Chapter 11
Chapter Eleven
Zeb
Jenda’s lab is deep in the ship, past the containment cells, and past the huddling prisoners with dead eyes.
They got some of our people onto the ship, the bastards.
I drive any sense of anger down. No place for it here. Stay focused or this shit is going to go south fast.
Only, that focus is hard to come by today. Something is wrong. Off. An invisible force is pulling me in the other direction, a compulsion so strong, I stumble before I can right myself.
I shake my head.
Fuck. What the hell is wrong with me?
She’s not here. Esme is safe back in our base, where she’ll stay because she’s a good girl, and deep down, her instincts will tell her to obey.
Esme
I’m still reeling from everything Ethan just said, but I don’t have time to worry about that now. The sense of separation is a form of sickness. Unbearable, consuming, one that cannot be ignored.
No one pays any attention to me. I’m just another rushing body amid the carnage.
As I hit the front, where automatic weapons unload amid screams and cries of terror, I don’t even feel fear. By rights, I should be petrified, but it just doesn’t take hold.
Ahead, looming against the horizon between squat industrial silos in an Uncorrupted ship.
The twin ramps are down, and soldiers and personnel are fleeing into them, covered by ground troops.
The lines are blurred, friendlies and the enemy.
My feet are moving and I’m weaving between the pockets of battle, ducking behind overturned vehicles, and crawling over torn-up chain-link fencing that demarcated something now obliterated.
Someone screams to my right—not one of ours, but their pain still pierces the armor of my frenzy.
I’m on the wrong side.
How did I get here?
I don’t know.
Nor does it matter.
The ship, the ramps, they are all I can focus on.
“Get her!”
Rough hands take me by the hair… When did I lose my helmet? My nose is bloody, and my hands have been torn to pieces. Wounds I did not even feel.
I’m shaken. It brings me back to the present and danger with an unpleasant jolt.
“Omega,” the soldier holding me purrs. His stench hits me, making me gag. The gray armor he wears confirms what he is.
An alpha.
Not one of our alphas, one of theirs.
“Take her,” someone orders. “Lock her down with the others. Quickly.”
Zeb
There are a couple of guards outside the door, not that that’s going to stop me.
I throat punch the one on the left, fast and brutal. Elbow the one on the right in the face hard enough to feel the bone give. My fists swing left, right, left again, and both men hit the ground in a heap.
They’re armed, but the Uncorrupted use bio-recognition tech, so their weapons are a no-go.
Doesn’t matter. I’m already inside. The door must be soundproof because she’s been watching something on a monitor and only now looks up.
Short-cropped hair, a standard-issue grey uniform, and cold eyes.
Jenda.
Looking at her makes my insides recoil. My line of work brings me into contact with monsters of all kinds. But looking at Jenda is to understand there are layers of darkness, and this woman is at the very bottom of the lot.
Pure fucking evil.
“Can I help you?” Her voice is clipped and barely civil. That tone says she probably can’t, and that once I’ve finished wasting her time, she’s going to flay me for the inconvenience.
I don’t answer. It takes a lot to rattle me. Her existence is a blight upon humanity. When I think of Esme being anywhere near this abomination, I get an understanding of what it must have done to Ethan and Ryker, knowing this woman had Lilly.
I hesitate a beat too long, and she reaches down.
Her military bearing, and her alpha nature despite being a doctor, have me betting she has a weapon.
I lunge across the desk, slam into her midsection, and we crash to the floor in a heap. We roll, vying for the position on top. She’s a big, powerful alpha and probably has at least ten pounds on me.
Not going to let that stop me. My fingers close around her throat, and I squeeze, channeling power into my grip.
Her eyes bulge even as her fists hammer my ribs in sharp jabs that steal my breath but not my focus.
She is losing her grip on consciousness.
I know it.
She knows it.
Her eyes burn with desperate fury. She tries to claw, to twist, to drive a knee up, but she’s sluggish now.
Numbness creeps into my legs as I force more blood and energy to my arms, hands, and grip.
Her eyes flutter, and her body goes slack. Unconscious but not dead.
I heave breaths that make my battered ribs scream and sweat pop up across my skin. But I haul her from the floor, wrap one arm around her throat, put my other hand to the side of her head.
Snap.
