The WereGames III - Game Over: A Paranormal Dystopian Romance

by Jade White

  It was clear that it was Caledon, though. His spine-chilling voice was unmistakable. Everyone stared in rapt attention, as he continued his speech.

  “- that they had the audacity to take away my daughter, my only female child, from an infirmary that she desperately needed treatment from, only shows how heartless these werebeing rebels are. If anyone knows the whereabouts of Alexandra Caledon, a substantial remuneration shall be given. Even the mere sighting of her with proof will merit a reward.”

  The camera had zoomed into a faded photo of Alexia as a child, with her piercing gray eyes and full lips. Her hair had been done in a braid, and she was holding onto her father’s hand. It was definite that it was her.

  Ryker felt the blood leave his face. No, no, no, he thought, feeling his nails dig into his palms, drawing blood. It couldn’t be. Alexia was not A129; she wasn’t some lab-grown child. She had actually been the daughter of President Caledon all along!

  Slowly, the heads in the room turned to face Ryker, but all his face could register was shock. His mouth was partially open, but he couldn’t find the strength to say something. He knew what they were thinking. They had assumed he had led them right into a trap, that he had betrayed the Alaska Tribe by bringing a possible spy in, all in the guise of wanting to save someone.

  “You just damn killed us all,” the colonel said. “Two men died because of you. All for someone who was a Caledon all along!”

  “We trusted you!” another seethed.

  “You dare bring the child of a mass murderer on our doorstep?!”

  “We risked our lives for her, for a Caledon,” a man hissed. “You can’t take back the lives of those who died because of Caledon, because of her!”

  Ryker took a step back, the hairs on his nape standing. He could hear the other men’s heartbeats in the room elevating, and he could smell their antagonism. He was dumbstruck. This was a situation where he felt his stupidest. He had truly had no idea-

  “Enough,” Leopold’s voice boomed. “Ryker, to my office. No one follows us. That is an order.”

  “But sir-” one protested.

  “I said ‘no one follows us’,” Leopold repeated. He calmly led Ryker out of the room, pressing a hand against the young man’s back and pushing him out. Ryker was in a daze as they walked side by side to the community leader’s office.

  Everything Alexia had blabbered about wasn’t a drug-induced haze. It wasn’t brought about by weeks and weeks of experimentation. She had slowly begun to regain her memories—Jared, Magnus, her mother—she had started to remember it all. The walk to Leopold’s small office had been a long one, with Ryker’s eyes still wide open from the shock.

  As soon as the door shut, Leopold looked out on the military base before him, the tiny military base that was definitely no match for Caledon’s forces. He sighed, trying to find the proper words to say to the young Auberon behind him.

  “Leopold, I had no idea-” he started.

  “Judging from your reaction earlier, I’d say you’re telling the truth,” Leopold began. “I have a lot of questions going on in my mind, but the first would be, why did he claim the young woman as his daughter? Why only now?”

  Ryker shook his head. “I-I don’t know. I have no idea. It’s probably a tactic to-” Ryker stopped, realizing he was placing his credibility in boiling oil. He felt the shame of leading a few of Leopold’s men to death, and what was worse, with Alexia now here, they would be easier to track. Caledon would not stop until he had Alexia back.

  No, she wasn’t Alexia; she was Alexandra. He fell silent as he took another deep breath, desperately trying to understand how the circumstances could have led to that. He had taken her out of that lab, not knowing who she was, only knowing that Dr. Delaney wanted her saved. They had suffered together, had little pockets of happiness together, he had fallen in love with her-! Damnit, he had fallen in love with her!

  “Are you sure she hasn’t had any microchip implanted in her?” Leopold asked, bringing Ryker to his senses.

  Ryker shook his head. “They scanned her while we were flying out of the capital. It was on her nape, and they took it out.” He remembered how it had been done in near brutal fashion, no matter how tiny the wound had been; they had been trained to take out anything that could track them down. Ryker found he was trembling, trembling no matter how hard he tried to control it. Had he just given the tribe over to Caledon’s regime? Were they going to be decimated in a few hours?

