Alphas: Origins

That explained nothing. “That’s it?”

“That’s it. On this world, under this set of circumstances, the people among whom you lived are ile. We exist to make sure they survive. When we’re no longer needed, we’ll die out like many other subspecies before us.”

The more he explained things, the more confused she became. For now she had to just gather the crumbs of information and hope all would make sense sooner or later.

Lucas walked on, down the wide path of smooth stones. Karina scrambled to follow. They walked side by side along the path and over a bridge. The gardens burrowed into nooks in the buildings here and there, forming small sitting areas. To the left two women sat on a bench, discussing something. They looked so normal. Both wore jeans; the older of the pair had on a flowered top, white on blue; the younger woman wore a familiar yellow blouse—Karina had looked at it in J. C. Penney last week.

Last week. A lifetime ago.

The women saw Lucas. Their faces took on a certain tightness, as if they were straining to keep calm. They looked her over next. Karina met their gaze and saw pity in their eyes. Suddenly it made her furious. If Lucas grabbed her throat right now, they wouldn’t lift a finger to help her. They would just sit there and watch him choke her to death and feel sorry for her. She raised her chin and stared at Lucas’s back. No, thank you. She didn’t need anyone’s pity.

Henry’s words came back to her. Lucas is the most feared. “They’re afraid of you,” she said.

“I’m the security specialist here; I have the right of judgment,” he said. “I can kill anyone on base at any point without any retribution.”

“You protect them, and all you get in return is fear. Why do you keep doing this?”

Lucas kept walking. “Because everyone must have a purpose. The Mandate tells me what I am doing is right and must be done and because I’m the biggest and the strongest it’s my duty to put myself between my people and danger. I would do it for you.”

He would. She believed him. “Lucas . . .”

“Yes?”

She wanted to tell him that if he ever shielded her or Emily, she wouldn’t be afraid of him. She wanted to tell him that he didn’t have to put up with people shrinking away from him, but inside a cold rational voice warned her that she was losing her grip on reality. The plan had to be to escape. The plan couldn’t be to fall for Lucas and be that one sole person who comforted him.

He was looking at her.

“I’m really confused right now,” she told him. “So this actually doesn’t mean anything.”

He nodded. “Okay.”

“Bend your arm at the elbow.”

He did. Karina reached out. What am I doing? She put her hand on his forearm and raised her chin. The two women on the bench stared at them, openmouthed.

“Now we walk,” she murmured, avoiding looking at him.

“We can do that,” he agreed. They started down the walkway. His arm was rock-steady under her fingers. A few moments, and the dense greenery of rhododendron shrubs hid the women from their view.

“Why?” he asked.

Because she lost it, that’s why. “Would you hurt those two women?”

“Not unless they tried to hurt someone else first.”

“Then they’re in no danger and they know it, but they still make a big production out of you walking by, minding your own business.”

“That still doesn’t answer my question,” he said.

“Can we stop talking about this?”

He didn’t say anything. They simply kept walking. It was surreal, Karina reflected. Beautiful flowers, Emily and a tame bear-dog, and she and Lucas striding side by side.

“I’m tired,” Emily said.

Karina bent down and picked her up. The effort nearly made her lose her balance. Apparently she was weaker than she thought.

Cedric sniffed at her feet.

“Let her ride him,” Lucas offered.

“What?”

“Let her ride him. He doesn’t mind.”

“I want to ride!” Emily squirmed in her arms.

Karina surveyed the bear-dog. He was almost as big as a pony. Gingerly she lowered Emily on his back.

“Hold on to his fur,” Lucas said. Emily dug her fingers into Cedric’s brown mane and they were off again.

They emerged from the stand of rhododendrons. Lucas stepped aside, revealing a round plaza paved with dark red stone. A bronze statue rose in the center, a nude man, muscled with crisp precision. Enormous wings thrust from his shoulders. An angel, but not a garden cupid or some mournful cemetery statue. The angel leaned forward, one arm stretched out, his muscles knotted on his frame. The wings thrust up and out, featherless, as if made of sharp bone. The angel’s perfect face stared into the distance, its gaze focused. Everything about it communicated fury and power. This was a predatory being about to kill its victim. Metal letters beveled on the side of the statue read “A. Rodin.”

Karina glanced at Lucas. “A. Rodin? The sculptor who created The Thinker?”

