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I keep my hand in my pocket, wrapped around the knife I stashed there. These streets don’t scare me any, well, they didn’t when I was just a beta, but now that my designation rolled in and put me as an omega, I’m vulnerable. I’m a high commodity, a rare as fuck fucking omega that goes into heats and can be bonded.
The horror of that morning still makes my stomach churn. The smell of raspberries and vanilla, the look of greed in my mother’s eyes. My father’s disgust was just another nail of confirmation that I’m not his biological daughter. But the pity and fear on my baby sister’s faces still give me nightmares.
I tip my chin up at a thin man in a doorway who watches me pass.
It was a risk going to their club, presenting that offer to them. It didn’t work out, but I’m not surprised. I’m also not about to give up. This isn’t just my life at stake here.
The faint scent of Darion had made my teeth ache in all the wrong ways. I wanted to reach across that booth, drag him up to me, and sink my teeth into his bottom lip. Make him see me. Drag that haughty ice demeanor from him and make him burn.
Lukas was everything the girls whisper about on those long, frosty nights waiting on street corners. I could barely even look at him. I feel like if I spent more than a second staring at him, I might just agree to anything he wants. Let’s burn the town? Sure, baby, who’s holding the match?
And Seb. I’ve heard the whispers, the rumours. A giant with fists like concrete, a violent thug, unstoppable once he starts. A threat that spoke to all my insecurities and said, ‘come here, I’ll protect you. I am your safe corner.’ I just wanted to bury my nose in his neck and hold on.
That is not okay. It almost derailed everything. I need this to work. I need them. I’m going to have to try again. But I’m going to have to get a hold of myself. I’ve never reacted like that to anyone. It’s almost like they’re my scent matches…but that can’t be. Scent matches are a myth. A fairy tale.
I skirt a group of people standing around a lit rubbish bin and quicken my pace. Not running, but not walking slowly, either.
I cut through Gosford park. Back in the days of splendour and plenty, the park was a jewel in this bustling end of the city, but now the grass is dead, the playground rusted, and you only walk there if you want trouble. Luckily, I know the people who bring trouble and lift my hand. They watch me, and I wonder how quick they would turn on me if they found out.
I slide between the wooden fence panels, scraping my arm, wincing in annoyance at the pain, and then wiggle through until I’m standing in a tiny backyard. Bits of junk metal half buried stick up from the ground. The house barely resembles a house. It’s not even painted, and the screen door hangs off at an angle. It’s an absolute shitshow. But it’s home.
I let go of the fear that’s had my muscles tense and tight. I give myself one moment to be happy, and then I force myself to move to the house.
I can hear my mother inside sobbing. Our loss of finances and standing, though not high, has hit her harder than the clap that she got from one of her flavours of the week. My father will sit on the bed, that numb shell-shocked look in his eyes, because how could someone swindle him? How could the damn pyramid scheme not pay dividends? My parents aren’t smart, I don’t know when I knew that, I just did. But the stupidity that hit two years ago was a new low. They ruined not just their lives but any chance we had of getting out, too.
A shadow on the porch moves, and I tense before I recognise the emaciated frame of my eldest sister. The one that vanished when she was sixteen and suddenly appeared two months ago. Almost ten years later. She’s broken and a burden to our family when we have nothing, but she’s my sister, and I fought my parents to allow her to stay. And I’ve done my best to help her recover from the hell she’s been through.
“Hey, Trin.” I give her my best smile.
The tension in her face eases, but the wariness and the shadows remain. Her lip jerks in a tic pattern that never stops. Her clear, blue eyes are replicas of our fathers but full of twisted nightmares. They dart around the backyard, barely stopping on me before she moves on. She wraps her arms around herself so tight I fear she’ll leave bruises.
“What are you doing, Miss?” Dead, numb, almost no emotion in her tone. But at least she’s speaking.
I shrug my shoulders. “Nothing. Just went for a walk.”
She snorts, and it’s such a familiar sound it cracks my heart in two, but then her face hardens. “It's not safe out there. You can’t risk it.”
I look around and rush up to her. “Shh.” She flinches away from me so violently that she hits the wall.
We both pretend we don’t see. I bite the inside of my cheek hard enough to bleed and force myself not to demand answers to questions like, where were you? What happened to you? Who hurt you?
I’ve wondered if she has a pack, one of those bad ones. They’re out there. We hear about them in whispers. The ones that go through betas and omegas like condoms, leaving wrecks behind them.
Most of the betas here form pair bonds like old marriages before the virus changed us, like my parents. But some groups of alphas start packs and take betas into their group, or force them or bribe them. Some take betas for all the wrong reasons; to torture and abuse.
I stare at my sister, and I can’t help but wonder, and every time I do, it hurts my soul.
I approach slowly and lean into her, giving her time to back away. She allows me to embrace her for a few seconds before she sets me away from her. The screen door protests loudly as she pulls it open.
“Dad cooked mac and cheese.”
I wrinkle my nose. I hate cheese. It’s weird, I know, but I hate it.
I find the container of mac and cheese and open it. Three bites in, and I want to vomit, but I need the energy, so I force myself to keep eating and throw the container in the sink. I tiptoe past two mounds of blankets and kneel on mine.
My sisters are curled up together on the other side of the room, fast asleep. I can still hear mum weeping through their closed door. The sounds grate. I want to go in there and shake her, scream at her until she snaps out of it. Shake him. Sitting around like this isn’t helping anyone, and my sisters need them. Hell, I need them.
Trin clicks her tongue as she sits on her blanket by the wall and watches me.