  “Prior to his announcement regarding his daughter, Caledon wasted no time in clearing out the werebeings who posed as a larger threat than most. Earlier today, they had the most number of executions in a hundred years.”

  Ryker swallowed saliva, realizing his throat had been dry for a while now. He didn’t bother to ask how many. Executions were executions, no matter the number. They had dwindled down to the thousands, all thanks to three generations of Caledon presidency.

  “You do realize that the girl you hold affection for is a Caledon, and you’re an Auberon, right?” Leopold asked mildly.

  Ryker nodded slowly. He had realized the moment Caledon mentioned those words—he had immediately grasped the fact that he had fallen in love with the daughter of his family’s enemy, the werebeing population’s enemy. She was a Caledon, and she hadn’t even known it. He suddenly wanted to laugh from the irony of it all. What was he going to do now? He had brought this upon everyone…

  “What do you plan to do next?” Leopold asked him.

  He just had to be asked that question. What was he going to do? Return Alexia and collect a reward? Keep her here with the growing animosity of the community against her? If he returned her, she’d be dead in months—no, days. If he didn’t return her, the community could execute her or banish her. Either way, she was done for.

  “I- I… I don’t want to give her back to her father. He allowed her to be tortured,” Ryker said with conviction. “If you send her away, I’m going with her. I fully accept the consequences of my actions, Leopold.”

  Leopold nodded. “I personally don’t want to send her back. She’s been through a terrible life, as much as any of us. Of course, we do have to consider the situation.”

  “We have to get out of this place,” Ryker muttered, looking around the military base. The community had lived the majority of their lives here, but it was time to move out.

  “Danger is ever present, Ryker,” Leopold said. “To move everyone out ahead of schedule-”

  “-Is possible,” Ryker finished for him. “But I need to finish things with Caledon first.”

  “Are you saying you want an actual attack on the capital? On Caledon?”

  Ryker nodded, suddenly filled with a resolve to end it all. “Yes. He’s done enough to us.”

  Leopold couldn’t hide his smile. Finally, the boy was coming to his senses. He had waited for the Auberon in Ryker to come out, and it was finally here. Perhaps risking their lives for one person had been worth it after all.

  CHAPTER 13

  Two days later…

  She had been sequestered to a single wing, unable to leave without an escort. Alexia didn’t understand why. The only visitors she’d had in the last two days were doctors who took care of her, and they were a far cry from Dr. Wallace and the rest in that dreaded lab.

  Alexia hadn’t seen Ryker since she had woken up. There were pockets of memories that had him in it. She knew they had escaped together months ago, knew that he had kept her safe as much as he could. She knew she was far away from her brother, a brother she hadn’t remembered until he had come to her.

  The most damning memory that surfaced was that she actually dredged up that Magnus Caledon was her father. She hadn’t grown up in a lab; she’d grown up with a normal family—except that her father had been president, and he had sent her and Jared away to be used and abused. He had sent them away to die. Headaches plagued her for hours, and she could only find relief with what available sedatives they had. She had awoken from one nightmare into t
he next, and the moments wherein she was awake tortured her with fragmented voices and faces.

  What had happened was real. Everything that General Caledon had said was real. She even remembered her mother’s voice, a mother she’d thought she had never had before. What was going to happen next? She was the daughter of a dictator, and the werebeings in this community vilified her already, evident from the non-werebeings that were her only source of conversation.

  Was Ryker avoiding her now because he had found out that she was the daughter of President Caledon? The door hissed open, and she looked up, expecting to see the doctor that had been nothing but kind to her. She knew she had never had a doctor as kind as this one before…

  It was Ryker.

  She found it difficult to breathe all of a sudden. She was still in the process of collecting the memories she had lost in that all too brief moment at Sector 13, where they had hijacked the convoy of military vehicles. Alexia knew Ryker had saved her from Sector 12, and he had been desperate to keep her safe until Alaska. That was where he had lost her. Had he promised something?

