And the pain was a blessing, the perfect distraction. "Shepherd didn't allow me access to shoes. I had to run in the streets barefoot."
"Does it hurt?"
"Yes. But it doesn't bother me and it won't slow me down."
Maryanne crouched to see why fresh blood was running down her old friend's shin. "Your knee needs stitches."
"Nothing I can do about that right now."
"Sit down, I'll do it."
It was so backwards to have Maryanne Cauley be the one to tend to her; as kids it was always the other way around. Watching the fully grown woman pull a needle and some metallic thread through her skin, feeling the pinch and burn, the world seemed so very strange. "Whatever happened to your mom?" Claire asked.
"Who fucking knows," Maryanne muttered as she made another tight stitch. "Probably OD'd years ago."
Claire just hummed, distracted. "My dad died four years back. Roadway accident."
"Your pop was always pretty cool."
Claire had to agree. "Yeah… I'm glad he's not here to see this."
Maryanne rubbed her lips together as if she wanted to say something but thought better of it. Instead, she stood and gathered clothing appropriate for the mission and shoved the horrid black garb of Shepherd's Followers towards Claire.
The Omega didn't balk, just dressed silently while Maryanne squeezed her limber body into a matching uniform.
"You know, Claire," Maryanne was dead serious, knotting her hair to tuck under a cap. "Underground there's a whole 'nother world. Those who follow Shepherd are beyond dangerous."
"Whatever they are doesn't matter."
Maryanne's voice fell flat. "What I am trying to tell you is, pair-bond or no, they have an agenda. Shepherd might just kill you."
Claire had no illusions on that score. "I'm counting on it."
"I could save us all this trouble and kill you right now," the Alpha offered.
"That's awfully sweet of you," Claire teased, standing on tiptoe to press a peck to her friend's ruby lips. "But I will already be dead to you after tonight. Give me what I need and you have my word."
Maryanne tucked a loaded gun into Claire's pocket. "Promises, promises…"
"And, Maryanne," Claire added, forcing a playful smile. "You look like a slut in that outfit."Chapter 3"This is the entrance to Purgatory." Maryanne pointed to the map alight on the screen between them. Tracing the snaking tunnels that lay right below the concrete footpaths of the Lower Reaches, she said, "This floor is for administration and separated from the true Undercroft. If your Omegas are being kept in this shithole, Shepherd would not stash them any lower than here. Not if he wanted to keep them alive."
Claire stared down at the COMscreen. Seeing her people locked away like livestock brought a wave of unbearable sadness. The Omegas slept ten to a cell, segregated by age, and there were less than the fifty-six that had been taken. Three Shepherd had hanged, the remainder Claire assumed had either died or been pair-bonded and dragged away. There were hardly even forty, and one was in estrous, isolated and being rutted by a stranger… the girl only sixteen.
In her heart, Claire had been terrified Shepherd may have allowed his men to inject the Omegas with the same drugs he'd used on her… to set up a brothel of mindless estrous sex for the taking, and she had to admit she was marginally relieved to find he had yet to stoop so low.
"Looking at them like that isn't going to change anything, sugar pie," Maryanne cooed, crouched at her side.
"Even you must see how sick this is." Frowning, Claire looked away from the COMscreen so her friend might meet her eye. "Don't let me down."
"I'll get you in. Then I'm gone."
Claire nodded. "For your own sake, I suggest you run fast."
As per their agreement, Maryanne tapped into the system and hacked the prison's upper level controls. Handing over the technology, she gave Claire patchy dominion of Purgatory's security systems.
"You need to know, small fry, not every castoff was released when Shepherd staged his coup. There are paths in there you don't want to stumble down. If you get lost… you let Shepherd find you." With those final, frightening words, Maryanne gave Claire a quick kiss and disappeared.
Claire had to make the next move alone. Holding a device constructed from duct tape and a few stolen circuits, praying to her Goddess that their plan worked, she flipped the switch.
Scattered explosions went off, all four of the handcrafted bombs Maryanne had distributed functioning flawlessly. Right on cue, Claire began phase two. As her friend had promised, the Followers on screen rushed towards the disturbance with alarming precision. When the soldiers were separated and in halls or elevators, she trapped the men with updated overrides to the systems they would have to countermand at each terminal.
Lips a hair's breadth from the screen, Claire took control of the prison's internal communications system. "Omegas, the doors to your cells are unlocked. Anyone who would prefer freedom to Shepherd's slavery, claim it. The guards are scattered, trapped, but I can't hold them for long. Band together, I'll lead you out. Do not forget your sister being held in the room at the end of the corridor." Venom dripped from Claire's voice. "I don't imagine Shanice dreamed her first heat would be spent mounted by a soldier three times her age."