Alive Like Us

by Quinn Hallows

  She wrenched the hatchet out of the corpse. The Alpha landed in front of her, shaking the very ground.

  She was massive, formidable, but Sanna spotted the dark line where her grandfather had briefly struck her down. She could be hurt. Stopped.

  Sanna charged, raising her axe. The Alpha’s eyes narrowed into slits. She bared her fangs, and then drooped like an abandoned puppet.

  What? Sanna wasted no time, she buried the hatchet into the Alpha’s neck. It wasn’t quite deep enough. She ripped the weapon free, and blood flowed like a river around the Alpha’s many spikes. The edges of the wound already started knitting together.

  She was running out of time. She raised the weapon again, to finish it. A child’s thin, furious scream echoed through the silence. Twig.

  The Alpha jerked awake and snatched Sanna by the neck with such force that her hatchet clattered to the ground. She kicked the air, seeking purchase but nothing could stop the tremendous pressure constricting her throat.

  No. She couldn’t die. Not yet.

  Sanna focused on the Alpha’s bare stomach and landed a solid kick. The Alpha faltered, her grip loosening. Sanna ripped free off its talons and fell to the ground. The Alpha sent her flying with a backhand. She landed on her side, blood filling her mouth. She spat and noticed the mangled body next to her, still clutching a burning torch. She grabbed it and swung. A wave of embers streaked across the sky, driving the Alpha further back.

  A trailer door swung open behind the Alpha.

  “Sanna! It’s the kid!” Kai shouted as he emerged from the depths, Twig tucked under his arm. Kai shoved him forward. “Do it. Call it off.”

  Metal flashed next to Kai. Sanna opened her mouth to shout a warning but it was too late. A heavyset female lunged out from the darkness, her gaze burning like a zealot’s as she plunged a blade into Kai’s side.

  “Cerise?” Kai slumped against the trailer wall, clutching the wound. Twig wriggled away with a feline hiss. The woman stood over him, the knife in her hand dripping with blood. His blood.

  “Death always follows you, doesn’t it? Well this time,” Cerise raised the knife high, “it’s going to catch up!”

  Twig leapt onto Cerise, nuzzling her throat. She screamed, trying to push him off. He jerked his head, and a chunk of flesh flew through the air. Cerise crumpled. He leapt off before her body hit the floor, a fountain of blood pumping from her neck.

  Twig grabbed Kai’s ashen face with his small, blood-soaked hands, half his face wrapped in a dark scarf. “Where’s Iris? Where’s the demon? Tell me or the girl is dead!”

  It’s him. He’s the voice. Sanna had known he was weird from the beginning, but she’d assumed it was a side effect of being an orphan in the Deadlands. She couldn’t have been more wrong. She dodged the Alpha’s lunge and sprinted towards Kai, determined to save him.

  The Alpha’s claws dug into her back. Sanna screamed and twisted around, driving the burning torch into the Alpha’s stomach.

  Your boyfriend’s almost dead. Twig’s singsong voice echoed in her mind. And soon you’ll just be another one of my soldiers.

  The Alpha’s glowing eyes slitted, she stepped forward, further searing her own flesh. Her bony hand wrapped around the wooden handle and squeezed. The wood splintered. Sanna fell forward, caught off balance. In a blur of movement, the Alpha grabbed hold of her right arm.

  And bit down.

  White-hot pain raced up her arm as the Alpha’s razor teeth worked deeper into her the flesh. Sanna ripped her arm away and stumbled back, her body numb with horror.

  Bitten. I’ve been...bitten. Time slowed as she sprawled onto the snow, her body leaden, her mangled arm cradled to her chest. Blood seeped from the grisly mess of muscle and tissue, and her bone shown dully in the moonlight. The infection was working up her arm darkening her veins along the way.

  Hot tears dripped from her eyes, leaving a burning path down her frozen cheeks. She felt the life seep out of her, like heat escaping out of an opened window, leaving only barren coldness within.

  She would not die. Not here. She would not become the very thing she hated.

  Her vision dimmed.

  Kai shouted, his voice a distant echo. Sanna tilted her head up and saw him jump onto the Alpha’s back. He stabbed her with a dagger. The Alpha screeched, throwing him off. Kai landed a few feet away from her. Sanna waited from him to get up. To move.

