Anarchy Found (SuperAlpha, #1)(79)

“Don’t hurt me,” I whimper, the pain still fresh in my mind.

“Daddy won’t hurt you, Omega Three. Daddy won’t, unless you fail. Do you understand?”

The womp, womp, womp of helicopter rotors keeps my reply inside. Lights flash into my glass cage and I sit up.

“They’re here, Omega Three. What will you do now?”

“Protect us,” I say, getting to my feet and putting myself in front of my father. “I will protect us.”

“Yes,” he hisses. “And when we’re done we go get your brother and mother and finally, I will have you all together. Kill them, Omega Three. You are indestructible. He killed your Alpha brother, Will. Lincoln sabotaged his bike in that race. Will, who took care of you all these years. Who helped bind you to me while you grew into my own sweet killing machine. Until I was ready to take you back and bring you to potential. Avenge Will, Omega Three. Kill the Alphas. Kill all the Alphas and do not stop until they have exhaled their last breath.”

I walk forward and take in the room with my new eyes. We are in the spire and the stars are shining overhead. It’s dark, and lovely, and calm, and beckoning.

A memory pulls at me. It’s a nagging ebb and flow of a memory and I want to go on and on about the stars.

But then it draws back, like a tide of bygones and regrets.





Chapter Fifty - Lincoln




Thomas looks at me as we approach the Blue Castle. He puts a hand on my shoulder as he speaks to me through his headset. “Don’t jump the gun, Lincoln.”

I look up him. He’s fingering the cord attached to his pack like he’s nervous and I realize he’s got doubts. Not about the plan—we have a solid plan—but about me.

“I know I haven’t been around, and I know you think I don’t care about her.”

Molly. He’s always been afraid of her. Afraid of what she represents and what she might become.

“But I do. And I want us all to come out on the other side together.”

If we do come out of this night alive, Thomas is the one who will take the most risk in the days to come and his continued survival depends on me. On whether I want to back him up, or throw him away like he did Molly back when we were kids.

“He made you that way, Thomas. He made you that way on purpose. Prodigy was nothing if not a tightly woven system of checks and balances. And I have hated you for the indifference he bred all these years.”

Case looks over his shoulder, hearing our conversation loud and clear on the headsets. Thomas does not move. Not even that twitchy finger on the cord.

“But we remade ourselves. And we’re going to save the girl, kill the bad guy, and tomorrow this whole f*cking city will know who’s in charge.” He waits for it. Because it could go either way. But Thomas and I have never wanted the same things. I have never wanted power over anything or anyone but me. So I say, “You, brother. You have always been in charge. We’re coming out together or we’re all dying alone tonight.”

He gives me one curt nod, and then he grabs the handle on the door and slides it open. The wind whips up against his hair and then he looks back one more time before jumping out of the ’copter.

“Time?” I call.

“Eighteen twenty-three and fifty seconds,” Sheila says. “Blue Corp outer security has been disabled and we have ten minutes to initiate.”

I get on my new and improved bike and start it up. The sound of the wind and the rotors blocks the engine noise out completely. I really hate to lose this bike.

“When you come home tonight, you’ll see the minions making you a new one, Lincoln.” Sheila coos it into the headset like a mother who wants to entice her child to obey the rules.

“Roger that, Sheils. See you on the other side.”

And then I give the bike full throttle and take off into the night sky.

I fall in slow motion for a few moments. My mind has not yet caught up to the fact that I just rode a motorcycle out of a helicopter, and so the velocity of my fall makes no sense.

But the spire of the Blue Castle is suddenly rushing up towards me and everything is going too fast.

I stand up on the pegs and bend my knees as the seven-hundred-pound bike crashes through the glass. The bike comes down hard, jolting me forward, catapulting me over the handlebars, and throwing me into the other side of the glass-walled building.

That’s the way to make an entrance.

I get to my feet and assess.

The Old Man is still seated in his luxurious leather chair like nothing happened. His hands are folded in his lap and one ankle is propped on the opposite knee like he hasn’t a care in the world.

“We’ve been waiting,” he says.

I look to my left and see Molly. She seems taller, stronger, and brimming with confidence. She strides forward like a cat stalking prey.

I’m her prey.

“Do you like her, Lincoln?”

I look at the Old Man, but only briefly, because Molly is slowly making her way towards me. She’s got a loop of something in her gloved hands, and her fingers dance along its metallic length. I know he’s done something to her. I knew it as soon as I confirmed the energy output of the Blue Castle had skyrocketed.

But what exactly that something might be, I have no clue.

“That’s a nice assortment of weapons on your person,” the Old Man says. “Too bad you can’t use them on us.”