At the same time, I also can’t afford to not fix the car and instead pay for the bus to the cafe and back for weeks, until the boss can reimburse me for them at the end of the month. I don’t have money to cover a month of bus tickets in advance.
I check my bank account and my wallet. I’ve got money to pay maybe a week of bus trips to the cafe and only if I manage to spend under a buck a day on food, which is going to be rough, since my kitchen and fridge are empty at the moment.
Hell... Fucking hell. I want to cry, scream, but that’s not going to help anything, it would probably just scare the people living next door. And scaring the people living next door is bad when you’re trying to keep a low profile.
I look around the apartment. Maybe there’s something I can sell off that’ll cover at least some of the costs this week? But even as I glance around, I know that it won’t work.
My couch and table and chairs and everything are all second hand and won’t be worth enough to cover food or meds for a day, let alone a week. My laptop is ancient, it runs browsers and lets me watch Netflix, but that’s about it. I don’t have anything of value left.
Anything that could bring in any money, I already sold off last winter, to cover for my heat suppressants during the last mating season. I’d hoped to save up a little this year, but my car is breaking down more and more and I can’t pay for a new one.
I could...
No. I’m not going there.
I’m not going to do an ‘adult’ princess party, or whatever Liam was trying to insinuate. That’s... That’s below me. And how would I even be safe? Shit like that is dangerous, one wrong client and I’d lose everything. One client who figures out I’m a shifter, an Omega shifter, and nobody would ever hear from me again. I’m not going there, I can’t. I really can’t.
If I’m going to stoop that low, I could just go back to my parents. At least that way it’ll be a rich Alpha who takes me, at least then I wouldn’t have to worry about money ever again. But I’d lose everything else, everything I’ve worked for so hard.
It’s not like my parents wouldn’t be ecstatic if I’d go back to them, if I’d ever go back to them and follow their plans.
No. I’m not throwing away my dignity, my freedom, just to have money. I’m not.
I’ll figure something out, I always do. If I really need to, I can probably sell my car and hopefully cover at least some of the bus tickets with that and then just hope that I’ll have enough left to cover my medication in a week or two.
Yes. Selling the car is a good option, even though it’s crap and falls apart, there are enough good parts left on it to at least make me some money...
But even as I come up with the plans, I already know that it won’t be able to keep covering the costs for the whole mating season, and I’ll just have the same problems in another month. I need to make money, more of it, not redistribute the little I already have.
I look for the email address for the princess agency, sending them a quick message asking them to look out for more parties for me to do. The money isn’t consistent, but at least the hourly rate is better than at the cafe.
Then I sigh as I hover my finger over the number for my boss at the cafe. I’ll have to, even if I’ll fall over from exhaustion, I need more money, and it’s only for a couple of weeks. I can manage. I send my boss a message asking for more shifts, the more hours I spend at the cafe, the less I have to spend on my own food, so that’s a bonus too.
Now I just need to hope that they’ll have work for me, or I’ll really have to take more desperate measures.
I’m smart and good at what I do. I should be able to make ends meet. Hell, I went to college and got a degree. But because my parents won’t sign a fucking full-time work licence, I can’t work a normal full-time job and I’ll have to scrape by on part-time jobs and flakey contracts.
I know that they did it on purpose. It’s a very common tactic that a lot of Omegas have to deal with. Parents won’t sign full-time work licences, only part-time ones, which even have hour limits to them, to make sure that the lure of not having to live paycheck to paycheck will wear an Omega out and might make them go back to their parents, or makes them go out and find themselves a rich Alpha. But I won’t give in. I won’t.
I’ll never give in to their threats.
8 Zack
Dad glares at me from over his folded hands as he lets out a low growl. I fight against it, I fight against his Alpha powers. I’m an adult Alpha, he can’t control me like that anymore, he won’t control me like that anymore. Although, he’s not acting as my dad right now, he’s acting as my boss, but I still won’t bow my head to him. I might be just a rank under him, but I’m not lesser or worse at my job than him, and he knows it. Though, that last thing might be in question right now...
“The client indicated that you made inappropriate comments during
