Bryce, page 6
part #2 of Anarock Shifters Series
Bryce surveyed the group. These must be McCain’s trusted lieutenants. These must be the Omega Battalion’s enforcers and decision-makers. At least now Bryce knew who to watch out for. That kid who gave them the food certainly wasn’t either one. He spoke about McCain’s orders in too submissive a tone for that.
Bryce slowed his pace. He strolled into the area as though getting called up by McCain was no big deal. “What’s going on?”
McCain waved toward Boris. “We’re going to make a few exploratory passes at this Anarock place of yours and we need your help.”
Alexa caught her breath. “What do you mean by exploratory passes? We’re nowhere near it.”
“That doesn’t affect us. We can do it from here.”
She pulled her head down between her shoulders. “What are you going to do?”
“We’re going to test them for doneness, you might say.” McCain signaled Boris again. “Open it.”
Boris concentrated on a point in space and his window opened. Bryce couldn’t see into it from here and he didn’t want to. He didn’t like the sound of this and he wanted no part of it, but he couldn’t exactly tell McCain that.
McCain raised his hand toward Alexa and flipped his fingers toward himself. “Come over here.”
She inched closer, but she didn’t draw too near. She leaned in to peer through the window.
“This is your war room. That’s your father, isn’t it?”
Alexa nodded, but her face blanched. Her cheeks slouched and her eyes stared. “What do you need him for?
McCain squared his shoulders and fixed his ghostly white eyes on her. “Kill him.”
“What!?” She rounded on him gasping. “I can’t do that!”
“Do it now or we’ll all know you’re disloyal to the Battalion. If you want us to believe you’re one of us, prove it now.” He turned up his nose at the window. “I don’t see your fearless leader anywhere or we’d target him, but this one will do just as well.” He turned on her again with cold, deadly intent. “Kill him.”
She gaped at him with her mouth open. “I…. I can’t. Besides, he’s miles away and you took my power.”
“You don’t need your dragon to do this. Just point at him and the power will manifest. It will shoot him down. Go on. Do it.”
Bryce stared at Alexa in horror. She couldn’t kill her own father, not even to prove her loyalty. Bryce braced himself. They might have to fight their way out right here and now and they wouldn’t be able to shift into dragons. They’d be fighting hand to hand against these powerful people.
Alexa’s eyes skipped around the group. Everyone watched her to see what she would do. Bryce couldn’t distinguish if any of them pitied her or sympathized or wanted to help her. They all kept their features blank and unyielding.
His heart bled gazing back into her stark staring eyes. For all he knew, he was the only person present who felt the slightest bit bad for what she had to do. Could she go through with it? Bryce didn’t think he’d be able to.
Now that he thought about it, he thanked God that Victor wasn’t in the war room. As much as Bryce hated his brother for everything that went wrong between them, he didn’t think he could kill Victor—not now. He wasn’t even sure he could have killed him in an open challenge for leadership of the Crest. The whole sordid affair seemed so blurry and unreal now.
Alexa peered into the window again. Her pupils dilated when she looked at her father.
“Who’s that?” McCain snapped.
Alexa’s lip trembled. “It’s…. it’s Malia Weaver. She’s…. she’s showing him something. She works for the…. Prometheus Crest. She must have gotten promoted to the war room.”
“Shoot,” McCain barked. “Shoot now. He’s distracted. Go on. Do it now.”
Alexa opened her mouth, but no sound came out. Bryce could just imagine Colonel Weeks bending over his table discussing something with sweet, smiling Malia Weaver. Alexa’s arm floated up and she pointed toward the window, but her hand shook so badly she couldn’t have hit the broadside of a barn.
McCain smacked his lips and cocked his forefinger at Bryce. “Come over here. You stand next to her. You can encourage her to do it. If you don’t do it, we’ll treat you both like the traitors you are. You won’t enjoy the honor of belonging to our glorious Battalion.”
