Page 73 of The Gift
“Yes,” he hisses under his breath, his eyes drilling into mine, and it feels like he’s battering me inside my head. I need to look away, but as much as he’s acting like a lunatic to everyone else, he’s being evil in his alpha manipulations to me.
“My precious little Evies, let me do this for them. Let me unlock the hypnotism.” He sucks his teeth in much like Hannibal Lecter did in Silence of the Lambs. Mumbling and thrashing around, acting, while his eyes keep me pinned in my seat unable to move. All around me I can feel the weighted push of his alpha power against me.
He laughs, and it’s like a punch of power to my face.
And then it is absolute bedlam. I see what’s going on, but my awareness is distorted, things don’t quite align.
Ashton rushes past and jumps up in the corner of the room. Regalo’s eyes fill with a satisfaction like he’s waiting for something. I hear his voice, but what he says is drowned out by a wailing siren. The guards move as one towards the door, and I catch the tail end of my crew running out. A vile laughter keeps filling my ears.
“Bailey!” Henley barks, his voice in my ear, his hand on my shoulder. And that helps me clear the influence. But he leaves me briefly, a sound like a clap of thunder follows and then he’s back, shaking his fist out. His other hand on my lower back.
The A-team become an impenetrable wall around me. The guards rush in with weapons raised, their angry, angry eyes fixed on the doctor.
Regalo keeps making those god-awful mumblings. Chanting something, but it’s ineligible. His voice is different and as I get rushed past him I see the reason for why.
“Don’t look.” Henley in my ear again.
I do, though.
If I could punch him as well as someone has, I would too. I’d knock all his fucking teeth out of the crazy, evil prick.
The guards from before are back, yelling instructions, but it’s a drop in the ocean to the heavy thud in my head.
We go to step past and he fights against the guard and the taser, swatting it away like you would a fly.
“Lil’ Evie, lil’ Evie, me thathiest shnack.” No matter how hard he tries to speak clearer, he has lost the ability to articulate any words.
I’m not stupid, and neither are the other people I’m with. It’s easy to assume what he’s trying to do, trying to ruin people by unleashing their painful memories.
We keep rushing forward, but Henley moves out of formation. I squeeze his hand in mine, like a lifeline.
“Fucking cunt,” the A-team alpha screams, louder than the insidious chanting, and the ear-piercing siren blasting through the prison.
And Henley has been hiding his potency. His alpha presence he’s shown me to date is nothing on the Alpha Henley I’m holding hands with now.
I see, feel, and hear his undeniable alpha power as it blasts through the room, making me trip over my own feet. Ashton is there to catch me.
Henley’s intense and potent energy packs more of a punch than his fists. And then Regalo can’t utter a thing. The guards say nothing, they do even less. But as we step past where the doctor was shackled, they converge around us, fortifying the wall made by the A-team accompanying us away from that room.
“Where are my team?” I manage to say over the deafening noise of the sirens and the echoing of our retreating feet down the long corridors. My concern for my crew helps me not lose my fucking mind.
I don’t hear any answer. It might be due to a delayed response or it could be the shock of what happened, but we keep moving forward. All the A-team touch me. Reno nearly squeezes the life out of me. He holds me, replacing lots of dark thoughts with sweet chaste kisses and touches until I push away, needing to stand on my own feet again. Each of them in their own way lending me not their strength but their support. Maybe it’s the same thing.
Henley
Ihang back, standing near the security gates giving the team from Exposé the space to pack their equipment. They’re all rattled by what happened but they’re also consummate professionals, and don’t need any help.
The warden approaches me cautiously, which makes sense. I can feel my own aggression gusting like a tornado wild and free. So can he and his team. I’m not the biggest, baddest strongest alpha amongst these men, although right now I might be the most dangerous.
“Thank you for bringing chaos to my fine establishment, Henley. Your pack will have the expensive task of footing the food and drinks bill of my men this evening as your show of thanks.”
I swing around, dropping my head without meaning to.
“It would be the least we could do for your team. I didn’t mean for that to happen,” I admit, shaking Big Bill Williams’s hand. He pulls his face away in jest but doesn’t let go of my hand.
“Fuck me, you’re sending out some pretty loud signals there. Everyone’s safe, you did well in there, but now you need to go home and shower.”
He holds my hand hostage until he sees something release in me, my guilt probably. Well, that’s how I read it. Big Bill is old school, it’s an eye for an eye in his world.
