My stomach immediately twisted in fear. These doctors would take Alex away from me…

“I knew it… We can’t trust them!” I hissed, trying to pull Alex with me, but the doors behind us were closed right when I tried to take a step away from these doctors.

“Josh, stop!” Alex begged, trying to keep me from retreating. “It’s all right!”

“It’s not fucking all right!” I shouted at him but immediately regretted it when his eyes turned fearful. I took a deep breath and turned to glare at the two strange men. “We need to get out of here.”

“Josh… Please… You’re hurt. Maybe they can help,” Alex begged, so I turned to stare at him.

“You’ve got to stop being so naive,” I told him harshly. “These people kidnapped us! They’re either going to sell us as slaves or steal our organs or something! This is a trap! A trap, Alex!!”

“Actually…” the older man said, keeping his hand up like asking for a turn to speak. “We’re the mafia, so we usually just sell drugs and guns and blackmail people. Occasionally we steal stuff. Had a few bank robberies in the nineties too, but we don’t sell slaves or organs, don’t worry.”

Alex stared at them, then turned to me like trying to say, I told you so. I stared at him in disbelief.

“Maybe they can help,” he murmured.

I let out a deep, agitated breath, and rubbed the bridge of my nose. “Sure. Why not? Let’s trust the people who kidnapped us, hmm?”

“Look…” the older man said, stepping through the doorway. “We didn’t want to have to kidnap you two, but we didn’t know if we could convince you guys to come with us, and it was very important for us to take you two off the streets, so unfortunately, we chose to use such drastic measures. But now that you’re here, why don’t you let us treat your injuries, hmm? You both must be in immense pain.”

“Why did you need to get us off the streets?” I asked harshly.

“We can talk about that while we–”

“I’m not moving a fucking inch before you explain,” I almost shouted at him.

He breathed out. “Because we know you have been brainwashed to work for Jomica. That is why you are here. You have done enough damage already in their name, but we won’t let you keep going down that path. That is our mission here. To stop Jomica from recruiting and using more kids like you.”

I’d stopped breathing almost immediately when he began speaking. Alex… I could feel him turning to me. I could feel his pain and disappointment. I could feel him shifting away from me. I held onto his hand so he couldn’t leave me… But I couldn’t face him.

“Don’t worry, we’re not mad at you. As far as we know, you haven’t done anything irreversible, so you’re not in trouble,” the alpha doctor continued calmly. “We just want to help. We want to make sure Jomica can’t take advantage of you any longer. We want to help you turn your life around and see through Jomica’s lies. And we would really like to take care of those injuries. Your arm is broken, am I right? It must be excruciatingly painful. And your friend–”

“He’s my brother,” I spat at him, even though I wasn’t sure if Alex wanted me to call him that right now…

“I’m sorry, your brother seems to have a severe rash of some kind. I’m sure we can help him with that, too,” the doctor said, but I still hated the idea of following them. The doctor watched me a moment longer, then took another step closer. “I’m Hans, by the way, and this is Kieran, our head nurse.”

“Josh… It really hurts now,” Alex whispered.

I slowly turned to him. “You…?”

“Come on,” he said gently. “I hate to see you suffer, and I know you’re in horrible pain. Let them check your arm. Maybe they can help.”

“But they’re doctors,” I told him. “They’ll just try to separate us.”

“They don’t work for the government,” he said. “They’re the mafia. I don’t think they care.”

“And we’re supposed to trust the mafia? They are criminals!”

He stared at me, the disappointment in his eyes growing. “Please? Could you do it for me? I know you’re worried, but… I could really sit down now.”

“We won’t separate you, if that helps,” the doctor, Hans, said. “You can stay here together. You’ll have a room just for the two of you.”

“See?” Alex said. “We can have our own room.”

“I don’t trust them at all,” I whispered to him.

He breathed out gently. “I… do.”

His words… They felt like a stab, for some reason…

“I just want to protect you,” I told him.

“I know,” he said and inched closer to me again. “But what else can we do? Let’s… Let’s give them a chance, okay? Because… Because…”

“…What?” I asked.

His eyes turned sad. “Because I want you to see through Jomica’s lies, too.”

I looked away from him. I mean… We didn’t have a fucking choice, did we? And if I kept fighting with Alex, that disappointment in his eyes would only grow, maybe even turn into hate. So… I just…

I never should’ve gone with Zach… Why did I ever…?

I turned to my alpha. It was still scared and ready to hide in the darkness, but it wasn’t warning me about these people. It was just scared about everything that was going on. Maybe it was a good sign…? And really, what else could we do? These people weren’t going to let us leave, and… My arm really hurt… I… It was getting too much…

“Fine…” I muttered, feeling defeated.

“If you come this way, you get to sit down. We’ll get you something to eat and drink while we treat your injuries,” Hans said, gesturing for us to follow him and his nurse friend.

Alex squeezed my hand and took a step after them. I sighed hard, but took that same step after him.

And my lord, my knee hurt… I could barely put any weight on it…

We reached the doors and walked past them. I couldn’t stop feeling like we were walking straight into a horrible trap, but… I just followed. After the door, the hallway continued into the distance, but another one turned right, and the doctor led us down that hallway to an open door a little further away. I peered around carefully in case I needed to remember how to get the fuck out of here. There were glass windows showing what looked like hospital rooms for patients, but they all had iron bars covering them. This really was a jail…

We stopped next to the doorway where the doctor and the nurse had disappeared into and found ourselves in a large examination room of sorts with a lot of large equipment, beds, dentist chairs and walls lined up with cabinets and closets filled with medical equipment. At least it looked like these two could help us…

Why did I suddenly feel relieved, maybe even hopeful? These people kidnapped us! Why would I need their help? Why would I be happy that these two could… could…

Maybe because the pain was getting so bad… I felt weak and cold and sweaty, and my body had begun to shiver…

“Come sit here,” the nurse spoke his first words and gestured for us to sit down on sturdy chairs.

