Chapter 1 #2
Ellie studies me after I say it. I’ve always been a terrible liar. I’m not sure if she believes me but she nods anyway, lets me change the subject to her article about the German trials.
I stay until visiting hours end at eleven, then walk home under street lights and drizzle. Mrs Kay’s light is still on when I get back, and I almost knock on her door.
Almost tell her everything. But Mrs Kay has done enough for me already. I can’t ask her to fix this too and she couldn’t if she tried. Still, it’d be nice to have someone to talk it over with. Maybe in the morning, if she’s awake.
Instead, I climb the stairs to my room, pull out my phone, and stare at the Bureau’s website. The registration portal is easy to find.
OMEGA MATCH BUREAU REGISTRATION: connecting compatible pairs for optimal family outcomes.
The language makes my skin crawl. Optimal family outcomes. It makes it sound as if omegas are products to be optimized. I shudder.
But it’s not like I’m looking for love anyway. All I need is an alpha who’ll not object to me looking after Ellie. I know enough about the matches to know that I can refuse them if they’re not suitable. They’ll encourage me to accept but there’s nothing the Bureau can do if I point blank refuse.
I can wait until I find an alpha who’ll accept my terms. Besides, if I’m even luckier, I won’t get any matches and registration will be enough to satisfy the trial committee that I’m ‘stable’.
I grab the cold stew and eat as I fill in the form. It’s longer than I expected. There are pages of questions about my background, preferences, lifestyle. I answer honestly where I can, lie where I have to.
No, I don’t want children right now. No, I’m not willing to relocate. Yes, I have any dealbreaker preferences for my match. I put ‘need to continue as carer for sister’ in the box under ‘Other’.
The truth—that any alpha who wants me will have to accept that Ellie comes first, always—isn’t an option on their form.
There’s a section about my work history. I stare at it for a long moment before typing: Former pharmaceutical researcher, currently employed as barista.
Such a short sentence for such a hard history.
It doesn’t cover my research that that was stolen.
Doesn’t mention Alistair, my ex-fiancé, the alpha who promised to love me and stole from me instead.
It doesn’t mention the legal battle I lost because I couldn’t afford lawyers.
It doesn’t mention that my work is now making someone else rich while I pour coffee for minimum wage.
What’s the point? It’s not like the Bureau cares about any of that and it’s not like any alpha would either. All an alpha wants is something to have sex with and give him babies. They’re all a bunch of creeps.
The final section is an in-person appointment to get my bloodwork done.
I look through all the available appointments at medical centers across the city.
There’s one available at the hospital for ten tomorrow morning and I book it.
I don’t think my boss at the coffee shop will mind me ducking out for ten minutes. I’m a good worker.
A confirmation page pops up, asking me to confirm and submit.
I hit submit before I can second-guess myself. The confirmation page loads immediately.
Thank you for registering with the Omega Match Bureau. Your profile is being processed.
You will be notified of any matches within 48-72 hours of your bloodwork being processed. Please note that prime matches (compatibility 95% or higher) require mandatory attendance at initial meeting and good-faith effort to establish relationship.
Mandatory. Yuck. It’s the twenty-first century and somehow the world is still allowing forced marriages. Well, practically forced. Prime matches are the only ones that they really bully you into, but fortunately they’re rare. I’d be really unlikely to get one.
I close the laptop and lie back on my bed, staring at the ceiling. The apartment above me—Mrs Kay’s niece and her two kids—has someone watching TV too loud. I can hear canned laughter through the thin walls.
I might not even get a match, I tell myself.
Lots of omegas register and wait months or years before the Bureau finds someone compatible.
And if I do get matched, I can suck it up for however long it takes.
A year, maybe two. Just long enough to get Ellie enrolled in the trial, see her through treatment and know she’s going to be okay.
Then I can walk away. File for dissolution, pay whatever penalties they require, go back to my tiny room and my minimum wage job and my life that at least belongs to me.
It’d be worth it.
Now that’s done and I’m officially registered, I can get started on the paperwork to appeal the committee’s decision on the basis that I am now a registered omega. I don’t wait. The sooner I can get Ellie on the trial, the sooner she’ll get better and we can move on with our lives.
By 2 AM, I’ve written up the appeal and emailed it. I’m in bed and sleeping by 2.15 AM and at 4 AM, I’m up again to get ready for my shift so that we can get the coffee shop open for five.
I ghost walk through the morning. Open coffee shop, smile at customers, pour coffee, go up one floor to let the Bureau assholes take my blood so they can try match me off to some dickhead alpha, back to work, more coffee, more customers, visit Ellie at lunch.
Then coffee, customers, Ellie again and finally home.
By the time I get back to my room, I’m so tired that I can hardly see straight. I don’t get changed. I don’t eat. I just collapse straight onto my bed and pass out.
I wake in a panic when my phone buzzes. It’s completely dark and I’m fully dressed.
I’d been sleeping so deeply that for a moment, I am completely confused as to where I am.
Even so, muscle memory has me grabbing the phone and staring at the screen before I’m even fully conscious.
I’ve had years of emergency texts from the hospital. Fear is ingrained.
It’s not the hospital and it’s not Ellie.
The top of the text reads: CONGRATULATIONS! YOU HAVE BEEN MATCHED.
I blink at the bright screen, waiting for my brain to catch up. The first thing I think is: they said 48-72 hours. It’s not been 48 hours.
My hands shake as I swipe to open and read it in full.
No.
MATCH COMPATIBILITY: 98.8%, Prime Match
ALPHA: Erik Nilsson
No. Oh no. Anyone but him.
Erik Nilsson: the alpha whose company bought my stolen research. The asshole who built an empire on work that should have had my name on it.
I’m going to be sick.
I read the rest of the notification through blurred vision.
Initial meeting scheduled: Wednesday, 2:00 PM, Bureau Downtown Office. Attendance is mandatory for prime matches. Failure to attend may result in penalties including fines and loss of omega benefits.
Wednesday. That’s tomorrow. I’m supposed to be at work at two. I’m going to have to take time off work and I need my work. I need the hours. I need the damn pay check.
Somehow, that’s what infuriates me the most. Not only am I going to have to turn up at the damned Bureau to talk to Erik fucking Nilsson but I’m going to lose money by doing it.
I need to pull myself together. I need to figure out what the hell I’m going to do and how I’m going to get out of this.
I sit up, swinging my legs over the side of the bed. I need coffee. Or coffees. Preferably some kind of espresso that I can mainline straight into my veins because right now my brain is broadcasting static.
All I can think is that this is all my own fault. I was dumb enough to think to myself that I’d marry the devil himself to save Ellie.
I guess Fate loves a good joke because she just delivered me to him.