Chapter 3
Charlie
My head spun as I kneeled on the carpeted floor.
It’d been so long since I was requested to leave this place. The first and only time was but a blurry memory, one I didn’t ever want to remember for the rest of my life.
My heart thumped against my rib cage like a hummingbird's wings.
The one look I had of the Alpha would forever be burned in my brain. Brown eyes that seemed tired, and a straight nose.
He was nothing like the others. Alpha Harris didn’t have a belly or smelly breath. He didn’t hold himself like I was a speck on his shoes, or that he was better than I was.
A ten-minute meeting shouldn’t have felt like a lifetime, nor should it feel like it was merely seconds.
I already knew that whatever would come next wouldn’t end well for me, though. No matter how he may speak words or how gentle he was in a simple touch, I wouldn’t come back in the same manner I’d leave. Not just this room, but this place.
I was already broken, inside and out. There was nothing left to me, except for the breath that filled my lungs.
Why did he want me? There were others here that would be a ten times better fit for his needs. I wasn’t anything special.
A part of me wanted out of this place, a deep part that craved to see the world. But I knew that with the chance of leaving, there was a higher chance that I wouldn’t come back. It was more likely that I’d die in the hands of this man, even if he was merely renting me out for a few days.
I saw how others returned. Some came back with more bruises than anything else. Some didn’t talk or eat for days afterward. One or two came back, only to disappear days later.
Would I be one of those who got lost, too? Would I be one of those Omegas that could come back in pieces, only to end up ten feet under the ground?
Would death be better than whatever this man had to offer me?
If I went by the only time I was rented out, I already knew the answers to those questions.
Death would always be better. For me, that was the only way out of this place. And it was tempting to find a way to sway my own destiny to do just that.
Before I could wrap my mind around any of the possibilities that sat right in front of me, Alpha Harris and one of the Betas from the front desk were in the room. I hadn’t even heard either of them, let alone heard a single word they spoke. My thoughts swirled in a hazy fog.
The Beta spoke, but the words didn’t land. They scattered across my brain like broken glass, sharp and unreadable. With his words, he secured a thin metal band around my wrist.
My arm dropped back to my thigh, but the pressure stayed, like a reminder.
I tried to breathe. In. Out. But my chest didn’t listen.
The room tilted, or maybe I did. My fingers twitched, useless. My thoughts blurred, then fractured.
I opened my mouth when the order came, along with a tap to the side of my face. Yet, my thoughts raced too fast for me to catch a single one. My heart beat too quickly as reality set in.
Sure, I was ready for death to take me, but my body rebelled against the idea.
I didn’t want to die at the hands of some man who wanted to choke me out. I didn’t want to die strung up by a rope. I wanted to die on my own terms, gosh dang it. Like a slow, quiet death with the company of the sunflowers that I could see from my window.
Of course, I always knew at the back of my mind that my death would be at the hands of another. Some clients would get too carried away. And really, it wasn’t that hard to snap my neck if any of them wished to do it.
“Breathe, boy.”
Breathe? That was the last thing I wanted to do, and I wanted to say just that. But then, my mind stuck on the fact that my lungs were burning, crying out for release. They stabbed me from the inside out, as though they were on fire inside my chest.
“Breathe, Charles.” The voice was soft, but commanding in a way I couldn’t ignore. It was spoken right in front of me, and as everything began to zoom past me in the room, he was the only solid object I could latch onto.
My hands fisted into tight balls on my thighs as I tried and failed to get my body to do what was ordered of it.
How could I possibly take a breath in when it felt as if invisible hands were on my lungs in a tight grasp? How was I to breathe if death was knocking on the door, so close it was able to call my name as though I were its best friend?
“Come on. You can do it. Breathe for me.”
Without my say so, my lungs took in a gasp. It was short and felt like a million and one tiny little needles poked at my lungs from the inside out.
I repeated it twice more, sure that I’d start coughing up sharp splinters as the man before me kept telling me to breathe. He kept talking, his words seeming both far away and too close. I couldn’t make out his words, some of them clumped together as they were processed in my hazy mind.
“There ya go, boy. Another deep breath for me.”
I couldn’t, I wanted to beg that it wasn’t possible, yet my body did as it was told. The sharp gasps slowly turned into slow deep breaths, each one easier to handle than the last.
I hated it. Hated everything about breathing and still living.
My body gave out before I could stop it. I slumped forward, everything inside me drained and hollow. If he hadn’t been kneeling there, I would’ve hit the carpet face-first. Instead, my forehead nearly collided with his chest.
His hands caught me, fingers settling on my upper arms like he’d done it a hundred times before.
He didn’t pull me in. Just held me there.
A small part of me that was buried deep, wanted to lean in. To let him wrap his arms around me and block out everything else.
But that wasn’t real. No one wanted me like that. Not to protect. Not to keep.
Even though I couldn’t remember the last time someone touched me without taking something.
