Chapter 3
Walker took advantage of the omega’s sudden stillness to draw his still-free wrist back and into the metal embrace of the second cuff. It wasn’t of paramount importance as the youth seemed pretty tuckered out. It was unlikely he was going to try anything further now, but still, better safe than sorry. The cuffs were only necessary until the ambulance arrived anyway – they just made it harder for the kid to get away and try again.
After that? He took a moment to just breathe. He could still feel his own heart racing from adrenaline, not to speak of how he was still trying to regain his breath from the wallop to his stomach. On top of all that? It was all too easy to feel the way the heart of the youth pressed against him was jacknifing away like the Duracell Bunny on steroids. If circumstances were different then Walker would have been genuinely concerned that the lad had a heart condition.
It seemed all too suitable that at that moment the ambulance pulled up. Seeing the situation was under control, King got to his feet and went to intercept the medics so as to give them a full report on the current situation.
With a grunt of effort, Walker hauled himself to a crouching position, being careful to keep a restraining hand pressed into the kid’s spine; couldn’t be too careful after all. Hell, he was going to ache come morning. Grazes and bruises that were beginning to make themselves known were going to truly litter his frame, not to speak of his wrenched muscles.
He looked down at the heaving shoulders of the kid below him, only allowing a shard of the pity he felt to leak into his expression because the omega was unable to see his face. Pity would not help him and would potentially annoy him. Still, the kid would be aching far worse than Walker himself in the morning, but at least he’d be alive to ache.
Still, Walker couldn’t suppress the definitely Alpha Urge to try and comfort the youth.
“Easy, lad. Just take a deep breath, alright? I’ve gotcha. It’ll be just fine.” The words appeared to do little to alleviate the lad’s struggle for control, so Walker laid his spare hand lightly on the young man’s shoulder, intending to impart a sense of… security? Comfort? Solidarity? Something like that.
That garnered a reaction.
The muscles splayed beneath him that had previously been quivering from the tension thrumming through them suddenly stilled.
That was the warning.
The man exploded into movement. He rolled not away from the bulky alpha as Walker had been somewhat expecting, but towards him instead. Now, granted, normally the slim build of an omega, particularly one as waif-thin as this one, wouldn’t do much to budge the solidly built alpha. However, his position, crouched and leaning forward slightly in order to exert more pressure, meant that he was already off-balance. The addition to this equation of a small body ramming into his shins was enough to knock him backwards with a bitten off curse.
King, who had been apprising the medics of the situation, spun around in time to see the previously docile omega power himself to his feet using only the strength of his core muscles, and book it towards the bridge as though the Hounds of Hell themselves were dogging his footsteps.
Without taking the time to analyse the situation, King sprinted at the surprisingly sprightly man. His stronger, more powerful legs narrowed the distance between the pair rapidly, and the alpha tackled the omega, sending him careening to the ground at far greater force than the rookie officer had intended.
Walker winced at the shouts of pain both throats emitted and rushed over to help his partner restrain the sudden wild-cat they had on their hands once more. Handcuffed hands clenched into a joint fist and tried to hit out at anything they could reach with their limited movement. Feet kicked out with surprising levels of force, hitting anything they could reach. Teeth snapping in desperation at any skin that foolishly came within their reach.
King was tripped to the ground once more with an ‘oof’ as one flailing knee hooked itself somehow around his legs and pulled him over. Walker took the moment to once again throw himself bodily over the kid, physically suppressing every inch of him that he could reach with his larger frame. It shouldn’t have been as hard as it was. The kid was handcuffed with his hands behind his back, underfed, freezing whilst facing off two officers, one of whom was an ex-Marine. He sure wouldn’t be living this one down any time soon…
“Kid!” Walker bellowed with every ounce of lung power sharpened by seven years as a staff sergeant in the Marines had given him. That, combined with the pure sense of Alpha he tried to infuse into his tone, a tactic he so rarely used, finally seemed to make the struggling omega freeze.
The atmosphere once again descended into peace, only disrupted by the anxious babbling of the pair who had initially reported the incident. The EMTs were thankfully doing as their training dictated and were remaining away until the scenario was under control.
