Rebel

by L. C. Mawson

  “The Enhanced have found a way to track you. By the end of the week, you will be dead. Freya will flee to her Demon friends, and they will help her narrowly escape to the Underworld. Her wrath will herald the end of the peace between humanity and magic. She will attack the Enhanced in full force, with an army of Demons at her back, the secrecy her mother died to regain will again be lost, and there will be at least a hundred years of war.”

  Alex felt as if the world had been pulled out from under her and she gripped the railing of the balcony to stay upright. In truth, after she had prophesied her death, Alex hadn’t been entirely listening to Alice’s words. Though she had caught the bit about a hundred years of war.

  “But we can stop it, right?” Alex finally managed to ask. “You wouldn’t be telling us if we couldn’t stop it.”

  Alice nodded. “Their tracking method isn’t perfect. They’re not tracking you, you see, they’re tracking Freya. Or more precisely, they’re tracking the effect she has on the weather. Now that she has come into her full power, even if she learns to control it as best she can, she will always make slight, subconscious changes. Ones that they can use to track her. Of course, they have no interest in her. Not anymore. They know that they could never capture her and that killing her would incite a war that they are not yet prepared to fight. No, they are only using her to get to you.”

  Alex’s blood chilled, despite the warm night, as she realised what Alice was saying.

  She and Freya would have to split up.

  As long as the Enhanced were a threat, they wouldn’t be safe together.

  “I will tell Freya in the morning,” Alice continued, “but she will not see reason. She will not believe that leaving you will be the only option until it is too late. If you are resolute, however, she will agree to part ways.”

  Alex nodded, her mouth dry. Still, she managed to ask, “How long?”

  “Hmm?”

  “If we part ways, how long until we can see each other again?”

  Alice shrugged. “That depends on the choices you make. No time soon, in any case. Not without the Enhanced catching up to and killing you.”

  With that, Alice disappeared, leaving Alex completely alone as the reality of the situation hit her.

  She would have to say goodbye to Freya.

  A real goodbye.

  If it was anything else - a “maybe someday” - Alex knew herself well enough to know that she would become reckless. Guilt would grow the longer she was away from Freya if she asked her to wait, and that guilt would push her to make careless decisions.

  “Are you okay?” Alex heard from behind her.

  She turned around to see Freya, awake and giving her a curious look.

  Alex realised at that point that she was crying, silent tears flowing down her cheeks.

  She nodded, quickly wiping the tears away. “Yeah,” she said, before clearing her throat. “I guess thinking about the future is just a little emotional, you know?”

  She didn’t want to tell her what Alice had said. She couldn’t.

  Alice had said that Freya wouldn’t understand anyway. Alex decided to let her find out in the morning, hoping that it wouldn’t hurt as much in the dawn light.

  Freya nodded, seemingly taking Alex’s words at face value. “I know. I feel it too. But it’s okay.” Freya placed her hand over Alex’s. “As long as we have each other, it will be okay.”

  Alex’s hand stiffened under Freya’s touch.

  Would they ever touch again after dawn came?

  The thought was too much for Alex, and she grabbed Freya by her oversized t-shirt, pulling her in for a desperate kiss.

  Alex’s hands went to Freya’s waist, and she knew that her nails were digging in a little as she clung to her, afraid to let go.

  But Freya simply responded by returning her passion, and Alex pushed any thought of their impending separation from her mind, wanting to savour their last night together.

  ALEX AWOKE THE NEXT morning when she felt Freya stir beside her.

  Instead of waking to greet her, however, Alex kept her breathing steady, and her eyes closed, feigning sleep.

  She listened intently - her Enhanced hearing allowing her to perfectly keep track of Freya, even with her eyes closed - as Freya padded out of bed.

  As per usual, Freya made her way over to the kitchen and made herself a coffee. Freya was nothing if not a creature of habit.

  Whenever Alex brought it up, Freya would just smile and say, “That’s what you get for falling in love with an autistic girl.”

  Once Freya was done, she made her way out to the balcony, and Alex finally cracked open an eye to peer out.

  She sat up as soon as she saw that Freya wasn’t alone.

  Alex sighed, waiting as she watched Freya and Alice talk. Even with her hearing, she couldn’t tell exactly what was being said.

  She could see how upset Freya was, however, her hand going to tug her mother’s pendant.

  It was the only thing Freya had of her mother, and it was the thing she went to whenever she was upset.

  After a while, Alice disappeared, and Alex made her way over to the balcony

  “Was that Alice?” she asked as she headed outside.

  Freya spun around to face her. “Yeah, it was. You don’t seem surprised...”

  Alex gave a sheepish shrug. “She came to see me last night. She said that you’d never understand, but that I would after sleeping on it.”

  Freya curled into her coffee at that, seeking the warmth despite the warm morning air. Freya always had a thing for heat. Whenever she was upset, flames would come to warm her.

  “Do you want to split up?” Freya eventually asked.

  “I don’t want to die,” Alex replied simply.

  Freya nodded with a sigh. “I... I couldn’t live with myself if something happened to you because of me, but... I also don’t want to lose you.”

