Chapter Text
Oscar sat at the mahogany table in the dining car, his fingers leafing through a small red leather book of Spanish poetry.
The atmosphere was relatively quiet; lunch had barely begun, which meant the omega would have a reasonable period of peace before the other passengers of the Silver Star invaded the locomotive’s compartment to dine.
On his ceramic plate rested a filet mignon, accompanied by mashed potatoes and a crystal glass containing orange juice. His fingers occasionally traced patterns beneath the silhouette of the container holding the golden liquid.
In the distance, outside, Oscar glimpsed sand dunes being molded by the biting wind of the American desert. The world beyond those glass windows seemed like a torturous mirage to a human being.
It was so empty and clear, in its own way, that for a few moments Piastri considered that it might be a white canvas, unblemished by human hands—one of the few territories that his species seemed to fail to dominate.
This fascinated him, for in his core, Oscar saw in that wasteland something that had not bowed to the arrogant wills of flesh-and-blood commanders, creating an ecosystem of its own.
His hands gripped the polished silver cutlery to cut a small piece of the noble meat. The taste was rich and well-seasoned, causing the omega to raise the corner of his lips in a gesture of approval before taking a sip of his drink and resuming his reading.
From that moment on, the dining car began to fill with travelers crossing the West: fat alphas with white hair and black top hats, elderly omegas with fox furs around their necks and pups in tow, and silent betas writing in manuscripts.
It was a rigid and suffocating environment, where mistakes at the table were almost a sacrilege against the etiquette that those miserable creatures seemed to uphold in an attempt to create visual perfection—which, in Oscar’s eyes, represented a pair of beautiful gold handcuffs.
The young man turned slightly to the side, his dark-blue, wide-brimmed hat delicately covering a part of his features, while the Australian watched a mother and her daughter with pity.
"Poor pup," he thought, noting how the adult woman corrected the posture of a girl who could barely be six years old with a harsh voice. "So small, and already a victim of this fate."
Oscar looked away after a few seconds, feeling sickened by the scene. His brown irises turned back to the arid landscape with an indifference practiced for years through a mask of fragilely sculpted feelings.
A heavy silence flooded that mobile iron paradise; the sound of movement was almost nonexistent, and so it remained for about a kilometer. The locomotive had just emerged from a tunnel when a dry, harsh noise began—at first faint, and then intense.
The train braked abruptly, causing an invisible impact to throw the passengers from their seats. Oscar gripped the wooden edge of the table as a grunt escaped his lips. His heart tightened with the echo of stillness that followed the incident.
"The sand must have covered the tracks in that stretch," his mind whispered in an attempt to calm him, although Piastri felt that something was wrong with that stop.
And then, as if fate agreed with the gentleman’s thoughts, a dry gunshot thundered through the train like thunder before a storm. Footsteps creaked in the gaps between the cars toward the entrance door. The dining car plunged into instant chaos when the door was kicked open by a tall man with a bandana hiding his face.
"THIS IS A ROBBERY! BAGS, JEWELRY, WATCHES, AND MONEY ON THE FLOOR! NOW!" the voice growled, sending a wave of shivers down Oscar's neck.
The omega held his breath. His hands grabbed a small bag that was on the table containing some notes and threw it to the floor, along with a gold ring he wore on his finger. His fingers closed instinctively beneath his collar, hiding a heart-shaped medallion that rested against his chest.
"I can't... not this," Oscar thought, squeezing the jewelry that reminded him of his home, his mother, and his father. His beloved family, whom he had lost a few months ago in a house fire at their summer estate in Paris, started by a candle that had fallen from a candelabra in the living room.
It had been terrible—a horror the young man would never have expected last Christmas, and which had haunted him ever since, even though Piastri had been comforted by his aunt and was now on that train bound for his godfather's estate in America.
Mark Webber was the chance for a fresh start that the Australian would cling to after a wave of suffocating solitude.
But luck must have hated Oscar, sending these bandits to the Silver Star.
The omega stifled a scream of fear that threatened to erupt from his throat the moment one of the alphas in the cabin was thrown to the floor after trying to advance against the strangers.
His body turned rigid and his mind went blank; the echo of panic dug into his flesh with every second. The man who shouted, demanding their belongings, was now collecting the spoils with the predatory calm of someone who had done it a thousand times, aware that none of those passengers would react—especially now that one of his accomplices was pinning a traveler down and the other was guarding the exit door with a hunting rifle.
