Page 100 of Generation Omega: Claimed
My muscles lock down, strained by the stress of not breathing because there’s not enough air in here. No, that’s not true either. It’s not the air that’s scarce—it’s my lungs that refuse to work, thanks to the sheer panic of a suffocating ending. I grasp for the reminders that I’m overreacting, the fact that Gideon, Tillie, and Ethan spent a few hours in the back of this exact truck and lived to tell the tale. But reason has abandoned me, and I’m ready to hurl my body against the sides, the door, anything to get free of this coffin.
While I’m dying inside, Tillie quietly waits for an answer, the entitled spectator of my epic clash with my worst fears. It’s building… the unhinged fury of a desperate, cornered man—no, a caged alpha. I’m about to unleash hell on the only living soul Ican touch, with a rage that reaches back into those primal days that birthed Ory and the feral first omega. Anyone who believes humans have evolved since then is more delusional than I am. Just inform passengers that there’s not enough space in the lifeboats, and primal will reign again.
My furious terror finds an outlet in the trembling that begins in my core and moves outward to my limbs. For so long, I could feign indifference, but an indifferent man doesn’t quiver like this. Doesn’t feel his sanity slipping away with the passing of each second. Doesn’t grapple with the illusion of control, despite the proof that confirms with each explosive heartbeat just how powerless he is. Indifference was the destination I thought I’d secured forever, only to have that falsehood destroyed by…
Wait, no… it’s not Tillie, not even this abusive truck. My beloved indifference was stolen by the omegaverse before I even met Tillie. I’m such a fucking liar—if I’d truly mastered indifference, it couldn’t be taken against my will. That’s indifference’s superpower and why I attempted to wear its cape and fly to the land where nothing matters. Because if nothing matters, then there are no winners or losers, nothing to be won or lost, nothing to make you feel anything at all. I didn’t think I needed heaven, not after experiencing hell. I truly believed thatnothingwas all I could hope for… and then I met her.
The tires crush gravel, bump over rocks, and slide against dirt. We must be near the highway and a much harder landing. I’m still staring at the door. I’m hunched over, my hands in fists, shaking with unspent…grief—it’s not anger at all. It caught up with me as soon as I knew I was trapped, everything I never faced, never even acknowledged. My emotions are fragmenting… no,I’mcoming apart at the seams. And I selfishly want to make Tillie pay for the pain that was born more than a decade before I found her.
I don’t move. I don’t turn. I don’t reveal the expressions I can no longer hide. I stare at the door and force myself not to say any of the vile things taking numbers and awaiting their turns. They won’t wait forever, and my ability to restrain them is weakening.
Say anything to get out of here—that’s what the emptiness that passes for my soul demands. But there’s something else, another voice within me, begging me to see this through even if it means dismantling everything that’s kept me standing all these years. I rebel against that urge with everything I am, because I’m not that strong or I wouldn’t have lived this wasted life.
Why don’t I just tell her I’m done? Walk away—crawl, if necessary—back to a life that will never rattle me like this?
It’s so fucking stupid, the reason I don’t—the reason I can’t make those words leave my mouth. It’s that damn debauched bondmark, the imprint of my teeth in her flesh, the brand I gave her and she willingly accepted. That bondmark is silencing me, forcing me to find air to fill my lungs. Shallow breaths… one first, but then another and another, until I feel more than just compression and finally move toward welcome expansion. I’m not dying, at least not from the cruel setting of this unconsentingtête-à-têtewith my demanding princess.
My brain registers the new decorations in this rolling hell. Fucking Christmas lights? Who knew about this intervention in time to fancy up the place? Because that person can get punched. I just hope it wasn’t Ory, who chucked me into the back like I was a rug rat hurtling toward an impromptu dip in a lake. Fuck, even my complaints get arrested by the knowledge that any of those jerks would trade places with me in a heartbeat. Just like they will fall all over themselves to be the first to dig their teeth intomybondmark.
I know Tillie’s not intentionally lying, but the rest are if they told her they would let me go. If I choose unwisely during thisnightmare road trip, I’ll either end up like zombie Thatcher or in an actual coffin. She’ll never know, of course, because they’ll erase me from her memories the second after I’m gone.
“I don’t want to be erased.”
“Then talk to me,” Tillie says, as softly as she can while still being heard over the truck’s soundtrack.
I flinch, not realizing I confessed that truth out loud. I’m truly slipping here. But my shock jars me enough that I’m able to turn. Tillie’s not standing anymore. She’s resting on the mass of blankets and pillows, sipping water she took from a cooler that’s also a recent addition to this sad excuse for an RV.
“You think you’re so clever, don’t you?” God, I sound like a fucking asshole, and I’m just grateful I didn’t beg to get out already.
“Nope,” she declares with fire in her pale eyes. “IknowI’m clever, but that’s not what this is about.”
I pick up that thread and hurl it back at her. “What’s it about then,genius?”
Tillie shrugs, looking small in a way I hate. “I can only guess.”
“Then guess already.” It’s like some dirtbag wrote my lines, and all I can do is parrot them, as though I have no agency to make revisions or the ability to simply shut the fuck up.
Tillie sighs, and I witness her struggle. Without any advanced perception into her inner life, I know Tillie feels like I’m forcing her to go somewhere she shouldn’t. The defeat in her eyes is an arrow that punctures my chest, but still, I do nothing to make anything better. I’m much too busy attempting to conceal the most visceral panic attack of my adult life from the only person whose opinion matters.
“I think you’re terrified.”
To cover her direct hit, I unleash on her like a proper gaslighting narcissist. “Me? Terrified?! Ofwhatexactly?”
At first, Tillie won’t meet my malevolent glare, preferring to stare at the floor beneath me. But when she answers, she’s looking right into my soul. “Me, I think.”
I scoff exactly like a jackass would. “The ego on you, darling, thinking that everything is about you—were you always like this, or is this an unfortunate outcome of donning your omega tiara?” The words haven’t even left my mouth before my heart is gripped by a punishing fist, the consequence of harming my bonded omega.
I know I hurt her, even though the mask of blankness she’s wearing reveals nothing that lives beneath her surface.
“Then explain for yourself or tell me you want to leave, but whatever you’re going to do, do it already.”
“Why are you in such a rush?”
“I’m not in a rush—I’m just done wasting my time.”
Wastingher valuable time on me—my teeth clench and, despite my best efforts, I snap, “You’re so full of shit.” I should stop there. Actually, I should go back in time and hit delete on that sentence, but instead, I continue running into oncoming traffic.
“In case you were toocock drunkto remember, I’m your alpha, which means I don’t owe you an explanation about anything. Have you forgotten what I told you when you were hanging off the yacht by my knot? Here’s a little refresher—I’m not your fucking boyfriend, your true love, or your pussy-whipped sycophant. Ihavegroupies. I’ll never beyourgroupie. And just to be clear,this, right here…” I gesture wildly at the enclosed space. “… is you crossing the line.”