  “Yeah, tell me about it,” Alex said, her voice hollow. “It’s a high price to pay for my life. But I don’t think it’s one we can avoid.”

  Freya obviously tried to swallow the small sob that came at Alex’s words, but she did a poor job of it.

  “We’ll meet again,” Freya said, resolutely. “When it’s safe, we’ll see each other again. And then we can have our normal life.”

  Alex’s gaze dropped. “Freya, I... It might take decades before it’s safe again. I know myself well enough to know that I won’t last that long if I know that you’re out there waiting for me. If I feel like I’m taking too long to get back to you, that you are just waiting for me, I will get reckless. I’ll start taking bigger and bigger risks just in the hopes that I’ll see you again.

  “I need to know that you’re not waiting for me, Freya. That you’re gone. If things do become safe, and I do see you again, then great, but don’t tell me that you’ll wait for me. Not for that long. My resolve isn’t that strong.”

  Silent tears started to fall down Freya’s cheeks, and Alex felt her throat sting in sympathy.

  She willed her love to understand. She didn’t know that she had the resolve to tell her no again.

  Freya’s hand went to her mother’s pendant to tug at it again, but she paused for a moment, her gaze going down to the ring on her hand.

  The ring Alex had given her.

  After another moment, Freya’s hand went back to her pendant, pulling it from her neck before holding it out to Alex.

  “Here,” she said.

  “Freya...” Alex started, knowing that she couldn’t take it.

  Sure, the focusing rune on the pendant had become useless to Freya as soon as she had come into her full powers, but it was still the only thing of her mother’s she owned. To just give it to Alex...

  “It’s a promise,” Freya said, her tone firm and refusing argument. “A promise that we’ll see each other again, someday.”

  Alex started to protest anyway, but Freya cut her off.

  “I’m not saying that I’m going to wait arou
nd for you,” she clarified. “I know that we might not meet for another hundred years, and I’ll probably be a grandmother or something, but we will see each other again. I can’t say goodbye if it’s goodbye for good, Alex. I just can’t.”

  Alex nodded silently, shedding her own tears now. She brought the pendant over her head, bringing it to rest around her neck.

  Once it was resting over her top, she grabbed Freya, drawing her tight against herself.

  They just held each other for a while, both knowing that the second they let go, it was over...

  FREYA HEADED TO THE airport, and Alex wasn’t sure where Freya intended to go from there.

  They had fled England after Freya had come close to levelling the city centre of her hometown, and Alex was pretty certain that she couldn’t go back. But then, before they had gone on the run, it had been the only home Freya had ever known.

  Alex pushed those thoughts away as she got into the car that she and Freya had been sharing in their travels and headed east.

  That had always been the plan. Or at least, it had been the plan before she and Freya had parted ways. Anywhere they could get to with the car, that had been the limit on their travels. So, they had zigzagged across the continent.

  Eastern Europe had been their next destination, just because they had flipped a coin.

  As long as they kept moving, the actual destination didn’t matter.

  Except it mattered now. If she wanted to stop the Enhanced, Alex would have to do more than just wander aimlessly.

  Of course, she wouldn’t be able to face them alone. She didn’t have much in the way of allies, but there was at least one person she could call.

  She picked up a burner phone with an Internet connection and quickly set up a one-use email account.

  At a petrol station, while picking up fuel and snacks, she typed up a quick message, using a code that only she and one other person knew.

  When that person received her message, they would be able to decipher the code and get the coordinates of the bar she was heading to.

  She was going to need a drink...

  CHAPTER THREE

  Gus

  The message Gus had received from Alex was both a relief and a curse.

  While he knew that the Enhanced hadn’t caught up with her yet, he also knew that her girlfriend was more than capable of attracting her own trouble and he had done nothing but worry since they had last parted ways. Both for them and for himself if he was caught keeping information on them from the other Enhanced.

  The message had meant that Alex was alive, at least, and it meant an end to Gus remaining with the Enhanced, pretending that he had forsaken his sister as much as the others had. Pretending that he didn’t know where she was.

  That lie had been the hardest with their other batch-siblings. Gus had wanted to tell them the truth. To tell them that their superiors had betrayed Alex, not the other way around.

  But it had been too great of a risk. Too much of a burden to ask them to bear.

  And now they would think the same of him.

  He shook away the thought as he approached the address Alex had sent him. If Alex was calling him, that meant that she must be ready to start the fight against those who had betrayed her for real. That would mean she would need allies, including their other siblings.

  Gus entered the small drinking establishment and scanned the room for Alex.

  It took him a few moments to find her, slumped in a corner over a bottle of vodka

  Smart to stay hidden, he thought at first, but as he approached, he realised that Alex’s posture had little to do with intention.

  Even when he had first seen her after her monitor had betrayed her, he had never seen her so haunted.

  Finally, she looked up and smiled, though it barely touched her eyes.

  “Gus!” she cried, waving him over.

  He smiled at her greeting, though it was accompanied by a raised eyebrow. “Alex, it’s good to see you,” he said. “Though I can’t say I was expecting such an excited greeting.”

