Alpha Principal

by Preston Walker

  The metal of the truck bed was so incredibly, impossibly rusty that one of Simon’s paws punched clean through. Lurching, he yelped in alarm before managing to wrench himself free again. He left behind clumps of fur and his right back leg was badly scraped, but he was otherwise unharmed; the same couldn’t be said for the truck, which now had another window through which a person could watch the pavement go whipping away.

  Nathan lay on the bottom of the bed, both hands clamped over a bloody hole on the left side of his stomach. Blood pumped sluggishly up from the wound, so dark and slick that it was like Nathan was bleeding snakes, like the rivulets were alive.

  Nathan! Simon shrieked. He might only have screamed in his head, he was beyond knowing at this point, but the alpha jumped as if he had heard. His eyes popped open wide.

  “Simon?” Nathan groaned.

  Whatever Simon might have wanted to say was knocked from his mind as the truck started to swerve and weave all across the road. The sky was a dizzying funnel of blackness, briefly filled with lights and glimpses of buildings, before pirouetting back into the shadows again. Cox drove like a maniac, either trying to get the police to leave him alone, to dislodge the furious pregnant wolf which had boarded his vessel like an unwelcome pirate, or both. Or none, and he was simply drunk. Or insane.

  There was nothing for Simon to hold onto as the truck blazed wildly across the city with more and more police cruisers joining in on the chase, called from all across Norfolk, from Portsmouth, from the other neighboring cities. The bed was smooth, the rust too flaky for him to dig his claws into it. He rolled all over, bumped and jostled and thrown, gathering bruises like a bad apple.

  Nathan was in the same situation, only he was leaving smears and splotches of blood behind.

  He’s going to die. Going to die before he meets the baby.

  Simon was terrified, more afraid of the outcome of this than he had ever been afraid of anything in his entire life. Nathan could die, bleeding out. The baby could die, miscarried from this stress and the constant barrage of impacts.

  Simon could die. Would die, if he was left with nothing at the end of this.

  He had only just found his real purpose, had only really just begun to understand his place in life. He had only recently started to get excited about what his life held for him, to understand he could love an alpha without losing himself. And now it was all about to be taken away from him, from both of them.

  No.

  The voice inside him wasn’t his own and it didn’t belong to Nathan, either. It wasn’t even really a voice at all, just a toneless denial of absolutely everything in the entire world.

  It was the wolf inside him, gathering its last bit of strength because a wolf will always fight to the very end. Even starving, even dying, a wolf would never back down. A wolf would never give in. Not when there was still a chance. And there was always, always a chance.

  Simon got his paws underneath himself and pushed up, then braced himself hard against the wall of the truck bed. Crouching low, fighting to hold his balance for just a second longer, he threw himself forward into another leap. He had no destination in mind, no purpose other than forward.

  His powerful, muscular shoulders slammed against the truck’s rear window. Glass exploded all around him, thick shards slicing away swathes of his fur, tearing into his skin, shredding tendons and muscle and meat. Collapsing into the backseat, he pushed himself forward again with everything he had left, writhing and struggling and fighting, until he was now up in the front, draped across the center console.

  Cox stared at him, his eyes completely off the road. With one hand, he grabbed wildly at empty air, searching for the gun that had clearly slid away from him in the middle of his escape attempt.

  Simon stared at him and opened his mouth. With his last remaining strength, he formed a word.

  “Why?”

  Then a police car struck them from behind, sending the truck spinning. A horrendous, earth-wrenching crash split the world in two as the truck hit the guardrail of the bridge they were driving on, spanning the length of the Elizabeth River.

  The rail might have been able to survive the impact, had the police car behind the truck not spun out as well. And the cruiser after that was incapable of putting its brakes on it time, and careened right into both of them. That was, at least, the final version of events which ended up in the police report after weeks of gathering testimonies and eyewitness accounts.

  All Simon knew was that he was suddenly weightless again after the impact, telling him that his luck had run out, that he had died and was soaring away to Heaven—or wherever it was that gay shifters went.

  In the next instant, he knew he wasn’t going to be as lucky as to be given such an easy way out. The weightlessness came to an end with a resounding crash, and this time it was a very familiar sensation, like diving into a pool, only thousands of times louder. Water surged up around the sides of the truck, cutting the light down to a point where they might all as well have been dead already except for the fact that Simon was still breathing. His teeth were chattering, his body shaking as the enormous, chilled weight of the entire river sought to invade the truck. His paws were already wet, water bursting in through all the various holes and cracks the truck had sustained. Soon enough, he was soaked.

  The hole he had made in the rear window would more than suffice as a way to get himself out of here, even if the whole rear part of the truck was crumpled up in new and fascinating ways as a result of all the recent collisions. However, he didn’t just have himself to think about. There were two other people at risk here.

  The cold, cold water was already up over the torn leather seat cushions, rising higher and faster with every second. Simon’s wolf senses, and his human senses, were completely overloaded. This was an environment he had never experienced before, had never even needed to imagine. It felt as if he was in some sort of rocket ship that had run out of fuel and now it was just drifting eternally through space while the vacuum force from outside ripped out all the air.

