Page 2 of Stream Heat (Omega Stream #1)
CHAPTER TWO
Reid
"Quinn, are you okay?"
Loaded question. Way too loaded, and I knew it as soon as it left my mouth.
There’s only two ways that lands: she comes clean, or she slams her walls so high none of us will ever reach her again.
Still, I had to ask. She’d gotten too quiet.
Wasn’t just my imagination, either. Her voice quavered, brittle around the edges.
"Don’t be ridiculous." Offended, at first, but it didn’t have any weight behind it. Not nearly enough to convince me, or anyone, that she was actually fine.
Silence. The chat stilled too. For a moment it felt like the entire server decided to hold its breath.
"I think we need to end the stream," Theo said, his voice was more serious, softer too. The Alpha air about him sharpened, like he’d suddenly decided to start running point.
"I'm fine." Quinn again. Sharper this time, the words lashing out instead of explaining. “Just feeling a little off.”
But her voice was wrong. All wrong. Thin, shaky, like it might shatter if you looked at it too hard.
"Quinn," I said. Didn’t even mean to let it out like that, but my voice fell flat and hard, the order threading through it like steel cable. “End. The. Stream. Now.”
"I can't… " Whispered and barely even that. Choked, like every syllable scraped through broken bone on the way out.
"Kara!" Snapped it. Her actual name, like a knife through haze, breaking through whatever sick little spiral she’d locked herself in. “Cut the stream!”
A sound came then, wet and desperate, like a moan half-strangled in her throat. Then–
Nothing.
Static.
Her screen cut to black.
Overlay flickered, the emergency loop fighting to buffer, but all I could picture was the afterimage burned in behind my eyes. Kara’s face had gone deathly pale, eyes glazed, sweat pouring down her brow. She looked like she’d stared into hell.
My stomach plummeted straight through the floor.
“Guys,” I said. Slow, careful, like the words themselves might break if I lost my grip. “We need to help her.”
“How?” Theo shot back. “We don’t even know where she lives.”
“I do,” Ash said. Quieter than the rest of us, but steady. “Tournament registration forms.”
“That’s stalker shit,” Malik growled. “We can’t just show up at her place.”
“She’s in a dangerous heat crash,” Jace cut in, tone flat and ruthless. “That’s not a regular suppressant fail. That’s industrial-grade suppression, and she could be in medical danger. I’m not kidding.”
Malik ripped off his headset and was up, moving, but I had no clue what he was doing. He was usually the calm one, but something about this had set him off and it was like he couldn’t sit still.
A groan drifted through the open comms line. Kara. She hadn’t managed to cut her mic on the backend. I knew she wasn’t streaming anymore, that no one but us and any moderators that were still around would be listening. My hand clenched tight on the desk.
“Quinn?” Jace tried. Even-keeled, objectively calm and soothing, but his words landed like a bomb in the streaming room. “You still there? Can you hear us?”
Pause.
We were all frozen, even Malik. Waiting. Listening like our lives depended on it.
“Yes,” she rasped. “Don’t… don’t come here. I’m fine.”
You’re not fine, I wanted to say, but what came out was steadier. “That’s a suppressant crash. How long were you even on them?”
Silence.
“Quinn?” I softened my voice, though it took everything in me to do so. “Kara? Talk to us.”
Another pause.
Then I heard it. So faint I almost missed it. “Eight years,” she whispered. “I’ve been on them for eight years.”
Theo inhaled, like someone had stabbed him in the ribs. “That… Kara, that could fucking kill you.”
“I know what I’m doing,” she tried to say, but each word was bent double with pain. Another wave must have gripped her, because she didn’t even try to fight the sound that came with it.
“Clearly not,” I barked. “We’re coming over. Whether you want us to or not.”
“Don’t you fucking dare–” She broke. The words died in her throat.
“Kara.” I called her name again, but gentler, softer, trying to break through the haze of pain she was probably in without resorting to my Alpha tone. “We’re not coming to take advantage. We’re coming to help. You need a doctor. You need help.”
And then something inside her must have changed because her defenses were completely gone in a way that I could almost hear the snap. “Please, Reid,” she said. Just a breath. “Please hurry.”
Then the line went dead.
No comms. No video. Not even static. The world emptied out.
Ten seconds. Maybe a hundred. None of us moved.
Jace stood up first, breaking the spell. “I’ll drive.”
That snapped everyone else awake.
Theo surged to his feet so fast he almost wiped out on his own chair. “Okay. Yeah. But we need gear. I’ve got blockers. I think.”
“We all dose,” Malik grunted, digging for his med kit. “No exceptions. Scent dampeners if you’ve got them.”
Ash was already halfway out the door. “I’ve got some, and I’ll grab the cooling blanket.”
Theo spun, eyes wide. “Are we seriously doing this? She’s alone, and we’re five Alphas. She’s not bonded, not pack. We just show up and… what? Scent-drunk SWAT her place?”
“Are you actually suggesting we don’t help?” I growled, standing up.
“I’m saying, is it even safe to help?” Theo looked each of us in the eye, desperate. “What if she panics? If we trigger her? What if we already did? What if it was one of us that set her off?”
“No one’s claiming her,” Malik rasped. “No one scents her. No touching without consent. This is a medical thing. Nothing more. Nothing less. She needs someone and she asked for us.”
“She said don’t come,” Theo insisted. There was a note of panic in his voice, the chair back creaking beneath his hands. “What if she doesn’t want us there? What if we are the ones that triggered this? What if we make it worse?”
“The last thing she said was to hurry,” I said, dead calm. “I’m taking that seriously.”
Theo breathed out, brittle.
Ash grabbed Theo’s hand and slapped a dampener patch into his palm. “Just focus on her. Not yourself.”
I hit the bathroom, grabbed my blockers.
The pills felt like gravel scraping my throat on the way down.
Didn’t slow my pulse much, but it helped, some.
Still, I couldn’t shake the sense of her, Kara, even through the cold blue screen.
Like her scent had somehow found its way to me, and chased itself into my skull and wasn’t letting go.
“She’s not going to be coherent,” I said as I came back out. “Maybe not even responsive. But she’ll be scared. We keep calm. Follow Malik’s lead. Go in gentle, keep everything slow.”
“I’ll get the hydration kit,” Jace said.
“Grab the neutral-scent jackets too. No cologne, no personal markers. I don’t want her picking up anything that’ll make it worse.”
We spun through the room gathering gear, but my mind didn’t leave her, not for a second.
Eight years on suppressants.
Eight. Fucking. Years.
For what?
She’d been fighting herself, every hour, every day.
On stream, in tournaments, with cameras and the whole world all breathing down her neck.
She let them think whatever they wanted.
Some of them called her Alpha bait, while others called her Beta queen or prude.
They memed her, joked about her, and she took it all, never cracking. Until now.
She’d never been Beta though, not really.
She was Omega. Always had been. No one had suspected it.
Her body was making sure she couldn’t hide it anymore though.
I shouldered the last of the gear and followed the rest of my pack into the night.
When the van doors punched shut, I looked at the dashboard where Malik had pulled up her address for GPS. She was further away than I liked, but we were just lucky that she was close enough to drive to.
I couldn’t imagine if she’d been on the opposite side of the country when this happened. Who would have helped her then? Did she have anyone? Something in my gut told me I already knew the answer, and it wasn’t a good one.
Kara.
Brilliant, sharp-edged Kara. Alone in her apartment, burning from the inside out.
She’d begged for help like it cost her everything.
Please hurry.
We were coming. This time, there’d be no letting her fall. Not again.
Not ever if I had anything to say about it.