Page 33 of The Bright Omega

She doesn't say anything to him. She takes Cammie's hand in both of hers and with the other smooths the hair back from Cammie's face, careful and certain, the way you touch someone you've touched a thousand times.

"What happened?" she asks like she’s afraid of the answer.

I look at Finn. He catches it and nods. If I tell it, I'll get angry, so Finn does it. His words are careful, giving every detail, while Lark listens without interrupting. Her jaw tightens once, but she doesn't say anything. She turns back to Cammie and adjusts the blanket at her shoulder like she needs to do something with her hands.

She settles into the chair Finn’s been sitting in all evening. Finn moves to my side without being asked. For a while she sits with her. Then she leans forward, elbows on the edge of the bed, and starts talking to Cammie in the low murmuring way of someone who doesn't need an answer to keep going.

"You have to get well," she says. "We have a major campaign coming up. Four new items to send out to the testing group, and you know no one else can make it all work like you do." A pause. She smooths Cammie's hair again. "What am I going to do for Data and Donuts days without you? Who's going to steal all my jelly-filled?"

The room is very quiet.

She continues. “This wouldn’t have happened if you had just let me sign you up for Graham’s database. Or,” she cuts her eyes to Finn, “if you had taken my suggestion on meeting a nice alpha.”

Cammie's face shifts. It's small. A tightening around the eyes, a slight turn of her head toward the voice she knows. Her lashes flutter. Once. Then again.

Lark sits up straighter. "Cammie."

Her eyes open. Unfocused at first, blinking against the light. They find Lark first and something in her face loosens immediately, the way it does when you see exactly who you needed to see. Then her gaze drifts up. To Silas, standing solid behind his mate's shoulder.

"Lark," she says. Her words come out rough, scraped thin. Then, to Silas: "Hey, big guy."

The corner of Silas's mouth moves. "Hey yourself."

Her eyes move slowly around the room. Graham. Saint. Taking inventory, piecing together where she is and who's here, her brain climbing back to the surface one handhold at a time.

And then they reach us. She sees Finn first. Then me. And I watch the small stuttering halt behind her eyes, like her brain tripped over a puzzle.

"Hey, Twenty-A," I say.

Her eyes come to mine and stay there.

eighteen

Camelia

"Hey, Twenty-A."

I don’t respond. I know I'm being quiet. The silence sits on me like a weighted blanket while six people stand in this room waiting for me to say something. But Leith is standing to my left in my hospital room with his arms crossed and his brown eyes steady on mine and my brain has simply decided to take a brief sabbatical.

And Finn. Finn is right next to him, close enough that their shoulders nearly touch, looking at me with those blue eyes like I'm something he's been worried about for a very long time.

Why are they here? No, seriously. Why are they here? It's been two weeks. Two weeks of no texts, no calls, no explanation, only radio silence from both of them like that night never happened. I'd checked my phone every morning for six days before I'd allowed myself to accept it. Ghosted. Thoroughly and completely ghosted by two alphas I'd had in my bed and my nest. I’d anticipated it from Leith, but I’d hoped for more from Finn.

My body lists slightly to the left, apparently unconcerned with any of that. Leaning toward them like they’re a planet my omega wants to orbit. I catch it and stop it immediately, or I try to, but the want is already there, embarrassing and undeniable. I practically ache with need to press my face into the space between them and breathe. Finn's rain-soaked grass and Leith's darker woodsmoke, and together it would be—

I don't finish that thought. I know what they are together.

I look at my hands instead. The polish is chipped. Bright coral, my favorite, and it is absolutely destroyed. My head is aching and there are some soft spots in my recent memory that I'm not thrilled about, but I am almost positive my nails were perfect when I left the house this afternoon. I run my fingers through my hair and immediately regret it. It's knotted. Comprehensively. Whatever was left of my blowout is gone, replaced by what I can only assume is the hair of a woman who has recently been through some shit.

I must look like a beggar woman. In front of Finn and Leith, who I am furious with, who I did not invite, who are somehow here anyway, and whose combined scent is currently unraveling my omega. Should whatever meds I’m on kill this desire for them? Because, what’s the point of pain meds, if they don’t?

I try to push myself up. Pain detonates through my left side so fast and so absolute that I don't even get to whine properly. It takes all the air and leaves me rigid against the pillow, jaw locked.

"Hey." Lark's hand is on my shoulder immediately, pressing me back down with the gentle firmness she reserves for when I'm being an idiot. "Stay still. You cannot be moving all over the place. For once in your life, you have to learn to chill."

"I'm always chill," I say, once I've located my voice again.

From somewhere to my right, Graham makes a sound that is unmistakably a laugh badly converted into a cough at the last second. I find him with my eyes. He straightens immediately and goes very still, then assumes the expression of a man who was not just laughing at an injured woman.