Chapter 7: Chapter 7: Tick-Tock

The nurse left him alone again.

The room pressed in around him, sterile and humming faintly with the overhead lights. Chris sat stiffly in the chair, arms folded tight across his chest, every muscle wound like wire.

The silence was unbearable, each tick of the wall clock a nail dragged down glass.

Tick.

Tak.

TicK.

TaK.

TICK.

TAK.

He forced himself not to bounce his leg, not to chew at his lip, and not to give away the restless churn in his chest.

’What happens to me if they find out? How much time do I have?’

’If they take me away, what about Andrew? Mia?’

’No. No. No.’

’I’m just panicking; it will be fine.’

He told himself over and over, it’ll come back fine, it has to, it’s nothing. But the words did nothing to quiet the pounding in his ears.

When the door finally opened, he startled, just slightly. The doctor stepped in, tablet in hand, his expression smooth, almost bland with professionalism.

“Well,” he said, glancing once at the numbers before setting the device down, “that clears it up.” His tone carried no weight at all, as if this hadn’t been hanging over Chris like a blade. “The rerun confirms you’re beta. Perfectly ordinary, though with a touch more sensitivity than the average. If anything, you fall closer to what we’d call a recessive profile, but even that isn’t definitive.”

Chris swallowed hard, his throat dry. Relief stung sharp and hot, like he’d been holding his breath too long and finally let it out. He slouched back in the chair, forcing a smirk, though his hands were still clenched too tight.

“Recessive, huh?” His voice was hoarse, but he made it sound like a joke. “Guess that means I get the short straw either way.”

The doctor allowed a polite curve of his mouth, already closing the file. “It means you’re fine.”

Chris nodded once, sharply, trying not to look like he’d just been told the world wasn’t ending.

He got out of there on autopilot, down the hall, through the glass doors, and into the heat and noise of the parking lot. His body moved, but it felt like his brain was lagging behind, caught back in the sterile room with the ticking clock.

By the time he slid into the driver’s seat, the weight of it all crashed down. His hands gripped the steering wheel so hard his knuckles blanched, but they still trembled. He dropped his forehead against the leather, breath shuddering out of him in uneven bursts.

I’m Beta. I’m fine. Calm down.

The words rang in his skull, empty, useless. He let out a laugh that cracked on the edges, bitter and broken, and suddenly there were tears blurring his vision. He hadn’t cried since the day they’d buried their parents. He couldn’t. Not when Andrew was already carrying too much, not when Mia looked at him like he was the last bit of steady ground she had.

“Fuck,” he breathed, maybe thought, maybe said aloud, he couldn’t tell, and slammed the heel of his hand into the steering wheel. Pain shot up his wrist, bone-deep and sharp, anchoring him for a second.

It didn’t last.

The sobs came low and shaking, the kind that tore their way out despite him. He pressed his right hand hard over his mouth, muffling the sound, smothering it down like he could keep it from becoming real if no one heard. His shoulders shook, forehead pressed to the wheel, breath hot and uneven against his palm.

His breath scraped rough against his palm, chest heaving until the ache of it forced him to stop. Slowly, carefully, he lowered his hand, though his fingers still trembled. He needed… something. A plan. A lifeline.

With clumsy hands, he fumbled his phone out of his pocket. The screen blurred through the sheen of tears, and it took him three tries to even swipe it awake. His password, muscle memory, and ease normally slipped out of reach. He typed wrong, cursed under his breath, wiped his hand across his jeans, and tried again. Finally, the lock screen flicked open.

The browser. That was all he could think to reach for. Answers. Options.

His thumb skated across the keyboard, unsteady but determined: pheromone inhibitors.

Links popped up instantly. Articles, forums, medical blurbs. He clicked the first one, scanning through lines that wavered in and out of focus. Suppressants, inhibitors, and dampeners, different names for the same thing. Pills, patches, and injections. Most are available over-the-counter.

Most.

But the special kind, the one calibrated exactly to a pheromone profile, needed a prescription. Personalized, controlled. Only given out after testing.

Chris swallowed hard, his throat raw. His reflection stared back at him faintly from the dark edges of the screen, pale, blotchy, and scared.

He closed his eyes, pressing the phone to his forehead. If he needed one of those, he was screwed.

He opened his eyes again, unwilling to stop. His thumb dragged down the page, link after link.

Cheap inhibitors sold in vending machines.

Beta-safe, non-prescription, for anxiety management.

Neutralize unwanted scent traces.

He dug deeper, clicking threads that looked older, forums with half-broken formatting. Words blurred together, anecdotes traded like contraband.

“Don’t risk the custom stuff unless you trust your doc.”

“The uncalibrated batches can fry your channels.”

“One dose too strong and you’ll be in the ER before it even kicks in.”

His stomach twisted, heat crawling up the back of his neck. His finger hovered over another link.

Blackout kits, untraceable sources, and no pheromone profile required.

The post was three years old. Replies were gone, already deleted by time or users.

Chris dropped the phone to his thigh, staring blankly at the dash. His reflection looked ghost-pale in the black glass of the windshield. The longer he sat there, the more the clinic loomed behind him, a shadow in the rearview mirror.

If he was wrong, if what the doctor said was just the surface of something deeper, then all of this could come crashing down the second someone noticed. One wrong look, one wrong scent, and he’d be trapped. Owned. Used.

His chest squeezed, breath shallow. He wanted to scream, to run, to tear the world apart just to make a space where he could exist without being found. Instead, he picked the phone back up with shaking hands, the screen lighting his face like a secret.

He kept scrolling.

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