  “You’re Ryker Locklear,” she croaked, realizing her throat didn’t hurt as much anymore.

  “I am,” Ryker said.

  “You saved me. You wanted to take me to Alaska.”

  “You’re here already,” he told her. “This is Alaska.”

  “Why did you let go of me?” she asked it matter-of-factly, not noticing that his eyes flinched.

  Ryker eyed her carefully. Her character had changed somehow; she had always been tactful before and had gone through great lengths to be pleasant, despite the pressure and pain. “I didn’t want to,” he began carefully, “They took you away from me. There was a big fight.”

  “Was Caliban there?”

  Ryker nodded.

  “He said he was my fiancé.” Alexia looked confused, as if still trying to separate fact from fiction.

  He shook his head. “You haven’t seen him since you two were kids. At least, that’s what you told me.” Fiancé? For real?

  She nodded, glad that it wasn’t true. While she felt Caliban cared for her, she knew sincerity hadn’t been there. He had tried to play her for a fool. It was a good thing she had been too disoriented to believe him.

  Alexia looked at Ryker, as if tracing his features with her eyes. “You were in my dreams a lot…” her soft voice suddenly said. “You had that scar, the one on your eyebrow.”

  He nodded. “I’ve had this since I was a little kid.”

  She closed her eyes. “Did you find your real parents here?” she suddenly asked, as if knowing all along that he had been adopted by the Locklears.

  He shook his head. “They’ve long been dead,” he said in a voice unlike his own.

  “What about mine? Are they here? Maybe I wasn’t born in that lab…” her voice trailed off.

  He almost choked. “You’re right. You weren’t. You had a real family.”

  Then her eyes widened, and she drew both hands to her mouth. She gave a slight gasp, realizing that the conversation with Magnus Caledon II wasn’t a figment of her imagination. “I’m- I-” she began, unable to believe it was real.

  “You’re a Caledon,” Ryker found himself saying, hating himself for breaking it to her.

  Her face said it all. She was upset and in shock. She knew of her parentage; she knew who she truly was. Had their contact told her this beforehand? He had thought she had no memory of past happenings…

  “I’m a Caledon,” she whispered, tears brimming in her eyes. “I’m- I’m the daughter of the president…”

  “I’m-” Ryker stopped himself. What could he say? That his great-grandfather and hers were sworn enemies? That her great-grandfather had betrayed his? It still didn’t change the fact that he couldn’t stop loving her… “Alexia-”

  “That isn’t my name,” she said, tears dropping on her bedsheets. “I’m Alexandra Caledon. My mother was Juliet. My brothers were JJ, Stephen, and Jared. I was the only girl-” She stopped, her hands flinging to her mouth once more. She remembered!

  “No, no,” she buried her face in her hands. She was the daughter of a mass murderer; he had wanted them killed after using them. He had kept her locked away. He had killed their mother somehow, and he had killed Jared, too. How could he have done that to them? Didn’t he love us? Didn’t he need us in his life? I was nothing but a human he could keep using until I died. He broke our family apart, and he doesn’t even look guilty...

  Ryker wanted to comfort her, but there was that hesitation from him. Was he in his right mind to comfort her? Was he in his right mind to still love her? Her family had destroyed his, turning him into an orphan, and he had lived a life that was almost unbearable… except when she had come into his life. She was innocent of what her father and forefathers had done. She had been tortured like any other citizen. The shame and stigma of having a child like her must have been too great to bear.

  “Alexia- Alexandra-” Ryker corrected himself. “You’re safe now. You’re far away from him-”

  “He was my father!” she gasped, louder this time. “My father killed people; he killed werebeings. Is this no wonder why they hate me here?”

  “I’m here-”

  “Who are you?” She stared at him, suddenly feeling something strange from him. Something wasn’t right. He was holding back; he was holding back when she knew he held some tiny bit of affection for her in the least.

  “Ryker Locklear,” he replied after a few seconds of silence. “I’m Ryker Locklear.”

  Alexia shook her head. “You’re lying to me. Who are you?”

