Page 43 of Flight of the Omega

XVIII

JP did not feel safe.He hadn’t felt safe since they left Midlothian. Or maybe he hadn’t ever felt safe. Dr. Vogel passed them off to a friend, who then turned them over to another friend. Eventually, they ended up in what amounted to an abandoned log cabin on the side of the mountain, with a bit of food and water and a promise that the friend of a friend of a friend, who had led them up there, would be back to check on them.

That had been a week ago, and food and water were scarce. Jack was melting snow for them to drink, and he’d managed to collect firewood, but there wasn’t much to eat on the side of a mountain at the best of times, let alone before the snow melted.

JP honestly wished angelics were less vegetarian than they were. They’d seen plenty of squirrels and little songbirds. If only they were like eagles—predators. But no, plants were better, and there wasn’t much other than pine needles or moss, which Jack had to dig for under the snow, and both were upsetting JP’s stomach. He wasn’t sure what was worse—hunger pangs or the intense cramping and vomiting after he’d tried to eat the pine needles because he wasthathungry.

Jack wasn’t complaining, so JP tried to shut up and take it, but it was hard when he was so goddamn uncomfortable.

That was another problem. He wanted to nest badly, but Jack was using most of the branches for firewood and they were trying to stew the pine needles or bark or whatever else, so JP was torn between nesting or eating and being warm.

And he still didn’t feel safe. He’d been looking over their shoulders since they’d left Midlothian, convinced they were being followed. Someone had to have seen them leave. One of the guards—maybe they’d guessed what was up. His father would have people combing the countryside. Burr wasn’t going to let him go just like that. Nobody came up this way; someone would be able to follow them, the tire tracks to the cabin, Jack’s footprints in the snow as he roamed further afield every day in search of something to eat.

Someone was going to find them and drag them back to Midlothian. Something was going to get Jack.

Was he even safe withJack? He was grateful for the alpha; he didn’t think he would have made it up here alone, not with these eggs weighing him down. Even if he hadn’t been ready to deliver the clutch, he wouldn’t have known what to do. He’d never had to forage, never had to start a fire.

But it didn’t change the fact he was alone up here with the alpha, so if Jack wanted to force him to do anything, he could. JP felt even more helpless than usual; he couldn’t shift and run away. He couldn’t run at all, not with the eggs so big, so close to being laid.

Every stick cracking was someone coming to get them; every noise in the night was cause for alarm. He wasn’t sleeping; he was aware he was hallucinating half of what he saw, but the line between dream and reality had blurred. The walls of the cabin melted into the lab more than once. He swore up and down he was delivering the eggs and his father was taking them, and he screamed bloody murder, only for Jack to shake him awake to the reality the eggs were still safe inside him.

“It’s gonna be okay,” Jack said, and JP just didn’t know how it could ever be. If they left, then his father would catch them. That meant they had to stay here, which was terrible.

Slowly, JP realized that getting out hadn’t solved anything. All it meant was that he couldn’t be hurt again. But all that old hurt had piled up and cut him deep, and he was going to carry that around with him forever.

Jack was patient with him at least. He didn’t complain about going to get firewood, and he didn’t complain about waking up with JP in the middle of the night, JP drenched in sweat from some nightmare, shuddering and recoiling from Jack’s touch. He didn’t say anything if JP started hallucinating in broad daylight, just sat him down and told him to breathe until he came out of it again.

JP didn’t know if he understood or if he was just patient, but it was more than JP could have asked of anyone. He cried during the night, clung to Jack, who just stroked his hair and helped him get into his dry clothes so he wouldn’t get pneumonia from being damp all the time.

Dr. Vogel came to see them two weeks into their sojourn. She and the friend of a friend brought some supplies—food, blankets. Soap, which was a blessing because the two of them smelled pretty awful.

JP stole the blankets and started arranging them as a nest before the vet left. He couldn’t make it right though, so he pitched a fit, screaming and tossing the blankets everywhere, scratching at the ground. He wished he could shift. He could make this nest so much better if he were in his feathers.

Dr. Vogel gave him a sedative before she left. She left a couple of needles with Jack. JP hated the idea, but he was too dopey to protest. He slipped into another nightmare, one he couldn’t escape because of the drugs, so he got to relive his first heat like it was happening all over again, and he sobbed and screamed and clawed at the other bird.

Jack was scratched up in the morning. He said nothing, but he didn’t need to. There was worry in his eyes.

He was worried about the eggs, about whether JP could mind the nest. JP wanted to, but he wasn’t sure he could either. What if he fell asleep and got stuck in a nightmare? What if he rolled around and kicked the eggs or smashed them? What if he completely lost his mind and rolled them off the cliff?

It had been bad enough losing the dud eggs. He worried himself sick, so sick he couldn’t keep anything down. His appetite completely deserted him.

Jack tried, bless him, he really did. He petted JP and stroked his cheeks, told him he was doing just fine, that it would get better. The words felt hollow; Jack was lying to him again.

Maybe his father was right. Maybe JP couldn’t do this. Maybe he needed to have his eggs taken away. Maybe he deserved to be shoved face-first in the dirt and …

“Don’t you ever say nothing like that ever again,” Jack snapped at him when JP did tell him what he was thinking, because it was overwhelming and intrusive, and he was drowning with the thought that maybe hediddeserve that, that maybe it was all he was good for.

JP supposed Jack didn’t want to know the depths of his thoughts, so he kept those dark ideas to himself.

Dr. Vogel made the trip by herself the next two weeks. “Safer,” she said. She brought JP some softer blankets, and he finally got the floor covered, made something that might pass as a nest. It was still half-assed and shitty, because JP was half-assed and shitty as a parent, but it was better than nothing.

Twelve weeks came and went, and JP didn’t have any pains. He didn’t want to sit on the nest. Jack watched him with curious eyes, but said nothing.

Dr. Vogel prodded at him when she came back with more supplies the following week. “You don’t feel safe,” she pronounced. “You’re not gonna lay until you feel safe.”

“How can you not feel safe?” Jack asked, glancing around. “We’re in a cabin in the middle of the woods—only one way in. If anybody’s attacking, we’ll see ’em coming. We got food and water now, shelter. A roaring fire. You got your nest.”

“I don’t know,” JP murmured.