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Dead Alphas surround us, their sightless eyes cloudy but not blind. They stare straight at us, unmoving except for the slightest shuffling of their feet as they step shoulder to shoulder, knocking clumsily into trees in order to get into position. One, two, ten, thirty, fifty, a hundred,hundreds. There are hundreds of them.
But my gaze stops on Freya, white hair whipping across her face as she stares the dead Alphas down. I think about the man, turning over every word he said, what he asked of me and of her, of us.
If Freya can work together with me, I wonder if I can also follow the man’s advice and turn away from hate. I inhale and as I scent Adam’s Berserker form on the breeze, I take the next fork in the road I’d been wandering and choose a different path.
I lift the ragged bouquet of flowers in my hand and sweep them around at the dead Alpha army like a sword. My mettle settles. I exhale, “Well, come on then.”
29 | Adam
Fuckin’ Paradise Hole
My chest is heavin’.Wound in my side is mostly healed and the stitches that hadn’t already dissolved were ripped out. “The bites,” Yaron heaves, shiftin’ slowly outta his dark grey Berserker form until the only grey patches on him are those at his temples.
He kneels naked a dozen feet away from me, separated from me by a deep fissure in the ground my Omega created, a scar on this already scarred earth. And now, a grave. Bodies of at least three dead Alphas lie buried there. Pieces of at least six other dead Alphas lie discarded around Yaron’s bare feet.
I nod. “They bite you with their freak Berserker fangs, you don’t heal.”
I was more careful not to get bit this time. Yaron wasn’t so lucky. His right arm is mangled beyond recognition and his lead medic, a Beta called Okayo, is workin’ on mendin’ it, his dark hands movin’ rapidly over Yaron’s bloodied flesh.
“Have you need of medical attention?” He doesn’t let his pain show in his voice and my respect for him swells like the waves of dead Alphas that have been charging us and charging us and charging… Until we permanently killed all of the undead.
Yeah, I’ve got need of medical fuckin’ attention, I think with a snort. Fought a zombie army and lived to speak of it. Can hardly put any weight on my left leg after two undead Alphas fell on top a’ me tryna avoid the tree that came down on top of them, but I ain’t worried about my injuries now. Ain’t worried about anything, except the one thing.
“How many they send after us?” I say, chest heaving.
“Two hundred, perhaps. Perhaps fewer than that.” He grunts as Okayo fits what looks like a metal torture device around his arm. He flinches, but otherwise doesn’t react as he looks up at me and says, “Though they did not appear to be after all of us.”
“They were after the Omegas.”
“No. They appeared to be afteryouand, to a lesser extent, me. Did you not see the Omegas? They were avoided — I’d dare sayspared —and were left open to attack the undead often and without retaliation. It was…unusual.”
I turn slowly and stagger up to my feet. I survey the battlefield, tracking the carnage to a stony outcrop where I ordered all my Alphas to concentrate their efforts — where I ordered them to surround Echo. He’s right. My Alphas had no problem gettin’ to her, but I couldn’t. The undead were after me makin’ it impossible for me to pass.
But as I fought my way to her it felt…it felt like the earth was spinnin’ around me most.Was she worried?Nah. She was probably tryna end me. Maybe, she just doesn’t have the skills to satisfy her bloodlust. Guess I’ll have to ask her myself. I leave Yaron behind and trudge forward across the graveyard.
The battle was just as brutal as the last and I know that we wouldn’t have survived without Yaron’s reinforcements. They showed up halfway through the melee and changed the tide, made it possible for us to overwhelm the undead that just wouldn’t fuckin’ die. Dark City alone wouldn’t have been able to hold them at bay, even with our Omega fightin’ on our side.
The witch a’ the woods put up a good show, her pack of white bears thirty strong and regeneratin’ constantly — five bears formin’ for each bear that got taken down. When they died, they died in a pile of feathers.Feathers. Was fuckin’ beautiful.
White feathers dancin’ through the air. Green vines dancin’ over the earth.
Moss formed over the rocks and flowers formed over the forest floor, trampled just as quickly, but again and again, they bloomed. As the earth tossed and pitched and dead Alphas were swallowed up — a couple live ones, too — and trees fell and water fell like needles from the sky, tearin’ through my skin like sandpaper, I could feelher. She was everywhere. And I felt made stronger by her, too.
I killed at least thirty dead Alpha fucks all on my own. Took down more ’n Yaron did. He catches up to me and comments on it. “Your fighting was…impressive.” He seems loath to admit it.
His gaze dances across the disrupted soil, past the living tryna separate the dead Alphas from the undead, though when I manage to get my wits about me, I’ll tell ‘em it doesn’t matter. All the bodies gotta burn.
“Yours, too.”
“Perhaps, but I am the more experienced Berserker. Your display was unexpected.”
“Why? Shouldn’t be.”
“What does that mean?”
“I wasn’t fightin’ to live. Was fightin’ for her.” I meet his gaze bluntly and speak just as bluntly. “Besides, I got practice. Fought these fucks before.”
He makes a disgusted sound — at which part of what I said, I’m not sure — but I ignore him and keep trudgin’ past the bodies, towards a sunken place filled with stones. My Omega kneels in a muddy patch amidst the rubble ringed by a mountain of corpses. Whiskey’s pushin’ ‘em aside already, orderin’ Sierra and Balcazar around like she was born to do it. All of ‘em are wounded and limpin’, black dead Alpha venom and their own red Alpha blood smeared across their faces like they’re warriors during an ancient battle rite.
