Just One More Night

Leda calmed her sister, even as the shouted words rang off the walls of their small quarters.

“Are you trying to wake up the whole neighborhood?”

Cythia was moving back and forth in a small circle. She had already attained enough rotations to wear a track in the already bare carpet.

“I cannot believe that you are doing this again.” Cythia added.

“It’s two thousand dollars, Cythia. Do you have any idea what we could do with that kind of money?” Leda replied.

She looked pointedly at Argus’s empty sleeping pallet. Even though it was already early evening, he hadn’t come back home. She didn’t want to think about what he might be out doing. There were too many temptations on the streets of the slums for a poor boy. It was just another reason that she had to earn enough credits to get all of them out.

“Exactly. You pay for fancy breathing treatments and now Argus has run off with those degenerate friends of his. Well done, Leda.” Cythia sneered.

Leda veered back to her sister, incredulous. “If he feels well enough to run the streets with his friends, at least that means his health is finally enhancing. You had rather he be back here, hunched over and barely able to breathe?”

“I would rather you didn’t put us all in problem by risking this again. What if this Alpha finds out that you’re an Omega?” Cythia asked.

The danger of discovery was ever-present in her life, raising its head every time that she stepped foot outside the door. And of course, going back to Ceres House was a huge risk, but it also came with a huge prize.

And if she was being completely honest with herself, it wasn’t just about the dollars.

“You do not have to worry, the alterants worked.” Leda imbedded more certainty into her voice than she actually felt.

“We can pay for the extra doses. They gave me the dollars up front.”

“How is getting paid for sex good with you?” Cythia threw her hands up into the air.

“It wasn’t sex, not in the way you are thinking of it.” She replied.

Leda disliked this feeling of being on the defensive. And it was difficult to fight off the surging tide of anger and shame.

“And don’t act like I’ve had some great choice in this. I’m the one who has to worry about how to pay for Argus’s medication and put food on the table. I don’t see you desperate to take my place!” Cythia shouted.

She mourned the words almost as soon as they passed her lips, but it was too late. Cythia ripped at the scarf that she carefully wrapped around her head every morning, tearing away the layers of gauzy fabric. The severe light of the room cast her scars in stark relief, making them appear deeper and sharper than they really were.

“They wouldn’t have me even if I were willing to myself out to some Alpha,” she said, voice a bitter whisper.

“Or had you forgotten that I am defective?”

A large scar ran down the side of her face, pulling down the corner of one of her eye and tipping up the edge of her mouth so it always looked like she was howling. Cythia had been pretty once, but no longer.

She would be fortunate if she ever found a life partner, even one from the slums. Female beauty was too highly adored in this world for a potential mate to settle for less. No Alpha or Beta with any status would ever have her as a mate.

Leda felt a twist of shame, as she always did, at the thought of what her sister had undergone. She often felt inexplicably guilty about it even though she knew that there was nothing she could have done to curb the accident.

And doing this, subverting herself for a hated Alpha from the upper levels, was one way that she could take a bit of her sister’s discomfort onto herself.

“Please don’t make this harder by battling me about it,” Leda begged.

She picked her sister’s scarf off of the floor and held it out. “You know how much we need this. I’m willing to take the risk.”

Cythia grabbed the scarf back and angrily rolled it around her head with jerky movements. When she finished, the coat was lopsided on her head and somewhat covered her mouth.

“It isn’t just you who is at risk. If you’re found out, both Argus and I could be prosecuted for conspiracy. Do you think the guardians will pay for his breathing therapies while he’s locked up in detention? I don’t think so.” Cythia said.

Leda had not actually considered what it might mean for her siblings if she were caught, too focused on what consequences might befall her to think about the risk presented to them. With an effort, she resisted the small spike of fear that shot through her.

“That will not happen. I would never tell the guardians that you are the one who buys the alterants. I would insist that you and Argus never knew, that only mother was aware of my first estrous and assisted me keep it secret. I’d never admit to anything that would make you a target.” Leda Replied.

“Even if they tormented you?” Cythia replied also raising an eyebrow that was cut across by the edge of her scar.

“They wouldn’t do that. And even if they did, I had rather die before I admitted to anything that could bring them back to you or Argus.”