Part 2
### Chapter 1: Ch 1: The Circumstances
Conrad Fitzroy. Male. Delta. That's what it said on the name-tag I wore. Sub-gender, nice and bright underneath the gender and name. Delta. It was too bright. Too noticeable. I saw it every morning as I walked into the bar. Clocked in using the chip on the back of the name-tag. Pinned it on. Saw it again every night as I clocked out and threw my uniform into a small and dirty locker. Saw it in the bathroom mirror as I went on my break.
It was a reminder of what I was and everything I wasn't. I was a delta. I was not an omega. I was not an alpha. Hell, the goddess couldn't even have been bothered to make me a beta or a gamma.
It wouldn't have been so bad, I often thought. I could handle the dirty looks as I walked into a New York Cafe above my pay grade with omegas way out of my league and alphas taller and stronger than I could ever hope to be. But, y'see, it ain't even that dismally simple. Oh no.
See, alphas were the kings and queens of the world. The leaders, the strongmen, the boss that could chew your ass out because he was having a rough patch with the wife. Betas were the charismatic second-in-ranks. They were also strong and had powerful personalities and enough social goodwill that, honestly, who could hate them? They were alphas without tempers. Maybe weaker. The gammas were the perfect middle. The most common subgender, if only by a plurality. Lean, smart, kind, normal. A very versatile group of people. Then came the deltas.
Yes, in technicality, omegas were the lowest rank. At least, insofar as the outdated and politically incorrect (as many academics liked pointing out) ranking system was organized, which was on the basis of average physical strength and temperament. Omegas were the weakest on average. Of course, they were also very intelligent.
That wasn't the point, see. The point? The point was that, out of the five, deltas were the awkward sibling. Not quite the adored youngest, nor the respected oldest. They weren't considered as smart as gammas, as pretty as omegas, as strong as alphas, and much too awkward and servile to charm and socialize like betas. Some joked that deltas were omegas but only if omegas were too tall, too lanky, too pale, dumb and asocial and, well, in politically incorrect terms, ugly.
Those were the circumstances. "Those are the cards you get," my dad would say. "What you gonna do about it, kiddo?"
I hadn't done much. I didn't need to do anything more than get used the circumstances that surrounded my life. I staved off the bullies. It wasn't particularly difficult. After all, there were no alphas at the old schools around the blocks where I grew up. What alpha family with enough money (and that was most of 'em) in their right mind would send their alpha or omega kid to schools in a decrepit neighborhood of New York?
"Can't be that hard, anyways," I remembered my dad telling me with a half-smirk. "Deltas can go their whole life ignored."
It was true. If we weren't being ostracized for being in the wrong space, we were left alone. I stuck with my delta friends. We grew up like any other kid. We jumped rope, played four square, failed quizzes, tested our curfews and dated. All within our own little delta bubbles. Maybe a stray gamma would join us at our lunch table or out in a game of tag in the school yard.
Really the circumstances weren't that bad. I hardly even noticed, growing up in a slightly rowdy part of the city. I was Conrad, son of Connor and Linda Fitzroy (both deltas), Irish catholic descent, male, red-head, big green eyes, toothy grin, aspiring mechanic or craftsmen like my dad. I had my best friend, James Montgomery Roman, son of a very rich and powerful family but also a delta with an awkward smile. I had Elise Okafore (gamma), a daughter of Nigerian immigrants and the type of person who would find abandoned buildings throughout the neighborhood to drink beer in on lazy nights and wax gibberish and pseudo-philosophy while passing a joint.
Delta was a label that hardly mattered. Life was simple. My dreams and future were simple.
My dad bought a small shop on the outskirts of the neighborhood. There was a small one bedroom apartment on top of it. I remembered him, tall and heavily built for a delta man. Unkempt beard, flannel that smelled like wood shavings with the sleeves rolled back to the elbows. Elise's father stood next to him. Both of them were staring at the small, empty building with arms crossed and big grins.
"It's gonna be our studio office thing, red," he told me then, as he ruffled my hair while shooting a thumb at Elise's dad. "Hell yeah, it's gonna be good. Your old man's gonna sell way more furniture this way, moving out of the garage and all. And Elise's father can teach you two about working a car."
