Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
“You’re not going to win,” I mutter to the pipe, adjusting my grip on the wrench and giving it one more savage twist. My shoulders protest the angle—too many years of tactical drills and not enough of whatever stretching routine normal peopleapparently maintain—and my lower back has been staging a quiet revolt since I crawled under here twenty minutes ago. The scar tissue along my ribcage pulls with every rotation, old wounds reminding me that this body has endured worse than plumbing.
Much worse.
The joint gives.
One final, grinding surrender of metal against metal, and the dripping stops. Just—stops. Silence floods the cabinet like a held breath, and I exhale something between a laugh and a groan, my forehead dropping briefly to the damp wood beneath me.
“Finally.”
Victory tastes like rust and stale air, but I’ll take it.
I push myself backward, hands bracing against the lip of the cabinet as I extract my body from the cramped space with approximately zero grace. My head clears the interior—at least, that’s the intention. What actually happens is my skull connects with the underside of the sink basin with a crack that sends white sparks across my vision and a word from my mouth that would make my academy instructors proud.
“Fuck!”
The pain blooms instant and vicious, a hot pulse radiating from the crown of my head down through my temples. My hand shoots up to cup the impact site, fingers pressing into my scalp through the mess of icy blue hair, and I sit back on my heels with my teeth clenched hard enough to make my jaw ache.
“Oh my god,” Jamie’s voice cackles through the phone propped against the dish rack, her laughter bright and unrepentant through the tinny speaker. “Did you just?—”
“Shut up.”
“Youabsolutelyjust cracked your head on the?—”
“Jamie. I saidshut up.”
Her laughter intensifies, dissolving into the kind of helpless, full-body cackling that I can picture perfectly despite the three hundred miles between us—Jamie Park, five-foot-two, department receptionist with the disposition of a golden retriever on espresso, doubled over at her desk with tears streaming down her face. The sound is infectious in the worst possible way, tugging at the corners of my mouth despite the throbbing in my skull.
Traitor.
Even my own face is betraying me now.
“You know what you need?” Jamie manages between gasps, her voice still shaking with residual amusement. “You need an Alpha over there fixing your pipes, Haze. Maybe give you some while he’s down there.”
The innuendo is so on-brand that I don’t even blink.
“This small town doesn’t have anything good-looking enough for an old hag like me,” I counter, pushing to my feet and catching my reflection in the small window above the sink. Dark hazel-brown eyes stare back at me, nearly black from irritation, framed by skin that looks paler than usual beneath the olive tone. The icy blue of my hair—meticulously maintained, control personified—catches the weak afternoon light filtering through glass that hasn’t been cleaned since whoever lived here last. Faint shadows bruise the skin beneath my eyes, evidence of insomnia that’s become my most reliable companion since arriving in Sweetwater Falls.
You look like shit, Martinez.
At least you’re consistent.
“You’re in your early thirties!” Jamie protests, and I can practically hear her hand waving in that emphatic way she has, bangles clinking. “That’s not old. That’s prime. That’s?—”
“That’s basically ancient years to Alphas,” I interrupt flatly, running the tap to test my repair work. No drip. No leak. Justclean, functional water, the sole victory I’ve managed in seven days of exile. “So clearly, I ain’t attracting shit but cobwebs in my pussy.”
The silence on the other end isdeafening.
Then—
“Universe, she doesn’t mean that.” Jamie’s voice lifts skyward, shifting into that reverent, slightly breathless register she reserves for cosmic appeals. “Please disregard everything Officer Hazel Martinez just said about her reproductive organs. She is a vibrant, beautiful, deeply deserving Omega who is absolutelynotcollecting cobwebs in any region of her anatomy. Thank you, Source energy. Namaste.”
I roll my eyes so hard my entire head moves with the effort.
