“Sit back down, Raven,” Alix commanded quietly.
I obeyed, simply because I couldn’t think of anything else to do. No matter what I could think of, nothing made sense. There seemed to be no solution to the problem.
“What can we do? We have to get more of the drug. We need it, or else...”
“Or else we’ll succumb to our urges,” Alix finished for me.
We were both silent for a long moment.
I took a deep breath, trying to quell the rapid beat of my heart.
“We have to do something. I can’t just sit here and wait for the medication to wear off,” I retorted, panic rising from deep within.
“I know,” he answered finally. The silence between us felt heavy. There was an unsaid insinuation that the worst was going to happen regardless of what we did. After a few minutes of quiet, Alix sighed heavily. His eyes met mine and reluctantly, he began to speak.
“Come on, let’s make our way back to the airship. You’re right. We at least have to check what’s left of our supplies. We need food and water for the journey back, at the very least.” He rose from the rock and I followed him, consumed by my thoughts. He pushed one of the branches out of the way and then we left the big evergreen, venturing back into the vastness of the forest.
The two of us emerged back into the light of day and walked in the direction of the airship. It wasn’t hard to figure out which way to go, because dark smoke still rose high into the sky from whatever was left of our ship, disintegrating what was left of my hope before we even saw the wreckage. A million possibilities ran through my mind, trying to think of ways we could be saved. Maybe the ship had just burned, and all of our supplies were intact? Maybe the beast had just destroyed some of the trees and we could repair the airship and get back to the city before the suppressant wore off? Maybe the monster had missed our campsite entirely?
We walked for a good hour before my stomach growled angrily at the lack of any form of breakfast, loud enough for Alix to hear. He chuckled softly and dug into his pocket, taking out a few pieces of plastic-wrapped jerky. Handing them to me, he just grinned, clearly entertained by my hunger, and I stuck out my tongue at him.
“Shut up,” I said, but my tone was light. For that one moment, the horribleness of the past twenty-four hours was forgotten, and it was just me and him, like old times.
Unwrapping one piece, I took a big bite and sighed quietly at the delectable taste. It didn’t take me long to eat the whole thing, but I stopped after the first one, knowing that supplies might be limited if we didn’t find any more.
After another hour or so, we closed in on the location of the airship.
Alix stopped ahead of me, holding out his arm so that I wouldn’t walk any further. He slinked forward, lowering himself down to a squat so that the bushes covered his entry, and I followed suit, staying well behind him. He unholstered his gun and I realized then that I must have dropped mine sometime this morning in our escape.
Good job, Raven. I rolled my eyes at myself.
The forest was quiet though. The two of us waited for a while longer, ensuring that the site was abandoned and thankfully, it was. The only sounds that met our ears were the chirping of birds and the scurrying of mice on the forest floor. He lifted the gun and edged forward, and I saw for the first time what remained of our camp.
The airship was destroyed. It was still burning, producing thick black smoke that had been the dark beacon in the sky during our journey back to it. The ground surrounding the vessel was singed and still smoldered. There was little left of the aircraft except for ashes and broken, twisted metal.
But luckily for us, after we’d stopped for the night, my security team had unloaded much of the supplies and carried them off to the side of the road. I turned my head and cried out with glee to find two piles of crates intact. I rushed over to the crates, but upon inspection, I only found them to be labeled with either food or water.
Supplies we needed to survive, but no medication. There should have been a third pile.
In an effort to organize the provisions, my team had separated the crates by the nature of their contents. My eyes searched, and with horror, I saw what had happened to that third pile, the crates of injectables. The beast had burned them too. Only a pile of ash remained.
“No. It can’t be. There has to be something left,” I murmured, wishing my words would come true just because I said them. I rushed over to the singed debris, finding only a few partially melted plastic needles. None of them had survived the explosion. I returned to the other intact crates. I was beginning to grow nervous, but I wasn’t going to give up yet.
Using a small pocketknife, I wrenched open one of the remaining crates, hoping that maybe one of them was mislabeled, that it wasn’t food inside but more injectables. One after another, I opened them and found nothing. Nothing but food and water, exactly as they were labeled.
My mouth felt dry.
My chest rose with my anxiety. All of my hopes dashed in that single instant.
I’d lost my bag. The crates of suppressant had been burned and destroyed. The airship had been obliterated. There was no way we could repair it and return to the city. It was too great of a distance to travel by foot. We’d traveled too far from Tharia to make it back in time.
The drug wore off too quickly for that. There were no other options. I was trapped in the wilds, where I was going to be forced into estrous like the omega I was.
I knew what was going to happen. I knew it better than anyone.
I studied everything about it. Deep in my lab, I’d even observed what happened between an alpha and omega. I knew what happened when the suppressants didn’t work anymore. I shuddered just thinking about it. Some time ago, the city had captured two individuals, a silver-haired omega and the dark-haired alpha who had claimed her. They’d been the first two cases in history to develop an inherent resistance to the current suppressant. Without the protection of the medication, she’d gone into heat in the middle of the market square.
I’d seen the footage of what happened.