The first pack breakfast was supposed to be simple.
I'd been up since before dawn, which wasn't unusual. What was unusual was the reason—I'd lain awake running through every possible version of the morning, trying to find the one where it went smoothly. Where Aviana sat across from us and ate her food and let Neil and me exist in the same space without the air between us turning into something I had to navigate around.
I made eggs the way Neil liked them. I sliced fruit. I brewed coffee and set out juice for the child, because she was eight and eight-year-olds drank juice. I did all of it with my hand pressed briefly to my stomach between tasks, the way I always did, and I told myself this was manageable. She was a child. I was the Luna. I could do this.
Then Neil came downstairs with Aviana at his side, and before he reached his chair, she slid into the seat next to him—the seat that had been mine every morning for two years—and folded her hands on the table like she'd always sat there.
Neil pulled out the chair on her other side and sat down.
I stood at the counter for a moment with the serving dish in my hands. Then I set it on the table and took the seat across from them.
Fine. It was fine.
I served the food. Aviana watched me do it with those flat, careful eyes, and when I set a plate in front of her, she looked down at it and pressed one small hand to her stomach.
'It hurts,' she said quietly. 'I don't feel well.'
Neil's attention snapped to her immediately. 'What kind of hurt? Where?'
'Here.' She pressed harder. Her face arranged itself into something pained and fragile.
'You don't have to eat if you're not feeling well,' he said, already reaching for her plate to move it aside.
I watched this. I kept my expression neutral. 'She should eat something. She hasn't eaten since last night.'
Neil glanced at me—brief, slightly impatient—then back to Aviana. 'What sounds okay? I can get you something else.'
'Maybe just a little,' she said softly. 'If you give it to me.'
He picked up the serving spoon. He put the same eggs, from the same dish, onto her plate. She ate every bite.
I drank my coffee and said nothing. Across the table, Aviana's eyes found mine once, just for a second, over the rim of her juice glass. There was nothing childlike in them.
I looked away first. I hated that I looked away first.
---
A few days later I was in my study when I heard it—a sound I couldn't immediately place. A crash, sharp and heavy, followed by a high, breathless scream that cut straight through the packhouse walls.
I was already moving before I understood why.
The kitchen doorway stopped me cold.
The Omega—one of the younger ones, assigned to morning prep—was on the floor. The silver platters she'd been carrying were scattered around her, one still spinning slowly on the tile. She was trying to push herself up and failing, her palm sliding on something slick and gleaming that spread across most of the kitchen floor.
Oil. A massive, deliberate pool of it, catching the morning light.
Aviana was standing at the edge of the pantry doorway, both hands pressed to her face, making a sound that was almost crying. Almost. Her shoulders heaved. Her eyes, above her fingers, were dry.
'She came at me,' Aviana gasped. 'She was going to hurt me—'
'That's not—' the Omega started, her voice strained with pain.
'I was so scared—'
Neil arrived thirty seconds after I did. I felt his aura before I saw him—that low, pressurized weight that filled the room and made the air feel thinner. He took in the scene in one sweep: the Omega on the floor, the scattered platters, Aviana trembling at the pantry door.
He didn't look at the oil.
'Neil.' I kept my voice steady. 'Look at the floor. This was deliberate—'
'She's eight years old, Melanie.'
'I know how old she is. Look at how much oil that is. Someone poured it. The Omega was carrying platters—she couldn't have—'
'Enough.' The word landed like a stone. His eyes were on the Omega now, and the aura pressed down harder. 'You're confined to Omega quarters until I decide otherwise. If I hear you've gone near Aviana again—'
'She didn't go near her,' I said. My voice was still even. I was working very hard to keep it that way. 'She walked into the kitchen to do her job and she fell. That's what happened.'
Neil looked at me. That held-too-long eye contact, the one I'd learned to read. 'I said enough.'
The Omega didn't speak again. She gathered herself off the floor slowly, carefully, and left without looking at anyone.
Aviana had stopped making the almost-crying sound. She was watching me from the pantry doorway, hands lowered now, face composed.
I held her gaze this time. I didn't look away.
Something shifted in her expression—small, almost imperceptible. Not fear. Recalculation.
I turned and walked back to my study. I sat down at my desk. I opened the pack ledger and stared at the numbers without seeing them.
Then I opened my laptop and began researching hidden cameras.
