“No.”
I try to step back, but Tate shifts into the doorway behind me, eyes down and shoulders tense. He blocks the exit without looking at me, which is exactly the kind of bravery I expect from him.
“I’m not on the roster,” I say. “I’m not a swimmer anymore. I’m the fucking manager.”
Reece leans closer, smile still set for the room. Up close, I can see the calculation behind it. He isn’t angry. He’s prepared. “You cost us our seed ranking last year. You cost us two sponsors. The least you can do is stand on a stage for ten minutes and let someone throw money at you, unless you want to be the reason the whole program folds.”
I have arguments. Good ones. Accurate ones. I didn’t cost the team anything. I didn’t make sponsors pull out. I didn’t choose what happened near lane three. I didn’t open the side pocket of my bag and find my spare blockers missing. Only the team knew where I kept them. And only a smaller subset of them knewwhyI took them.
It was never because of what I couldn’t smell. It was because of what I couldn’t control. Sure, the blockers helped further mute the world around me, but it also helped mute my own pheromones because I couldn’t control them, smell them, or even understand what they were doing without my permission.
I’ve never found out who did it but at that point, no one cared. All they saw was the Omega who couldn’t keep up with their meds.
Reece’s hand stays on my shoulder, while my pulse starts beating hard enough to make my fingertips feel wrong. Behind him, the announcer calls for another round of applause, and the crowd gives it to him.
“Let go,” I mumble, trying to pull away and failing.
He does, patting my shoulder once before his hand drops away. The pat is worse than the grip. “Don’t fuck this up for us,” he says.
Then he walks away. Tate lingers for half a second, his mouth parting like he might finally say something useful. Aaron bumps his shoulder, and Tate follows Reece without looking back.
I stand where they left me, headset pressed to one ear, clipboard locked against my chest. Slightly confused, I look down at the run sheet. My name isn’t there. It isn’t on the donor list, the stage cards, or the copy Marsh approved this morning. I’m logistics. I’m the person who tells other people where to go.
A stage volunteer hurries past me with a stack of bid paddles. “Swim team starts in two. Reece is after Carter, right?”
I nod because my body knows how to keep working even when the rest of me goes quiet.
“Great. Thanks.”
She disappears toward the curtain. The curtain shifts, and light spills across the floor in a white strip. For a second, it’s too close to pool lights on wet tile. Too close to everyone watching. Too close to the night my body stopped being mine and the room got loud with other people’s version of what happened.
I grip the clipboard harder.
Carter goes onstage, and the crowd cheers. He laughs into the microphone, easy with it, turning once when the announcer makes a joke about private lessons. The bid climbs fast. Peopleshout numbers. Someone whistles. The side screen updates with each new amount.
Four hundred. Six. Eight.
A thousand.
Good. That’s good. Money for the team. Money for Marsh. Money for the program everyone keeps telling me I owe.
Reece waits near the wings, loose and pleased in his open-collar shirt. Tate stands a few feet behind him, staring at the floor. When Reece glances over, his smile is small enough that only I see it.
The announcer’s voice rolls into the next introduction, warming the crowd up for the swim team, calling us dedicated, disciplined, resilient. The words pile together until they stop sounding like anything. My pulse keeps getting louder, beating in my fingertips, my throat, the hollow place beneath my ribs.
The stage is only a few steps away.
It might as well be the far end of the pool with my lungs already burning.
Reece glances over at me one last time before walking onto the stage and mouths,“You’re next.”
I really hope that doesn’t mean what I think it means.
jude
Reecewalksbackthroughthe curtain with applause still following him, already loosening the cuffs at his wrists like he’s finished something casual. Tate straightens immediately, pulling at the front of his own shirt even though nothing is wrong with it, and that’s how I know.
My stomach drops before Reece reaches me.
