Page 18 of The Omega Trials: Part Three

“According to you, it sounds like he just got a little carried away—”

“Oh, you ungrateful, little—”

“Okay, okay, everybody just calm down.” I jump between them like a referee breaking up a fight.

“Don’t tell me to calm down,” they both shout at the same time.

If I wasn’t trying to physically keep them from tearing each other’s eyes out right now, I would laugh at how similar they are. Even down to the death glare they shoot at one another for saying the same thing.

I’m starting to get the feeling that keeping these two from murdering each other is going to be our hardest trial yet.

Chapter 10

My Dear Mom

Sinclair

After we exploded at each other, Ecker and Titus took us outside to continue our conversation. If listening to my mom prattle on while I peel splintering wood off the weathered picnic table counts as a conversation.

I press the pad of my finger against the rough, spiked edge. I hate how much her voice sounds like mine. I hate that we’re spitting images of each other separated by twenty years.

And I hate that I’m buying her story. It’s almost too absurd for her to make up. Truth being stranger than fiction and all that.

“Yeah, so, I guess it felt like I was given a second chance at life,” my mom says after explaining how she got out of the riverand hitchhiked back to Cape Aurelia. “And for the first time in years, I wasn’t indebted to any pimp or dealer. I could do anything I wanted with my life, and I wasn’t gonna waste it. I went cold turkey then and there, haven’t touched Dust since.”

She looks at me expectantly with a self-congratulatory smile. I can’t help but sneer.

“Do you want a cookie?”

“Sinclair,” she chides, it clearly not the response she wanted. I don’t give a fuck about what she wants.

“We learned you ‘died’ just a few months ago, so that means you’ve been clean for what? Four months? Only took you twenty-three years.” I can’t find it in me to be proud or even happy for her. She acts like this was some saintly decision of hers, but really it was just as selfish as everything else she does.

Before Ma took me in, she almost lost me so many times because she couldn’t orwouldn’tget clean. No, she only got clean when she almost lost her favorite thing: herself.

She sighs. “You have every right to be mad, but Iamtrying, Sinny.”

“Whatever.” This isn’t the first time she’s supposedly turned her life around. I won’t let myself believe this time is any different. Because as much as the bitterness and resentment stings, it doesn’t hurt nearly as much as shattered hope. “Can we just fast forward to how yourpaiddebt was very much unpaid when youdiedbut were very much alive?”

“Right, well, the Doll House was the first time I heard anything about my ‘unpaid’ contract. I was prepared to have words with Vincent, believe me, that good-for-nothing, lying piece of shit. But he wasn’t there, and the girls hadn’t seen him in days.”

My alphas’ gazes both shoot my direction. I subtly shake my head. I’ll tell Celia that I’m responsible for Vincent’s AWOL status another time.

She’s too absorbed in her own story to notice our silent exchange and continues on, “But one of his lackeys was there, and while he didn’t know what happened, he was able to look at Vincent’s ledger. Apparently, Donny told him I OD’d and demanded a refund for ‘defective goods,’” she says, her lip curling.

Defective goods.

Defective mother? Sure. Defective junkie? Okay. Defective daughter? Fine. But in all those things, she’s still aperson.

Hearing her referred to as goods has me feeling sympathy for her for the first time in a long time. And I realize that just because she did it to herself, doesn’t mean she wasn’t bought and sold just like I was.

Chapter 11

Fortitude

Bishop

It looks like what I’d imagine any other home theater looks, not that I’ve ever seen one in real life. Maybe a little bigger. Instead of enough reclining leather chairs for a family, there are five rows of five chairs. The scent of buttery popcorn fills the room. The nostalgic smell clashes uneasily with our reason for being here: the Fortitude Trial.

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