Free Web NovelChapter 83: Don’t Let Them See That You’re Different
Dora’s office was small and cluttered....filing cabinets, a desk covered in papers, a single chair besides the one behind the desk. Dora sat. Lilith remained standing.
"You work clean," Dora said, not looking up from whatever she was reading. "Same as before you left. No complaints from the crew, no drama, just moving through the assignments."
"That’s the job," Lilith said.
"It is." Dora finally looked at her. "You want to know what’s different about you?"
Lilith didn’t answer.
"You’re not afraid anymore," Dora continued. Her eyes were sharp, assessing. "A month ago, you had the look of someone who’d been crushed by the weight of everything. Desperate. Afraid you wouldn’t survive the next day." She paused. "Now you look like you’ve already died and came back."
It was close enough to the truth that Lilith’s chest tightened.
"Whatever happened at the Blackwood estate," Dora said, "you don’t need to tell me. That’s your business. But I’m telling you now, keep that look to yourself. Don’t let the pack see it. Don’t let them see that you’re different. Because different makes people uncomfortable, and uncomfortable makes them mean." freewebnσvel.cѳm
"I understand," Lilith said.
Dora studied her for another moment. Then: "Your mother. She’s still in the hospital?"
"Yes."
"Still unconscious?"
"Yes."
Dora nodded slowly, like she was putting pieces together. "And now you’re back working garbage duty. Which means the medical bills are your problem again."
It wasn’t a question.
Lilith didn’t answer.
"They’re bleeding you dry," Dora said quietly. "Making sure you never have enough to stand on your own two feet. Making sure you stay exactly where they want you....desperate, dependent, trapped." She leaned back in her chair. "I’ve seen it a hundred times. Pack keeps you just alive enough to work, but never comfortable enough to breathe."
"What choice do I have?" Lilith asked.
Dora smiled, but there was no humor in it. "That’s the question, isn’t it? What choice do any of us have?"
She gestured toward the door. "Get back to work. You’ve got four more hours."
Lilith turned to leave.
"Lilith," Dora called out.
She paused at the threshold.
"Keep your head down," Dora said. "Do your work clean. Don’t draw attention to yourself. And if you need something, just need someone to talk to....I’m around."
It was more kindness than Lilith expected from the system. More than she deserved. But she nodded anyway.
"Thank you," she said.
"Don’t thank me. Just survive."
Lilith went back to station three.
The afternoon stretched on. Sort. Separate. Move forward. The work was endless, the pile of refuse never diminishing no matter how much they processed. For every piece of garbage they sorted, more arrived in trucks from all across Shadowmere.
It was like trying to hold back the ocean with your bare hands.
At 7 PM, Dora called end of shift.
The omegas moved toward the equipment station to clock out. Emma caught up with Lilith as she was removing her gloves.
"I meant what I said earlier," Emma said quietly. "If you need anything. Someone to talk to, help with something, anything at all, I’m in omega housing, unit 204. You know where that is?"
Lilith nodded.
"Come by if you need to," Emma said. "Or don’t. But know that the option is there."
She squeezed Lilith’s shoulder briefly...a gesture that was probably forbidden by pack rules but happened anyway, and then she was gone.
Lilith clocked out and stepped into the evening air.
The sun was setting, painting the sky in shades of orange and grey. The pack territory stretched out around her, full of movement and noise and lives continuing on. People going home to families. To mates. To lives that had meaning beyond survival.
She stood there for a moment, just breathing.
Four thousand a month.
Six hundred in wages.
The math was still impossible.
She thought about her mother in the hospital bed. About the machines keeping her alive. About Dr. Reeves’s words....weeks, maybe a month or two before the pack decided she wasn’t worth the resources anymore.
County care. Where people went to die slowly.
Lilith turned and started walking back toward omega housing.
The streets were emptying out as night fell. She passed other pack members, warriors heading to evening training, families returning from work, mates heading home together.
None of them looked at her. None of them acknowledged her existence.
That was what being omega meant. Being invisible. Being nothing.
By the time she reached her apartment, it was fully dark.
She sat on the lumpy mattress and pulled out the small notebook she’d salvaged from her former life. Started writing down figures.
Monthly expenses: rent (fifty), utilities (twenty-five), food (two hundred). Total: two hundred seventy-five.
Mother’s medical care: four thousand.
Her wages: six hundred.
Shortfall: thirty-seven hundred and seventy-five dollars.
Every single month.
She stared at the numbers for a long time.
Then she closed the notebook and lay back on the mattress.
Sleep didn’t come.
But she knew it wouldn’t.
Some nights, sleep was a luxury she couldn’t afford.
Just like everything else.
***
Sebastian’s eyes opened to silence.
That was the first wrong thing. The Blackwood estate was never silent. There was always something....staff moving through corridors, the hum of the heating system, wolves shifting in the distance, the sound of pack life continuing. But this morning, there was nothing except the sound of his own breathing and the frantic clawing of Rhen against his ribs.
He lay in bed for a moment, just listening.
The sheets were cold. He hadn’t slept more than an hour, maybe two. Every time he’d drifted off, Rhen had dragged him back awake, desperate and searching. The wolf kept reaching for something that wasn’t there.
The mate bond. Incomplete. Screaming.
Sebastian forced himself to sit up.
His body felt heavy. Like gravity had doubled overnight. His muscles ached in ways that didn’t make sense, he hadn’t trained yesterday, hadn’t done anything physically demanding. But his body knew. Rhen knew. The bond knew. freeweɓnøvel.com
She was gone.
