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“What?”
“His name. What was it?”
“I don’t know.” She looks at me incredulously, as if that question is utterly absurd.
Rage claws at the backs of my eyes and I growl, forcing myself up to my feet. “He risked so much for this. For us. It doesn’t make me a monster to want to call him something.”
“He risked much for nothing. He died and said nothing of what he promised.”
I unfurl to my full height as needles shoot my spine through with awareness. “He spoke to me in my mind…”He said to run.“We need to get out of here now. The Fates set a trap for us.”
“What?” she shouts, voice echoing. Rocks plunk down from the roof of the cave and land in explosions or splashes. I look towards the entrance, wanting to get to it something fierce. “Why would he speak to you? You’reweak. You are nothing compared to your Fated counterpart. I am strong — much stronger than mine. I can actually kill the Beast Fate and stop the horrible way she’s ruining my forest!”
“I…” I ignore the bit about her calling me weak. I can’t refute it. After having seen her these past days, I know what a powerful Omega — a Fate, or a Fallen — can be capable of. I’m nothing like that…but I have something else. “We have to go.”
“No. I want to know what else he told you.”
“It doesn’t matter.”Because I can’t…I can’t forgive Adam. Just like I can’t kill a Fate. Just like Freya can’t form alliances with weak Omegas like me.“We’re doomed.”
“We are…” she starts to yell, then abruptly stops. Her face angles towards the exit and her eyes change shape no less than a dozen times. Suddenly, her mouth opens and she releases a loud bird-like shriek. She vanishes in a flurry of feathers and, when I hear the beating of wings a moment later, I know that she’s left me.
Sparing one last glance at the pile where the man once lived and died and idled somewhere in between, I offer him a world of gratitude, then start after her. My legs burn with the effort of trying to find my way up and down and around the edge of the cave in the dark. I know my shins are going to be bruised to shit when all this is through but, as I near the entrance of the cave and start to discern the heavy sounds of bodies moving up above, I begin to suspect that bruises will be the least of my worries.
I’m surprised to find Freya waiting for me at the mouth of the cave in her human form, perched atop a boulder my shoulder height. “It is a trap.”
“I know. But it was worth it.”
She glares down at me, her body twisted into a position I know I’d never be able to get into or out of. “We are surrounded.”
“Who did they send to kill us?”
“Mirage City Berserker sent dead Alphas to kill us.”
I shake my head. “There is no Mirage City Berserker,” I repeat, though I have no idea what the man meant. I met Berserker Maengor myself and yet…I believe him.
“What did he tell you?”
“That we need to work together.”
She waits, then spits, “There is more. I want to know.”
“I’ll tell you if you help me kill them.”
She scoffs loudly. “Is this blackmail?”
I shrug.
She scoffs again. “I will kill dead Alphas because I enjoy to kill dead Alphas. You, I will protect for your answers. Your Berserker I will kill if I get the chance.”
My heart lurches. My pulse picks up. “My Berserker?”
“He is here. I can scent him on the wind.”
My heart. Oh my heart… “He’s probably here to punish me,” I whisper. “Don’t kill him, though. He’s mine.”
Freya snorts, seemingly satisfied with that answer. I know she interpreted it to mean that his life is mine, that I plan to kill him, but I’m not sure that’s what I meant… She jumps off of the boulder and lands lithely on her feet. “Come, Fallen Omega of the Earth, let us kill the dead.”
We emerge onto the rocky clearing just as the cave begins to collapse behind us in earnest. We stand together in a depression. Our enemies have the highground advantage. I take them in, strangely unafraid. The pinching of nerves at the base of my spine, the pounding of my pulse, the perspiration on the back of my neck — that’s all for Adam. Freya’s right. I can smell his Berserker beast on the wings of the wind even stronger than the scent of corpses.