In a daze, Bryce stumbled to Alexa’s side. She still pointed at the window without seeing anything. When he got to her side, he gazed through it at the picture he just imagined. Colonel Weeks leaned one burly arm against his table and traced his finger over some piece of paper while he talked to Malia.
“Do it.” McCain’s voice cut like a razor. “Do it now. I won’t say it again.”
Without thinking, Bryce slipped his arm around Alexa’s shoulders. He didn’t intend to encourage her to shoot her own father. He could never expect her to do that. He only wanted to let her know he was with her, that whatever happened, they would face the consequences together. If her refusal or inability to carry out McCain’s order meant they both died on this spot, so be it. Bryce could accept that as long as they faced it side by side like everything else.
Her whole body trembled. She almost shook herself out of his grasp, so he clutched her tighter. He braced her against his chest and held her up when her knees wobbled. A broken, choking sound came out of her throat and she groaned. Her teeth crunched grinding against each other. Could she really go through with this?
All at once, with no warning, she bellowed out loud and a jolt of power shot out of her fingertip. It crackled through the portal. At exactly that moment, Colonel Weeks stepped aside. The shot would have hit him square in the back of the head, but he dodged and the ray fired through the window into Malia’s face. Her head exploded in a spray of blood and brain. She ricocheted back and buckled to the floor.
Alexa screamed. Bryce reacted without thinking. He whipped her away and turned both their backs on the portal so they wouldn’t see anything else. Alexa howled and screamed and roared in agony. She convulsed in his arms. Her hands shot to her temples and she started clawing at her hair and eyes and skin. Bryce had to manhandle her arms down to protect her from herself.
McCain chortled under his breath. “Very good. Very good. That’s the spirit. Good job.”
Bryce didn’t wait to hear anymore. He staggered under Alexa’s weight and marched her back into the woods screaming and bellowing all the way. He didn’t try to quiet her. He got halfway back to camp before he stopped to deal with the fallout.
The instant he let go of her arms, her hands sailed up and she went back to attacking herself with her fingernails. He had to grapple with one hand around each of her wrists and fight against her strength to stop her.
Her eyes darted around the forest seeing nothing. Her face twisted in a mask of anguish and horror. Tears streaked down her cheeks and snot ran out of her nose. In the sickening shock of seeing what happened, Bryce’s addled brain registered that Alexa was still beautiful like this. In a way, she was more beautiful than ever in this paroxysm of grief and distress.
He pried her arms down and dove in. He wrapped himself around her and crushed her to him. His torso held her arms aside so she couldn’t lift them. She didn’t stop screaming and sobbing and roaring at everything and he didn’t try to stop her.
She railed and struggled to get away, but he refused to release her. If anyone could take this pain from her, he would do it. He would be the one she could hit and kick and punch and swear at. He wanted her to. He wanted her to do her worst to him if it would help her at all.
Once he got her boxed in, she unleashed the full might of her despair on him. She proved a lot stronger than he anticipated. Even that was good to him. She bent her head and nailed her forehead to his chest. She slammed her fists into his ribs, breaking with sobs and howling in rage.
He closed his eyes and held her. He strained his limbs containing her, but in his heart, he was glad. He was glad he was the one with her right now, that no one else in the world had to see her devastated and broken.
After a while, her struggles subsided. Her arms collapsed and she shrieked and yowled while she cried her eyes out. He gripped her behind the neck and pressed her into himself. He even let himself kiss the top of her head. If this was the closest he ever got to her, it was enough.
Before long, she settled into plain weeping and he knew she was going to be all right. He peeled himself off and hugged one arm around her shoulders again. He walked her back to camp to their tent.
He steered her inside without looking right or left. He didn’t want to see anyone from this fucked-up Battalion. He didn’t want to think about these freaks. If he had to guess, some or all or most of them probably had to go through a similar rite of proving their loyalty to the McCain.
