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For my eleventh birthday, he bought me a pack of cards. The ones I have here. He taught me games that I could play when I was alone.
And tricks.
I practiced every day. Soon, I was beating my brother.
But then, Mom caught us.
She was furious that an Omega was playing poker. She whipped Fletcher. She was hurting him badly. He was crying, and I just wanted her to stop.
So, I challenged her to beat me at poker.
I must have been crazy.
She said that she’d tear out my insolent throat, if I lost.
I won.
I glance up from the notepad at Ghost. “Shit, and you call me inspirational. A teenager Omega challenging the Head Alpha to a poker game and then winning…? You’re a fucking rebel legend.”
Ghost growls in feral joy, before jumping to his feet and dramatically bowing.
I clap and whistle.
He drops ungracefully to sprawl next to me. I’ve never seen him looking so relaxed.
“So, you’re some kind of savant at cards,” I say. “It shows what a mistake the Traditional Alphas are making to underestimate us. Society is changing and faster than they’ll accept. Our dynamics are more powerful together, but they think that equality for all means a loss of their personal power. Why do I think your mom will be one of those? How did she take losing?”
When I pass back the notepad, Ghost wipes out the words with his microcloth.
Then he starts to write again.
Dread begins to curdle inside me, however, because this time, his expression becomes agonized the more that he writes. His shoulders hunch, and his writing becomes shakier.
I’m trembling myself.
What the hell did she do? To Fletcher? To Ghost?
At last, Ghost passes over the notepad.
I wasn’t always mute…
I stop reading and look at Ghost, shocked.
He growls, standing up and pacing across the basement. He stands facing away from me. The muscles in his athletic back are bunched with tension.
I force myself to keep reading.
After I proved myself to Mom, and she realized that I could card count, she locked me up.
I was valuable property.
She only let me out to go to the Ace Casinos. My job was to act as a casino surveillance agent. No one suspected a kid could discover that they were cheating or card counting.
People whispered about the Ghost of Ace Casinos who caught more people than anyone else.
I could still talk then.
But other members of the pack, the Betas, were jealous of the attention that Fletcher gave me.
