10. Twenty-seven
Twenty-seven
Taryn
I’d never in my life seen so many omegas in one place.
On paper, there were hardly any of us; our numbers had been steadily decreasing for over a century.
But holy shit we were so many off paper.
At least two hundred of us stood scattered along the sidewalk of Farendale’s business district, some with signs, others—like me—with just themselves.
Cars honked as they drove by, and even just the volume of so many people talking at once was like incredible.
Most of the gathered omegas wore some kind of scent blockers, and anyone on heat control would have reduced pheromones anyway.
Still, the swirl of hundreds of unique omega fragrances bordered on overstimulation.
I relished it, though. A whiff of strawberry, then of birthday cake.
Espresso, pink lemonade, basil and mandarin, mint and lime.
The hodge-podge perfume linked us, siblings with a common cause.
One of my regulars at the shop—Sheyna, another omega—had shared the event with me online. A demonstration to demand that our state representative vote yes on HB25-17 to abolish the outdated Omega Census, one of the last anti-omega institutions left.
In theory, it was for purely demographic reasons—funding for designation services, population tracking, heat clinics, stuff like that. But omegas—and only omegas—were required to Register within a year of presenting.
I’d refused. So had Mom and Gran.
Brea’d been hinting lately that, once she was graduated and stable, we could focus on my dream.
Whatever that was. To be honest, though, I’d always been content to be the shop girl.
Had been for the years I spent staffing Gran’s shop in Pockston, and then at the various cafes, bodegas, and corner stores I’d worked in as we traipsed city to city.
I hadn’t particularly enjoyed my school days, and things like bank loans and college applications became a sticky mess for an omega without a Census Number.
So far as I was concerned, a happy life eating Sunday pancakes with my alpha was the worthiest ambition of all.
Every so often, though, I yearned for something just a little bit bigger.
Not a fancy degree or a corner office. Like what I’d told Lin and Brooks up on the roof, being the kind of omega that alphas of eras past would hate.
Getting loud and rough and dirty in the name of winning the last few battles we still had left.
I hadn’t told Brea about the event today. Much less that I was attending it, alone. Today, she was meeting her first real client as her residency began in earnest, and I didn’t want to distract or worry her about me.
Besides, this felt like something for me. For me, and Mom, and Gran.
We stood outside one of the handful of skyscrapers Farendale boasted, this one a standard glass cereal box.
A sleek steel overhang sheltered the entrance at a slight slant, a hint of art in an otherwise fairly utilitarian design.
The entry doors were spotless glass with angular steel handles and the building’s name, The Corinthian, frosted in an elegant serif.
The doors to the building opened, and a group of men in business suits walked out.
Among them, building namesake Corinth Wainwright himself, our state’s junior congressman.
A tall, pale alpha with over-coiffed black hair and thick black eyebrows, Corinth was only the latest big name in the Wainwright family dynasty.
Before him, his father and grandfather had focused on building out the multibillion-dollar Wainwright Corporation, which had a near monopoly on alpha and omega supplements—the blockers, suppressants, coolants, and dampeners almost everyone around me probably used daily.
Corinth was the first to branch into politics only a year ago, and this fall’s congressional meeting would be his first major vote.
Shouts rose up around me as the crowd followed Corinth down the sidewalk. A chant broke out, leave omegas be , which I joined in shouting.
“Leave omegas be!” Let us just fucking exist.
“Leave omegas be!” We’re people. Just plain people.
“Leave omegas be!” I shouted it to every asshole who’d leered at and catcalled me, to every creep who’d alpha-barked at me in public then laughed as I flinched and fought against the command, to backwards asshats like Caine Arceneaux who considered my very being an inconvenience .
A high-pitched tone pierced my ears as a nearby demonstrator cued up a megaphone.
“The Omega Census is a tool of the regressive pro-des party!” the omega shouted through the speaker.
“The omegas of the State of Remington call on Corinth Wainwright to vote yes on HB25-17 and put this anti-neutrality legislation to bed at last!”
