by Cheree Alsop
General Jared Carso stared at him, shock coloring his face more than pain. Alex felt the warmth of the General’s blood as it flowed down his arm. The man’s rib bones had splintered around Alex’s hand and the Extremist’s heart beat beneath his fingers.
“You...are...my...son,” the General gasped.
Alex grabbed the heart in his fist. “Never,” he growled. He squeezed and the General’s eyes widened. The heart gave one last beat of protest, then collapsed. The General fell to the floor. His blood pooled around Alex’s feet.
The red haze faded along with the blue. Alex had to force his legs to hold with the exhaustion that flooded through him. A moment later, the elevator beeped, then the door opened on the top floor.
“He’s here,” Jaze said to the others. The dean’s eyes went from Alex to the General lying on the ground. Jaze’s face washed pale. Alex leaned against the door before he fell over.
“Come on,” Jaze said gently, ducking under Alex’s arm.
Alex felt the blood on the bottom of his shoes sticking to the marble floor with each step. He felt more than saw Kaynan and Dray hurry into the elevator.
“He’s dead,” Dray said behind them.
Alex let Jaze help him into the helicopter. Mouse nodded from the pilot seat but didn’t ask questions. Alex sat by the window for a moment. He was keenly aware of Kalia’s body beneath the blanket on the floor. Alex let out a slow breath and fell to his knees beside the blanket.
“I made him pay, Kalia,” he said quietly. “He won’t hurt anyone ever again.” His voice caught in his throat. “I promised you I would save you, but I couldn’t.” A different kind of pain flooded through him. He set his head against where Kalia’s forehead was beneath the blanket and closed his eyes. “I’m going to miss you,” he said, his voice breaking. “I’m so sorry for everything.” Tears he had thought he had cried out dripped down his cheeks to the blanket, soaking it.
A hand touched his back. “It’s okay to cry,” Mouse said quietly. The professor knelt beside him. “She knows you cared.”
Alex shook his head, unable to do more than look at the small werewolf. “I don’t think she did.”
Mouse set a hand on his shoulder. “I saw you two together. She knew.”
Alex closed his eyes against a fresh flood of tears. “I hope so.”
Mouse helped him back to his seat and quietly cleaned the blood from Alex’s hands. Alex leaned against the window and let the chill of the glass sweep him away in a cloud of oblivion.
“There’s too many of them,” he heard Jaze say a few minutes later. “Torch the other chopper. We’ve got to get out of here.”
The sound of an incendiary grenade being thrown touched Alex’s ears before their helicopter lifted off and the building disappeared beneath him.
Chapter Twenty-five
“They’re still searching,” Brock said, running to meet them as soon as the helicopter landed in the Wolf Den.
Jaze helped Alex down. “Let me know as soon as you hear anything. We can’t let Drogan escape.”
“Will do,” Brock promised. The human’s gaze flicked behind Alex to rest on the blanket in the helicopter. The sorrow in his gaze said he already knew what had happened. As Jaze walked by with Alex, Brock patted his shoulder. “You did everyone a service tonight.”
Alex nodded without a word. He followed Jaze into the tunnel and up the path to the medical wing. It was the same path he had traveled his first time down into the Wolf Den’s secret passageways. The panel at the top slid open and Meredith and Cassie enveloped him in their arms.
“It’s okay,” Meredith said quietly as sobs tore from Alex.
Cassie’s tears damped his torn shirt. He held them both tight. It took a few minutes for his sobs to lessen. He finally stepped back feeling drained dry of any emotion.
Lyra appeared from the tunnel with Mouse at her side.
“You said the General put something in your head,” Mouse said quietly.
By Cassie and his mother’s alarmed expressions, Alex realized they only knew the basics of what had happened. He nodded. “He wanted to turn me into one of his hounds. Can you remove it?”
Mouse held up a small device. He waved it across Alex’s skull. It beeped near his spine. Lyra led him to a bed and motioned for him to take a seat. She examined the back of his head. “The incision has healed, but it should take only a few minutes if we open it back up.”
