Chapter 15 #2
I slide into the chair nearest the railing, and the ocean’s right there—slate green chopped with gold light, boats bobbing like they’re waiting for applause.
Wind moves through the open windows, carrying salt and the faint metallic tang of the docks, and I breathe it in deep, trying to memorize it.
This moment. This feeling of being here, being part of something instead of watching from the outside.
Eli waves down the waiter before anyone opens a menu. “Everything fried,” he says with the confidence of someone who’s never met a consequence he couldn’t charm his way out of. “We’re conducting a study.”
“On cholesterol?” I ask, falling into the rhythm of this, the easy back-and-forth that is like I’ve been with them way longer than a few days.
“On joy,” he corrects, straight-faced. “We’re going to indulge. Purely in the name of science.”
Cassian leans back in his chair. “You could be the first Omega I’ve met who dies of food poisoning.”
“Then put it on my tombstone,” I tell him, and his laugh is real, unguarded, sliding under my skin and warming something I didn’t realize was cold.
The sound does something to me. Makes me want to chase it. Except I know, it’s dangerous, wanting things from people. Wanting anything, really. But I can’t seem to help it.
Before I start flirting or telling bad jokes to get him and the others to laugh, the chowder arrives steaming, buttery, flecked with thyme, and probably enough cream to stop a heart.
I burn my tongue on the first bite and go back for more because it’s so good.
The burn grounds me, distracting from the ache that’s harder to define—the one that has constant residence in my head and whispers that this is temporary, that I shouldn’t get comfortable, that people like me don’t get to keep good things.
Eli debates paprika ratios with the waiter, hands moving like punctuation, emphatic and ridiculous.
Cassian joins in halfway through, clearly just to annoy him, and their bickering has the worn rhythm of years, and I’m over here trying to figure out what happens at the end of this trial—and whether they’ll want me to stay.
With my hand shaking, I reach for the breadbasket, and Rowan pushes it closer before my fingers touch it.
No comment, just instinct and helping me.
The gesture is so small it shouldn’t matter. But it does. Because he anticipates what I need before I ask for it. Because in a lifetime of being overlooked, someone’s finally paying attention.
He does it again later—shifting the water pitcher closer, angling the plate of shared appetizers so it’s easier for me to grab. Each time, my awareness of him sharpens, until I’m super conscious of his presence beside me, the breadth of his shoulders, the way he takes up space without apology.
The crust flakes under my thumb, butter slicking my tongue—and I’m not thinking about bread anymore.
His knee bumps mine under the table. Once, like an accident, and then it stays.
My pulse flutters, obviously traitorous. I focus very intently on buttering another slice I don’t need, as if I just concentrate hard enough on this one simple task, I can ignore the lust spreading through me, the way my body’s responding to nothing more than the press of his leg against mine.
My body remembers the last time we were this close: the sharp inhale before that kiss, the way the world narrowed to just the two of us, the desire, the want that hasn’t stopped since, even when I’ve tried to ignore it.
The memory lives in my skin, and sitting here beside him and all of them, it’s waking up again, wanting to unfurl in my chest.
I shouldn’t want this. Shouldn’t let myself imagine that this closeness means anything beyond convenience and proximity. But I can’t seem to stop.
“You okay?” Rowan’s voice is low, private in the noise.
“Just hungry,” I lie, buttering bread that doesn’t need more butter.
His knee stays against mine like an answer he isn’t going to say out loud.
As if sensing that part of Rowan is touching me, Cassian’s shoulder touches me on the other side.
I half expect Eli to play footsies with me, but he just leans forward, as if included in our circle without crossing an imaginary boundary.
Or he’s letting the Alphas lead and figures three of them touching me right now might just start up my heat or something despite the shot Nexus gave me.
Not that I haven’t thought about that. About what it would be like with all three of them during my heat—if they’d take turns or if they’d want me all at once.
The thought makes my face hot and other parts of me hotter, and I shove a piece of bread in my mouth before I can say something stupid.
Or ask them. Christ, what is wrong with me?
Eli’s watching me with an expression I can’t quite read—something careful, maybe even hopeful.
Like he’s waiting to see if I’ll pull away from him the way I’m guessing others have.
The thought makes something fierce rise inside me.
He’s part of this pack, part of them, and if they want me, that means all of them. Not just the Alphas.
