Chapter: 37
Scratch helpless, when she saw Evan collapse, she was absolutely terrified. But then, her nerves skyrocketed when she tried to reach her to help and she was stopped. They forced both of them to stay rooted in their spots while Omega gathered Evan in his arms.
Nudge wasn't sure what terrified her the most, the sickly pale shade of the kid and the blood coming out of her nose, or her slumped form resting on Omega's chest.
"What's wrong with her?" Gazzy shouted. "What the fuck did you do? Evan? Evan!"
And she found herself screaming the same thing, more or less.
Omega glared at them, gestured at them to stop shouting and cradled her head in the crook of his arm.
Unlike them, when he called Evan, it was in hushed whispers and gentle shakes.
"Evan?"
If Nudge hadn't been so panicked, she would've noticed his strange behavior long ago. But she was panicked.
And Evan woke up right then.
Her eyes fluttered open and even though she was shaking she still sat up in Omega's lap. It looked so strange that for a moment Nudge was speechless before she came to.
"Evan? Are you okay?"
Evan flinched, probably at her loud voice but nodded.
"Is it you Nudge?"
"Yeah," She said excitedly and Gazzy joined. She tried to free herself from the eraser's grip but stopped when she saw her getting up. "Are you hurt? Why did you faint?"
"I didn't faint." Evan smiled as she tried to steady herself and grasped Omega's hand. "I was just dizzy for a moment."
Then, to her shock, Nudge saw Omega kneel down and clean off the blood from under her nose. It was such a tender gesture that for a moment she had to squint and make sure it was really Omega.
"Your nose is bleeding." He said quietly.
Nudge decided she'd had enough confusion for the time being, and sensing that Gazzy wouldn't be regaining his wits anytime soon, she decided to take matters in her own hands.
"What's wrong with her?" She demanded.
Omega didn't look away from Evan and Nudge wondered if the crease in his forehead was from worry. "She's tired. She's still a bit clumsy with this whole thing."
"What thing?"
Finally, Omega stood up and faced them. His left hand was still holding Evan's right one and as he spoke in a low baritone, his grip seemed to tighten.
"You will get it in a minute. But first, we have some task for you."
When Iggy decided to jump in through the vent hole, it was on a whim. Obviously he wasn't expecting erasers. And judging from their shocked faces, nor were they expecting him. Fortunately, he was quick enough to jump the closest one and taking him out with two punches. Unfortunately, there were five more of them.
Fang dropped in beside him and they stood back to back as two more joined the merry bunch.
"Whatever happened to the signal?" Fang grumbled.
"There aren't any."
Fang took out three while he managed two. Sian dropped over the last one and smashed his head with what seemed like a iron pipe and Iggy wondered briefly where the fuck did she get that. Said Eraser was out cold in a second.
After making sure there were no more of those a-holic dogs, he looked at Woodcomb who was watching the whole scenario with a dropped jaw. She snapped it shut and coughed when she saw him looking.
"Hmph" She scoffed. "Took you long enough."
"How is it possible?"
Omega glared at Gazzy, probably irritated with the disturbance. "You'll see."
"Well obviously we'll see." Gazzy muttered. "But how is that possible? Taking knowledge from others? What is she? A Google search engine?"
Omega grumbled. He turned back to Evan, who was sitting in front of a computer, her eyes fixed over the monitor like she could actually see it and her fingers flying over the keys, seemingly hacking into some website. According to Omega, Nudge was only there to 'supply' her with 'knowledge'.
Nudge wasn't sure who was the weird one, she or them.
Honestly, she wasn't so worried with Evan's ability as much she was with Omega's...certain behavior.
To say that he was acting weird was an understatement.
So when Evan said she was done, what struck her most wasn't the fact that a blind kid had hacked into a system without any ounce of knowledge in the matter, rather the fact that Omega was crouching beside her and inspecting her work with his hand atop of her head.
His hand over her head.
Nudge must've gone delirious; or maybe it was Omega after all. Because let's be serious, that guy had tried to kill Max; he was also one of the most idiotic and mindless creatures she'd had the misfortune of meeting, not to mention he was the one who had raped Max.
Now here he was and he looked like he actually cared for the kid.
What's he playing at?
There is certainly no need to mention that when Max and Angel decided to descend hell in the room, she was quite shocked.
"Listen Grey, I definitely appreciate the concern, but can you or can you not help me?"
There was a brief pause as Sian held the receiver tighter with one hand while her other hand kept going through the files.
"Are you sure," Grey demanded. "...that what you have there will definitely pin them?"
"Pin them?" Sian chuckled and earned a glare from Iggy who was also going through some files. "I would have told you that this was gold, but this isn't gold, Grey. It's diamond!"
He groaned. "God, you're horrible with jokes Sian! Well, this better work out, if it doesn't than even I won't be able to get out of this. Breaking in? What were you thinking?"
"Oi, I broke in that time when you told me to!"
"Yeah, that was different, I was with you. I could've turned it somehow. But now...I don!t even know where this is going anymore."
"Hey, Don't worry." She cut him off. "I've got this."