And that confidence was what Oscar feared, but also what he felt instigated to break. With a silent movement, the omega opened the window’s safety lock and pulled the glass up high enough to allow his body to pass through without complications.
At every gentle jolt of the structure, Oscar prayed that those men remained focused on the chaos of screams and crying.
His hands gripped the ledge and, in seconds, Piastri slipped through the opening with feline grace, his fingers promptly pushing the window back to its original place. His dress shoes, polished for luxury ballrooms, crunched onto the desert gravel.
He tried to keep his steps as quiet as possible as he climbed back onto the train, crouching to open the door to the next car.
-
Upon entering, Oscar felt the calm as a harbinger of horror. His figure glided carefully through the morbid corridor. "I need to reach the engineer's cabin and send a distress call," he pondered.
His plan was not the most elaborate, but it should suffice; it would be better than being held hostage by those outlaws.
The omega smiled faintly as he found himself halfway there and could almost taste salvation. His right shoe moved for one more step, and then...
POW! An empty echo in the nonexistent peace of that hell.
Oscar turned his head in panic toward the sound, which came from the cabin he was passing at that very instant. The young man’s doe-like eyes wandered into the compartment's glass; his stomach churned at the scene.
Due to the absence of curtains, it was possible to see a man fallen on the carpet, the floor being stained with a crimson hue while another man, holding a still-smoking silver pistol, smiled coldly as he stared at the corpse.
Oscar took a step back, and then another, then another. His hands covered his mouth so he wouldn't scream. His body was already almost at the entrance where he had entered when his back hit something solid: another human being.
"What did the desert bring me, beautiful?" grunted a low voice, a warm breath close to the young man’s right ear.
A hand moved to grip Oscar’s hip just as he was about to pull away.
"Let go of me, you brute!" His elbows pressed against the leather vest of the alpha holding him, in a desperate attempt to break free.
"Shhh, calm down, your highness, or you might get hurt," the voice whispered. It seemed to tell him a secret that Oscar was not willing to discover, especially when he felt the protrusion of a pistol right at his back, tucked into the other’s weapon belt.
The omega let out a low snort and allowed himself to be pushed forward, his head turned toward the windows. His eyes caught the moment the alpha’s reflection was revealed by the car's lighting.
"He... he is... terrifying," Oscar whispered in his mind, though the words died away as he stared at the other.
That man was dangerous. His hair seemed to have been kissed by the sun; his eyes were as blue as the sky, but carried the coldness of an iceberg. And the lips... the flesh curved into a sharp smile with protruding canines made Oscar’s legs tremble.
"Max, I'm done with that hijo de puta," a new figure announced.
It was the man he had seen near the corpse. Oscar was able to observe him closely: he was tall, with tanned skin and black hair. He smelled of coffee, gunpowder, and tobacco. His posture was relaxed, almost as if he hadn't murdered someone just moments ago. The gun that had taken the politician's life was at his hip, gleaming under the sun's rays.
Max held Oscar firmly in front of the dark-haired alpha.
"Cabrón, you let a little bird watch your show, you idiot!" Max growled, pushing the other back with violence.
"Calm down, Chief! Calm down!"
"Calm, Carlos? Calm? This porcelain doll here just saw you kill a politician and you want me to stay calm, mío amigo?"
Max’s canines protruded by the way his mouth moved; the tone of his voice was ice-cold. Oscar let out a low moan of pain when the alpha’s grip on his hip intensified—a pressure that would certainly leave bruises.
The omega looked at both with narrowed eyes; the fear of sharing the same fate as the old politician gnawed at his bones.
"We'll find a way, Max," Carlos assured, stepping forward with his hands raised in surrender to the leader.
"I guarantee we'll find a way to solve the problem."
"You better, cabrón... or else..." Max pulled the pistol grip gently, showing Carlos his impatience.
"Let’s do this: we take the omega and ask for ransom," Carlos pondered, looking away from the silver gun.
"Done," the blond agreed after a few moments of silence, his expression still skeptical as he stared at Oscar.
"Welcome to the nightmare, pretty boy."
A smile blossomed on Max’s lips as he saw Piastri turn pale.
"I'm doomed, doomed, doomed..." Oscar lamented internally. The thought repeated in his head at a constant rhythm while his feet moved again, this time toward the exit, under escort.
When his body crossed the train’s security line and returned to the scorching gravel of the desert, the omega knew he was on a path of no return. His last shred of freedom was lost in the dining car. In that instant, he was under the claws of an outlaw who intended to use him as a bargaining chip.