Sam
Don’t let them bulldoze over you
But don’t be too assertive
Josie
Thanks for this super clear advice. Really helping with the stress.
Sam
Sorry, Josie-girl. I wish I was there with you.
Gerald just yelled at me to chill the fuck out.
Josie
I wish you were here, too.
Actually, I wish I was there with you. Anywhere but here.
Sam
I know. I love you.
Josie
Love you
A black SUV pulled up to the curb, and my heart started pounding. I eyed the fire escape at the back of my apartment, itching to escape. I tried to run once before, back when I was stronger. But they had broken me. I wouldn’t survive being caught again. I clutched my stomach as memories assaulted me, sweat trickling down my spine. I stumbled to the bathroom, barely reaching the toilet before I threw up.Look at you, so pathetic. Pull yourself together.
I sat on the bathroom floor as the room swam around me. I tried to breathe, reminding myself that Amirah and Clementine promised to help me. Maybe the pack they selected didn’t want an omega, either. Best-case scenario, I would move in and we could live as distant roommates who occasionally made small talk about the unseasonably warm fall and our favorite TV shows.
A nagging voice in the back of my mind reminded me of my heat.
In just a few days, I would be writhing in agony, desperate for a knot to soothe the pain and fever. If I was left alone through my heat, the fever could cause an infection and kill me. I let out a scream so piercing and primal I almost scared myself, but I needed some way to express the injustice of it all.
I was holding out hope that I could have a suppressant-assisted heat, which was survivable without any alpha involvement. Sam thought he’d found someone to get me suppressants. And if that didn’t pan out? I would just have to find a way through it alone.
I struggled to my feet and rinsed my mouth before looking at myself. The girl in the mirror stared back at me with dead eyes. I hated that I cared what I looked like for these alphas, that I felt the need to put on makeup, which was now smeared, and blow dry my hair for the first time in ages. Hated that I wished my face wasn’t so round… that all of me was less round.
This morning, my mother had her assistant drop off a girlish blue dress with a flouncy skirt and embroidered flowers, along with matching velvet blue high heels. Of course, the dress was too tight—she always bought me things that were too small, as if that would somehow force me to lose weight. Instead, I put on a black jumpsuit I knew my mother hated. The jumpsuit didn’t do much to hide my stomach and hips, with their rolls and curves that were too much for a typical omega, but it was one of the few outfits I felt confident in. My mother would be furious when she saw I wasn’t wearing her outfit, but I needed to exercise any control I had in this terrifying situation.
A whimper escaped me as I heard a knock on the door. I eyed my bedroom with longing, my bed calling me, tempting me to return. My nesting instincts kicked in last night, but I hadn’t given in to them. It would have felt like giving up, like accepting my heat was inevitable.
I had never had a real nest—my parents always said it would be something my alphas would give me as long as I was a good omega. At the DA, they showed us pictures of beautiful nests—dark, cozy rooms with twinkling lights, soft music, and every plush pillow and blanket you could imagine. They dangled these images in front of us as incentives: if we stayed in line and behaved, one day, we could earn a nest like that. They told us they intentionally created our dorm rooms without those comforts so that we would be motivated to find our packs.
Our DA rooms had been sparse. There were no decorations, and we were allowed one pillow and blanket. If we did what they wanted, we could earn more items as a reward. Of course, it also worked the other way. They had systematically stripped my room of every item until I had a thin mattress on the floor and nothing else.
Sam encouraged me to make my room in his apartment into a nest, but I’d never been able to. Even if I’d had the money to buy more than the occasional thrift store blanket, a part of me didn’t want to give in to my inner omega’s desires. She was to blame for the position I was in right now. I’d held on to the hope that if I didn’t give in to my instincts of finding alphas, making a nest, or having a heat, I could destroy the omega part of myself. Obviously, I hadn’t succeeded.
Dread pooled in my stomach as I heard another sharp knock. I slowly gathered my things and opened the door. Dave was standing in the hallway, a serious expression on his face. He lifted an eyebrow at me.
“For a minute, I thought you might try to run away.”
“I thought about it,” I mumbled, locking the door behind me. “Is Clementine here?”
“In the car,” he replied, his gaze continuously sweeping the stairwell as if someone was going to jump out and attack at any minute.
