"Alex? Are you in there?"
What the hell? Irritation rises in me that someone dares to interrupt my dying? I hate that someone is trying to ruin what I so perfectly planned.
The fucking knocking doesn’t stop, it keeps pounding and pounding and pounding.
Shaking like an addict, I slide off the bed.
On all fours I crawl down the stairs and drag myself toward the door, I can’t stand up anymore, I’m too weak.
The door has a video intercom, I force myself up just enough to press the button.
On the screen appears the face of someone I would never expect to see here.
It’s my cousin, Jared!
He’s three years younger than me, someone I’ve barely ever met.
For a moment I stare at the screen, unable to believe what I’m seeing.
My dad cut ties with his own dad, who was an exceptionally harmful, toxic man. My dad’s only omega brother ran away from home, fell into addiction, and left his only child with my granddad, and that child was Jared, the one standing here.
He is my only living relative beyond Granddad.
I’d seen him maybe a few times in my life, at funerals of some distant relatives on my dad’s side.
We exchanged maybe a few words, Jared was skittish, almost fearful, standing obediently next to my granddad with his permanently harsh, mean face. So it was impossible for me to build any relationship with him.
What could he be doing here?
And again, why does he dare interrupt my dying?
I don’t even know for what reason, but I press the button to unlock the door.
Jared steps inside.
He’s changed so much since I last saw him, he’s fifteen now and clearly going to be an omega, and surprisingly tall for his age, and… strikingly pretty.
But that isn’t what stands out the most.
It’s the bruises on his face.
At first he looks around like he’s searching for me at his eye level, then his gaze drops to the floor where I’m curled up.
"What the hell is going on?" I mutter angrily.
"Alex? Hi. Why are you on the floor?"
"Because I’m trying to die, for fuck’s sake, what are you doing here?"
Jared stares at me with huge light green eyes, that strange silvery-green, almost like celadon.
"Die?"
"Yes, fuck!" I snarl, turn away, and start dragging myself back upstairs toward my bedroom and my bed.
I’m planning to return there, probably in some haze brought on by starvation, because it’s hard to imagine dying when there’s a fifteen year old with bruises on his face standing in your house.
"Alex, Alex, wait, wait," Jared repeats helplessly, following right behind me like a lost puppy.
