. If anyone is going to get shot, it's going to be me. We move faster, harder, arms pumping, ducked low to be smaller targets. I never in a million years dreamed I would experience something like this. But apparently survival instincts are a real thing.

My legs move faster than they ever have before, the pain in my knees fading to nothing as I push and push and push.

"Left!" I shout when I see our turn. We skid around a corner, and there are more pops of gunfire behind us. "Right!" I command, even though the two omegas are already turning. And there is it, the door to the outside, metal and glass. The sky is lit up with red and blue flashing lights, though we can't see any cars or people. Ethan must have guided us to a back exit.

"Go. Go. Go!" I chant as we all put on a burst of speed. The door is unlocked, just like Ethan promised, and we explode into the night, right as the building behind us explodes, too.