The Night Movers - Ep. 4 (Patreon)

Unbeta'd/Unedited. Uneverything'd. Once more my gauge is broken. Hopefully this doesn't suck. I was going to schedule chapter 5 for a couple of days from now but that seems mean. So I'll post it right after this one.

Ridley knew they were back where they’d started before the doors to the van even opened. He could smell the dirt soaked in motor oil and the rubber on the stacks of tires. It was so strong it clung to his skin, permeating everything. How did they live around the scent every day? 

He needed to move, to get up and make his way back out into the cold but he found himself rooted to the spot. Outside those doors was a new reality he wasn’t sure he was prepared to face just yet. 

The problem with seeing the future was that it rarely showed him how he’d gotten there. He knew these six men would claim him…eventually, but he didn’t know the series of events that would happen before then. He’d observed the state of his own body in the visions. He’d seen the bite marks, the bruises…he knew he’d slept with one but likely all of them. 

But he was having a hard time connecting the dots from where he stood now, to the future his vision said was already set in stone. Especially with half the people in the van looking at him like he was a problem they needed to solve and the others looking at him like a pet in need of a new owner. Ridley couldn’t imagine sealing himself to a group of men who could think of him in such basic terms, but he also didn’t want to spend his life in a brothel or a breeding house. 

What was that saying? The devil you know? Being the sex slave of six alphas had to be a better deal than being a whore to thirty men a day or being kept in a room and forced to pump out baby after baby only to have them ripped from him. Yeah, these men, no matter how bad they were, had to be the lesser of those evils. Just because they saved omegas, it didn’t mean they were good. 

They were still alphas. 

Ridley couldn’t let himself forget that. 

He could never afford to forget that. 

He jumped when the van doors flew open, freezing in place. The others either didn’t notice or didn’t care. They filed out around him until it was just him and Diesel.

“Are we bedding down here for the night, strawberry or…” Diesel murmured in his ear. “It’s fine with me either way.” 

“I-I’m just…nervous,” Ridley admitted in a hissing whisper. 

It wasn’t Steele standing at the door but the other one. The alpha they all called sugar. Did they call him that because he smelled sweet? Ridley wished they’d lose the scent patches. At least then he’d have some clue about their emotions. Right now he was flying completely blind. 

Sugar was far hotter in real life than he’d been in Ridley’s vision. He was tall and broad like any other alpha, but he had deep umber skin, a perfectly trimmed beard and eyes so light brown they almost glowed when the interior van light hit them right. His lochs were long, well past his shoulders, the top half pulled back off his face. 

He flashed a grin at Ridley. “So you’re what all the fuss is about, huh?” 

Ridley gave a stilted nod, but other than that stayed silent.

“He’s a little shy,” Diesel said. “But he’s kind of feisty and smells like strawberries.” 

“He doesn’t look like he’s gotta lot of fight in him,” Sugar said, looking him over.

“Fuck you,” Ridley spit. 

Sugar grinned. “There it is.” He stepped back, moving his hand in a sweeping gesture. “Well, come on spitfire. Let’s go.” 

Ridley flushed at how easily they dismissed his hostility. But to them he was a bug buzzing in their ears, easily swatted if necessary. No alpha feared an omega. He wanted to be mad about it, but he was running on fumes. He hadn’t slept in days. He’d had no food, barely any water. 

Diesel pushed Ridley up from his lap and Sugar helped him from the van. As soon as Ridley’s feet were on the hardened clay, Sugar ran to catch up with Titus and Steele, who whispered heatedly to each other as they walked.  Ridley couldn’t hear their conversation and he wasn’t sure he wanted to. There was a lot of head shaking and wild hand gestures. 

Ridley shivered as wind whipped between the steel towers made of crushed cars. His fingers were numb, his toes too. The thin slippers he’d worn were filthy and did nothing to protect him from the snap of winter in the air.  He’d been riding high on adrenaline for so long, but now his tank was empty and every little inconvenience was grating on his nerves. 

He jumped as a large hand wrapped around Ridley’s wrist. Diesel. His head snapped towards the alpha. He grinned at Ridley, like he was having the time of his life. Diesel struck him as someone who was always making the best of every situation. Ridley wasn’t sure if that was endearing or delusional. 

Still, Ridley stepped closer to the alpha and the warmth he radiated, allowing him to drag him along. They didn’t go into the little green shack Ridley had noted when they’d first made the exchange. Instead, they moved deeper into the maze of steel cubes. Ridley bet he could easily get lost among the rows. From overhead, he imagined it looked like a labyrinth. 

He was so busy looking around at the shadowy towers, he missed the men ahead of him disappearing one by one until Diesel shook his arm a bit and said, “Duck.” 

That was all the warning he had before Diesel crouched beside him and dipped beneath a car hovering above them, held in place by two other stacks of crushed steel. It seemed precarious at best. 

