“Yeah,” Mom answered for us. I didn’t miss the way she leaned her shoulder against Nikolai. “We can.”
Remy turned to the men we’d brought with us. “Go door to door. Bring everyone out here.”
“And if they don’t answer the door?” One man spoke up from the back. I recognized him from Blackwater. He had kind eyes and a nice smile.
“Rhodes, you and Ryder shift. If you smell people, you can alert them that people are hiding.” Remy gave the order to his beta. Ryder was known for his tracking abilities as a wolf, and Rhodes was almost on the same level.
Rhodes nodded, kissed Larkin and waited for Ryder to kiss Dante and Tate before joining him. They led most of the men away.
“What about these guys?” Remy asked, jerking his head to the men still around the fountain. Men who I knew liked to visit the omega house frequently.
I hissed out a breath. “They don’t get a second chance.”
“Lulu,” Mom asked softly, “can you do me a favor?”
“Of course,” Lulu replied instantly.
Mom stared at the fountain. “Destroy that thing.”
A second later, the marble and cement fountain crumbled into a shapeless heap, a small cloud of dust puffing into the air and being carried away by the wind.
I swallowed down a fresh wave of tears.
“Thank you,” Mom said, clearly fighting the same emotions.
It took hours to separate the people into groups. Those who would be punished for what they had done in Long Mesa, and those who were getting a second chance. The latter number was smaller than I had imagined.
“Is it just me, or are there less people here?” I asked Mom softly as she indicated for Nikolai to take a man to what we had dubbed ‘the wolf pile.’
Nikolai seemed to take great joy in literally hurling people into the ever-growing wolf pile.
“Because they’re not here,” a voice snapped as a new person was dragged in front of us.
I flinched at the sight of Norma Loomis. Allan’s second wife had always had a perpetually disgusted look on her face, and she had clearly lost weight the last few months. Everyone I saw seemed thinner and more gaunt than when I had left.
“And where are they?” I asked coldly, remembering Norma was just as twisted as her children and husband. She had no problem brutalizing omegas herself.
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Norma smirked. “Bet you think you’re all sorts of fancy now, huh? Got yourself an Alpha mate. Enjoy it while it lasts.”
I couldn’t help the cruel smile that formed. “Oh, I plan to. It’ll definitely be a lot longer than your husband or your kids lasted.”
Norma’s face twisted and she lunged for me, fingers curved into claws as she went for my face.
I easily knocked her arms away and threw a right hook that snapped her head back. She howled in pain, cupping her bloody nose with both hands.
“Wolf pile,” I snapped, watching Alexei drag her away.
Remy looked over at me, his expression a perplexed mix of concern and pride. I winked so he knew I was okay. He grinned and went back to discussing his plans with Dante and Dimitri.
“They were taken a few weeks ago,” the next voice said, soft and timid.
I glanced down to see a girl who had graduated a few years ahead of me. Her face was a mottled mess of bruises and she looked way too thin except for the bulging stomach she protectively wrapped an arm around.
“It’s Bria, isn’t it?” I said, remembering her name. I tilted my head to the side as a memory hit me.
She had snuck me a sandwich when she stumbled on me picking through the dumpster behind the school one blisteringly hot afternoon a few years earlier. She’d simply set it down next to me and kept walking away, never making eye contact.
She nodded and dropped her eyes. “Yes.”
“Do you know where they were taken?” I asked, softening my voice. She looked ready to pass out or bolt at the first chance.
Bria pulled a thin sweater up over a bony shoulder. “I’m not sure. I asked but …” She touched the side of her face where the bruising was the worst.
“They took most of the girls and a few boys. All of the babies,” she added. “Some of the younger women who hadn’t had a fertility cycle yet also went. They put them on a bus in the middle of the night. I couldn’t sleep because I was hungry. The baby wouldn’t stop kicking.”