Dead eyes stare up at me as I drop her to the floor and push up to my feet.
“Wake up from that, bitch.”
It’s done. I open the door and quickly haul the two downed guards into the room. There’s a streak of blood on the floor in the corridor, but it’s dark. I doubt anyone will pay any attention, and this part of the ship is quiet, thank fuck.
At some point, they’re going to realize what’s happened. But hopefully, I’ll be off the ship and it will already be in space by then.
I take a weapon—it’s useless to me, but good for show—then step back into the corridor. I just need to fake being one of their soldiers until I’m off.
The thrumming sound has ramped up, and an alarm is blaring, the amber lights in the ceiling flashing in time—I’ve probably got minutes before they take off. I pick up my pace to a jog. People are rushing in every direction, and nobody pays attention to me.
I reach the ramp where a steady stream of people is surging onto the spaceship.
“Where are you going, trooper?” an Uncorrupted soldier steps up to me, getting right in my face.
My eyes drop to the ranking signature on his breastplate—an officer. I need to answer him. Only I don’t have a good excuse for going in the wrong direction. I punch him in the solar plexus, fist his uniform, and make it look like we’re having a chat as I drag him to the side of the ramp.
“I need medical assistance!” A couple of green-looking soldiers hustle over. “On your radio, quickly! Mine is broken!”
And I’m gone—out of there, down the ramp, and into the dead zone filled with rubble, craters, wasted cars, torn-up metal, and bodies. The fight is still ongoing, but without urgency. Both sides know it’s over. No one wants to waste more lives or ammo.
A fallen Empire soldier is sprawled out ahead of me, twisted and grotesque in the manner of his death.
The price we pay for saving our people. I doubt he’s the only one.
Maybe it’s my existential crisis creeping up again, but every death feels like one too many.
There’s an Uncorrupted alpha lying next to him with a hole in his chest—they probably died killing each other.
His eyes are open, a bright summer-sky blue.
I catalog his features with detachment in less than a second. A habit now.
I don’t hate him. He’s just a man who was born on the wrong side of a line, one who might have gone on to be a regular alpha if someone would’ve just given him the pure version of the Copper Virus.
I snatch the helmet off the Empire soldier. Underneath, his face is likewise unblemished. He looks so fucking young.
“Sorry, buddy,” I say. “You did good. We got a lot of our people out. What you did helped me take out that bitch who was experimenting on our brothers and sisters. You made a difference.”
My words feel empty. What are words when a young man is dead?
I drop his helmet onto my head and press my finger to the ID plate. The visor display crackles to life, showing a map of the area and our positions. I tap to open up a direct comm line to Ethan Black.
“I’m done. I’m out.”
“Fuck! Zeb,” he says, two words that manage to instill a sense of dread. “You need to get back on the ship.”
“What the hell?! Why?” My head whips toward the ship. The ramp on the right is already closing. A stream of people now converges on the ramp on the left.
“She’s in there…” An explosion to the south drowns out the next words. “…went after you.”
Cold sweeps down my spine. It wakes me the fuck up.
“She?”
“Esme,” he confirms. “She was seen at the front. Told some dipshit she was looking for Ryker. But she never went to him. She hasn’t been seen since. We switched her tracker on. Confirmed. She’s been taken onto the ship.”
Esme. On the goddamned ship. Not even a regular healer, which would be bad enough. Jenda may be gone, but I’m not na?ve enough to think she was the only one behind their sick experiments.
They lost a lot today: personnel, a fuck ton of research and a VIP. The bastards are going to want to make someone pay.
My hand reaches for the dead alpha. It’s not fucking pleasant touching death in order to clone, but there’s not even cursory hesitation knowing I need to do this for her. “On it,” I say.
“Good luck,” Ethan replies.
That’s the last thing I hear because I rip the helmet off and take off at a full run toward the final, closing ramp. The change is already upon me. The dead alpha I just catalogued on the field is a better choice than the face I just used to kill Jenda.
The pain of transforming my face at an accelerated rate is even more excruciating than the last change. My body will shift slower. He had a lot more muscle bulk than even my current alpha form.
She’s on the ship.
On the FUCKING ship.
The pain of cloning a face is nothing. I’m stone-cold with purpose and I’m going to destroy anyone who gets in my way.