Chapter 3
THREE
Zia
Cal led me through the venue's maze of corridors, past road cases stacked like Tetris blocks and coiled cables that looked like sleeping snakes in the emergency lighting.
The walls were plastered with layers of old show posters, bands I'd heard of, bands that had dissolved into myth, bands that had probably played this same broken stage.
The tea he'd handed me was perfect. Earl Grey, two sugars, exactly how I took it when nobody was watching. The ceramic mug was warm against my palms, the bergamot steam curling up to mix with the venue's baseline smell of stale beer and electrical dust.
How did he know that? I hadn't asked for tea. Hadn't mentioned how I took it.
"The main stage setup's through here," he said, voice mild as milk, like we were about to view a slightly disappointing art installation rather than what I suspected was a complete technical catastrophe. "Fair warning, they've properly murdered it."
He wasn't wrong.
The stage looked like a bomb had gone off in a music store.
Cables everywhere, some still sparking where they'd been yanked wrong, probably by whoever had panicked during the power surge.
The drum riser tilted at an angle that defied physics, one corner propped up with what looked like a folded pizza box.
Monitor wedges faced random directions like they'd been arranged by someone blindfolded and dizzy, or possibly just deeply committed to chaos.
I could see at least three separate signal paths that had been crossed, tangled, and possibly blessed by some roadie who thought prayer was an acceptable substitute for proper gain staging.
"Jesus." I set down my tea carefully on the one stable surface I could find, a road case labeled 'FRAGILE' in three languages, and started cataloging the damage. My fingers itched for my tablet, for the familiar comfort of documentation. "Did they try to fix this with a hammer?"
"Wouldn't put it past them." Cal's mouth twitched, almost-smile territory. "Alfie once tried to fix feedback by yelling at it."
Despite everything, despite the weird contract negotiation, despite the three Alphas who'd practically fled when I approached, despite the strange careful distance everyone was maintaining, I almost laughed. "Did it work?"
"Depends on your definition of work." Cal crouched down to examine a particularly vicious cable knot, not touching it, just looking. "The feedback stopped. The monitors didn't survive."
I pulled out my tablet and started documenting signal paths, building a mental map of what needed to be torn down and rebuilt from scratch. The three Alphas were nowhere to be seen, probably still having their "productive panic" elsewhere, whatever that meant.
Good. Their absence made it easier to breathe, to think, to ignore the way they'd all stepped back when I'd moved toward the console earlier. Like I was contaminated. Like my Omega scent was something to avoid, something dangerous, something that required a ten-foot radius of empty space.
The memory stung more than it should have. I'd built my whole career on being invisible, untouchable, just a voice through the wire.
Anonymous.
Safe.
But the way they'd fled when I got close, the way their bodies had gone rigid before they'd scattered...
It wasn't fear of me.
It was fear for me.
Somehow that felt worse.
Four in. Six out.
"Right then." I cracked my knuckles and got to work, the familiar ritual of preparation before diving into technical surgery. "Let's teach this rig how to behave."
Three hours later, I'd rebuilt their entire signal chain from scratch.
The monitors sang clean, no more mud in the low-mids, no harsh sibilance eating the high end.
The in-ears purred with that sweet balanced response that meant artists could actually hear themselves instead of just drowning in reverb and hope.
The main PA could probably wake the dead if needed, every frequency range sitting in its proper pocket.
My fox-tail watermark sat hidden in the mix architecture, a little spectrogram signature nobody would see unless they knew where to look, a tiny rebellion against invisibility.
Proof I'd been here. Proof I'd fixed this.
"That's brilliant." Cal had been watching from a respectful distance the entire time, close enough to help if asked, far enough to give me space to work.
He'd refilled my tea twice without being asked, the fresh mug just appearing at my elbow.
"You've made it sound like it actually wants to be here. "
"Equipment has feelings." I adjusted the last compressor threshold, watching the gain reduction meter dance in response to my test signal. "Most people just don't listen."
The door opened with a creak of old hinges.
All three Alphas appeared in the doorway but didn't cross the threshold.
They hung back like there was an invisible wall, a force field keeping them out, an uncrossable boundary line.
