2. Indigo
two
Indigo
The bright night with a million burning stars looks down at me, and I close my eyes in grateful prayer as my body drifts over the water.
Deep into Latin American beliefs, there’s a myth about how the first Omega came to be.
The Goddess who carried the Divine Feminine wanted to give humanity a gift, so she took a strand of her hair made of light and put it inside a woman and a man.
They became part of who she is, carrying the Divine Feminine and the first Omegas in the world.
As beautiful as the legend is, my existence has never felt blessed. Not even now, after being rescued, after being told I’m safe, can I believe it.
Sound vanishes completely when I slip under the water, and I feel at peace for the first time today. My heartbeat echoes inside my own ears, and I flail my arms up and down, resisting my body’s urge to float. It’s only when my ass scrapes the bottom of the pool that I know I am where I want to be.
Over thirty Omegas were rescued from across Texas, coming from different breeding houses.
The Alpha-Omega Alliance brought us to this abandoned motel, where we are supposed to stay until they get us registered into the system.
We need IDs. We need last names. Many of us only know how to read because of the charity of the Omegas who weren’t born in captivity, but we never went to school and never interacted with anyone but our fellow victims and our rapists.
Who would’ve thought that freedom was even more complicated than the alternative?
My lungs burn, but I don’t go up. I know I can stand a little longer. I need the quiet. This is the longest I can be without existing in a world where I’m the prey.
Two packs are responsible for our protection, stationed around the motel to guarantee our security.
The rational side of me knows this is important.
We were just rescued from an Omega trafficking ring.
The same people who bought and bred us are still out there.
We are expensive merchandise, but I still can’t trust an Alpha.
Looking at them makes me wince and cower inside myself.
Time stretches in front of me, tears sting the back of my eyes, and before I make the conscious decision of floating back to existence, something grabs me around the waist. My eyes snap open to the blurry black shape, and I scream, but only bubbles come out.
The chlorine burns, and I curse as the pressure around me grows tighter, and the shapeless blob drags me up until I break the water with a gasp. I kick before I even look around, fighting against the hold.
“Calm down! I’ve got you!”
The voice curls hatred in the pit of my stomach. I brush the water away from my eyes as he comes into view, taking a snarl out of my lips.
Hank. I only know his name because we were introduced by our rescuer, Dominic, when we settled here. He’s a protector, one of the Alphas I’m supposed to trust, yet I’ve been careful to never look in his direction.
This guy is bigger than any Alpha I’ve ever seen.
Shoulders so wide he’s three times my width.
He towers well over the acceptable height, about six foot five, and is always dressed in black jeans, a black shirt rolled up to his elbows, and a goddamn black cowboy hat alongside that stupid mustache of his.
“Get your hands off me!” I scream.
In fairness, he lets me go right away, holding his hands up high, but that’s when I slightly sink, and water covers my nose. Before I can do anything about it, I start coughing.
“Shit, are you okay?”
He moves as if he’s about to touch me again, but thinks better of it. I take control and swim to the pool’s edge, white fingers holding on to the tile as I shoot daggers at him.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”
“I saw you underwater in the pool. What was I supposed to do?”
“I’m fine,” I say instead of replying to his theoretical question.
The small steps to exit the pool are behind him, and if I try to reach them, he’ll see me and my pathetic dog paddle. I don’t want him to know I’m that bad of a swimmer. Giving him that much will make him feel like a hero, and he’s not. I was doing fine without him.
With a curse, I swallow and push myself out of the pool, arms shaking with the unexpected move.
It can’t look good as I scrape to my knees before I get to my full height and jump to the towel I left on the damaged stretcher at the poolside.
Once I’m wrapped in the thin material, I turn to Hank, ready to curse him out to high heavens.
My tongue doubles in size as he lifts himself out, much more gracefully than my attempt. Water sluices down his sculpted body, every peak and valley obvious under the wet fabric. He shakes the water off his hair, brushing the strands back before he pins me with a look.
“That was dangerous, Indigo.”
I don’t like that he knows my name. Of course they were given our names and backstory, but still, I don’t like strangers using it. And that’s what he is. Just a stranger.
“What was dangerous?”
I groan at the new voice. Hank’s packmate comes from the main entrance, not a bother in his face as he cruises the yard.
Cassidy is the opposite of Hank as far as I can tell.
He’s always making jokes with the other guys, and he’s overly nice to the girls, though none think it is suspicious.
I hate his niceness as much as I hate Hank’s grumpy demeanor.
“Nothing,” I say before anyone can answer for me.
Hank arches an eyebrow, but I avert my gaze. It was nothing. He can think whatever he wants, but I know I don't need his help.
I just need a minute.
“So Hank here went for a spontaneous night swim?” Cassidy asks.
“Yes.” I grit my teeth.
My knuckles go white from gripping the towel around my body, and I march back to the motel, but not before hearing their voices echo into the night.
“Yes, Hank is known for being spontaneous.”
“Shut up.”
I shake my head, hating that I called attention to myself.
Back in the breeding house, I knew the only way to stay alive was to be invisible.
I never mastered that skill, not when curses hung from the tip of my tongue, and my fingers itched to scrape the smug faces of my captors.
But still. It was an important lesson, and I try to keep it in mind.
As I pull open the motel’s door, I come face-to-face with a chest so hard I stumble back until hands close around my arms and keep me straight.
“Hey there, are you okay?”
And it’s Nash. Fucking another six-foot-whatever of muscle and strength paired with the most beautiful brown eyes I’ve ever seen. This goddamn pack! It’s not his fault his packmates annoy me, but I can’t hold back with a sneer at his guileless face and shake his hold off me.
“I’m fucking fine!”
He reels back as I slap him but lets me go, and I circle him and don’t stop until I’m in the room I share with Journey. I close the door and lean against it, my eyes shut and my lips trembling.
“What happened?”
A tear escapes when I open my eyes, and Journey gasps. She’s too good, and I can see the worry lines forming between her brows.
I shake my head, wiping the tears on the back of my hand. “Nothing. I’m just a raging bitch.”
Journey laughs. She always thinks my self-deprecating comments are a joke, and I never have the heart to explain that those are my honest-to-god opinions about myself.
Maybe if I didn’t have the life I had, I’d be softer. But look at Journey. She’s all softness, and she had it just as bad. She’s stronger and didn’t let them break her. I fucking envy that. There’s so much quiet power in knowing you are the same after they were done with you.
I am not the same.
I don’t even know who I am.
“I’m going to take a shower,” I tell her with a small smile and lock myself in the bathroom to cry a little more.