Page 46 of Generation Omega: Claimed (Originverse #3)

ETHAN

Is Tillie your true home? And is Kazimir your true mate?

Two questions. Two fucking questions. The most agonizing pop quiz of my life.

At first, I thought just knowing the questions would create a map I could follow.

But, after three days, I’m no closer to an answer, which makes me think I’m not ready for the answer.

And if I’m not ready, then I already know the answer—don’t I?

Because if I knew, for certain, that I belonged here with Tillie and Kaz, I’d grab that answer like it was a championship belt and never let it go.

So, maybe it’s time for me to stop pretending I’m still seeking clarity, rather than desperately avoiding it.

I struggle to breathe, even here on the top of the yacht with the Milky Way winking and attempting to dazzle me with its pure wonder. But my boyish love of sailing, starry skies, and adventure is currently on life support as I face the end of my life as I know it.

How will I tell her that I’m leaving? How will I tell him?

Now, those are some bullshit questions, because Gideon won’t let me tell her anything.

He’ll be too busy erasing me from her past. And Kaz, he’ll know without a word being spoken.

It’s sickening, all of it, and I can’t make it stop.

I’ve lost control on a patch of black ice, and I’m skidding right into the rail that isn’t strong enough to hold.

There’s a cliff in my future, and there’s nothing I can do to avoid it now.

In a flailing move, I grapple for something to cling to, some hopeful detail about the life I’m about to reclaim.

But I can’t find anything other than the darkest clarity of all, the awareness that no one can really go home again.

To think I’ll ever be who I was without Tillie in my life—I’d need to swallow all the denial in the world to believe that.

I keep thinking of a wild tale Mackenzie told Tillie while they were spooning together—they spoon for hours, wrapped in each other.

He was sharing his particular love of tug o’ war at the Highland games.

I can’t imagine how any other team would have a chance against someone with his sheer mass, but that’s not what captured my interest. It was how the image resonated in me, the idea of a rope with Tillie on one end and me on the other.

I’m larger and more physically powerful, but Tillie’s pull on that rope has been the constant of my life.

To think I would even be able to stand straight with her presence suddenly missing on the other end of my rope—it’s madness.

And what about Kaz’s hold on me? I attempted to place myself at the middle of the rope, with Kaz on one end and Tillie on the other, but that’s not what this is.

Kaz and Tillie are together gripping their length of rope, and I’m their opposition.

If they release their hold, I’ll collapse, my balance broken until I learn to stand again—alone, like I’ve never been.

I will. I don’t surrender. But the life I left behind, when I embraced my role in Tillie’s destiny, is not the one I’ll find when I go home. I’ll have to start again, learn who I am now and what I want.

Will I still be driven to fight? If so, will I have enough rage to fuel my bouts?

Will I reconnect with my mother? Or will I wander the world for the rest of my life, always searching for where I belong?

And what if I never feel anything even close to what I feel for Tillie and Kaz?

What if, even with my doubts, this is the best my life will ever be?

I can’t go back, and I don’t want to move forward —that’s what Tillie said when she was struggling to accept her place in the omegaverse.

I didn’t get it then, but I certainly do now.

But it’s not the same for me. I know I can’t go back to who I was, but I want to move forward.

I want to fully seize my life and live it the best I can, so that when I die and reach my father, he’ll be proud of the man I became even without his presence and support.

Well, I guess this is it, the choice made not with real insight, but by measuring my own aggressive avoidance. I thought reaching a decision would bring some peace, but I don’t feel anything but hollow and hopeless.

Ethan.

It’s the omega legacy calling. Is there a way to reject the call? Because ejecting them from my mind might be the only perk when I dismantle my fucking life.

We thought you might want an update on your alpha.

I wince. They’ve got my number, alright. Yes, please.

He’s alive and well, attempting to become an alpha worthy of you.

I groan audibly, knowing Kaz would never approve of the legacy seeking to undermine the decision I’ve made.

Maybe you can find him another beta. I throw that at the legacy and then almost hurl at the thought of Kaz bonding another man. Come on, I found my answer. Why isn’t it bringing any solace?