Elise let out a whoop before hugging me in her excitement. It was something she rarely did but as we looked at the decrepit square little thing of what would be our fathers' shared workspace, I could understand her joy. College wasn't an option. Apprenticeships were hard to find. But now, Elise's father would teach us everything about being mechanics. It was something both her and I had wanted.
See? Life was simple. The circumstances were great. Just, y'know, I wish that I'd known then that they tend to change. Life always finds a way to make things more complicated. It's like the fifth law of thermodynamics or something. Life can never be that easy.
When I turned eighteen, my family threw a block party as was the case for local kids turning eighteen. Everyone was running around outside the large spaces between the apartments and the smaller houses. Neighbors I'd known like extended family my whole life came to give me small presents or the small amounts of money they could afford to give away. Kids ran around chasing after each other. I spent the day with Elise and a few others. James couldn't come. His father wouldn't allow him to come to "this side of town."
"What a bougie prick," Elise said when I told her. I chuckled. We were sitting on the cracked steps to my house, drinking cream soda and watching the kids run around and the adults mingle. Before I could reply to Elise, I felt a hand on my shoulder. I looked up to see my dad. We smiled at one another.
"Hey red," he began, before pulling out a small box and offering it to me. "Happy birthday."
I opened it to find a small cassette tape and a walkman for the tape. When Elise begged me to let her listen to the tape, I refused. It was something special, I knew. I would listen to it when I was alone.
The thing was, I never actually listened to the tape. Two things happened after I turned eighteen. First, my parents died.
Or they may have been killed. In a poor, crime-ridden neighborhood like mine, the cops weren't always the cleanest. They told me that my father had drunk too much coming home from the shop. My mother had been there with him that night as she was on most nights when my father had to stay for a long time to finish up a piece. I was told by two apathetic officers that the car had run off the road and hit a tree. I didn't believe them. But there was rule around the area. You didn't call out the dirty cops. Especially not beta cops. Especially not beta cops most likely on the payroll of some powerful alpha. Especially not when you were a delta. A poor, blue-collar, weak delta.
They were probably robbed by some street thugs working for someone much bigger. I would never know.
It was the first time I'd felt my subgender with such foulness. Such hatred. Helplessness. Delta. I was a delta. There was nothing I could do. No lawyers to hire. No investigation. No charges. No trial. Only a sombre funeral service that left the insides of my organs cold and numb, a dull, aching, almost distant pain seeking to latch onto my heart and mind and rip both apart.
I left the neighborhood. I left the city. I went west. Portland, Oregon. My cousin Vinnie had a bookstore there. It was small, cramped, and dusty, and I wasn't much of a reader but it pulled me away from the cruel memories that plagued my thoughts of New York. I could forget, once again, that I was a delta. Portland was a nice, liberal city. At least the omegas didn't tell you to your face the true reason why they "couldn't" take up your offer of a date.
Life once again settled into a simple rhythm, if with a slight ache and dullness to it. I still kept the tape my father gave me. I didn't want to look at it the first few years. Then, the next few, I was looking for the right moment to do so.
On my 22nd birthday, I almost planned to do so. Then I got distracted. The second thing that happened was that I met Joseph Darling.
-8-
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### Chapter 2: Ch 2: Darling
It was the day before my birthday. I kept the box with the tape and walkman under my bed in one of the rooms, my temporary room, above the bookstore. I glanced underneath the bed that morning as I'd gotten ready to open the store. Thoughts of opening it floated around in my head. Thoughts I hadn't considered in the last four years. I probably would have opened it. I'd even set a mental time for tomorrow. But the events of that morning seemed to disagree.
"They're running us out of business, man!" Vinnie said indicating himself and his wife Sammy who was sitting behind the counter and looking through some papers.
She looked up with a wry smirk to where we sat at one of the old tables for reading. "Don't think Conny knows what you're talking about, dear."
I gave them both a bewildered look, putting down the book I'd been trying to read but had barely the attention span to do so. Vinnie scoffed and looked back to me.
