Page 4 of Stream Heat (Omega Stream #1)

CHAPTER FOUR

Kara

Bathroom. I didn't even make it three feet in before my stomach pulled rank and emptied itself into the nearest receptacle, which, thankfully, was a trash can, no warning or apology. I stumbled the rest of the way to the bathroom, landing on the floor in a heap by the toilet.

The tile was cool enough to worship, and for a second, I basically did, curled up on the floor with my arms wrapped around myself, sweat making my skin feel like it didn't fit right.

I couldn't breathe. Heat was crashing all through me, setting everything inside me on fire while my brain scrambled for a way to make it stop.

My apartment reeked of Omega heat scent.

My perfume. Wild honey and cracked pepper.

It was so thick in the air it was almost visible.

This couldn't be real. Not after eight years of walking the tightrope.

Not after every careful, surgical move, every calculated risk, every compromise.

Not after fighting my way to the top in an industry that would have thrown me into the trash heap as 'just another Omega streamer,' only good for selling my own humiliation.

I wasn't going out that way. I wouldn’t let them do that to me.

But right now, the only thing I wanted was to carve this heat out of my body and salt the earth where it used to be.

The phone was still buzzing, a relentless insect howl from the other room.

I forced myself up, hands shaking, vision blurring at the edges, and fumbled around the desk for my suppressants.

The bottle felt empty before I even picked it up, but I checked anyway.

Shook it like it owed me something. The single pill that I’d put back in during the stream rolled out into my hand but other than that it was just dust.

"No. No, no, no," I whispered, my voice the only thing left holding me together before I choked the pill I had down, my mouth too hot and dry to really produce any saliva. The clock glared at me: 2:17 AM. Marcus wouldn't answer until daylight, if I could even reach him. I could make it.

I tried to think about PR moves, maybe start damage control online, but my body had other ideas, all of them ugly and none of them negotiable. I turned off the phone in a half-panic, refusing to read what I already knew was out there. Didn’t matter. It would still be waiting when I came up for air.

Sleep was a joke, but it found me anyway, or I found it in snatches, a handful of ugly dreams about Alpha voices, unknown hands, and my own body betraying me in public.

Morning hit like a truck I didn't see coming. I looked in the mirror and almost laughed. My eyes were bloodshot eyes, and I had wild hair with blotchy skin. The worst of the heat had backed off, just enough that I could string more than two thoughts together, but it wasn’t gone. Not even close.

Phone. The second I turned it back on, it lit up like a bomb. Three hundred-plus notifications, missed calls, a to-do list of disasters. My management had called seventeen times. I didn't care. What I needed came first. I dialed Marcus.

"The number you have reached is no longer in service."

I tried again, a different number, but got the same result. It didn’t matter how many times I called; he wasn’t picking up. By the third try, my hands were actually shaking.

So I called in a favor. Ally, I had no idea if that was her real name, was the only other person I knew who’d used Marcus for pills.

"Haven't you heard?" Her voice was low, like she thought someone might be listening. "Marcus got taken down three weeks ago. Full raid. They found, like, military-grade stuff. Not the usual pharmacy knockoff. We’re all scrambling."

My stomach dropped into my shoes. "You didn’t think to maybe text me?"

"I figured you knew! It's all anyone’s talking about. Kara, the stuff he sold us, it was dangerous. Stronger than what doctors give out."

Like I hadn’t known that from day one. Victoria had spelled it out for me the first time she handed me a bottle: Take these if you want to go pro. They'll guarantee no one ever thinks you’re anything but Beta.

"I need more," I gritted out. "Anyone else selling?"

"Nothing solid. It's bad right now. You sure you can't just–"

"Don’t," I cut in, refusing to let her finish. "Don’t tell me to embrace anything. You know what happens to Omega streamers."

Silence.

She sighed. "Have you seen what people are saying online?"

No. I’d been dodging it for a reason.

"It's bad, Kara. They made a hashtag for it, #StreamHeat. It’s trending on every platform. There's clips everywhere."

After we hung up I scrolled social media, expecting a car crash and getting the whole highway.

The hashtag was everywhere, blowing up my feed, already a million tweets deep.

There, on loop, the precise second it happened to me.

The second my face went slack with heat, pupils blown, cheeks flushed, voice going high and breathless as I leaned into Reid’s voice like I was addicted.

Someone had clipped the audio, because of course they had, isolating every shaky inhale and whimper, then cut it with Reid asking if I was okay. Reposted, memed, dissected. My brand, my privacy, my dignity, all out in the open for strangers to paw through.

I couldn’t look anymore. I closed the app. The phone rang; Victoria Smith, the closest thing I had to a handler, or maybe a warden.

"What the fuck were you thinking?" she went in the moment I answered, every word accompanied by the sound of my career going up in flames. "Eight years I kept you clean, and you blow it on one stream? Because you couldn't keep your suppressant schedule on a calendar?"

"Marcus got arrested," I said, flat and dull as roadkill. "I had no backup."

