Page 8 of The Gift
“Exposé Media have turned it into a game,” I counter sharply, glaring at the view.
It doesn’t take him long to answer. And I’m relieved it’s not to argue. Behind me, I can sense his own restlessness build before he stands and starts pacing. While he doesn’t speak, the sound of each step he takes is as loud as his thoughts.
In some respects, a part of me relaxes slightly knowing that he is still troubled by our most recent assignment. Because the reality is, it should make him feel like shit. I feel like shit, but ultimately, he was the one that decided that we were doing this. After we had all discussed, argued and agreed, but as a spokesperson he voiced the confirmation that our pack would take charge, and as crap as it was, a part of me needed to know he suffered when he agreed we would. How fucked is that?
“I think we twisted it first, Ash.”
“We had to.” All of a sudden, I’m defending all of us and our reasoning.
“Did we?”
And this is the problem with years of suppressed guilt clashing against the real chance of actually helping make a fucked-up situation better. Individually and as a pack the four of us continually swap our posturing, with our compassion to slide right back into combative disagreement. At least in the safety of these walls. One minute I want to lambast him for agreeing then and now, but the minute he starts admitting we fucked up, I want to argue how as a strong and inspiring leader, he’s never steered us wrong.
But right now, the words flow out of me, like they’ve got a mind of their own, “Put aside the sick fuck taking them for a second, right now I’m fucking stumped as to how or why we agreed to the changes to the contract? We shouldn’t have let negotiations change, it’s not right. Sure, this is how we get to her while actively tracking down the other missing omegas, but turning what they do into a fucking prime time television show is wrong.”
“I know,” he says, sounding more like me the longer we go round and round, skirting over the same issues. “We’re not talking about the other side, right?”
I nod my head, agreeing, not sure if he’s watching me still. But either way, there are different sides or issues or key factors that make this whole issue one giant shit storm.
“Okay then. Solely focusing on Exposé Media, I guess we all thought that it would ensure we got that spot and not another pack, because even though it was our idea, we’ve done that anonymously which means the whole concept was floated. And we won that fair and fucking square.”
“True.” I confirm, that side of shit was easy to justify.
“Besides being the best at what we do, besides wanting to capture, castrate and destroy the person or persons responsible for the missing omegas being taken again”—we both growl under our breath, and Henley takes a deep inhale before restarting—“I remember we also decided to do it for the money, which sounds wrong. But it’s another part of this whole thing. So, we’ve got access to the money we can make which we will be adding to the omega gold pot, but with the show we get final approval during edit. We can control all aspects of this and then we move on.”
“Like Koda is moving on? Branching out?”
I scoff at myself, and it’s followed immediately by another weary sigh falling from one, or both of us.
“Don’t you think it’s full closure for us too?”
“How so?”
“It’s almost certain she was part of Regalo.”
“You keep going on about her. She’s nothing but a lead in.”
“True, but I’ve got this feeling, Ash, that she’ll need us more than ever. Or at least some decent protection and help when the truth comes out.”
“I know that. And yes, I understand the success of the show means it’s going to be blasted everywhere, even to fucking outer space.”
“All it is, Exposé Media I mean, is unlimited potential reach for the others too. This could be our chance to really get more than a few of them to safety, while we also get the closure we need.”
The heavy foot fall starts behind me again. Every time we talk about this multi-faceted, complicated subject we stop short of talking about one massive truth of ours, for some reason. But there comes a point where much like we’re trying to do to those involved in the Regalo Project, that we need to face some awful fucking truths ourselves. And without a shadow of a doubt, I love Henley, and the pack we have become, but that closure we all avoid talking about needs to at least be acknowledged. No matter how fucking painful it is to hear.
“Seven fucking years, Hen. Seven years.” I shake my head, refusing to turn around and argue over the point of our pack being the ones to do it, because without a doubt it should be us. Out of all the packs impacted and caught up in the hype years ago, we were front fucking row, centre stage.
We should have let sleeping dogs lie. We should have moved on. But we haven’t, and we can’t. We all know why. False hope is like a magnet—not letting us veer off the course set all those years ago, not even for one fucking second.
“I can’t allow us to miss out on this opportunity,” he admits after a few tense minutes, both of us lost in our thoughts. His hand on my lower back so telling of who he is.
“I get that.” Three words full of defeat and understanding.
“We’re better people than half the other packs, fuck man, we’re better people than all the others. It’s another reason I know we will do the right thing.”
I shake my head, letting my forehead fall to the glass. It’s not hard to figure out why my anxiety’s picking up, for some reason though it feels like my temperature is spiking unusually high. In part, a really big part, I’m sickened by the fact that we were drawn into the charade so many years ago and we’re right back in the limelight again. The Regalo Project—or more commonly known as The Gift—was uncovered as nothing more than an abridged, Frankenstein inspired mail order omega bride service. But it was never sold as that.
We were all blindsided and swept up in the propaganda that changed everything for us as a society, and the omegas. And there has to be light at the end of that tunnel. It has to be a good thing, but I’m still not sure tracking down and finding the ones that escaped is the right thing to do. Though now, that choice is being taken out of our hands in some respects by some vengeful fuck, playing a sick game.
