Jorak
My nose scrunches up at the awful stench of the Redbrook Stabilization Center that ESA owns, the synthetic scent that scrapes against the back of my throat reminding me that every inch of this place is designed to contain things that shouldn't exist. Usually, when I walk back through these reinforced doors, my Esper essence, Black Current, is screaming under my skin, a jagged roar of static that makes the lights flicker and the guards' hands twitch toward their shock-batons.
This morning, though, the current is just a low, rhythmic hum.
It feels less like a storm and more like a heartbeat.
My skin doesn't feel three sizes too small, and the pressure behind my eyes has receded into a dull, manageable ache.
I can still feel the ghost of that Omega on my skin, the curve of a neck, the hitch of a breath, and the scent of pear and vanilla that seems to have woven itself into my very flesh.
If I could have stayed in that bed with him wrapped around me, I would have. Asa. The name is all I have but the reservation ended and without putting down actual names, addresses, and money, it all came to an end.
“Time to face the music, I guess,” I mutter, dragging a hand through my hair as I walk into the intake wing with my head up.
The guards at the primary gate freeze, their rifles half-raised, their expressions a mix of terror and profound confusion.
They were clearly expecting to be hunting me through the gutters of Redbrook for the next forty-eight hours, dragging back a feral animal in a sedative-induced coma.
Instead, I’m just standing there, offering them my wrists.
"Thorn?" the lead guard rasps. He doesn't lower the weapon but tilts his head toward his comms. "He’s back. Asset 01 is back on site. Code Green. No—Code Blue. Get medical down here now."
I don't say a word as I let them swarm me, the frantic energy of their movements contrasting sharply with the heavy, grounded stillness in my chest. They handle me like a live bomb, their fingers trembling as they strip my jacket and check for weapons I don't have.
One of them, a young Alpha who smells like sour sweat and nerves, leans in too close to check my pulse-point before he freezes, his nostrils flaring.
"He smells like..." the kid starts, then pales, pulling back as if I’d bitten him. "Sir, he’s scented. Deeply."
"Shut up and move him," the sergeant snaps, though I see his eyes track the way I’m breathing. Long, slow, and even. Not the ragged gasps of an Enigma Esper who just broke out of a high-security rut-lock.
They escort me to Medical Wing B, the place where they usually dump me when I’ve burned through another pair of unfortunate Guides.
As the glass doors slide open, the sharp, metallic tang of burnout hits me, the two Guides from the Redbrook mission still hooked up to neuro-stabilizers, their faces pale and drawn, their eyes tracking the ceiling with a vacant, glazed-over horror.
I did that to them. Or rather, the power I can’t turn off did.
Usually, seeing the cost of my existence makes the Black Current flare in a fit of self-loathing.
Today, I just feel a distant, cold regret.
I look at them, then I look at my own hands, which aren't shaking for the first time in ten years.
Whatever happened at Vesper House—whoever that Omega was—he didn't just survive me. He quieted the monster.
"Sit," Dr. Rue says, pointing to the exam table.
His lab coat is wrinkled, and his glasses are sliding down the bridge of his nose, but his eyes are sharp, darting between the monitors and my face.
"We have fifteen different sensors telling us you should be in a state of catastrophic energetic collapse, Jorak.
Why are you sitting there like you just had a nap? "
"Maybe your sensors are broken," I say, my voice lacking the jagged edge of a man on the brink of a psychotic break. "Check the calibration."
"The calibration is fine," Mercer’s voice cuts through the room. He enters from the observation gallery. He stops three feet away, his gaze sweeping over me with the clinical detachment of a man inspecting a malfunctioning piece of heavy machinery.
Mercer leans in, his eyes narrowing before drawing in a slow breath. I see the moment he catches Asa’s scent. His jaw tightens, a flash of something that looks dangerously like calculation crossing his features.
"Pear," Mercer says softly, the word sounding like a threat. "Vanilla. You didn't just find a fix, Jorak. You found a match. An S-Class match, based on the fact that your current is vibrating at a frequency we haven't seen since your awakening. Where is she?"
"He," I correct him, my voice dropping an octave. I don't give him anything else. I don't tell him about the way the Omega’s skin felt like silk, or the way his eyes looked when he realized I wasn't going to break him. I don't tell him that for several hours, I forgot I was a weapon of the state.
