Page 49 of Fight

“Is she fucking five-years-old?” I ask, snickering.

God, we are so not ready for this omega. Here’s to a hope, a prayer, and a match to burn it all down.

CERENITY

My eyes close, exhausted from fighting, my arms over my head in these stupid handcuffs. I’m uncomfortable, my tear ducts feel as if they’ll never shut off, and not over the truth bombs these alphas dropped on me today.

I blame that for being pulled into a nightmare that is more a memory I try hard never to remember during my waking hours.

“Cere, hurry,” my mother hisses as she makes my eight-year-old legs run next to her. We don’t have much because Mama won’t let me keep much outside of a teddy bear and a favorite small blanket that’ll fit in a tiny bag.

We move every time Mama gets a “feeling”. Sometimes I’ll get months of normalcy, but others we’ll move every two weeks. It doesn’t make sense to find an apartment anymore, so instead we stay in hotels. It scares me because I think there’s something wrong with her.

“Mama, what’s wrong?” I ask, hurrying to follow her. My mother is wispy and tall, which makes me wonder if I really am her kid with my short legs. “Please wait for me!”

Mama crosses the street, but even this late at night, there are a lot of cars and I can’t follow her. Gasping, my eyes widen as she continues to walk, disappearing into the subway in Chicago.

“Mama!” I scream, my heart slamming in my chest as I somehow race across the street by myself. Horns blow as I cross, making my body shake even more. I know that if I saw my reflection in one of the windows in these darkened store fronts, that my face would be pale and terrified.

My mother isn’t supposed to leave me behind too. She ran from my fathers to protect me and herself, she’s always told me, but why does she keep moving so fast that I can’t follow? My heart chooses her, I choose her, so why can’t she wait for me?

“Mama!” I yell again as I look down the dark stairway leading down into the subway. She wouldn’t have jumped on a train without me, would she?

This is one of the bigger stations, and Mama said we’d take a bus after this. We’ve zig-zagged across the city most of the night. God, I’m so tired.

“Move, kid!” an alpha snarls, making me squeak as she shoves me roughly aside. Mama has spent every breath she has telling me how dangerous the world is, and how she hopes I’ll be a beta.

Betas are safe, because no one wants them. I want to be safe so badly, but do I want to be someone my own mother thinks is useless? Betas aren’t special. I guess it doesn’t much matter when everyone shoves you aside, because you’re so little and you don’t have friends.

“Cerenity, where are you!” Mama screams, making my eyes widen as I realize she’s still close enough for me to follow.

“Here! Please wait!” I beg, rushing down the stairs behind the alpha who shoved me. My back hurts from where the railing slammed into me. Wincing, I almost trip over my own feet, squeaking in surprise as I slip down four stairs and fall on my butt.

“Why are you sitting down, silly girl?” Mama asks, her hands on her hips. I’m just so happy to see her with our only bag that I jump up and make my way to her quickly.

“You’re here,” I gasp, wrapping my arms around her.

“Of course I am, Cere. We have to go, though. You can sleep on the bus. Come on, they could be following us and the next train is coming,” she says urgently.

Nodding, I slip my hand in hers and resolutely walk with her. My dads aren’t good people. They scare Mama, so they also scare me. I hear every day about how they’re bad men who will kill me and kidnap my mother, because they don’t want a girl.

This can’t be how people are supposed to live, but I’ll always choose the woman beside me, even if sometimes I worry that she’s jumping at shadows.

As we get onto the train and the doors shut behind us, I wonder if we’ll get to stay for longer than a few days wherever it is that we end up.

Gasping as my eyes open, I can’t even sit up because of my handcuffed hands. Tears slide down my cheeks as I remember the many late nights that we ran from things only my mother could see, and how she explained it all to me the year I turned fourteen.

Probably too young to tell that sordid story to, but I was tired of moving.

Now, I am pretty sure that there was only ever a small chance that my fathers were still looking for me, while the rest was the terror of her mental illness. It kept deteriorating instead of getting better, until she got lost in her memories and psychosis.

The tears turn to sobs as I think about the things she made me promise.

“Never fall in love, because it’s a lie, Cere,” she told me when I was twelve. Mama made me promise her, and at the time I meant it. Love takes away your choices, your words, and your dreams.

“Alphas are all after one thing if you’re an omega. They want to fuck, rut, and keep you for their own devices. Biology will lie to you to make you believe it,” Mama snarled when I was fifteen.

She cried when I presented as an omega at sixteen. I was an incredibly late bloomer, and she had high hopes that I would be a beta. Unfortunately, Mama was wrong when my designation appeared, and she spiraled even more until I eventually had to hospitalize her six years ago.

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