Page 96 of Anarchy Chained: Alpha Thomas

There’s a tingling in my head and I realize he’s in there. “Stop it.”

“I’m just trying to figure things out, Sadie. I’m sorry. The last thing I remember was the crash. Something happened. And then… blackness. How the fuck did we get here?”

“It’s a really long story.” I sigh. And I don’t want to relive it, actually. But I don’t say that last part out loud.

“Totally understand,” he says, reaching for me. He hugs me close and even though it should freak me out, it doesn’t. He’s inside me. For real. Not the same way Sullivan is. Sullivan’s in control of… the super parts of me. Whatever’s running the… software in there. Thomas has access to the emotional parts.

He soothes me. Just his touch soothes me. My climax is waning, and that should come with at least a little disappointment since Sullivan and I were just getting started. But it doesn’t. Thomas is fulfilling a need I have, something I can’t quite explain.

“Love,” he says, reading my mind.

“I thought you couldn’t read minds? Sullivan said you only grab memories when people die or something.”

“Well”—he sighs—“things changed, I guess. I got an upgrade.”

“Are you OK?” I ask. “And where does Sullivan go when you… take over?”

He hesitates for a few moments. Like he’s thinking really hard about this question.

“Thomas?” I ask again.

“I don’t know how I feel. Weird. But I can’t decide if it’s just because I’m not used to Sullivan being around, or if it’s because something else is going on.”

“What could be going on besides that?”

“You tell me. I’m sorta lost right now.”

I shift my body so we’re looking at each other. I study his face. Trying to finds signs of a stranger. But he’s the same. They are the same person.

“And Sullivan’s still here,” he says, tapping his head. “There’s… compartments in there, I guess. He’s retreated for now. It’s too confusing if we’re both active at the same time.”

“Has it always been this way?”

“No,” he says, shaking his head. “No. When we were small we came up with this deal, you know? Our power—the Prodigy power—it’s only useful to them when they can control both of us. So we make sure one of us is always submissive to the other. I came up with a drug to help us do that. It suppressed him for years. Decades, almost. But the… It started falling apart after Case—my friend, the other Alpha, you know?”

“I haven’t met him yet. But I think he’s here.”

“Right. Things started going sideways after Case shot me with that drug when we were taking down the Red Robber a few months ago. And when Case took that control away…” He shakes his head again. “I don’t know what happened. But things are very different now.”

“He said you tried to kill yourself. That’s why you were locked up in that hospital.”

“I wasn’t really gonna do it. I was just pissed off that day because he came out of his little dark hole. But it happened at work and everyone saw me. They called the police, put me on a seventy-two-hour hold at the hospital, and then… shit just got worse and worse. People kept dying in that goddamned place. I kept collecting those memories. It drove me insane, I think. It wasn’t Sullivan’s fault. Where’s he gonna go? I mean, really. He’s me. If the drug won’t work, where’s he gonna go? I should’ve realized that, but things were so… weird.”

“Do you feel more in control now?”

He offers up a small smile. “I’m in bed with you. And you’re naked.”

I smile with satisfaction. I can’t help it.

“So I’m gonna have to go with much better now.” He averts his eyes, studying something on the other side of the room. “But what do you think? About all this? You’re probably ready to run, right? It’s too weird.”

“I’m not running,” I say. “I’m still here. And I’m still naked.”

He chuckles this time. And I get a real grin out of him. “I feel so lost right now. God. What’s been happening?”

I try to sit up, but he holds me tighter. “Don’t leave.”

“I was just going to get one of your friends. Or the Sheila thing.”