“Pretty determined there, hey Kid.” Spoke Walker, his tone as soothing as he could make it once more, his chest heaving. “I’m sorry, but I’m just not going to let it happen. I know things have to be looking pretty bad right now,” and wasn’t that an understatement? No one fought that hard without some pretty heavy determination behind them. “and they’re not going to be looking much better in the morning.”
Those words jolted a snort from the figure lying beneath him.
“Isn’t this the stage where you’re meant to tell me how everything’s going to be fine and dandy? With rainbows and fairy wings.” The omega’s voice was raspy and choked-sounding, his words spoken through the gasps and pants he was still uttering instead of normal steady breaths. His tone though… it sounded so…defeated, despite the sardonic humour evident behind the words. It made Walker’s gut clench. People just shouldn’t sound like that.
Walker snorted a laugh of his own. “Would that make you feel better? I could get King over there to shove a unicorn horn on and prance about a bit. I do outrank him, you know.” At his words, King sat back on his haunches, though he balanced himself through one knee on the ground having learnt from Walker’s error.
“Sure thing, sir. Anything you say, sir. Your wish is my command, sir.”
Walker raised an eyebrow as a smile played at the corner of his lips and a slight nod of approval to King. “Do you see what I have to put with, hey kid? No respect from the youth of today.” There banter seemed to be helping the omega slightly. His shoulders were jerking less, and although though Walker could feel how his muscles were flexing as though testing the solid grip, the movements were becoming less… frantic.
“Can you get off me? Making it kind of hard to breathe down here – you’re the one who implied you could stand to lose a few pounds after all.” Came the next request instead of any reply to the previous banter.
Walker took a moment to consider his options. “You going to make a run for it again?” There was no doubt that he considerably outweighed the slender lad beneath him. Yet so far the other man had proven to be surprisingly resourceful and determined. Not to mention desperate to succeed in his goal. Walker was not going to let down his guard, that was for certain.
The omega paused as though considering his options, and wasn’t that telling in itself? Eventually he shook his head. “I’ll behave.” Was that an undercurrent of humour running through his tone. Walker could work with that!
“I’ll believe it when I see it.” He retorted, taking care to keep his tone light so the other knew he wasn’t serious. “So far I don’t think you’ve responded to a single one of my ‘requests’. Going to need a bit of proof that you can manage to ‘behave’” He was well aware that he was potentially treading on thin ground here.
Stats showed that abuse of omegas wasn’t the prolific problem it was eighty or ninety years ago – drugs had been discovered now that helped alphas in controlling some of their stronger possessive natures. That had led to discoveries of drugs for omegas which helped to temper the desperate need to please their alpha. Once those relationship imbalances were more equal, then abuse cases dropped significantly. Even if it did appear to cause a surge in spousal or child abuse. Analysts were constantly trying to figure out why that was – Walker himself believed it was more to do with the fact that now people felt freer to report the cases.
In addition to the improvements in drugs, omega civil rights had improved greatly since the seventies with the result that now pretty much every major city in the States hosted several O-Homes – homes where omegas could go to either hide out, or spend their heats, completely free of charge. They were decent places subject to regular, and unscheduled, government checks. The fact that abused omegas now had somewhere to go and be protected from their partners again was a large factor in the reduction of spousal violence.
Finally, Stark Industries headed by Tony Stark, a celebrity omega turned superhero who had vanished from public eye to live with his Bonded in peace several years previously, had revolutionised the software that enabled Bonded partners to find each other. They had created software that enabled people to upload their scents onto a secure database which then found their matched pair. That had been the nail in the coffin for the majority of omega abuse cases – after all, who would want to harm their Bonded? Of course, there were still cases – not everyone was decent in this world, some omegas abused their alphas, the world was not a perfect place by any means. But those three changes had definitely helped.
Anyway, Walker knew that he was walking on thin ground speaking this way to the traumatised young man – people didn’t just decide to kill themselves, something had no doubt driven him to it. It was possible it was a case of abuse, many parents, after all, were overly harsh on their omega children about behaving well enough. Still, this man seemed to respond well to a slightly teasing rapport that he had set up.
The omega snorted in slight humour once more. Good! “You’re not the first to say that. Being a mindless drone isn’t my kind of thing, you see.” Walker cursed as the omega’s tone drifted to a much flatter, deader sound than before. A sensitive topic, evidently. Abuse really was looking more likely, the poor kid.
