Page 92 of Generation Omega: Revealed
TILLIE
It begins with a thought, a desire, and a map created by pain. The need to break free provides the fuel to ask the most important questions of my life. If the omega lineage lives inside me and if I always endured its side effects, then isn’t it possible that it has both dormant and active states? To win my freedom, I wouldn’t have to defeat it or remove it—I’d just need to put it back to sleep. Is it possible? There isn’t an omega alive who can answer that, but I’ve always loved a challenge.
I know I’m skipping a few steps in the planning phase, but it’s the torture of Kazimir’s pain linked to mine that gives me a direction. My new alpha and I have both been naughty, denying the legacy’s right to control us. In response, we’re being punished. I don’t know what bothers me more—that the legacy thinks I’m weak enough to just submit to the stick, now that the perfume and arousal carrots have failed, or that I feel a glimmer of actual concern for my alpha who was snatched against his will and forced to be the omegaverse’s next pawn.
If the legacy wanted an obedient omega, it shouldn’t have chosen me.I thought that before, but it’s time to show, not tell. It’s beyond time to introduce myself. Welcome to Omega-Dome. One omega enters… and we’ll just see what happens next.
I think of Ethan as I enter this cage match—myEthan, the best man I’ll ever know. Then I fixate on what I would do to anyone who tried to hurt him. If I weren’t already overflowing with gasoline and ready to spark, I am now. The target is so obvious—too obvious. Did no one else ever realize that the omegaverse can’t control us anonymously? Every command, every pleasure, and every correction—they all stem from somewhere. The second the omega lineage wields its power, it reveals its origin. It’s a massive bullseye inside me and, apparently, I have axe-throwing aspirations, along with every other flavor of violence I can imagine.
My willpower is my fist, my creativity is my dagger, and the scar tissue that’s only toughened since my childhood is my shield. I barely know anything that’s happening around me, because I’m fully existing in the hidden landscape of my consciousness. I transform that dark and lonely space into a battleground worthy of a Gideon Blake epic. There are bowmen, knights on horseback, thundering hooves crashing onto packed dirt, and the clash of swords. And kilts—definitely kilts. This is my vicious party, and I’m picking the costumes.
Not surprisingly, brawling with biology is excruciating. I can’t tell who’s winning in a contest where the only option is that everyone loses. Even if I win, I lose something precious. I lose my connection to Gideon’s heart. I lose the delicious scent of salted caramel and the promise of sweaty, mindless romps. I lose the voice guiding me toward a destiny that could change the world.
The freedom to live my life my way—that’s what I can win. But the longer I fight, the more I wonder what my freedom is worth. Even if I subdue the legacy, there’s a shadowy awareness telling me that I still can’t turn back time, that Ethan and I are already irreparably changed. We can’t be those two people who finally admitted our love and were together for the first time in the nest our love built. We’d have to start again as the two people we are now, aware that the real world has been suppressing wondrous possibility all our lives and that we had the chance to do something about it.
Freedom to live my life the way I want—what does that even mean? Was I living my best life? Or was I just existing until I could spend time with Ethan? Wasn’t I always obsessed with distracting myself from the questions I was too afraid to ask, knowing the answers would only tear open the scabs from my childhood?
In the midst of this war, why not ask?
Why didn’t they want me?
Why wasn’t I good enough?
Why wasn’t I likable enough?
Why couldn’t they see how much I needed them? Why didn’t they care to see?
Why did they always leave me alone?
Why was it so awful being my parents?
Mistake—I remember that word from before I knew its meaning. I was their mistake, their accident, the ugly consequence they had to endure.Theirmistake is what I’ve been paying for all my life.
I’m still paying.
I want it to be true, just not for me.
Ethan couldn’t understand and I couldn’t admit the reason, even to myself. I desperately wanted the omegaverse to be real, just not for me because of what that would mean. I made a life in the shade because I was never allowed to shine, certainly never permitted to stand in the sun and declare my worth.
If Ideserveto be chosen as the one omega for my generation, then I never deserved the neglect that has defined my life. It means they werewrong… and I wasn’t. I wasn’t unworthy. I wasn’t some piece of trash they couldn’t be bothered to throw away. But more than that, if this immortal legacy chose me, then my existence was never a mistake.
Agony strikes the deepest when I touch that truth, severing my body from my will to continue mindlessly racing toward a disastrous triumph. Iamwinning, but I’m also tragically losing. I can’t even feel my heart anymore, like it was the first casualty. The meaning of that is too obvious to miss. You want your freedom?Fine, but you lose your heart, your ability to connect, your purpose, your place in a family that will never leave you, neglect you, or do anything but cherish you.
I hate the thought that I’m doing Beta Dominion’s work for them. I’m spoiling my own garden where I could have bloomed.
Regret… is that what I feel?
Doubt… am I certain I want this?
Warmth… wait, whatwarmth?
I draw a shocked breath when I realize the source of the familiar warmth. Then, like warm sea water fueling a hurricane, Gideon is with me, battling the omegaverse. His force is unbelievable and his torment undeniable. He’s slashing through the invisible ropes that tie us to the legacy, using much less strategy than I did because he’s an alpha and possesses immense power. He can free me, but he doesn’t want this. He never wants to lose me and yet he’s giving all he has, sabotaging his own future, to honor what he thinks I want.
But do I?
Do I want to extinguish the legacy that links me to this beautiful man who’s been nothing but kind to me, loving, funny, strong, gorgeous, real.
The omega legacy shrieks inside me, tasting defeat unlike anything that’s stood in its way before today—beforeme, and my courageous, loyal, and unyielding alpha.