“Get it out.” The thought of the microchip still in his head made him feel claustrophobic from inside his own skin. The fact that anyone who had access to the General’s controls could attempt to command him again made him anxious to be as far away from the microchip as possible.
“We could give you an anesthetic—” Meredith began, but Alex shook his head before she could finish.
“I need it out before they make me attack anyone else. I don’t know if I’m strong enough to fight it again after everything. I could kill everyone in this school.” The admission made Alex feel heavy as though his limbs weighed a thousand pounds each. He bent forward with his head in his hands. “Please cut it out,” he said more gently.
His mom touched his shoulder. “Are you okay like that?”
Alex nodded without speaking.
After a moment of silence, something sharp pierced the back of his neck. He heard Cassie’s intake of breath and felt blood trickle down his skin.
“Follow the locator,” Mouse said quietly at Alex’s side. “That’s it.”
The pressure increased. Alex clenched his jaw against the pain. Lyra and Meredith were much gentler than the General’s physicians had been, but it was still his neck.
“A little deeper,” Meredith said.
The pain intensified. Alex wondered how much more he could take in his fatigued state.
“Got it,” Lyra called out.
The pressure disappeared. The wound was flushed, then gauze was pressed to Alex’s neck. He let out a sigh of relief at the sound of the tiny chip being dropped into a metal bowl.
“They controlled you with that?” Cassie asked, her voice tight as if she didn’t want to say the words.
Alex tipped his head to look at her. “They tried,” he replied.
Before anyone could move, Cassie dumped the microchip on the floor and stomped on it. The small device shattered beneath the heel of her shoe.
“Not anymore,” she snapped, stomping on it again for good measure. “Never again.”
Cassie sat next to Alex as their mother finished bandaging his neck.
“We know about Kalia,” Cassie finally said softly. “I’m so sorry.”
Alex didn’t speak. She slipped her hand into his and held it tight. “I heard about the General.”
“He knew about you,” Alex said. He didn’t tell her that Kalia had been the one to reveal the secret he had worked so hard to keep hidden. “He would have come after you.”
“He deserved it after all he’s done,” Cassie replied firmly. “Kalia and Mom and Dad would be proud of you.”
“I’m not so sure anymore,” Alex replied.
“They would,” Meredith repeated. She hugged Alex. “You did what you had to.”
Alex couldn’t stand to be within the walls of the Academy any longer than he had to. It felt like they were closing in with memories of Kalia walking down the hallway or smiling at him from across the Great Hall. He swore he could smell her scent within the hundreds that mingled in the carpets. He couldn’t handle the thought that she was gone.
Alex pretended like he was going to his room to lie down, but as soon as Cassie left him at the door, he went back down the stairs and outside. He collapsed in the snow at the base of Jet’s statue.
“I couldn’t do it,” he told his brother. “I couldn’t save her. I promised I would, and I didn’t. I let her die.”
He shivered as the chill of the night wrapped around his ankles, biting at his exposed skin in a way it never had before. He shook so hard his teeth chattered.
; “I failed her, Jet,” he forced out.
He sat there shivering for so long he almost got used to the way his heart skipped a beat every time the harder chills shook his body. He was tempted to stay there until his heart couldn’t stand it any longer. Perhaps it would give out, exhausted from the arrhythmia. He could just give up at the base of Jet’s statue. He leaned his head against the cold stone.
He was swept back to being an eight year old boy. Jet knelt in front of him and Cassie. Their parents had just been killed by Drogan, and Jet was about to leave them at Two. It was the last time they would ever see their older brother.
“I’ve got to go help save some werewolves,” he said in the direct way Alex always appreciated. Jet saw them as peers instead of children. He had always been completely honest with Alex. “You’ve got to be strong.”
“Don’t go,” Alex pleaded.
“Don’t leave us alone,” Cassie cried.