Walker patted the man’s shoulder in silent apology before slowly levering his weight off of him. He crouched backwards once more, mirroring King’s body language by keeping one knee firmly planted on the ground. He also was careful to maintain a grip on the omegas knee and elbow to prevent him from rolling away again. No second (third) chances going to happen here. He winced as his movements caused the youth to rapidly inhale as though in pain.
“How badly hurt are you, kid? No tough-man act now.”
Despite his casual tone, he continued to watch the man like the proverbial hawk. As the old saying went ‘trick me once, shame on you. Trick me twice, shame on me.’ He did so try to avoid being the fool. He noted with pleasure that King was doing the same. If the man did decide to break for a third attempt at the bridge then he would undoubtedly be stopped.
The youth was silent for a few long moments drawing a “Kid…” out of the patient officer.
That got a reaction.
“My name’s not ‘Kid’.” The youth almost spat out. “I’m nearly 23, alright? Not badly hurt. Shoulders are a bit sore from when you guys grabbed me, that’s the worst.”
Walker elected not to ask which time. Instead he allowed a smirk to cross his face, knowing it would come through in his voice. The kid had sounded almost sulky! “Alright then, ‘Almost-23’ - we can work with that. I haven’t forgotten that ‘Giles’ throwaway from earlier, just so you know. Got a better name we can call you? Or shall we stick with ‘Almost-23’
King outright laughed at the slight growl of annoyance the omega offered up in response. “I don’t think he likes that one, boss.”
“Going to have to keep on calling you it until you give me something better to work with then,” allowed Walker, still smirking slightly, though watching the kid carefully for reactions. It would not do to push him too far and make him actually belittled – as long as they all knew they were joking then this level of conversation was absolutely fine.
“Anyway. How do your legs feel? You’ve taken some pretty hard knocks today.” Better get back to the health conversations, then they could get him loaded up into the ambulance and fully checked out. From there, his future was pretty uncertain. They’d need to find somewhere he could go, see if he had anyone trustworthy looking for him. Or maybe a stay in a psyche ward. Or an O-shelter. Somewhere where he’d be off the streets and with people who would try and help him. That was the important part.
“I said it was only my shoulders.” Something must have gone wrong, the youth’s voice had returned to that dead sound with so little feeling. Still, there was nothing Walker could do for that right at this moment.
“Do you fancy turning over so we can get you sitting up and over into the bus then to be looked over by the professionals? That will at least rescue you away from my tender attempts at first aid, anyway.” Walker tried to regain the lighter atmosphere of before. The kid’s entire body just screamed ‘dejection; and that without even seeing his face.
Instead of a vocal response like Walker hoped, ‘Almost-23’ just nodded and began to try to turn himself over. His whole body let loose a flinch as he began to move, and he seemed unable to repress the grunt the pain caused. “Whoa, hold it. I’ll help you, alright? Let me do the hard work there – you can’t use your arms, after all. King and I can flip you over, sound good?” Again, the kid nodded though he did tense further once again.
King and Walker shared a glance, both making the mental note to be extra cautious and keep an eye on him. “Alright, may I touch your shoulder and knee? Then I’ll just lift and roll you towards King over there who’ll catch you to make sure you trap your arms beneath you. Sound good?” Some of Almost-23’s issues were seeming to stem from contact, if Walker was reading him right, so hopefully by asking him first he would feel more in control. Once more, the kid nodded, though there seemed hints of annoyance behind the action. Maybe he didn’t like the kiddie gloves treatment? Even if he seemed to need it. A conundrum.
Still. Putting his words to actions was simple, and within moments Almost-23 was sitting upright with some of his weight leaning against Walker whilst one of the medics checked him over and King brought over a shock blanket and then began to fill out the paperwork the situation required with the other medic.
Almost-23 had seemed to retreat completely back into himself, communicating by grunts and nods or head-shakes. His main reaction had occurred when Walker had begun to head over to help the medic fill out the paperwork. His ‘You off then?’ had been the only words the lad had spoken and the exceedingly well-concealed nerves the snarky words were covering up had drawn Walker back like a moth to the flame. “Not just yet, Almost-23. Was just going to ask about grabbing another coffee – mighty cold out here tonight.” Had been Walker’s answer. The kid clearly didn’t want him to realise that he was on the edge of panicking, so Walker would affect that he had no idea. He was clearly here for the long haul.
