I don't stop to pick up the mop or bucket.

I just run.

My feet slip on the wet tile as I sprint around the corner, my heart slamming against my ribs. The stairwell door is just ahead—heavy metal, rusty hinges, the kind that squeals when you open it.

I yank it open and throw myself inside.

The door closes behind me just as I hear Sienna's voice echo down the hallway.

"WHAT THE FUCK!"

I press my back against the cold concrete wall, trying to muffle the sound of my breathing.

"Which Omega is cleaning today?!" Sienna's shriek is sharp enough to cut. "I'm going to report this to Luna Rena! Whoever's on duty today is going to PAY!"

Footsteps. The click of her door opening fully.

Then Lucien's voice, soothing and concerned. "Good thing there wasn't much water left in the bucket. Otherwise, if it damaged your beautiful heels, I'd kill her myself."

My hands clench into fists.

Sienna's response is cold. Contemptuous. "Don't talk big, Lucien. Who do you think you are? Alpha heir Lysander?"

A pause. I can almost see Lucien's face—the flash of anger, quickly suppressed.

"I'm the young master of the Gamma Blackwell family," he says, forcing a laugh. "Crushing an Omega would be easy."

Sienna's voice drips with derision. "Then I hope you crush that annoying Gaia soon."

The sound of her gathering her shoes. The scrape of the rack against the floor. Then her door closes.

Silence.

I slide down the wall until I'm sitting on the cold stairs, knees pulled to my chest.

And finally—finally—I let the tears come.

Silent. Soundless. The way Omegas learn to cry.

*****

Sienna's bullying started when we were children.

She's the Beta's daughter, living on the second floor of the Alphahouse in a room three times the size of the basement space my mother and I share. I was six when I first met her. Her kitten had wandered down to the Omega quarters, and she came looking for it.

I remember the first thing she ever said to me.

"A lowly Omega dares to have golden hair and ocean-blue eyes?"

She didn't hurt me that day. Didn't mock me publicly or abuse my body. Just looked at me like I was something distasteful she'd stepped in.

But I remember the look in her eyes.

Like she was calculating. Planning.

Two months later, everything changed.

Lysander came home.

He was seven years old, the Alpha heir returning from closed study with the Grand Wizard. Luna Rena assigned me to clean his room—one of the many degrading tasks given to Omega children.

Lysander noticed me. Asked why I wasn't in school.

"Omegas don't go to school," I told him, not quite understanding why he looked so shocked.

"That's stupid," he said. "You're seven. You should be learning."

The next day, he invited me to attend classes with him.

Just like that. Like it was the simplest thing in the world.

From that day forward, Sienna made my life hell.

She put chalk dust in my water. Flipped my skirt during gym class. Stuck gum on my chair. Small things. Petty things. But constant.

Lysander would stop her when he saw it. She'd just smile and say we were friends, that she was joking. Eventually, he got too busy with his own advanced training to pay attention to what happened to the Omega girl he'd taken pity on.

But he still talked to me. Every day after school, when I returned to the Alphahouse, he'd ask about my classes. We'd chat—never more than five minutes, always interrupted by someone needing his attention.

Those five-minute conversations were the happiest moments of my life.

I thought we were friends. I thought he was my only friend.

Until a year ago.

Until the day that destroyed everything.

*****

It was climbing training. Rope work on the mountain face behind the school.

I was already struggling—my body weaker than the others, my muscles underdeveloped from years of poor nutrition. But I was trying. Goddess, I was trying so hard.

That's when Sienna made her move.

Her lackeys—Diane and Jenny, two girls who'd do anything to stay in Sienna's good graces—grabbed my training pants while I was halfway up the cliff face.

And ripped them down.

It was my period. Heavy flow, second day. The worst possible timing.

They used the climbing hooks to snag my pad—blood-soaked, humiliating—and threw it back and forth like a ball.

"Look! Gaia's trying to attract the boys with her period blood!"

