I look at the screen. Silas, the leader of the Unbound, is giving a grainy interview in front of a flickering suppression node. He looks tired, his eyes hard and full of a jagged, dangerous truth. He’s talking about the government burying stray power, about the city being built on a graveyard of energy that’s finally starting to wake up. He calls it a systemic failure. I call it a Tuesday in Redbrook.
I look back at the card, thinking about my condo, and the quiet, sterile rooms where I’ve lived my quiet, sterile life. I think about the nest I haven't touched in months, the blankets that smell like nothing but laundry detergent. The thought of goingback there alone, with this fever burning through me, feels like a death sentence.
"I'm not saying I'll go," I say, tucking the card into my blazer pocket. "I'm just saying I'll look at the website. For research. For... statistical analysis of their success rates."
Mira grins, and for the first time today, the tension in her shoulders drops. "Of course. Purely academic. Just don't wait until you’re licking the doorframes, Asa. The intake process isn’t instant."
I stand up, and walk back to my office, before waking up my computer and typing in the link from the card. I enter my designation, convinced this is the worst idea I’ve ever had, but as the fever pulses in my neck, I know I’m going to do it. One anonymous night of relief sounds much safer than letting this hunger eat me alive from the inside out. I hit submit, and for a second, the humming in the air seems to settle into a single, low note of anticipation.
A notification from Vesper House vibrates across my phone a moment later:Your compatibility match is complete. Appointment confirmed for 16:00. Please arrive thirty minutes early for scent neutralization.
I stare at the screen, the blue light reflected in my wide, dark eyes. Three hours from now. I close my eyes and try to imagine the stranger who will meet me there. Will they be kind? Will they be rough? Will they be able to reach the places where the suppressants have failed? I don't even care about their name. I just want the weight of them. I want the silence that comes when I’m knotted and full and...
A small moan slips through my lips as I turn off my phone screen and refocus on one of the tests on my table. I just have to hold on for a few hours.
My cock currently tenting my pants tells me I may not be able to wait that long.
Asa
I barely made it thirty minutes before calling in sick and speeding down the street for relief. Whether it was the idea that I finally had something to give me relief or my body was just failing me, I needed somethingnow.
The first step into Vesper House, I realize it smells of nothing. In a city like Redbrook, where the air is a constant soup of ozone, exhaust, and the sharp, metallic tang of failing suppression nodes, the vacuum of the intake lobby is almost violent.
“Welcome to Vesper House,” a voice says, smooth and entirely too calm. “Do you have an appointment?”
The receptionist is an Alpha, but he’s behind a thick pane of glass and clearly under heavy suppressants. He looks at me with the detached professional interest of a man checking in a library book. I try to swallow, but it’s nearly impossible, my anxiety getting the best of me.
“Asa Renwick,” I rasp. I try for my ‘professor voice,’ the one that commands respect in a lecture hall of three hundredstudents, but it comes out thin and jagged. “I have a four pm slot.”
He taps something into a tablet. “Ah, yes. You’re a little early, aren’t you?” A small smile spreads across his face as I open my mouth to explain. “It’ll be fine. We always have an influx of Alphas and Espers and not enough Omegas or Guides for the compatibility matches. Please, take a seat. A nurse will be with you shortly for the intake draw and consent verification.”
I don’t sit. If I sit, I might never get back up. I pace the small perimeter of the rug, my mind frantically calculating the variables of my own stupidity. The probability of this being a mistake is hovering around ninety-eight percent. I am an F-Class Guide. My power is a rounding error in the ESA’s database.
Why would a clinic like this even have a match for someone with a signature as weak as mine? Usually, Omegas like me are given a double dose of synthetics and told to sleep it off. Or they send me to a regular center with regular Alphas, but that’s never done it for me.
A door at the back clicks open. A nurse in crisp, pale blue scrubs beckons me forward. “This way, Mr. Renwick,” she says. “We’ll just need a quick blood sample to confirm the biometric match before we move to the neutralization chamber.”
I follow her into a small, sterile room that smells faintly of isopropyl alcohol. It’s a relief, honestly, a smell I can categorize. She works quickly, her hands steady as she ties the tourniquet around my arm. I watch the dark red blood fill the vial, thinking about how that fluid contains the blueprint of my failure. F-Class. Inactive.Useless.
“Wait here,” she says, labeling the vial. “I’ll be back in five minutes with the final match report and the liability waivers.”
The five minutes feel like fifty. I stare at a poster on the wall detailing the importance of ‘safe and consensual rutmanagement,’ featuring a smiling couple that looks like they’ve never experienced a day of desperation in their lives.
When the nurse returns, she isn’t smiling. She’s holding a tablet and a thick stack of papers. She looks at me, then back at the screen, her brow furrowed in a way that makes my heart lurch into a frantic, uneven rhythm.
“There’s a situation with the match,” she says, her voice losing some of its clinical sheen. “Your blood compatibility with our available client is... unprecedented. We ran the algorithm three times. It’s a ninety-nine-point-eight percent synchronization.”
“That’s good, isn’t it?” I ask, though the numbers feel wrong. “The higher the match, the safer the session?”
“Usually, yes,” she says, stepping closer and lowering her voice. “But the client in question is an S-Class Alpha. He’s in a state of extreme rut-accelerated power volatility. We’ve had to initiate secondary containment protocols in the suite. An F-Class Guide matching with an S-Class Esper... it shouldn't happen. The power-gap alone usually causes a rejection.”
I feel a cold ripple of fear, but beneath it, a deep, visceral hum runs through me. S-Class. The kind of power that can level a city block. The kind of power that burns normal Guides to ash. I should say no. I should walk away right now. The ESA has spent fifteen years telling me I’m a guttering candle; why would I step into a furnace?
“There are extra consent forms,” she continues, sliding a digital stylus toward me. “The risk of sensory overload is high. We cannot guarantee that he will be able to maintain total physical restraint once the connection is established. Because of the class disparity, the liability for any power-burn or energetic trauma falls on the participant.”
I look at the screen.S-Class. Volatile. Risk of injury.I think about my empty condo. I think about the way the city is screaming outside. I think about how I have spent my whole lifebeing told I am nothing, and yet, here is a machine saying I am the only thing that fits a man who has too much of everything.
“Unfortunately, that’s the only compatible match of the night.” She swallows carefully and the lack of nervousness in her expression strangely gives me some relief. “The staff is trained to step in if there are any excess energy surges and there are panic buttons around them. You can sign here,” she says. “Or we can call a transport to take you home.”