  Ryker took a deep breath in. “I’m Caleb Auberon.”

  Auberon. Auberon. The name rang a bell somehow. Auberon. Where had she heard it before? Wasn’t there a deposed president named Auberon? “A president?” she spoke in a whisper, unsure if she had read it somewhere.

  Ryker nodded. “My great-grandfather.”

  “Then-;” she stopped, realizing what must have happened way back, when neither of them had existed yet, when their parents weren’t even born yet. She closed her eyes, realizing a chasm had formed between them. She had loved him before, hadn’t she? She still felt something for him, even if he was half a stranger. Tears began to flow down her face.

  “The past is the past,” Ryker told her unsteadily. “You’re here now, and you’re safe. It’s all that matters to me.”

  “I caused the deaths of a lot of people,” she said, unable to open her eyes. She couldn’t look at his face. He was an Auberon. Her own great-grandfather must have done unspeakable things to his family. That was why he was an orphan, and yet -- and yet, he was still here, talking to her, when he could have scorned her…

  “You didn’t do it on purpose,” he said, trying to come into terms with the fact that their situation hadn’t been ideal since they had met. It didn’t change things, however. He still loved her. The past had been painful for him, for his childhood, but he still loved her. “It wasn’t your fault. You just-”

  “Just that I’m the daughter of the president?” she said, her tears flowing freely. “Ryker, I’m so sorry. If I had known-”

  “But you didn’t. I didn’t. And even if I do now, it doesn’t matter,” he said firmly, moving closer to her as he sat on the edge of her bed. “We’ll get through this,” he said, holding her hand steadfastly.

  “You’re doing this to survive. You’re better at this than I am, right?” she asked him.

  “I’m not. I just think I am because I’ve been out in this world longer than you have been,” Ryker told her.

  “I think you’re doing a great job. I mean- even if it isn’t a real job. I still think you are.”

  Ryker looked sideways, starting at her profile. “Even if I kissed you?”

  “Even if you kissed me.”

  He could hear the smile in her voice. “I’ll make sure to ask permission the next time,” he added, and then he realized how stupid that sounded.

  “How st
upid is that?” she said with a small laugh.

  “I’ve done a lot of stupid things in my life, but being with you has upped everything I’ve done before. It’s more of stupid reckless and stupid crazy. Sometimes, I feel like I can do things better if I see you look happy at least.”

  “With you, I feel safe. Safer than I’ve felt in years,” she told him.

  She opened her eyes, remembering that conversation. It was something she had dug up from a graveyard of memories, and it made her feel better somehow. Ryker clutched her hand tighter, and she looked at his eyes this time.

  He nodded. “We’re getting through this, okay?” He leaned in, softly kissing her on the lips. He shook his head as he pulled away. He hadn’t asked for her permission again, had he?

  The door hissed open, and Sarah walked in on them just as Ryker’s head moved backwards. It had been close to Alexia’s face. She knew he had just kissed her. He had just kissed a woman whose throat had been slashed by God knows what. She forced a smile.

  “Oh, she’s awake,” Sarah said brightly. “How are you feeling?” she asked with as much sincerity as she could muster.

  Alexia nodded, unsure of who the girl was. Had she watched over her while she’d slept? “Fine,” she said in a small voice. Did this girl hate her? She was a werebeing, at least Alexia could recognize that part.

  “Ryker, the colonel would like to have a word with you,” Sarah told him, taking a breath.

  Ryker nodded. “I’ll be up in a few,” he said.

  Sarah nodded once and left the room, tears forming in the corners of her eyes. So that was what rejection felt like? So that was what love looked like? She had seen the affection in Ryker’s eyes; she had seen how this Alexia stranger looked back at him in the same way. Ryker would never look at her like that. She quickly wiped away tears, hearing the door hiss from behind her.

  “It’s good she’s up and about,” Sarah said, her back still turned as she walked down the hall. Ryker said nothing, and she knew his mind was still filled with so many things. She didn’t say anything else, knowing she would have to swallow the pain of rejection alone.