Chapter Four
Two days later: Thursday
Ford
Ross sent him a text first thing in the morning to say his tech would be ready by six. All Ford had to do was fill in his time between now and then.
The first thing on his list was to get that money off Lincoln. Sitting in his truck outside the west exit of campus, Ford sent a text asking Lincoln to meet him at the gates. It was already eleven in the morning and he didn’t want to spend all day hanging around campus where he might be seen.
The little shit replied right away.
I’m off campus. B there in 1 hr.
20 minutes or the price triples!
Ford cursed, then grabbed the vial he’d stashed in the console. It wouldn’t take twenty minutes, but he couldn’t twiddle his thumbs until Lincoln got his ass in gear.
He got out of the truck, walked through the entrance gates and approached Professor Milliner’s lecture hall, on the west of campus. The classroom was empty, the halls full, allowing Ford to slip through the crowd into the room and shut the door behind him.
Professor Milliner spun to face the door, a frown of concern forming. “Please tell me you’re not here for work.”
Ford dug his hands into his pocket for the vial. “I need people to think I’m a TA or advanced student. If you see me on campus, I’d appreciate you turning a blind eye.”
Professor Milliner took a step closer. “I heard you passed your night classes. Congratulations.”
“Thanks.” Ford liked that the professor cared. “I gotcha this as incentive for the favour.” He handed over the vial, not surprised Professor Milliner looked confused.
“Is this―?”
“Don’t drop it. I only got one,” he admitted, laughing at his shock. “You always done right by me. I weren’t going nowhere and I for sure wouldn’t be here, if you weren’t good to me.”
Professor Milliner carefully enclosed the vial in his grip. “How did you get this?”
“I got a friend.”
The professor shook his head. “You know what this will do for―”
“This is a personal favour and I’d appreciate if you didn’t tell anyone where you got that. One dose is a lifetime cure, I hear.” He took another step before the professor could grab him or start crying.
The professor clutched the vial close to his heart. “Anything you need. If it’s within my power, I will help you.”
Ford brushed his thumb under his nose. “What if I wanna bury a body?”
Staring at the vial, he laughed. “I’ll bring a shovel.”
“I might take you up on that, Prof.” He grabbed the door handle and left, laughing at how a tiny vial could change one man’s life.
* * * *
Leaning against the driver’s door of his car, Ford scowled at Lincoln, who sauntered over with Lucky three steps behind. He grabbed Lincoln’s arm and turned away before Lucky could look up from his phone. “Why the fuck you bringing him with you?”
Lincoln shrugged him off. “I had no choice. You said to get here within twenty minutes. I was his chaperone to a doctor’s appointment.”
“Do you have any fucking idea what the boss would do to ya if he knew you brought a cop’s son to meet me?
” Ford demanded, glad Lucky was distracted by his phone.
Thank fuck he was wearing his dealer disguise of a fake beard, moustache and green contacts, or they could be in trouble.
“Tell him to wait over there.” He pointed to a place that was a safe distance away to give them privacy, but where Lucky wouldn’t be far.
Ford grabbed the baseball cap from his car and tugged it on to cover his eyes and put his face in shadow.
Lucky appeared annoyed but stood where Lincoln told him to, then ignored him to focus on his phone. If he stayed that way, he wouldn’t see anything he shouldn’t.
Lincoln walked over and dug his hands into his baggy jeans pockets to extract two rolled-up wads of cash.
Ford took them, removing the rubber bands to fan out the notes. The Omhns were all in twenty or fifty denominations, adding up quickly to two-fifty. “You’re short a fifty.” He wondered if Lincoln was cheating him or so desperate not to get his legs broken that he brought whatever he could afford.
“I’m meeting a mate who’ll gimme the last fifty this afternoon.”
Ford stepped closer and grabbed Lincoln’s chin to tilt his head up.
“You think I wanted you back in twenty minutes to shortchange me? That I wouldn’t have waited if it meant you could pay in full?
” What gave this little shit the confidence to be this arrogant towards a drug dealer?
“Un-fucking-believable.” Ford released him, rolling the notes up.
He tossed them at Lincoln, who scrambled to catch them.
“Gimme the name of the last asshole you dealt with, because I’mma break his fucking legs for letting you pull this shit. ”
Lincoln looked terrified. “His name was Alec or…m-maybe Alette.”
