Chapter 26
SIN
“We… protected them,” Crescent whispered. It was late. Vandle and Phantom were down at the cafeteria grabbing some extra snacks, since we missed dinner and didn’t really want to show our faces right now. Karma was just outside, working on a mural with Bug and Finnian.
I was curled up in a mountain of pillows and blankets with my omega. I think I might have growled at anyone who’d come too close, which may explain why they were giving us space, but after this evening, I needed a little downtime.
“We did,” I replied.
I was obsessed with her—more than was healthy—so I was clocking every tell she had. I think that thing her pupils did, a small quiver from side to side, happened when she was nervous, or stressed. But by the end of our show it was gone, as if she’d forgotten everything else.
Now as she looked up at me, her pupils were completely steady, if a slight bit cross-eyed with fatigue.
She was so fucking beautiful, and she seemed so… proud of herself.
Not the reaction I expected after what we’d just done. But there was so much more to Crescent than met the eye.
“I know Vandle is a seer, so the dark bond is safe, but it still feels like I’m doing something wrong?”
“Why?” I asked. I could always feel it from her. Even when she was happy. It was a constant undercurrent of guilt. Of shame. I think she was so used to it—she might not even know it was there.
“I don’t know. I didn’t think I’d ever have a pack who takes care of me like this. I’ve done nothing to deserve it.”
“I wish you didn’t see the world like that, Firefly,” I murmured. “You belong here with us.”
She considered me for a long moment, something yearning in those beautiful golden eyes, as if she wanted to reach out to cup my words and stuff them into her heart to keep her warm.
I brushed my fingers across her cheek. “Do you believe me?”
“I’m not sure…” She frowned, eyes darting to the side. “You know, even before I was gold pack… I was always different.”
“Why did you choose golden eyes?”
“I didn’t.” She shook her head. “No, no. My parents were… they weren’t good people, they were traitors.
T-terrorists. Didn’t believe omegas should get the injection, so they kept me home until we were discovered.
That’s how I ended up in the Convent. Which is good, of course—” she added.
“They said otherwise I’d have never learned my place. ”
I frowned. “There is nothing wrong with you, firefly. The others are obsessed with you. It’s been days, and I can’t imagine what it would be like without you.”
Her lip wobbled. “But what if I go into heat, and you realized you don’t want me?”
I raised an eyebrow. “We all want you now. Why would anything change?”
“Well… it took a few days after the bite before you wanted me…?”
I blinked, lips parting in shock for a second. “You are—were—a virgin, Firefly. Dropped into a prison of feral alphas.”
“Does that mean… I’m not as… desirable?”
“No,” I snorted. “It means we wanted to take it slow so you could adjust. Biting you doesn’t mean we need sex right away.”
“Sister Matilda said it would.”
“Did Sister Matilda have a pack?” I asked.
“Of course not. She’s a nun.”
“Then why were you listening to her?” I prodded. “I’m an omega with a pack, and I haven’t even been with my alphas.”
She wrinkled her nose, looking lost for a moment. “You’re not… gold pack like me. They said I’d have to do more to make up for it.”
She had no idea that, by all rights, my eyes should be gold.
Still, I took in those words, knowing how far we’d have to go before she was healed from the poison they’d fed her for… how many years? “Well. You do have a pack now, and we make the rules. Not Sister Matilda.”
“I don’t know.” She sounded unsure, fingers anxiously twisting my shirt. “I just feel like I’m going to wake up and you’ll realize you’ve been tricked.”
I stroked her cheek with my thumb, a low simmer of hatred beginning at the idea of anyone who’d made her feel lesser. “You’re ours, now, firefly. There’s no taking that back.”
She swallowed.
“You think Vandle and his special eyes would have picked wrong?” I added.
She frowned, eyes shivering back and forth for a moment, but she didn’t answer. I was drawn back to her previous words.
“What did you do for heats at the Convent?” I asked. I wondered if she was like me, drugged up so many times the first true heat would be uncontrollable.
“They said we had to learn how to do it alone.”
“You… what?” I asked.
“We’d have to wait it out.”
“No drugs?”
“That wouldn’t be… right…” She whispered. “We had to understand the cost of our eyes.”
There was a strange ringing in my ears. “How many heats have you had like that?”
“Five… at first they came closer together, but then they were more spread out…”
I wondered if that was the trauma…
Jesus Christ.
The agony that would have caused…
It explained how touch starved she was.
