Despite being caught, I didn’t rush forward. I stayed in the groupingof walkers. It wasn’t some tactic. I just couldn’t keep running. I was beyond exhausted. My battery was depleted; I had nothing left.
Stumbling onto the opposite side of the street, I hobbled towards a peeling, bird shit dotted bench and sat down. I settled the briefcase against my thighs.
“I’m sorry, Josie. I give up.” I hung my head, resignation flowing through me and warring with the pain. The kitten—who'd kept me going all these terrible months—meowed trustingly, sticking her little head out of the briefcase and staring up at me with those beautiful, bright eyes of hers.
That only made me feel so much fucking worse.
1
TESSA
“The contract clearly states—”
“I’m taking my cat!” I blurted out, staring up at the severe-looking Beta behind the desk. His name tag read Mister Grouse, Head Product Management Beta. We’d been locked in an argument for hours now, with no end in sight. I wondered what time it was... had to be early morning. I remembered checking a large clock in a hallway as they’d moved me from a holding room into this office. It had been nearly midnight then.
I glared at him with as much animosity as I could muster. He stared right back without blinking. The asshole’s glasses were shoved so far up his nose that I was amazed they hadn’t fused to his stupid eyeballs.
I wasn’t sure I preferred this idiot to the Betas playing Men in Black—all dark suits and darker glasses—who'd called themselves Product Collection Agents. Those assholes had chased me out of the motel. They’d kept tracking me throughout the city, until I couldn’t take it anymore. I’d finally just sat down on a bench and waited for them to show up. Relentless fucking bloodhounds. They'd said I didn’t have a choice. I could be sued if I didn’t come with them, all because I’d signed my life away without realizing it.
I’d give up my life, whatever, but Irefusedto give up my cat. The contract, and this stupid institute, could go fuck themselves.
“We can arrange a home for her,” he offered. “A better home.”
“I’m her home,” I growled.
Josie purred in my lap, blissfully unaware of her uncertain future. I stroked her nervously, a repetitive motion of palm up and down her back. She was slightly oily, leaving a sheen on my palm. She lifted her head ever so slightly, tilting it to ask for a scratch between her ears. I obliged, quick sweeps of nail against her scalp. A bit of grime behind her ear stuck under my nail. She needed a bath again. Living on the streets hadn’t been kind to either of us.
Over the months we’d been together, I’d tried to lightly clean her when I snuck her into the shelter shower (not that Josie was fond of getting soaked). A few times, I’d even ended up with a good Samaritan care kit that included baby wipes—those were solid gold currency on the streets—and I'd used those to take a layer of grime off her. But neither of those options had cleaned her the way the scary decontamination booth had in this building a few days ago, leaving her so fluffy and fresh. Seeing her like that had given me a glimpse of what she could look like all the time. If we had a proper homeandI had enough money to give her what she deserved, she’d be just gorgeous. A model cat, worthy of being on one of those fancy cat food cans we’d bought with our Eros payment.
I’d never let her go. I thought fiercely, my brain homing back in on the Beta’s annoying voice.
“You’re making this unnecessarily difficult,” the Beta pulled off his glasses, pinched his nose, closed his eyes, and sighed loudly. I didn’t respond. I wasn’t making it difficult at all. In fact, it was wildly easy.
Yes, cat. Yes, go.
No, cat. No, go.
See, piece of cake.
Silence blanketed over us, and not for the first time. It didn’t mean the Beta was giving up. I’d thought that was the case the last three times he’d fallen silent, only to be quickly disappointed when he’d restarted the same record of ‘you can’t, you signed, and youneed to cooperate’.
Abruptly, the Beta jolted to his feet and pressed both palms against his desk. The glasses he still held with one hand clinked sharply against the cherry wood surface. He leaned over towards me, and I think he was trying to be intimidating. As a Beta, he should have known acting tough wasn't in his deck of cards. Still, he quirked one eyebrow—very pro-wrestler of him—and his mouth drew into a hard, unhappy line. I somehow managed to stifle the giggles that wanted to bubble up at the sight of someone so very weak acting so very powerful. Napoleon should take notes.
Don’t laugh. Dammit. Hold it together. Besides, who actually has the power here, idiot?
That last thought was far too sobering.
This uppity Beta stood in the way of the one thing I wanted most—to keep Josie. I couldn’t lose control.
I closed my eyes and took a few deep, centering breaths. My shoulders slumped, my posture collapsing slightly, as I forced my body to release some of the tension it was holding. I was always riding the edge these days, oscillating between rage and grief and hopelessness. I just needed to hang on a little longer. If the agency really had found a perfect match for me, I wouldn’t be alone anymore...and I wouldn’t be losing control of my faculties anymore either.
Day by day, I was sinking deeper into despair. The bouts of anger, lust, and hopelessness just marked my descent into mate-less madness. Before my family died, before I found myself on the streets, my heats had been healthy and regular. I could track them and try to prep what I needed. Well, not try when I had a home and a family. Everything I could ever want was easily found at the Fortune mansion or easily procured thanks to our pack’s resources. It wasn’t so easy on the streets, where an Omega still needed a nest, but she didn’t have a Platinum card or a proper mailing address.
A box or dense bush in the park wasn’t ideal, but beggars couldn’t choose. Even if I could choose, my cycles were so irregular and erratic now. I never knew when and how they would hit. I’d wake up soaked in sweat, body burning with fever even when the night was chilly. Hourslater, I’d feel fine though. Sometimes out of the blue, when an Alpha or even an Omega passed near enough for my nose to catch their scent, I’d become a livewire.
I should probably gather some fresh newspaper just in case. Maybe the fabric store on Sixteenth had discards in the recycle bin again. I’d found some expired Omega vitamins behind an apothecary a few months ago. I should have kept those instead of trading them for food. It was so hard to think about the future though. All I cared about was surviving in the present.
My Omega cycles had been changing for a while. Slowly, like a frog boiling in once-cool water. I hadn’t seen the signs at first. Yet the longer I went between meals, the longer I lived in a state of fear as bullets sounded in tent city and Josie shivered next to me, the more it became obvious. Some days, I wanted to scream in frustration that my body breaking down was bullshit.How was it fair that I lost my entire family, my home, the estate money, and now I was losing something intrinsic to my personhood that should not ever disappear?