"Where is he?" Mercer repeats, his tone hardening. "We know you went to Vesper House but they aren’t responding to our inquiries regarding the client list. They’re citing 'privacy protocols.
' As if the ESA gives a damn about privacy when an S-Class Enigma is wandering the streets uncollared. Who was he?"
"I don't know," I lie. It’s a half-truth. "I was in a rut. You think I was checking IDs?"
Mercer paces the small room. "You broke containment.
You bypassed a Level 4 security lock. You traveled three miles through a high-density civilian zone.
And then you returned. Voluntarily. That suggests the Omega isn't just a physical outlet, but we’ve yet to meet any asset who can guide your essence, Jorak. "
The word asset sends a strange ripple through my blood. I don't like the way Mercer says it, like he’s found a new piece of gear for my tactical vest. "He’s off-limits, Mercer. Don't look for him."
"Don't look for him?" Mercer laughs, a short, sharp sound devoid of any humor.
"Jorak, you are the most expensive, most dangerous asset this city has.
If there is a person capable of bringing your stabilization levels down to manageable parameters without medical intervention, that person is a matter of national security.
We will find him. We will evaluate him. And then we will pair you officially. "
The air in the room drops five degrees as my current surges. The monitors beside my bed begin to whine, their screens flickering with lines of erratic data. I stand up slowly, and the guards at the door both reach for their sidearms.
"You won't touch him," I growl out. I can feel the power coiling in my knuckles, ready to shred the glass, the guards, and Mercer’s smug certainty. "If you go near him, if you even send a scout to his door, I’ll stop cooperating. I’ll let the current take Redbrook.
See how well your career handles a city-wide blackout and a thousand flare-deaths. "
Mercer stops pacing. He looks at the flickering monitors, then back at me. He sees the crack in my control, the way my eyes have gone dark with the entropic pull of my power. He doesn't look afraid but he’s obviously realizing this isn't just the lingering pheromones of a successful knotting.
"Possessiveness," Mercer muses, adjusting his cufflinks. "Interesting. We’ll table the search for now. But only because Redbrook is currently trying to eat itself, and I don't have the luxury of chasing ghosts while the suppression nodes are failing."
Before I can respond, a sharp, high-pitched alarm cuts through the medical wing. A red light begins to pulse over the doorway. Dr. Rue immediately turns to his tablet, his fingers flying across the screen.
"District Seven," Rue says, his voice tightening. "The university campus. We have a massive flare signature near the old library node. It’s a Grade 3 rupture, Mercer. If we don't suppress it in the next hour, it’ll cascade into the residential zones."
Mercer looks at me, a thin, predatory smile touching his lips.
"Well, Jorak. It seems you’re getting your wish.
You’re leaving the facility. Your university placement is being moved up to today.
You’ll be embedded in the graduate program as part of our 'stability' initiative.
It puts you on site for any further flares near the campus nodes. "
I don't care about the university. I don't care about the nodes. I just want to be out of this sterile box. I want the wind on my face and the feeling of something other than concrete under my boots. "Whatever. Just give me the coordinates."
Mercer hands a tablet to Rue, who taps a few buttons to sync it with my internal HUD. "You’ll be reporting to the Department of Applied Mathematics. It’s the closest building to the rupture point. Here is your schedule and your primary contact."
I take the tablet, my eyes scanning the briefing material with bored indifference. Names, titles, office numbers. It’s all administrative static. Then, I see the name at the top of the student roster for the advanced design theory seminar I’m supposed to attend for cover.
Asa Renwick.
There’s no fucking way it’s the same Omega.
I tap the profile, my heart beating a little faster as a photo populates.
It’s a standard faculty ID—clinical lighting, a neutral background.
But the man in the photo is him. The messy brown hair, the sharp, intelligent eyes, the slight, stubborn curve of a mouth I’ve spent the last several hours memorizing with my tongue.
He’s wearing a sweater, looking every bit the unassuming academic, but I can practically smell the pear and vanilla through the screen.
And then reality hits me. He isn't just an Omega. He’s a professor. He’s my professor. The man I knotted against a wall at a rut clinic, the man Mercer desperately wants to examine, is going to be inches away from me. The universe isn't just cruel; it has a sick sense of humor.
