Chapter 2
The worn leather surface of my quieting-down kit warms in my palm, both temptation and anchor. I don’t open it yet, though my fingers trace the edges with reverence.
My thumb finds the scar on my inner wrist, a pale line hidden among a dozen others. I follow its path, ridge by ridge, a ritual as familiar as breathing.
This one was the first, from a time before I learned better ways to hide what I was doing. Now I’m smarter. Thighs, ribs, places no one but me ever sees.
Twenty, nineteen, eighteen…
I count backward, trying to ground myself in the present, but the numbers slide away like water through my fingers.
Seventeen, sixteen…
The leather kit grows heavier with each passing second, a promise of the calm that follows release.
Fifteen, fourteen, thirteen…
The zipper of the kit catches the light as my fingers toy with the pull. Inside waits the only thing that stops the world from spinning out of control. A controlled hurt to drown out the one I can’t forget.
Twelve, eleven…
My phone buzzes in my pocket, slicing through the countdown. I ignore it, but it buzzes again with stubborn insistence. And again. And again.
With clumsy fingers, I fish it out. Micah’s name lights up the screen, followed by a string of messages.
Micah
Where did you go?
Are you okay?
Saint?
Talk to me
His concern reaches through the screen, a tether to the world outside this stall, outside my head. I stare at the letters until they blur, unable to form a response that won’t worry him more.
What could I say? Sorry, being touched by a stranger made me remember the guard who raped me in juvie?
Some truths stay buried, even from Micah.
The kit calls to me with a siren’s song. One quick cut and the pressure would ease. The noise in my head would quiet. I could face Micah again with a mask of calm and pretend the instructor’s demonstration didn’t shatter something inside me all over again.
The zipper opening sounds loud in the quiet of the bathroom, and I thumb open the case.
A metal blade gleams inside, promising relief in its razor edge. My fingertip hovers above it, not quite touching, but pulled there like gravity. The trembling in my hands would make the cut sloppy, but clean edges don’t matter when no one else will see the marks.
A shadow falls across the top of the stall, and I freeze.
“You want to go kill someone with me instead?”
Jade’s question cuts through the fog in my mind, casual as if he’s offering coffee. His silhouette peers down at me from over the stall door, arms hooked over the top. He surveys the open leather case in my lap without surprise or judgment.
My grip tightens around the blade. “What the fuck, Jade? What if I was taking a crap?”
“Would prefer that, if we’re being honest.” He shifts, the metal door creaking under his arms. “Seriously, though, I have a lead on a guy who deserves to be sliced open more than your body does.”
The locker room door creaks open before I can respond, and Jade drops from sight so fast I wonder if I imagined him.
“Saint? You in here?” Micah’s worry bounces off the tile walls.
I snap the case closed and shove it deep into my gym bag.
“Yeah,” I call back, willing steadiness into my voice. “Be right out.”
“Are you okay?” His footsteps approach my stall. “The instructor was way out of line. Jade almost decked him after you left.”
I flush the toilet for cover, buying seconds to compose my face.
“Old instincts.” I unlatch the stall door and step out. “Guy shouldn’t have grabbed me.”
Micah stands in his workout clothes, hair damp with sweat at the temples, concern etched across his features. “Total dick move.” He studies my face. “You sure you’re all right? You went white as a sheet.”
“I’m fine.” The lie falls from my lips with practiced ease.
I move past him to the sink, turning on cold water to wash my hands and splash my face while avoiding my reflection.
Jade leans against a locker, arms crossed over his chest, watching our exchange with his lips pressed into a thin line. He doesn’t like what he caught me almost doing in the stall, but he’s keeping his mouth shut, for now.
Good, Micah doesn’t need more reasons to worry about me.
“I’m going to change real quick.” Micah pulls his gym bag from a bench. “Coffee after this? I need to drown this whole experience in sugar. I won’t be coming back here.”
“Sure.” I dry my hands on a paper towel, the need to cut still thrumming under my skin, but Micah’s presence pushes it back to a dull roar.
As he disappears into a changing stall, Jade slides closer. “You good?”
“Been better.” I shrug on my leather jacket.
“Been worse, too.” He tips his chin toward the stall where I’d been sitting. “Not judging. We all have our ways to cope.”
My throat tightens at the casual acceptance. Jade and I are two sides of the same coin when it comes to our traumas, and we’re both determined to make sure Micah never joins our fucked-up club.