Solace? With faultily constructed reasoning and nothing resembling true self-awareness? That isn’t possible.

What do you want from me?

We want to assist you with the task you’ve been given, before your obsessive need to obtain answers destroys your life and our efforts.

Kaz wouldn’t want you interfering in my decisions.

Kazimir would if he had the sense to understand what he asked of you and just how misguided it was.

You think he was misguided in caring about my happiness?

Oh, you seem truly overcome with joy. This is what happiness looks like? Really?

Fuck off.

You are a surly thing, aren’t you? Just like your alpha and about as obedient. Let us help you. If your current beliefs are solid, they should be able to admirably withstand further inspection.

I’m about to argue, get petty, lash out, or just pray for a coma so that my mind can have a break, but then the legacy continues.

We see all or, at least, most. Aren’t there questions whose answers might be worth a little conversation?

Don’t play games. Just tell me why you want to help me.

Kazimir’s motivation regarding you is pure, but this test he designed is wildly unrealistic and also unintentionally cruel.

Did the legacy pluck that out of my thoughts, because I’ve mulled the same thing more than a few times? Explain, please.

To think, in just a few days, you could throw yourself at more than twenty years of life, love, loss, and trauma, and make irreparably final decisions about where you belong now or in the future… is wildly unrealistic and unintentionally cruel.

But…

Ethan, imagine asking the same of Kazimir.

All the air leaves my lungs, and my hand covers my heart.

I would never ask that of him, never imagine it was possible or even a good idea.

Whatever trauma I’ve faced, his is next-level—not that there’s ever a contest. That image returns, the one hint of Kaz’s childhood that he let slip, where he obviously had to battle to survive even as a small boy.

He may never get through the horrifying maze of his own brutal upbringing, but there is no way he could—or should —attempt it in three days.

No, he couldn’t, and without assistance, neither will you. The task was unrealistic, but the abbreviated timeline is the legacy’s fault, so we’d like to help you discover your true answer.

I should be gushing my thanks for their offer. Maybe it’s my hollow heart, or the strain of the outcome we’ll reach no matter what we do, but I just sit here as the breezes blow and the silence stretches. I’m surprised and a little impressed that the omega legacy doesn’t rush me.

Can you give me one reason to believe my decision is wrong?

Decision? You didn’t make a decision. You skirted that part, in favor of allowing unexplored assumptions about the nature of your inherent dread to lead you right off that cliff you were just ruminating about. If you’d been able to make an actual informed decision, we would have remained observers.

I really wish I could push back, but the words that instantly reverberate through me are zero lies detected . I did exactly what they said, but what makes them think they can do any better?

Too afraid to give us a chance?

Oh, now they’re just baiting me, and it works. Fine. Let me have it—bring on the epiphanies.

I don’t know what to expect, but I’m not shocked when the movie of my life begins to play in my head.

It starts with my sixth birthday party. Everything is trucks and dinosaurs, as though the Mesozoic Era included monster truck rallies—still makes total sense to me.

I don’t remember much about that day or most of the faces, but seeing my parents together again inspires a fierce ache in my soul.

It’s when I notice who’s missing that I understand what this day represents to the omegaverse—the time before Tillie.

I’ll meet her soon on the first day of first grade, when our last names will make us neighbors.

It’s about fourteen months before I lose my father.

The movie then takes me to that first day with Tillie and the days after that.

She attends my seventh birthday party—exclusively dump trucks and T-Rexes now—and we played together on the day of the fire.

The legacy doesn’t make me watch the scene, but shows me the funeral, zooming in on my face.

I observe what was impossible for me to recognize then, how obvious the change in my eyes—the before and after of childhood trauma.

Before my father died, my eyes were bright, my smile easy, and fear was reserved for scary stories, never reality.

After, my eyes were hard, proof of the barriers I constructed to deny any chance that light, air, love, or hope would reach me and ease my pain.

Healing meant forgetting, which meant betraying my father—something I would never do.

I see them now, the invisible and unexplored rules I created that trapped me in the past and its relentless sorrow.