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Story: Feral Creed

Maybe we just notice what we have.

On the other hand, doesn’t it bother him that there are so many unanswered questions?

Why were we all able to heal ourselves and get our memories back when the alphas and omegas in Cedar Falls don’t seem to be able to?

Why is it that we all have the strange snake-like alpha teeth when no other alphas have those?

Why is it that Kyvelki and Penelope were so affected by Lotus’s scent?

I mean, doesn’t he think these things probably mean something?

Knight agrees with me, for what it’s worth. “Yeah,” he says. “It’s like I said, we’re superheroes or whatever. But just because we’re something special doesn’t mean we have to do anything like that.”

“Like what?” I say.

“I don’t know, like lead some revolution, like Kyvelki wants us to do.”

What would a revolution even look like?

“I just want to stay here, in our apartment, drink beer, watch TV, and fuck our omega,” says Knight. “This is great. There’s no reason to make things unnecessarily complicated.”

Is he right?

Am I being crazy?

Why am I so bored?

I start tagging along with Calix. He can do good things for the omegas, right? I wonder if I can help out there, too.

Turns out, I can. My alpha scent calms the omegas, who they have kind of succeeded in trying to teach to talk. They talk more than they used to, anyway, but they still seem stunted developmentally. It’s like being around children. It’s disturbing to me.

Calix tells me his theory about bite frenzies, and I have to wonder why we’re not out there, talking to the Polloi, trying to find out more about all of that.

Calix doesn’t want to talk to anyone in the Polloi. He pushes that aside, and I realize he’s got baggage.

I get it.

The place is weird.

I also know that there’s no way that he and I can go in there and find out answers, not with the way they treat alphas. ButLotus, she’s got a scent that makes people bend over backwards to do her bidding. We should be using that.

“The Polloi don’t understand bite frenzies,” Calix says. “There’s nothing to find out.”

I kind of suspect he’s right.

That it’s not really about finding anything out, it’s about being bored.

When I was a police detective, I was occupied. I had things to solve, cases to put to rights. They were like little puzzles that gave me something to do, and they meant that I was doing good for other people. I know I can’t go back to being a police officer, but I also can’t live like this, not forever, not without something todo.

I say it to Lotus one day, that I think I want to get a job.

“Okay,” she says. “I’m wondering about that, too. But I guess I’m waiting to see about getting an operation to get my tubal ligation reversed, seeing if I want to get pregnant. It’s just that I still haven’t gotten my period, and it’s been long enough that the shot I had should have worn off, and I haven’t gone into heat again, and I want to see a doctor outside of Cedar Falls, but Coltrain is kind of blocking that, and—”

“Whoa,” I say. “You haven’t told me any of this.”

She shifts on her feet. “Do you even want kids, Arrow?”

“Uh…” I shrug, thinking about it. I haven’t thought about it in a long time.