Chapter 30 Twenty-six
Twenty-six
Taryn
The Basement was a perfectly fine coffee shop, I supposed.
Where Bean & Leaf was an inviting blend of comfy-cozy, The Basement rode that fine line between the aesthetic of grunge and the reality of it—water stains on the ceiling, peeling paint covered by years-old band stickers and flyers, uneven floorboards with a yellow Floor is Wet cone perpetually on top of it.
For fuck’s sake, the place wasn’t even in a basement. I was fairly certain they’d just picked the name so they wouldn’t have to dole out the funds to spruce the place.
They did have one thing going for it that my beloved former workplace did not, though: a liquor license.
Sheyna sipped on her Irish Coffee, and I forced myself to slowly nurse my grown-up s’mores—espresso, marshmallow liqueur, with a chocolate and caramel drizzle and crushed graham crackers around the rim. Plus a few extras for dipping.
It was absolutely disgusting.
I hated it.
Definitely wasn’t already planning to order a second one.
Jennie, bestie, forgive me.
“I’d actually consider going camping if we got to bring these along,” I said as I took a slow, delectable draw from my heaven in an oversized mason jar.
Sheyna grimaced, the bridge of her nose crinkling behind her round gold-rimmed glasses. “Nah, that’s where ze critters live and I’m not about that noise. It would take more than a bit of chocolate to get me out of the city.”
I giggled, and Sheyna stole one of my graham crackers to take a bite.
Another moment that felt so close to normal, yet so dissonant.
Sheyna used to be a frequent customer at Bean & Leaf.
Double espresso, double shot of vanilla, milk and whip.
When she hadn’t been rushing out the door, or if the place was slow, she’d hang around and chat.
Sheyna was the one who’d told me about the protest I’d attended outside The Corinthian soon after getting to town.
Oh, and she was a fellow omega.
Granted, we weren’t unicorns or anything. But when omegas met each other in the wild, so to speak, we tended to herd together.
Mythical, we weren’t. But rare, we were.
We’d run into each other again a few weeks ago. I’d been on my first solo bus ride, jumpy as shit, contemplating calling one of my pack to come sit with me and feeling like a pathetic loser for it too.
Then Sheyna had hopped on. Turned out, I was on her work route.
Since then, we’d had a few coffee and lunch catch-ups. Anytime she asked why I’d left Bean & Leaf, I hedged. A health issue cropped up during my last heat and I was taking time off to recover. Which, technically speaking, wasn’t a lie.
If only I could tell that to my squirming tummy whenever it protested the cover story we’d all agreed to.
I shrugged and dipped my rescued graham cracker into my Very Mature Alcohol Drink. “There are a great many things I’d do for chocolate.”
So I’d bemoaned to myself during my stay at Phoenix Labs, and so I stood by to this day.
Sheyna rolled her eyes and brushed a strand of copper hair over her shoulder before crossing her arms and hitting me with an assessing squint.
“…Do I have caramel on my nose?”
“No,” she answered simply. A beat later, she leaned forward onto her elbow. “But,” she said, her voice conspiratorial, “I have a question for you.”
“The answer is yes,” I said in mock-shameful tone. “In a desperate-enough situation, I would lick chocolate off a stranger's shoe.”
“You absolutely would not.”
Shows what you know.
“Anyway, I have a serious question.”
“Oh, okay, then.” I sat up straighter. “Serious face.”
Sheyna chuckled with a small shake of her head. Then she leaned closer, spoke softer. “So…you were unregistered for a while, right?”
Chills sprinted up my spine. “Why?”
She leaned in closer, lowering her voice so I struggled to hear it over the pumping grunge music. “Because I know an omega who needs blockers and suppressants. It’s not safe for him to Register.”
A lead weight dropped in my stomach. Male omegas were the rarest designation of all. Males also tended to present later, so a twenty-year-old guy could go to sleep as a beta, then wake up with a brand new scent and a craving for knots.
And, like female omegas, were often marginalized within their own communities. A male omega wanting to stay under the radar—and off the Census—was almost a no-brainer.
That goddamn Census. I had a very particular, very intense hatred for the stupid Census.
It was an insult to omegas to begin with, requiring one designation and not the others to Register their presentation to the government.
But all our pack’s troubles had begun with my forced Registration earlier this year.
Sheyna gave a surreptitious glance around to ensure no one was within earshot. “I was pretty sure you were, at least when you first moved here, yeah?”
I swallowed, looking down at my half-finished drink. My stomach turned over, and not from the excess sugar.
“Yeah,” I responded quietly before taking an obscene gulp of my drink. My fingers drummed lightly on the table. “I was Unregistered for a decade.”
Sheyna’s eyes lit with excitement. “So you know how to get blockers and stuff without a Census Number, right?”
Yes, I’d taken scent blockers and instinct dampeners since I presented, heat control when my first cycle hit at nineteen. But Gran had procured my black market meds, then Brea after her.
As much as I prided myself on my independence, turned out…maybe I wasn’t so independent after all.
My stomach clenched, but not with nerves. An ember of rage glimmered and grew. Fuck the Census. Fuck the assholes who upheld it.
And, most of all, fuck the fear that had crippled me these last months. Fuck making myself small. Fuck waiting around for someone to come protect me.
“Yeah,” I said. “I’m in.”
My turn to do the protecting.
