**unedited!
Abby finished wiping off the last of the tables in the large dining hall. The Kindred Soul Omega Sanctuary, fondly shortened to just Sanctuary by the Omegas in residence, had a rotating chore list the residents worked on throughout the day. This week, it assigned Abby to clean up after dinner, along with a new friend, Catrina, and several others. The Omegas worked well together and murmured amongst themselves. Occasionally, a reminder of their shared pasts would sneak in when someone laughed a little too loud and they would either freeze or instinctively flinch, waiting for the abuse from a past tormentor.
Catrina had befriended Abby during her first week at Sanctuary. They'd both been assigned to work in the gardens, and the young brunette shyly introduced herself. They'd become fast friends over their discovered common love of books, and Catrina had shown Abby to her favorite room at Sanctuary.
The Library.
The males in Abby's family, her father and brothers, hadn't understood her love of reading. She'd only been allowed to attend primary school because they'd been living in the city. She'd loved school, and when one of her teachers introduced her to books, her love of reading grew. Books provided an escape from her overwhelming, traditionalist family. Her teachers never asked why she didn't take books home, but at the start of each week, a brand new stack appeared on her desk.
She knew better than to bring books home.
At her father's insistence, she'd been tested for her dynamic at an early age. When the test revealed beyond a doubt she'd present as an Omega, he'd begun training her to believe that an Omega's only place was beneath the control of first the Alphas in her family and then later her Alpha mate.
She didn't need to read for fun. She only needed to be able to read enough to follow instructions left by her keepers and the list of "rules" for proper Omega behavior. Nevermind the list was created by a sadistic serial killer and later adapted by his even more delusional son, Christoph. Mitchell Parmador adopted those rules for his Omega wife and children as if they had been handed down from the gods themselves.
The one time he found a book in her school bag, he made her take a pair of scissors and cut out every page from the binding. She'd tried to refuse. She was still too young for the Alpha's command to work on her, but it still worked on her mother.
By the time she'd cut the last page free, her mother's sobs rang through the house. Her brothers stood in the entrance to the kitchen absorbing every word as her father used their combined punishment as a teaching moment for the young Alphas in the house.
Ashamed and in tears, she'd taken the book back to school the next day. Her teacher simply looked at the remains of the book before setting it aside and gathering Abby in her arms.
That evening, her school's principal appeared at her house and met with her father in his office. Abby couldn't make out the words, but from his tone, her father didn't like what Mr. Kardine had to say.
By the end of the following week, her father moved them out to a rural part of the country several hours from the city, close to the border of a very traditionalist neighboring country, and her school years came to an end. Now, her job was to help her mother care for their house and family. A career was never in her future. Her life would be bound to her Alpha's, and it would be his choice what she could and couldn't do. Abby had held out hope for an Alpha who would let her read and eventually continue her education, but with an Alpha her father would approve of, she knew that was a distant dream.
From conversations she'd overheard between her father and brothers, they'd moved to a newly formed commune called Alpha's Haven. Supposedly some kind of Alpha paradise, her father described it as a place where Alphas could bring their Omegas and live as nature intended. No need to coddle Omegas as modern society dictated. Omegas were made to pleasure Alphas. That was their purpose in life. The way it used to be before organizations like the Omega Security Force started enforcing laws requiring equal treatment, and before the public school system started teaching Alphas how to properly care for a mate. A time before the Omega Balls where Omegas could be introduced when they were ready to find a mate. The concept of Omegas choosing their own mate was an anathema to her father.
Traditionalists wanted to go back centuries to a time where Alphas decided when and how to mate. A time when Omegas were treated as the objects they were created to be. Omegas were inferior and allowing them to believe that they had a choice had led to the downfall of their world, according to Abby's father and his followers.
For the next eight years, whatever happened in Haven, Abby never knew. Her father didn't allow her to go since she was unmated, but when her mother returned from her trips to the commune's public square, she always had a haunted look in her eyes and sometimes new bruises that kept Abby from asking about it.
Her unmated status afforded her some protection, but she'd overheard her father talking to her brothers about mating bonds and contracts.
