Chapter 3
Dalvin
I woke to the sound of someone singing in the shower.
Not well. The voice cracked on the high notes and warbled through the low ones, cheerfully murdering a pop song I half-recognized from a decade ago.
But there was joy in it, unself-conscious and bright, and I lay in my narrow bed listening to that joy with the bewildered fascination of someone encountering a foreign language.
My roommate. Theo Vasquez, according to the name on his luggage.
He'd arrived late the night before, all rapid-fire Spanish and effusive apologies for waking me, and had proceeded to fill every corner of our shared space with his presence.
Clothes draped over chairs. Toiletries scattered across the bathroom counter.
A stuffed elephant tucked against his pillow that he'd caught me looking at and explained, without a trace of embarrassment, was named Ernesto and had been his companion since childhood.
I hadn't known what to do with any of it. With him.
The shower cut off. A few minutes later, Theo emerged in a cloud of steam, towel wrapped around his waist, dark curls dripping onto his brown shoulders.
He was compact and muscular, built with curves in all the places society told omegas they should have them, and he moved through the room with the easy confidence of someone who had never been taught to shrink.
"Morning, roomie." He flashed me a grin, bright white against warm brown skin. "Big day. You ready?"
I sat up and pushed the hair out of my face. "Ready as I'll ever be."
"That's the spirit. Grim resignation. Very sexy." He rummaged through his suitcase and pulled out a pair of boxer briefs covered in cartoon avocados. "I'm going for cautious optimism myself. Figure one of us should balance out the energy in here."
"You're very cheerful for someone about to be hunted."
"Beats my last job. Night shifts at a warehouse in Tucson.
You ever tried to operate a forklift at three in the morning?
That's the real survival challenge." He stepped into the underwear and dropped the towel with zero modesty.
"The Chase is just running around in the woods for a few days.
And at the end, maybe I get a rich husband who thinks I'm pretty. Worse ways to spend a weekend."
I watched him dress with the detached curiosity of an artist studying an unfamiliar subject. Theo was everything I wasn't. Loud where I was quiet. Open where I was guarded. He took up space without apology, filled silences with chatter, smiled at strangers and expected them to smile back.
The past two days had been a masterclass in relentless friendliness.
Theo had dragged me to meals when I would have skipped them, narrated his entire life story while I nodded along, and somehow extracted more words from me in forty-eight hours than I'd spoken to anyone except Rosa in the past year.
He knew I was running from someone. He never asked who.
Instead, he filled the silence with stories about his three sisters in Phoenix, his grandmother's legendary tamales, the ex-boyfriend who'd cheated on him with a beta barista and was now, according to Theo's youngest sister's Instagram stalking, balding and miserable.
He gave me pieces of his life without demanding pieces of mine in return.
Two days ago, that would have annoyed me. Now, after forty-eight hours of his warmth, I found myself almost grateful for the noise. It drowned out the constant hum of anxiety in my own head.
"What about you?" Theo pulled a tank top over his head and turned to face me. His eyes were dark and sharp, more perceptive than his sunny demeanor suggested. "What's your story? You've got that whole tragic backstory vibe going on."
"I don't have a vibe."
"Roomie. You hacked off half your hair with what I'm guessing were dollar store scissors, you flinch every time someone knocks on the door, and you sleep with your back to the wall.
" He sat on the edge of his bed and tilted his head.
"I'm not asking for details. Just saying.
Whatever you're running from, I hope you find what you're looking for here. "
My throat tightened. I looked away.
"Come on." Theo stood and held out his hand. "Breakfast first. Then we face the wolves."
The morning was a blur of processing stations and clinical efficiency.
Grooming first. A team of betas descended on the omega dormitory with styling tools and cosmetics, transforming nervous faces into camera-ready masks.
They evened out my uneven ends and shaped my shoulder-length hair into something deliberate, applied products that made the brown strands gleam under the fluorescent lights.
Fingers worked through my hair with brisk efficiency, braiding sections back from my face.
The scent of styling products filled my nose, chemical-sweet and cloying.
I sat still and let them work. Being handled by strangers was nothing new.
