Page 8 of Dark Goodbye

To have the monitor off is a massive breach of protocol. There’s no way it went out on its own. We have alarms, backups to the backup. No matter how gruesome, no matter how close to death the patient is, these screens never go dark. It’s our security measures to make sure all possible care is being taken.

It’s a way for other doctors to observe and interfere if need be. Since I’ve worked here, I’ve made it abundantly clear to all those coming in that this will never be tolerated. For the screen to be like this, means that someone turned it off on purpose. My fingers tremble as I reach for the knob, needing but not wanting to see what’s happening.

A loud snap and hum fill the space as the old monitor comes back to life, and for a moment, everything is fuzzy. I can make out the form of an Alpha, most likely Malus, but I can’t see what’s happening to the patient inside. As it clears, I send up every prayer I know that it’s not Ladria.

Perhaps her scent is just wishful thinking on my part, a memory dredged up from the far recesses of my brain. Worse yet, it could be her child. It’s not too far out of the realm of possibility that she didn’t actually run away or die, but that she chose another and stayed hidden so I wouldn’t know.

Gripping the panel in front of me, my vision swims for a moment at the very thought of another man touching her, owning her, fucking her. She was far too young for me to convey the enormity of my feelings, it was far too inappropriate, but deep down, I knew she was supposed to be mine.

She was mine to protect, mine to take care of. She was the one girl that lit up my dark days. She was the one that made my heart sing when all I wanted to do was rage at the sky. Her soft smile made every fucking thing bearable.

If only I knew then what I know now. The latent omega in her called to the Alpha in me, and by the time I could do anything about it, she was gone, disappeared like a wisp of smoke, shimmering like a mirage in the desert. My heart died that day, and I never thought I’d feel it beat again.

But it did.

At my lowest, I destroyed my dorm, bellowing out my rage for all that could hear. Yet, in the carnage, I found something I’d forgotten about, tucked away in the deepest portions of my mind. A small scrap of knitted cloth, all dark blues and shimmery silvers, an expert mimicry of true night, peaked out from under my clothes.

For a moment, I brushed it off, not recognizing the design, but it stayed with me, plaguing my mind until I pulled it out from the wreckage and examined it in the light. A faint whiff of Ladria’s scent drifted up, filling my nose, rekindling the love and desire that flooded my brain every time I thought about her.

The scarf never left my bed. Though Alphas don’t nest, I found comfort in holding her scent so close, wrapping it around my fist as I drifted off to sleep with her memory lodged in my brain. Even when her scent finally faded with time and age, I still kept it on my pillow, keeping her close to me in my vulnerable moments until it became too tattered, too ragged to survive.

When it met the fire, it was the last part of her to disappear from my life. I finally mourned her that day, burying her in my own way. Perhaps that’s why this phantom scent teases me, begging me to remember her. I’ve tried so hard to push her from my mind that it eventually forced its way back to the surface.

As I stare at the screen, waiting for it to buzz to life, that same scent winds its way around me, stirring feelings long since dead. The fact that I smell it here can only mean two things. One, my beloved has come back to me. Or two, I’m finally cracking under the pressure.

Watching the screen, I hold my breath as the image finally clears. Brown hair surrounds a pale face, her features delicate and small. It’s her. It’s Ladria. Older, but still so soft and innocent, just as I remembered her, but still somehow transformed into the woman I see before me.

Something in me snaps as I stare down at my omega, her slight form strapped down to the gurney. With no sheets to cover her up, I stare at her naked body for the first time, infuriated at the lack of respect the attending surgeon has for her. No one has the right to see her this way.

Only me. Closing my eyes for a brief moment, I do the math, my heart thumping wildly in my chest. Eighteen. She should be eighteen now, old enough for me to finally claim her before all of Stanlion. Except, I can’t. She’s supposed to be dead.

It enrages me that another Alpha gets to look upon the omega that’s destined to be mine, however, with her unclothed, I can look at her, assessing what might be wrong. Other than a blossoming bruise on her face, I see no other signs of major injury.

Her right arm is bent back at the most ungodly angle, denoting that it’s more than likely fully dislocated. My vision blurs as I stare at her, my mind spinning in circles as I try to figure out exactly what’s happening.

And then there’s Malus. He hunches over her his scalpel drawing signs and symbols into her wrist — the omega sigil. My fingers burn from the tight grip I have on the metal panel, and I long to fly in there, tearing him away from her. It’s obvious he’s acting on his own and not for her benefit.

But I have to be smart about this, cautious. There’s no doubt in my mind that he’ll harm her even further if he sees me coming. I have to wait until his back is turned. And so I stand there, helpless, impotent as I watch him carve the last circle, the O that denotes she is, in fact, an omega.

Rage simmers through my blood, pounding in my ears. I need to hold her, tend to her, but this bastard refuses to move from the head of the gurney. Instead, he sets the scalpel down and grabs a bottle of alcohol and a rag, glancing at the door every few moments. Every line in his body is tense, on edge. Even as he unscrews the cap, his fingers edge toward the scalpel.

He’s a wild card. An unknown. As much as I want to just barrel in there, I can’t risk her safety. I refuse to put her into harm's way any more than she already is. My body trembles as he tips it over, pouring the caustic liquid over the open wound.

Even though she’s unconscious, her mouth parts as a blood-curdling scream silently pours from her lips. With the way this part of the hospital is designed, I can’t actually hear her. But my soul does. The part of me that never allowed myself to believe she was lost to me hears every fucking decibel that fills that room.

Once he wipes it down with a rag, he tips the bottle over onto her again. Her flesh stands out, red and puffy, against the smooth, paleness of her uninjured skin. The bastard is harming her and, based on the feral smile that splits his lips, he’s doing it on purpose.

Even though he can’t hear me or smell my anger through the thick metal, I answer in kind with a ferocious growl, officially staking my claim over the woman he’s holding hostage. He has to move soon. He has to give me an opening. Soon enough, he sets down the alcohol and rag and starts to smooth her hair back, his lips moving as he murmurs things to her that I’m sure would enrage me further if I could hear.

From there, he skims his hands down over her breasts, plucking at her nipples hard enough that her face screws up as if she’s about to cry. Each time he touches her, each time he causes her any amount of pain, I file it away, biding my time, plotting the moment that I’m able to inflict just as much or more back onto him.

The more he becomes engrossed with his prey, the more his ardent need for caution starts to slip. My heart flutters in anticipation as he becomes sloppy, no longer holding vigilance over the door that I’ll be coming through. It’s then and only then that I know I have a shot.

There will be no justice given that will not come from my hand. To take him to Jaxxon would be a swift execution, as befitting the doctor’s status. I don’t want swift. I want bloody, agonizing, to dole out punishment as only a fellow doctor can. Malus deserves more than his head on a chopping block. He will answer to every single one of his crimes in the most agonizing way possible.

Skimming his hands a bit further, I watch as Malus’s fingers skim over Ladria’s mound. Thankfully, he soon turns his back toward me. I cannot hold back any longer. The need to rip him apart with my bare hands courses through my body, priming it for action.

The dim hallway yawns before me, an insurmountable distance that I’ll have to cross. Turning the monitor so I can still see it, even from far away, I adjust the brightness to make up for the distance. I’ll need to know in an instant if he decides to go back to where the surgical tools are.