34. Sophie #2
“Honestly? I’m not entirely sure. The specifics are above my clearance level.
Not a lot of people are in the know—it’s Mr. Brooks, a couple of the senior researchers, and the clinical team.
Top secret stuff.” She taps the folder. “What I can tell you is that it’s something new.
Not a standard suppressant. Something they’ve been working on for years. ”
I keep reading.
Participant profiles. Photos.
I scan the faces—a woman in her twenties with bright eyes and box braids, a tired-looking woman in her forties, a young woman who can’t be older than twenty-one with a nervous smile. Omegas, all of them. Different ages, different backgrounds.
Different ages.
I flip through the profiles more slowly now. Twenty-three. Twenty-eight. Thirty-four. Forty-one. Fifty-six.
Seventy.
I stop.
Participant 03. Female. Age: 70.
I stare at the number. Read it again.
Seventy years old.
Why would a seventy-year-old omega be in this trial? She’d be decades past menopause, with no heats to suppress and nothing to manage.
Unless this isn’t about heat management at all.
“Evie.” I keep my voice casual, but something cold is settling in my stomach. “Some of these participants are... older.”
“Mm-hm.” She doesn’t look up from her phone. “The trial includes a range of ages. They need to test how the compound affects different demographics—younger omegas, older omegas, pre- and post-menopausal. It’s standard protocol for pharmaceutical development.”
Standard protocol. Right.
But what kind of medication needs to be tested on post-menopausal omegas? What could Synthera possibly be developing that would affect a seventy-year-old woman who hasn’t had a heat in twenty years?
I turn another page.
And stop breathing.
ADVERSE EVENT LOG
The header sits at the top of a new section. I flip through the pages slowly, my eyes scanning the entries.
Participant 04 (F, 34)—Severe headache and dizziness at 4 hours post-administration. Resolved within 24 hours with supportive care.
Participant 07 (F, 28)—Acute nausea and vomiting. Participant required IV fluids. Resolved within 48 hours.
Participant 09 (F, 41)—Hormonal crash resulting in syncope. Scent gland inflammation observed. Participant hospitalized overnight for observation. Cleared to continue trial after 72-hour rest period.
I keep reading. The entries blur together—headaches, nausea, fainting, inflammation.
Women’s bodies reacting badly to whatever Synthera is pumping into them.
All of it documented in neat clinical language, as if that makes it acceptable.
As if writing “resolved within 48 hours” erases the fact that a woman spent two days vomiting because of their experimental drug.
They’re getting hurt.
Hospitalized. IV fluids. Scent gland inflammation. These women signed up for a trial and Synthera is damaging them.
And they’re still running the trials. Recruiting. Paying women enough money to make them say yes.
I turn another page.
And my stomach drops.
Participant 03 (F, 70)—Tonic-clonic seizure at 8 hours post-administration.
Duration: 1 min 47 sec. Post-ictal confusion observed.
Emergency protocols initiated. Participant transferred to Lakeside General for observation.
Hospitalization: 4 days. Emergency contact: none listed.
Participant cleared to resume daily activities after 2-week recovery period.
Notation: participant declined withdrawal from study. Formulation revised.
I flip back to the participant profiles. Find Participant 03.
The photo shows a woman with silver hair and deep-set eyes, her face lined with decades of living. She’s not smiling for the camera. Her expression is almost defiant—the face of someone who’s seen too much to be impressed by a photographer.
Seventy years old. And she had a seizure. Hospitalized for four days.
And they had no one to call. No family rushing to the hospital. Just a woman seizing alone in an observation room while researchers took notes.
And afterward—participant declined withdrawal from study.
She stayed. She had a seizure that could have killed her, spent four days in a hospital, and then she came back for more.
Why? How desperate do you have to be? How much money did they offer her? What kind of life does someone have to be living to decide that risking death in a clinical trial is worth it?
My stomach lurches.
“Sophie?” Evie’s voice comes from somewhere far away. “You’ve gone really pale. Are you—”
“How is this legal?” The words come out sharp.