"Omega Balls! Just another way they let Omegas think above their place. Omegas don't get to decide when and how they mate! I'm working on a breeding contract for your sister.... no, nothing permanent. He just wants to breed her for an heir, and then she'll be sent back. By then, I can find another Alpha who won't care that she's not a virgin. There are plenty of Alphas who'd like to put her to good use." Her father's raspy laughter accompanied her brothers' higher-pitched chuckles, and Abby had crept away as quickly as she dared before she let the tears fall.
But when Christoph, along with his cousin Tobias, approached her father with a plan to bring the OSF "to its knees" after his recent rejection by an Omega, Mitchell salivated at the thought of taking revenge on the OSF and offered his only daughter on a silver platter to provide the cover story they needed.
Obediently, Abby left with the two Alphas. Following an Alpha's orders was what she had been born to do. It was her purpose, but as she sat quietly in the back seat of the car, she listened in growing horror as the two discussed the execution of their plans. She learned long ago to school her features to conceal her emotions, and she hid behind that stoic mask as they casually discussed the targets they would acquire and how they would "break" them. The final goal would be the Omega of the very same OSF officer who had killed Christoph's serial killer father, Marc.
The first thing Tobias did when they'd reached Soularine Prime was force Abby to her belly on a musty-smelling bed in a cheap motel room. With Christoph watching from a chair in the corner, Tobias bound her to the bed and used a blade to create a series of cuts on her neck. While he made the cuts, he whispered to her about how he might need a mate to get in the OSF, but he would never choose an Omega like her. He preferred Omegas who were thin and willowy. Over her own cries and eventual screams, she heard him describe how her curves were too much for her body. Her breasts were too large and her hips too wide. No, he wouldn't really mate her. She'd just have to settle for taking his mark at the point of a blade.
"On the other hand, pussy is pussy," he'd sneered over her sobs.
That was the first night she'd blacked out only to wake up covered in blood and tears, but it wouldn't be the last. For more than six months, Tobias used her body and her soul. When she protested that Selah and Malcolm were good people, Tobias and Christoph used that commanding Alpha tone to make her do... things. Sometimes they'd abuse her long into the night. Other times they'd command her to say or do things to get information on Malcolm and Selah. When Malcolm died, Abby hoped that that would be it. It was over. Malcolm was dead and so there was no reason to continue with their plans for Selah, but the two Alphas stayed, and Abby continued reporting in as ordered.
Selah was declining.
Selah had stopped eating.
Selah barely talked to the group of Omegas when they came over.
Finally, Selah asked them not to come over as her heat began. All the Omegas in the group agreed that in her weakened state Selah wouldn't survive this heat.
And then like a ghost, Malcolm returned.
Neither of the Alphas was surprised. With Tobias imbedded in Malcolm's team, they'd known that he'd been alive but hadn't shared that information with her. They hadn't trusted her not to tell Selah, and they enjoyed watching the Omega suffer needlessly. Christoph and Tobias spent the days that the couple had been occupied with her estrous cycle preparing to follow through with a plan they had devised before Malcolm's disappearance.
The Omegas gathered at Selah's house for protection from the Omega murdering serial killer. Selah sensed that Abby felt off. She never felt like she belonged with the group of Omegas.
She was a fraud.
A viper in the grass.
Selah offered her comfort and friendship. When the Omegas discovered Ashlyn's kidnapping and that Selah had slipped out the back door, Abby felt tears slip down her cheeks.
Christoph's plan was in motion.
About an hour after Selah's disappearance, an Alpha female officer, Flora, knocked on the door, and without any hint of anger or urgency walked into the living room.
"Command wanted me to come in and wait," Flora announced in her usual brisk manner. She pulled a chair from the dining room to sit on the outside edge of the gathered Omegas close to where Abby sat on the floor by the end of a couch.
She could almost reach out and touch the Alpha female. Flora's Omega, Derek, uncurled his lanky frame from the love seat and moved to curl up at his Alpha's feet. Only because Abby was watching, she noticed the Alpha direct him from what must be the usual place at her right to instead settle at her left. His quizzical face had verified it was an unusual change, but he'd settled in without a complaint. His face came to rest on her thigh, and her left hand tunneled into his hair.
