4. Raya
RAYA
T hese next few months were going to destroy me.
Especially if Bodhi continued to persist with unnerving me. It was a precarious line I was walking here, because I loved Bodhi. He was the only true friend I had here in the Haven, but I could never allow myself to fall in love with him, not if I wished to keep the one true friendship I had.
My head fell back on a groan to survey the stars above me, which usually offered me comfort. They made all my problems seem infinitely smaller because everything seemed so expansive and hopeful when I looked above. The top of the tube line was my favourite place to view them, my private little escape when everything seemed too much. It was peaceful here on a night when it wasn’t operating its semi-circle around our city, dropping off Alphas to their various jobs in the Outer Ring and transporting goods.
Tonight, Bodhi had tested me, even more so when I viewed the beautiful image which now marked the back of my thigh. I’d fled like a coward the moment he’d finished it and asked what I thought of it.
I swear, I could still feel his touch against my skin, how my body still tingled at the reminder of it.
I shook my head. Absolutely not.
The Haven wasn’t big enough to even consider a relationship with him. What if it ended badly?
I would have to live in a house with an ex-boyfriend, with no friends, and that would be awkward for my mother, who looked at Bodhi like her own son. I couldn’t do that to her or him or me. I didn’t want to be alone.
It wasn’t like if I felt ashamed that I could leave either. The Outer Ring simply wasn’t big enough, and I wasn’t welcome in the Inner Ring because I wasn’t an Omega and my power was considered a problem.
I tapped my feet against the metal roof as I sighed. It was too big a risk. I couldn’t do it. Every other female in the Outer Ring would laugh at me in this moment; they would have seized the opportunity with both hands and pursued him relentlessly because he was beautiful in every way.
In many ways, they already did. This was partially why many didn’t particularly connect with me—because I’d glared at all of them.
Repeatedly.
I knew I was a jealous person, and I had no right to be at all.
He wasn’t mine and couldn’t be.
I shifted my position away from the uncomfortable metal protruding into my back to catch sight of a particularly bright star.
“I wish I had freedom of choice. I wish my family and I had a better life than this one. One filled with so much…more.” I whispered my dreams to that same pulsing star, hoping that one day, these same dreams might come true. Sometimes, everything just felt so hopeless.
I lay there for some time after, breathing in the crisp night air long after all the lights flicked off in our ring, the only illumination left in the Haven coming from the residents inside the gated rose hedge.
My eyes fell shut, and I exhaled a long breath. In moments like this, I could feel peace, when I shut the world out and quietened, listening only to the sounds of nature around me.
Soft and rhythmic. That was how everything appeared to me in nature, how I perceived the stars as they seemed to pulse to the song of the universe. I tried hard to convey this in my art, to capture their essence exactly as I experienced it.
But it never stood against the magic of seeing it in person.
Blinding, shockingly bright light illuminated beyond my eyelids, disrupting me, and I gasped, shielding them just as that terrifying, horrid siren commenced its awful screech.
More lights flicked back on throughout my ring as one by one, the siren beckoned the residents forward. Everywhere I looked, a new light flicked on, then another as the Alpha residents of the Outer Ring responded.
I panicked and portaled. One instance of a crime was unusual for our ring, but two was problematic and almost unheard of. That awful siren meant something entirely different, because it guaranteed a spectacle, a punishment that was both a lesson and an example to the rest of us if we dared to put our toe out of line.
I materialised in the shadows near my house before pumping my arms and legs as hard as I could past our neighbours emerging from their homes. Onwards, I ran, towards where the beaming spotlights were now directed, exposing whoever had dared be defiant. My heart thumped, my gut sinking.
Please don’t be family. It was the same wish I repeated every time this occurred.
A strong arm reached out and gripped my bicep, dragging me closer towards them. I growled in frustration before looking up to Bodhi’s worried eyes as one word I didn’t want to hear fell from his lips. “Don’t.”
I knew then.
There was no other time in this world when he would stop me from viewing who it was.
Dread uncoiled in my gut. My body began to tremble as I looked up at the fear in his eyes. “I’ll protect her, Raya.”
I portaled us closer, this time just to the darkness of a nearby house, not even bothering to ask for his permission, knowing he would never release his grip on my skin if he knew I was going to portal. With his disorientation, I shirked out of his grip, running towards the guards, who were dragging my mum towards two other posts, situated next to the other Alpha serving his sentence in the cage.
“Stop!” I yelled. I didn’t know what I was doing, only that she couldn’t be tied up. Not when the first night of the thinning of our shield was mere days away. She would be a target. An Omega on display, almost as an offering.
My stomach rolled.
“Two weeks at the posts for a sympathiser,” one of the guards yelled as he dragged my emotionless mum to her position at the posts before dumping her on the ground and promptly dragging the chains to each of her wrists.
I moved forward as a guard gripped me and yanked me back, painfully twisting my arm.
I stifled a cry.
“Please,” I begged. “She cannot serve this punishment. She is an Omega, and it is near the thinning. They will take her and condemn her to a lifetime of slavery. This is a lifetime sentence!”
