Chapter 15 Nyx
NYX
Morning came slow and gray over Meridian, the Chicago winter light that made the compound look even more like a fortress.
Fresh snow had fallen overnight, thin but stubborn, skimming the tops of railings and outlining boot prints on the walkways.
The sky sat low and heavy, pressing down on the glass and steel until everything looked harder than it was, and the wind carried that lake-bite that made you clench your teeth without realizing.
I barely slept. Every time my body drifted. My mind kept replaying angles and pressure, the way Jabari’s forearm had felt.
Last night on the watch platform, the open air had let me breathe for the first time since him.
It fixed nothing, and it did not uncoil what lived in my neck now, but it proved something I needed to stay upright.
I could still choose where my body existed, and that choice mattered more than comfort ever had.
I refused to start the day in a room that smelled. The nest was blankets and low lighting and doors that closed too quietly behind you. After Jabari, quiet doors made my stomach twist, and warm rooms made my skin crawl, because warmth had become another kind of trap.
By the time the halls stirred, I had already decided.
The decision to go after Meridian Health had been made the moment I said my sister’s name out loud and Elijah did not look away.
We were moving today, and I refused to give the nest the first bite of me before we walked into a place that swallowed girls like Tatum.
I would meet the morning on my feet, in clothes I chose, in a place that did not belong to them.
Elijah met me near the service stairwell instead of outside my door. That mattered. It was not an apology and it was not forgiveness, but it was evidence that he had listened to something other than his own guilt.
He stood with his hands visible at his sides, coat buttoned, posture restrained. His face was clean-shaven and too composed for how hollow his eyes had been the first days after the bond.
The bond hummed anyway, insistent beneath my skin.
It was not comfort. It was need dressed up as biology, and it made my stomach turn because my body reacted.
I hated that part of myself most, the part that learned too fast. It was the most humiliating part of all this.
My body learned and adapted, and it did it without asking me.
“I can have a car ready in twenty,” he said, voice even, the edges clipped clean. “Which Meridian Health site do you want to start with?”
Start at the top,” I replied. My voice stayed steady, not soft, because softness got misread. “And work our way down.”
His gaze flicked over me, controlled and sharp, cataloging whether I was stable enough to move.
I was upright, dressed, hair pulled back the way I always did when I needed my body to stop being a negotiation.
I wore boots that meant traction and a coat that meant distance, and I kept my hands empty so no one could claim I was reaching for anything.
“My body needs space,” I said, and I kept my tone flat so it could not be turned into drama. “We can start from somewhere that feels like mine.”
Elijah did not argue. He nodded once.
“Where?” he asked.
“Somewhere with sky,” I said. “Somewhere with no ceiling and no corners.”
Meridian still had eyes, and the lower levels had too many patrol routes for the conversation I needed to have. I had found one place the pack had forgotten, a place that wasn’t watched because it was deemed unnecessary, and unnecessary always translated into opportunity.
I led him through a maintenance corridor that smelled, then up a narrow stairwell where concrete gave way to metal grating beneath our feet. Cool air rushed down to meet us, carrying the clean scent of soil and leaves instead of oil and stone.
Elijah moved behind me, careful not to crowd. I heard the faint count under his breath; the numbers spaced out.
Twenty-seven. Twenty-nine. Thirty-one.
It mattered that he was choosing discipline in front of me.
It mattered that I was choosing space, because if we were about to walk into Meridian Health and confirm how omegas were being taken, I needed my mind clear and my body uncornered.
I needed him clear too, because a man who lost control in the wrong building could turn my investigation into a hostage situation.
The access door at the top was unmarked and half hidden behind a maintenance panel that listed the wing as nonessential. I pushed through first and stepped out into open air.
The rooftop garden sat above an abandoned section of the compound, sealed off after Meridian expanded inward instead of upward and decided the sky was a luxury.
Planter beds overflowed with herbs that had grown wild and unchecked, thick leaves catching weak light and casting uneven shadows across stone.
A small fig tree leaned against the railing, branches heavy and untrimmed, and vines crawled up trellises that had once been installed for show, then forgotten when nobody with power needed beauty to breathe.
