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“You were a tearaway?”
“No. He was evil. Wanted my mum for himself without a wain around.” The chip in my ear translated my words for me.
“Beta?”
I remembered the size of my mum’s last boyfriend, and I shuddered. “No.”
Ghil saw the pain in my eyes and mistook it for honesty. “Alpha. They’re all bastards. Grinding us down under their heels.”
“You had one, too?”
“Yeah. ‘Cept mine was my real dad. I’ve got his fucking DNA. And I hate that.”
I realized for the first time how much worse it was when the wicked step-parent was actually your birth parent. You were left with their legacy forever.
“When I look in the mirror in the right light, I see him looking back at me, sometimes,” he told me. “I followed my big brother into this crew as soon as I was old enough to carry money between adults.”
“I took off when I was young, too.”
“Fuckin’ alphas. Fuck ‘em. They throw their weight around and what the fuck is a beta kid supposed to do? I want to wipe out every last one of them.”
“They have this way of pushing their agenda onto people, don’t they?” I observed, thinking of the way Urgoth had talked to me. “When they get an idea, it’s impossible to do anything else.”
“That’s their power. Their strength gives them confidence. You want to do something about them?”
I nodded. I knew I was getting closer to my actual task. Finding the Beta Liberation group and infiltrating them.
“Good. Take this to sector one. At a party, at eight tonight, hand it over to someone in a red shirt. They’ll ask your name. It’s a password question. The answer is Edel.”
“Edel?”
“She was my cousin. The alphas killed her.”
Shit. This was becoming heavy. It sounded like there was a long history of action and retaliation between alphas and betas. How could they be at war while the whole city just ticked along like usual?
“The car will come for you at seven. Be dressed for the occasion. The beta on the door with the guest list will let you in if you use the password.”
I nodded. Then I shat myself about where the fuck I was going to get a party dress from, never mind one with somewhere to hide a fucking vapor gun. This whole situation was getting messy and I didn’t like it. I turned to leave.
“Wait.” Ghil’s voice arrested me. “Your payment from last night.” He handed me something which I assumed was supposed to be money. I smiled.
“Thanks.” When I was out of there, I went straight to the nearest clothes shop and bought a cheap black dress. I didn’t need to look like I was rich or famous. I wanted to blend in. To fade into the background. Definitely easier in an unassuming black dress than something red or sparkly. Anyway, sparkly and bright just wasn’t my style.
Armed with my dress and a pair of shoes, I headed back to the flat. Ryon was asleep on the sofa. It seemed to be all he ever did. I couldn’t decide if he was lazy or waiting for a job to start. Just like on Earth, there was a lot of waiting when it came to carrying out gang tasks. He smelled of women’s perfume. Weird. Maybe he was moonlighting as a gigolo or something. A flash of jealousy surprised me, but I covered it up by ignoring him.
I went into the bathroom. There was only cold water. Wasn’t that supposed to be better for your skin? I wasn’t sure. I hadn’t exactly paid attention to any of that sort of stuff. I needed to do my hair and make-up. Another thing I knew little about. Trying to remember if Larla had told me anything that would be useful, I filled the bath tub.
The water was icy when I dipped my hand in it. I shuddered, but I couldn’t get into a fancy party unless I was clean. Anyway, Ryon had said my omega smell was becoming more noticeable, so I needed to use all the products that disguised it.
Stepping into the water, my calf muscles tensed at the chill.Screw this.Instead of sitting, I crouched and scooped the water over my skin.
I hated cold baths. I forced myself to bear the cold until I was completely clean. Then I pulled the plug with relief.
Standing up to get out, I looked around for a dry towel to banish the cold.
“That was pure dolly, Natasha,” I scolded myself. There was no towel.
Feeling stupid, I shook myself off over the bath then climbed out, still dripping.