Alfie's hands twitched at his sides, fingers drumming against his thighs in what looked like barely restrained energy.
Euan had gone statue-still, that unsettling Alpha focus that could read as predatory if you didn't know better.
Kit gripped the doorframe hard enough that his knuckles went white, rings catching the stage lights.
"All fixed," I said, not looking at them directly, keeping my eyes on the console because that was safer somehow. "Your rig will behave now."
"Brilliant." Alfie's voice came out rough, scraped raw. "That's... yeah. Brilliant."
They kept standing there. Not moving closer. Not even leaning in to check my work, to verify that I'd actually fixed the problems and not just rearranged the disaster into a prettier shape. The message was clear, We hired your skills, not you. Keep your distance. Don't make this complicated.
Fine. I could do distance. I'd been doing distance my whole career.
Distance was safe. Distance was professional. Distance meant no wellness provisions, no caretaker clauses, no Alpha hands deciding what I needed before I'd even asked.
Rowan appeared with her tablet and a smile sharp enough to cut glass, the kind of expression that probably made label executives reconsider their life choices. "Contracts ready. Shall we?"
She led me to a green room that had been cleared of everything except a table, two chairs, and absolutely zero Alpha presence.
The space felt clinical, careful, like they'd sanitized it before I arrived, not just physically, but energetically.
No lingering Alpha scent, no testosterone-charged air, no assumption that I'd want their presence.
Even the furniture looked neutral, utilitarian, the finest commitment to absolute blandness.
"Standard engagement agreement." She slid the tablet across the table, the gesture businesslike and precise. "Take your time."
I read. Then read again. Then sat back and stared at her, trying to find the trap, the hidden clause, the place where the contract transformed from protection into prison.
"This can't be right."
"Which bit?" Rowan's pencil spun between her fingers, a fidget that suggested she already knew which bits would throw me.
"All of it." I scrolled through clauses that shouldn't exist, provisions that read like someone had actually asked an Omega what they needed instead of just assuming.
"Separate transit. Separate green room. Scent-neutral workspace.
No wellness provisions. No caretaker access language.
And this—" I pointed at a section that made my chest tight, made breathing feel complicated "—'Do-Nothing Protocol acknowledged as default response to Omega spikes. ' What the hell is that?"
"Exactly what it sounds like." Rowan's pencil spun faster, a blur of yellow wood and pink eraser. "If you spike, we do nothing unless you specifically request intervention. No Alpha swooping in to fix you. No assumption that you need handling."
"No Alpha hands me this unless there's a catch." I kept scrolling, looking for the poison pill, the clause that would unravel everything. "What do you want?"
She tilted her head, studying me like I was a particularly interesting contract clause she was considering adding to her collection. "First clause kills, second clause cures. You get both."
"I don't understand."
"You don't have to." Her smile was sharp and oddly kind at the same time. "Just know that we don't buy bodies. We buy mixes."
The door cracked. Gareth Blake's oily voice slithered through before he appeared, bergamot cologne announcing him like a warning siren. "Ah, excellent. We can add the wellness provision now, standard Omega support language, nothing invasive—"
"No." Rowan's finger hovered over her tablet screen, deadly calm.
"Actually, let me be clearer." She pulled up what looked like a conference call, Gareth's face appearing on screen along with several others I didn't recognize.
Label executives, probably. Suits who'd never touched a mixing console in their lives but somehow thought they could dictate how artists worked.
"Gareth is suggesting we add wellness provisions to our Omega engineer's contract. "
"Industry standard," Gareth said, still smiling that slick smile that made my skin crawl. "For her protection—"
Rowan deleted an entire section of text while everyone watched. The action was deliberate, surgical, brutal. A execution performed in real-time. "We don't do that."
From somewhere in the hallway, Alfie's voice rang out, bright and amused and absolutely delighted: "Copy that!"
Gareth's smile went rigid, bergamot scent souring in a way I could almost smell through the screen. "The label has concerns about liability—"
"The label can stuff their concerns." Rowan's accent could've etched glass, gone from professional to weaponized in half a syllable. "We have an engineer. She has a contract. No biological provisions. No backdoor access. Clean technical engagement."