“Get the fuck away, or I’ll get hanged. Did you not just see what happened, you bitch!”
Selene grabs the back of me and drags me into a crowd as the woman clings to a man’s jacket, to which he shakes her off like a pest. She falls to her knees, and the more I think about it… the more…
Omega.
Ohfuck, she’s an omega. I can definitely tell her apart from the rest, like warm skin and vulnerability wrapped in something dangerously rare. Everyone here might see her as some fascinating fable, but I know her heart before anything else. That’s a person who was born with circumstances she cannot change, and she’s desperate.
So am I.
The man yelling at her was enough to gain the attention of Dominion. My eyes flick to Judge, who watches the scene likehe smells blood in the air. One small motion of his index finger, and half of his men bolt after her like hounds unleashed. The scuffle is short and sad, her scream echoing all around as no one helps. My heart sinks to somewhere dark and disturbed, that animalistic sound coming from the omega as harrowing as hearing someone screech when they’ve heard a loved one has died.
It hits too close to home.
I’ll havenightmaresof this.
The males—a few alphas among the betas—carry her on one of their shoulders to present her to Judge, and I can’t help but watch like I’m finally getting to see what would happen to me if I were caught. The woman cries out and thrashes as Judge grabs her by the hair to smell her, saying something to the men as the omega is carried off, her screams eventually gone.
Fuckingknuckfuckles.
This place is one heartbeat away from chaos. Whenever a man wearing a Dominion patch looks our way, my soul practically leaves my body, but then their attention moves on, like we belong among the rest.
Whatever suppressants are in my system clearly work. As we climb the stairs, each step so annoyingly close to freedom, I’m afraid it will be so cruelly robbed. I can’t help but glance down and see Judge looking our way, those dangerous eyes cold and calculating.
The thrumming of my pulse makes me worried I might actually have a heart attack, even if I’m only twenty-five. My body shakes as we enter the deeper tunnels, and once we round a corner—one step closer to being free—we run into the creepy teeth man from earlier.
Fuck this place right in its ass.
My throat is on fire from anxiety, and when he looks like he’s about to say something painfully stupid, I hold my hand up. “Make one more comment about my teeth, and I’ll use them tobite your nose off, then shove it up your ass so you might smell yourself for once and take a fucking bath. Getoutof our way.”
His eyes widen, and then narrow on us as we continue on. I am so disturbed by what I just saw that I might actually follow through with the threat. As we hurry, Selene lightly jogs to keep up and leans down into my ear. “Hey, look at them balls you’re apparently carrying around. Got some weight to them.”
It helps to bring a smile to my face. “Oh, I can be a bitch in these wastes if I need to. I just don’tliketo.”
Finally—finally—we’re back at the sign that I stood under and questioned my life decisions; the dirt road is freedom, the dead man still there with a vulture perched on his head.
“I cannot believe that happened,” Selene says, panting as she keeps looking over her shoulder. “And this is just asmallarea they took over. That poor omega. I bet those asshats are already rutting at the idea of her.” She tuts, shaking her head and squinting as she faces the sun. “Maggie is going to be so pissed. We’re literally a few days too late for the suppressants.”
I don’t make a comment. I’m sure I’ll see the omega in the night when I can’t sleep. “Judge can’t possibly want to live in New Bunker himself. Why washehere?” I ask.
He’s too close to the Enclave.
She still breathes heavily, jutting her jaw to the side to pause and think, shrugging her shoulders. “Well… I hear they’ve been eyeing this area, and that he makes a visit to all new places he takes over, oversees it for a bit, rearranges whoever is running it, and then leaves his people before returning home. He’s taking all the cities at the foothills like he’s eating up everything but the mountains.”
I frown, not expecting her to have an actual answer. “Wait, how do you know that?” Some part of me stiffens like she’s about to reveal she works for him.
“One of the new nurses used to live underneath Dominion.She just arrived before we left. She’s got a room next to mine, so we chatted a bit.”
“Oh,” I exhale with relief. Facing back ahead, looking down at my feet with shoes that we use for gardening, I find that entirely uncomfortable. If one of our new nurses is from there… Shit, it’s only a matter of time before they claim the Enclave. Do I need to leave there, too? “What was it like? Did she say much?” My voice is a little squeaky, terribly hiding that I’m trying to calm myself down. “What are we in for, basically?”
“Exactly like what we just saw. Judge claims to be the leader of a revolution, not just in charge. It’s how he gets people to bow down. Then the vulnerable start throwing themselves at the patch wearers, and before they know it, some are knocked up, and it’s hard to peel apart society once that happens.”
It’s only once the sign is small behind us that I start to feel the cold again. “He can’t do that to us.”
“People want order.” I sharply twist my head, and her face blanches. “Oh, don’t think I’m supporting that asshole. I didn’t say it wasgoodorder. But people want it. He promises omegas to alphas under his control. That’s thetrueorder of our society. Just sucks, is all. He’s taking advantage of it.”
Licking my lips as I face ahead, I scrunch my nose when a bit of dirt crunches between my teeth. Soon, we’ll hit the road and hope our hidden car is still where we left it so we can make it back to the Enclave, or else it will be a week of walking. And in this weather, that’s asking for frostbite.
I glance back, just once. For a strange moment in time, I wonder who is mated to Judge. There’s no way someone like him doesn’t have an omega. In that, I feel sorry for her. There’s no way he’s alover. Probably fucks her, knots in her, and then leaves her covered in his cum. I’ve heard of alphas in gangs that fuck their omegas in public, just to assert themselves.