"Really? You haven't heard of the new bookshop that opened last week down the street? It's got a cafe and a section for classic rock records. Damn me, guess I didn't get the memo that bookstores aren't actually for books."
Something in my gut twisted. This wasn't going to be another morning of Vinnie's usual rants.
"Can't you work something out with them? I mean, who owns the place? Maybe, I don't know, you're a small business...maybe...they'll give you a break...They could see they don't need all your customers..." I trailed off as Vinnie raised an eyebrow and a look of pity came over Sammy.
"Can you believe this guy?" Vinnie turned back to Sammy. "Four years here and still doesn't understand the ways of business."
Sammy sighed and pushed her papers away. She gave me a sad smile before looking over to her husband. "Can't you see, Vinnie? Conny's got nowhere else to go when we close down."
When we close down. It was a sucker-punch to the gut. The bookstore was all I had in Portland. Where else could I go? What else could I possibly do? I was a delta from the slums of New York with no college degree and only my meager savings to keep me afloat.
Sammy must have seen the distress in my eyes. She rubbed her forehead. Between the three of us, an uncomfortable and awkward silence settled.
For the past four years, I had refused to outright admit it, and when I implied it, Vinnie and Sammy vehemently denied it. That being that I was more of a charity case than an employee. They could barely afford to pay me state minimum wage. Only two people truly needed to run Kentons Bookstore. Sammy, the accountant and financial officer and Vinnie, the salesman and face of the store. They also happened to conveniently not have the weight of past memories plaguing their mind.
"His name is Ross Edwards," Sammy later told me at dinner. I tilted my head. Edwards was a familiar name. Some distant remnant of New York perhaps? It was also a common name. Not one I'd hopefully be expected to know. Luckily, Vinnie, as was his way, filled me in while trying to stuff as much spaghetti as humanly possible down his throat.
"It's that big-shot alpha from the Edwards family. Y'know, Thorephite Inc?" That was a familiar name. Everyone knew Thorephite and the woman behind it. A big mysterious and mostly reclusive alpha woman, Vanessa Edwards. The leader and vanguard of popularizing thorium-based nuclear energy around the world.
"Her son, Ross Edwards, is a little shit. They think he might even turn down the CEO position at his parents company for a god damn laugh at them. Rich bastard."
"Vinnie. Language." Sammy muttered as she slid more spaghetti onto his plate.
"Anyways, he's dabbling in whatever'll get his name caught on in Portland. That's a fancy bookstore apparently. Really, he should just keep banging omegas, and going to some celebrity worship fest and he's set for life with mommy's paycheck."
" Vincent ."
"Hey, am I lying?" He gave his wife a shit-eating grin. I tuned out the rest. Something about how Vinnie should really learn to respect omegas more as a privileged gamma. Something more about his language. I was sure Vinnie was probably smiling as Sammy went off on him but my mind reeled back to the name. Ross Edwards. The name stuck around in my head, crawling through my thoughts like some parasite. I slowly got up as the two continued their argument (mostly Sammy giving Vinnie dirty looks and him going the extra mile to compliment her cooking).
I went to my room. Ross Edwards. Funny. I knew I'd have to move out soon. And there was only really one place I could go back to. I wonder if he knew that? Well, obviously not. Men like him didn't often wonder about the plight of men like me. The thought was laughable, but I couldn't really think of anything else to occupy my mind. It was then that I left.
Shooting Vinnie a text to not wait up for me, I grabbed my leather jacket and the keys to their beat up Toyota before heading out. I could feel a wave of anxiety, a wave of nausea but forced myself to drive. One thing I'd miss about Oregon was the countryside. Through the rolling hills and with the wind of the cool night running through my hair, I drove for maybe hours. I remembered my phone ringing a few times. It was when I finally reached a small town, Dell Meadows, that I stopped the car to pump gas. The town wasn't really a town. More like a collection of houses, a church, a school and the gas station. The only light was the full moon, a handful of street lamps and the red and blues of the gas station. Everything was dream-like.
