Page 1 of Puck Your Neighbor

Chapter 1

Itug at my black turtleneck, making sure it's fully pulled up, the soft fabric brushing against my skin. The light notes of Debussy wash over me from the corner of the room as I run the brush over the canvas, light blue trailing behind it. The smoothness of the paint against the gesso on the canvas—the first swipe—always sends a thrill through me, even though this is at least my thousandth painting to date.

This one is for a wealthy businessman in the UK. He's been on my books since last year, patiently waiting for his turn, wanting my take on an underwater ocean scene. It's over three feet wide and five feet tall. It comes to just under the top of my forehead. I'll have to tell the UPS driver to package it up well and ship it to him. It's worth it, though. Once finished, the rest of his payment will pay for the next six months of rent.

Well, I should say it's going into my savings. I hardly ever spend the money I earn on anything that isn't bills. Even if all my clients were to vanish tomorrow in an apocalypse, I would still have money left in savings for my landlord, who I'm sure would stick around just to collect it.

I could only hope that I'm one of the lucky few that get chosen not to have to live through the dystopian world that comes after. Shaking my head, I try to focus once more on the underwater scene. It wouldn't do to put that kind of energy into it, especially since he loves my work for how serene it is.

Picking up my fan brush, I blend the light into dark shades of blue, yellow, and purple. Eventually, it will turn into an oceanscape that shows the light bleeding from above into the inky darkness below. As I stare into the darker shades, it's almost as if they swallow me up until I become nothing.

A loud thud comes from my front door, making me jerk the brush to the side. Luckily, I'm not working on something with fine detail yet, or I would be angry. Putting down my brush, I wipe my hands on my apron and take it off.

I don't have friends, and my family is long dead, so the only person it could be is my landlord. Speak of the devil, and she shall appear. It can't be about rent. I just paid her last week, and I'm up-to-date on my energy bill, so she can't be collecting that for me either.

Standing, I touch my neck, finding reassurance that it is covered, and head to the entrance. Grabbing my whiteboard from the wall next to the door, I peek through the peephole. Sure enough, her wrinkled face is far too close. I can see up her nose. I let out a sigh, open the door, and uncap the dry-erase marker, the sharp scent filling my nostrils.

Her sour blue eyes look me over as I prop the door open, motioning with my hand for her to come in. After almost a decade of me living here, she knows the drill, but never seems to get over the fact I can't speak. As if my vocal cords will suddenly work.

She steps inside, peers around the paintings lining the edges of my living room—all in various states of drying—and clears her throat. "Thought you should know, I rented out the place above you, so you're going to have new neighbors. They're some kind of sports team or something. I didn't really care. That place has been empty for seven months, so I'm just glad to have it filled." Her eyes scan the edges of my ceiling where the vents are, and she clears her throat again, the sound raspy and thick.

"Anyway, they'll be moving in later this evening. So if you hear weird noises or whatever, there's no reason to contact the police or me, got it?"

I roll my eyes. That only happened once, years ago, after the place had been empty for a year. I woke up to footsteps up there and got scared. I didn't call her; I texted. But she acted as if I'd committed a mortal sin and has made a point of telling me every time someone moves in, so I never bother her again.

Scrawling across the board, "Yes. Is that all?" I turn it for her to see.

She sniffs. "Open a window or two. It smells like paint in here. And you better not be getting it on the hardwood."

I point to the clear tarp that has covered the living room floor for years. I replace it every year when my walking and moving stuff around on it wears holes through the surface.

She scoffs and waves it off. "Rent is due the first. I won't be soft on you just because you're the starving artist type."

If only she could see my eyes roll from behind her. She's been saying that since I moved in. In the almost decade I've known her, I've always been early with rent, and she's never had to worry about me paying it, but she still seems to think that I shouldn't be able to make a livable wage, just because I'm a painter for a living

Following behind her, I wait for her to open the door and leave me to my peace. The scent of her cheap perfume lingers in the air, a cloying sweetness that makes my nose wrinkle. I'm bummed I'm not going to have the quietness of being the only person in the duplex, but I also knew it was only a matter of time before she found new tenants. I had hoped to make enough last year to buy the place from her outright and turn the upper apartment into my art studio, but I don't want to use up all my savings for that. I need to have more of a nest egg first.

She pauses before the door, hand poised over the handle, before she turns. "Oh, I forgot another fact. Your new neighbors are Alphas, so just keep that in mind when your...uh, heat comes along."

My eyes widen, and I tap her on the shoulder as she turns away. I hurriedly erase my answers from before and write as fast as I can. "I'm an Omega. You promised to only rent to other Omegas or Betas while I'm here. It's part of our contract."

She reads it, and I can't help but notice how her lips quirk into a smirk before she hides it with a shrug of her hunched shoulders.

"Not the renewal you signed three months ago. Had you bothered to read it, you would've seen the revision where I stated I have the freedom to take on any tenants I wish, no matter their status, and that it's up to you to make sure you're safe during your heats, so that you don't send a nearby Alpha into a rut."

Horror washes over me, and I turn on my heel to go to my filing cabinet in my bedroom, which doubles as my nest, where I keep all my important documents. I hurry to grab it and begin flipping through it as I rush back to the front, only to find the door ajar. I open it and head outside, and there she is, getting into her car. I want to shout for her to wait and stamp my foot as she peels out of the tiny parking lot, the roar of her engine echoing in the sudden silence.

Freaking bitch! She knew I wouldn't be able to shout her down and cause a scene for the people in the surrounding townhouses to hear. My gaze goes back to the contract, and there, at the bottom of the addendum about the Fair Housing Omega Act, there's the annotation where she contradicts it because of some landlord bill that passed last year. It gives her the right to pick Alphas as long as she gives the Omega fair warning and has the upgrades like vents and secured doors put in. And I signed it like an idiot.

She'd put in new vents last year, stating that they needed to be upgraded, but never told me why. I assumed it had something to do with the paints and the upstairs neighbor being able to smell them. I was a fool. My door has always been made of steel, but I've heard that won't stop a pack of Alphas if they've gone rut-crazy.

I'd stopped reading it after years of it being the same. Can I even fight this? It's going to be a pain in the ass to get an Omega rights lawyer to contest this. Not only that, it won't be cheap.

My heart hammers in my chest. I have nowhere to go during my heat. If the Alphas above me sense that I'm in heat and go into a rut, there's nothing stopping them from breaking down my door. All I can hope is that she made them aware there's an Omega living here and that they're responsible Alphas who use pheromone-suppressing balms daily and have excellent control over their instincts.

Heading back into my apartment, my heart races. I've tried hard all my life to avoid Alphas since... since I presented at seventeen, a late bloomer. It wasn't good, and I try my best to use all the suppressants available to Omegas, spending a lot of money on it all so that when I'm out in public, an Alpha wouldn't be able to pick me out of a lineup of Betas. But all the suppressants in the world don't stop them from being able to tell when an Omega is in heat.

I always lock myself up during that week. I place additional locks on the door so I can't get out either until I'm clear-headed. I wish scientists would figure out how to block heats entirely, so that I could never have another one again. But, of course, the industry makes too much money to ever let that reach the public.

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