Ford grabbed his phone from his back pocket, texted Sykes the name and asked him to run a check.
He had a vague recollection of an Alette being arrested recently, just before he was given this shitty job, which could explain why he was dealing with Lincoln instead of sitting with his feet up, enjoying a smoke.
“Tomorrow, be here at nine in the morning and you better have the full three or I tell my boss you can’t fucking count. You hear me?”
Lincoln nodded frantically, looking at the rolled-up money in his hands.
“You pretend I didn’t see that cash or we’re both in the shit.” He opened the car door and got in, watching through the side mirror as Lincoln stuffed the money into his trousers.
Now Lincoln could get the money, that made things more sketchy.
Ford wasn’t ready to take the cash, in case one of the real dealers came around.
He wouldn’t be responsible for Lincoln getting his legs broken unless he was the one doing it, and he wasn’t at that stage.
He still had to find the top dog, which meant digging further.
* * * *
Lucky
Lucky set aside a cup of takeaway hot chocolate and slid into the chair at the campus library desk. He instinctively swept his long plait over his shoulder, preventing it from being trapped.
Flexing his fingers, he re-read the first paragraph of his essay and shook his head. He’d rushed to get his thoughts on paper, but it was a mess. He deleted everything to start again, hoping to improve upon his quick exploration of Omha’s Tears from class.
Omha’s Tears was a natural phenomenon that struck close to one hundred and fifty years ago. This gift from Omha began as a resolution to the mass deaths of omegas from over-breeding, not only correcting that problem, but opening many more doors for the omegas of the future.
When their first heat presented at fifteen, omegas were rushed into their first pregnancy, then bred again within weeks of bearing a child. The toll it took on their bodies was immense, and omegas suffered multiple miscarriages or died during an unsuccessful childbirth.
Decades later, when scientists investigated the human story behind this devastating statistic, they uncovered omegas’ accounts and journals of the period.
Revealing not a biological response to this tragedy but a community determined to fight injustice.
Unhappy omegas―who felt more like breeding machines than cherished mates―had formed a secret support network.
It is unknown how many lives their selfless bravery saved, but the statistics of the ten-year period compared to the previous ten suggests the number could be in its thousands.
These brave betas, omegas and eventually even alpha relatives and compassionate doctors came together to form what became known as the Omega Freedom Movement.
Together, they helped omegas hide their first heat, recommended them to health resorts, hospitals and clinics run by these understanding medics, for illnesses that never existed.
The wise medics chose historical diseases that only ever struck omegas and claimed a new resurgence of the disease to explain its widespread rate of infection.
This way, they could help these omegas hide their heats and supply birth control medication to buy years of freedom and safety.
In time, nature provided a helping hand.
Maturity rates ebbed and flowed throughout the following generations, eventually settling at the current rate of twenty-one.
This drastic biological change caused a ripple effect that has lasted to this day, affecting how many alpha children are born, leading to a gross inequality between the number of alpha and omega children.
Alphas became aware of their own mortality, the harm they were causing the omegas they loved, and they fought for more stringent medical care, more laws and regulations surrounding omegas safety.
For omegas, the fight had been successful, but it was only the first victorious battle in a lifelong war.
Lucky ran a finger over the notes he’d made during class and absently toyed with the ends of his braid. He ignored the silly doodles at the margins and huffed a strand of loose hair from his eyes.
“Lucky?”
He dropped his pen, stunned to find Chase behind him. Lucky slammed his notebook shut with a feigned smile, hoping that Omha was kind enough to make sure Chase hadn’t seen his doodles.
Chase
Lucky looked adorable, staring at him with startled eyes, slamming his notebook shut like it contained his deepest, darkest secrets.
“Am I disturbing you?”
Lucky shook his head, a plaited ponytail swishing across his back, and eased out the chair beside him from the table. “Have a seat.”
Chase hadn’t intended to stop, only return an overdue book, but seeing Lucky here felt like fate. Since he’d come this far, he could spare a few minutes. “The guys and I are heading to Club Madin tonight. Do you—and your friends, of course—want to come along?”
Lucky gnawed on his bottom lip and twirled his pen between his fingers. “Sure.”