Page 6 of Forever We Embrace: The Later Years
Josie nods, her expression serious. “I wouldn’t expect anything less.”
Blossom hands her a temporary badge that opens the staff entrance, breakroom, and training office, but none of the resident halls or records rooms. Josie clips it to her blazer before Blossom begins walking her through the confidentiality agreement, emergency procedures, and the rules governing resident contact.
I join them for the tour. We show Josie the common rooms without entering while residents are using them, then take her through the empty intake suite so she can see how the room is arranged. Blossom explains why the chair nearest the door always belongs to the incoming Omega and why staff members don’t sit between a resident and the exit.
Josie listens without interrupting. When she asks questions, they’re practical: where personal belongings are stored, who may authorize medical transport, and what happens when an Omega refuses to give a legal name.
After the tour, I bring her into the training office and place three redacted files on the table. The cases are closed,every identifying detail removed, and each presents a different problem she’ll eventually encounter during intake.
“You’ll read these and complete the forms as though the residents were sitting with you,” I explain. “You won’t enter anything into the live system. When you’re finished, we’ll go through every section together.”
Josie removes a notebook from her bag and sets it beside the first file. “Am I marking what I would ask, or only what they volunteer?”
“Both, but keep them separate. We need to know what information is missing without making the resident feel as though silence is refusal.”
Her pen pauses over the page before she writes that down. “Understood.”
I create a training account while she begins reading. The account only opens the practice database, which contains fictional residents and completed sample forms. She has no access to active cases, legal records, addresses, or the full resident list.
For the rest of the morning, Josie works through the first file while I remain across from her. She asks before opening each linked document and stops whenever she reaches information she wouldn’t have permission to request during an initial intake. When we review her answers, I correct the order of two questions and explain why we never ask an Omega to justify why they returned to an abusive Alpha.
Josie crosses out the question without defending it. “I can see how that would sound like blame.”
“It often does, even when that isn’t what the person asking intends.”
She rewrites the section and continues.
By lunch, she has completed only one of the three practice files. She doesn’t rush through the others to prove she can finish,and she doesn’t ask when she’ll be allowed to handle a resident alone. When Blossom takes her to observe an intake that afternoon, Josie sits against the far wall with no paperwork in her hands. Blossom leads the conversation while Josie watches, and when the resident falls silent, Josie doesn’t shift, speak, or attempt to fill the space.
By the end of the first week, I find myself exhaling every time I see her in the hallway. She doesn’t crowd the residents in the dining hall, and during one supervised afternoon in the garden, she sits beside Blossom while Maya works on a dandelion chain. Josie doesn’t interrupt or try to draw Maya into conversation. She waits until Maya holds out the finished chain before thanking her and asking whether she may touch it. She remembers that one resident prefers tea with three sugars and that another can’t stand the sound of the industrial dishwasher.
“She’s good, Luca,” Blossom mutters on Friday afternoon, watching one of the senior coordinators walk beside Josie and the new intake toward the quiet suites. “She takes corrections once and doesn’t repeat them, and she handled that Alpha advocate on the phone this morning without giving him access to anything he wasn’t entitled to.”
On Friday, Blossom places the final intake call of the afternoon on speaker and lets Josie guide the standard questions while we both remain in the office. Josie gives the Omega time to answer, marks the sections they aren’t ready to discuss, and looks to Blossom before arranging transportation. When the call ends, she drafts the intake record and leaves it open for my review. I find only one field that needs correcting.
My phone buzzes with a message from Blake. He’s sent me the newest render of the intake wing, the harsh overhead lights replaced with warm lamps set along the walls.
Better?
I study the image before answering.
Much. It feels like somewhere people can breathe.
His reply comes almost at once.
Then it’s right. Eat lunch, love.
I smile despite myself and reach for the food I’ve ignored beside the ledger.
During the second week, Josie starts joining me in the small breakroom for coffee when the house goes still in the mid-afternoon.
“I was reviewing the separation documents attached to the Thompson intake,” Josie says, tracing the rim of her mug. The steam curls around her face, softening her sharp features. “There’s a note that the Alpha is contesting the separation as a coerced bond break. I want to make sure I understand what that could mean for the Omega before I speak with her again.”
I nod. “It’s designed to protect property, not people. If an Alpha can prove the Omega was ‘influenced’ to leave, they can trigger a Welfare Board audit.”
Josie looks down at her hands, her voice dropping a register. “What about the more permanent solutions? I’ve heard whispers about Omegas who’ve had their bites removed entirely. The legal danger for them must be astronomical. If an Alpha found out, couldn’t they charge the new pack with theft? Or worse?”
The question is clinical, the kind of hypothetical a dedicated intake coordinator should ask. I think about the weight of the bite I carried for years, the way Hudson’s mark felt like a brand of ownership that reached all the way into my bones.
