Page 9 of Roulette Rodeo
"I won't be like you, Mommy," I whispered to the empty room, tears streaming down my face. "I won't trust the wrong person. I'll be strong. I'll be independent. I'll find a pack who really loves me, who sees me as more than just an omega to use up and throw away."
The room spun, colors bleeding together like watercolors in rain.
My child-voice echoed in my skull:
I'll work hard.
I'll learn about each of them.
I'll be happy.
No man will ever do to me what Daddy did to you.
But even as I made those promises, I could hear my father's laughter downstairs, the sound of furniture breaking, of women moaning, of everything mother had built being destroyed one night at a time.
The heat in my head intensified, and suddenly I wasn't eight anymore. I was twenty-four, and the fever wasn't from childhood illness but from suppressants that were slowly poisoning me. The scents changed—no longer bourbon and cheap perfume but expensive cologne and omega fear, the particular cocktail of pheromones that meant The Crimson Roulette.
A cool hand pressed against my forehead, shocking me back to consciousness.
My eyes snapped open, my body going rigid with instinctive fear.
In the velvet prison, unexpected touch meant danger.
"Them suppressants are ruining you, Cherry Bomb."
The voice cut through my panic like a knife through silk. My vision focused, and there she was—Briar, sitting on the edge of my narrow bunk, her hand gentle against my burning skin.
Huh…I was…dreaming…
"Briar?" My voice came out as a croak, disbelief making me blink repeatedly.
She was really here, in our old room, the one nobody else had wanted after she'd disappeared.
The "cursed" room, they called it, because everyone who'd shared it had either vanished or been sold.
She looked different in the dim light of our single lamp. Without the mask and the performative sexuality of last night, I could see what two years had done to her. Fine lines around her eyes that hadn't been there before, a tightness to her jaw that spoke of clenched teeth and swallowed screams.
But her scent—God, her scent was stronger than ever.
Cherries soaked in brandy, dark chocolate with a bitter edge, and something…new. An aroma that smelled like rain on hot asphalt, like rebellion given form.
"How did you—" I started, then stopped.Well…this used to be OUR room.She still knew the code. In three years, I'd never changed it from the combination she'd set: 0702, the date she'd arrived at The Crimson Roulette.
I tried to sit up, my head spinning with the movement. I'd fallen asleep on my stomach, face buried in the pillow that still sometimes smelled like her cigarettes from years ago. Nobody had wanted to room with me after Briar left—said sharing with Red was bad luck, that anyone who got close to me disappeared. They weren't wrong. First Briar, then Cynthia, then Diana.
All gone.
But I hadn't minded the isolation.
The room was smaller than the others, just a bunk bed and a shared dresser, while the "good" girls got suites with real beds and private bathrooms. I could have upgraded months ago—Marnay had offered twice—but I'd refused. Maybe because I liked the simplicity. Maybe because some pathetic part of me had been waiting for Briar to come back.
And here she was.
She was back…which meant maybe I wasn’t so cursed…
I pushed myself up on all fours, yawning so wide my jaw cracked. My mouth felt like I'd been eating cotton, and my thoughts moved like molasses.
"Not a morning person," I mumbled, which had absolutely nothing to do with anything.
