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Silver
Three years and three months ago
Isqueeze myself into the tightest possible ball, curled up on the shitty blankets that Onyx gave me. The pounding won’t stop. I choke out a sob and look out the window. Can I survive a jump? Do I want to? What if I didn’t? Would they stop if I were injured? That last thought is one of two that keeps me on the bed. What if they caught Onyx: is the other.
I shake the thoughts off and check the time. Onyx will be home soon. They’ll stop. There’s just a short time left, I just need to get through this night. I’m so tired. I think one of my ribs may be broken, and there’s a cut in my mouth where thumbs squeeze my cheeks against my teeth.
Where is Onyx?
Why isn’t she here?
Resentment flares up, and I tamp it down. She can’t know. If she finds out…what happened to me will happen to her.
I close my eyes and count slowly. One, I love music. Two, I love green grass. Three, I can do this. Four, one more day. Five, I can keep Onyx safe. Six, I love my sister.
The banging fades away as I let myself float into memories when we were happy and safe.
Present Day
There’s a river of tumultuous, pure panic living inside me, rocking my foundations and threatening everything I’ve worked for. What am I going to do? How am I going to survive? A mocking voice of laughter echoes in my mind during those quiet hours as I ponder those questions. Sometimes it sounds like my mother. Sometimes it’s my father’s voice ruining me. Other times it’s the voices beyond the door. They all want to see me crash and burn.
This voice jeers at me, laughing and telling me I will get what I deserve. I dread those words. What do I deserve? I know what those voices say, but are they right?
Silver Davies, the omega thief who tried to steal her twins’ happiness. I can hear what they say about me. It’s not like they whisper. I’m supposed to hear it all. For all these years, I know what they still think. I think it, too. But do I really deserve to have this life?
I think I do. I think I’m cursed.
My pack passed away in a car accident years before Onyx so rightly dumped my selfish ass on the doorstep of the Omega Refuge. It was by chance that their scents awoke something inside me. The lingering scent was still strong on the fabric of the coat I was taking in for donation. When I’d inquired in a choked, hopeful whisper, thinking that perhaps this was the moment I’d find something worth living for, I’d been told the horrible truth. It happened years ago. The woman so burdened with age and sorrow had poured out the entire story of her grandson and his entire pack. A tragedy. All gone in the blink of an eye.
My own personal penance. How could I be so stupid as to dream there might be a way out of this hell that I’m existing in? Perhaps they are better off, rather than with me.
I pick up the basket of washed clothes and carry it through the cold, clinical halls that have been my home for the last three years. The bitter antiseptic scent in the air is barely noticeable to me now. The cold through my slippers is familiar, and the cream-painted walls with the laminated signs are walls that protect me now. This isn’t the jail they meant it to be. It's freedom.
I think I cried myself to sleep for six months after I learned about my scent matches. I didn’t care about my exile, but I cared about them. At the end of the day, I never knew them, and my dream was over before it began. I’m cursed to live a life of silent suffering. I brought it on myself, though. My jealousy drove me to bitter, cruel words towards my sister. And then desperation pushed me into doing something unforgivable. I finally understood what Onyx had, what I almost ruined for her. That understanding has brought nothing but a wall of unrelenting shame that pounds against my psyche day in and day out.
Three years have passed since that event, since the Omega Meet. Three more of those annual events have occurred. Where three more opportunities that I don’t have present themselves to hopeful omegas and optimistic packs. Those horrible days of my worst self replay during the weeks of the Omega Meets in my mind’s eye and in my dreams. I haven’t seen Onyx since the day she dropped me off here. I can’t. There’s so much work to do, things I need to atone for.
This refuge is more than just my freedom. It’s a place that helps women, gives them safety. Only one man is allowed in these hallowed halls, Doctor Shultz. An alpha who is cold but efficient and gentle with his care. The rest of the world might fear him, but here he is, the sword and shield that protects us.
A woman creeps out of a room, her shoulders curled in. She glances up and down the hallway, and when she spots me, her eyes widen, and her hand trembles. I give her my softest smile and avert my eyes, leaving her in peace.
At the end of the hall, I’m faced with two directions I can choose. Right takes me to the cafeteria, where our on-site chef, Glinda, is cooking up a storm. Back there are the staff rooms, the medical room, and The Director of the Refuge; Jenny Lathem and her personal office.
I turn left and put my palm on the security key. It unlocks, and I push the door open and slip into our enormous hall. There are several adjoined rooms. But the hall is lined with tables. On most of those tables are boxes, nice and sealed up.
“Have you finished with this, Silver?”
I glance up, straight into the beautiful eyes of the tiny omega, Jade from Pack Mortenson. Her alphas, Sven and Adrian Shultz, the doctor himself, are standing behind her. She smiles widely at me. I have tried my absolute best to shake this omega, but she decided a year ago we were going to be friends, and that was it.
Nothing I did or said has changed her mind and, to be honest, I like her a lot. She’s braver than most people I know and open-minded. Still, I try to maintain that wall because I don’t want her to hate me, and everyone always does, eventually.
“Yes, all the bags are boxed up and are ready to be taken to the charity auction.” I run my fingers through my hair and quickly secure it back into a loose bun.
Jade smiles and directs the two men towards the table filled with boxes and bags of goodies for the guests tomorrow. The truck should be here in an hour, thus everyone is moving everything out, getting it ready for a swift transportation. It’s not our first rodeo.
I hear whispers and glance back over my shoulder.