I shift slightly, letting my ankle brush against his under the table. His eyes widen just a fraction, and then that bright grin is back, real this time, not performative.
Halfway through the meal, Rowan sets his spoon down with deliberate care. “You mentioned friends…from Nexus?”
Eli’s chewing slows, and Cassian goes still in that particular way he has, like a predator deciding whether to pounce or wait.
My throat tightens, and for a second I can’t breathe around the sudden pressure in my lungs.
Lots of Alphas want their Omega to cut ties with their old friends and life.
I could never do that. And even these few days without knowing about my friends is hard, I can’t imagine never seeing or talking with them again.
“I’m not sure if they’re even at Nexus,” I manage, and my voice sounds thin even to my own ears. “Casey, Danica, and Kayla. Last time I saw them, we were in transit. Before—”
The word wreck sticks in my throat. I can’t say it. Can’t give voice to the moment everything shattered…the screech of metal, everything tilted and rolled, screams cutting through the dark.
“I don’t know where they are,” I finish quietly, and the admission is like losing them all over again. “Or if they’re okay.”
The café noise blurs, and Cassian’s intense stare pins me in place, jaw tight like he’s biting back words. Eli looks like he’s calculating something he wishes he didn’t know, running through scenarios I can’t begin to guess at.
Outside, a gull screams, and the sound drags me back to the bus—the moment before impact when I knew, just knew, that everything was about to go to shit.
I press my palms flat against the table, trying to anchor myself in the present. In this moment, where I’m safe and fed and no one’s hurt. But my hands are shaking, and I can’t make them stop.
Rowan reaches into his jacket—the movement slow, deliberate, giving me time to pull back if I want to—and slides his phone to me.
“Type in their names.”
I blink at him, not understanding. “What?”
“If they were on any record—arrival logs, medical reports, reassignments—I’ll see what I can find.”
The metal’s warm from his pocket when I pick it up, and the heat of it against my palm is like an anchor. My hands won’t stop shaking. I type their names one by one, backspacing twice because my vision’s gone watery and I can’t see the keys clearly.
Casey. Danica. Kayla. I add their last names and ages, hoping it will help.
My best friends. Gone since the bus. Gone since before I knew what Nexus really was or what it would mean to be sent there.
When I hand the phone back, Rowan meets my eyes, and there’s something in his expression I don’t have words for. Something that looks almost like a promise.
“Can’t guarantee anything,” he says, and I appreciate the honesty of it, the refusal to offer empty comfort. “But I’ll do my best to find out what happened to them.”
The words shouldn’t mean as much as they do. He’s not promising miracles. But my ribs tighten around my lungs anyway. The first person who’s acted like my friends matter because it matters to me, like their absence is a wound worth acknowledging.
“Thank you. Th-They were on the bus to Nexus with me. Before it wrecked.”
“What wreck?” Eli asks, confusion knitting his brows.
The sound of the room fades with the rush of blood in my ears. “You didn’t know that?”
“That wasn’t in your file.” He frowns.
The words take a second to process. “You read my file?”
My neck goes hot. The idea of him—of any of them—reading about me like I’m a specimen to be studied makes my skin crawl.
All my worst moments cataloged and quantified, reduced to data points and checkboxes.
Every loss, every failure, every reason I ended up how I am laid bare for strangers to judge.
“Seriously?” I add, and I can hear the hurt bleeding through the anger.
Eli flushes, color rising in his cheeks. “Protocol,” he blurts, then winces like he knows how weak it sounds. “Not curiosity.”
I arch a brow, clearly not buying it, and Eli sighs.
“I have to help match Omegas with Alphas,” he says, meeting my eyes with something like an apology. “That can’t happen if I don’t know anything about either. But I swear, I only read what I had to. And I didn’t—I haven’t told Cassian or Rowan anything.”
I exhale slowly, trying to let the anger drain out of me. “Wow. Thanks for… not spilling everything about me.”
Because if they knew—if they knew about my sister, about finding her too late, about my mother who’s a drunk, and my father who’s never home—they’d look at me differently.
Everyone always does. They’d see the damage first, the broken pieces, and decide I’m not worth the effort of putting back together.
“How do you know he didn’t? He could be lying,” Rowan asks, and there’s no judgment in it, just honest curiosity.
“I don’t. It’s just a gut feeling.”