  Getting his sodden paws underneath him, Simon wriggled through to the back seat, which was tilted up at an angle now. Water poured into his face and he pushed himself out through the window and looked through the murky darkness in the direction of where he had last seen Nathan’s prone body.

  Nathan wasn’t there.

  Panic coursed through Simon’s body, his heart fluttering in his aching chest. Though wolves usually loved to be in water, animals didn’t naturally prepare to hold their breath before entering such an environment. That was a human-centric awareness, an ability which even infants fresh from the womb possessed. In the wild, animals had to come about this skill through trial and error.

  Having never been in this kind of situation before, Simon’s wolf was completely unprepared. It wanted to breathe, didn’t quite understand why it couldn’t, why it had to resist the burning, primal urge to open its mouth and draw breath.

  Simon looked up, towards the surface of the river. He paddled his paws in the water, his fur tugged around his body by currents. There was air up there, sweet, night air, but there was something more important in that direction, an absence of information that helped him to figure out what exactly it was that he should do now: no body. No Nathan. Not within his sight. He could see two dark, drifting blobs off to the sides, police cruisers, but no people.

  Wherever Nathan was, Simon would just have to hope that he could take care of himself because there was something else that he had to do.

  Even though everything inside him screamed that this was a fool’s errand, that everyone involved in this would be better off if he left Richard Cox to drown. That would be like killing a man, and Simon just couldn’t let himself do such a thing. There was clearly something wrong here and he wanted—needed—to know what it was.

  Simon shifted back into his human form. The currents battered him as water flooded in to fill the spaces that he had once occupied, pushing up against his changing body. A rush
of bubbles poured from his nose from the effort. The urge to breathe was so awful, so terribly overwhelming, but he fought against it and kicked out in the direction of the sinking truck.

  Swimming had never been his forte, as he didn’t really have the shape for it. Still, it was physical exercise and he had tried everything at some point, even going so far as to crack a bone in his arm once while skateboarding. He never did that again, though he did go snowboarding a year after that with better results.

  All the same, he had experience with the activity, and he pushed himself easily back inside the truck. As the truck sank, the light faded more and more. Simon could barely see anything at all, couldn’t use any of his other senses. It was all he could do to make out the fact that the entire left side of the truck had been hit so hard that it had literally folded over, restricting Cox’s movement. He had managed to get his seatbelt off, or maybe he hadn’t been wearing it at all. However, Cox was unconscious now, drifting while gently pinned.

  Reaching out, Simon grabbed the man and pulled as hard as he could. Something must have given—metal, fabric, or flesh—because Cox came suddenly towards him after a few moments of struggle.

  Tucking the unconscious man under his arm, Simon turned around in the cramped space and started swimming up towards the distant surface. Black spots obscured his vision like schooling fish and his chest was on fire, burning hotter and brighter than it had any right to in such an environment as this. His clothes were soaked, dragging against him. He was so, so tired, every part of him hurting from the abuse it had taken during the crazy ride.

  Still, he swam. He swam, because a wolf never gives in.

  Suddenly, blessedly, his head broke through the surface. All of the breath rushed out of his lungs in an explosive gust, and he pulled in an enormous gasp, swallowing air and water simultaneously. Treading water didn’t really work well when he had a huge, bobbing weight tilting him to one side. Turning his head, hardly able to see for the sting of water in his eyes, waves sloshing against his face repeatedly, he looked around for somewhere to go before his body finally gave out on him.

  All of his life, he had thought of the Elizabeth River as being shallow. That was how it was near all the various parks in Portsmouth. Here, so close to where the waters filtered in from the ocean, it wasn’t that shallow at all. He couldn’t just swim over to shore, because there really was no shore right here. There were high concrete walls fashioned to control flooding, to maintain the proper height of the water at such an important length between the two cities.

  Turning and turning in circles, disorienting himself, Simon finally saw a smooth section that looked as if he might be able to reach it if he could just get over there. It was so far to the right that if he had been anything less than a determined bastard, he never would have been able to make it.

  But he was a determined bastard, and he started to swim to the right. He let the current carry him, trying not to fight against it. If he tried to go directly to the right, the water kept pushing him away. If he just swam straight, he would run out of steam and drown. The only thing to do seemed to be to head at a diagonal and to hope he arrived at the right spot at the right time.

  It seemed as if he swam for the entire rest of the night, as if the sun would come up and he would still just be going at it. He was so cold, so tired. So goddamn sad. The weight of his burdens would drag him down if he stopped moving for even a second. He had no idea what had happened, had no idea if Nathan was even still alive right now. Hell, at this point, Simon didn’t even know if Cox was alive. The man hadn’t moved an inch.

  Red and blue lights flashed out across the water from the police cars still up on the bridge. An emergency helicopter from Norfolk—Portsmouth didn’t have any—soared by overhead, shining a spotlight on the water as if looking for survivors. The lights didn’t come anywhere near the two of them.

  Then, suddenly, the smooth lip of concrete Simon had seen before was right there beside him, scraping against Cox and causing his head to dunk underwater. Letting out a breathless cry of alarm, Simon shoved his shoulder up underneath Cox and managed to heave the man halfway up onto the concrete. Then, he pulled himself up onto the lip as well, flopping onto his back.

