Page 100 of Run Wild Omega

Miles: We’ll head to the café in about twenty minutes. Mara and the others are there.

Wyatt: I’ll meet you there.

Dylan: On my way.

I watch the messages appear, the little bubbles of text filling the screen, and something about it feels significant. Not the content—the content is mundane, logistical, the kind of information exchange that happens a thousand times a day between people who coordinate their lives. It’s the container. The group chat. The name.

Tess’s Pack.

Two weeks ago, we were three men who lied to a hospital. Now we’re a group chat with a label, and the label doesn’t feel like a lie anymore. It feels like a description.

Tess slides her phone into her pocket and picks up her milkshake. “This is weird,” she says.

“The group chat?”

“All of it. This. Us. Getting ice cream like it’s normal. Sitting in a burger joint like we’re friends who do this.” She pauses. “Are we friends? Is that what this is?”

I consider the question with the seriousness it deserves. “We’re more than friends.”

“But we’re not⁠—”

“No. We’re not that either.”

“So what are we?”

I set down my fry. “We’re three men who have claimed you as part of their pack. We spend time with you every day. We know your medication schedule, your pain levels, your preferred ice cream flavor. We argue about who gets to scent you next like it’s a legitimate scheduling conflict. We have a group chat named after you.”

“That sounds insane when you put it like that.”

“It is insane. But it’s also true. And I don’t have a better word for it than pack.”

She’s quiet for a moment, stirring her milkshake with the straw. “I like spending time with you,” she says. “All of you. I didn’t expect that.”

“Neither did I.”

“Really?”

“Really. I’m not—” I stop, searching for the right word. “I’m not naturally inclined toward this. Toward group dynamics. Toward emotional entanglements that don’t have clear parameters. I prefer data. Structures. Things I can measure and predict.”

“And this isn’t measurable?”

“No. This is the opposite of measurable. This is a variable that keeps changing every time I think I’ve defined it.”

She grins. “That must drive you crazy.”

“Every single day.”

“But you’re still here.”

“I am.”

“Why?”

The question is simple. The answer isn’t.

I could give her the strategic reason—because the claim requires proximity, because the scenting demands regular contact, because the registration needs to be credible. And it’s true, the kind of logic I can wrap around myself like a shield.

But she asked why I’m still here, not why I’m still doing the job. And those are different questions.