Hello, thank you for calling the congressional office of Corinth Wainwright. How may I help you?
"Hi, my name is Taryn Lennox, and I’m a constituent living in Farendale. I’m calling to urge the congressman to vote YES on HB25-17 to de-regulate the Omega Census."
Okay, great, I’ve got your comment down and will pass it on to the congressman. Have a great day.
"Thank you."
I breezed into the apartment after my coffee date riding the high of rebellion.
Brea and Lin chopped veggies side by side at the kitchen island.
Since we’d arrived, they’d cooked just about every meal together.
Brea had never been particularly interested in the kitchen, but Lin loved teaching her different dishes, and it was something special the two of them did together.
It was sweet, and I got butterflies just watching them work together.
And maybe just a handful of butterflies over my newfound mission.
Lin’s eyes flicked to the oven clock. “Fifty-six minutes. Not too bad.”
Less than an hour I’d managed to socialize without a packmate within smelling distance.
Whoop-de-do.
As much as the Human Taryn was ready to stick it to the man and give her anxiety the middle finger, Omega Taryn was still a whiny bitch who’d not yet gone more than seventy-four minutes without needing to scent a packmate.
I rolled my eyes and hopped onto a barstool. “Alert the presses, this is a marvel you have to see to believe!”
He set down his knife and dried his hands on the towel hanging over his shoulder. Probing eyes locked on me as he rounded the counter. “You,” he said as he cupped my cheek, “are not allowed to diminish your accomplishments.”
His gentle touch alone may have been enough to send me sobbing, but his authoritative tone—equally alluring and commanding—assured me I wasn’t fragile or weak.
Which, sometimes, was a nice reminder.
“Hmmmm,” I hummed, pretending to dive deep into thought. “Am I allowed to discount my accomplishments?” I asked. “You know, like, ‘Survive an hour without your pack, get half the pride’ type deal?”
I sent a teeny ray of warmth down the bond toward Lin to underscore the joke, but his own face didn’t shift.
“No, ma’am,” he said, serious as ever. “Full pride or none at all. And”—He put a silencing finger over my lips—“none at all isn’t actually allowed. So. Full pride only.”
I sighed and turned back toward the counter. “So retail simple.”
“I’m fine with that.” He leaned in to place a lingering kiss at my temple before rejoining Brea at the chopping station. She’d been silent the whole time, but peace rolled off her like mist off a lake.
Their meal prepping filled the kitchen with homey noises and smells. Honey and onion and garlic and sesame. Salmon and rice. Miso and sugar.
Honestly, what was hotter than one of your mates chopping green onion with his sleeves rolled up, and your other mate sizzling garlic and butter on the stove?
Nothing. They were two sexy little sluts and I was more than happy to take in the show.
A mail pile sat a bit in front of me. Nosy me, I riffled through them. Bills. Coupons. Something business-y addressed to Amethyst Commons LLC. Promotional postcards.
My eyes snagged on one particular mailer with a red phoenix logo in the bottom corner.
Clinical Trials Now Open!
Enroll today, and help us discover a better tomorrow.
Eligible enrollees may be entitled to a stipend. Contact a Phoenix rep today for more information.
“Taryn?” Brea asked, voice quiet.
To the left of the text stood a woman, smiling and looking down at her baby belly, stroking it lovingly.
I felt my blood thrumming through my eyes and behind my ears. The paper was pulled slowly from my fingers, but I didn’t move. An arm wrapped around my shoulders. The scents around me changed from ripe and sweet to burnt and molding.
My heart pounded in my chest. Lights flickered at the edges of my vision, and my chest felt tight.
“They're restarting the project.” My voice was leaden. “It’s not over.”
I mentally went through the checklist of evidence we had. Hunting cam footage of the vans crashing through the gate, sounds of gunfire and struggle. Days later, right at the edge of one of the frames, the fucker dragging me back to the others.
Vikki’s documents from the first round of pregnancy trials. The connections she’d made to all the missing omegas. And everything she’d managed to pull from the Phoenix Lab servers before our hasty retreat.
All my medical test results and imaging. Graphs and charts that I couldn’t decipher but Brooks assured me added to the full picture.
Then there were the video files. I could only imagine what those revealed. Nova's, too.
I slammed my hands on the stone countertops before combing my fingers through my hair and leaning my forehead on my arms.
It wasn’t enough.
They’d bury it. Or they’d spin it.
Like they had the omegas they’d taken and discarded like trash. And who knew even what else.
How could we have a mountain of physical evidence, not to mention our own witness accounts, and still be so utterly empty-handed?
My lip wobbled. “They’re just going to keep doing this, and we can’t do a damn thing about it.” I looked up, meeting Lin’s concerned gaze. “But we have to do fucking something.”
It can’t have all been for nothing.
Even before exchanging bond bites with Lin, I’d been fairly sure he could read my mind.
Now that he had a direct pipeline to my rawest emotions, I may as well have had ticker tape scrolling across my forehead blaring FEELINGS OF INADEQUACY!
SURVIVOR’S GUILT IS A BITCH! RIGHTEOUS ANGER AT CASUAL INJUSTICE!
He cupped my cheek with his hand and placed a tender kiss on my forehead. “The fight’s not over yet, sweet omega,” he whispered against my skin. “Empires take time to build, but I promise you, they crumble much faster."