Chapter 4

"Gina?"

Daphne stumbled forward. Someone caught her arm.

"Don't touch the body," a man warned. "You'll get yourself into trouble."

"Let go of me!"

She tore free and reached for Gina's face.

Her fingers brushed cold skin. Daphne recoiled as though she'd touched ice.

"No. No, please."

She shook Gina's shoulder.

"Gina, wake up."

The body remained still.

"Please, Gina. I need you." Her voice broke.

She gripped the rope around Gina's wrists, trying to loosen it with trembling fingers.

"Help me!" she shouted at the people watching. "Can't somebody help me get her down?"

Nobody moved. A woman near the back folded her arms.

"She shouldn't have stolen."

Daphne turned toward her.

"She was trying to help me!"

The woman shrugged. "That's not my problem."

Daphne looked at the faces surrounding her. Some were uncomfortable. Others were simply curious.

Nobody wanted to interfere.

Daphne returned to Gina and her knees gave way.

She sank to the ground, pressing her forehead against her friend's cold hand.

"You promised," she whispered. "You promised you'd come back."

The tears came before she could stop them.

She cried until her chest hurt, until the people around her began drifting away, until the service road grew quieter.

Then a contraction ripped through her abdomen.

Daphne gasped and clutched her stomach.

Another followed before the first had fully passed. She looked down.

A dark patch had spread across her clothes. For several seconds, she couldn't move.

Then she understood. Her water had broken.

Daphne tried to stand, but her legs nearly collapsed beneath her.

She needed a clinic and a doctor.

Instead, she found herself walking toward home because she had nowhere else to go.

The sun was sinking behind Omega City's towers when she reached the narrow passage between two abandoned residential blocks.

She heard footsteps behind her.

"Look at that."

Daphne turned.

Three young men stood at the entrance to the passage. Their identification bands displayed D-Class status.

One of them sniffed the air.

"F-Class."

Another laughed.

"She's pregnant, too."

"Where are you going in such a hurry, little Omega?"

Daphne tightened her grip on her bag.

"Please move. I'm not looking for trouble."

The tallest man stepped into her path.

"Did we say you could leave?"

"I'm in labor."

He glanced at her stomach, then shrugged.

"Then you should have stayed home."

Daphne tried to move around him. He shoved her shoulder.

She stumbled against the wall, pain shooting through her side.

"Don't touch me," she warned.

The three men exchanged amused looks.

"Did you hear that? The F-Class is giving orders."

"Maybe her A-Class mate will come save her."

Daphne's blood ran cold.

"How do you know about Trent?"

The man smiled.

"Everyone knows about the miracle Omega. He became A-Class and left this dump behind."

"He hasn't forgotten me."

"Then where is he?"

Daphne had no answer.

The man struck her across the face. She fell to one knee, her hand immediately moving to protect her stomach.

"Stop!" she cried. "Please, my baby"

A kick landed against her thigh.

She curled around her abdomen as another blow struck her back.

She tried to crawl away, but her body refused to cooperate. Her breath came in broken gasps, and the ground scraped her palms.

"Get up," one of them ordered.

"I can't."

He kicked her again. A sudden gush of fluid spread beneath her.

Daphne froze. Then the pain hit.

She screamed.

The men stepped back.

"What the hell?"

"She's actually giving birth!"

"Forget this. I don't want trouble with the patrol."

They hurried away, laughing nervously as they disappeared around the corner.

Daphne barely heard them. The pain had become something she couldn't think past.

She reached for the wall, trying to pull herself upright, but her arms shook violently. Her knees slipped against the cold pavement.

"No, no, no..."

She was alone.

Gina was dead, Trent was gone.

And her baby was coming.

Daphne dragged herself toward a recessed doorway, away from the street. She spread the emergency blanket beneath her as best she could, then gripped the edge of a broken panel.

"Please," she sobbed, looking down at her stomach. "Please, baby. I don't know how to do this."

Another contraction seized her.

She screamed until her throat burned.

She pushed when her body demanded it, stopping only when she could no longer breathe. Sweat soaked her hair. Her hands slipped against the panel as she fought to remain conscious.

For one terrible moment, she thought she couldn't do it.

Then she remembered Gina carrying her into the clinic. She remembered Trent holding her hand in the tunnels.

She remembered the tiny clothes she'd saved for her child, folded carefully in a drawer that the debt collectors had emptied.

Her son deserved a chance. Daphne clenched her teeth.

"Come on," she whispered. "Come to me."

She pushed again. A cry tore from her throat.

Then, suddenly, the pressure eased.

A small, slippery body slipped into her trembling hands. For a moment, the world went silent.

Daphne stared down at the child.

He was tiny, his skin flushed, his fists curled tightly beside his face.

Then he opened his mouth and cried. Daphne burst into tears.

"Oh, thank God."

She gathered him against her chest, wrapping the blanket around his body.

"Hello," she whispered, kissing his damp forehead. "Hello, my beautiful boy."

He continued crying, his little fingers curling against her skin.

Daphne laughed through her tears.

"You're here. You're really here."

She touched his cheek, then pressed two fingers gently against the side of his neck, remembering the basic checks she'd watched medical staff perform.

His heartbeat was fast but present.

She fumbled for her wrist device and activated its emergency scanner.

A red light passed over the baby.

NEONATAL ASSESSMENT COMPLETE.

WOLF CORE: NOT DETECTED.

WOLF PULSE: ABSENT.

GENETIC CLASSIFICATION: HUMAN.

Daphne stared at the results.

Human.

Her son had no wolf core.

In a world where even the lowest-ranked Omega possessed some trace of Wolf energy, her child had none.

She looked at his tiny face.

"No," she whispered. "You're not defective."

The scanner repeated its assessment.

WOLF PULSE: ABSENT.

Daphne shut it off.

"You're perfect."

She kissed his forehead again, holding him closer as the cold crept into her bones.

"Hermes," she whispered. "Your name is Hermes."

The name had been Trent's suggestion months ago. He had said it would suit a child who would one day travel farther than either of them could imagine.

Daphne had kept the name despite everything. She wasn't ready to surrender every piece of their old dream.

Hermes's crying gradually softened.

Daphne adjusted him against her chest and placed her palm over his tiny heart.

That was when she saw it.

A faint silver light glittered beneath his skin.

It lasted barely a second, a thin thread of brightness spreading from the center of his chest before disappearing.

Daphne stopped breathing.

She knew that light.

She had seen it four weeks earlier, during the Core Transfusion, when Trent's defective wolf core had begun absorbing the energy she'd spent years accumulating.

The same silver glow had pulsed beneath his skin as her own strength drained away.

She had never seen it again.

Until now.

"Hermes?"

She touched his chest with one trembling finger.

The silver light returned.

This time, it spread farther, tracing a delicate pattern beneath his skin. Then it vanished.

Daphne stared at her son, her exhausted mind struggling to make sense of what she'd seen.

The scanner had classified him as human. But something inside his tiny body had just responded to her touch.

And whatever it was, Daphne had seen it before.

In the man who had taken her power.

The man who had promised to return.

And man who was supposed to be Hermes's father.