"I don’t want excuses. I want answers. Sponsors are already dropping you. HeatHands Gaming? Gone. TechStream? Backing out. ValdesGames is even demanding refunds. Do you have any idea what kind of disaster this is for us?"

Each name hurt worse than the last. The ones that paid my rent, bankrolled my tournaments, built the platform I’d killed myself to reach. Gone.

"We can fix it," I tried, but my voice cracked like it knew I was lying. "I just need more suppressants. I can claim it was a reaction, a Beta medical thing–"

"It’s too late," Victoria bit back. "The entire internet thinks you’re an Omega fraud. They're not wrong. You lied–"

"On your instructions," I reminded her, not that it would matter.

"Nobody forced you, Kara. You wanted this. I gave you the map. You followed it willingly."

She wasn’t wrong, not really. I'd done it to myself, knowing exactly what it would cost if I ever slipped. In a world that treated Omegas like jokes, or like walking cautionary tales, I'd chosen to blend in. Hide the parts of me that would get me tossed in the trash.

"What now?" I managed.

"We talk in an hour. Until then, get your shit together. Find some suppressants, or something that passes for it. We need you lucid, not moaning into your phone."

She hung up without goodbye. I sat there, phone in hand, heart scraping the bottom of my chest, and started crawling the forums: black market, overseas, even the dumb Reddit threads that were mostly scams. Anything, anything to get the pressure out of my veins.

After almost an hour, I lucked onto a sketchy Eastern European site shipping "pharmaceutical-grade suppressants" overnight.

The price was insane, but the reviews looked semi-real, and what was I going to do, negotiate?

I paid for rush delivery, blew nearly every cent I had, and waited for the tracking number like my life depended on it.

The next call was my platform partner manager. Just what I needed. Another person to yell at me like I chose this.

"Kara, about last night–"

"It was a medical incident," I said before he could accuse me of anything. "Get legal if you want, but that’s all it was."

"Thing is, there are terms about explicit Omega content on stream. The footage–"

"It wasn’t explicit," I snapped. "It was involuntary. I didn't plan it!"

"Our team says it’s a TOS violation. 'Sexually explicit Omega presentation.' You know the rules."

Of course I knew the rules. There were always rules, and they were never written for people like me. No one cared if I was drugging myself into Beta compliance just to avoid being deleted from the leaderboard. They only cared if I slipped up.

"So what now?"

"Partnership on hold. Channel demonetized, VODs pulled. Legal says it's open-ended until the review’s done."

I got the message, no money until they figured out if they could keep profiting off me, or if I was officially radioactive.

He bailed on the call, leaving me alone with the facts: The pills wouldn't arrive for a day and a half. The heat was already simmering, my body rebounding hard from years of chemical cages, coming apart at the seams.

I showered just for something to do, cranking the water to arctic until my whole body went numb.

It didn’t help. If anything, the cold just made my skin flare hotter.

When I checked social media again, things had escalated, if that was even possible.

Someone had done a "greatest hits" montage of me trash-talking Alphas, then cut it right before the second I broke on stream. Caption: When you clown Alphas nonstop but your Omega self can’t hack it.

Three million views. My humiliation in HD.

Gaming news sites were spitting up headlines, everything from “Queen Quinn Heat Controversy! Sponsors bail!” to “Downfall of an Esports Icon!”

I kept scrolling, but it was all the same. Sponsors running. Fans deciding what I was worth now, and apparently the answer was not much.

Victoria called again for the ‘big meeting.’ I answered, dripping and half-naked, because what did it matter now? There was nothing left to pretend to be, my secret was out.

They tore me apart for an hour straight.

Picked through my "brand violations" like I was roadkill on the dissecting table.

They had stats on how fast the sponsors vanished, over 80% of my income, gone in twelve hours.

They "workshopped" whether to spin the Omega reveal or try to hide it under a "rare medical diagnosis.

" Meanwhile not a single person asked if I was alive or dying, nevermind if there was anything they could do to help.

"The suppressants will be here tomorrow," I offered, barely above a whisper. "Then I’ll be fine."

"Kara," Victoria said, this time with something that almost sounded like sympathy. That terrified me more than her usual anger. "You need to get this. No one is ever going to believe you’re a Beta again. There’s no going back."

"But–"

"The only choice we have is to control the story. We're drafting a statement for you. We’re thinking something along the lines of a late Omega presentation, possible medical delay, all that. And then we pivot into your 'brave new journey' as a newly-manifested Omega figurehead."

Like it was inspiring. Like I hadn’t just lost everything that mattered to me in one night.

"And if I say no?"

Dead silence. Like she was waiting to see if I’d even ask.

"That’s not really an option," someone said finally. Flat. Final.

After the call, I just curled up on my mattress and tried to disappear under the covers. The notifications came in waves, I left them unread. At some point, I let go, and the tears came, ugly and hot and endless, until the only thing left was exhaustion.

Tomorrow the pills would arrive. Maybe tomorrow I could fix it. Maybe tomorrow there would still be something left to fix.

But tonight, the only thing I could do was fall apart, alone, and hope I’d survive long enough to claw my way out again.