Chapter 4: Chapter 4: The call

The phone rang just as Chris was putting away clean dishes, the soft clink of ceramic echoing in the cozy, sunlit kitchen.

He almost ignored the number. Unknown calls rarely meant anything good. But Mia was sprawled on the couch with her homework, pencil tapping against her notebook, and she shouted without looking up, “Pick it up, Chris! It’s annoying!”

He wiped his hands on a towel and answered. “Hello?”

“Christopher Malek?” The voice on the other end was brisk and official. “This is the Capital Medical Registry. We’re contacting you regarding your secondary gender evaluation six months ago.”

Chris felt his stomach dropping. His grip on the phone tightened before he could find a voice to speak. “I’ve taken the exam. I’m listed as beta.”

“Yes,” the caller replied, polite but unyielding. “The model used in your evaluation has since been found to contain calibration errors. Several classifications may be inaccurate. We’re recalling individuals flagged as potentially miscategorized for re-evaluation. Your name is among them.”

The air in the kitchen seemed to still. Andrew’s coat hung by the door. Mia’s sneakers were kicked half under the table. The faint smell of lemon cleaner lingered from the morning scrub-down. All of it suddenly felt fragile, like a carefully balanced stack that might topple if he breathed wrong.

His jaw locked. ’There is no way they know. No fucking way.’

“Do I really have to do it?” he asked at last, voice steady even as his hand shoved the towel aside.

“I understand the discomfort we are creating,” the clerk said, practiced sympathy smoothing the edges of formality. “But it will be short and to the point. If your profile remains consistent, you won’t even be required to test. May I ask… have you noticed any differences since your evaluation? New symptoms? Changes in cycles, perhaps?”

Chris barked a laugh, sharp and humorless. “No. Everything’s just as boring as before. I’ve never had a cycle.” Then, softer, pitched like the wounded frustration of a teenager who wanted to believe in reclassification and was burned by disappointment, he added, “I don’t… I don’t want my hopes to go up again.”

There was a pause on the line, as though the clerk was checking a box off a script. “That’s understandable. Your attendance is mandatory, Mr. Malek. Please report to the Santana Clinic this Thursday at nine in the morning. You’ll receive a confirmation letter tonight.”

Chris swallowed, the sound loud in the still kitchen. “Fine.”

The line clicked dead.

He lowered the phone slowly, staring at the faint scratches on the countertop. From the other room Mia’s pencil scratched against paper, steady, unbothered. The house was quiet while his mind roared with panic.

The last months had already confirmed what he didn’t want to name… he was more than a beta. No cycle yet, but his senses betrayed him. He could smell it now, the subtle lines that divided the world: alphas sharp and electric, omegas warm and heavy, and betas thin and neutral. He could tell them apart without effort. Until now he’d only met one alpha and two recessive omegas, and each encounter had pressed against the edges of his composure, reminding him of what was waiting.

He gripped the counter, fingers trembling at the edge. He would have to fake it again… bury whatever this was, hold it down, and make himself smaller. For Mia, for Andrew, for the fragile peace of this house that smelled like lemon cleaner and safety.

He sighed, forcing the air out slowly, as though control could be exhaled with it.

—

Thursday came colder than it should have. Frost clung stubbornly to the sidewalks, the breath of the city puffing white into the morning air. Chris shoved his hands deeper into his jacket pockets as he walked, the winter chill needling through the seams like it knew exactly how raw he felt inside.

He had taken every pill, every over-the-counter supplement he’d read about since that damned call, zinc, ginseng, herbal hormone stabilizers, anything that forums whispered might blunt markers in his blood. He’d swallowed them down daily with water and stubborn hope, even as he panicked each night that it wasn’t enough, that someone would see through him.

Andrew had kissed his temple distractedly before logging into work. Mia had bolted out the door with her backpack half open, complaining about math tests. Neither of them knew. Neither of them could know.

The clinic loomed pale against the morning sky, glass doors sliding open with an impersonal hiss. Inside, everything smelled sharp and sterile: sanitizer, paper masks, and cold steel hidden beneath white laminate. The reception desk gleamed, and the nurse behind it smiled with professional detachment as Chris gave his name.

“Secondary evaluation?” she confirmed, clicking through her screen. “Take a seat. You’ll be called shortly.”

He nodded, throat tight, and crossed to the waiting area. Plastic chairs lined the wall, each one occupied by someone pretending not to be nervous. A boy with acne picking at his sleeve, a girl tapping her foot too fast, and a man pretending to scroll on his phone while staring at nothing.

Chris sat, every muscle wound tight. The supplements weighed heavy in his stomach, as though guilt itself had settled there. He told himself again and again: still beta, still boring, still safe.

But when the nurse finally called, “Christopher Malek,” the words cracked through him like ice breaking. He stood, legs stiff, and followed her down a bright hallway that smelled too clean, toward a door that might as well have been the edge of the world.

—

The examination room was almost identical to the one six months ago: pale walls, the faint hum of ventilation, and the sterile brightness that made everything feel exposed.

And then the doctor turned, the same man as before. His hair had thinned further, the white of age more pronounced, but his light brown eyes were steady, professional. Last time, Chris hadn’t thought twice about him.

Now, the truth struck like a slap… he was an alpha.

Chris felt it before he admitted it, that low, steady weight in the air, the faint current that made his skin prickle. He hadn’t recognized it last time. How much has he changed to be able to see it so clearly?

His chest tightened. ’Fuck.’

“Mr. Malek,” the doctor said with the same polite tone as before, flipping through his file on the tablet. “Back again, I see. Calibration errors in the machine. An unfortunate inconvenience, but it should only take a short while to clear things up.”

Chris forced a small shrug, trying for casual, bored, as if this whole ordeal was beneath his interest. “Figures. Guess the machine doesn’t like me.”

The doctor gave a faint chuckle, distracted as he set the tablet aside and gestured toward the chair. “Most of this fuss started after Trevor Fitzgeralt, your age, newly titled Grand Duke, was classified as beta, only to enter rut two months later. Quite dangerous, given his position. Now they’re checking every file to make sure no one else was overlooked.”

Chris froze for half a second before catching himself, his mouth twitching into a crooked, forced grin. “Yeah, well… good for him, I guess. I’ll try not to spontaneously combust on you.”

The doctor’s eyes flicked up, amused at the dry remark but already busy with his instruments. “Let’s hope not. For most, it’s just an error on paper. Nothing to worry about.”

Chris nodded, leaning back into the chair like he couldn’t care less, but his pulse was hammering in his throat. Trevor Fitzgeralt. Of course it had to be someone like that, a noble, rich, untouchable, who got the spotlight for their “surprise reclassification.” Now the entire medical registry was on high alert, combing through records like wolves sniffing for blood.

He clenched his jaw as the cuff tightened around his arm for vitals. His supplements had dulled his markers; he’d read enough obscure forums to believe it should work. Still, sitting under the weight of an alpha doctor’s presence, the hum of sterile machines at his back, he felt exposed.

“Any changes since last time?” the doctor asked mildly, tapping data into the tablet. “Scents, sensitivity, appetite shifts?”

“Nope.” Chris’s answer was fast, clipped. He forced a lazy shrug. “Still boring. No cycles. Just a plain old beta.”

The words tasted like iron in his mouth. He didn’t let his expression move.

The doctor hummed, unconvinced or simply thorough; Chris couldn’t tell. “We’ll see in the bloodwork. Roll up your sleeve, please.”

Chris obeyed, fingers fumbling with the fabric. He could not let himself slip, not even a fraction. Because Trevor Fitzgeralt could afford to set the world on fire with his secondary gender. Chris Malek could not.

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