I didn’t let go of Alex’s hand when I limped to the chair and practically fell on it. My brother gave me worried looks as he sat in the chair next to me.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

I shook my head, but the world spun around harder. I had to pause to focus on my breathing, or I would’ve passed out right then and there. I couldn’t afford to pass out… I needed to… I needed to make sure they couldn’t hurt Alex…

“All right, let’s take a look…” Hans muttered and sat in his office chair next to me.

He carefully started peeling off the bandages and the iron sticks while I stared up at the ceiling, trying to focus on breathing. I did see the omega nurse stepping closer to Alex, smiling kindly, but I growled at him.

“It’s all right,” Alex told me in a mutter.

“No one… touches my brother…” I muttered.

“I just want to treat his wounds,” the omega said, smiling. “You’ll be all right with that?”

“Yes, please,” Alex said to him hastily before I could open my mouth again. “They really hurt.”

“All right,” the omega said, and stepped out of my reach before he asked Alex to show him his hand. “A rash this bad is quite unusual for an alpha,” he spoke as he studied my brother’s skin. “How long have you had this?”

“I don’t know… Years…” Alex said timidly.

“Hm… Do you know what has caused this?”

“No…”

“Okay. It’s all right, we’ll try to figure it out. Can you take off your hoodie so I can take a look?” the nurse said while pulling on a pair of rubber gloves.

I growled again, but the omega and my brother both ignored me. Alex took off his hoodie, then shoes and socks to show the nurse just how bad the rash really was, and when the latter saw his bleeding skin, his face turned worried.

“Oh, dear boy… You must be in so much pain…” the nurse said and carefully lifted Alex’s leg up so he could see his heel.

“We want to take some samples to see if we can find a cause for that,” Hans spoke while he removed the last iron stick and the rest of the bandages off my arm. “Allergies are usually the main cause for such severe rash on alphas.”

“Have you noticed if something makes it worse or better?” the nurse asked.

“I mean… Bad weather makes it worse,” Alex mumbled, peering at me.

“Anything else?”

I tried to think, but I couldn’t really remember any other patterns… I shook my head, and so did Alex.

“All right, we’ll figure it out,” the nurse said reassuringly, stood, and smiled at Alex. “In the meantime, I think we should put you into a barrel of moisturizing cream, don’t you think?”

“I’d like that,” Alex said and tried to smile as well.

“All right,” the nurse said, and went to get a huge plastic bottle from the cabinets. “We don’t actually have a barrel, but we have several bottles of this. It will help your skin heal while keeping it moisturized. I’ll spread a thick layer of this and wrap you up with bandages – like a mummy – and tomorrow we’ll take a closer look, okay? Right now, your skin is far too irritated for proper examination, so we should just let it calm down first.”

“All right…” Alex mumbled and turned to me.

“Tomorrow…?” I repeated. “So you’ll be keeping us here against our own will?”

“Well… Yes,” Hans said as he carefully studied my arm. “Right now, we have the right to consider you as our enemy, after all, so we’ll be keeping you here.”

“For how long?” I spat at him.

“For as long as we deem appropriate,” the older man said absentmindedly. “It’s been a few days since you hurt your arm, yes?”

“Yeah…”

“Your arm is swollen, and I am afraid it is broken since it’s been a few days already and you’re still in a lot of pain. I’d like to take some X-rays next, if you’re all right with that. I can give you food and strong pain medication before that.”

I wanted to tell him to shove the food and painkillers where the sun didn’t shine, but… Food and painkillers…

“Whatever…” I grunted and turned away.

I was feeling a little better now that I could rest my arm on the wide armrest… Not much, but at least I wasn’t passing out anymore. Hans stood and stepped away, but at the same time, there was a knock on the door. I glanced at the new person, but realized it was that fucking dude, Trouble, leaning against the doorway.

“How are we doing?” he asked.

“We’re about to start a mummification process,” the nurse said, acting playful, and turned to give my brother a smile. “You’ll feel so much better once we’re done.”

“A mummification process, huh?” Trouble asked, grinning. “I actually came to ask if you have ice packs. The kitchen didn’t have any.”

“Ice packs?” the nurse asked and walked to a fridge in the corner. “What do you need it for?”

Trouble chuckled and stepped into the room. “Our little firecracker here thought Glen doesn’t need any offspring.”

They all turned to me. I snorted at them all. “That’s what you get for kidnapping us.”

“You’re lucky his mate is an alpha,” Trouble said, still smirking, while the nurse gave him the ice pack. “Cheers. I might need to send Glen to you if this doesn’t help.”

“Great… Can you bring clean clothes for the boys? And is their room ready?” the nurse asked.

“It’s all set. Do you need anything else?”

“Food and water. And snacks. You guys like snacks, right?” the nurse asked Alex.

“Yeah,” my brother said with a little nod.

He was getting too comfortable with these people already…

“All right. I’ll be right back,” Trouble said and left the room.

“All right. Let’s get your mummification process started,” the nurse said and grabbed the bottle and a big pile of bandages.