"Is there a problem, Jorak?" Mercer asks, his voice sounding entirely too curious. He’s watching me, his eyes tracking the way my grip has tightened on the tablet until the casing starts to groan.
I force my hand to relax and my face into a mask of bored aggression. If Mercer realizes I’ve found him, if he realizes my match is right there under our noses, he’ll turn Asa into a lab rat before the sun sets. I have to play this perfectly. I have to be the weapon he expects.
"No problem," I say, sliding the tablet into my vest pocket. I give him a sharp, jagged grin that usually makes the staff back away. "I just realized I haven't been in a classroom since I was fifteen. It’s going to be a bloodbath."
Mercer studies me for a long, agonizing moment. He’s looking for the tell, the hitch in the rhythm, the scent of a lie. But my essence is my best defense. I let it flare just enough to distort the air around us, a wave of cold entropy that masks everything else.
"Try to keep the casualties to a minimum," Mercer says, though he doesn't sound like he cares. "The university is a sensitive donor. Just stabilize the nodes and maintain your cover. We’ll handle the paperwork for your 'enrollment.'"
I turn and walk out of the medical wing before I can say anything else, focusing on the name burned into the back of my eyelids.
Asa has no idea that the monster is coming to his classroom.
And he has no idea that I’m the only thing standing between him and the men who want to own him.
I’ll play the student. I’ll play the asset.
But the moment anyone tries to take that scent away from me, I’ll show them why they call me the Black Current.
I head for the showers, knowing that Mercer will want me on that campus this morning.
It’s just after six am, so I have some time, but not nearly enough, to prepare myself to see Asa again.
I wonder if the lack of fear from last night will still be present this morning or if daylight will make him realize all the reasons he should have been terrified that he spent a night with an S-Class Enigma Esper.
By the time I step back into my room only wrapped in a towel, Mercer is there, his arms folded across his chest. “This is a test, Jorak. You’re to blend in.
You’ll be provided with a dampener to wear on campus and you are to stay in contact at all times.
If we reach out, you have three minutes to respond or we’ll pull you back. ”
“Five,” I push out. I tilt my head toward him. “What if I have to shit? I’m not texting you while I’m shitting.”
Mercer shoves a phone onto the dresser by the door. “Five, then but Jorak, this isn’t a game. This isn’t just a way for you to use your essence outside this facility. You’ll be dropped off every morning and picked up to be brought back—”
“Absolutely the fuck not.” I twist toward him fully, pushing some of my anger forward.
“Mercer, if you have some unidentified car picking me up like that, people will figure out pretty fucking quick who I am and what I represent. They’ll know I’m government property before the day is over.
I get there how I get there and come home when the classes are over. That’s how I blend in.”
I’m not sure how I get the courage to say all that, but I’m not backing down, not when Asa is just within my reach.
Mercer just sighs, pointing to the phone. “Keep that with you. There’s everything you need to know about your professors and classes. Make sure you keep your grades up.”
I grab the phone and press the small ESA icon in the corner, everything sparsed into several folders. Of course, I open the one titled ‘professors’, Asa’s picture the first one there.
Is he thinking about me? Did he wake up with the ghost of my hands on his hips, wondering if the Enigma who claimed him was just a fever dream? Or is he already back in his books, trying to pretend that the world isn't ending and that he isn't carrying the mark of a monster?
"Jorak. One more thing. If you see anything unusual regarding the staff--any irregular energetic readings--you report it immediately. The nodes aren't the only things we're monitoring in that district."
"I'm a blunt instrument, Mercer. You want a lab tech, send Rue. I'm just here to keep the lights on."
"Just do your job," Mercer snaps. “And hurry up. You need to be on campus in 45 minutes and if we aren’t driving, the bus leaves in fifteen minutes.”
A wild grin splits across my face. “I never said anything about the bus. I just said that you couldn’t be seen picking me up and dropping me off. Do you really want me on public transportation with all those people and...”
He holds up a hand. “Fine. There will be a car for you. Don’t fuck this up.”
Oh, I won’t, I tell myself. After all, I have a beautiful little Omega to see.