The sky stretched overhead, open and endless. There was no ceiling to trap breath and no walls to close in around my body. There was nowhere for anyone to pin me here, and that fact settled into my bones with a quiet relief that felt almost humiliating to need.
I stepped fully into the garden and drew in a slow, steady breath. The tension in my shoulders eased by a fraction, not because I felt safe, but because I felt less contained and less watched. Safety was a word people used when they wanted you to stop asking questions.
Elijah followed more cautiously, recalibrating to the openness after so long indoors. I saw his shoulders ease too.
This place wasn’t hidden because it was dangerous.
It was hidden because it was unnecessary, and unnecessary meant nobody important bothered to claim it.
Nobody watched it and nobody claimed it, which made it mine the way small overlooked things became mine in foster homes, in schools, in office buildings.
I lowered myself onto a weathered trunk near the planter beds and crossed my ankles, weight centered, back straight so I could move fast if I needed to. I kept my coat open even though the wind cut cold across my chest.
Elijah hesitated. Then he lowered himself into a metal chair nearby without scraping it, controlled down to the sound. He sat with his knees angled toward the exit instead of toward me, which was a choice I noticed, and a choice I filed.
He stayed quiet. His silence wasn’t empty. It was deliberate.
The wind moved through leaves overhead and brushed cold air across my cheeks. Somewhere below us, the city breathed and moved on, unaware of how small a person could become inside systems built to swallow them whole.
My throat tightened, not from cold, but from memory. I pressed my palm against the trunk to ground myself, fingers spread wide as I focused on the rough wood beneath my skin. Texture was real. Texture did not lie.
Jabari’s forearm locked under my jaw in my mind, professional and precise. The humiliating part wasn’t that he had taken me down. The humiliating part was how practiced he’d been.
“I’m not okay,” I said.
The words came out rough, but my voice didn’t crack. I refused to give them that satisfaction, and I refused to give my body permission to collapse because collapse was expensive and I needed my energy for what mattered.
My throat didn’t just feel the pressure. It brought up a time where I wasn’t alone in all of this. I remembered a life where I learned to swallow everything that could get me noticed, but at least I had Tatum by my side.
Before Meridian, before the clinic rumors, before Tatum vanished, it had been me and her moving through New York.
We worked too much and slept too little, and we kept our heads down because being an omega out loud meant you were an invitation.
You could mind your business in a bodega and still end up somebody’s story.
That night in my head started the way a lot of nights did.
A late shift. Our feet hurting. Tatum walking beside me with her hood up even though she hated it, curls tucked away.
She had a plastic bag swinging from her wrist with two hot plates and a little container of mac salad.
The smell hit my stomach and made it growl.
“You better not touch mine,” she said, already laughing. She looked up at me and narrowed her eyes. “I saw you staring.”
“I was not staring,” I said. “I’m hungry.”
“Mm-hm. So is everybody,” she replied, and bumped her shoulder into mine. “That’s why you better keep your hands to yourself, sis.”
We hit the subway stairs, and the station air changed.
Cold. Metallic. Too clean. A screen over the turnstiles played one of those Council announcements with a calm voice and soft music, telling omegas to register for protection and care.
The ad showed a smiling omega in a bright apartment, wrapped in a blanket.
Tatum made a face. “They love saying that word,” she muttered. “Care.” She leaned closer to me without turning her head, like we were sharing gossip. “They say it like you supposed to clap.”
“Stop,” I warned, low. I didn’t want attention. I didn’t want a stranger deciding we were funny.
“I’m just saying,” she whispered back, and her smile flashed quick. “If ‘care’ come with a tracking number, I don’t want it.”
We moved with the crowd toward the platform, and that was when I felt it. Not a hand on me. Not yet. Just eyes. The kind that slid too slow.
Tatum’s fingers hooked my sleeve, light but insistent. “Nyx,” she said, and there was no play in it now. “Don’t look. Just keep walking.”
I didn’t turn my head. I didn’t give anybody the satisfaction. I only shifted so my body blocked hers, shoulder angling between her and whatever was watching. She stayed close at my side, steps matching mine, and I hated how practiced we were at that.