“That’d be cool. I don’t have many friends. Mama won’t let me go to school with Evy, since I’m different.”
“Different is good, boy. And you should always listen to your parents. They know what’s best.”
My hand flew to my neck as a bug bit me, swatting at it. It stung like a bee, and I was about to turn to ask the man to make sure it was off, but my vision blurred and my steps instantly tripped over air.
“Wha- “
I never got to finish asking anything as the forest around me went dark.
Chapter 17
Kasey
I woke up with a sharp inhale, the kind that dragged cold air into my lungs before I even understood why I was breathing so hard. For a moment, I didn’t know where I was; my mind still tangled in the dream, still half in the woods, still feeling the bee sting.
The room was dark except for the soft glow of the lamp Evander had left on. Shadows stretched across the walls, gently and unmoving, nothing like the towering shapes from the dream. My heart thudded against my ribs as I pushed myself upright before the panic could take root.
The blanket fell off my shoulders, pooling around my form as I scrubbed a hand down my face, trying to shake off the memories that would forever haunt me.
After a couple of minutes, my heart settled back to its normal rhythm, but it left an aftertaste of fear clinging to every part of me.
I hated that dream. No matter how many times it came back, no matter how many years had passed, it always ended the same way, like it was stuck in a loop I couldn’t break.
Sometimes someone else is with me. Evy, one of my cousins, a familiar face that shouldn’t have been there but somehow was. Other times, Mama appeared in the trees, screaming my name, begging me to come back, her voice stretching in that dream like way that made it sound both too close and too far.
And then there were nights where no one showed up at all. No voice. No footsteps. Just me disappearing in an instant, likea snap of fingers, swallowed by the woods before anyone even realized I was gone.
Those were the worst. The ones where I vanished without a trace, without a fight. Without goodbye.
Every version left me waking with the same hallow feeling in my chest. Every version reminded me I never got to see any of them again.
Those were the dreams that left me walking with me chest tight; breath caught somewhere between now and then. The ones that reminded me that I never got to see anyone again.
I sat there in the dim light, trying to remember where I was.
At one point in my life, I thought I’d have the entire world at my fingertips. But at eight years old, of course any little boy, Omega or not, thought that.
And I wished, for just a moment, that I could go back to that time and just give Mama one last hug. Tell Evy how much I really liked him. Tell the strange manno, that I wasn’t going to go with him to find my parents who weren’t even up the trail, waiting for me.
Like all the other times after dreams of the past, I couldn’t help but wonder where my family may be today. I knew they gave up looking for me. It took them maybe two days at the most to stop looking.
Or so, I was told.
I was told that Mama passed away, too. Died in a car accident the day I was found wondering the woods.
But that man that took me…. I saw him often at Lockswell. I hadn’t seen him for a few years now, and I never wanted to run into him again. He always looked at me like he did me a favor.
But I never wanted to be there at Lockswell. I never wanted to be forced to become someone I wasn’t.
All my rights, all the ways of life that I once knew, had been stripped of me. Piece by piece.
I went from a happy eight-year-old boy who thought my best friend could hang the stars for me if I asked, to being nothing more than a step above a bug.
So many teachers, so many handlers, and so manyadultstold me over and over again that I was an Omega. Special. One of a kind, in a way. But each one meant a different way.
With Mama, it was because I was special. I was to be loved and cherished and a piece of glue to hold us all together without ever having to try.
I’d learned early that with the handlers and teachers, I wasn’t a person. I was a slot filled. Replaceable. Interchangeable. Expected to stay quiet, follow orders, and never draw attention to myself. Especially not by making anyone else feel seen or comfortable. That wasn’t my place.