I was nothing more but a body to be rented out, and this man saw nothing else of me other than a hole to play with.
With a sniff, I found the last bit of energy I had left in me, which wasn’t much of anything, to push myself away from his front. He was here for a fix, and I was to give him the release he was after.
Wiping the tears from my face with both hands, I took in one last breath before settling back into my greeting stance.
Maybe if I could get back to that headspace, the next little while wouldn’t be so bad.
Being in a place mentally where I could shut off the rest of the world wasn’t the greatest place to go, but it’s all I ever had.
In reality, all I wanted to do was go back to my room and sleep, hidden under a pile of blankets. I didn’t want anything to touch me. I didn’t want anyone asking questions, or anything of attention sort from me.
“Do you still want the boy?” A male voice asked.
He didn’t seem impressed, but he did not care about Omega’s feelings anyway.
He never was when he’d have to be called to escort me out of this very room more than once.
Trace’s job was to make sure I behaved, and to escort me out if I was unable to walk on my own.
I made sure to keep my two feet under me if I could help it. I hated how his hands sometimes lingered in places that he didn’t pay for.
“Yes. I’ve already signed the forms.” The Alpha stated a reminder that he knew the rules here. No matter what, my body was purchased for his time.
I heard more than I saw as he stood and wiped his palms along his thighs.
“Very well. I’ll send someone to collect a change of clothes for the Omega.”
“No need. I’ll get whatever I want him to wear myself.” The words were spoken a bit rushed, causing me to jerk.
I didn’t want to think what that statement meant. It could mean so many things, and my head already hurt. As did my entire being for that matter.
“Of course, Alpha Harris. Whatever you wish for the Omega.”
“Stand, boy.”
Unlike the first time he told me to stand, it took my body a few extra seconds to get my feet under me. When I stood, I swayed, nearly falling backward as my head swam.
Thankfully, I got my balance sorted before Alpha Harris had to help me yet again.
I had never been more pathetic in my entire life.
The next moments blurred at the edges. Sound dulled. Light flattened. My mind slipped into autopilot. I’d been here before. I knew the steps.
Not a house. Not a name. Just hours. Just hands.
My body remembered more than I wanted it to. The ache. The silence. The way everything inside me went still.
I didn’t feel fear. Not exactly. Just the echo of it, like a scream trapped behind glass.
I couldn’t remember his name, nor did I want to.
But I’d never be able to forget the stench of stale beer on his breath or the way his clothes smelled like bleach.
I think he wore a clean, unwrinkled button-down shirt with a black work jacket over the top, but those small details weren’t as clear nearly two years later.
From the start to the finish of the entire transaction, the man’s callused hands had been rough on my body. The way he’d gripped my upper arm as he signed the forms that claimed he was to care for me as if I were his for the rest of our lives had left indents for days.
My throat constricted as the renter tugged me forward, his grip firm but not rushed—like he knew I wouldn’t resist. I didn’t need to be dragged. I knew the rules.
Walk quietly. Obey quickly. Be the perfect Omega.
So I followed, feet barely brushing the floor, each step rehearsed in silence. The hallway blurred around me, sterile and dim, like it had forgotten how to feel.
The car ride was worse.
He didn’t speak. Just breathed—loud, labored, obscene. I heard the zipper before I saw his hand. I didn’t look. I couldn’t. My gaze stayed locked on my lap, where my fingers pressed into each other so tightly they ached.
It didn’t matter where we were going. It didn’t matter what he’d do when we got there. I already knew the shape of the next twenty-four hours. I’d be used. Repeatedly. Quietly.
Because I wasn’t a person. I was a product.
And products don’t cry.
I don’t remember the house. Not the walls, not the furniture, not the color of the sheets. I couldn’t tell you if it was a mansion or a shack. My mind refused to keep it.
But I remember the smell. Cologne and something sour underneath. I remember the sound of a door locking behind me. I remember the weight of silence, thick and expectant.
There were hands. I know that. I don’t know how many times. I don’t know how long.
I remember the way the light changed—morning, then night, then morning again. I counted the shifts in shadow like they were hours. Like they meant something.
I remember the mirror. Not what I saw in it, just that I couldn’t look. Every time I tried, my throat closed and my stomach turned. I think I cried. I think I begged. I think I stopped being Charlie.
When I was brought back to the boarding house, I didn’t speak for three days. My body was covered in bruises of all shapes and sizes that lasted even longer than my lack of speaking.
The other Omegas didn’t ask. They just looked away, knowing exactly what happened without me having to utter a single word. Like whatever had happened to me might happen to them next.
And maybe it would.
Eventually, the memory faded at the edges like smoke. But as it slipped away, something else crept in. Panic, quiet at first. Then louder. My heart thudded against bone, each beat a warning.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
The blackness rolled in like fog. Slow and familiar. I didn’t fight it. I let it settle. Let it dull everything.
Numb was safer. Numb was necessary.
It was the only way to make it through the next few days.