I fight hard to maintain my calm. “Go on.”
“I understood the risks,” she continues, twisting the blanket between her hands. “I understand what can happen without them. But I…” Her breath catches. “I needed the money.”
I push up from the desk and pace to the door, putting distance between us so she won’t see my hands shake. “For what?”
Lena’s shoulders curl inward. “School stuff. My calculator broke last month, and we have the AP Calculus exam coming up. Then my lab partner bailed on paying his half for our chemistry project.”
She swallows, the sound audible across the room. “The guidance counselor said I needed more extracurriculars for college applications, so I joined Model UN, but the fees…”
I turn toward her, schooling my reaction while my mind tallies the cost of each item, weighing it against the street value of suppressants. The numbers don’t add up. She must have been ripped off.
“I should have told you,” she whispers, her fingers tangling in the hem of her shirt. “I should have taken yours instead.”
The admission drops between us like a stone, rippling through the air. Her stolen suppressants would have been replaced by mine, leaving me unprotected but her safe. The logic of it burns.
I move back to the desk and perch on its edge. “When?”
“Three weeks ago. Right after my last Heat ended.” She wipes her nose with the back of her hand. “I thought I had time to figure out a workaround before the next one.”
Three weeks. The timetable slides into place in my mind. She’d been without protection for almost a month, walking home from school alone, riding the bus, navigating a world full of Alphas who could be drawn to her pheromones.
“What happened?”
Lena’s breathing quickens, her chest rising and falling in short bursts. “I was coming home from a study group on Friday night. It was dusk, and my Heat had only just started, so I should have been fine. But he followed me from the bus stop.”
Her words tumble faster now. “I tried to take a different route, but he caught up on Elm Street, right where the streetlight is broken.”
My jaw clenches so hard my teeth might crack. I’ve reported that light multiple times.
“He grabbed my wrist.” Her hand slides to the other, rubbing the spot as if she’s trying to erase the phantom of his touch. “He says he could smell I wasn’t claimed, and it wasn’t safe for an Omega to be out alone.”
She stops, a flush creeping up her neck. “I told him to go away before my brother killed him for touching me.”
My heart contracts at her faith in me, faith I’ve now failed.
“He laughed at me,” she whispers brokenly. “He said if I had a real protector at home, my scent wouldn’t advertise me as ready.”
“Did he touch you anywhere else?”
She starts crying again. “I tried to fight him off, but he?—”
The bile rises, but I swallow it down. “His name.”
It’s not a question.
Lena wipes at her cheeks with her sleeves. “Danny. He works at the liquor store on the corner of Pine and 4th.”
I recognize the place. Rumor says it’s the front for the Vartanian family’s money laundering business, with cameras that never seem to catch the drug deals happening ten feet from their door.
“What else did he say?”
“That he was doing me a favor.” Her lip curls in disgust. “He said after he Marked me, other Alphas would leave me alone.” A tear slides down her cheek. “He was so fast. One minute he was talking, and the next, he had me pinned, and his teeth…”
Her hand rises to her nape, hovering over the wound without touching it.
I remain motionless while my brain clicks through the possibilities, sorting them into actionable items. Report to the police, who won’t care about an Omega in Brickwell. File the paperwork for a restraining order, which we can’t afford and might be tossed out in favor of Alpha Rights. Track down Danny myself.
Option three requires no outside approval, no system that’s already failed us, and no money we don’t have.
