Escaping Monsters - Rita Stradling Page 0,71

words made ice run through my veins. Kane would find us within hours. Maybe Oliver was stupid enough to think he could play that to his advantage.

“At least let her put shoes and a jacket on,” Jasper said.

“Fuck no. Omega, step over this wolf, and follow me out,” Oliver snapped. “I want you to walk directly behind me.”

I had no choice. Like so many times before, my body trapped me into submitting to the dominant wolf’s demands.

My heart ached as I stepped over Chad’s prone form, and the heel of my foot landed in warm liquid. Blood. I was stepping in Chad’s blood. Hatred boiled up in my chest, crashing against Oliver’s emotions and washing them away. My rage was so much more powerful than Oliver’s. I was going to kill this werewolf before me. I didn’t know how or when, but I was going to kill him for his cruelty and cowardice. If I could kill Oliver ten times, I would. My commitment to never kill again now had one big exception.

Jasper’s warm hand fell away, and then I was just before the murderer, standing on the stairs. Oliver turned in the shadows.

“Follow me,” he called back heading through the open door and out of the firehouse.

I didn’t see a single person on the road as we walked out into the morning. The moment I stepped onto the cold cement stoop, dew sprinkled over my skin, and gooseflesh rippled across my bare arms. As I followed Oliver onto the street, I fought his control with my every breath, trying to pull the gun away from my head, trying to speak, trying to look away, but all of his orders would hold for at least an hour. I’d probably be long dead before then, or Oliver would reinforce his orders. Like all of Kane’s enforcers, Oliver knew the exact extent of my forced submissiveness.

A pace ahead of me, Oliver halted on the street. “Stop,” he ordered over his shoulder, and then his gaze darted around the empty street. Oliver kicked forward and pulled his foot back. There was a tinkling and scraping, and he lifted his boot to reveal reflecting shards from a smashed bottle on the ground. “If you don’t reveal yourself, I’ll order Omega to walk over broken glass in her bare feet.”

I wanted to yell that whoever was hiding there should run because Oliver would make me walk over the glass anyway, but my lips might as well have been glued together.

Ace stepped into the road before Oliver, and though I couldn’t focus on him, I could see his curly dark hair and glasses from the corner of my eye. He held up his hands. “I’m not going to get in your way. You clearly will never stop coming for Teagan. I can see your memories of her in your eyes, and it’s hard to make memories like that go away.”

I couldn’t look over at Ace, but I could feel his heavy stare landing on me.

“What is that, some sort of fucking code?” Oliver growled. Kane liked his enforcers to be of average intelligence, but Oliver had always been an exception to that. Nothing got past his sharp mind and terrifying gaze. “You’ll forget everything he said, Omega.”

Ah, the one order they could never make me obey. My mind was forever my own, and I committed every word Ace said to memory.

“Stand to the side,” Oliver spat. “If you say another word to her, she pulls the trigger.”

Ace raised his hands and stepped aside. I wanted to say something to him or glance his way, but even so much as attempting to look over Oliver’s shoulder at the road ahead made the air squeeze from my lungs. Oliver’s orders still gripped me so hard that it was obey or suffocate.

“We’re going,” Oliver said, and then he turned to the side and looked back at me. “Omega, walk straight over that glass.”

Chapter Nineteen

Pain and exhaustion threatened to pull me under as I trailed after Oliver. Even though we were walking on the soft clover of the forest floor, agony exploded through my feet.

With every passing minute, shards of glass sliced deeper into my soles. The sharp scent of my blood mingled with the rich earthy aroma of the pine forest around us. It had been almost an hour since he had reinforced his orders to look only at him, follow him, keep the gun pointed at my temple, and keep quiet once more, and when I concentrated all