Chapter 11
Natasha
My stomach churned. “I nae want any trouble.”
“A chick,” one of them remarked.
“Fightingandfucking? Great night out!” another announced.
Oh crap, they werethattype of cunt. They were moving toward me slowly, the way a hunter does when he knows the prey can’t escape.
Fuck standing still to be someone’s sex doll. I ran down the street, my soles pounding into the ground as I fled. I didn’t look back to see if the men were still after me. At one point I heard one inches from my ear, but I knew if I looked, I’d slow down, and if I slowed down, they’d get me.
I rounded a corner and ducked quickly down a thin alleyway.
There was a quiet nook behind some more dumpsters. I pressed myself into it and watched the mouth of the alley breathlessly. I must have had a decent lead on my attackers by that point, because they ran past without seeing me.
Once my breathing got back to normal, I looked around. My hiding place was set back into the wall. Maybe it had been a window ledge at some point, or a laundry chute? I wasn’t sure. It was mine, now. I settled in and closed my eyes.
***
Ryon
When I got back, the apartment was empty. Fine. She wasn’t my problem. She had probably gone out to complete her assignment. Then I noticed her little pile of laundry had moved. I went into my room and saw the dress and shoes still on the bed. The vaporizer was gone.
Fuck.
She’d run away. She was out there, alone in the city. An omega without the protection of an alpha. How long would she last? The first alpha who caught her scent would try and claim her.
I wasn’t going to call Urgoth. He was looking for reasons to be shitty to her. If he found out she’d walked away from her assignment, he’d hold it over her as a reason to never remove that implant. I had to deal with this myself.
Pocketing my disruptor blaster, I headed out into the late afternoon.
She wouldn’t have gone to Ghil’s. Urgoth could easily rout her out, there, by telling Ghil that she was an omega spy. Regardless of whether Ghil believed him, the gang leader would have Natasha martyred to protect his racket. Anyway, she hadn’t done the thing Ghil wanted her to do. She would know better than to show her face, there.
Without the dress, she wasn’t going to deliver the vaporizer. I suspected she was hiding somewhere.
She’d hit a nerve, earlier, when she’d told me I was a killer. I knew I’d ended people’s lives. I didn’t have amnesia. But she didn’t understand. I had a strict code. I only killed those who deserved it. Bad men. And I’d almost come to blows several times with Urgoth when he’d dispassionately told me to take care of all the witnesses from a scene.
I wasn’t cold-blooded. I just did what I had to. Survived.
If I didn’t find her, I doubted she’d survive long. Luckily, I had informants on every street corner. I approached Vel, a kid who did errands for Regin, and who I’d learned I could pay for information.
“Hey, kid. You seen a beta female in a really big shirt?” I asked him.
He frowned and held out his hand. I nodded and crossed his palm with a couple of coins.
“She went that way.” He pointed in the direction.
“Thanks, kid.” I headed the way he’d pointed. After a few more queries, I got a sense for where she’d gone. Natasha had literally walked in a straight line down this road. When I reached the edge of the sector, I kept going into sector three. She could have decided to stay here, but I suspected not. There weren’t really any places to hide in sector three. It was too posh. Too manicured. There were too many people paying attention, around here. No. She’d gone further. I felt it in my gut.
I reached sector eight. It chilled my bones to be here, but I sensed Natasha was nearby. I saw some men beating someone up. When they saw me, they fled.
I froze. A note of omega carried across the air. Her scent. She was in the vicinity. Was she looking at me? Preparing to flee, again? I scoured the area. Opened dumpsters. Looked beneath them. The scent was calling to me. I had to find her.
Sure enough, behind a dumpster, in the nook left from a sealed-up basement window that poked a little over the street level, I found Natasha curled up and asleep.
I scooped her up and took her back to the apartment. Laid her on the couch. There were two hours to go before she needed to be at that party.