Alpha

by Kim Faulks

  But I felt nothing, not panic, not fear, not even Hate.

  There was only movement, the draw of breath, the buckle of knees. The hand that found the blade and I was moving. I was drawing every ounce of strength and channeling it into the pointed tip of the thin kitchen blade.

  The steel sank deep and parted flesh.

  His eyes widened. The whites so bright that I found myself in the reflection.

  “No,” he whispered and looked down.

  But I was already drawing the steel free. The thin blade so neat that it left nothing more than a trickle.

  “Kill him,” whispered the Vampire, urging the monster inside.

  The movement was so natural as I drew the blade high. I opened my fingers, and turned the handle in my grip until the blade was flat against the inside of my arm.

  I cocked my hand backwards, and unleashed, driving my fist though the air in a deadly arc. One turn of my wrist and the blade sprang from under my arm. Steel met flesh, driving into the hollow of his throat and carving wide.

  “Yes!” screamed the Vampire. “Yes!”

  But this wasn’t for him…this wasn’t to save him—it was to save me.

  You have such beautiful hair.

  I spun the handle in my palm, plunging the tip again and again between the spaces of his ribs. Metal hit bone, sending a jolt through the knife.

  There were no more visits, no more whisperings. No more fumbling in the dark…there was nothing. There was nothing but the numbing ache of freedom.

  I wrenched the weapon free, leaving my attacker to stumble. Hs lips moved without words. He wasn’t whispering now.

  The gash in his neck widened. Blood carved through the air hitting my face with a slap. Momentum had me by the throat—there was no going back—even if I wanted to.

  I lunged through the air. Hit his chest hard and sank claws into his shoulder, driving him backwards. He stumbled, slipped and then fell.

  He swung a fist. The punch aimed at my face. But there was no strength, no urgency…I wore it all in splashes that dripped down my chest. My knees rammed into the ground as we hit with a jolt.

  Pain lashed my legs, driving through my thighs like shards of glass. I rammed the blade through his neck, hacking and cleaving until bone poked through…and still I wasn’t done. The spark of life ebbed and disappeared as I hauled his head high.

  He wouldn’t come back. Not in my dreams. Not in my life.

  I wouldn’t let him.

  Burn him…burn it all, Hate whispered.

  I hauled my leg over his torso and fell to the ground. Shudders wracked my body. I gripped the knife in one hand and his head with the other while the world seemed to stand still.

  My breaths were jagged and harsh tearing through my lungs.

  “They’ll come for you…they’ll know what you’ve done,” whispered the Vampire. He blinked and stared at me from the corner of the room.

  “Why don’t you run?”

  The life in his eyes dulled. He shook his head and glanced down to his body. From the different angle, I saw it. His legs were shattered, nailed to something that looked like the lower half of a cross.

  I crawled forward, dragging the head behind me.

  “Don’t bother,” he whispered. “They fed me…Holy water. I’ll be dead by morning if my sister doesn’t come.”

  I didn’t want to hurt for him…didn’t want to feel for him.

  “Save yourself.” His brittle words filled the space. He glanced at the mess behind me. “I’ll tell them I did that.”

  “Why?” The word ripped from my lips. “Why? Why help me?”

  He wouldn’t look me in the eye, only stared at the bloody mess in my hand.

  My fingers slipped through strands of hair as I left the shifter’s head behind and scurried across the floor. “Where are they? Tell me now, where are the babies?”

  Desperation made me shake as I reached for him. His body was pale and cold under the mess of blood.

  I gripped his arms and wrenched him forward, dragging the cross as well. The timber squealed against the floor. I had to make him see. “They are my family…”

  His words were as lifeless as his soul as he answered. “I cannot give you what you want. I can only give you time—use it wisely.”

  “Time? What do you mean, time?” My hands slipped. He toppled back against the floor, impaled by the inch thick nails through his hands and feet.

