43. Chapter Forty-Three #2
There is no payment for this power anymore. My nose doesn't bleed, and my head doesn't pound like I'm being split in two, because my Omega and I are at peace. The division between us has vanished, and we are now unified. We are whole.
I disengage from the Command, coming out of it like I'm breaching the surface of water.
The shimmering fades, and the battle roars back in with startling reality.
Bullets strike stone and flesh. Fighting as a synchronized unit, Knox and Viper call out to each other while fending off a fresh surge of enemies coming up the road.
But here, in the center of that chaos, the Command has landed cleanly. My words are in his veins, his blood, and his organs. They are his gravity and his absolute reality.
The officer lurches to his feet, his body moving under the force of my Omega Command with an unnatural gait.
Stepping away from the protection of Knox and Viper, he enters the fray.
The enemy is keeping their distance from our Pack. Knox, Shade, and Viper have amassed a pile of bodies that acts as a dam to keep the horde at bay. The officer has to crawl over the wall of his dead comrades to reenter the fray of the battle.
In the few moments it's taken me to deliver the Command, the road has begun to choke with the sheer number of enemy soldiers churning uphill.
Still, my corrupted puppet turns and forces his way into the swarm, carrying our last chance and hope deeper into the enemy line.
He slams into the nearest soldier and nearly goes down. Another catches him, curses, and shoves him off hard enough to send him stumbling into two more men. He draws in a breath and shouts, stumbling over his words in his haste to spit them out.
"Retreat!"
Hope is sparking beneath my skin because the Command is holding, and I stop breathing as I watch him push farther into the crush.
This is going to work.
Then the Humans part around him.
They're not obeying their officer like they did weeks ago when I used the same Command.
Instead, the nearest Human rounds on the officer and slams the butt of his rifle into the side of his head.
The crack of it cuts through the rest of the battle noise with sickening clarity.
The officer reels, blood spraying from his temple, but my Command holds him upright.
He opens his mouth and tries to shout the order again.
A second soldier grabs his vest and jerks him backward.
"What did she do to you?" he snarls.
The question twists in my gut because he knows.
Oh frack.
Shade was right. They know.
After last time, they know that I have the power to corrupt their officers and force a retreat. They know not to trust a mid-battle order like this.
I watch as understanding catches, and suspicion hardens into certainty. Men who obeyed this officer a few minutes ago start backing away from him with their rifles half-raised, looking at him like he has turned rabid in front of them.
"He’s compromised," someone yells.
My stomach drops.
The officer fights them, not to save himself, but to keep speaking.
"Retreat," he rasps, trying to force the word out through blood pouring from his nose.
A shot cracks.
His body jerks.
For a second, he stays standing. Then another round punches through his chest, and the force of it throws him backward into the press of bodies. He disappears under the crush in a tangle of limbs and boots before he even hits the ground properly.
The Humans surge over him like he was never there.
My faith cracks.
This can't be happening.
I was so sure this would work. Completely and totally convinced.
Heat climbs up my neck as panic weaves through me. Blaze vanished into that crush to make this happen, and I trusted that the insane, unflinching confidence inside me meant something.
The officer is dead and gone forever, and the road keeps pouring Humans uphill.
The churn of war rages on with no end to the onslaught in sight.
I keep staring at the place where he vanished, waiting for any sign that the Command took hold before they killed him. A hesitation in the line, a stumble, or a turn.
There is nothing.
Knox shoots one Human through the throat who comes too close, while Viper drops another before he reaches Shade. Blaze is still missing, the officer is dead, and my Command has changed nothing.
I don't understand. I don't understand.
A fresh wave of Humans somehow pushes into the road, and this new wave is so overwhelming that it sends their own soldiers positioned too close to the edge tumbling off the cliff. The road is tightening against us faster than we can cut it back.
Knox fires once, then grabs my arm.
"Fall back," he barks.
I just stare at him, unable to process what he's asking me. Behind his helmet, his red eyes are blazing.
"Knox," I start.
"We’re done here," he snaps. "Back to the barricade. Now."
Distantly, I can hear the roar of the heavy belt-fed gun whirring to life, but I'm stuck in a loop of disbelief and grief.
The officer is dead, Blaze is missing, and the enemy's attack is only gaining momentum.
I still cannot make myself move.
"Just one more second," I plead. "Please."
I'm not sure what I'm waiting for.
Viper makes the choice for all of us.
He catches the back of my vest, hauls me bodily off my feet, and drags me backward just as another burst tears through the space where I was standing. My boots scrape over blood-slick stone and dirt. I twist on instinct, furious enough to fight him for half a second.
"Viper, no!"
"Get your fine ass behind the barricade," he growls, and keeps pulling.
The heavy gun starts firing, mowing down the enemy between us and the barricade and opening up a pathway for our retreat.