Page 16 of Born to be Broken

And who took them in? Where were they to go?

The people failed. Claire was not even sure if she could justify it anymore, not after seeing this. Leaning her head to the side she rested her cheek on the dead boy’s hair and stared forward. There was no pleasure in her freedom or her view of the sky… there had not even been a sense of victory at her success freeing the Omegas.

Even in Maryanne’s company she had only played the part, falsified emotion on instinct.

Closing her eyes, she let out a breath, ruffling the stiff brown hair under her lips. There was no point in being Claire anymore. Instead, she would be nothing, as hollow as Thólos had allowed itself to become.

It was the sound of a sob that woke her, and for a moment she thought it was from the boy she slept against. Waking abruptly, her bleary eyes darted around and found nothing—just the same empty alley and the same piles of icy garbage. The only difference from before was the darkness, a thing her eyes adjusted to quickly after so long underground.

Oblivious to the freezing cold, Claire stood, ignoring the crack of stiff knees. Her pillow, the forgotten corpse, sat as rigid as before, the child staring forward into the same future as hers… into nothing.

Claire claimed him, and with more strength than she felt, she hoisted the boy up on her back, the corpse’s limbs not easy to manage.

Not a soul disturbed her as she walked with her macabre prize through the streets of hell.

4

Corday looked over the newly freed Omegas, silently observing as they assembled a living space from piles of garbage. The mid-level Incineration Plant no longer created compost for the farm levels—not since citizens had taken to dumping their garbage in the streets. Now rotting mounds of muck protected an enclave of frightened women. Every breath stank of putrid food, mold, and things better left undescribed.

One thing it did not smell like was the young Omega still writhing through estrous, the girl moaning and begging for relief.

Corday was admittedly not an expert on Omega heat cycles, but whatever had been done to her, her sobbing response could not have been normal.

He kept his distance. The other Omegas also gave her a respectful berth, the group huddled together for warmth, gnawing on the rations he had provided.

An old woman, Nona, had come knocking on his door. It was Claire, she said, who’d directed her to find him. It was Claire who’d promised the resistance would feed and supply the freed Omegas.

It was the name Claire that made him come running.

He’d taken supplies without the permission of his commander. Brigadier Dane was going to kill him, and he was going to tell her straight to her face to go fuck herself. He was not going to let Claire down.

When he’d arrived the previous night, the Omegas had been… hostile. They were filthy, reeking just as badly as the garbage heap they’d chosen to shelter in.

Nona had warned him the women were dangerous, that they were armed and might shoot any male on sight. She had even warned him not to follow her back once she’d procured supplies.

Corday was having none of it. He needed to see Claire.

But Claire was not there. Even hours after the women had settled in, their liberator failed to show her face. The night dragged on, morning came, afternoon, Corday stiff from leaning against a slimy wall.

Had Claire been captured? Had the tyrant killed her?

Nona gently told him that Claire’s plan required her to arrive from a different path; that the woman most likely was waiting for dark before she moved; that she had always been overly cautious when away from the safety of the group.

Corday scoffed. The Claire he knew was reckless. She was also badly hurt.

Over and over, Nona reminded him that if Claire had been taken, Shepherd’s men would have already come for them.

Claire O’Donnell was out there.

And so he waited past the point of exhaustion, exasperation, and flat out fear. Evening fell. At first Corday thought his eyes were playing tricks on him. A two-headed hunchbacked beast staggered down the plant’s dark garbage chute. Milky eyes stared right through him; they never blinked—just as the mouth beneath those dead eyes gaped in a fixed expression of hopelessness.

It was the face of a corpse.

Hidden beneath it sat a much dearer countenance, the struggling woman’s eyes half-covered by a curtain of black tangles.

“Claire!”

Corday rushed towards the Omega and her burden, unraveling the frozen limbs of a cadaver unwilling to release its host.