Bryce didn’t want to get into a protracted debate with himself over which ones did and which ones didn’t. To him, they were all his enemy. He aligned himself with Alexa and no one else. He didn’t have to question her loyalty.
He sat her on her cot and sat down next to her. Her sobs died away until she sniffed and stared into space. He didn’t say anything. He just sat next to her. That was the best he could do for her now.
After a few minutes, her body spasmed all over. She curled her chin into her chest, covered her face with her hands, and burst into sobs again. This time, she cried silently. Those tears, those racking convulsions stabbed Bryce’s heart more than all her howling.
He got to his feet and turned her around. In the midst of her weeping, he rotated her sideways and laid her down. He gave her shoulder one touch and crossed the tent to his own bed. He got his blanket and returned to drape it over her. He tucked it around her legs and back. Then he got his fish and took a position on the ground next to her cot.
He munched his food with one hand. The other arm he rested on top of her shaking form. He cast a few fleeting glances at her tear-streaked face, but she always stared in front of her without noticing him. That was okay. Anything she did or needed was fine with him.
He gazed away at nothing, too. He didn’t need to do anything to comfort her besides just being here. He had more important things to think about.
He and Alexa were getting the fuck out of here one way or the other. If he hadn’t made up his mind of that before, now he knew it for certain. He couldn’t let himself and Alexa suffer at the hands of some cracked, penny-ante dictator who sprouted up out of the goddamned Quag. Bryce wouldn’t let himself or Alexa go one more day living in this bullshit Battalion and he’d be goddamned if he let them anywhere near Anarock.
He might have succumbed to the temptation to use the Omega Battalion to get his revenge on Victor. Now he had a clear picture of what they would do to the rest of the New Breed in Anarock, not to mention all the innocent humans living in New Orleans.
Bryce couldn’t let that happen. He would gladly have thrown himself in front of that shot to save Malia’s life. Killing Colonel Weeks was one thing, but not a sweet, innocent girl who never hurt a fly in her life. No way. No goddamned fucking way. Bryce wouldn’t stand for it.
Malia came to represent for him all the other New Breed in the whole cotton-picking state. They took refuge in Anarock because it was the only place on God’s green Earth they could enjoy a shred of safety in a world out to destroy them.
The New Breed of Anarock had enough to worry about with the military trying to wipe them out. Bryce wouldn’t let them fall to their own kind, not while he had anything to say about it.
The fish softened eventually if he sucked it and chewed it long enough. Once it did, it tasted pretty good. He ate both pieces and washed it down with water. That was as good a meal as he’d ever enjoyed hunting with his father.
More than once over the next few hours, Alexa quieted down to staring at nothing, only to break down crying again. She repeated this process a handful of times before she fell asleep.
Bryce stayed where he was. He rested his arm along her body. He maintained that point of contact through the blanket and let her cry herself out. Only when he assured himself that she was deeply, soundly asleep did he return to his own cot.
He didn’t fall asleep right away, though. He turned the problem over and over in his mind. He would like to get his hands on some kind of weapon, but barring that, he would find another way out of here. He didn’t know how yet, but he would do it.
7
Alexa woke up quiet the next morning. The scene from yesterday played out before her mind’s eye. She saw again the back of her father’s head. She relived the moment when she shot and killed Malia without meaning to, but Alexa couldn’t feel anything now.
That wasn’t right. She could feel the heartache and desperation and catastrophic pain of having killed someone she cared about. She felt everything she felt yesterday, but it wouldn’t make itself real.
It lived in her heart. It would never break the surface again. It ate a hole in her middle and bitterness stung her throat. She would rather kill her father than kill Malia like that. Her father lived a long life fighting to protect Anarock and all New Breed. If she shot him, he would fall doing the job he cared so much about.
Not Malia. Those words kept hammering in Alexa’s brain. Not Malia. Not her. Anyone but her.
It was too late now. Alexa killed her and she couldn’t take it back. She half-wished she’d let McCain kill her and Bryce rather than to shoot Malia.
