The spines of the books in front of me blur together as my eyes mist. I wonder where my parents are now. Are they still in our old home? Do they still sit at the same table, my father reading his paper, mom pulling her bakes from the oven, an empty seat where I used to be?
An awkward cough pulls me from my melancholy, and I smile at Ace as he loiters next to the door. He smiles at me, but it doesn’t reach his eyes and a lump forms in my throat.
“What is it?” I ask. My heart feels like it’s beating in my throat. I’m certain that he’s going to say the Omega Compound have called. Maybe I need to go back.
My legs start to shake when he hesitates. I won’t go back to them. I can’t. “Hey,” he says finally, concern ringing in his voice. “Don’t worry – everything’s okay.”
The relief almost takes me to my knees and Ace is beside me in an instant, steadying me with a hand under my elbow.
“Sorry,” he says gently. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
I breathe out with a small laugh. “I thought maybe it was something to do with the OC. I feel like an idiot now.”
Ace shakes his head firmly, rubbing his hand up and down my arm. The motion calms my anxiety down. “You’re not an idiot. I did want to talk to you, but I can come back. Is now a bad time?”
I lift my shoulder in a slight shrug. “It’s probably a good time, actually. It’ll stop me thinking of things I can’t change.”
“What kind of things?” he asks. Ace pulls me over to a small chaise lounge and settles us both down, his leg pressed against mine. It’s comforting.
A blanket drops over me and I sigh. The feel of soft wool isn’t something I can get used to after years of sparse conditions and harsh-smelling plastics at the compound. I burrow myself into it, gathering the ends between my fingers and twisting them.
“I was thinking about my parents,” I admit. Ace says nothing, but he waits patiently while I weigh up my heavy thoughts.
“They just…left me,” I murmur. I still sound bewildered even after all these years. “We were close. And then one day, my scent changed, and it was like I’d turned into a stranger. My father wouldn’t even look at me. He told my mom that he’d wait in the car and left. Mom kept telling me that everything would be fine, and they were going to help me. She threw some of my things into a bag and then we were in the car, and they wouldn’t speak to me at all after that. I didn’t say my goodbyes, didn’t see any of my friends, my grandparents.”
I take a deep breath. “I just disappeared,” I say quietly. “Like I’d never really been a part of their lives at all.”
Tasting salt against my lip, I swipe my hand against the tear. Ace’s hand comes up and he slowly wipes it away, rubbing his thumb across my cheek.
“People are always scared of what they don’t know,” he offers, but I shake my head.
“No,” I tell him firmly. “I was part of their lives for fourteen years. They threw me at the compound guards like I was diseased.”
I was, in their eyes. Hit with the dreaded omega stick.
Ace stares into the distance, his blue eyes stormy. “What then?” he asks quietly.
Turning to him, I note the tension in his posture. “I haven’t heard from them since,” I say, and he curses.
“We could track them down, you know,” he offers. Sincerity rings through his voice, and his offer takes me by surprise.
“You would do that?”
“Of course I would.” He says the words so easily, but I can feel the truth in them. His offer overwhelms me for a moment. I imagine knocking on the door, my mother pulling it open, tears gathering in her eyes as she pulls me close into a tight hug, her arms closing around me. Home.
Except it will never be home again.
“Thank you, but no,” I whisper. Staring at my hands, I avoid Ace’s gaze. “Maybe one day.” One day, maybe I’ll have the strength to demand the answers I need, although my gut tells me they won’t be the answers I want. Ace squeezes my hand reassuringly.
This house, this pack, is starting to feel like home now. I still feel awkward, but it’s not because of them. It’s me. Everywhere I look, I see the shadows of the compound reaching out for me. The shadows under my eyes are deepening by the day.
Ace sucks in a breath and I glance at him. “Harper,” he begins. “Did you…”
He cuts himself off and I watch him curiously. After a minute, he shakes his head with a wry smile. “Forget it. It’s not important.”
I squeal as the seat disappears underneath me, and I find myself deposited into Ace’s lap. The thick muscles in his thighs offer plenty of room, and I lay my head against his shoulder with a contented sigh. Sea salt, driftwood and Ace. So much better than a chair.
“You can talk to me, little omega,” the words tumble out of him, uncharacteristically serious, and I pull back my head to look at him. He gazes back at me steadily. I have the feeling that if I handed Ace my demons, he’d shield me with everything he has to keep me safe from them.