On the other side of the car, Ridley found himself in a small clearing in the center of more scrap metal. He watched, curious as Sugar grabbed a chain from the ground, wrapping it around his fist and tugging. Ridley’s eyes went wide as a metal grate opened from the ground. It looked heavy, like no one man should be able to hold it. Sugar held it with ease. 

Were they about to drop Ridley into some hole in the ground? A prison cell? What were those ground dungeons called? An oubliette. Was he going to live in a cell until they decided what to do with him? 

His pulse rocketed skyward, heart beating so fast the taste of blood filled his mouth. He thought about yanking his arm from Diesel to make a run for it, but what was the point? He couldn’t outrun an alpha, much less six of them. 

Diesel frowned at him. “What’s wrong, strawberry? Afraid of the dark?” 

“Depends on what’s waiting there,” Ridley admitted. 

Diesel laughed, shaking his head like Ridley was hilarious. 

Titus and Steele stepped forward, disappearing quickly into the hole in the ground. Jensen and Ryker went next. Diesel tugged him along with a reassuring nod. When Ridley was close enough, he was relieved to find that there were concrete steps lit by dim yellow lights set within each riser. 

He allowed Diesel to help him down the stairs into a narrow corridor. Ridley tried to keep track as the six of them traversed the tunnels underground, but there were too many of them. Even though they only walked for about five minutes, the numerous twists and turns made him dizzy. He’d never find his way out. 

They finally stopped at a door. Titus keyed in a code and it clicked open, allowing them to enter. Ridley’s head was on a swivel as they entered what could only be an old hotel…or maybe a theater? It was a cavernous space with coffered ceilings and a sagging crystal chandelier hanging over a marble staircase. 

The carpet beneath Ridley’s feet was old and worn, the red so faded it was pink and the once gold accents now dirty and threadbare. They didn’t go down the massive staircase, but instead turned right. Ridley stopped short. This was the room from his vision. Well, one of them. 

Seeing it in the context of the surrounding spaces, he imagined that once upon a time it was a ballroom or conference room of sorts. Though it shared the same ugly carpet and fancy ceilings, this room had not fared as well as the mezzanine. Graffiti littered the walls, most of it as weathered as the carpets, but some fresh like the large sports car in the hot pink and blue spray paint. There were also giant holes in the walls, opening the space up to other equally empty rooms. 

A worn leather L-shaped sofa—the same one from his vision—sat just inside the door like whoever had been tasked with carrying it had given up once it was inside. There was also a large wooden drum that had once held spools of something, cable maybe, but was now being used like a makeshift coffee table. 

Ryker, Jensen and Diesel flopped onto the worn sofa, slouching into the cushions like they’d done it a thousand times before. They all sat congregated closely despite having plenty of room to spread out. Ridley didn’t want to sit too close to anyone just yet. When Titus, Steele and Sugar stayed standing, Ridley climbed onto the wooden spool, drawing his legs to his chest, resting his chin on his knees. 

“You can’t really think he belongs to us?” Steele said. 

“Steele’s right,” Sugar agreed. “We don’t do omegas. We all agreed we’d never force an omega into a subservient role. Now you want to bind one to us for life?” 

Titus made a noise of frustration that Ridley felt in his core. “That’s not what I’m saying. I’m only telling you what I saw.” 

“You mean what he showed you,” Steele clarified. 

What he showed you. Ridley mocked Steele’s voice in his head. Why would he fucking show these men something like that if it wasn’t true? Only alphas could sit around arguing about whether to subjugate an omega without even consulting the omega sitting two feet to their right. Why would Ridley willingly tie himself to them when he could have simply gone to the sanctuary city? 

Finding Ren was Ridley’s top priority. If binding himself to six alphas was what it took, that’s what he’d do. Besides, just because claiming was supposed to be for life, it didn’t mean it truly was for life. An omega could live free of their pack. It would be painful, cripplingly so at first, but it could be done. He’d endure that—and more—if it meant Ren was safe. 

Where was she? Was she warm? Fed? Alive? He silenced the voice in his head telling him there was a reason he couldn’t sense her. He couldn’t focus on that right now. His thoughts were too scattered. Everything was so…surreal. How had he found himself here?

“Maybe he was just feeding you that bullshit because he has nowhere else to go?” Sugar said, he gave Titus a look. “You’re not usually so gullible. This kid’s scent has got your fucking panties in a twist.” 

“Fuck you,” Titus snarled, shoving Sugar. 

Steele stepped between them. “See? It’s already starting? He can’t stay with us. It’s too dangerous. For him and for us. We’ve been a pack for six years without incident and now you want to go and change that. For him?” 

