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James takes out the phone he must have taken from the beta. Using the red light we’re at, I watch as he starts scrolling through it, not finding a whole lot. As soon as the light is green, he hands it to me, silently asking me to continue while he drives.
“Calai is looking through the phone right now,” he tells the other guys. “It seems like there’s not that much personal information on it except for…what's that?” I click back to the photo album, bypassing random photos that don't mean anything, until I find some that do.
“Why does he have pictures of us from this morning? How did he even get these? Has he been following us around all day?” There are dozens of us from all angles, clearly taken from a distance.
“You better get her home right the fuck now, brother.”
“Now hold on,” I say. “Let’s talk about this before we do something stupid again, shall we? You were doing so good.”
I hear Kit inhale a big breath, and I know it costs him a lot to not just jump in and be all alpha about this right away, another thing that proves to me that hecanbe trained.
“Calai,” Colter says, getting my attention. “It was one thing knowing that you were safe with August in a complex that we couldn’t access. It’s a whole other thing entirely to know that there might be someone out there following you for who knows what reason. This isn’t about us having a big head and doing what we think is best anymore. Who knows why he was following you; for all we know, you’re a target and he wants you. We need you somewhere safe.”
“I have been somewhere safe my entire life,” I tell them. “I will not be locked up like I was at that compound. Do you have any idea how suffocating that was? How many times I wake up in a cold sweat imagining Great Mother looming over me ready to punish me for missing something? I may have escaped, you might have saved me from there, but that doesn’t mean I’ve gotten free from it. It still has me in its clutches.
“This last week I’ve spent with August has been great. The week before that with you guys was great. I’m starting to figure things out, and I’m not going to let some idiot with a camera push me back into hiding. We are going to dinner tonight, because I want to. You guys owe it to me, and to August. I trust you guys to protect me, and I know that you will.”
James wraps his hand in mine over the middle console, smiling at me. “There’s only one contact in this phone,” he tells us as he hits another red light and takes the stolen phone back.
“Give me the number. Colter can call that while we’re on the phone.”
James reads the number out and Colter’s quick to put us on speaker so we can hear what’s going on. The voice that answers has me fighting nausea immediately.
“Hello?” A fakely sweet matronly voice asks.
That one word is all it takes to remember what it felt like to be a lowly one or two letter, serving everybody, being unseen. It takes me right back to that awful room I shared with a dirt floor in the cots that creaked. To the nights I thought I was escaping reality by being with Eln, only to find out that I was a tool for her. The happiest day I spent there was the day I got out.
I’m shaking. When I’m sure that Colter has hung up the phone, I find my hand over my chest tapping along my collarbone.
“She knows who that is,” James explains.
“Omega?” Kit drawls.
“Great Mother.”
“The whack job that ran that cult?” James clarifies. I nod.
“She’s tracking her then. I guess we should have expected this, Calai was the sweetest omega she had there. It makes sense that she would find her and want to bring her back into the fold.”
“Fuck that,” Kit growls.
“You think she wants me back?” I hate how unsure my voice sounds now, when just a moment ago I was so stable and confident. I hate the power this woman holds over me still.
“She’ll never get you; do you hear me omega?” Pulling over, James pulls me across the car and onto his lap so he can wrap his arms around me; suddenly the problem doesn’t feel quite so desperate.
“The police know what’s up with your case,” Kit tells me. “We gave them all the evidence we have, pictures we took of the compound, the testimonies you gave. They’re probably heartbeats away from breaking down that compound and arresting her. Let her come at you. All it’ll do is expedite her prison sentence.”
Even though I’m still a little angry and hurt by the actions of Kit and Colter, right now I just need their arms around me.
“Can we go to your place?” I ask James in a quiet voice.
“You’re only coming here if you’re calling it home,” Kit tells me.
“Kit-”
“Calai, I know we’re not whole yet. I know we’re not better. But this is still your home.”
I don't tell him I'm already thinking of it like that, because the needy, insecure part of me wants reassurance. “Is it though?”