  “I lied to her,” he answered, his eyes electric. “She’ll never find them, not in a million years. So, you’d better run little wolf, run…run…run…”

  That voice echoed from my past…this time I obeyed. I shoved up from the floor, leaving the body and the blade behind and made for the door.

  My fingers were slick. The handle slipped in my hold.

  Run little wolf run.

  They are coming.

  12

  Alpha

  I’d entered a premises armed a thousand times before—but this time it was different. There was more at stake, more than flesh, more than blood…more than innocence.

  I raised my weapon, finger on the trigger, and took a step, skirting the outside of the cabin as I headed for the rear.

  I couldn’t hear her, couldn’t feel her. If she was alive she’d be fighting…if she was alive—I’d know by now. An ache spread from the center of my chest and rippled out into my hands.

  The flicker of a candle danced like a beacon as I passed the windows. I rounded the last corner watching the shadows through the trees. There was no ambush, not one I could tell. Only one car, and one man in the middle of nowhere. Why would he lead me here…an execution?

  I stilled at the thought and stared at the door.

  Was my uncle leading me to my own fucking death?

  I could almost feel the muzzle against my head. Almost smell the gunpowder in the air. A blur of movement came to my right. I blinked and my brother stood there, smiling his goofy fucking grin. Stitch.

  He leaned against a tree just out of reach and gave me a nod. The gesture said so many things…

  I got you brother. You’re safe with me. I’m here to take you home.

  And for a second I thought about welcoming that bite of steel against my skull. My throat thickened, a lump choked me, wedging tight until I couldn’t breathe.

  Stitch smiled and nodded toward the door. He was always fucking impatient…always ready to rock and roll. I adjusted my grip and took a step closer, drawn by something far bigger than myself. I was here for love.

  I wanted answers.

  I wanted X.

  I wanted justice for everyone.

  And I’d take a bullet to get it.

  I gripped the battered doorknob and twisted. The lock squealed, tearing through the night. I dropped my shoulder and rammed the door, bringing up my weapon to stare down the sight.

  “X!” I screamed. My voice echoed and fell flat. “X, where are you!”

  A voice came from a room off the entry. “She’s not here, Alpha.”

  I stepped to the side, keeping my elbows in and scanned the room. My uncle was there, hidden by the jutting edge of a wall. He sounded different…strange. I couldn’t care about that now. There were holes in the walls and the floor sagged under my weight. If there was a place to hide a body—then this place was perfect.

  I kept my focus on the shadow, waiting for the sonofabitch to step into the light. “Then, where the fuck is she?”

  “I don’t know, son. I don’t have her.”

  My top lip curled. I stabbed the words like a weapon. “Don’t you dare call me that, you traitorous piece of fucking shit.” My voice broke. I hated the sound. “I’m glad Dad’s not here to see this. I’m glad he died before he knew what you were.”

  The shadows slipped off his body as he took a step into the light. “There’s only one problem with that…I didn’t die.”

  Sparks danced in my eyes. The pain piercing, ramming through my head as I focused. They were almost the same…same height,
same weight—same fleck of silver in their hair.

  But that’s where it ended. This man…wasn’t my uncle. He was older, drawn, dark circles crowded his eyes. The image of a man floated to the surface—a younger man, a happier man. The word slipped from my lips before I knew. “Dad?”

  He nodded as his mouth curved into the saddest fucking smile I’d ever seen. “It’s me, Darrion. It’s really me.”

  The muzzle wavered in the air, trained on the center of his chest. Should I lower it? Should I be afraid? Where…how…why?

  Why?

  The smile slipped from his lips, leaving only sadness behind.

  I scanned the cabin, taking in more. The threadbare couch was piled with blankets; wood was stacked against one wall of the room. There was enough to last him though the cold months. “How long?”

  He never answered, only stared at me as though I was the fucking ghost. Stitch. The answer echoed. The sonofabitch understood. That’s why he was here. Not to warn—but to comfort.

