Chapter 5
Five
Paloma
A picture on the wall was moving. I’d seen these in my magazines. A television. I thought they’d all been destroyed during the apocalypse.
The big Alpha, Rio, stood beside me, but a careful distance away. Now my initial panic had subsided a little, I could almost examine my emotions without shying away from the pain. The other Alphas—the ones who belonged to OJ—had made me feel like I needed to find somewhere dark and small, and hide. It wasn’t a sensation I was used to; I’d always loved being outside with the sun on my face, unless I was hiding in my closet reading my pilfered magazines.
Thoughts of Leader Malakai made my heart race with fear. Would he know I was gone? Would he send those men back out to fetch me and take me back, or worse, to bring me home?
There was a low rumble, and I noticed the Alpha Rio had moved closer to me, a growl deep in his chest. “Calm, Omega. You’re safe.” He didn’t have Max’s softness, his response blunt and almost cold, but I believed him. I knew deep down in my chest that this Alpha would hurt anyone who came to take me back.
I nodded once, and that seemed enough for the Alpha. I lifted my finger to point at the television. “How does it work?”
Frowning, he turned to face me fully. “You don’t know how a television works?”
“I thought they were all destroyed during the Great Smiting.” Maybe this one had been saved. Or maybe my whole life had been a lie.
The look on the Alpha’s face suggested it was the latter. “The Great Smiting?”
I shook my head. I didn’t want to talk about it. Didn’t want to talk about my family, or the Homestead.
But the Alpha wasn’t ready to let it go. “It’s important, Paloma.” His tone was softer than I’d heard it so far, and I looked at him out of the corner of my eye.
“The apocalypse. I’m beginning to wonder if it was all a lie. You have vehicles and televisions, and there’s so many more people. ” My whispers felt like sandpaper as they left my throat. “We were supposed to be the last people left. The Devoted Children of Izuny.” I felt at once stupid and untethered, like I had nothing left to cling to.
There was another low rumble, and the Alpha stepped closer. “You know you’re an Omega?” he asked softly.
I wanted to scoff, but given how little I knew, was it really unrealistic that I wouldn’t know my designation? So I just nodded, not trusting that if I opened my mouth, a sob wouldn’t come out.
“And you know I’m an Alpha?”
Another nod.
“That’s good. I have to tell you that the scent of your distress is making my Alpha… agitated. I would like to console you, if I could. But it’s completely your decision. From this point on, you are the one in control.” He cleared his throat. “But Omegas, uh, from my experience and reading, enjoy the tactile nature of being held by an Alpha. It soothes them.” He swallowed hard. “If that’s something you’d like to try.”
The only Alphas I’d ever met before I was taken were the Leaders, and the idea of them giving me anything but that crawling skin feeling seemed preposterous. However, right now, Rio was closer than any other Alpha had been in a week, and my body was leaning towards him like a flower toward the sun.
Did I want to try being held? Yes. Desperately. But I couldn’t. The echoes of the barked commands that had rendered me immobile were still there, too close, and I couldn’t put myself in that position again.
“I, uh… No, thank you?” It was hard to hide the longing in my voice, but Rio, true to his word, didn’t push it.
“That’s okay, Omega. The television works using data signals. I don’t know the exact science, but I can find out for you. Out of interest, what year do you think it is?”
I turned my head to look at him. “2125, of course.”
His shocked face told me everything I needed to know. It was just one more lie I’d been told. It was too much. A tear rolled down my cheek, and I blinked furiously, trying to hold the rest back.
The edge of Rio’s hand brushed mine, like he couldn’t help himself. When I didn’t pull away, he linked our pinky fingers. We stood there in silence, staring at the television that showed people throwing around a ball, and I realized I knew nothing at all.
I was worse than helpless. I was helpless and alone.
Max had prepared a room for me, and it was three times as large as my room back at the Homestead. It was unlike any room I’d ever seen. It had its own bathroom, which Max had said was just for me, a bed that was bigger than my room back home, and then a third room off it.
This other room made something in my chest lurch with longing, in a way I didn’t understand. It was small; Max would have to duck if he wanted to go in there. It was dark, with little lights that made the room look like it was illuminated by lanterns, but had no fire. There were oversized pillows on the floor, like the whole room was one big bed. It was layered with soft blankets, and I just wanted to curl up in it and never leave.
Max looked down at me in the room, his eyes soft. “You don’t have to come out until you want to. This is your nest. Did your previous home have a nest?”
I shook my head. Birds had nests. Wasps had nests. Not Betrayers. “No,” I said softly, rubbing the weave of a throw blanket between my fingertips. It was impossibly soft.
