“I don’t know why I need you,” I whisper to the screen. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me that your voice is the only thing that works. I cannot pick a shirt without you, Doll. I cannot pack a bag without you. I was on the bathroom floor for hours and the only thing that got me off the tile was knowing this video was here and your voice would be in it and the noise would stop. What does that make me? What kind of Alpha needs an Omega’s voice to function?”
He cannot hear me. He is talking about composition and paint and none of it is meant for me and yet, all of it saves my life a little.
The video ends and I play it again. By the third time through my breathing has steadied and my hands have stopped shaking. His voice fills the studio and the grey nothing lifts enough that I can reach for my phone in my pocket.
The screen shows me what I already know: four missed calls from the editor, two from Priya, one from Alistair’s office, three from Koda, and a single voicemail from Lyric’s personal line.
The editor, Priya, and Alistair’s office are manageable. I will call Koda back because three calls means he is worried.
Lyric gets played last because the most dangerous card always goes last.
“Sai.” His voice is calm and pleasant the way a scalpel is calm and pleasant, precision disguised as warmth. “You missed the call from Alistair’s office. You missed your shoot this evening. Priya called me, which means Priya is concerned, which means your team is noticing what the family has already noticed.” Hepauses, the silence designed to let the weight of that sentence land. “We should have lunch this week. Thursday works for me. I’ll send the details.”
Not an invitation. A summons. The machine sending its best mechanic to open the hood.
The voicemail ends as I shift my thoughts to the moment in the hallway, the taste of his kiss still on my lips, his scent still soaked into the shirt I couldn’t bring myself to change. I’m desperately glad I couldn’t change it because the honey and citrus are still here, still on me, the last evidence that what happened in the hallway was real.
Whatever this is, whatever Mavi’s doing to my carefully constructed life, I don’t want it to stop. Even if Lyric finds out. Even if the family closes in. Even if the machine that made me decides to unmake me for this.
I press the photograph to my mouth one more time. “I’m in trouble, Doll,” I whisper against the paper. “But I think I was in trouble long before you kissed me.”