  He didn’t.

  The Alpha’s bloodied gaze locked with her own, her blood-soaked mouth curled into a toothy semblance of a smile.

  Twig’s horrible, sickly laugh reverberated through her thoughts.

  Kai. She had to save him. Even if it was the last thing she did as a human.

  She opened her eyes and gasped. Icy air filled her lungs. The night sky stretched above her and stars—thousands of them—glittered like broken glass. She rolled over to her side and coughed, spitting black blood. The world around her dimmed, then glowed with saturated colors.

  She braced her good hand on the snow and rose to her knees. Her bitten hung useless from her shoulder socket, paralyzed by the infection. Kai’s crumpled form was nearby, though and the Alpha crept towards him.

  Sanna gritted her teeth, crying out from the effort it took to stand. The space between her and Kai seemed to stretch into infinity as she followed the Alpha. A crackling nose filled her ears. Black clouds threatened her vision. She struggled to move faster, even as her body felt like it was being turned into stone.

  Images of Kai flooded Sanna’s mind like photographs scattered across the floor. His serious expression, the way he carried his shoulders as if the world was on them. The soft warmth of his lips.

  She would not let the Alpha take him too.

  A flame flickered inside her and roared to life. Heat poured down her limbs like molten metal, transforming her into a creature not of this world, but a dark, primordial place. Power surged through her, hot and bright as lighting. The forest melted away along with every part of her that was human as she tackled the Alpha, driving the creature into the nearest trailer with such incredible force that it rocked on its foundation and came crashing down upon them, knocking Sanna into another time and place.

  RAIN PUMMELED THE ROOF in a never-ending onslaught. Some managed to seep through the holes Cate hadn’t had time to fix, thanks to Sanna’s early birth, and dripped into the motley assortment of buckets, pots and cups scattered across the dirt floor of the cabin. Cate feared that much like the rain through the roof, their enemies would find the tiniest weakness in Adam’s defenses. If that happened, if they got through him, death was almost certain.

  Adam had gone out in search of them, hoping to draw them away from this hidden place. Since then, every hour had passed slower than the one before, and Cate’s stomach turned itself into knot after knot.

  “We should leave. The Omega already knows we’re here, so what’s the point in staying?” Cate whispered to the strange woman sitting at the table. Iris was Adam’s devoted servant, whose every waking moment centered around him with the same constancy as the earth revolved around the sun.

  “He asked us to,” Iris said, her expression vacant. She could go days without moving or making a single sound.

  And that was enough. If he told Iris to drink poison, or set herself on fire, or carve out her own heart, that would be enough, too. Though none of those things would actually kill her.

  Cate was not a servant, so she did not have the same clarity of mind. “The fight must be over, right? I still can’t believe they found us so quickly.”

  No answer.

  Something’s wrong. Terribly wrong. The metallic scent of ozone, mingled with the smoky remnants of the fire Iris had extinguished hours earlier, became suffocating. Cate stepped around the many bowls and buckets, and crept to the window, hoping for a glimpse of something. Anything.

  “Stop!” Iris hissed. “They could be watching.”

  Cate pressed her spine into the wall and lifted the curtain’s edge. Rain
pelted the glass, obscuring her vision, but she could make out the emerald angles of the pine trees and the carpet of tall grass between them and the forest. A bolt of lightning crackled across the sky, flooding the meadow with stark light. There was no sign of Adam anywhere.

  The baby in her arms sneezed, her tiny fists jabbing the air. She looked down at the little moon of a face and saw so much of Adam she couldn’t help but smile. “Shhh, Sanna, it’s okay.” She held the infant to her shoulder, breathing in her familiar scent. “Everything will be okay.”

  Iris shot out from the darkness. “Get away from there!”

  The window shattered. Cate instinctively tucked herself around the baby as shards of glass rained down. A ghost-gray hand reached through the jagged opening. Dark blood dripped from its fingers.

  Adam’s blood.

  Iris grabbed her arm, pulling her away with surprising force. A creature unlike any Cate had ever seen slid through the opening. It had long, ropy arms that ended in fleshy pinchers and a face caught between man and insect. Its eyes, however, were devastatingly human.