He looked like he wanted to say more, but instead, he just shook his head. “This is your place, Paloma. No one can come into this space, or any of the others, without your permission. There’s a lock on the bedroom door; don’t be afraid to use it.” He chewed the corner of his bottom lip. “Tomorrow, we’ll take you out to get you some more clothes and anything else you need.”
A scratching noise on the floor announced the fact that Doodles was coming down the hall at breakneck speed, after Rio had taken him out to the bathroom. Not waiting for permission, the little dog launched himself into the nest with me, burrowing under the blankets, his tongue hanging out the side between toothless gums.
I loved Doodles. Was this what love at first sight was meant to feel like? I curled my body around his tiny one, burrowing beneath one of the many blankets until my eyes blinked slowly shut.
My eyes snapped open, and in the darkness, I wondered if it was all a dream. My rescue. Not being in that hole anymore. Max and Rio. Had it all been just a delusion, a hopeful fantasy?
But there was a putrid smell wafting over my face, accompanied by a soft snore, and when I looked over, Doodles was asleep on the pillow next to me, snoring like an old man, his dog breath unpleasant.
Doodles was here. I was okay. It wasn’t a dream.
I shifted quietly from beneath the blankets, desperate to go to the bathroom. I shouldn’t have worried about waking up the dog, though, because he didn’t even flutter an eyelid as I crawled from the nest. In fact, if he wasn’t snoring, I’d wonder if he was dead.
Quickly moving through my toilet routine, I eyed the big glass cube in the middle. OJ had introduced me to showers last night. She’d talked me through how to use the digital temperature settings, and even turned it on for me. Nothing in her demeanour said she pitied me, having obviously never used a shower before. At the Homestead, we’d always had bathtubs that most of us hauled water from the well for if we needed to bathe, but there didn’t seem to be a tub in here. I’d have to ask, I guess. Or I could just use the shower. It couldn’t be too different, right?
Suddenly, the idea of being clean again was an overwhelming compulsion. Stripping off my clothes, I folded them and left them on the sink. This shower had a control pad, like OJ’s, and when I pressed what I assumed were the right buttons, water fell from the large head fixed in the roof.
I grinned as I stepped into the perfectly warm water. I stood beneath the stream, washing away my worries and fears, even if it was just for a moment.
Maybe it could be even warmer. Turning to the control pad, I pressed a few more buttons, but nothing happened. Maybe she’d pressed that button too?—
Water poured from every single direction, straight at me. My face, back, legs, belly were all suddenly pummeled with jets of water. Screeching, I mashed at the digital pad, but somehow, it just made the water colder.
“Argh!” I needed to get out. I felt like I was drowning.
The door to the shower was wrenched open, and big arms were lifting me out, someone else pressing the buttons that controlled the shower, shutting it off. A large hand ran over my face, wiping away the water from my eyes, and I stared up at Rio. Max appeared beside him, a large fluffy towel in his hands, and I realized I was naked.
The Alpha was holding me naked.
We appeared to realize it at the same time, and he dropped me to my feet, Max quickly wrapping me up in the towel. Though, calling it a towel seemed almost offensive. It was so large, I could’ve wrapped it around myself twice.
Rio was staring down at me with dark brown eyes, like he was assessing me for damage. “Are you okay?”
All I wanted to do was climb back into his arms again. It made no sense, but I wanted to drag him into my nest and push him back against the pillows and lie on his chest. Once again, my body and my mind were at war.
As if sensing my turmoil, Max gently nudged me toward the bedroom. “We’ll be in the kitchen. I’ve made breakfast, if you’d like to join us?” It was a suggestion, not an order. I knew if I said no, they’d still feed me.
I nodded jerkily, and Max shoved at Rio’s shoulder until they were both out of the bedroom and I could hear the soft sounds of them padding down the hallway. Sucking in a deep breath, I moved to the bag of clothing OJ had lent me last night and pulled out some more loose pants and an oversized sweater. They ballooned around my body, and smelled a little like the other Omega, which made my skin itch.
Why did the scent of other Omegas make me feel wrong? Was it just being out in the world, surrounded by other Omegas and Alphas, that was making my senses go haywire?
I let out a silent scream. There was so much I didn’t know, decades of knowledge to learn. I hated this so much. I wanted to climb back into my nest and never come out.
That’s what Leader Malakai would have wanted. For me to give up. I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction. Because now I knew he was a liar. He hadn’t been there to protect us, protect me. He’d been the evil force keeping us down, and that knowledge caused another sensation I didn’t get to feel often.
It made me incandescent with rage.