We got to the location at half past eleven.

We left Dome in the mini van with the Doc and went to the drop-off. It was an old barge in the port area, were a snitch informed us that a huge number of omegas would be smuggled into the country that night.

Ev’rything went smoothly.

Too smoothly, I thought, that I was a bit tense when Dome came in with the doctor to look around the place.

I watched them as he checked the group of smuggled omegas who were being rounded. He stared at two people in particular, then went up to one of the officers in charge.

The officer then approached the two omegas, pointing at them.

“Hey, you and you over there! C’mere for a bit.”

I was watching the omegas, when they suddenly pulled out guns from beneath their ragged clothes!

“Get down!”

I rushed at Dome and jumped him, just in time as two bullets whizzed over our heads.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

“Fine!” he pushed me aside and rushed towards the trailer where the two gunmen hid themselves with the rest of the omegas.

“DOME!” the doc called to him.

“I’ll cover you!” I shouted, shooting one of the gunmen holding an omega as a shield.

I was still aiming for the other gunman when I sensed something sweet pass me by.

The gunman fell unconscious on the ground.

“All clear?”

“Clear!” I called back to the cops.

Doc was suddenly behind us. He ran past me and went to the two fallen gunmen to check their vitals.

“They’re down.”

“Woah, now I know why you never carry a gun,” I told Dome, “I’ve never seen an alpha send a pheromone attack over that long a distance!”

But there was something strange in that attack.

Something I just can’t put my finger on...

“Man down!”

My thoughts were interrupted by Cole’s shout.

We looked back and saw Dewey soaked in his own blood from a gunshot wound to his nape.

“Fuck!” I ran to their side.

“Just hold on, kid, help is on its way,” said Cole, but who was he kidding?

We watched as the kid breathed his last, the arterial blood pumping out of his neck.

“Shit.”

What a great way to end a fucked up day.

I took some cigs from my pocket and lit one up. I hate it when this happens. Especially then it’s the young ones who go first.

Why do the innocent have to die, when there are hundreds of assholes scattered all over the police force?

I shook my head as I saw the faces of those who came after me.

The younger kids sold by their parents to the Red Raven.

The ones who were not strong enough to survive even one night of perversion.

I was lucky.

I was one of the treasured alphas in that hellhole.

But even I wasn’t lucky enough, until...

“Hey, time to go.”

I was startled to hear Dome call out to me.

I looked at him. His face held no emotions. I guess he’s used to it by now.

“Just when I was warmin’ up to the kid...” I mumbled as I took drag after drag from my cigar.

“That’s just the way it is,” he said. “Didn’t you say before that these partners are the ones who die with us? It’s just a matter of who goes first. That’s why it ain’t a good idea to get attached.”

I stopped my pacing and stared at Dome.

“Is that why you never open up to me?” I asked him with a grin.

“It’s time to go,” he said again.

“I’m staying here.” I dropped my cig and stepped on it. “You see, I don’t just die with my partners. I’m also willing to die for them.”

He looked at me and shrugged. I watched him walk away as a soft breeze blew pass, when he suddenly turned back and looked around.

“Willow,” he called me, “Call Dr. Webb in the van.”

“What? Why?”

He didn’t answer. He simply walked past me and went towards the towering metal containers along the port. I hurriedly called an officer to fetch the doc and followed him until he stopped in front of a stack of containers.

“Are you a good shot?” he asked me.

“What?”

“Second from the top. Take those locks off.”

I did as he instructed. I shot the lock off the fifth container from the ground. We climbed up to it, then, and stood on a lower container to the left of it. He went towards the end of the container and got it open, and instantly, I smelled the seeping stench of omegas in heat.

“What the hell...”

I was about to look inside, when Dome stopped me.

“There are three alphas inside,” he whispered, “but there might be others with no scent.”

“No scent... betas?”

He nodded.

He pushed me back, pushed the door shut once more, and left it open just a crack.

A moment later, the people inside the metal container started to scream!

I shivered.

It was the scream of omegas going into heat and alphas in a rut. I quickly took the gas mask hanging from my vest and put it on, as omegas ran out of the container, one after another, falling four storeys to the ground.

“The one in the red striped jacket,” Dome said, pointing at a man wearing a gas mask.

I quickly aimed and shot.

“That one with the yellow cap.”

Again, I took a shot.

Dome started towards the container, just as an omega aimed at us. Good thing I was faster.

“Watch it. They have omegas with them too!” I said, watching the bastard fall to the ground.

“I knew you’ve got my back,” he told me as he made his way inside the container once more.

“The fuck!” I quickly went after him and shot down another gunman. That’s the third alpha, wearing a mask. “What the hell, Dome, are you crazy? You can’t just go inside without proper back-up!”

He chose to ignore me as he went to the end of the frozen container where a group of kids huddled in a circle. Dome tried to calm them down.

I couldn’t help but remember how he saved me, then.

How he found me in a heap of trash, left to die in the hell hole they decided to raid that day.

There was no animosity in his clear lilac eyes now, as it was back then.

There was only hope and salvation.

He talked to them, and as he did, he released something sweet in the air that smelled of wild roses in a field on a sunny day, and I couldn’t help but feel nostalgic, for I have smelled that same scent from him years before, and it is only now that I realized why.

He wasn’t even wearing his gas mask.

Dome stood up and walked away from the group, carrying a sickly looking child in his arms. He looked at me, his face, once again, devoid of emotions, and went to the Doc who was already inside the trailer.

“Nakahalata si Willow*,” I heard him whisper, and before I could blink, a sweet scent rushed all over me, enveloping me and numbing my senses and sending me back to hell.

(Willow found out*)

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