“Give me the rundown,” I state, not reaching her gesture of courtesy. “Who is everyone, how long have you been here, and what’s next? What’s going to happen to me?”
She drops her hand and thins her lips, like she’s not surprised. “That living area has a lot of the others. We’re kind of the rejects because we don’t have a scent match, and we also aren’t exactly the most willing. I think the longest one here is Mira. She’s mute, though, so you can’t ask her anything.” She leans in, and I press myself up against the wall all the more. “Although I think it’s just because she really needs to loosen up. I’ve heard her talk to peoplesometimes. It’s really rare, though.”
Blank.
My mind is blank as I try to process what she just told me. “Wait, why am I even here? I didn’t get rejected. I also didn’t reject anyone myself! I didn’t even get presented,” I state, almost mad now. Judge just fucked me and left me! I’m now a reject?
“Don’t know. Judge dropped you off, and you smell like him.” Her eyes get serious. “No one ever smells of Judge, you know that, right? I can barely smell him, but he’s there.” She steps even closer, and I hate that she’s not respecting that space. “You need to be really careful of Roxy. She’s obsessed with Judge. It’s such a big deal that she got moved out of here right when you arrived.” She raises her brows. “Although, at the same time, she could have been moved out because maybe he’s finally making moves on omegas, and maybeshegot moved into his room.” She stands straighter, rolling back on her heelsas she exhales, like the mystery has been solved. “Sorry, I don’t know how to shut up. Gotten me in trouble a lot out in the wastes. I ended up here for safety. Come on, I’ll show you the garden.”
My lips wordlessly move, trying to take in everything she just said. Roxy? Judge doesn’t do this often? Everyone smelled me, then? “Hold on… you have a garden?”
Where the hell am I exactly?
“We’re omegas, we’re supposed to be dainty, loving, and just so natural with caregiving,” she says while jutting her head around, then scrunches her nose as her dark eyes widen, as if saying that killed a part of her. “Sorry, joke didn’t land. It’s to stretch our legs because we’re not, ah, allowed anywhere else unless escorted. Still pisses me off that we don’t have a shotgun range or access to bikes. What if I like to blow off steam that way?”
I can’t tell if I should laugh or not, only aware she’s rather eager to get me to. “Is there another place omegas go to when they’re new here?”
She posits that. “You know, if you didn’t reject anyone, then you’re right. Whyareyou here?” She looks me over, frowning. “Huh.”
I allow my gaze to wander back down the hall I just came from, feeling like my options are closing in. “I want to see this garden.”
Outdoors. Escape.
She leads me to a pair of doors that fling out into raw air. The sky is bright, almost washed out, and a big oak dominates a patch of grass, its trunk cradling a ring of fallen leaves. The cold stabs my lungs, much colder than Trinity and even the Enclave. The Iron Castle is said to be somewhere high up in old Vermont. I’m from old New Hampshire… my parents flash in my mind’s eye, to that twisted feeling of betrayal by them—I scan the area more to distract myself. There’s no visible fence, just a wall of gray bark in every direction. “We’re allowed out here?”
“Sure are. Don’t get too excited, though. Deep in that forest is a barbed wire fence line. It’s like triple my height. Dominion’s always crawling all around it, even when it snows. They just use the snowmobiles then. You can walk it and see for yourself.” Juno shivers and crosses her arms. “And yeah, to answer you, new omegas tend to go to another section of this place. It’s a lot more integrated.”
Integrated… so I’m not being integrated, then? Any pity I had for myself is far away, replaced with something that reminds me of vengeance. “Why are we kept away?” I ask, wanting to know how every corner operates here.
“Because we tend to just piss off the alphas, which doesn’t help with their precious cohesion.”
Okay, that’s useful. So cohesion is important, just like what Judge alluded to already. Tucking that away in case I need it later. “How long do you plan to be here?”
She shivers, exhaling dramatically. “I have no idea, honestly. Mostly came here because I hate Titan, andtheytried to take me. Was honestly shocked they don’t force us to mate here, so I’m rather enjoying my limbo.”
I’ve heard a lot about Titan, but I never gave him much thought. The Appalachian mountains seem to be a massive divide between Dominion and Bayou’s Maw, so he never felt like a true threat.
Guess he isn’t atallwhile I’m here.
The Black Mirage feels so incredibly far away now…
Anxiety slows, despite everything, even if just for a moment. So far, this seems realistic. Judge’s punishment might be to keep me here as a fuck toy, visiting during my heats and denying me a true alpha. That means I have a month or two to plot and plan, using the high of my heat to get me through being fucked by him.
That’s plausible.
And Iwillget out of here.
My father was an alpha, and I know how they work. I haven’t thought about my dad in a long time, unable to handle the fact that I never got to grieve him or my mom. I still want to be angry for what they did, but I also miss them—I examine Juno, trying to distract myself as I feel my throat tighten with emotion. “Where are you from, Juno? The south, I take it?”
She vaguely gestures to her body. “Clearly not civilization like you know it.” She grins. “Softskin.”
I rub my eye, granting her a partial smile. “I can handle myself, you know.”
“No, you can’t, sweets. It’s not how we’re designed. I mean, I heard you gave Judge a run for his money, but we’re just little flesh bags in a world full of pointy things. Our kind can only do so much.”
My body stiffens slightly at the nickname because Judge has used sweetheart on me one too many times. “You know, softskin doesn’t even make sense,” I say, my teeth slightly chattering, kind of wanting to go back in now, although I like how the bitter cold makes me not feel my emotions as deeply. “If it’s leather, then the softer it is, the more used it is.”
Juno frowns, looking down like she just tasted something bitter. “Never once thought about where that word came from. Just seemed to fit the bill.”