  “Here? About three years. I move around, keep to myself, keep low.”

  “Why?” I shook my head. “I don't understand. Where the fuck have you been…why the fuck all the secrecy?”

  He shook his head and cast his gaze to the floor. “I did it to protect you and your mother. I know…I know, it’s fucking clichéd. But you have no idea who these people are. You have no idea the lengths they’ll go to, to keep me quiet.”

  I dropped the gun. “Well they succeeded, didn’t they? I lost a father. Mom lost a husband. What do you know that’s worth all of that?”

  His shoulders slumped. He motioned to the couch. “You want to sit?”

  Anger welled like a toxic fucking river. This man wasn’t my father, not the powerful, driven man I once knew. This man was broken.

  I crossed the room and the closer I came the smaller I saw him. “Do I want to sit? Do I want to sit? No, I don’t want to sit. I want answers. I want to know what was worth the last fifteen fucking years.”

  He glanced to the doorway as though running was an option.

  “No you don’t…no fucking way.” I took a step, blocking his view.

  The sigh was audible, bouncing off the walls as if he and this old place were one and the same. He turned to the sofa and moved farther along before he crouched in the shadows.

  “This is all I have,” he whispered. “My entire life is this one small thing.”

  I blinked and focused on the box in his hand. What could possibly be worth so much?

  “I wasn’t supposed to work that day…did you know that? You were running a fever the day before, but you begged your mom to let you go to school.”

  I shook my head. I remembered nothing of the days before, or the days after. Everything was a blur. The visitors, the food, the cars…Mom crying.

  Yeah, that was the thing I remembered the most.

  “Your mother gave in and let you go, but I knew you were sick. That morning I woke up to a raging damn fever. I called in sick, and when Staff Sergeant Gillie answered the phone I knew something was off.”

  I tried to remember him then, tried to put the pieces together. “You were the security detail, right?”

  He nodded and took a step toward the candle. “Yes, we were in charge of every floor of Headquarters. It wasn’t a glamorous job, nothing like Newman’s, but we made sure the place was well guarded. When Gillie answered the phone, he said the fifth floor was getting closed down and I knew I needed to get in there and figure out what the hell was going on. I’d just hit Staff Sergeant by then, so if there was a change of command, I sure as hell wanted to know about it.”

  I didn’t understand. It was a closed floor, only those with high-level clearance had access. What did this have to do with us?

  “No one closes down the fifth floor,” he growled as though he heard my thoughts. “It’s the most guarded one in the entire building. So I dragged my ass out of bed and got dressed. I looked like hell, felt even worse, but I made it down to see Newman talking to someone I didn’t know. He introduced himself as Charles Connor from the Connor Corporation. I had no idea who he was, just some bigwig from Washington.”

  I remembered the photo at my Uncle’s house. The one he hid out of sight. “Uncle Newman said he worked on the same floor.”

  “Your Uncle lied about a good many things. He’s not the brother I once knew.”

  I swallowed hard and felt the sharp sting of betrayal. “Charles Connor. You shook hands with him on the steps. That was the last photo we have of you.”

  His gaze narrowed, confusion set in. “Yeah, there was a kid…someone from the cadets offered to take our photo. I remember it now…Gareth, Gordon…something.”

  He was opening up, reliving the day inside his mind. I followed the excitement in his eyes. “I wasn’t interested at the time. My only focus was that damn fifth floor. Newman told me it was all taken care of. That he was in charge and I had better get myself back home to bed.”

  He lifted his head and pierced me with a look of betrayal. “The only thing was, Newman wasn’t high enough on the food chain to send an order like that, not back then. It had to come from higher up. I remember how sick I felt, and how this just didn’t sit right. So I nodded, gave him a slap on the shoulder and said I was going to let my men know. He tried to stop me from going in there. But you know us Slater men. We’re just too damn stubborn for our own good.”

