My arms come up over my head as I curl into myself, knees drawn tight against my chest, making myself small.
A sound escapes my throat — high, thin, desperate — and I choke it off instantly.
The silence is worse. The need to let it out has to go somewhere, and my body chooses for me. I start rocking, small movements side to side, my shoulder pressing into the mattress and then lifting, pressing and lifting.
Don't make noise. Don't draw attention. Just rock. Just breathe. Just survive until it stops.
I want my father. I want the greenhouse. I want to be nine years old again, hidden behind the tomato plants, listening to him tell me about seeds that survive anything. But I can't get there. The door to that place is locked and I don't have the key anymore.
“You're safe, sweetheart.”
The alpha’s voice is low, warm, the way you'd talk to a feral cat you're trying not to spook. She doesn't move toward me, doesn't reach for me, just sits in that chair with her hands loose on the armrests and her eyes steady on my face like she's got all the time in the world to wait.
I almost laugh. I’ll never be safe. I need to know who this alpha is. What game we're playing, what the rules are so I can survive them.
My mouth opens. Nothing comes out. The word catches somewhere behind my tongue and dies there, and I'm watching her face the whole time, watching for the flicker of irritation, the tightening around the eyes that means punishment is coming. Speaking without permission. Speaking at all. Hugo used to backhand me for less. Wallace preferred the electrodes.
“Wh—”
It comes out broken, half a sound. I flinch, shoulders curling in, bracing for the hit. She doesn't move.
“It's okay, sweetheart.” She half lifts from the chair and forces herself back down again. “You can talk. You can ask me anything.”
It's a trap. Permission always came with punishment, but I have to know.
“Who...” The word scrapes out raw. I force the rest through teeth that don't want to unclench.Who are you?
I don't remember the last time I used my voice for anything but screaming. Wallace liked my screaming. Said it helped him calibrate his instruments. Said I hadexcellent vocal range for pain response documentation. She doesn't flinch at the sound of it, doesn't look away or wrinkle her nose, doesn't do any of the things that would tell me she finds me disgusting. She should find me disgusting. I'm the thing they made me, a body that's been opened and closed so many times there's more scar tissuethan original parts. She just holds my gaze with those amber eyes.
“I’m Sera Vidal. Head of Omega Affairs, Silverpine County.” A beat, a breath. “I brought you here.”
Sera. Like we're friends. Like she wants me to trust her. I was right. Now I have her name. Now I can add it to the list when she inevitably proves herself to be like every other alpha.
Another question claws at my throat. I have to push it out, have to know.
“Wh—” My voice catches. I swallow, try again. “Where—”
The word comes out thin, cracked. Her face shows nothing. No narrowing eyes, no sharp exhale, noI told you that you could speak but I didn't mean you could keep speaking. She just waits.
I'm testing her, looking for inconsistencies, holes in the story, the moment she contradicts herself and proves this is all performance. If this is Wallace's game, there will be tells. There are always tells. You just have to watch carefully enough to find them.
“We’re at the Omega Healing Center. Canton City.”
Canton City. Different county entirely, maybe different state. I tuck the information into the back of my mind.
“H-how?” The word scrapes out. I flinch at my own voice, at the stutter I can't control. “How did you... find me?”
She leans forward, and the basil in her scent sharpens. Her scent is fresh. Untainted. Wallace's synthetics never smelled like this. They always had a flatness to them, a chemical edge underneath the surface notes that made my omega recoil even while my body responded.
“Omega Affairs. We got a tip from a source in Canton City.” She stops, swallows, doesn't finish. She grips the armrests in a stranglehold. “I got you out.”
Got me out for what? I don’t expect help. No one helped when they dragged me out of my home at sixteen, freshly presentedand legally collectable. Mom and dad could do nothing to keep me. It was all legal. All sanctioned. An omega being collected for mandatory placement. Nothing worth intervening for. No one comes. No one ever comes.
She wants something. They always want something. Nobody does anything for free, especially not for an Omega. I can't figure out what she's after, and that makes my skin itch.
My wrists. I don't look at them. I know what they look like. Layers of skin torn away where I twisted and pulled against restraints that never gave.
“The other Omegas.”