Too sharp. I try to soften them, try to pull Sophie Dysart back over my face like a mask, but she won’t fit anymore.
“This woman—Participant 03—she had a seizure. She was hospitalized for four days. She’s seventy years old. How is it legal to do this to her?”
Evie looks taken aback. “All clinical trials carry risks, Sophie. That’s why they exist—to identify problems before a drug goes to market. The participants know the risks. They sign extensive consent forms. And when adverse events occur, we have protocols—”
“Protocols.” I stare at her. “A seventy-year-old woman seized for almost two minutes and your protocol was to send her to a hospital and then let her come back for more?”
“She chose to continue. That was her decision.”
“What choice does someone have when they need the money badly enough to sign up for this in the first place?”
Evie doesn’t answer. Her eyes are uncertain now, the cheerful warmth dimmed by something that looks almost like discomfort.
“The compensation is generous,” she says finally. “And everything is voluntary. No one is forced—”
“I need a minute.”
I’m already standing and moving toward the door. My legs feel strange—disconnected from my body while the rest of me spirals.
“Sophie, are you—”
“I’m fine. I just—I think I ate something bad. I’ll be right back.”
I don’t wait for her response.
I count the steps to the bathroom. Fifteen. Sixteen. Seventeen. My vision is tunneling, the fluorescent lights too bright, the air too thick. Eighteen. Nineteen. Twenty.
I push through the door. Lock myself in the first stall. Drop to my knees.
And throw up.
Everything—the coffee Ethan made me, the sandwich from lunch, the biscuits from Evie’s tin—comes up in violent waves. My body heaves and my eyes burn and my hands grip the porcelain hard enough to turn my knuckles white.
Seventy years old. Seizure. Two minutes. Hospitalized. Emergency contact: none listed.
I throw up again.
When it’s finally over, I sit on the cold tile floor with my back against the stall wall and press my palms over my eyes.
Think. Think clearly. Don’t react—assess.
But I can’t be clinical about this. I can’t assess it like a mission parameter or a threat level. This is omegas. Women like me. Women with no one to call when they seize on a table in a billionaire’s lab.
And the men I’ve been spending time with—laughing with, kissing, trusting—they own this company. They approved this. They’re running this. They know omegas are being hurt and they keep going anyway.
I think about Max kneeling on gravel in his suit, buckling my shoe like my foot was something worth being gentle with. The way he told me about his mother like he was handing me a piece of himself he’d never given anyone.
I think about Ethan in the archive room. It’s our job to protect omegas. Every advantage we have comes with a responsibility, not permission. And the way he looked at me when he said it, like he meant every word.
I think about Finn in the kitchen, the night I pinned him against the wall with my forearm across his throat. The way he didn’t fight back and said I will never hurt you, Sophie. And I believed him.
These men held me and made me feel, for the first time in my life, like I might be worth being gentle with.
And they’re hurting women like me in their labs.
I wash my face and rinse my mouth and stare at my reflection until my eyes stop burning and my hands stop shaking.
Then I go back to the research wing.
Evie looks up with concern but I wave her off with a sheepish smile—something I ate, so embarrassing, I’m fine now—and she accepts it because Sophie Dysart is someone who gets embarrassed about things like that.
I sit at my desk and pretend to work for forty-five minutes.
At 4:30, I leave.
I try Ethan’s office first. The stack of journals on his desk has grown since this morning, and his cold coffee mug is still on the windowsill, but he’s gone.
I cut across the bridge to the executive floor. Finn’s office is dark and the door locked. The marketing wing is winding down for the day, people grabbing coats and bags, the low hum of end-of-day conversations filling the open plan.
I keep walking. Through the frosted glass of the conference room adjacent to Max’s office, I can see a single figure—broad shoulders, dark hair, standing near the table.
The door is open. It looks like a meeting just wrapped up—chairs slightly askew, water glasses half-empty. But there’s no one in it now except Max, who’s gathering papers from the table, his jacket slung over the back of a chair.
I step inside and close the door behind me.
Max immediately looks up.
His green eyes find mine, and whatever he sees there makes his hands go still.
“Max,” I say. “We need to talk.”