Dance Omega Dance (Shaker City #1)

Chapter One

T oday marked the anniversary.

It had been three years since my world was torn to pieces. Three years of silence, shadows, and solitude. Of running, hiding, and surviving. I wasn’t just mourning my parents; I was mourning who I used to be. The girl who laughed in the sunshine, who picnicked in the park without looking over her shoulder, who rode her bike past the canal with wind in her hair and freedom in her lungs. That girl was gone.

Now in her place stood something forged from ash and agony. Something feral. Something still learning how to breathe without flinching. However, when I danced... I could almost remember who I used to be.

Ballet was my salvation, the only sanctuary my body hadn’t betrayed. It repelled the negativity and brought the sunlight back into my world. In the studio beneath my tiny apartment, I let it consume me. Every plié, every pointed toe, every breath pulled from my lungs was a silent scream to keep the pain at bay. It didn’t erase the past, but it gave it shape, made it bearable.

I took a deep breath, taking a drink of water before stretching out and continuing with the piece I had been working on.

Today’s routine was different. Darker. A haunting echo of that night: my parents, the blood, the scent of alpha rage and violence so thick in the air you could almost choke on it. My movements mirrored the memory: sharp, brutal, deliberate. The choreography bled truth. Some might have said it was how my grief spoke through me. I pursed my lips. I guessed so.

Stretching my leg on the barre, my muscles ached with a familiar fire. The cracked mirror reflected a girl with sunken eyes and steel in her spine. Not prey. Not anymore. My toes scraped the battered floor, wood groaning beneath every step, like it too, remembered what I’d lost.

My limbs flowed through the positions by muscle memory alone, following the dark choreography of my former life.

First position. A whisper of innocence, of a time when I’d thought the world was safe.

Second. Arms out, a reaching plea that would never be answered.

Arabesque. I faltered... just for a moment. The scent of blood, thick and metallic returned. Screams echoed in my head, as sharp as razor blades. My mother’s voice, still etched into my bones: Run, honey. Run and live.

I held the pose, trembling. My body remembered what my heart wanted to forget, but I gritted my teeth and held the pose. I couldn't let the past break me, not again.

Pouring myself into the next sequence, I allowed my emotions to flow free. Rage. Sorrow. The bone-deep ache of being an unclaimed omega in a world that wanted to own me. I danced until my lungs burned, until sweat slicked down my spine, until I wasn’t sure where the pain ended and the movement began.

Dancing like this, raw and unbridled, I could almost forget the ever-present fear that dogged my steps. In this little studio with its peeling walls and scarred floor, I wasn't the cowering omega; the prey fleeing the relentless hunters. I was passion incarnate, my limbs painting the story of my resilience with every twist and leap.

But even as I lost myself in the choreography, reality crept in at the edges. The dingy mirror, the tattered curtains, the lock on the door. All reminders of the meager existence I'd carved out in this middle-of-nowhere city. Safety had its price, and most days, the solitude felt like a small one to pay. Still, there were moments in the breathless space between routines when I ached for something more. To dance for more than an audience of one. To feel the heat of the stage lights, the swell of the music, the soaring freedom of performance.

And then the silence shattered.

The buzz of my phone cracked through the stillness like a gunshot. I froze, poised on the balls of my feet. Every muscle coiled, as my instincts flared. My gaze snapped to the phone. Hands trembling, I swiped the screen.

The text was from Maddie, a beta who had become the closest thing I had to a friend in this strange, solitary half-life.

“ Summer, you’ve been invited to perform at the Royal Theater in Shaker City. This is your dream. Don’t miss it!”

My heart stuttered, and my knees buckled.

Shaker City. Crowds. Lights. Alphas.

Exposure.

Danger.

I stared at my reflection, at the fragile hope that gleamed in my eyes, the way my chest rose and fell like I might finally be breathing. This was what I wanted. What I’d always wanted. But I couldn’t forget what happened the last time I stepped into the spotlight. The last time I was seen.

Blood. Screams. My mother’s body crumpling to the floor, my father’s roar echoing through the night as he fought off the ferals who came to take me. To claim me.

I should delete the message. Pretend I never saw it.

But something inside me rebelled. A spark. A snarl.

My gaze drifted back to the text message. This was my chance, maybe my last one, to reclaim a piece of the life that had been ripped away from me. To dance, really dance, the way I was meant to.

But was it worth the danger? Worth risking everything I'd sacrificed so much to protect? I looked down at Maddie's message again, my finger hovering over the reply button. I knew what I should do, what any sane omega in my position would do.

Delete the text. Forget the invitation. Lock the dream away and embrace the cold comfort of safety.

Swallowing hard, tears pricked at the corners of my eyes. I had fled to this city to survive, but mere survival wasn't enough anymore. I wanted to live fully and unashamedly. Even if it meant taking a risk.

