Page 81 of Run Wild Omega

I stare at him. “To scent me.”

“Just enough that it’s noticeable. If the town is already talking—and they are—then you showing up tomorrow smelling like you don’t belong to anyone is fuel. But if you smell like a claimed Omega, even subtly, it reinforces the narrative before the registration is filed.”

I should be angry. I should tell him that my body is not a prop for public consumption, that the idea of being scented like a territory marker makes my skin crawl. And part of me does feel that reflexive rejection that comes from the same place as the scent blockers and the walls and the two years of careful, deliberate isolation.

But another part of me—the part that’s exhausted and scared and so tired of fighting—just nods.

“Fine.”

“It won’t be—” He stops. “We’ll make it quick. Dylan and Miles will be here too. It’s a pack scent, not an individual one. Less intimate that way.”

I close my eyes again. “Whatever works.”

He’s quiet for a moment. Then I hear him move—the creak of the floorboards, the rustle of his jacket—and feel something settle over me. A blanket. He tucked a blanket around me while I was fading out, the same way he might have done ten years ago if we’d fallen asleep on his truck bed watching stars.

I’m too tired to analyze it.

I let the dark take me.

I wake up sweating.

The room is pitch-black, the fire long since burned to embers, and I’m drenched. My hair is plastered to my forehead, my back is wet against the couch cushions, and my skin feels tight and hot, like I’m wrapped in plastic.

Fever. It has to be a fever. Dr. Evans warned me about this—low-grade temperature spikes in the first week as the body heals, a normal inflammatory response to the trauma of surgery. As long as it stays below 101.5, it’s nothing to worry about.

I try to throw the blanket off, but my movements are sluggish, hampered by the cast and the medication still circulating through my system. I manage to get one arm free, then the other, and I push the blanket to the floor. The cool air hits my skin and I almost moan with relief, but it’s not enough. The room is still too warm, still too closed, still too much.

I need air.

I sit up slowly, my leg screaming when I shift the angle even slightly. The crutches are leaning against the armchair, three feet away. Three feet that might as well be a mile.

I reach for them, stretching my arm as far as it will go. My fingertips brush the rubber grip. I hook my fingers around it and pull, and the crutch clatters to the floor with a sound that’s way too loud for two in the morning.

I freeze, listening. The house is silent. Mom and Dad are upstairs. No footsteps. No creaking floorboards.

Good.

I maneuver myself to the edge of the couch, grab the fallen crutch, and use it to lever myself upright. The other crutch is still leaning against the chair. I grab it too, and then I’m standing, swaying slightly, my left leg held stiffly out in front of me like a dead weight.

The window. I need the window.

I crutch my way across the living room, each hop sending a jolt of pain up my leg that the medication only dulls, doesn’t erase. The window is on the far wall, a tall sash window that Mom always keeps latched in winter. My fingers find the latch, fumble with it, and I curse under my breath as my sweaty hands slip.

It gives. The window swings open, and the night air rushes in. It hits my face like a splash of water, and I breathe it in, deep and desperate, letting it fill my lungs and cool the fire under my skin.

I lean my forehead against the frame, the wood biting into my skin, and I just breathe.

Outside, the town is dark. The streetlights cast orange pools on the snow, and the mountains are a black silhouette against a sky full of stars. It’s beautiful. It’s the same view I’ve looked at my entire life, and right now it’s the only thing that makes sense.

My phone is on the coffee table. I didn’t bring it with me—I didn’t think to. But even from here, even without seeing the screen, I know what’s happening out there in the digital world. Because Mara showed me before bed.

Politicians are talking about me.

Not by name, not directly, but the language is unmistakable. A sitting senator from Montana went on a Sunday talk show and used my rescue as an example of “the dangers of unchecked Omega autonomy in high-risk environments.” He didn’t mention the avalanche, the cornice, the weather data. He said “unbonded Omega” and “reckless” and “systemic failure” in the same sentence, and four million people heard him, and now it’s not just cable news pundits—it’s federal legislators.

Another senator, this one from Colorado, pushed back—she called the framing “regressive and scientifically unfounded”—but the fact that it was being discussed at that level at all made me feel like I was dissolving. Like my existence had been abstracted into a talking point, a wedge issue, a hashtag.

#UnbondedOmegas was trending. Again.