"Gross! Put it away!"

"Maybe that's how Omegas hunt for mates!"

Laughter. So much laughter.

The boys were the worst. Pointing, jeering, calling me disgusting even as they couldn't look away.

I tried to get it back. Wrapped my jacket around my waist to cover the stain spreading on my pants. Chased them as best I could.

But they were faster. Stronger. Better fed.

I collapsed at the base of the cliff, watching them toss my dignity back and forth, and I memorized every single face.

Every. Single. One.

That's when Lysander arrived.

He was supervising training that day—a senior student responsible for the younger ones. When he saw what was happening, his face went dark with fury.

"Sienna! Diane! Jenny!" His Alpha command rang out across the training ground. "Five hundred laps around the mountain. Three thousand kilometers. NOW."

They ran for a full day and night.

By the time they returned to the Alphahouse, Sienna was burning with fever and rage.

She went straight to Luna Rena.

And she lied.

Told the Luna that I'd been trying to seduce Lysander. That I'd deliberately caused the incident to get his attention. That I was a manipulative little Omega trying to climb above my station.

Luna Rena called me to her office the next day.

"You will withdraw from school," she said. No discussion. No investigation. Just a command. "Otherwise, I'll have you and your mother expelled from the pack. You'll become rogues."

Rogues. Wolves without a pack. Mad, violent, hunted things that rarely survived a year.

For my mother's sake, I agreed.

Lysander found out within hours. He stormed into the basement, furious.

"Why?! Why would you quit?!"

I couldn't tell him. Couldn't admit that his mother had threatened us. That staying in school meant condemning my mother to death.

So I did what Luna Rena ordered.

I avoided him. Stayed silent. Turned away when he tried to talk to me.

"You're a coward," he finally said, his voice cold with disappointment. "I thought you were different. But you just give up. Like all the others."

He left for study abroad the next week. Luna Rena's suggestion, apparently. Get him away from the "unsuitable influences."

Months later, Alpha Owen noticed my name on the honor roll—I'd been top of my class before withdrawing. He asked why I'd quit.

I told him I'd changed my mind. That I wanted to return.

He gave me permission. Luna Rena couldn't refuse her mate directly.

But Lysander never came back.

And I learned to survive without him.

*****

It's dark when I finally leave the stairwell.

Sienna and Lucien are gone—off to the bar in town, probably, showing off their relationship while I hide like a rat in the walls.

I finish my cleaning mechanically. Mop the floors. Empty the trash. Make everything spotless so no one can complain.

But my mind is made up.

Lucien's betrayal—his plan to rape me, photograph me, use me as a bargaining chip to win Sienna—has severed the last thread tying me to Silver Wing Pack.

I don't want to be here anymore.

I don't want to serve people who hate me. Don't want to dodge abuse and pray for scraps of kindness. Don't want to spend the rest of my life hoping things will get better while knowing they never will.

Mother has been suggesting we leave for months. Pack our few belongings and slip away before my eighteenth birthday. Before my wolf manifests and potentially binds me to a mate in this Goddess-forsaken place.

I always resisted. Afraid of becoming a rogue. Afraid of the unknown.

But now?

Now I'm more afraid of staying.

I head back to our basement room, my decision crystallizing with every step.

When I push open the door, Mother looks up from mending one of my dresses—the only one I own that isn't completely threadbare.

"Gaia? You're back early—" She stops, seeing my face. "What happened?"

I close the door behind me.

And I tell her everything.

When I finish, she's crying. Not for herself—for me.

"We're leaving," she says. Her voice is steady. Final. "We'll talk to Alpha Owen. Ask for permission to go peacefully. Get some money to help us start over."

"You think he'll allow it?"

"He's kinder than Luna Rena. And he knows—" She swallows. "He knows what this pack has done to us."

I nod.

For the first time in a year, I feel something other than fear.

I feel hope.

We're leaving Silver Wing Pack.

And we're never coming back.