Another chant— Wainwright, make it right!— broke out. I shouted it loud enough that my throat ached.
“Wainwright, make it right!”
A sleek black car slowed to a stop, blocked from the curb by my omega siblings.
“Wainwright, make it right!”
Cops in bullet-proof vests blew whistles, clearing the path for the car to pull closer to the sidewalk.
“Wainwright, make it right!”
The crowd compressed, bodies pressed tight around me as the cops pushed and prodded us backward. Our volume never decreased.
“Wainwright, make it right!”
More cops cleared a pathway, keeping the crowd back like security at a red carpet premiere, as Corinth and his compatriots cut through the omegas toward the car.
“Wainwright, make it right!”
The driver stood outside the opened back door as Corinth approached. Before he disappeared inside, he scanned our group, face entirely neutral. Then he climbed inside, the other men followed, and the car pulled away.
The cheers down the sidewalk were earsplitting, and I shouted and whooped and cheered with the rest of my omega siblings.
So much had changed, had been bettered for me.
And that change had started out sixty, seventy years ago on streets like this one.
Gran had stood out in crowds like this and shouted for what she deserved, for what she wanted for her children and beyond.
She’d been gone for almost three years now, but I could almost see her proud smile, could almost feel her slip her hand into mine and march beside me, calling for a better world.
Brea
I felt like I was going to puke. And not just at the memory of Saturday night’s humiliation.
My first ever client—the first person I would therapize—would be here in moments. Everything I had done, the running away and shitty apartments and candles burning from both ends constantly all the time, had all led me here.
Granted, I was only an apprentice counselor.
Olinda, the kind older beta who’d been in the biz for close to two decades, was really running the show.
She and the other mentors had spent Monday and Tuesday meeting with the clients assigned to us residents, obtaining appropriate signatures and consents to move forward in the program.
Today, though, the spotlight would be on me.
To ask the right questions.
To actively listen.
To make them feel comfortable enough to open up and tell not one, but two total strangers their deepest vulnerabilities.
Absolutely zero pressure.
I thought about all the portrayals I’d ever seen of shrinks and counselors on TV, the cliche lines and jokes. And how does that make you feel? simply wouldn’t cut it here.
The clock read three minutes until appointment time. Olinda and I sat in side-by-side green velvet armchairs, each of us with a small end table to set our notebooks and water glasses. Across from us was a rust-colored velvet loveseat. For the client. My client. Who I would counsel.
Don’t puke don’t puke don’t puke.
Two minutes to go.
I should’ve been listening to Olinda as she read out a general summary of the incoming client, but all I could think about was how quickly the seconds would fly by if the ticks on the clock were to match my pounding pulse.
My heart only raced faster at the creak and click of the outer office door opening and closing, at the heavy, hesitant footsteps approaching the smaller inner office where we sat waiting.
A familiar crisp citrus and cinnamon scent cut into the room just as the door was pushed open and a large alpha with dark hair stepped in.
“Ah,” Olinda said, standing and ushering him into the room. As I was supposed to be doing. If I weren’t frozen in my chair. “Welcome in, Caine. Have a seat. This is our resident, Brea, who’ll be steering your sessions for the next four months.”
Caine
Of. Fucking. Course.
I knew I shouldn’t have come.
If I found out Brooks knew about this and didn’t tell me, I’d slap him so hard his curls would straighten. Lin would murder me, but it would be worth it.
The beta woman I’d met with Monday still stood, now awkwardly, waiting for me to sit. I stared, furious, at my tenant sitting in one of two single chairs. My goddamn fucking therapist . Brea Maddox. Downstairs alpha. Hated my guts.
I gave a single shake of my head, a curt “Nope,” and walked back out again. Out of the building, across the blazing parking lot, into my already too warm car. I loosed a frustrated breath and leaned my forehead against the steering wheel.
Brooks had pestered me over the course of weeks into registering for this stupid program.
Low cost, short term, benefited local students.
Fine. Sure. Did I think for a second it would do anything other than raise my blood pressure?
