Page 49 of Now Their Starlet

Interacting with her definitely felt like a job, especially at the beginning when I bought into the persona Andi projected into the world. Only now do I know it came from a place of necessity, from a place of survival, just like the mixed responses other omega victims I work with have had.

Fight, flight, freeze, and the less well-known fawn response are all things that happen when people are confronted with dangerous situations.

Andi’s had to fawn her way through her entire life. It’s the only way to survive under the roof of a woman who’s demonstrated she’s willing to go as far as keeping Andi captive under a bullshit conservatorship.

I take Andi in, my breath catching in my throat. She doesn’t look good. There’s a glassy look to her eyes that’s different from the type of look people get under the influence of alcohol or substances. She looks like an omega in shock.

An omega who’s been wasting away for the past month. Her skin is pale and thin, showcasing and highlighting features of her skeletal structure I wouldn’t be able to see if she were healthy.

“Sorry,” I say, dragging my gaze away from her and to Juno and Cleo. “I know you told me to wait for the signal, but... I couldn’t help myself.”

I take a few steps closer to Andi, who’s as still as a statue, blinking at me with wide eyes that look far too big for her face now. They’re sunken in and lifeless. That spark I saw there, present since I first met her and cornered her outside of that club bathroom, is gone. Not even an ember left.

“Hey, Andi,” I murmur, stepping closer to her and opening my arms. “I know I’m probably not who you’d want right now, but⁠—”

I don’t even have a chance to finish my statement before she’s stumbling forward into my arms.

Feeling her pressed up against me makes me grit my teeth and bite back a growl. It’s even worse than seeing the damage the past month has done to her.

“I’ve got you,” I murmur against her head as her delicate shoulders tremble.

“I don’t care,” she mumbles against my shirt, her voice soft and muffled.

“What?”

“I don’t—I don’t care that it’s not any of the others. This is the—the best hug of my life.” She pulls back from the tight embrace to blink up at me with teary eyes, some of her mascara streaking down her face.

“Oh, Sweet Tea,” I murmur, reaching up and brushing away some of her tears with the pad of my thumb.

“Don’t worry, cry as much as you need to,” Cleo whispers as she passes us. “Juno and I brought makeup so we can touch you up before you go back.”

Juno grips Ezra’s sleeve and tugs him further into the bathroom. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen an omega drag around an alpha that she’s not with like that, but I’m not surprised that Everett’s sisters are the kind of omegas who take no shit.

I run a hand up and down her exposed spine, and she trembles against me, pressing herself closer.

My chest vibrates with a soothing purr before I can stop it. Her chamomile scent is acrid—bitter and twisted in the air around us, a sensory showcase of the intense, constant stress she’s had to endure alone over the past few weeks.

Everyone has been incredibly worried about Beck’s health, both mentally and physically, after this whole disaster exploded in our faces. But he’s had a safe place to stay, comfortable bedding and nesting materials, and an alpha he loves and trusts to take care of him.

Andi’s been denied all of these things.

She’s an omega in distress right now. Any good doctor at the OCN would immediately remove her from her current circumstances and create a robust healing plan with lots of reassuring physical contact to balance out her hormones after such a stressful experience. But I think we all know that Gina won’t let a good doctor anywhere near Andi right now.

Not when that could ruin her chance of keeping Andi under her custody with the permanent conservatorship.

Based on the intensity of her scent, she’s been braving this storm of unbalanced omega hormones alone. It means she’s denying Ezra’s offers to help, or he hasn’t had any opportunity to offer. After he managed to find a way into Beck’s greenroom, it was obvious that he still had feelings for Andi, so I’m sure it pains him to see her like this too.

But seeing the two of them barely interact earlier shows me that Andi doesn’t entertain those same feelings.

It makes something twist inside my chest, a strange sense of importance that increases the intensity of my purr.

“We all thought it would be best to have one of us here, with Juno and Cleo,” I murmur, still holding her close to my chest and giving her the physical comfort her body obviously desperately needs right now. “But it was too risky for anyone officially associated with Beck to show up. I’m so sorry.”

There were enough degrees of separation between Cleo, who had a genuine invite to this event because she’s also a musician, and Beck for her to be here with Juno. But anyone specifically traced back to being on Beck’s team would’ve been strange enough for it to get back to Gina if word had gotten out.

Which is why I’m here.

“Don’t apologize,” she rasps, still trembling in my arms. “Please.”