Then medical. A final check of vitals, a confirmation of heat status. The doctor noted that my cycle was accelerating ahead of schedule and asked if I wanted suppressants to delay it.
I said no. The sooner the heat hit, the sooner this would be over.
The tracker implant came last. A beta technician swabbed my forearm with antiseptic, positioned a device that looked disturbingly like a piercing gun, and pulled the trigger. A sharp sting, a moment of pressure, and then a small red light blinked to life beneath my skin.
"GPS-enabled," the technician said, already moving to the next omega in line. "Accurate to within three meters. The light will pulse faster when an alpha is within fifty feet of your position."
I stared at the blinking dot. They could find me anywhere now. That was the point. That was the whole point of being here.
I pressed my thumb against the implant until the sting became pain, until the pain became real, until I could breathe again.
Finally, they gave us the ceremonial garments. White linen pants, loose and flowing. Fitted white shirts that buttoned at the throat. No shoes. We would run barefoot through the preserve, vulnerable and exposed, while alphas pursued us in boots and tactical gear.
The symbolism was not subtle.
Theo appeared at my elbow, dressed in identical white, his dark curls tamed into a semblance of order. "We look like sacrifices," he said cheerfully. "Very virgin-thrown-into-volcano energy."
"That's not reassuring."
"It wasn't meant to be." He bumped his shoulder against mine. "Stick close during the ceremony, yeah? Safety in numbers."
I nodded. It wasn't safety I was looking for. But the offer of solidarity was more than I'd had in a long time.
The great hall swallowed us whole.
One hundred omegas filed through the massive oak doors and arranged themselves in rows along the eastern wall.
The space soared overhead, all vaulted ceilings and stained glass and dark wood beams carved with hunting scenes from centuries past. Morning light streamed through the windows in shafts of gold and amber, painting the stone floor in geometric patterns that shifted as clouds passed outside.
The air smelled of beeswax candles and old wood and the sharp tang of collective fear rising from a hundred nervous bodies.
I catalogued the colors without meaning to. Habit.
On the opposite side of the hall, a second set of doors stood closed. Behind them, fifty alphas waited.
And between us, cameras. Dozens of them. Mounted on tripods, held by operators in black vests, hovering on drones that buzzed near the ceiling. The Chase was broadcast live to premium subscribers, I'd learned. A hundred thousand viewers paying to watch omegas tremble and alphas salivate.
I kept my head down. Focused on the cold stone beneath my bare feet, the white linen against my skin, the steady rhythm of my own breathing.
I didn't want to see which alphas reacted to me.
Didn't want to watch them scent the air and calculate my value.
I just wanted to survive the next few hours and come out belonging to someone who wasn't Vernon.
The western doors swung open.
The alphas entered in a wave of expensive cologne and barely leashed aggression.
The sound of their boots echoed off the stone, a rhythmic thunder that vibrated through my bare soles.
They wore black to our white, tactical pants and fitted shirts that displayed muscle and wealth in equal measure.
Some swaggered. Some stalked. All of them scanned the omega ranks with the assessing gaze of predators selecting prey.
The scenting began.
It was structured chaos. Alphas moved among the omega rows, pausing to inhale, to assess, to mark their targets. The air thickened with mingled pheromones, a dizzying cocktail of desire and fear and calculation. I could taste it on my tongue, could feel it pressing against my skin.
Some omegas preened under the attention, tilting their necks to offer better access to their scent glands. Others shrank back, eyes downcast, shoulders curved inward. The cameras tracked it all, zooming in on reactions, capturing the moment connection sparked or fizzled between strangers.
I stood frozen. Head down, hands clasped in front of me, every muscle locked against the urge to run. My bare feet pressed into the cold stone floor. My breath came shallow and controlled. I made myself invisible the way Vernon had taught me, the way I'd learned to survive.
A blond alpha paused near me, sniffed once, and moved on.
His scent was all musk and aggression, nothing that called to me, nothing my body recognized.
Then another approached, dark-haired and heavy-browed, who lingered long enough to make my skin crawl.
His eyes traveled down my body with possessive assessment before his attention caught on Theo instead.