  This part of the wall must have been designed as a place for maintenance workers to have easy access to boats and other watercraft. Whatever it was, it had quite literally saved their lives.

  Simon focused on breathing for what might have been an eternity, or just a single minute. Straightening up, coughing a little, he looked over at where Cox still lay limply across the concrete lip. His feet dangled in the water.

  Standing up wasn’t an option. Crawling over to Cox, Simon grabbed him by the shoulders and dragged him further so he wasn’t still in the river. He turned the man on his side, then was about to start pounding him on the back when Cox jerked and coughed, bringing up mouthfuls of water on his own.

  Simon waited until Cox had stopped coughing and was just laying there looking blankly at his surroundings. The police were still combing around the edges of the river, the helicopter doing its rounds, but they were effectively alone.

  Now or never.

  “Cox.”

  There was no reaction from the man.

  “Richard fucking Cox,” Simon snarled.

  There was a soft sound in response that time, a faint wheezing that at first Simon mistook as rough breathing before realizing it was laughter.

  Cox let out another laugh. “You know that’s not my real name, right?”

  “That’s not important,” Simon growled. Sudden rage swamped over him. All that stopped him from drowning Cox himself was the desire to know exactly what the hell had started all this. “What the fuck is wrong with you? You tried to mug my mom and now you have some sort of need for revenge? What the hell is your logic here, you bastard?”

  “You’re a fucking animal. Not in a good way either. Holy shit. And you think I’m just going to leave you alone?”

  “Took you fucking long enough,” Simon snapped. He bared his fangs in warning, letting the light glance across them. Cox flinched visibly. “Try again.”

  The scrawny man looked much more uneasy than before, rather than simply resigned. “Okay, okay. Holy shit, don’t do that. Freaks me the fuck out. Okay. I followed you for awhile after you fucking bit me, okay?”

  “You stalked me?”

  “Watched you. You and that principal you’re fucking.” Cox wheezed again, except this time his laughter seemed nervous. “And you. Both of you just animals. And teachers.” He spit out the words like they were the worst swears he would possibly think of. “Two of the worst, most ravenous goddamn things in the entire world.”

  “What do you have against teachers?” Simon supposed this might not be the best time to point out that Nathan was a principal, not a teacher—though he had been in the past.

  “What the fuck do you think?” Cox said, and his voice was almost like a snarl as well. “Didn’t even let me get my goddamn GED. My life fucking sucks, man. Always has. Never fucking had a chance. Never got given a chance. I hate you bastards. All of you.”

  Simon closed his eyes, trying not to feel sorry for the poor jerk. Shit like this was exactly why he felt so bad for Tobias Noble. The system hadn’t been adaptable enough to accommodate them and as a result, they were considered failures. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t right. And no fucking wonder a person like Cox would develop a grudge against teachers and the like.

  “I’m sorry,” Simon said.

  Cox blinked. Simon hadn’t realized until now that the man’s forehead was bleeding, trickling filmy red ribbons into his eyes. Who knew what other injuries he had sustained in the crash and the subsequent fall?

  Hell, Simon had no idea how badly he himself might be injured. He was running on pure adrenaline at this point, and there was no telling how much longer all that would last. It all had to come crashing down around him at some point. He knew that.

  “You’re sorry? You’re sorry
? It’s too late for sorry. You think an apology is going to make up for the fact that I have to steal to even be able to live? That I haven’t had a steady place to sleep in years? Haven’t held down a job in just as long? I live out of my shitty truck, and now that’s at the bottom of the river.” Cox balled his hand into a fist and brought it down roughly on the concrete.

  Bright light swept across the river, wavering over the both of them where they crouched on the concrete. The spotlight swept back, stopping directly on top of both of them this time. Someone cried out to them through a loudspeaker, though the words were too indistinct to make out. The message was clear, anyway. They had been found. The police would be coming now. They had only a few minutes left alone together.

  Really, Simon could take a step back and distance himself from all of this now. He had the information that he wanted, that Cox had a horrific life up to this point and was rightfully furious about it. That was all the motive he needed to be satisfied, to understand this whole damn thing wasn’t just a result of random aggression.

  As much as he wanted to distance himself, he couldn’t. That just wasn’t his way.

  “Cox.”

  “My name is Jeremy. Jeremy Thomas.” Jeremy shrugged one thin shoulder. “You might as well be the first to know, since soon everyone else will.”

  For some reason, Simon was touched. He knew he shouldn’t have been, that knowing the man’s real name was useless, but he was touched all the same that he had been trusted with that information. “Jeremy, then. I know an apology isn’t going to make up for everything that’s happened to you. I’d be lying if I said it was supposed to help even a little bit. But, things are actually going to get better for you.”

  Jeremy looked at him as if he was insane.

  The emergency helicopter came in for a landing on a street nearby, up at the top of the wall. Police cars had parked there, and now an ambulance joined in the mix. A fire engine honked its way through traffic up on the bridge, and Simon could see a strange orange cast to the sky in that direction. Something must have caught on fire from all those high-speed collisions, or was in danger of doing so.