Shortly after that, the four of them (with King driving the car back to the precinct to fill in more reports) were settled in the ambulance and on the way to the hospital. Almost-23 was safely strapped in with the medical cuffs and covered in another shock blanket to combat the encroaching hypothermia he was suffering from. Otherwise he seemed mostly unharmed. Strained muscles, more bruises of different ages than anyone cared to think about, scrapes and a couple of nasty cuts and vastly underweight for someone his height. So maybe not mostly unharmed, but not as seriously harmed as he might’ve been.
Those were all the injuries visible with his clothes on, at any rate.
In the harsh light of the ambulance, Walker finally got a good look at the kid. He looked about his age, possibly a bit younger, though that was likely to do with the complete lacking of spare fat on his cheek-bones. He was clad in a pair of thoroughly ripped and filthy jeans and an equally filthy Metallica-themed t-shirt, again with several rips. Both were definitely beyond saving. Did the kid have any more clothes? Walker would organise him some. Warmer ones at that. He was damned lucky he didn’t have a lot worse than ‘encroaching hypothermia’.
His angular face was framed by a dark head of hair which was in desperate need of a cut, and his straggly beard that framed the lower half of his face indicated that he’d been on the streets for at least a month. Possibly longer if he’d found a razor somewhere. Though that then begged the question why hadn’t he killed himself before this? Either that or he just had really bad taste in grooming.
The dark-colour of his hair only emphasised the pale-pallor the youth sported, broken up by the red lines creasing the right-hand side of his face with what looked like specks of gravel embedded in them. Obviously a scrape from one of the numerous times he’d hit the ground this evening. His eyes were similarly surrounded by such dark circles that they looked more like bruises rather than eyes.
The EMT who had climbed into the back of the bus in them was a short omega called Paula who Walker had worked with before. Her friendly disposition easily made her a favourite of his who he remembered well.
“So, who do have here then? Almost-23, hey?” She levelled a mock glare at Walker, “Why do I have the feeling you had something to do with that? Hm? And while we’re on the subject, why is my patient quite so injured? You do realise your job is to save people. Not hurt them, yes?”
Walker raised his hands to ward off the onset of words. Sunny disposition? Right! “Not my fault, boss-lady! He’s still breathing. That was my goal.” Paula glared further at him, he thought (hoped!) in a mocking way, before turning back with a smile to Almost-23. Hoping to see that their dispute would at least draw a smile from the reserved young man.
“Sorry about that, hun. We try to ignore him. He’s a child in disguise as an adult.” Walker began to speak up in protest, but Paula swiftly shot him down with a look. “AS I was saying…my name’s Paula, and I’m going to just double-check you haven’t got any worse injuries than we initially thought. I can begin to clean up some of these grazes while we drive? Would you mind if I cut off your t-shirt? It’s a bit ru-“
As soon as she mentioned removing his shirt, the kid’s face paled dramatically. “No!” He interrupted. Shouted, really. A distressed sound once more in his voice as his pitch rose in unconcealed anxiety. “It’s mine. Yo- You can’t. Please. Just leave it. Can you work around it?” He tugged at his wrists and ankles, testing how well restrained he was.
“Hey, hey. Calm it kid. Almost-23. It’s alright, hey?” Walker got to his feet as the kid’s moves grew more frantic. Desperate to escape once more. He approached the kid with hands raised in the universal sign of ‘I come in peace’. “You’re fine. You’ll be fine. I promise.”
“You can’t remove my shirt. You can’t. You’ll find ou- You’ll.”
“It’s alright. We won’t right now. It’s fine. Deep breaths, there’s a lad. Deep breaths. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to.”
“Yes I do! You’re making me live!”
The words rang in the silent air, coated by the vibrations and sound of the engine purring in the background. What rebuttal could be offered to that? “Well, yes. May I touch your shoulder? Just your shoulder, no where else.”
Tony, his shoulders heaving once again as he tried to slow his breathing, nodded tremulously. Every muscle was vibrating through his thin form, causing one of the blankets to slip slightly. He fell back into the silence that had served him so well in his previous life, wrapping it around him like the armour it absolutely wasn’t. He missed his armour. His suit. His daughter. His team, even.
Him.
He missed them all.