“Your eyes are perfect, firefly.” That's all I could find words to say.
No one should have ever made her feel there was something wrong with them.
She was looking into mine right now, though, as if trying to figure out what they meant.
“You know… my eyes have always been different, even before they were gold,” she said.
“Were they?” I asked. I had a strange feeling, that between her snow white hair, pale eyelashes, and light skin with pink undertones, I might know.
“Used to be light pink. And I couldn’t—still can’t go out in the sun, much.”
I smiled. “I’m sure they were just as beautiful pink.”
“I half think my parents kept me from the injection because they wanted to know if the pink or gold would win. Turns out, gold beats all…” She frowned, trailing off. “You… took the injection, though? Was that your choice?”
I tried to contain my wince. I, like Vandle, had been a part of experiments before this. I remembered very little, but one thing I could remember was… “No. I didn’t.”
She cocked her head. “And… they didn’t go gold?”
No. I had a distinct memory of something very different. Looking at my own pale face in the reflection of a murky mirror. Chestnut brown eyes flecked with crimson. Something creeping in.
Something… that shouldn’t be. “They… were always like this.”
“Oh.” Either that satisfied her, or she didn’t want to pry further, which was good, because it had never been something I wanted to explore too deeply.
I knew she could heal from where she came from, but it wouldn’t be instant.
She was already coming out of her shell.
“Do you love them?” she asked, after a pause.
“What?”
“The others?”
I felt a smile curve my lips. I knew why she was asking.
My relationship with my pack wasn’t conventional, and she was navigating what it meant to be an omega.
“Yeh. ‘Course I do.” It was true. It’s just not what people expected to see, but my pack was the most important part of my life—by a long shot.
She nodded, considering my words. “But you’re not as… needy as me?”
“I’m different.”
“Are you sure I’m not the one who’s all wrong?” she asked. “I feel like I could be with one of you every second, and it wouldn’t bother me at all…”
I smiled. “Good.” I was so addicted to her already, so it was a breath of fresh air to hear she was the same.
“But you’re sure that wouldn’t bother you?”
I took a breath, not really wanting to go into the difference between me and most of the other omegas in here.
Between me and her. “There’s nothing wrong with you.
There are enough omegas in here for me to know that,” I told her.
Her eyes held mine, fireflies glowing in the dim nest. “But, if anyone has told you there are rules to being an omega, they were lying.”
“That’s… good to know.”
“Bet it is.” I knew what she’d been taught.
“Is that why you protect them like an alpha would?”
“I don’t know…” It was the truth.
“Do you think maybe it will make more sense when we’re not trapped down here?”
“Why do you think I’m fighting so hard to get us out, firefly?”
“Because you want to see nature again?” she asked.
I raised an eyebrow, peering at her. “Where did you hear that?”
“I was asking Phantom when he was cuddling me last night. Is that what you liked before you were here?” she prodded.
“Don’t remember before. Same as Karma and Vandle.”
“Hmmm…” She frowned. “Then how do you know that’s what you want?”
I snorted. “There’s a mural in the gym. A great big forest with rivers and birds.”
I rarely talked about dreams. Actually—it was a rule I made.
This life in Anarchy was all I’d ever known. What lay beyond? It seemed impossible.
Unknown.
A part of me wondered if the appeals were real at all—or if on the other side of that waiting room they called us into was a firing squad to clear out space for more alphas down here.
I’d never say it out loud, but I knew the others had considered it from the occasional flutter of doubt, or coldness, or fear when we brought up the chance of escape.
It was hard not to feel like animals in Anarchy, at the mercy of the faceless men above deciding our fate upon a whim.
Packs were rejected for their appeal, though, if they didn’t qualify—were too feral for normal life. That gave me hope that it wasn’t all just a ruse, and I had to hold on to that.
Though it was a dream that I couldn’t hope for too hard, or I was afraid it might turn to smoke.
The funny thing was, I don’t think I’d ever spoken my dreams out loud. I might just have stared at those murals so long, the others had read into it.
But Crescent looked so hopeful. She’d been here for such a short time, maybe none of this felt so impossible.
Maybe for her, I could say one thing.
One time.
“It would be nice to see a forest,” I said.
Maybe I had. Perhaps before experiments had stolen my memories away.
Sometimes, if I stared at the mural long enough, I caught the faint smell of something earthy, as if there were memories in there somewhere.