All of this, Abby observed out of the corner of her eye. She made every effort not to meet the gaze of the female, but the weight of her stare that never wavered.
Flora wasn't in the room to watch all of the Omegas. Just Abby.
Somehow, they'd been found out.
Despite it meaning that she'd face consequences, Abby hoped it meant that they stopped Christoph and Tobias and that Selah and Malcolm were alive. It went against everything she'd been taught to think and feel, but she hoped that Malcolm killed them. She'd submit happily to whatever punishment she was given if only she knew that those two were roasting in hell.
Despite Flora's no-nonsense demeanor, she was more caring and circumspect than Abby deserved. After another thirty minutes of quiet murmuring between the Omegas, Flora touched the black earpiece and patted Derek on the shoulder. He lifted his head and looked up at his Alpha with sleepy eyes.
"Just a minute," she murmured to him and stood from her chair. Stepping forward a few paces, she extended a hand down to Abby, "Come, Abby. Let's go for a walk."
OSF officers waited outside of Malcolm's and Selah's home. Flora rode with her to OSF headquarters where she'd discovered Christoph and Tobias' complete failure. She was so relieved when she'd learned that both Selah and Ashlyn survived she felt faint. At the additional news that Christoph and Tobias were dead, she broke down into heaving sobs until the world had blackened around her. When she woke up, she'd been cradled in Flora's arms with Derek running his fingers through her hair.
After weeks of OSF interviews, sessions with counselors, several months at Omega House that she never wanted to relive, and a trial, she'd been sent to Sanctuary.
And it was a sanctuary. For the first time since she presented as an Omega, Abby was in a place where she felt like she actually counted as a person. All of the Omegas at the rehabilitation center were broken in one way or another, but Abby had never been surrounded by such love and acceptance.
Most of the staff at Sanctuary were Betas or Omegas. The Betas in therapy positions covered topics like finances and careers, but the counselors who dealt with the emotional recovery of the residents were all Omegas.
Only another Omega could really understand how an Alpha's command could make an Omega do things that they never would do otherwise. Only an Omega understood how during an estrous cycle, the heat and pain made even the most defiant Omega an Alpha's plaything. No one but an Omega knew how easily even the worst Alpha became the center of an Omega's universe.
Sanctuary allowed Alphas only under certain conditions.
The few Alphas on staff were all mated and provided security for Sanctuary, but they also helped to provide the Omegas examples of how a true Alpha behaved.
Visiting Alphas were never allowed past the special visitation rooms on the first floor. They had to apply for permission to visit with residents, and Omegas never met with Alphas without an Alpha staff member present.
Sanctuary provided a haven of safety for Omegas to recover from a variety of illnesses, trauma, and abuse in all its forms. Abby had met Omegas whose abuse hadn't come from an Alpha but who developed an addiction to the various available street drugs. Unmated Omegas recovered in the hospital wing from accidents or illnesses.
Finally, there were the Omegas who had suffered at the hands of an Alpha. Unmated Omegas had the highest rate of recovery. Sanctuary even took a group of Omegas to the biannual Omega Ball if they felt like they were ready to try bonding to an Alpha. Unfortunately, mated Omegas often never left the walls of Sanctuary unless they went back to their abuser.
After four months at Omega House, three months at Sanctuary passed quickly. She'd been free from Tobias for seven months, two weeks, and four days. She'd spent the last three months in therapy not only from the staff at Sanctuary, but Selah had a weekly appointment with her too. She'd tried to refuse the very pregnant Omega because she felt so guilty about her part in Christoph and Tobias' plans, but the other Omega had settled herself in the counseling room and refused to leave until the end of visiting hours. She'd come the next day and the next until Abby's guilty conscience and Malcolm's frustrated pacing couldn't take it any longer.
Talking to Selah was a blessing in disguise. Seeing she was fine after her ordeal helped to relieve some of her guilt. Abby found herself telling Selah details about her childhood and her time with Tobias that she thought she would carry forever, but every time she ended up in tears, she felt lighter afterward.
Although their last conversation had left her cheeks red from embarrassment instead of tears. Despite the stories that Selah had dropped in about what a real bond with an Alpha felt like, Abby had no intention of mating again.
Ever.