Chapter 11 I’m Sorry #2
“What is that?” Lucian hisses.
“I have no idea,” I whisper.
“It’s what happens to alphas,” an old woman groans. Her scent is omega, but faint. She’s got scratches all over her arms and looks like she might pass out at any minute.
“Alphas? What?” Lucian shouts.
“The virus changes us. Our insides. It makes us insane. It truly is a punishment of the gods.”
I stare at her. Is she insane or sick with the virus? Her hair's a mess, she’s injured, and she looks homeless; perhaps she’s having a mental health episode. “The gods wouldn’t do this,” I say to her gently.
“They’ve forsaken us!” she cries, really sobbing with huge, heartrending convulsions that leave snot dripping out of her nose in long strands.
“What did we do? What did we do? They are evacuating betas out of the city. Taking them to a safe place. They are going to leave us to die here. The Ravage. The Ravage has come!”
I shake my head, wanting to protest, but what can I say? I don’t think she’d hear me.
“We have to leave her.”
I know we do, but I don’t have to like it. Still, I linger, listening to her scream.
Lucian swears and grabs my shoulder, pulling me into the shopping center.
We run through it, our footsteps echoing.
It’s basically empty, ripped apart by desperate people trying to get enough supplies.
The hollow abandonment feels ancient already.
I want to get out of here while I still have my sanity.
We make it to the other side and out onto a deserted street. There’s blood splashed on the wall and a dead body lying in the trash. Bleakness fills me. Is this the world we’re coming to?
With painstaking slowness, we make it seven blocks and to within just a few blocks of home. I can feel the relief beginning to ease the tension out of my stiff muscles.
“I’m coming, baby,” I whisper.
Lucian jogs beside me, and I suddenly realise I haven’t asked him. Guilt makes for a bitter mouth. I don’t want to ask, but I have to know; I have to.
“What happened to him?” My voice is hushed and quiet, but he hears me as loud as if I shouted.
Lucian stops dead, his head drops, still oozing blood. A tremor runs up his spine. His jaw works, and I can see the answer. He doesn’t need to say it.
Grief and fear rise like a tide inside me, soaking into the fabric of who I am. I remember his face, how he smiled. The songs he would sing at night when he thought he was alone.
I’m going to miss him.
“Luce,” I murmur and reach out, putting my hand on his back.
“He didn’t make it,” the words come out of a broken omega. One who’s lost his bond partner, his pack, his mate. The agony I fear I’ll know only too well.
“We only met two days ago. It wasn’t long enough. I didn’t have enough time.”
I close my eyes, wishing I could undo it all. Change it.
“I’m sorry.” Two of the most useless words I have ever uttered, but there are none that can convey to him how large my grief is.
“You guys are all I have left. I need to make sure you get home,” Lucian whispers. “We just…we just have to try.”
I step closer and hug his stiff body. He doesn’t return my hug, but I don’t expect him to. “If we don’t, you go and get the survivor out and run. Go to the country.”
“You’re going to survive, Mordecai. You’re going to live. Mordecai, you have to, they need you too much. I’m just going to get you there.”
“Okay, Lucian. Okay,” I say through my tears.
With a gesture to follow, he runs across the road and down the street. I follow, glancing at the empty and destroyed shops, the trash on the road. The city is screaming.
We’re crossing the road when the car comes out of nowhere. It’s one of the quieter models, and because of the truck in the middle of the intersection, we don’t even see it.
Not until it’s there.
Not until it slams into him.
I scream, but it does nothing.
Lucian is thrown across two lanes of traffic. The car peels off, hits the median strip and goes up on two wheels before it crashes to the ground on its roof. The driver crawls out and runs away, leaving Lucian lying alone in the middle of the road.
“Lucian!” I run towards him, but even before I get there, I know he’s gone. It’s not a feeling; it’s a knowing, and I wish I were wrong. More than anything, I wish to be wrong.
His head is turned away from me, and he’s lying on his stomach, but there’s no life, no breath.
Still, I kneel carefully, rolling him over.
I just turn to the side before I vomit, retching helplessly.
I don’t want to see it; I want to unsee it.
There’s a massive dent in his chest, like something has caved the entire left side in.
An impossible wound, a life-stealing injury.
Nothing can revive him.
He’s gone, and I can’t make myself believe it.
I grip my hair, wailing and saying their names over and over. Losing myself in the pain.
I sit back on my heels trying to get my mind around it. Devastated beyond words to see my lifelong friend gone in the blink of an eye. One minute, we’re promising each other, and the next, he’s gone.
I reach out and close Lucian’s eyes.
“Until we meet again, Brother. I hope in your next life you find each other again and live happily.”
I stand up, but I can’t move away from him, not yet, not until, with a guilty jolt, I remember my mates. My alpha, who is sick and unconscious, and my omega, who is lying in bed, curled up in agony, who needs me.
I turn away, leaving him there, hating myself.
I’m a few blocks away, but my eyes keep blurring, and I can’t see the road. I can’t stop the sobs. What is this world?
What has happened?
Maybe the omega was right; maybe the gods have forsaken us.
I hear a scream and see a child running away from a group of those creatures. Those things that used to be human.
Ahead of me is home.
I turn and shout, and the creatures turn on me.
I run; they are uncoordinated but persistent. I race ahead, struggling to breathe. My lungs are tight, and my head feels heavy.
The sickness.
I have it. How did I miss that?
It strikes hard and fast; my energy drains quicker than ever. I stumble and crash to my knees. Everything aches. I force myself up, but someone slams into my back. I shove them off, but another person crashes into me, keeping me on my knees.
Teeth sink into my shoulder, and I scream.
I struggle up, trying to throw them off, but another one grabs my legs and sinks its teeth into the tendon behind my knee. I scream and collapse sideways, slamming my elbow into the ground.
They are dislodged for a second, but it’s not long enough for me to recover from the shock and struggle free.
I’m pulled under, dizzy and in agony.
At some point, I stop fighting because I can’t feel my arms or legs anymore. I can’t feel any pain. I’m staring up at the cloudy sky and wondering where did the blue go. What happened to the stars?
“I’m sorry,” the words whisper out of my mouth.
All I can see is them, alone in our house, waiting for help. I cough, gurgling blood. Help isn’t coming. Not for me, and not for them.