Page 9 of Break Me Knot

My fist clenches over my twinging abdomen.

I’m going to be sick.

My phone screen glows harsh in the darkness: 10:15 p.m. Shit. The display shows Stacey's message again, reminding me of promises I can't afford to break. I need to move if I'm going to make it on time.

The thought of cleaning some rich person's office suite makes my empty stomach clench even more. But double pay... that could mean real suppressants. If Marcus ever shows up again.If I can trust him again. I’ll have to chance another visit here and see if he’s back. Or if not him, I’ll find someone else to buy from.

Somehow.

The buses take me from my familiar territory of crumbling buildings and desperate lives into the heart of wealth. Each transfer takes me farther from safety, deeper into a world I don't belong in. By the third bus, I'm the only passenger not wearing designer labels or carrying shopping bags from luxury stores.

The streets here are clean, the sidewalks heated to prevent ice formation. No steam rises from grates here, no garbage piled in corners. The buildings soar upward, all gleaming glass and polished steel, their windows glowing warm against the night sky. Through floor-to-ceiling windows, I see good-looking people dining in nice restaurants. Women in silk dresses, men in tailored suits, all of them laughing, drinking, enjoying their privileged lives, while people like me scramble for scraps.

A couple walks past me. They don't even see me. I'm invisible here, part of the servant class that keeps their world running smoothly. Just another beta cleaner in a cheap uniform, not worth noticing.

When I reach the address Stacey gave me, I stop short and look up. And up. “Fuck. My. Life.”

The bright blue Pinnacle Therapeutics logo glows in a reflection on the wet pavement, highlighting forty stories of architectural brilliance. The office I have to clean is for the company that controls every aspect of omega medication. The company that works hand in hand with the government to keep us dependent, controlled, monitored.

Owned.

Pinnacle manufacture the very suppressants I buy on the black market at ten times their actual cost. The scent blockers only available with an alpha's prescription. Every pill, every patch, every chemical that omegas need to survive in this world… all of it flows through this building, through the hands of alphas who decide who gets to live freely and who doesn't.

And now I must clean their office.

The thought hits me as I stare up at the building—somewhere in there are stockpiles of real suppressants. Clean, pharmaceutical-grade pills, not the cut-rate garbage Marcus sells. For one wild moment, I imagine finding them, taking enough to buy myself months of freedom...

But reality slaps my face. I'm not that lucky, and I'm not that stupid. The labs would be locked down tight, protected by security systems worth more than my life. And even if I could get in, theft from Pinnacle would mean more than jail. It would mean discovery, registration, being handed over to Haven to be auctioned off to the winning alpha pack. A commodity. A hole to fuck. A body to use. That’s one big fucking sobering thought.

No, I'm just here to clean offices. The top floor offices. Where the alphas who control my fate sit in leather chairs and decide about omega “welfare” without ever having to look us in the eye. The ones who decide how much our freedom should cost and dole it out as though we should be grateful.

I follow Stacey’s instructions to get into the building and force myself toward the service entrance. Each step takes more courage than the last. The door is industrial, utilitarian, a stark contrast to the gleaming main entrance. This is where the invisible people enter.

My hands shake as I punch in the code. The lock clicks with a sound too loud in the quiet night. I find and step into the service elevator, my reflection fractured on the worn metal walls. I follow Stacey’s instructions and type the passcode that will take me to the top floor.

The service corridor is stark and functional, fluorescent lights, linoleum floors, and bare concrete walls. Nothing like the luxury I glimpsed through the main entrance. I find the maintenance closet exactly where Stacey said it would be, stocked with industrial cleaners and supplies that smell sharp and chemical.

As I load supplies onto the cart, a cramp twists through me. I grip the metal sides of the cart, breathing through clenched teeth, and force my cursed biology back the fuck down. Going into our first heat was the reason we’d escaped Haven.

Emma, Leah and I were about to turn twenty-three. The age when omegas experience their first heat. Instead of being held by a pack of caring alphas, our first heats were to be auctioned off to the highest alpha pack bidder, something Hugo told us about in great detail. He didn’t give a fuck that it was immoral. All he was doing was counting the cash we’d make him.

If our parents had been alive, we would have been upstairs in the common area. Uncomfortable and trained into submission, but blissfully unaware of Haven’s underbelly and how Sylvia Mercer and her cronies profit off our misfortune.

Although it’s mandatory to attend an omega facility, something that wasn’t always the case, it’s also mandatory to pay for it. My beta parents weren’t wealthy. They earned average wages at average jobs. No one thought I’d be an omega, having no alphas or omegas in our family line. I was a freak of nature. A state-run facility run by a psychopath, and a bill for my parents: that's what being an omega got me. And when a car accident killed them both and no one could pay for my education, then I had to ‘work’ for it myself.

Just like Leah and Emma had to.

Rather than face a heat being fucked by a pack of alphaholes and bonded for life for a profit we’d never see, the three of us ran. I’d made it just in time. When my heat came on days later, I found a warehouse by blind luck, abandoned and forgotten by everyone except rats. I barricaded myself in an office on the secondfloor, pushing a metal desk against the door and stuffing my jacket into the broken window to mask my scent.

It was five days of hell. My skin was on fire, every nerve ending raw and screaming. I clawed at myself until I bled, trying to escape my own body. The need to fuck was unbearable, a hollow, gnawing ache nothing could satisfy. I bit through my lip trying to stay quiet, tasted blood and kept biting anyway.

Fever dreams and hallucinations blurred together. I heard voices sometimes, alphas calling, searching. Each sound sent me scrambling further into my corner, pressing against the cold concrete, praying they wouldn't find me. The hunger and thirst were almost welcome, physical pains to focus on instead of the biological imperative overriding my mind.

When the heat finally ended, I could barely walk. My clothes were shredded, my body covered in self-inflicted scratches. I was dehydrated, starving, barely conscious.

But I was free.

And more importantly—unbonded.

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