  Alex shrugged, her gaze dropping as she passed him a glass and poured him some of the vodka she’d been drinking. “It’s been a tough couple of days,” she admitted. “It’s good to finally see a friendly face.”

  Gus frowned. When she had called him, he had expected her to be determined and ready with a plan, but she couldn’t look more lost.

  And where was Freya? When he had last seen them, they couldn’t have been more joined at the hip.

  “What happened?” he asked. “The other Enhanced couldn’t have caught up with you, could they? I would have heard about it.”

  Alex sighed. “Then I suppose you haven’t heard about their new tracking capabilities?”

  Gus’s frown deepened, his stomach turning to ice as he realised that his fears had been justified. His superiors had been keeping him in the dark because they feared him working with Alex. Which he had been, but the fact that they suspected it so strongly meant that he wouldn’t have nearly as much accurate information as he would have liked...

  “What new tracking capabilities?” he asked, the lack of Freya suddenly feeling a lot more sinister.

  Gus and Freya had never exactly been friends, but Alex had loved her. And while Freya didn’t always make the best choices, it was clear that she always had Alex’s best interests at heart.

  So, while that damn giant wolf of hers still gave him nightmares, the last thing Gus wanted was for any harm to befall the Angel.

  “The one that they developed specifically to track Freya,” Alex explained, worrying Gus further. “We got a warning from her sibling – an Oracle – and we realised that we would have to part ways to stop the Enhanced from catching up to us.”

  Gus breathed a silent sigh of relief. If Freya had been hurt - or worse - he doubted he would have been able to pull Alex from her melancholy. Temporarily separated, however? He could work with that.

  “Wouldn’t you have been safer keeping Freya by your side?” he asked as he thought through Alex’s words. “I mean, last time I saw the two of you, she caused a huge storm just to electrocute a couple of people, and then a wolf the size of a horse showed up, seemingly super friendly with her. Couldn’t she just kill them all with one hand wave?”

  Alex shook her head, frowning into her glass. “It’s not that simple. Using her powers like that takes a lot out of her, and after the other Enhanced experimented on her... I don’t think we could rely on her to be level headed in a fight with them. Especially not since her sibling told me that if the Enhanced found us, Freya would get away, but I would have been killed. And then something about Freya’s wrath sparking a war that would last for at least a hundred years... I don’t know, I stopped really listening after the part about my death.”

  Gus just stared for a moment before saying, “Yeah, shit, I suppose parting ways was your best bet.”

  Alex nodded. “Like I said, I couldn’t trust Freya’s reaction in a fight with them, and we would need the element of surprise if we hoped to win. We will need to be smart in order to do this, and I have every intention of taking the fight to the Enhanced.”

  “And I will be right there with you,” Gus assured her, wanting her to know that she wasn’t alone, even if Freya was gone for now. “We’ll stop them.”

  Alex glared at her drink, the intensity of her gaze almost frightening. “I’m going to do more than stop them. I’m going to make sure that they can never hurt anyone else ever again. I’m going to obliterate them.”

  Gus gave her a sympathetic smile, a reassuring hand going to rest on her arm. “We’ll fix this,” he told her softly. “We’ll get you back to Freya soon.”

  Alex looked away, moving her hand out from under Gus’. “It won’t be that easy,” she said simply. “I know that, Gus. You don’t have to pretend. This isn’t going to be an easy or a short fight. If I want to put all of my efforts into doing this properly, if I want to be able to think in the long term, not just the short-term, I
can’t think of returning to Freya as a real possibility. If I want to survive this, I have to let her go. Completely.”

  Despite her words, Alex’s hand went to a pendant around her neck. Gus frowned as he recognised it.

  It had been the one Freya had worn.

  Before Gus could say anything about it, she continued, “Just give me everything. Everything you know, every rumour or scrap of intel you collected when you were back with the Enhanced. I need to know absolutely everything about the way they are operating now, and their plans, if I want to figure out how to beat them.”

  Gus paused for just a moment, wondering if he shouldn’t push her about her obvious grieving. Though, Alex had never been one for letting such things get in her way. He suspected asking would only cause her to snap at him, so he let it go.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Alex

  By the time Gus awoke the next morning, Alex had ironed out all of the details of her plan.

  “Did you sleep at all last night?” Gus asked groggily as he sat up, rubbing his eyes.

  Alex shrugged. “Sleep wasn’t going to get the plan finished.”

  Gus frowned. “No, but you know that it’s important to stay in good health. I mean, were you eating properly on the road?”

  Alex looked away, knowing full well that she couldn’t give him the answer he wanted in good faith.

  Freya hadn’t had the healthiest of eating habits, and Alex hadn’t exactly fought against the constant stream of fast food.

  Gus groaned. “You’re not going to be able to fight the other Enhanced if you don’t take care of yourself.”

  Alex rolled her eyes. Why did he have to be such a mother hen? “I’ll take care of myself when there’s time to. For now, just hear out my plan. I need another perspective.”

  “Okay, so what is your plan?”

  “That Enhanced base you told me they were looking for.”

  “Which one? They’re looking for all of them. All of the ones that were shielded to protect them from the timeline reversal, at least.”