“That’s what my wisp said, too,” Joker replies.
I set down my knife, pausing before I speak. I’ve only heard the woman’s voice a few times as I’ve monitored the comms, though Joker’s talked about her nearly constantly.
“What’s her story, Jokes?” I ask, unable to deny the curiosity building in my chest anymore.
“Well, judging from the file I was able to peek at—”
“Wait, you were able to access records?” I interrupt, sitting forward in my chair.
“Uh, yeah. Siren was a giant cunt about it though. Barked at me and everything. But then—”
“When did she help you?” I interject.
Joker makes a chastising noise and I roll my eyes.
“Someone might be a cunt, but we’re going to respect their pronouns,” he says, the patronizing tone only grating my nerves.
He’s right, of course, which only makes me more irritated. Siren uses they/them, and I know better.
“Anyway, like I was saying, I got Siren access to the system the first time, but then I was just too much of a curious Charlie so I went back and looked at my little wisp’s file. From what I could see, Delilah Montgomery—which is such a pretty name, right? It fits her so perfectly, and you’ll see what I mean when you see her. So, Delilah came in six months after her pack was murdered, the only witness to the crime but with no memory of what happened,” he goes on.
I pull up a window on the computer, my brow furrowing. I remember hearing about that, and when I search for more info, I’m unfortunately proven right. News articles pop up, each one painting a gruesome picture of a pack murdered in their omega’s nest, with no clues or leads as to who committed such a terrible act.
In one of the articles, there’s a picture of the pack when they were alive. Three alphas surround the omega in the center, all smiling at the camera. My eyes focus on the woman at the center. She’s undeniably beautiful, with dark hair in gentle waves around her round face and eyes the color of steel. Her curvy body looks soft and inviting, one of her alpha’s massive hands resting on a thick thigh. The sight makes my heart squeeze, and I have to swallow a growl.
“This place needs to get shut down before anyone else gets hurt,” Joker says in the silence, softly but not weakly.
Immediately, my instincts are on high alert. I’m halfway out of my chair and ready to wake the team for an emergency extraction.
“Are you in danger, Joker? We can scrap the mission—”
He sighs heavily. “No, not me. I’ve been able to avoid med checks so far, and I’ve been trying not to cause too much trouble. But you aren’t seeing what I’m seeing, Connor. And knowing that these omegas aren’t going to have anywhere to go after we’re done…”
My heart aches at his use of my real name and I settle back down into my chair. “I know. But we have to stay focused. We can’t forget the bigger picture here.”
“Yeah, but we could still do something to help them. Isn’t that what this is all about?”
I frown deeply, unable to deny his reasoning. Would I love to tear that building, and every single one like it, down brick by brick with my bare hands? Absolutely. But if we stuck around and helped every omega caught up in this black market, we’d end up caught. It’s better that the authorities step in and handle the clean up. But it still kills me to hear the almost innocent hope in his voice.
“We can talk to Bones about it in the morning, okay? Changes to the mission are his call,” I say, not telling him yes while also not telling him no.
Joker huffs a sigh, and I chuckle. That boy could pout the feathers off a goose if he put his mind to it. Once he signs off, I sit back in my chair, looking at my knives for a long moment.
“You okay?”
I turn at the sound of Siren’s voice, finding them leaning against the frame of the doorway connecting the main room and the kitchen. They’re out of gear, hair messy, and their hands in the pockets of their black sweatpants.
“Yeah, just got a report from Joker,” I reply, picking up the whetstone and the knife I’d been working on earlier.
“He was able to get me a link into the facility’s servers, you know,” they say, pushing off the doorframe and pacing over toward me.
“He just told me. How did he manage it? We didn’t send him in with any remote access tech,” I ask, confused.
“I don’t need the tech, not when the facility’s firewall is more of a fire-suggestion, and he was able to get me login credentials,” Siren replies, not missing a beat.
I shift over in my seat, allowing them to pull up a chair beside me at the computer. There’s a brief pause when Siren sees the article about Delilah and her former pack, a shadow passing over their face. But they close the window and the expression drops before I can comment on it. A few quick taps after that, and a window appears with the facility’s branding and a login screen.
“Joker swiped a badge from some guy named Drake,” Siren mutters to themselves, rolling their eyes.
