I nod.
Slowly. The acknowledgment carrying the heavy, settling weight of a truth that has been waiting to be recognized and is finally being let in.
“I didn’t have a choice but to accept that,” I admit. “Who was going to argue with them? I was…I was the Omega. They were three Alphas who agreed on everything including the fact that I didn’t need the things I needed. What was I going to do, cite a research study?”
The laugh that accompanies the question is short. Bitter. The sound of a woman who is looking at her own compliance from the outside for the first time and finding it simultaneously understandable and infuriating.
Alaric nods.
Slowly. The acknowledgment of a man who understands that the question is rhetorical and the answer is structural—that Hazel’s compliance wasn’t weakness but the predictable, survival-driven response of an Omega in a system designed to make compliance the only viable option.
Then his expression shifts.
The investigator’s anger receding. The analytical intensity softening into something warmer—the transition that Alaric performs when he moves from the professional to the personal, from the detective to the man, from the colleague who identifies problems to the partner who intends to fix them.
“Are you free?” he asks.
I laugh.
The sound is genuine this time—bright, surprised, carrying the unexpected amusement of a woman who has just been asked if she has availability by a man who knows exactly what her schedule looks like because he helped arrange it.
“Well, I’m the one on rest, remember?” I say. “Two weeks of mandatory doing-nothing, as prescribed by the doctor and enforced by three Alphas who apparently have opinions about my compliance.”
He smirks.
The expression is subtle on Alaric—not the full, sun-bright display that Oakley produces, but the refined, one-corner curve that carries the specific satisfaction of a man who has a plan and is about to execute it.
“True,” he says.
His phone rings.
The sound cuts through the warmth of the room with the sharp, electronic intrusion of a device that doesn’t know it’s interrupting something. Alaric’s hand moves to his pocket—automatic, the reflex of a man whose phone represents work and whose work has demanded immediate response for the entirety of his professional life.
He pulls it out.
Looks at the screen.
And frowns.
This frown is different from the one he wore during our conversation about nests and neglect. That had been theanalytical frown—the investigator processing data. This is the professional frown. The expression of a man whose phone is displaying a name or a number that carries obligations he usually does not refuse.
I smirk.
“Duty calls, Detective.” The words come out with the playful, resigned warmth of a woman who understands the demands of the job because she has lived inside those demands for her entire career. “Go work. We can always do something later.”
Later.
The word that I’ve been defaulting to for my entire life. Later. Tomorrow. Next week. After this case. After this shift. The perpetual deferral of personal life in favor of professional obligation, the endless postponement that ensures “later” never arrives because there is always, always, always something more urgent than the thing you want.
Alaric picks up.
“What do you need?”
His voice is professional. Clipped. The verbal shorthand of a man who answers calls with the expectation that the information will be operational and his response will be immediate.
I turn away.
Give him the conversational privacy that officers extend to each other by reflex—the polite aversion of attention that acknowledges the call is work and work has boundaries. I walk further into the room. Run my fingers along the dresser’s surface—smooth, the wood carrying the cool, clean texture of a piece that has been maintained. Open a drawer. Empty. Waiting.
