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I can’t – I can’t let them get close. Not when I know what they are.

Dangerous.

It’s like something ancient inside me is coming alive, and I hate it. I don’t want it. I don’t wantthem.

I pace the room, my hands shaking as I try to think, but nothing comes. My mind is a mess, the edges of my thoughts fraying with every breath. My omega is restless, demanding something from me, whining in the back of my mind, trying to push me toward them.

No.

I stop in the middle of the room, clutching my arms around myself, but I can’t hold it back. My body, my omega – she wants them.

I swallow hard, tears stinging at the corners of my eyes, but I won’t let them fall. I won’t give in. I can’t.

I need to keep them away. I need to make them leave for good. I need to stop this before it gets any worse.

I’m going out of my mind here, crawling inside my own skin like a parasitic intruder. My brain scrambles, working through the possibilities, but nothing feelsright. Nothing feels like it will keep them away for good. I can’t just run – there’s nowhere to go. I can’t hide.

I can feel her – the pull of my omega. She’s begging me to give in, to stop fighting, to go to them, to let them take care of us. But I can’t.

I need to make it harder for them to come back. I need to make it unbearable.

I work through the night, frantic, insane, going through the motions of making the house as uninviting as possible. My omega whines in protest at me the entire time. I barricade thedoor. She cries. I make sure the curtains are drawn tight, so the faintest sliver of light won’t give away my position. She sulks. I even move the furniture, creating an obstacle course that they’d have to climb over if they wanted to get to me. She hates me.

I don’t know what I’m doing, or even why I’m doing it, but it’s the only thing I can control. Yet when I step back and look at my actions, I feel crazy.

I don’t let it stop me though.

Still, the rain outside rages, making my nerves jump with every occasional crack of thunder. I hate storms. I’ve always hated them. The wind shakes the walls, the rain pelts the roof like a thousand hammers, and every so often, lightning flashes, illuminating the dark corners of the room in stark, unforgiving light. Grams used to say storms were a warning—proof that even the sky could be bent to her will. She’d time her rages with the thunder, raise her voice just as the lightning split the sky, like nature itself answered to her. We were never sure which was more dangerous: the storm outside, or the one sitting in the living room, daring us to flinch.

I want to curl up and hide from it all. From the noise. From the feelings I can’t ignore anymore. From the way my body is betraying me. From my omega.

I won’t let them in. Can’t let them win.

The night stretches on, each second pulling me deeper into exhaustion. My muscles ache, my eyes are heavy with fatigue, but I can’t stop. I won’t stop.

I push through, forcing myself to keep moving, even as my omega keeps whining, tugging at me with every task. She wants to go to them. She wants them close. She wants us to let them in.

She doesn’t understand. I won’t give in. I can’t.

I don’t know when it happens, when I finally break. But I’m standing in the middle of the room, the storm outside still howling, and I just…stop.

I’m so tired. My body is exhausted, but it’s not just that. My mind is fried, my thoughts slipping away like sand through my fingers. I’m losing this battle. Losing my grip on my omega. Losing control ofeverything.

I stagger into my bedroom and collapse onto the bed, the weight of everything pressing down on me. My legs are jelly, my mind is a blur, and my omega is still so loud.

She’s demanding. She’s aching. And I can’t hold her back any longer.

Frustrated and restless, I move to the attic where I crawl to the corner of the room, to the space I abandoned long ago, the one I’ve kept hidden. It’s the place where I used to hide from everything, from everyone, on the odd occasion it all became too much.

It’s dusty and old, but it’s familiar and it’s mine.

It’s almost like a nest, I realise. Though I’ve never called it that before. It’s always just been my den, or a safe space. An oversized floor cushion and a couple of moth-eaten blankets. But now I see it for what it really is, and it’s woefully pathetic. My omega does not approve at all. And neither do I. Sad. Pitiful. Failure.

I pull the musty blankets around myself, curling into them like a threadbare, pathetic imitation of a cocoon. I can still feel the cold seeping through my skin, because of course there’s gaps in the roof and the wind is howling through them. But it’s nothing compared to the slow-spreading inferno that’s building inside of me.

I close my eyes, but it’s too much. The storm outside, the pounding in my chest, the need inside me that I can’t ignore.

My omega is awake.