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The skin the Omega wears sloughs off of one shoulder like an old leather sack, stretched and distorted, grey and yellow in all the places it isn’t brown. His suit is just as ragged and disintegrates as it begins fluttering to the ground. Something ismovingunderneath the skin and when the other shoulder falls free, I see what Freya did a moment previous.
Awomanslides one shoulder out of the skin suit and then the other. It pools around her waist and she blinks her eyes open and looks from Adam to me.
“Don’t you dare hurt him, Noon. He’s still your brother!” I roar.
She’s got long, medium brown hair and skin lighter brown than mine, but darker than Adam’s. She has the same proud chin Adam has, but otherwise, I can’t see anything similar about them. She stares at me. I claw forward, so close to him, separated by half a dozen feet. She wears a black tank top and black leggings and lunges towards Adam, who lies equidistant between us.
“No!” A vine shoots up out of the ground and latches onto her wrist. She looks at me, stunned, but a moment later the vine explodes open, tearing itself to pieces.
“Noon, come on! We need your help with Odette,” the Fate with the red hair like mine says. She’s the one who manipulates the earth. She’s my counterpart. And she’s too strong for me. Tears well in my eyes. I reach Adam’s body and drag myself across it. I cover him with my own self and lay my head on his chest and I look up at Noon from this position, Freya’s wrist lost to my grip as she has sense enough to fight her way free and pull back.
The pale Fate with black streaks in her hair appears at Noon’s shoulder. “You did excellently. Come. The Omegas aren’t to be touched. We will convert them later once we rid the world of the Berserkers who confuse them and threaten to undo everything we’ve worked for. Come, Noon.Come… Noon!”
But Noon is coming towards me. She has her hands outstretched — both of them, one aiming for Adam, the other for me.
“He still loves you,” I tell her.
She touches Adam a second time and when she touches my third eye, I’m already screaming.
Darkness.
35 | Echo
Paradise Hole
I wake to the sight of Freya’s face.She’s got blood streaming from her nose down her chin. The blood on her chest hasn’t clotted at all. The converging streams mix together between her breasts. She’s panting hard.
I breathe.
Sitting up, the world spins around and around. I can feel mud under my ass and the wind on my cheeks. The world feels lifeless compared to how it felt before, in the midst of the battle when I’d been surrounded by so much Omega energy. I can see how easy it would be to get addicted to that kind of power. I can see why the Fates made the choices they did.
And I know in my heart of hearts, I’m going to kill all of them for it.
“Adam!”
Freya rocks back onto her heels and tilts her face up towards the sky. She shakes her head. “He is too far from the shore.”
“He isn’t.” Heisn’t. I know he isn’t. “She didn’t kill him.”
“She did. She tried to kill you both. I don’t…I don’t understand…She is not a Fate and yet…she is more powerful than any I have encountered.” Her lower lip trembles. “Thanme. She is not meant to be. There are not meant to be Five Fates. We cannot defeat Five with Four, not when Death is on their side…”
“He’s her brother!”
I roll up onto my knees and even though I’m shaking like a hollowed out reed, I’m ready. I’m ready… Even if it kills me. He can’t die now. Not now. Not yet. “Don’t you see? The Mind Omega keeps her under her control. Sister or not, she is one ofthemnow.”
“No. I saw Noon in there, just like I saw her in there before.Shetried to warn me about the trap at the cave — about what would happen to Adam. I know it. She broke free. Something triggered her. She’s still in there beneath whatever compulsion they’ve got her under.”
I can see Freya’s thoughts ticking. I push closer to Adam then scramble so that I’m kneeling with my knees pressed up against him, on his other side. “He dies, we’ve lost. He’s the key to bringing Noon to our side. Weneedhim, Freya. This is what the man in the cave meant.” It isn’t. He meant more. Much more. He spoke of love. But to speak of love between Omega and Berserker will not sway Freya, now. I’ll have to sway her with talk of war. “We needhimto bring them down — to bring her down. We have to try together. There’s life here.” There has to be.
Freya nods only once and I slam my palm over hers the moment she touches his chest. I feel it — his life force, still in there. I can feel him fighting to cling to it. I can feel Freya’s energy working through him, trying to find that life and resurrect it. I can feel Noon in there, too, and I can’t decide if she only thought she killed him fully or, with her second touch, she also brought him back.
“Come on, you bastard. Come on,” I whisper.
I keep my eyes closed and I remember flowers. I remember growing them. “They’re all for you, don’t you know? I don’t even care about flowers, but I know you like them. I saw you getting all teary eyed the morning after we bonded.” I sniffle and laugh. “You’re just a big crying asshole.”
I bend low and press my ear to his chest. I pray for a heartbeat I don’t yet hear. I can feel the presence of Alphas coming near and wonder who of the Six it is, if they all survived their brush with the Fates. I pray that they did, but I’d still give all their lives for Adam’s because that’s how selfish love is.
“Fuck you, Berserker.” I sniffle harder and press harder with my ear and push harder with Freya’s hand. I can feel vines starting to form a lattice beneath us, creating a platform between us and the ground, and then grass pushes through all of it and then flowers form on top of that. “I made you peaches, Alphahole.”