No way. I had very little faith that a few hours of bitching about my fuckups and problems would stop the headaches.
Bleeding my trauma on some stranger’s couch wouldn’t make my inner alpha sit down and shut up for fucking once.
These were the prices I paid for choices I’d made, and that was it.
Uphill forever, getting steeper day by day.
But Brooks’ growing worry over my well-being leaking through the bond was poison in my veins. The beta so rarely let his smile falter, but I’d made it so more and more.
So. I agreed. I attended the orientation. I signed the waivers. I met the mentor. I confirmed my consent.
But I couldn’t. Not here. With her.
A gentle knock on my car window startled me up.
I think, therefore she is?
Brea stood outside my car, anxiety curving over her eyes. The light breeze disrupted her red waves so they spread out behind her. She shielded her eyes from the sun with one hand, the other clenched down by her side. “Can we talk a minute?”
“No need,” I said, starting the engine.
“C’mon,” she said, knocking again. “There are three other residents. Olinda can transfer you to someone else. Don’t walk away because of me.”
“I wasn’t meant to be here anyway,” I said. “Now move.”
She hesitated a moment, like she wasn’t sure what her next move was. Probably not—this wasn’t part of her script, for damn sure. Then her eyes narrowed and she stepped away from my car.
Only to step behind it.
“Not until you come inside and we reschedule you with another resident.”
My fingers tightened around the gear shift. My eyes, glued to the rearview mirror. Car still in park, I revved the engine. A muscle in her eye twitched at the harsh sound of it, but she only stepped closer.
“You registered for a reason,” she called out, loudly enough I could hear her over the engine and through my closed window.
“You might hate that you’re here right now, but you’re here for a reason, and having known you for all of ten seconds it must be a damn good reason to actually get you out here.
So I’m not letting you run away without even trying to fix this. ”
There was still six or so feet between Brea and the back of my car. I narrowed my eyes, shifted into reverse, and let the car idle back half a foot.
"Really, Caine?" she shouted as she smacked my back window with her palm. "You're not running me over, and I'm not moving. So you may as well get the fuck out of your car and let us reschedule you with another resident!"
I shut my eyes, hating that she was right. Hating the fact that if I went home and told Brooks I’d bailed, I’d feel his heart breaking right where mine beat. Maybe my bleak fate was sealed, but like hell would I drag him into the gray with me.
I turned the key. The car quieted. Something inside me did too.
Brea waited for me to stand up out of my car. I did, then locked it, and we stood face to face. Her eyes looked different today than they had Saturday night. Not like they wanted to slice me in half, but like they saw the pieces I was already in. Like they wanted to see the whole those pieces made.
“Good choice,” she said.
We walked back inside together. The beta woman stood just inside the outer office.
“Ah, thank you for coming back, Caine,” she said.
“Brea told me you two actually know each other already. There was a clerical error with your paperwork—it had another resident’s name on it, hence the little surprise back there.
No worries at all, though, we’ll get you rescheduled right away. ”
“No.”
The woman blinked. “No?”
I gave a single shake of my head. “No. Don’t reschedule.”
Brea furrowed her brow, frowning at me.
“I’ll stay,” I said quietly.
The two women exchanged a look, the older one looking back at me. “Stay…”
“With Brea.”
Another silence lingered over the room. “It’s really no problem to switch, Caine,” Brea said.
“I don’t want to.”
The woman cleared her throat, stepping closer.
“You have every right to choose your counselor, Caine. And Brea wouldn’t have been accepted into the program if she weren’t capable of giving productive, impartial attention regardless of the circumstance.
But if there’s any part of you that may feel inhibited or uneasy continuing on with someone you know, it’s best we sort that now. ”
My eyes slid to Brea. The neutralizers meant I couldn’t get a good sense of her scent, but her face was impassive, like we were discussing the best route to take to lunch. That wasn’t the face that stuck in my mind, though. It was the look she’d given me outside.
If she saw the pieces…well, that was a start.
I swallowed. I met her eye. “I’m here. So. Take that or leave it.”