A warmth trickles a trail down my back, wetting the waistband and leg of my trousers, and pools in my boot. I huff in frustration. Knox made these trousers for me, and I hate how my blood is staining them.
A whiz passes my head and heat splatters over my cheek. Maddie grunts, and her grip on me weakens.
I gasp for air, and the pin-pricks of light in my eyes recede.
“Alpha bastard shot me in the shoulder,” she hisses in my ear, her voice clipped tight with pain. “You see how they shoot at us, risking your life? I told you Alphas couldn't be trusted. They don't care about saving your life. They just want control.”
She wheezes and coughs violently, splattering blood over my shoulder and down my top.
So many stains on my pretty uniform.
Fatigue is weighing me down, and I vaguely understand that I’m losing a lot of blood from the wound in my back.
A serenity settles over me.
I’m going to die.
I may heal fast, but I’m bleeding out faster.
"Don’t be dumb, Alpha. You're fast, but you're not faster than my trigger finger," Maddie shouts. “Toss the keys to the Omega.”
The gunshot in her shoulder is weakening her, and she clutches me with increasing difficulty. I’m shorter, and she has to crouch or lift me up to keep her head covered.
“Fuck it.” I feel the moment she resigns herself to her fate, her breath stutters out and she leans heavily against the truck. “This ain’t a bad way to go, is it, Omega? Better than starving to death, cold and alone. These fuckers are gonna remember not to underestimate a Beta, huh?”
This is it.
For both of us.
She’s given up hope of escaping, but I know she won’t let me go. She’ll take me with her to the very end.
Viper stalks through my fuzzy peripheral vision, his hulking muscles bunched as he fights against his Blood Lust.
If Viper can fight against himself, then so can I.
I will not go down without one last fight.
My Command might be sulking in the recesses of my mind, lazy and defiant to my wishes, but if it understood how close we are to dying, it would fight. It would come out swinging. Becauseeven in all its darkness and twisted hunger, it is still me. It wants to live as much as I do. It loves the Pack as fiercely as I do. And it will tear apart anything that stands in our way.
Here and now, at the razor’s edge of my existence, there is no time for the careful control I learned with the Pack. No time to play nice. If my Command will not rise on its own, I will drag it into the fight myself.
I’m not afraid of it anymore.
And if it swallows me whole, if it sinks its talons deep into my mind with no return, then so be it.
With the last of my strength, I reach inward and seize everything I have ever buried — fear, rage, bitterness, every foul thing I have felt. I welcome it. I wrap my hand around that darkness and wrench it upward.
My Command bursts free, kicking and screaming in its raw state.
It thrashes in my grasp, wild and volatile, as my exhausted mind struggles to reel it in. If I can just hold it, twist it into focus, I can end this entire nightmare with a single word.
One word, and Maddie will let me go.
I squeeze my eyes shut, forcing unshed tears to roll down my heated cheeks.
Come on, Halley. Focus.
You have it now. Hold it. Do not let it slip. Show it the danger. Let it feel the truth. It will stop resisting because it loves you. It wants us to live. To thrive. Aim it at the enemy. Let it fight with you, not against you.