  He looked at the thing in his hand. Faint flickers of the light lapped the edges, enough for me to know what it was. The tape was old, replaced by discs and then servers. But for him…for my father this was all he had. This was just as real as it was all those years ago.

  “The floor was closed down all right. They had MPs standing at the elevators and blocking off the stairs. There was no way I was getting up there; it was as though the fucking President himself decided to grace us with his presence. I would’ve bet my mortgage that this was why the drama until Nick King walked straight past me.”

  Nick King…

  “The Presidential Advisor.”

  My father nodded. “They couldn’t open the damn elevator fast enough, and that’s when I saw them. Charles Connor, Newman, and a woman I’d never seen before.”

  I wrenched my head up. “Woman?”

  He nodded. “She was one of those women where you go, whoa what a fox, until she turns her head and looks you straight in the eye. Then you realize she’s no fox…she’s a fucking snake.”

  A cold, bitter edge seeped into his voice. I wanted to grab him by the shoulders and shake him. I couldn’t understand a damn thing he said. He glanced to the corner of the room, following the shadows up and over across the ceiling, and for the first time I saw the manic gleam in his eyes. His movements were scattered. His left eye twitched. He had the look of someone broken.

  “Been doing some digging on my own over the years.” He wrenched his gaze to me and whispered. “Camped with some of the wolves down by Black Forest Lake. They don’t like strangers, like humans even less. I was close to starving when they found me; they took pity on me I guess. I lived with them for five years, moved around a lot, listened to them, learned from them, and slowly I started to understand. They called her the Huntress, Darrion, a twisted bitch that was in bed with demons, wolves, and humans. I wish I’d known what she was back then…maybe things might’ve turned out different.”

  “I don’t understand, Dad,” I muttered and shoved my Glock into the waistband of my shorts. “You’re not making much sense. What happened that day?”

  “Didn’t you get the folder? Don’t you understand?”

  I flinched at the word…folder. “That was you?”

  He nodded and looked at the ground. “I…I wanted so very much to see you, son. But I…” He shook his head, as though he cast his demons aside. “They killed him…Nick King, killed him in cold blood.”

  He glanced at the recording in his hand. “It’s all here. Everything you need to make you question those you love. You see, there was
a problem with the elevator, the Huntress caused a scene and the MPs came running. So I snuck into the stairwell when they weren’t looking and made my way into the security room. I could see everything up there, every camera, even on level five. The place was empty. The men rostered to watch the building were gone. I was furious, ready to call someone and start throwing around words like desertion when on the camera all five stepped off the elevator and went into one of the meeting rooms.”

  “Five of them?”

  The floor held his interest. “Charles, the Huntress, King, Kava, Newman, and someone else…I couldn’t make out who he was. He stood in the corner, kept his back to the cameras the entire time. He was young I knew that, as young as I was at the time. I sat and watched as they all piled into the large conference room. I knew I shouldn’t be watching, that it was against orders. But they weren’t the right orders, they were sneaky, underhanded instructions given to my men with total disregard of their duties. Charles kept standing long after the others took their seat. He pulled out a bunch of envelopes, opened one, fanned out the money, then stuffed it back inside and slid the payment across the table. The folders followed. I didn’t know it at the time, but they were medical reports. You see they were…”

  “Experimenting on shifters,” I answered for him.

  He flinched, eyes widened. “You know?”

  “Some, maybe more than you realize. It’s only girls they experiment on, did you know that? They cut open their chests and shove wolfsbane inside them. The shit’s like a goddamn ticking time bomb, if they don’t get an injection to stop it from decaying, it leaks into their system and slowly sends them mad.”

  He sank back on his heels, and gave a slow shake of his head. “Jesus, they infect them, these…girls?”

  “We found a military compound two hours south of here, surrounded by enough fire power to cut a lesser team down. We found shifters inside, most were dead, one was still alive…there was nothing we could do to save her. But we found files, medical and transport, those led us to find the Dragon.”