There was a list Max used to go through. It was called "Must be Checked When in DANGER". Yes, it was exactly like that in her head.
The list was simple.
# Make sure to check on Flock.
# Make sure everyone is safe
# Make sure how much danger everyone is in (based on a scale from 1 to 10)
# Make sure to take your next step based on the scale. If it is between 1-5, then try and fight. If it is between 6-10, pick out possible escape routes.
# In case of a possible no-escape situation, pick out the danger zone and clear off said danger.
Of course the list varied depending on their position. There was even a time when she decided to throw Gazzy out the window (one of his...attacks).
This time her mind zeroed in on Evan and the hand atop of her head, which was connected to a shoulder and said shoulder held the head of the man she'd come to fiercely hate. For a moment, she thought he was trying to crush her daughter's head. Those few seconds of panic decided her next action.
Whoever brought the phrase Mama Bear, must had foreseen this.
It took Max a while to realize that Omega wasn't fighting back. When she came to, they were in a compromising position. Somehow, Omega had ended up under her bent knee with his stomach on the floor and she had his hand in a death grip, his other hand was crushed under his own body weight.
Omega used her moment of confusion. Before Max knew it, she was thrown aside and Omega had become a blur of limbs. By the time she'd managed to get up, she found herself standing in a wreckage of unconscious men. Men who had been guarding the room before. She looked around for some form of explanation and saw Angel with her mouth agape. Gazzy and Nudge on the other hand rubbed their, now free, sore hands and stared at Omega. Omega who was standing over a fallen guard, probably a eraser, and pulling out his keycard.
"Come on," He said in a shaky voice. "Let's get you out of here."
"He's what?"
Iggy had to look up when Fang literally snapped. But after the first outburst, there was only occasional frowns as he carried on with what Iggy presumed to be a mental conversation with Angel.
When he was done, he scowled at them and said, "Omega's with them."
"What?"
"But she said he's helping them."
"Helping them?" Iggy couldn't disguise the disgust in his words. "How?"
"To escape."
"No..."
"It's possible that he's feeling the connection between him and Evan strongly."
"And that's why he's helping them?" Fang demanded. "Because of this connection?"
Janice shrugged. "Whatever it is, I think we need to get out of here fast."
Fang nodded at that. "Max told us to get out of there ASAP." He looked at Sian, who was at the computer copying as much as she could in her pen drive, and asked, "Are you done yet?"
Sian didn't look up. "Yeah, almost. I think I have enough evidence. These could pin them even if we don't get all the papers."
"Then hurry up." Iggy grunted. "I don't want to stay in this shithole a second longer than I have to."
Omega had never been more confused. He had no idea what he was doing or why he was helping them. But as he ran through the halls with Maximum Ride and her Flock right behind him, his mind wondering about Evan and he thought that this was the right thing to do. This Had to be the right thing to do.
That was what he told himself when they came across the Director and he smashed her face in without hesitation and left her there. Because he believed it to be the right thing to do. Because she was his daughter and he just knew that no matter what he could never let her live in that dog crate like he did. He could never let her become a puppet like he did. And so he had to do it. To make sure she got out safe.
And that was why he didn't even hesitate to decide when he heard hundreds of running footsteps, possibly of Erasers, coming at them.
Max stared at Omega dumbfounded.
"You what?"
"I'm staying behind." Omega repeated. "Someone needs to hold them off and who else is better?"
It wasn't really an option, no. Omega had decided. He was going to stay behind and he was going to make sure that they survived this.
It was strange. He felt strange. There was a tight sensation in his chest, like someone was squeezing his heart out and trying to dry it up from all the blood. Was this what they called 'sorrow'? Possibly. Because it felt like the right word that could describe him at the moment. Devastated with sorrow. Agony. Because this was probably going to be the last time he'd be seeing Evan. Last time he was going to see his daughter.
His daughter.
His daughter.
That was even stranger.
But when the small hand gripped his rough one and he looked down to only find tearful sightless eyes, the squeezing in his heart got harsher and he felt like all the blood had left it.
"You're not coming?"
That seemed to shake even Max. "You can't do this alone Omega. There's too many of them."
Omega scoffed. At least, that was what he meant to do but it came out more like a choke. "Come on Max, I may not be the best, but except you, nobody else has ever laid a finger on me."
But the grip on his shirt only tightened and Omega was forced to look down again.
This time, her voice broke. "Y-you're not...?"
And omega did the unthinkable.
He knelt down and wrapped his arms around her and whispered the three words he never even imagined he would say to anyone. He could feel Evan shake in his arms as her tears soaked through his shirt and when they left, Max had to pry her off of him.
Omega gave the shattered glass of the window one last look before he turned back and got ready on his feet. He glared at the first eraser coming at him and then all the other ones behind it and somehow that helped him change his decision.
A few minutes ago, when he made up his mind to stay behind, he was thinking that was what he wanted. He had never been a part of Evan's life and there was no possible way that he would ever be. But even if he wasn't there, he was going to make sure that Evan had that life. That she had the chance to actually grow up and live it. Not in a lab with brutal scientists, but in a home with a loving family.
Now, he decided that he was going to make sure he was a part of that family