Page 1 of Such a Delicious Omega

Chapter One

Echo

“I’m gonna throw up and piss my pants.” I turned to see my friend Zack turn a putrid shade of green as he watched the instructors and pilot put all the gear into the plane and do the last-minute safety checks.

Fear hadn’t overlooked me. Its hooks were in my chest making me struggle for every breath, but I’d learned to sink into the feeling instead of running from it.

At least, when it came to things on my list.

“You gotta pick one,” I said over the sounds around us. The smaller airport only served private flights and skydiving expeditions, but it sure was noisy. “Throw up or pee. You can’t have both.”

Zack laughed, pushing his dark-brown hair out of his face to no avail. It always managed to find its way back into his eyes. He’d drawn the short stick in coming with me but, at the same time, my group of friends insisted I go with someone. They had worried themselves sick when I was in Japan on my own. “Let’s talk about something else. You need to add to your list. You’ve only got two things left.”

“This and… I forgot the other one.”

“No, you didn’t, Echo. Hell, I didn’t forget, and it’s not my list.”

I nodded as the hooks of fear dug in deeper. Sure, jumping out of an airplane with nothing but a parachute was terrifying, but the last thing on my list made my stomach turn.

Visit a dungeon. A sex club.

Goddess, the only experience I had with dungeons was from my Google searches and romance novels. I could guess some things I wouldn’t like. Electric play. Those violet wands with allthe crazy tips I saw when I looked them up scared me. Fire play. Even scarier.

“The dungeon,” I muttered, shuddering at the name alone.

“Have you even looked one up yet? Is there a good one in the city?”

“I don’t know,” I answered. “I’ll do all that once I get this crossed off.”

Zack stared off into space. His coloring wasn’t so green anymore. Maybe all he needed was a change of subject. “You don’t have to do any of this, you know. No one would hold it against you.”

I snorted. “Are you sure? You and James and Amber are the ones who helped me make it. I…I feel like I need to finish it.”

My friend turned to me, hands on his hips. “Well, here we go. Look.”

The instructor waved us over. We got onto the plane, and the rest was a blur. The roar of the plane. The yelling from the team as they went over the instructions and safety measures one more time. My stomach did a somersault as they opened the door, giving us a view of the vast expanse we were about to fling ourselves into. The view was spectacular. Looking over the weaving lines of land and water, as though viewing a huge puzzle.

Why was I doing this?

Why did I keep looking death in the face while trying to run from its snares?

We leapt from the plane and thankfully both landed safely on the ground. The rush I’d gotten from jumping and soaring through the sky had given me a temporary reprieve from the clamp on my chest, but as soon as we got back into our street clothes and headed to lunch, the vise grip had strengthened once again.

Making the list—the bucket list—had, at first, been a way of making sure the things I wanted to do were done before I died.

Because after almost dying at the hands of the ocean, I realized how short and fragile life was. We took it for granted, of course—me included. I’d been skirting through life before the boating accident.

Why I thought sailing was a good idea in the first place, I didn’t know.

Kendall, my friend who owned the boat, still had a look in his eyes when we talked about that night. He carried some guilt about what happened to me even though I’d told him over and over that it was an accident. I’d fallen off the boat and hit my head on a buoy in the process, rendering me unconscious for just enough time to almost drown. The night had made the water almost black, so no one could see me to save me.

I’d saved myself—barely. My parents said Fate dragged me from the depths. My friends thought the Goddess had saved me for a purpose.

Me? I assumed I was just lucky. No matter the reason—I wasn’t wasting one more moment of my life.

But no more sailboats. Not in a million years.

“Where’d you go?” Zack asked as we made our way to lunch. Part of the deal with him skydiving with me was a lunch of his choice afterward.

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