One thought kept her going. She still had a chance to stop that bastard from killing or harming anyone else. She didn’t know how yet, but she would stop him if it was the last thing she ever did.
She needed to get word to Victor. She didn’t want to tell Bryce that, though. He would only fly off the handle the way he did last time, but she knew what she had to do. She had to warn someone in Anarock, someone loyal to the Prometheus Crest.
She prayed to God her father realized what happened yesterday. He was astute enough to figure out that Malia Weaver’s head didn’t just explode for no reason. Alexa prayed to whatever God might be watching this disaster that her father saw the shot come from a few feet away, from behind his back.
Maybe, just maybe, he realized it came from some interdimensional portal cooked up by a magic wielder he didn’t know about. Maybe he would even go so far as to puzzle out that the shot was aiming for him as some kind of act of war by Anarock’s enemies.
That was asking a lot, but she could still hope. In the meantime, she had a job to do on this end. She was stuck with this fucking piece of shit Battalion. That meant it was her duty to sabotage them from the inside.
She found herself staring across the tent at Bryce. He slept on his cot. His chest rose and fell in easy slumber. She remembered him holding her yesterday. His body comforted her. She sent up a silent prayer of gratitude to him, too, just for being there, for not trying to say anything to ease the pain.
She looked ahead to their day on the march. She had to find a way to get him off by himself. She had to sound him out about his intentions. If he still planned to use this opportunity to attack Victor, she didn’t want to hope he would change his mind. She wanted to turn her back on him for good and put him out of her head.
If, on the other hand, he did change his opinion, if he wanted to help her stop this bloodbath, they needed to come up with a plan and fast.
While she went around and around these thoughts, he stirred and opened his eyes. His head whipped around and he looked over at her. Their eyes met and a charge of understanding passed between them. Did he feel the same thing? Her stomach flipped praying he did.
He heaved a sigh and rotated up to a sitting position. He put his feet on the ground and scratched his shorn head. He surveyed the tent, but there wasn’t a lot to see.
He said nothing. He cleared his throat and stood up. He picked up their food package and went to the door. He peered out. Alexa could hear people moving around and talking outside. The usual noise of camp breaking drifted across the lake.
That was the signal. They had to face this day and make the best of it. She hauled herself up and she didn’t give herself a chance to sit around thinking about it. She braced her legs and got busy.
She folded her cot and trundled it outside. Bryce did the same. In a few minutes, they cleared out the tent just in time for the same young kid to come along and magic it out of existence.
The sun rose relentless and sweltering over the Quag. The Omega Battalion moved out in an exact repeat of yesterday, but in Alexa’s heart and mind and soul, nothing could ever be the same.
She observed the Omega Battalion with new eyes. Instead of being astounded by all the different oddities mingling and wandering in and out of her view, she studied them for the slightest sign of weakness. She made a more detailed effort to get to know each and every person. She wanted to understand their abilities and powers so she knew who might present the greatest threat when the time came.
She kept close to Bryce as always, but they didn’t speak at all today, not even to discuss stopping, starting, eating, or supplies. They didn’t even look at each other. His presence occupied more of her attention, though. She found herself more aware of him, of his body moving through space. Somehow, she didn’t really need to sound him out about his intentions. He told her yesterday with his actions.
The whole Battalion halted at noon. Bryce shaved off a slab of pemmican with a knife. In the middle of the operation, Alexa realized she’d never seen the weapon before. Where did he get it? She didn’t dare ask, but she made a mental note that it was there.
The Omega Battalion wouldn’t let the pair use their dragon shifter abilities, but these bizarre people didn’t seem all that concerned about Bryce and Alexa using any other thing to their advantage. Maybe one of them even gave him the knife to cut his food.
He held the pemmican out to her and she took it. She didn’t turn up her nose at it now. She still wasn’t particularly hungry, but she needed her strength and her senses working. He was right about that, so maybe he was thinking of escape and sabotage, too.