After the gas, I went inside to grab a candy bar. As I left, my mind was once again filled with thoughts of the day. Of the bookstore. Of leaving. Ross Edwards. So much so that I missed the giant of a man in front of me until I was already buried into a hard chest.
"Oof!"
"Ah! Uh...oh god..erm, sorry!" I stuttered out, instantly being hit with the absolute power that seemed to radiate off the man in waves. He had to be an alpha.
"No, no, it's fine." I heard the smirk in his voice even before I looked up. I looked up to a man a full head taller than me. My hair must have tickled his jaw. The neon blue light of the station's open sign lit up a face of angles. A chiseled jaw. Perfectly trimmed blond beard and short hair that was brushed up and a little to the side. The blue that jumped out of his eyes with the help of the neon light made his eyes look a bit eerie, almost too bright. It all came together with the easy smirk.
"A little late for an omega to be out alone, don't you think?"
I blinked up at him. My voice almost caught in my throat but I somehow managed to muster out a raspy murmur. "I'm a delta."
He sniffed. It was quick and clean. "So you are." He simply said. I waited for his hesitation. I waited for the part where he would step back a few feet, make up some lousy excuse before turning around and leaving. Hell, seeing as how the day was turning out, part of me expected him to spit in my face and tell me what a disgrace to the beauty of life and nature deltas were.
Instead, he gave me a soft smile. "I thought you were a bit tall for an omega. And most omegas I know don't keep the facial hair."
"Suppose you know a lot of omegas," I bit out, without thinking much. What the hell? That wasn't how you talked to an alpha. And yet, he only smiled, his eyes still focused on my face.
Almost subconsciously, I felt for my face, probably looking more than a little embarrassed. His smile only seemed to grow wider, and I felt a humiliating heat starting to crawl up my neck. Thank god I was facing away from the lights.
"Keep it," he said, his voice a little quieter and deeper. "Looks like something from an Armani model."
I sucked in a breathe. "Jesus, you're fucking blunt." It slipped out, maybe as a desperate attempt to keep my face from heating up any further than it already had. Or maybe swearing at an alpha was the way my mind had decided to go, considering the day had left me questioning the merits of being alive.
He only chuckled much to my relief. "Suppose I'd never hear that from an omega. You've got some balls swearing at a potential heir to Darling Enterprise."
I blinked. I opened my mouth to talk. Nothing came out. The cool air of the night was starting to turn into a punishing chill.
"Must be the Irish genes, eh? You are Irish aren't you?"
"Maybe," I muttered out, not meeting his eyes. Apparently, I did have a death wish. Not answering an alpha's question would certainly be conducive to attaining said wish. And apparently this was a very important alpha.
There was a certain satisfaction in letting him know that I, a measly delta, had in fact never heard of this oh so important name. His face twisted up in confusion and little bit of annoyance. I could almost hear the words, You've never heard of us? Everyone has heard of us!
I was surprised when another, almost smug smile returned to the man's face.
"Well then, I guess I'll have to introduce you. Right this egregious wrong, as they say."
I raised an eyebrow as he handed me a card of gold with silver letters, right out of the pocket of his long black peacoat. My calloused hand brushed up against his hand clasped in a leather glove.
"May I have a name?" He said finally.
As I glanced down at what looked like a business card, I said, "Conrad Fitzroy."
"You are Irish," he grinned like a fourth grader being given candy. It was ridiculous and a little enticing to see such an expression on the alpha's face. I rolled my eyes as visibly as I possibly could.
"Well, Conrad, you'll have to call me back. How does a Friday evening sound?"
I didn't answer, instead opting to look down at the card. There was a phone number, Darling Enterprise etched in the top right corner, an address and a name.
Joseph Darling. I smiled. It was probably too easy, something his friends most likely joked about daily, but I couldn't help myself, seeing his last name. I was fully ready to make a stupid and most likely suicidal quip about it, but when I looked up, he was gone.
How freaking cliche , I thought. Like I was some omega in a bad romantic comedy. Except I wasn't an omega. He was either deaf and blind or pulling off some cruel joke. No alpha picked up a delta.
Why not humor him, though? After all, it's not like I'd be in Portland or Oregon for long.
-8-
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