Jet put a hand on each of their shoulders and met their gazes one at a time. “I’ve got to do this. But you have to promise me something.”
“What?” Cassie asked with tears on her cheeks.
“You will never stop fighting,” Jet said.
“I’m scared,” Cassie replied.
“I promise you that you’ll never be alone,” Jet said quietly, his dark blue eyes passionate and voice soft. “Whatever you do, don’t stop fighting. Never stop fighting.”
“We won’t,” Alex promised. He threw his arms around Jet’s neck and hugged him tight. Jet held them both for a few moments, something he did very rarely.
Alex could still feel his brother’s arm around him. He rose unsteadily and put a hand on the wolf statue.
“I’ll never stop fighting,” he whispered.
He lifted his hand and looked at the silver seven that had been emblazoned on the wolf’s shoulder. According to Jaze, Jet had been given the tattoo when he was in the fighting rings as a way for betters to keep track of the werewolves who fought. Jet had never given up, even when he was shot and left to die.
“How dare you come back here?”
In Alex’s despair, the werewolf had come up on him without warning. The anguish in Torin’s voice was so raw it tore Alex apart.
Torin grabbed him by the throat and pinned him against the statue. “You killed her,” the Alpha shouted. “You killed her!”
“The General killed her,” Alex replied, trying to pull Torin’s hands away.
Torin drew Alex close to his face. “You let them take her into the hole and didn’t stop them. You could have gone after her. She wouldn’t have died.”
The despair in his voice was thick and brutal, sawing at Alex’s heartache without mercy.
“I tried,” Alex said past the knot that tightened in his throat.
“You failed,” Torin spat. He threw Alex against the statue.
Alex hit it hard and fell to the ground gasping. His head ached where the microchip had been removed. After morphing and killing so many Extremists, he felt like he had been run over by a train. It was hard to push up to his feet.
“Stay down if you know what’s good for you,” Torin growled.
“You tell me what’s good for me,” Alex replied, advancing on the werewolf. “You’re supposed to be my Alpha, remember?”
He tried to swing a haymaker at the werewolf’s head, but Torin blocked it easily. The Alpha ducked under his arm and pulled him across his broad back. Torin spun around and let go, sending Alex crashing back into the statue.
Alex felt his arm snap at the impact. A cry of pain escaped him when he landed on top of it on the ground. He pushed back to his feet with his good arm.
“Give up,” Torin shouted.
“Never,” Alex growled, rushing at the Alpha.
This time, Torin slammed a haymaker into Alex’s jaw followed by a punch to his arm where it had broken. When Alex’s knees gave out, Torin threw him to the ground and landed two more punches to his face.
Alex tried to throw him off, but his broken arm refused to respond. He rolled to the side, but Torin hit his shoulder and then the back of his head. Alex’s senses fled. When the Alpha climbed off, Alex lay there stunned for a second.
“Get back here, Torin,” he called, pushing up to his knees. He coughed and blood colored the snowy ground.
“Give it a rest, Alex,” Torin replied from near the statue; disbelief showed in his voice at the fact that Alex was trying to rise.
“I didn’t kill her,” Alex said, trying to convince himself as well.
Torin let out a roar of rage and kicked Alex in the side so hard it flung him onto his back. The Alpha brought his foot back for another kick, but Alex caught it and rolled, forcing Torin to the ground. Alex grabbed Torin’s other leg and gave a sharp jerk, throwing Torin onto his stomach. He slipped his good arm around Torin’s throat and drove a knee into the Alpha’s back.
Torin sputtered and struggled, but Alex didn’t let up. If he gave the slightest pull backwards, the Alpha’s spine would snap.
“Yield,” Alex growled into the Alpha ear.
Torin hesitated a moment. Alex pressed his knee harder into the werewolf’s back. Torin slapped the ground with a cry of pain. “Alright, I yield.”
Alex let him go and collapsed near the statue. His broken arm throbbed. He rested it over his knee as he struggled to breathe despite his damaged ribs.
“You just beat me,” Torin said, confusion on his face.
