Page 75 of Run Wild Omega

But I know I can’t survive this alone.

“Okay,” I say.

Dylan’s hand tightens around mine. Miles’s eyes close for a brief second, something like relief flickering across his face. Wyatt lets out a breath he looks like he’s been holding for three days.

“Okay,” I say again. “But the second this blows up⁠—”

“It won’t,” Miles says.

“The second it does, I’m pulling the plug. All of you. I’ll tell the truth myself before I let anyone else use it against me.”

“Fair,” Wyatt says.

I lean back against the pillows, exhausted in a way that has nothing to do with my leg. The monitor has settled, the beeping slow and steady.

Through the glass, I can see my family watching. Mom has her hand pressed to her mouth. Dad’s arm is around her shoulders. Mara is leaning into Daniel. Gray and Leo stand behind them, their expressions a mixture of relief and concern.

They can’t hear what we’ve just decided. Not yet.

But soon, they will.

And then the lie becomes the truth—not in the registry, not in the eyes of the law, but in the eyes of everyone who matters.

I look at the three men who are about to become my pack.

I just hope I’m not making the second-worst mistake of my life.

Miles

The hospital conference room smells like burnt coffee and dry-erase markers. Someone has taped a garbage bag over the window to block the view from the parking lot, but it does nothing to muffle the noise outside—the low, persistent hum of voices, the occasional shout, the diesel rumble of satellite trucks idling along the curb.

They’ve been out there since dawn.

I stand near the far wall, arms crossed, watching Daniel Hartwell pace the length of the room. He’s in a charcoal suit that probably costs more than my monthly rent, his shirt crisp despite the fact that he’s been awake for most of the night fielding calls. His phone has buzzed six times in the last ten minutes, and each time he’s silenced it without looking at the screen.

Wyatt is sitting in a plastic chair near the door, elbows on his knees, hands clasped. He hasn’t spoken since we got here. The bruise on his cheekbone has deepened to a mottled purple overnight, and the bandage on his forehead is starting to peel at the corners. He looks like a man bracing for impact.

Dylan leans against the wall beside me, arms folded, jaw tight. He’s been quieter than usual since Tess agreed to the plan—processing, I think. Dylan’s instincts run toward action, and being told to stand still and let Daniel work is testing every ounce of his self-control.

“Okay,” Daniel says, stopping mid-pace. He turns to face us, and I recognize the shift in his demeanor—the softness he wears with his family sliding away, replaced by the controlled precision of a litigator stepping into a courtroom. “Here’s how this is going to work. We walk out the side entrance, not the main lobby. There’s a podium set up in the courtyard between the east wing and the parking structure. The cameras can get a clean shot of the three of you, but they can’t surround you. Just deliver the statement and walk back inside. No deviations, no ad-libs, no reactions to anything they shout. If someone throws a curveball—and they will—you say ’no further comment’ and you keep moving.”

Dylan shifts against the wall. “What if they ask about Tess directly?”

“You refer them to the family’s statement, which Margaret is releasing simultaneously from the ICU waiting room. Your statement is about the rescue and the conditions on the mountain. Hers is about her daughter. Two separate threads, same message.”

Wyatt finally looks up. “Which is?”

Daniel picks up a single sheet of paper from the table and holds it out. I take it, scanning the neatly typed paragraphs. The language is precise, clinical, stripped of anything emotional.

It frames the avalanche as an unprecedented meteorological event—a wind-loaded cornice release well outside the parameters of the existing stability assessment. It mentions the National Weather Service’s severe storm warning, the record snowfall totals, the delayed advisories that put SAR teams across the region on reactive footing rather than preventive.

At no point does it mention Tess’s name. At no point does it use the word Omega.

“This is good,” I say, handing the paper to Dylan. “You’re making the weather the villain.”

“Because the weather is the villain. A cornice that size on that aspect, with that wind loading, would have taken out anyone—Alpha, Beta, Omega, certified or not. The meteorological data supports it, and I’ve already had the SAR incident reports forwarded to three independent avalanche forecasters who’ve confirmed the assessment.”

“Will the press buy it?” Dylan asks, reading the statement with a frown.