I was desperate, with my face fallen in grief, but the guard just looked at me impassively. “Your mother chose to commit this crime with the knowledge that the shield was thinning. She must serve her sentence.”
“No.” I moved to yank my arm out of his grip as a second guard moved to my other side, dragging me back and throwing me backwards onto the ground. I didn’t even know what crime she had committed.
Someone cried out in the crowd as the breath left my lungs, and I choked, pain ricocheting up my spine. A new guard pinned my body down with his.
“Do you wish to serve alongside her?” the new guard hissed, prompting my body to immediately became limp.
He was right. I couldn’t help her if I served my own sentence.
I clenched my jaw, blinking furiously to hold back the flow of my tears. She wouldn’t survive the breach of our shield out here. She wouldn’t survive beyond as a slave to the Dominants either. I thought of her laugh, her smile, her forgiveness towards me when I lost her most treasured items of my father’s, and I choked. Our enemies would use her.
The clang of chains irritated my ears as Bodhi’s angry but fearful face appeared above me.
“She will not be a problem. I will sort her out,” Bodhi stated, his hands curling beneath my armpits to lift me off the floor. The guard paused in consideration before rolling off me to stand so Bodhi could pull me the rest of the way up.
“See that you do sort her out, Alpha. Otherwise, we will be setting her up right next to her mother.”
Bodhi nodded with gritted teeth as he yanked me back to his chest, against his thundering heart. His earthy scent and his grip on my body comforted me, but only slightly.
Lips caressed the shell of my ear as I watched them chain her up, her knees on the floor. “I can protect her, Raya. I cannot protect you both if you serve your sentence alongside her. Please don’t do that to me.”
His fingers gripped me tighter as my lip trembled. How could I leave her here exposed?
I lifted my own hands to grip his forearms over my chest, allowing my head to fall back against him, my eyes never leaving her. She lifted her head and caught sight of me, no hint of remorse on her face.
It infuriated me. What did she do?
A smile played at the edges of her lips, and in that moment, she looked proud. It was terrifying to watch her like this, as if she knew she wasn’t going to survive it and was prepared to be taken or die defiant.
Bodhi pulled me against him, and I realised how much I valued his support, his friendship, his love. Because right now, I needed it.
But I couldn’t promise him I would stop trying to get her out.
My gaze searched frantically around the area, for a sign of anything or anyone who might be helpful, but I came up short. There was nothing except for Alphas hovering and guards lingering, dusty pathways and a few streetlights with benches beneath them scattered in and around the houses. There were no plants to hide in unless you ventured further near the cliffs, where a few stray grasses managed to survive. I looked at the tall rose hedge behind her, the same hedge that circled the Inner Ring, shielding its residents from the impurity of our Outer Ring.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Bodhi whispered, causing a shudder to work its way up my body. “Even though he does not rely on technology to monitor this city, Raya, this area is too exposed. They will take away every freedom you have left if they find out you are no longer so defective, that you can wield your gift with precision now.”
My muscles tightened in response. Only Bodhi, Riley, and my mother knew I had more control over my gift. I was no longer the defective this city believed me to be.
“I need to do something. I cannot leave her,” I murmured to him quietly, and I felt his muscles go rigid behind me.
“I told you I will protect her.”
“The defence has never saved a single Omega from being taken from the Haven, and they always take someone with the highest security this city offers from the Inner Ring. What do you think will happen to someone so exposed?” My whispers were now harsh and hurried, the frustration and helplessness I felt seeping into my tone.
He flinched. I hadn’t meant to be so brutal, but it was the truth.
“She means a lot to me too, Raya. I will die trying to protect her,” he replied, his voice low and quiet. A strange uncomfortable sensation moved into my chest at his declaration.
“As will I.” My thumb twiddled with the ring on my forefinger nervously, my gaze still fastened on her.
“No, Raya. I need you both safe. I will protect her. For once, I ask you to have faith in me.” He became more insistent this time as guards took their positions on either side of my mum, the watching crowd beginning to draw closer to the spectacle. We waited for their announcement, her crime, as a single guard stepped forward.
“Let this be your notice. Assisting family members of criminals who are serving punishment will not be tolerated. If you are caught offering assistance in any capacity, you will serve double the punishment of the offender.” He cast his arm out towards my mum, and cries of outrage came from the crowd.
I frowned in confusion. This had never been a law in our city.
“They are only children. There is no mother and they needed food!” someone screamed, and the guard’s gaze darted to find the origin of the voice with a glare that could have cut deeper than a blade. Immediately, the crowd quietened. She gave the little girls food?
My mouth fell open in shock. We had always assisted with food in the days after a family member’s crime, and it had been tolerated for children.
“The laws have been updated as of today. Omni has decreed it.” The guards didn’t bother to await a reply, instead leaving through the gate to the Inner Ring, save for the two who remained to stand by the two bodies in chains. Alphas turned and strode away, their heads lowered to the ground with the enforcement of a new rule, one I didn’t truly want to acknowledge, as it tightened the leash we were already trying to live on.
I couldn’t seem to take my eyes off them.