Micah’s voice drifts from his stall. “So, this place was a bust. I can’t believe it had such high reviews with this quality of instructors.”
Jade’s mouth quirks up at the corner. “Do I hear a plot to take down this establishment brewing?”
Their easy banter fills the locker room as Micah changes. I sit on the bench, focusing on my breathing, counting down from ten over and over.
“Can’t say I’m not tempted,” Micah continues, “this can’t be the first incident of inappropriate behavior. Bet I could dig up enough to, at minimum, have the guy fired.”
“There’s the righteous hacker we all love,” Jade coos.
“I’ve been thinking of doing some kind of charity work next month for the Omega Outreach Program,” Micah says, his face softening. “After what happened with my stalker, Trevor, I want to help other Omegas who’ve been through worse.”
The word ‘worse’ hangs in the air, and I catch Jade’s eye. His expression doesn’t change, but something in his posture shifts.
From snippets I’ve caught while visiting Micah at his mate’s fancy Rockford Manor, Jade went through worse shit than my best friend. He was held captive by an Omega trafficking ring for a while before they located and saved him.
“It’s so awful what’s been happening around here,” Micah continues as Jade’s face goes blank. “But we’re safe now, right?”
The silence that follows makes my skin crawl.
Jade stares at a point on the wall, seeing a different place, a different time. “Yeah. Safe as houses.”
Micah emerges from the stall in fresh clothes, oblivious to the way his question triggered us, and the contrast hits me hard in the gut.
Micah had a brush with a predator but saved himself before anything happened. I couldn’t save myself. Neither could Jade. And Micah, sweet Micah who thinks the world can be fixed with vigilante hacking and charity work, has no idea what that means.
“I need to bail,” I announce, grabbing my gym bag. “Rain check on coffee?”
Concern flashes across Micah’s face. “Sure, but—”
“Later,” I cut him off, needing space before the walls close in. “I’ll text you.”
I push through the locker room door without waiting for a response, stride through the gym where the class continues without us, and burst into the morning heat.
The sunlight blinds me, and I blink to clear my vision, heart racing. My motorcycle waits in the parking lot, a ready escape from my demons. But the leather case in my bag calls to me.
If I go home now, I’ll end up using it.
I need a different kind of refuge. Somewhere darker than my apartment but lighter than my head.
The Blue Note will be empty this early, but the door is always unlocked. Ghost will be there, cleaning glasses and keeping score of favors owed. He won’t ask questions or expect answers.
I secure my gym bag, swing my leg over the motorcycle, kick it to life, and let the engine’s rumble drown out the echoes of Micah’s innocent question.
We’re safe now, right?
None of us are, I think as I pull into traffic. Some of us just hide it better than others.
The Blue Note doesn’t open until noon, but the door yields to my push.
A rectangle of harsh sunlight follows me inside before the heavy door swings shut, sealing me in darkness steeped in aged tobacco and lemon polish.
My boots stick to the floor with each step, the residue of last night’s spilled drinks not quite cleaned away.
The dim lighting comes as a balm after the scorching heat outside, and soft jazz floats through hidden speakers.
Ghost stands behind the bar, a lean figure in a black turtleneck and slacks, his movements economical as he polishes a glass. He’s always here, no matter when I show up, never taking vacations or days off. His scent barely shifts, muted and flat.
The man must live on suppressants, which can’t be healthy for an Omega. Micah always preached about how the tiny blue and red pills were dangerous when used too often.
But I won’t be the one questioning how Ghost handles his health. That would be like the pot preaching to the kettle.
His eyes, one brown and one pale blue, take in my arrival without changing expression. Nothing surprises Ghost. Nothing rattles him. It’s why everyone calls him Ghost instead of his given name, Eli.
Places like this didn’t used to exist for me. Before Rowan dragged me into his orbit, my world was Micah and the cracked walls of the small apartment we shared.
Rowan was the first face from juvie to find me on the outside, older, meaner, and already halfway built for the kind of work nobody admits exists.
He tracked me down within a week of getting released and said I’d fought too hard to survive inside to waste it on loading docks or minimum wage. He introduced me to the Blue Note, to Ghost, to a different kind of family built out of favors and violence.
This bar became the only place besides Micah’s where I could function without my own body turning against me.