Chapter 101 : Celebration

THEO.

“Where is Ajax?” Maxine murmurs, her eyes half closed as I lay her down on one of the unused cots in the facility. “Where are we?”

“It’s an old unused facility where we will be safe,” I whisper, pushing her hair back on her face and kissing her forehead. “Ajax left, but he said he will be back soon. Then we can plan.”

“Okay,” she whispers, falling back asleep almost immediately.

It’s dark out now. I know I should sleep too, since we seem to be perfectly safe and hidden here. But every time I close my eyes, I just hear that soldier’s voice calling me Alpha Supreme.

That sucks all the drowsiness in me, leaving only perverse fear and repulsion.

I know that it’s not horrible to be related to him, and Ajax is proof of that. He has stayed strong and good… but I don’t know what it means for me. I would still be a bastard child, but that’s not even the bad part. I don’t know how the people I care about would react to that. Maxine especially.

I take a deep breath, lying next to her and stroking her hair. I start to relax just looking at her face, thinking about all the things we could do once this is over and we have the upper hand….

Slowly, I drift into the darkness, my exhaustion and long nights of no sleep finally catching up to me. I take a deep breath and just sink into it, allowing myself one moment of sleep.

But it all comes crashing down when I hear a knock on the door.

Strange, I think to myself at first. Why would anyone be knocking on the door of this old thing, when Ajax claims no one has used it ever since it was built? Am I imagining things? Am I finally asleep?

I’m about to ignore it when it happens again. Knock, knock, knock. Each one more insistent and urgent than the last. Is this Ajax? Maybe even Jonathan?

I don’t think it would be an enemy, since an enemy would not even bother to knock.

I open my eyes. The knock echoes in the room. Maxine is fast asleep. I’m not dreaming. I can see the shadows of a person from the gap under the door, slanting inside the room like a monster.

I get out of the cot, heading to the door and opening it in one go, ready to fight. But my chest just tightens when I see that it’s the soldier whose arm I broke. He’s alone and shaking, his arm in a cast. His face is covered in dust and tears and he looks very much afraid of me.

But still, he invites himself in and kneels right next to my feet.

“Please. Please, sir… I need your help.”

* * *

AJAX.

That’s a lie, I want to say. I want to yell at Father and snatch that glass right out of his hands. You’re lying. You’re making things up.

But I can’t move. I find that my body is frozen from head to toe. The only thing I can do is look at him and let his words sink in slowly. Everyone in the room is celebrating, throwing back champagne and almost spilling it everywhere, all except Beta Jackson who is frozen in his seat like a statue.

That makes two of us. Only two of us.

Father waves at everyone to make them quiet down a bit as he spills more of his bullshit. “It hasn’t been easy, let me tell you. We had to present to the Human government and lay out our plans in simple ways they can understand, because of course, we had to.”

He pauses for laughs, and he gets it. The bootlickers all chuckle like this is the funniest thing they have ever heard. I can’t believe all of them are this dumb, this gullible to not see the fact that this is all not true. The Humans don’t even have a government anymore, not anything that functions as it should, anyway. Father has taken over in a lot of ways. Almost in all ways. This unity thing is just a front, and it’s so, so clear.

I want to tell everyone about it now. I want to get up and say, “No. He just wants to take over not only the land but the entire world, and he’s going to do that by turning Humans into monsters that don’t even know who to attack.”

But I can’t do it. He would stop me right here and right now. He might even kill me, and I won’t get the chance to tell Theo and Maxine.

I keep my face neutral. I even take a glass of champagne just to appear celebratory, and I don’t think anyone notices how uncomfortable I am.

Beta Jackson is the only other person who seems uncomfortable. “How many are going to be participating, Alpha?”

My father turns to him absently. “We will be dividing this Herculean task into batches. We will work from our first volunteer states. The venom would now be in the form of a single-dose vaccine. To be administered once.”

“But the ones that attacked the courthouse—”

“Had nothing to do with my project,” Father says, his voice turning sharp. “Do you think I have done that? No. It must be sent to us by the Humans themselves, the rebels who wish to kill all of us.”

Lies. More lies. I don’t know why everyone is nodding. He must have fed them all this information bit by bit before and they’re only just hearing it again.

“Our bid for complete harmony is almost over,” Father continues. “We will all be one. No more division between Humans and Werewolves. No more sickness plaguing them. No more pain, no more suffering, no more poverty for them. And to prove that, we have invited a couple of… beautiful Human women to show us just how successful this is going to be.”

The married Alphas get excited. They all whistle, but my heart is in my throat and it almost jumps out when the door opens and twelve Human women enter the room.

They’re all about my age, maybe some younger. All pretty. All young. All college-age.

Just like the women that the soldier lured into our territory and tricked into becoming experiments.

These women are all smiling, though. But it doesn’t take long for me to see the dazed and hypnotized look in their eyes. They’re all drugged with moonstone, high out of their minds and not knowing a single thing they’re doing. They just sit on the laps of the Alphas. Only the Beta refuses the touches and the kisses. Even Father and Draco are enjoying. I don’t want to look.

I’m about to walk out, but that’s when one of the women catches my attention. Her face is familiar. I have seen her before.

And only when I look at her eyes do I realize where.

I saw her in Maxine’s records. I saw her in the pictures that were on her phone before it was wiped out.

Her best friend Livia.

One of the girls invited to be used and turned tonight.