Tilly
Afterrunninghome,I found the spare key to my apartment. I rushed inside and locked the doors. It didn’t take me long to realise I had no medication. My mind raced as I paced the floor. Knowing going to work today wasn’t such a good idea. Not only because Sandy and her pack wanted an answer, and also with me being in Cruz’s sight. Not sure if the sight was positive or negative, something I needed to find out when I was feeling stronger.
You need to stay here for your own safety.
He knew someone drugged me.
Was it James or was it him trying to blame him?
He knows who you are.
I didn’t want to stop doing the job I loved, but what could I do? Cruz kept out of the office, but Sandy was always sniffing around me. And I no longer knew where I stood. No longer understood where Luca and Jackson fit into the picture. They liked me.
But still.
Was it a lie, Tilly?
I didn’t have enough medication left to be at full beta strength. Everything I had was in the bag and I sewed my secret stash into the bra pads for emergency use. Everything was in his apartment.
I found two tablets, and thought about taking one as I got into the lift at work, which would take me over until lunchtime and then the other at midday, that one would last until four o’clock, after that I didn’t know what I’d do. Apart from rushing home.
And I needed to make more.
I sighed as I fell onto the sofa, plunging my head in my hands. I couldn’t go to work.
Never again would I leave myself with so little spares, but for years I’d been careful.
I stood and painted at my easel to calm my nerves for an hour. Then I shoved an apron over my head and tied the ends tight. There was no need for my mother’s recipe anymore. I now knew it off by heart.
I called in sick and spent the day making another batch of my mother’s concoction, a simple mix of vitamins and minerals with an extra dose of zinc and a spoonful of the yeast mixture I had been growing to fortify it.
After adding more mixture and alcohol to my binder, a product I made before going to the club, and now it was ready and I could prepare my medication. Hoping I found the missing ingredient to prolong the effects.
Then I left it to do its magic for a few hours.
My mobile rang as I was washing my hands. I grabbed the towel and quickly dried my hands on the fluffy cloth.
Staring at the number, not able to believe it. I swiped to answer.
“Hello,” I whispered.
“Hi Tilly,” James said, without a care in the world. He didn’t get it. He drugged me and still had the nerve to call me.
James was supposed to be safe, a safe beta that I fell in love with. Madly and deeply, not just lust. I thought he was the real deal. That was until he left me heartbroken after telling me he loved me.
Until he didn’t.
“Are you there, Tilly?” he asked. It was a casual question, as though he was waiting for my wrath.
“I don’t want to talk to you and I’ve made my mind up because I’m not interested in why you left. I just know that you did.”
“Tilly, please let me explain,” he said, his voice sounded like a beg. “Five minutes of your time.”
He spoke with no concern, yet he left me one year ago, and with no reason given. He just disappeared without a trace. And I tried to find him, though that was fruitless. It was, I didn’t know if he was alive or dead, and with my past, the latter was very possible.
“Not interested,” I hissed.
“Tilly, just hear me out.” His voice was a lie as he almost begged me to listen. I argued to myself: Cut him off forever or do something to him for drugging me.
“When and where?” I asked with a sigh. I knew James. He wouldn’t stop until I listened.
“Will you be home around four? I’ll come to your place,” he said.
“You drugged me. I won’t be letting you in my apartment. But I’ll speak to you.”
“I didn’t, but let me speak to you and then we’ll sort it out.”
“Okay,” I whispered, disconnecting the phone and held it to my chest as I chewed my lip for a moment, but as I needed to get my shit in order, I would deal with James later.
I unlocked the door to my laboratory and checked on the newly proving batch. Because once the batch was ready, my next step was to dehydrate the mix on flat sheet and voilà in eight hours’ time I would have a new batch of medication.
I smoothed the mixture on the special sheets I’d made. Each sheet, when dehydrated, gave me eighty tablets and I could make five sheets at a time. Four hundred tablets, more than I needed to cover what I lost and for the following month.
Enough to keep as spares on my body, providing I didn’t lose my underwear again.
I didn’t realise I’d been working on my medication for so long, but I was suddenly desperate for a coffee. After placing each completed sheet into the dehydrator, I closed the door to my lab, walked the short corridor to the kitchen and switched on the coffee machine.
The knock at the door caught me off guard. He was earlier than I expected. I rushed to my laboratory because James never knew I was an omega. He could never know that, certainly not now.
I rechecked the dehydrator and closed the door, locking it and hiding the key.
“Just a minute, James,” I shouted. And sprayed my de-scenting perfume around the room and around me. I hadn’t time for another shower and the heat in my laboratory meant I needed one.
Luckily, betas didn’t focus or tune in to the scents that omegas transmitted, so a little de-scenting was enough to put him off track.
I checked the spyglass, staring at his back for a moment. He wore the same tan coat, which made him look wider, the collar pulled over his dark blond hair as he talked to someone on the phone. I slid the bolts across the top and the bottom of the door, slipped the chain on the door, and bit my lip as I unlocked the door.
Opening it to a smiling face.
I stood open-mouthed for a few seconds and thought about slamming the door shut, but his foot was in the way.
“Take the chain off,” he said.
“What are you doing here? I called in sick,” I hissed. Closing the door a little and trying to push his foot away, but I was no match for the strength that refused to budge.
“Take the chain off or move away from the door because I’m going to smash it,” he said, arching one eyebrow as he wondered if I was going to defy him.
I huffed as I slowly removed the chain, and he pushed the door wide open.
Jackson didn’t look angry. He only shrugged his long wool coat off his shoulders and draped it over one of my dining room chairs.
“I’m here to check on you and dinner is turning up in half an hour,” he said with a glint in his eyes. “Pleasant fragrance, but you know it doesn’t work on me.”
I shivered inside, my eyes growing wide at the realisation I was suppressant less and very vulnerable right now.
“My friend will be here soon,” I said.