You'll come crawling

You'll come crawling

Chapter One: Freaks in uniform

Every subculture has a bottom rung. A punching bag. A person/position/class/group who are the punch line of all jokes. The scapegoat for all problems and in werewolf society that punching bag would be an omega, the 'weak' wolf. Weak being a comparative term, an omega wolf could still rip out a humans throat without trying. By werewolf standards though, it's like being that person everyone has to watch over in case they break something or hurt themselves. Being the runt of the litter meant having to deal with a lot of unpleasant things. In Nadia's birth pack being the runt, and ultimately the omega, meant cleaning up after everyone else, disposing of their kills and taking the blame for any of their mistakes. So why, when she had fled her birth pack, travelled to Australia, a place full of rogues and outlaws and fabled to have no structured packs, did she end up as the runt of one of the only packs in the country? She refused to believe she was destined to be other wolves bitch her entire life.

Nadia hated the stigma of being an omega, being the packs errand girl, the punch line for every joke, the clean up crew for anybodies messes, the wimp, the reject. The main problem being that Nadia didn't take orders well, obsequience is something that should be ingrained in every omega. She would never be a fighter, Nadia had learned that at an early age, but she didn't take well to being bossed around either, which caused a lot of problems, especially with the packs beta Chase. He outright demanded servitude and Nadia could never bite her tongue and allow it.

Like now, Chase expected her to drop what she was doing and pick up lunch for the betas. She had ignored the order and continued compiling information on the rogue currently circling their territory and turning humans, which was why she had an irate Chase screaming from her phone. Nadia set the phone down on her desk and finished up with the last of her report, Chase was so loud she didn't even need to use speaker phone.

"-You were given orders over half an hour ago-"

Nadia didn't need to respond, Chase would get tired of yelling eventually, she saved her data and tidied up her desk. She needed to go into the woods and clean up the latest body. A human ravaged so badly she couldn't turn, instead she was left to bleed out in agony in the woods.

"-Where are you?"

Nadia picked her phone up again, held it between her shoulder and ear as she searched around the small trailer she used as an office for her camera.

"I'm on my way. The Alphas orders take priority over yours." Nadia lied, the Alpha hadn't given her any orders, she knew Chase would never question the Alpha and always used the excuse as her get out of jail free card.

"The Alpha has been AWOL for the last week." Chase growled lowly into the phone. Oh, crap. Nadia could tell he wanted to reprimand her, that he was thinking up ways to pay her back for lying and not following his orders.

"It's a standing order. I'm on my way." Nadia repeated, trying to brush off the fear that washed over her. Being outspoken and an omega meant she constantly had to deal with conflicting emotions. The annoyance because Chase felt he could use his position to intimidate her and the fear because Chase did intimidate her. She wanted to grovel and apologize but at the same time that level of servitude made her want to vomit.

"You have 20 minutes." Chase replied before hanging up. Nadia rolled her eyes and locked the door of the trailer behind her. She lived and worked in this double wide trailer, a permanent resident of the trailer park on the outskirts of Albany. Other wolves had better living arrangements but Nadia had the forest at her doorstep and neighbours who were too drunk or depressed to notice anything outside their little bubbles of self pity. Nadia jumped into her car, a tiny shitbox that was twice her age. She lived on an allowance given to her by the Alpha and whatever temp work she could get as a registered nurse, which meant she didn't have much money for anything at all. Being the packs errand girl wasn't exactly an official position and being on call 24/7 made it hard to keep a regular job. The car didn't bother her, sure people stopped to stare, probably wondering how a car that seemed to be held together by rust and mud managed to run at all, but Nadia hated driving, hated being cooped up inside the small space, hated having to rely on something other then her own legs to get her from point A to point B, but the betas were meeting on the other side of town and she needed to order a lot of food to keep them happy.

