Page 1 of Torment Me Knot
Chapter One
Sera
The fluorescent lights above my desk buzz like a migraine I can't switch off. I should have gone home by now. The building's empty except for John at the front desk, and knowing him, he's been asleep since nine. Here I sit anyway, surrounded by case files that multiply when I'm not looking.
Three more missing Omegas this month. Three more reports added to the stack that's starting to look less like paperwork and more like a memorial. I lean back, leather creaking under me, and press my thumbs into my temples. The headache's been building for four hours. Maybe five.
Silverpine County's “protective measures” are just as suffocating as anywhere else. Registration. Movement restrictions. Mandatory custody. All dressed up assafetywhile omegas keep vanishing into thin air. The system built to protect them? It's the thing making them vulnerable.And I'm part of it.I shove back from the desk.Part of the machine that smiles and stamps paperwork while people disappear.
My secure line rings. I grab my phone before the second ring. Only a handful of people have this number, and none of them call this late unless something's gone sideways. The display reads: Canton City.
“Vidal.”
“Sera.” Gravelly voice. Familiar. Ronan Hawthorne. We've traded cases across county lines for years now, built on shared wins and mutual disgust for bureaucratic bullshit. Men bend rules until they snap. I respect that, even when his methods make my law degree twitch. “Hope I'm not interrupting anything important.”
I glance at the photos spread across my desk. Young faces that aren't coming home.
Isla Wilson. Hazel Sullivan. Violet Dawson. Three of six this month, all from Hearth. The omega center that was supposed to be a sanctuary. Robert Coleman's face keeps surfacing in my inbox, flagged on every interview transcript Legal sends over. Director of Hearth. Being questioned. Still not charged. My gut hardens the way it does when a file is about to get bigger, not smaller.
“Just reviewing another batch of missing persons. What's the situation?”
“We raided a facility two weeks back.” He pauses and exhales. “We pulled out an Omega named Leah, a survivor from the Haven Institute ring.”
My hand flattens against the desk.Haven. My stomach twists at the name alone.
“Word is there were others in that building,” Ronan continues. “Young ones, moved before we could reach them.”
I straighten, and the metal frame groans under me. Haven Institute. The scandal that ripped through multiple counties. Senator Hardwick. Commissioner Turns. Director Mercer. I still remember the photos in those police reports. Omegas with dead eyes. Medical records detailing forced heats, experimental injections, bodies treated like equipment to be calibrated. The whole network dragged into the light by survivors who refused to stay silent. This is the fallout.
“You think someone's picking up where they left off?”
Silence on the line. Then: “More than think.” Papers rustle. “We've got intelligence that Ethan Wallace is behind it. Remember him?”
My throat closes. For a second I forget how to breathe.
Wallace. Hardwick's shadow scientist. The one they said designed Haven's experiments, who turned healing into torture, who saw Omegas as lab rats instead of people. Rumored to have slipped the net when everything burned down.Of course he survived. Cockroaches always do.
“Sera?” Ronan's voice goes soft. “You still there?”
“I remember.” Flat. Controlled. “What makes you think he's operating in my territory?”
“Transport patterns and medical supply orders. Three of your missing Omegas match the profile of ones taken from our raidsite.” The line goes quiet as he chooses his words. “He's building something new, Sera. And he's not done experimenting.”
I grab a pen, already writing. “Send me what you have. Locations, patterns, anything.”
“Already compiled, and the encrypted file's coming through now.” His voice drops. “Sera, this one's different. Wallace isn't like the others we've taken down. He's brilliant, he's ruthless, and he's got resources we haven't been able to trace.” A beat. “Don't go in alone.”
The line clicks dead. I stare at the terminal as his file downloads, then click it open. I should call my team. Should coordinate. Follow protocol. Instead, I scroll through the data. Abandoned facilities. Shipping manifests. Power consumption spiking at a research complex on Silverpine's outer edge, officially derelict for five years. Every piece slots together too neatly. Too deliberately once you look for the specifics. The kind of operation that slips through official channels while committees debate jurisdiction, and by the time the paperwork clears, more omegas will be gone. More families destroyed. Wallace will be a ghost again.
I check my weapon and grab my tactical vest. Some things won't wait for red tape.
The last time I waited for authorization, two Omegas disappeared before the warrant cleared. Tactical hit the building six hours later. All they found were restraints bolted to concrete and blood in the drains. Wallace moved fast. That was his pattern. Hit, experiment, relocate. If this facility was active tonight, waiting until morning could mean losing everyone inside it.
I wasn't planning a raid. I just needed eyes on the place. Confirmation. Then I’d call it in.
The drive takes forty minutes. Forty minutes of running Ronan's intel through my head. Three of my missing Omegascould be in that facility. Young women who trusted that someone would come looking for them.I'm coming.
The facility hunches against the sky, all sharp angles and dead windows. Officially abandoned, but fresh tire tracks cut through the access road. I park a quarter-mile out and approach on foot, every nerve firing.