Alex ignored him.
Torin dropped to one knee in the snow so that he was face to face with Alex.
“You are a Gray, but you beat me,” Torin repeated, trying to get the impact of the words through to Alex. “You beat an Alpha.”
Alex turned a weary gaze onto Torin. “I just killed the General who also happened to be my father. I don’t care if I just beat you.”
Torin stumbled backward.
“You killed the General? You mean you killed General Carso?”
Alex nodded without looking at the Alpha. He was having a hard time focusing his thoughts, and his head ached much worse after the fight.
Torin let out a few sounds as though he wanted to ask questions, but his feet shuffled as though he also wanted to get as far away from Alex as possible. He chose the latter. Alex listened to the Alpha’s footsteps as he climbed the stairs to the Academy and disappeared inside.
Chapter Twenty-six
Alex snuck into Pack Kalia’s quarters. He could hear the sounds of werewolves sleeping as he walked down the girls’ hall and stopped at the first door. He hesitated with his hand on the doorknob.
She should have been in there asleep like the rest of her pack. She deserved to be lost in blissful dreams, swept away by the soft brush of moonlight through the window, but Alex knew that when he opened the door, the room would be empty.
He took a steeling breath and turned the doorknob. The door swung inward as Kalia’s clover and honey scent surrounded him. Alex closed his eyes, pretending for a moment that his dear friend was alive and well, that she would greet him with her smile and tease him about the fact that his hair was getting longer than he usually let it grow. He would tell her she liked it that way, and she would deny it even though the sparkle in her eyes said otherwise.
His heart thumped irregularly, reminding him that he was just fooling himself. Kalia was gone, and nothing he could do would bring her back.
Alex stepped inside the room and crossed to the dresser where he knew it would be. The small pouch sat between a picture of Kalia with Boris and another of a younger Kalia sitting at the feet of her parents playing with a porcelain doll.
He remembered it clearly, her sitting on the steps behind the Academy, the setting sun casting the mountains and trees in a wash of gold. It was near the end of the previous term, and she had asked him to join her there.
“I wanted you to know that I kept this,” she said as he took a seat next to her.
When he saw the bullet sitting in the pouch, he was surprised. “Why?”
She studied the small object. “It’s my reminder of when you saved my life. You almost died for me.”
“I’d do it again,” Alex said honestly.
She smiled, but her expression contained a whisper of sorrow. “I know you would. You’re like that.”
Her comment stung, but he couldn’t say why. “Like what?”
She looked at him directly, her icy blue gaze soft. “You’d sacrifice yourself to save anyone. You’re like Jet. You’re selfless.” She looked away, her gaze on the distance.
Alex was quiet a moment before he replied, “It makes you sad that you’re not the only one I’d do it for.”
She nodded without looking at him. “Does that make me selfish?”
Alex shook his head. “I think we all need someone sometime.”
“I can be your someone,” she offered with a hint of hope.
Alex shook his head. He didn’t want to crush her, but he had to be honest.
“Fine,” she said. She took the pouch from his hand. “But you were my someone. I’ll remember that.”
Alex slipped the pouch in his pocket and hurried out, careful to shut the door behind him to preserve what remained of her scent in the room.
Alex crossed to the next hall and used his nose to find Trent’s room. He opened the door soundlessly. Trent lay asleep on the bed, his pillow thrown to one side and blankets rustled as though his sleep had been restless. Alex wondered if Trent suffered nightmares from their experiences together.
He touched Trent on the shoulder. The werewolf jolted awake. He stared up at Alex, his eyes wide.
“W-what’s going on?”
“I need a ride,” Alex told him.
Trent sat up. “Where are you going?”
“I need to get the motorcycle I left at the park.”
Trent shook his head quickly. “The Extremists might be watching it. After what you did, Drogan’s going to be out for blood.”
Alex’s hands curled into fists without him realizing it. “I’m out for blood, too.” He moved to the left and the early dawn light fell across his face.