Two criminals kneeled side by side, one in a cage and one more familiar to me: my Mum, who was completely exposed. The Alpha who had already served a couple of days of his sentence also had his head lifted, his chin up, though his body looked tired. As if my mother’s crime had renewed him.
The huge spotlights switched off, casting Bodhi and me into darkness. We weren’t allowed to speak to those serving their sentence, nor to give them food or water. That was our Supreme’s command, which I usually obeyed.
Usually.
But this time, I had no choice. My mother’s life depended on it.
“When did Riley say she would visit next?” I asked as Bodhi took my hand and pulled me along to our house, with only a single look back to my mother’s kneeling form. The fear inside me was suffocating, and the only thing that allowed me to turn away from her was the thought that I was willing to do whatever I could to get her out of there.
“She said she didn’t know, as it depended on the Supreme.”
I gritted my jaw. Everything always depended on our Supreme. Riley wouldn’t want our mum in chains either, and I was prepared to do many terrible things to ensure my mother wasn’t left kneeling there on the night our shield thinned.
Bodhi’s hand flexed against mine when I tried to pull my own from his grip, only for him to clench his fingers tighter, preventing me from doing so. I frowned down at it.
“Can I have my hand back?” I demanded as I tried to pull out of his grip for the second time.
He turned towards me and shot me a mischievous grin, lifting my hand towards his lips and kissing it delicately. For a single moment, he had me stupefied, and I froze. He had this capacity to make you forget things with his easy-going nature and his charm. I couldn’t help but watch it as every thought blanked from my mind in shock.
“No,” he stated. I had no choice in the matter.
Then, he turned back ahead and dragged me along behind him as my mouth flapped open and closed a few times. He was getting under my skin on purpose because he knew how uncomfortable I could be about anything to do with romance. We truly didn’t see many romantic displays at all in our community, though there were always whispers.
I stumbled along beside him as he pulled me into the house and locked the door behind us, pulling me up the stairs towards his bedroom. My stomach fluttered nervously at the sight of it, so I pushed my feet into the floor and bent backwards, pulling in the opposite direction to give some resistance. There was no way I was going in there with him. “I’m not staying with you. What is wrong with you? I have my own bed.”
He quirked his eyebrow at me and turned just as he opened the door to his room. “Do you think I’m stupid, Raya?”
My brows drew together, my lips pursed in confusion. “No?” More a question than an answer.
“You will be sleeping in my bed, Raya, with my arms wrapped around you, because I’m not running the risk of you even attempting to do something that is going to get you caught and punished.”
It was times like this that I resented my family knowing my power dragged them with me if they were touching me.
My eye ticked. “I’m not staying with you.”
It couldn’t happen. Friends didn’t do that. It was too close, and I was allowing too much. Lovers shared beds, not friends.
He smiled, a dark glint in his eye. Then, he moved forward quickly and picked me up, hugging me tight to his chest as he carried me into his room and placed us onto his bed, one arm around me. He pulled the covers up over us. I tried my best to bat him away, to hit and push off his body without fully injuring him, but he didn’t budge, his muscles firm and unrelenting.
I growled in frustration, and he chuckled, satisfied.
“Wherever you go, Raya, I will follow. So don’t try anything, not unless you want to get me punished too. I already have a life sentence serving on our Defence simply for waking up here with no memories. That is comparatively mild compared to whatever you intend to do. It would surely be my death sentence.”
I stilled because he was right. I’d remembered how he’d come to live with us, the day a beaten and battered teenager had shown up in the wasteland with no memories, an Alpha. A curious, broken, pink-haired shifter with dazzling eyes that reminded me of the amber pigments I worked with and a charming smile despite how broken his body had been.
I remembered how my mother had taken him in, how Zander, in his efforts to protect the Haven, had punished him to try and get him to explain how he arrived here. But he couldn’t remember.
Outrage rose again inside me, causing me to grip him tighter instead of pushing him away.
“I won’t do anything stupid, Bodhi.” I would never forget the day he arrived. I wouldn’t jeopardise his safety.
“Good,” he said, his hand moving across to rest against my stomach. I closed my eyes, though I was wide awake, my body entirely aware of his proximity. His soft lips pressed against my neck from behind, his firm body curling in closer. It felt comforting and safe, which caused a small sense of anxiety to flare inside me. It felt perfect. This moment was everything I had wanted to avoid; I never wanted to experience moments like this for a reason.
I would long for them when I didn’t have them, even more so If I took the risky leap towards him, enduring the risk of it fizzling out.
His breaths evened out shortly after, an indicator he was sound asleep. I kept my promise, and I didn’t move, even though I could have lifted his arms away from me.
I liked this.
Maybe for one night, I could allow myself to feel what a future solely with him could be like, to experience a future I could never truly risk, or else I ruin everything in my life that was good.
I tucked my body closer against him, taking whatever warmth I could and relishing this time between us, as it would likely be the last. I had to keep clear of sharing more moments like this with him.
For a Gifted like me, desperate to fit in, experiences like this were as dangerous as they were tempting.