Elias
The storm hit hard that night. Rain turned the alleyways into rivers of filth, neon lights bleeding into puddles like oil spills. Elias Ward pulled his coat tighter as he moved deeper into East End, cigarette clamped between his teeth, following the trail of whispers.
The bartender's warning hadn't left him. An Omega who tried to kill Blackwell. Still alive.
That kind of story didn't stay quiet. Sooner or later, the ghost had to show itself.
---
The Encounter
He found him in the shadows behind an abandoned club, crouched low with a knife flashing in his hand as he worked at a locked door. Small. Quick. Hood pulled low against the rain.
Elias didn't need the pheromone markers to know—he felt it. That tension in the air, that fragile thread stretched to breaking. Omega.
"Not the best night for breaking and entering," Elias called, his voice calm, nonchalant, like he was just commenting on the weather.
The figure froze. Then he spun, blade raised, dark eyes gleaming beneath the hood.
For a split second, Elias caught the rawness there. Hunger. Fear. Defiance.
And beneath it all—something feral.
"You're him," Elias said softly, lowering his cigarette. "The one who lived."
The Omega didn't answer. His grip on the knife tightened, his body trembling with the kind of exhaustion Elias had seen in soldiers on their last stand.
"Relax," Elias said, hands open. "If I wanted to drag you in, you'd already be cuffed."
The Omega's lips curled into a bitter half-smile. "Cuffs won't hold me."
Elias believed him.
---
Elias's Thoughts
For a moment, rain hammered the silence between them. Elias studied the boy—because up close, that's all he was. Young. Too young for the scars carved into his skin, too young to be hunted by someone like Damian Blackwell.
"You're not the first who's tried," Elias murmured. "But you're the only one he didn't bury."
The Omega's jaw clenched, and for just a breath Elias saw it—the flicker of something more dangerous than vengeance.
Longing.
The detective's stomach knotted. He'd come looking for a killer. Instead, he'd found a boy chained by instincts no bullet could break.
---
The Warning
Elias flicked his cigarette into the gutter and turned away. "You need to disappear before he finds you again. Blackwell doesn't let go."
The Omega's voice chased him, low and sharp: "I don't run."
Elias paused in the rain, every instinct screaming to push further. To drag the truth out. But something told him this boy was already standing at the edge of a blade. One wrong question, and he'd vanish like smoke.
So Elias kept walking, but the truth clung to him heavier than the storm.
Damian Blackwell didn't spare lives.
So why was this Omega still breathing?