Page 19 of Indigo

The sun filters in, blinding me for a moment before all the hair on my body stands, and I’m face-to-face with them.

“Oh look, it’s Sour Peach.”

Arms folded in front of their wide chests are Cassidy, Hank, and Nash. And the three damn horses.

Fuck.

twelve

Cassidy

To her defense, she doesn’t curse or try to run. All she does is close her eyes and shake her head in regret. It’s not just the sour scent coming off her. I can read the disappointment all over her face.

It doesn’t feel great that our Omega hates us so much that she stole a truck to skip town. It’s a miracle the truck is still intact since I doubt she knows how to drive.

But that’s Indigo for you. She swims, she fights, she escapes. She does things without needing to learn, without considering that other people might want to help. She’s fierce, and while I fucking love that about her, it fills me with dread and fear for her safety.

“Indie…” Nash shakes his head. The disappointment is so thick in his voice that she winces.

Nash will do that to you. He’s too nice, never raises his voice, so when he’s disappointed, it feels like a knife digging deep into your chest. It takes a moment, but Indigo shakes off the effectsof Nash’s tone, and that delicious scowl returns to her face. She crosses her arms in front of her chest and tips her head up in challenge.

“What are you all doing here?”

I scoff. “Looking for our truck. Do you know where it is?”

She flinches, looking guilty. “I had to borrow it.”

“Oh, I don’t remember you asking.”

“Cass…” Hanks says in warning, but damn, this whole thing is so dangerous. Aren’t we even talking about it?

“Can we talk, Indie?”

Nash’s voice is soft but firm. His eyes pin her in place. Okay, so we are trying not to be assholes. No one told me that. It works on her, because she drops her arms as her frown softens and she nods. Timidly, but she agrees.

“What is the number of your room?” he asks next. “Can we trust you to wait for us while we take care of the horses?”

She swallows a lump in her throat and looks down at her feet instead of our eyes. “Can I trust you not to force me to do anything I don’t want?”

“Christ,”Hank curses, turning around with the heels of his palms covering his eyes.

Each Omega under our care has a similar horror story. I don’t even need to know Indigo’s to know it’s no fairy tale. She was born in captivity, which means she never had a day of normalcy in her life, because let’s face it, that motel is nothing like real life. Since all I can do is imagine what happened to her, my mind runs amok, creating fucked-up scenarios that have me doubling over wanting to spill my breakfast.

Letting the Omegas see how disgusted and enraged I felt by just knowing what they went through would only add to the burden. It’s not fair. So the best I could do is make a stupid joke and not act like they were fragile all the time.

No jokes flow past my lips right now. There’s another level of wrongness when an Omega asks you not to rape her. It fucking hurts, yet she’s right. They all did it. Why wouldn’t she suspect that we are one of them?

“No one is going to touch you,” I say, and I hope she hears the truth in my voice. I’m not only speaking about us three. No one will ever touch Indigo without her consent.

She swallows a lump and finally nods, hearing the silent plea in my voice.

“Room 55,” she says before turning on her heels and closing the door after her.

My brain is scrambled. I don’t fucking know how to act around Sour Peach. She’s not a people person, and I should be the first one to understand that, but how can I turn off this need to hold her tight against my chest?

“Let’s get the horses settled,” Nash says, cutting my thoughts in half.

Thankfully, the hotel employees were charmed by our theatrical appearance, and when we told them we needed to let the horses rest and eat, they jumped into helping mode. Even as I follow my packmates toward the back building, my eyes can’t seem to leave the door Indigo disappeared through.