Lucas shrugged. “He says so, but I wouldn’t put it past him to have the name slapped on there over the actual sculptor’s signature. He is vain enough.”

What? He who? She scrutinized the statue.

Oh, God.

The angel wore Arthur’s face. It had to be figurative—she hadn’t seen any wings on Arthur’s back when he offered her tea.

“But Rodin died in the beginning of the last century.”

Lucas circled the statue and kept walking.

“Lucas!”

He turned and looked at her over his shoulder, light eyes under black eyebrows like two chunks of ice. “Arthur is a Wither. Subspecies 21. They live a long time.”

“How long?”

“Long enough to have met Rodin. Come.”

She wanted to freak out. She wanted to scream and kick her feet in panic, because right here, in cold bronze, was the final proof that this was not a nightmare. Instead Karina waved Cedric ahead of her and they kept going deeper into the garden.

Lucas turned left, down a path leading to a section of the building structured with an almost Japanese flair. Except for the white roof, it could’ve been part of a teahouse. An older woman waited on the covered porch, a stack of clothes neatly folded next to her.

They were twenty feet away from the porch when the siren ripped the quiet into shreds.

Chapter 7

Karina pulled Emily off the bear-dog and into her arms.

“Stay close,” Lucas barked as he turned and ran back up the path. She followed him, trying not to stumble. They pounded over the bridge they’d crossed on the way in.

“What’s happening, Mommy?”

“I don’t know, baby. Hold on tight.”

Emily was so heavy. Karina never remembered her being that heavy. It was like all of the strength had somehow gone out of her arms.

They cleared the garden and burst into the open space between the two spires, Lucas ahead and she, out of breath, a few dozen yards behind. A group of people stood by the spires, where the road out of the settlement rolled down the hill. A familiar face looked at her with merciless sky eyes. Arthur. Daniel’s golden mane swung into view. He grinned at her, a deranged wild grin that had too much mirth. On the periphery a few yards away, Henry stood with his eyes closed, tense, his face raised to the sky. A young girl, barely a teenager, stood next to him in an identical pose. To the right an older, dark-skinned woman and another man, tall and gaunt, imitated them.

“Good of you to join us,” Arthur said.

Lucas walked up to stand next to him.

A huge sound came from the distance, deep, booming, as if someone was playing a foghorn like a trumpet.

The girl at Henry’s side inhaled sharply and dropped to her knees, breathing in ragged, painful gasps. Henry’s eyes snapped open. He thrust his hand out and clenched it into a fist. “Oh no, you don’t.”

A desperate scream of pure pain came from the distance.

Henry smiled. His face glowed with vicious joy, so shocking that Karina took a step back. He stared into the distance. “Not as fun to pick on someone your own size?”

The scream kept ringing higher and higher, pausing for the mere fraction of a second that it took the agonized being that was making it to gulp some air.

Behind Henry the fallen girl opened her eyes and rose to her feet. The older couple awakened from their trance.

Henry twisted his fist and jerked it, as if ripping something in half.

The scream died.

“Thank you,” the girl said.

“It’s all right. Next time remember to cloak.” Henry turned to Arthur. “They have two hundred civs, fifty pigs, two heavy field artillery batteries, six squads of twenty-five men each, and seven Mind Benders. Minus one.”

He’d killed an enemy Mind Bender, Karina realized. Kind, shy Henry crushed him, but not before he made him suffer.

“Too many,” someone muttered.

“It’s overkill,” Daniel said.

“There is at least one Demon, too,” Henry said.

Lucas laughed, a bitter, self-assured chuckle.

They had a Demon like Lucas. Lucas would fight it. She saw it in his face. She didn’t want him to die.

Something climbed over the crest of the distant hill, spilling onto the prairie. Karina squinted. What in the world . . .

Arthur’s face remained serene. “Begin immediate full base evacuation.”

A dark-haired woman on Karina’s left held out binoculars to her. “Here. Looks like I won’t need them.”

“Thank you.” Karina lowered Emily to the ground and took the binoculars. “Stay with me, baby.”

The woman turned and ran, back toward the garden. A moment later the alarm sounded again, but this time in two short bursts.

People peeled off from the group and headed back, deeper into the base. Now was her chance. If she could slip away and go through the gate, she could get away. Nobody would find her in the confusion . . .

“Lady Karina,” Arthur’s voice rang out.