Page 52 of Ryder

I didn’t understand what he was saying.Was he asking me to stay?Would I stay?Could I?I didn’t think I could.

“Send a message when you come back.”He leaned in and brushed a kiss to my temple before taking a half step back.

I wanted him to kiss me properly on the lips.

I wanted the alpha who’d pinned me against the shower wall and fucked me silly.

That alpha was gone, and I needed to find myself again.

“Enjoy graduation,” he said.Pulling a bunch of keys from his pocket, he unlocked the padlock and drew the heavy chain slowly out.The gate rattled as he rolled it open.

The sound of a car snagged my attention, and Jude pulled up beside us.

“Emma!”Jewels hung out the window.“Yay!Get in the car, come on.Tell us all about it.Tell us about Sloane.”

I stepped forward, over the line separating the two parts of the city.As I glanced back, Ryder pulled the gate closed and looped the thick chain around it twice before snapping the padlock into place.He didn’t move, and neither did I, but I had to.So I did, turning my back on him, taking the steps to the car, feeling a genuine smile bloom on my face for my two dearest friends.The smile was bittersweet, though, because I was leaving something equally precious and yet unattainable behind.

ChapterSeventeen

Emma

Iput my cell down on the kitchen counter and went through the motions of wiping down already clean surfaces.It was a mess after the Dawn Agency stomped all through here, drawers opened, contents removed from cupboards and tossed all over the place.Jude and Jewels had helped me to straighten most of it out, but it still felt dirty.

Jewels had called me, asking if I wanted her to come over.She was worried about me.Given how many messages I’d received from Jude, I knew he was concerned too.Today was the day of my graduation ceremony, and it was going nothing like I’d expected.

When I was little, I’d never thought that far ahead, and then my parents were gone and when I did, I’d always imagined Sloane being there.It was funny how I’d spent so much time wanting her to be my sister again, yet it was only now that I thought about it, I realized she’d never stopped being my sister.She was just something more as well.

Since I’d returned to the apartment, I’d existed in a strangely depressed state, which hit me anew every time I moved around the space.There was no Sloane, so it was quiet, not that she was particularly noisy, but when you cohabitate with someone, they just had a presence.

I’d caught up with my collage friends earlier today, who’d all raved about the party in Desparion.Most wanted to go back to the alpha zone again, as did I, but not for the same reasons.

Either way, it wasn’t like I could simply stay there.

I could apply for a working visa, I supposed, but then what?With no job there, I’d be a dead weight on my sister and her alpha, abandoning a career I’d spent three years working on all so I could explore a relationship that might be far bigger on my side than his.Whatever was happening between Ryder and me was all too new.Better if I returned to my life and took it slowly, sounded it out, and saw where it went.

Besides, I worried that he would always feel like he was missing out on a soul deep connection with an omega.It all sounded very mystical in my mind whenever I thought about it, maybe a little romantic.When I saw Jace and my sister, I witnessed how they instinctively turned to one another.While I could never know the true depth of the bond, I understood, at least from an outside perspective, a hint of something both animalistic and beautiful.

Try as I might, I couldn’t shake myself out of the dark place I was wallowing in.Of course, I’d realized at some point Sloane and I would move apart, have relationships, maybe even marry and have kids.We’d want and need our own space, but we would still see each other regularly.

I’d never suspected that a night out could set in motion such life-changing events, which would, in turn, separate us completely.I’d thought something had always been missing from Sloane’s life, so maybe this was it?I had presumed that an omega revealed much younger, but what did I know?I’d never met an omega.Nobody did, unless you happened to have a close relative or a friend.Even so, you didn’t know them as a happy omega.Instead, your only experience was that terrible, horrible writhing creature suffering a world of pain.Like I had, they probably thought whatever the Dawn Agency did was a kindness because it eased their suffering.

Even as they ripped loved ones from your grasp, they were telling you it was necessary, how they would take care of them, but with that slight lip curl of distaste, as though an omega were already less than human in their eyes.But you wanted to believe them so badly, because it was the government and if you couldn’t trust them, then we were all screwed.

If I hadn’t met Ryder, if I hadn’t had a contact in Desparion, I would have probably convinced myself it was for the best because her suffering had been truly terrifying.

Now I knew the other side, the corruption, how omegas were traded off and experimented on.I felt sick to the core, thinking of that happening to my sister or any woman.What happened to the alphas was equally heinous.

I wanted to help them, to pull the curtain back and show everyone what was happening, but how?I wondered about the world, about many things.It was like there was a sickness creeping over the landscape—one we were all blind to, existing in our happy, ignorant bubble, not realizing what was going on.I was sure some people who’d lost alphas or omegas put up a fight, yet many others greeted the development with a sneer for lesser beings, a subcaste we must purge, telling ourselves that tossing them behind a wall of mesh and letting them fight it out was the humane option.

My heart broke, imagining Ryder being tossed into the zone as a young man, beaten by the other alphas and left to die.What kind of society would condone such an act?

I guessed alphas, like betas, came in a great variety of both good and bad.

I needed to make a decision, I realized, to work out what the hell to do with my life.

There was a job offer waiting for me.If this hadn’t happened, I’d be so excited about it.Now I’d left my preferred company awaiting my answer, citing a family emergency.Polite beta etiquette dictated they accept my request, but if they suspected my sister had revealed as an omega, likely they would have retracted the job offer and had my family name blacklisted with every recruitment agency in the sector.Such was the fear within our community of falling prey to our animal side.No one wanted to be associated with ravaging alphas or weak emotional omegas.

I snorted out a humorless laugh.Nothing could be further from the truth, but the press, the government, and whomever else might be pulling the strings, they were all keeping the two parts of humanity forever apart.

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