Ridley should have felt some sense of disappointment in the men’s conversation. They clearly didn’t want to keep him around. This is where he should have been fighting to stay, to prove that his visions were real. But he was so tired. And so cold. Numb. He was numb. Numb in his extremities, numb in his core, numb in his soul. 

Nothing mattered anymore except being warm. 

He looked at Diesel who tilted his head, eyeing him curiously, before giving him a goofy smile. Ridley didn’t stop to think, he just unfolded himself from the spool and walked to the bear-like alpha, climbing into his lap, chest to chest, collapsing with his head on his shoulder. 

The whole room fell silent but Ridley couldn’t bring himself to care. Diesel radiated heat like a furnace. Ridley couldn’t get close enough. He would have climbed inside his skin if he could have. He rubbed his cheek against the alpha’s neck. 

“Can I scent you?” he mumbled. 

“Sure, strawberry.” 

Diesel’s large hand appeared in front of Ridley as he pulled his scent patch off. Ridley gulped in deep breaths of a scent he struggled to identify. It was earthy, like the dew on the grass in the morning or moss on the forest floor. It was addicting. Ridley rubbed his cheek right against his gland once, then again, before tucking his nose against it and closing his eyes with a contented sigh. 

Diesel’s massive arms closed around him. He couldn’t stop the whine that escaped as his warmth surrounded him. It felt so nice he could weep.

“Seriously?” Steele snapped. 

“What?” Diesel asked, his gravelly voice vibrating through Ridley. “He’s cold.” 

See? Diesel got it. Why couldn’t they all just be nice like him? 

“Don’t go getting attached,” Sugar said. “We can’t just…adopt an omega.”

Jensen snorted from right beside them on the sofa. “I don’t think adoption is what strawberry had in mind.” 

“Yeah,” Titus agreed. “His vision wasn’t exactly rated E for everyone.” 

“For what it’s worth, he doesn’t smell like he’s lying,” Jensen said. “His heartbeat doesn’t stutter either. And he knew Sugar before he ever saw him. I think he’s telling the truth.” 

“Jensen’s right,” Ryker agreed. “Whether you want to keep him or not, the kid wasn’t lying or if he was he’s damn near pathological about it.” 

“Which, to be fair, in our line of work is kind of an asset,” Jensen offered. 

“You're only saying that because you want him on your knot,” Steele snapped. 

Jensen gave another snort of derision. “Don’t push your own horny agenda off on me. Me and my hand do just fine. I have no interest in bedding a stranger, omega or not. You three are so hellbent on deciding whether or not an omega could survive the six of us, you’re completely overlooking the obvious.”

“Which is what?” Titus snapped. 

“That if his visions always come true, then arguing is futile,” Jensen said in that same level-headed tone. “He’ll just keep turning up in our lives again and again until he gets what the universe wants. But who knows what shape he’ll be in once he returns to us?” 

Ridley shivered at that thought. They all knew what was waiting for Ridley on the outside. He would love to stand up and tell them he was capable of taking care of himself, that he could survive on his own. But the system was rigged against him. Alphas had created a world where Ridley was a victim just waiting for an abuser. Whether that be the alphas in that room, random alphas on the street, or the ones who roamed in black uniforms. 

Ridley didn’t stand a chance alone. He refused to apologize for that. He burrowed deeper into Diesel’s neck, sighing when a calm rolled over him. Diesel was pumping out those alpha pheromones just for him. If there was such a thing as love at first sight, Ridley might think he loved Diesel. 

Titus made a noise of frustration, his tone strained. “I’m not gonna lie…there’s something…familiar…about him, about his scent. It’s…addicting? It…fits. I don’t need your permission to keep him. I don’t even need your permission to claim him. But I don’t want anything interfering with our mission.” 

Ridley’s omega preened at the word addicting. Diesel laughed like he could read his thoughts. 

“So, what are you saying? We just…keep him? End of discussion?” Steele asked. 

Ryker shifted in his seat, jostling all of them on the sofa. “It stupid to argue about this. We’re not going to set him free in the city and we’re not going to claim him tonight, so what difference does any of this make? He’s going to be here for the foreseeable future so arguing is futile.” 

“Such a pragmatist,” Steele muttered. 

“But not wrong,” Ryker countered. “Look, I’m just saying. You’re not kicking him out, if you were, you never would have brought him down here in the first place. So maybe we feed the kid and let him shower and get clean before we start deciding whether we all plan on passing him around like some kind of party favor.” 

“Yeah, in case you’ve forgotten, he was kidnapped and held hostage for three days. Look at his face. Maybe we focus on him for the next few hours and stop with all the alpha posturing?” Diesel said. 

“Yeah,” Ridley said so quietly only Diesel could hear him. 

Ridley smelled Titus before he felt him. Large hands gripped his waist and then he said, “Give him here.” 

“Where are you taking me?” Ridley asked.