  “Run! We have to run!” Iris dragged her to the rear exit.

  “What is that thing?”

  “It’s a hybrid—two creatures stitched together using the virus,” Iris glanced over her shoulder. “They’re getting better at it.”

  They ran to the woods, the rain soaking through their clothes as the thick mud sucked at their shoes. The baby’s cries grew louder and more insistent. Iris dragged her deeper into the forest, not looking back, not slowing down. Branches snapped behind them as the monster followed in pursuit.

  “Adam’s dead, isn’t he? I thought Omegas couldn’t die.” Her strength was waning. Iris might be able to go on forever, but she was human.

  “We can’t talk now,” Iris said, her voice as flat and emotionless as always. “We have to hurry. It’ll kill us all if it catches us.”

  Cate dug her heels into the soft earth and thrust the baby into Iris’s arms. “Take her.”

  Iris recoiled, her lips curling in disgust. “I don’t want it.”

  “Please,” she begged. “You can outrun them. It’s what Adam would’ve wanted. Take her to my mother—she lives in New Hope. Her name is Viola Blackwood.”

  “If he really is dead,” Iris said as she awkwardly accepted the bundle. “It’s because of the human things you’ve given him.”

  Cate headed west, her arms empty and her heart breaking. She was determined to distract the monster at least for a moment. Long enough for Iris to put distance between Sanna and this awful place.

  Adam stumbled into view, his white hair plastered to his pale face and his tall, lean body hunched over. Blood, dark as ink, spread across his shirt front. Still, her heart sung as she called out. “Adam!”

  He stared at her, pain etching deep lines into his angelic face. “Where is it?”

  “She’s with Iris. Here,” Cate took his arm, supporting him. “Let me help you.”

  “I’m not healing as fast,” he said, bitterly. “I think I’m becoming human.” He showed her his palm, where red laced the otherwise black blood. “You should go—”

  “No, we’ll get out of this together.”

  “We’ll die together.” He attempted to extricate himself from her embrace, but Cate held strong. “It needs one of us to live, right? Iris will eat it if you leave her alone for too long.”

  “I don’t think she will. She loves you, even if she doesn’t realize it. She’d never do anything to hurt you. We’ll hide in the falls, like we planned.”

  They hurried onward, as fast as Adam’s wound would allow. The rain pelted them, fat drops smacking against their skin and faces. Trees thinned, giving way to the rocky bank of the river, swollen and raging from the spring downpour. The roar of the falls was deafening as the water surged over the edge and crashed onto the rocks below.

  “This way,” Cate headed for the falls. Once they slipped behind it, the rushing water would drown out their scent. Then she could tend to the grisly wound in Adam’s side. Had he been human, he would have already succumbed to it.

  A gray blur shot out from the tree line and suddenly a wolf-hybrid was blocking their path. Human skin stretched over its elongated snout, dotted with tuffs of gray fur. It’s twisted, malformed jaws were caught in a perpetual snarl. A mane of gray hair covered his head and back, but dark human skin remained on his neck and wide, muscular chest. His elongated hands, a mix of human and canine, reached past his knees, which were bent at an agonizing angle.

  “Stay back.” Adam stepped in front of Cate.

  A silvery laugh tittered behind them, reminding Cate of poisoned candy. She whirled around and found a tall, narrow woman standing near a large boulder. Her face was plain, with hard, small eyes the color of granite and a needle-sharp nose. Her lips were chalky white and spread into a menacing grin with teeth that had been filed into points. A shadowy network of capillaries and veins was barely hidden beneath her smooth, sallow skin. “What is this? Are you,” her dead gaze shifted from Cate to Adam, “protecting a human?”

  “What do you want?” Adam shifted his stance to keep an eye on them both.

  The woman’s dark brows furrowed. “You left...in search of answers, yes? Tell me, did this human give them to you?”

  “She is not important,” Adam ground out, gripping the wound at his side. “Why are you here?”

  “We need you. The humans are proving more difficult than we thought. I told the others I would bring you back myself after the hybrids I sent never returned.”

  “I can’t,” Adam said. “I won’t live that long.”