As I stood there, the phone heavy in my palm, I felt something shift inside of me. An ember of defiance, buried deep, sparked to life in my chest. It spread through my veins like wildfire, burning away the cobwebs of fear and resignation.

I was done hiding, done being a slave to my nightmares. I looked at my cracked reflection in the mirror. The reflection that stared back at me was that of a survivor. Lean muscles and determined eyes. But there was a fragility there too, hairline fractures running beneath the surface. What would my parents think of me now? I was hidden away, frightened by my own shadow. This was no way to live.

Maddie's offer dangled before me, a lifeline and a fuse all in one. I longed to reach for it, to grasp at something beyond the muted isolation I'd built around myself. But the habits of secrecy, of self-preservation, were hard to break. Taking a deep breath, I typed out a response to Maddie, my fingers shaking but resolute.

I typed the words before I could stop myself: “Okay.” I wrote at last. “I'll be there.”

Hitting send, I dropped the phone, my heart racing with a mix of terror and exhilaration. There was no going back now. I had made my choice, for better or worse.

Turning back to the mirror, I glimpsed my reflection. Tousled brown hair, eyes bright with unshed tears, and my lips curved in a tentative smile. I looked... alive. Hopeful. Like a nineteen-year-old, who was ready to step out into the light.

With a deep breath, I resumed my position in the center of the room and danced. But this time, it wasn't a battle against the past. It was a celebration of the future; of the new path I'd chosen.

Each step, each spin, each leap was a promise to myself. A vow to stop running, stop hiding, and start embracing the beautiful, terrifying gift of life. As I moved, a weight lifted from my shoulders. I wasn't safe, not by a long shot. But I was free. And for now, for this moment, that was enough.

The phone buzzed again.

"You won't regret this Summer," Maddie promised. "Take the next bus and I’ll meet you at the bus terminal."

Tears spilled down my cheeks at her words, but for once, they were tears of relief, of gratitude. "Thank you, Maddie," I replied. "For everything."

Maddie had been my only tether to something real since the night I ran. The first person who'd looked at me like I was still whole.

She knew why I lived the reclusive lifestyle I did. She was there in my darkest moment. The night I stumbled into Shaker Joe’s coffee shop, shaking and red-eyed, too afraid to meet anyone’s gaze. She brought me coffee and sat across from me like I wasn’t broken. That was the beginning. The first crack of light in years of darkness.

And now, she’d thrown me another lifeline. Or maybe a match to set fire to the cage I’d built.

I packed quickly, ballet shoes, leotard, sheer pink tutu. I packed lightly, the habit of being on the run too ingrained to shake. Only the essentials, nothing in excess. Easy to carry, to conceal, to leave behind at a moment's notice. The motions were familiar, almost soothing in their simplicity. Fold, tuck, zip. A ritual of preparation, of steeling myself for what lay ahead.

Standing in front of the mirror, bag slung over my shoulder, I stared at the woman looking back, and took a deep breath, wiping the sweat from my brow with a towel. Tonight would be my first ballet performance, my first since that night. The last time I performed in front of an audience, my mom and dad were sitting there at the front, with huge smiles on their faces. They wouldn’t be here tonight. Those seats would be empty, thanks to me.

Maddie had said it wasn’t my fault. But if I weren’t there that night, they wouldn’t have had to sacrifice themselves for me. The only reason I wasn’t caged up and bonded to a fucked-up pack back in my hometown of Shaylan was because they'd stepped in, stopped it, and told me to run. Then, bone-crunching noises, screams so sorrowful they burned a hole through my heart. I'd vomited when I had finally found somewhere to hide out, and then didn’t stop running for the best part of a year. But something drew me to this place. It felt like home. Like mom and dad. Like happiness, and it was the first time I’d smiled in such a long time.

With one last deep breath to steady my racing heart, I strode to the door, pausing with my hand on the knob. This was it, the moment of no return. Once I stepped over this threshold, there was no going back.

But that was the point, wasn't it? To stop hiding, stop teetering on the edge of my existence. To step into life and let the chips fall where they may. With a resolute nod, I turned the knob, the soft click of the door marking my first step back into a wider world.

The hallway that stretched before me reeked of mold and forgotten dreams. The flickering lights cast my shadow long and thin on the wall beside me, but I barely noticed. My focus was on the stairwell at the far end, the portal to the street below.

As I walked, each step became an act of defiance against the fear that crawled beneath my skin. I felt a lightness blooming in my chest. It wasn't safety, not by any stretch. But it was hope, fragile and fierce. A promise that there was more to life than mere survival. That even an omega could dare to dream, to dance, to live.

The air hit my skin like a baptism. My hair whipped around my face as I tilted my chin to the sky. The sun was setting, painting the city in bursts of red, swirling into the fiery depths of orange and yellow. Every step I took toward the bus stop made my instincts scream out, run, hide. But I was rebellious by nature. My every breath, a defiance.

I wasn’t safe.

But I was free.

For the first time in three years, I wasn’t running from something.

I was running toward it.