Werewolves were pretty easy to please, they liked meat. Lots of it, the rarer the better but Nadia didn't have a lot of time so she went with the easy option and picked a fast food restaurant that had two locations between her house and the pack house. She ordered ten burgers from each shop and figured that would be enough to feed the three betas, or at least tide them over until they finished the meeting. They wouldn't be happy with the overly processed food but there wasn't much else Nadia could do in a twenty minute time frame.

She also had other things on her mind, so picking up food for men too lazy to pick up the phone and order take out was never going to be top priority. There was a dead body in the woods nearby and she needed to photograph the scene, clean it up and dispose of the body before any humans stumbled upon it and called the police. The last thing the pack needed was for some feral rogue to bring attention to the pack, to bring police and reporters down on Albany.

Nadia parked on the curb outside the Alphas home, which also doubled as the pack house, the two wide driveway was taken up by the betas cars and Chase's motorbike. Nadia kicked the bikes tire as she walked past, annoyed with Chase for wasting her time. The front door was unlocked and she let herself in, Nadia made her way towards the kitchen, figuring she could drop off the food and be on her way without having to see anyone. If she ran into a beta they probably had some menial task for her and she really had better things to do today.

"You're late." Nadia sighed, of course he had to be hanging around waiting for her, he clearly had nothing better to do. Nadia dropped the food onto the island counter and turned to face Chase. He stood in the doorway, arms crossed, his biceps flexed, an obvious intimidation tactic. Chase didn't need to do much to look intimidating, if his muscles didn't do it the permanent scowl he wore would. Like right now, his thick black eyebrows were drawn low over his murky brown eyes, a muscle jumped in his clenched jaw. Honestly none of the other betas held themselves this highly, if Nadia said she had something else to do they would simply order out themselves, only Chase made a point of forcing her to come down and deliver them food. Lately her life felt like a series of confrontations, all involving Chase and some simple infraction. Damn the Alpha for inflating his ego and leaving him in charge while he was away.

"By five minutes."

"By thirty-five minutes." He corrected.

"Well, the food's here now, and I'm sure you guys have important beta stuff to be talking about, and I have important omega stuff to be doing, so we can finish this riveting conversation another time." Nadia knew she shouldn't provoke him, for a bitten werewolf, he took to his animalistic side a little too well, but screw it. Nadia came from an old werewolf family, from Europe just like his beloved Alpha, and while lineage meant next to nothing to werewolves, only the strength of the individual mattered she still felt she had one up on him.

"What were you doing when you disobeyed my orders?" Nadia sighed inwardly, he wasn't going to let it go.

"I was compiling information on the rogue attacks. Another body has been found in the Eastern woods I need to dispose of it and any evidence."

"Who called in the body? Why wasn't I informed?"

"Kate called it in about half an hour ago. She might not have known she needs to inform you." Nadia couldn't help but remind him of his place, that even if the Alpha left him in charge he was not their leader. Hell in comparison to the European packs which were close knit and strongly guarded this Australian pack was merely a group of wolves leaving in proximity to each other for the sake of being with ones own kind. Even their Alpha was hardly a leader, yes he protected them but right now no one even knew where he was, or what he was doing.

"I want a full report. Tomorrow morning, nine am." Nadia took that as the dismissal it clearly was and brushed past him to get out of the kitchen, she felt a tingle of awareness where she touched him her main problem with Chase, other then his lousy attitude was physically he was just her type. Being a born werewolf from a structured pack meant that muscular men were a dime a dozen but his tanned skin and dark features were exotic to her. He would be perfect if he could just keep his mouth shut.

A/N: So it's pretty short, I know, but this is the (sort of) sequel to Crawl straight home. I failed at campnano and only have about 12,000 words so far, and I'm hoping to make this one at least 30,000 words. The events in this story are happening over the same period of time as crawl straight home, so I don't think the female from crawl will be in this but I've written a couple of scenes with the alpha, and they have names now. So again I know it's short but I would love some feedback.