  “Don’t be so dramatic,” the woman waved off his concern. “Eat that human and you’ll be fine. Though, come to think of it, your smell has changed. I almost thought there were two of you. Wait...” her gaze shifted to Cate’s belly. “Are there two of you?”

  Adam tensed beside her. “Run.”

  He tackled the wolf hybrid as Cate sprinted downstream.

  The drop was steep. Too steep. She leapt from one bank to another, desperation clawing at her throat. As she flew through the air, a figure appeared below, a blend between an elk and human. He impaled her as she landed, then shook her off with a mighty thrash of its head.

  Cate crumpled. Her body went cold as wet warmth spread across her belly and thighs. She wasn’t going to make it, no matter how much she willed the bleeding to stop. The wound was far too serious.

  Her mother had been right—she never looked before she leaped.

  Adam appeared above her, half his face glistening with blood too dark to be human. He studied the wound on her abdomen. His jaw tensed. “Your medicine cannot fix this.”

  “You’re right.” Cate choked on a sob. “It can’t. Go. Now. One of us has to live, remember? One of us has to keep our child safe.”

  “They will keep coming. They will send their hybrids after me, and when I don’t return, they will follow. I cannot stay here.”

  “Then take her with you.”

  “She will be seen as a threat to the whole, and she will be exterminated.” Adam frowned, the muscle in his jaw ticking. “If I change you, you will be drawn to her scent since it is similar to mine. It is risky, though. If she remains human, you might kill her.”

  “She’ll take after you. I’m sure of it. Have you heard her cry? She has the lungs of an Omega already.”

  His lips quirked a brittle half-smile. He seemed so calm. Detached. As if the man she’d loved had slipped away and the strange, emotionless creature she’d met two years ago had returned. His gaze locked with hers.

  “Listen to me, Cate Larson. One day you’ll wake up. I’ll wait for you, understand? For as long as it takes. This is not the end of us. I swear.”

  His lips brushed her neck, so soft and tender she barely felt his fangs pierce her skin, or the fiery burn of the virus as it pumped through her body and sealed her torn flesh.

  CHAPTER FORTY

  Sanna woke with a gasp, shaking off
the vision that swamped her. She was back in the present. A massive iron wall crushed her into icy mud, its rusty rivets inches nearly brushing her nose. Cerise’s trailer must have fallen on me. A boulder near her leg had kept it from smashing her like a bug.

  “Sanna!” Kai’s shouted. Footsteps smacked through the mud. She shifted, looking towards the sliver of light where his boots appeared. Sanna tried to wiggle towards them but weight bore down, pinning her.

  “I’m here. I’m stuck.” Her throat felt like it was stuffed with nails.

  Kai peered under the trailer. His eyes widened when he saw something over Sanna’s shoulder. “I’ll get you out. Hold on.”

  He disappeared, his footsteps fading.

  A low growl came from Sanna’s other side. She couldn’t turn her head to see what it was. She didn’t need too. The Alpha had awoken.

  Sanna’s pulse raced. If Kai got her out, he’d let the Alpha out as well.

  A wooden plank jammed underneath the trailer. The pressure eased off Sanna as the tiny crack of moonlight widened. She crawled towards it. The Alpha snarled. She didn’t stop. Kai reached in and grabbed her unwounded arm as she neared, pulling her out into the night with an agonized cry. The air was cool on her skin and as she turned around, she caught a glimpse of the Alpha wedging her bony feet against the trailer.

  Sanna rose and stumbled, her feet numb. Kai caught her, his arms looping under her shoulders, and her strength poured out of her like water from a broken vessel. Her breath was shallow and rapid, as if she were sucking through a reed, and her lungs burned for air. All around her were the bodies of the dead, some in the throes of infection while others remained corpses.

  I might be joining them soon. She tasted metal in her mouth. A thousand invisible needles pricked her body, stemming from the bite in her arm.

  The trailer groaned, tipping upward, slowly at first, then rocking to its other side with a thunderous boom. The Alpha rose, her lean, muscular body silvery in the moonlight. One arm was broken, and her wing was crushed. She hobbled, slowly at first, but then the shadowy veins pulsed beneath her skin and the wet sound of mending tissue and bone filled the air. As she drew closer, Sanna noticed the small ring of scars on her neck. Teeth marks.