Anarchy Found (38 page)

Eighteen thirty-two and forty-five seconds.

Molly comes after me next but I’m still recovering from the burns I inflicted on her. The Blue Boar jumps down from the table and walks over towards me for the final show.

Molly hovers over my prone body, each of her legs on either side of my hips. She points her weapon at me and then sits down, her ass on my thighs. The barrel of her gun moves closer and closer to the center of my forehead and then stops, pressing against my skin so hard it cuts.

“Collar him, Omega,” the Boar says off to my right. He’s practically gleeful. “Collar him and I will let him live as my slave.”

Molly brings up the length of metallic rope she has left and holds it over me. It writhes like a snake, like it’s alive and eager to make me its prisoner.

Eighteen thirty-three and four seconds
, Sheila says in my head.
Kill her now or you all die.

“Kill me,” I say instead. “Kill me, Molly.”

She grinds her teeth, gnashing them together as she jams the barrel of the gun against my forehead.

“Collar him,” Boar yells. “Collar him! I need him, Omega. I need him and you must—”

The magnetic field in my right hand begins to buzz.

“—take him alive!”

“Molly,” I whisper. She can’t possibly hear me. Not over all the noise of the Boar, the helicopter, and the moans from Case.

But she pauses, her blank eyes trained on mine.

She’s still in there. She’s still in that body somewhere and the relief I feel from that simple realization floods through my veins.

“I love you, Molly,” I whisper. “I love you.”

A wave of energy tingles through my fingertips and a pulse of power is pulled into my body through my palms. My mind clears with the realization of what has really happened to me. I’m still human, and my love for her proves it. I’m the fucking hero here. But not just any kind of hero. I’m a superhero.

The gun off to my right snaps into my palm and before the sickness can overtake me again my finger is on the trigger and I squeeze. The bullets scream out of the barrel and hit their target.

The Blue Boar’s skull shatters—

Eighteen thirty-three and sixteen seconds—

—his body falls.

I look Molly in the eyes as her trigger finger squeezes, pressing the gun against my head.

“You know how I know you won’t kill me, gun girl?” I croak out as loud as I can over the destruction happening around me.

Her grimace fails for a moment. Her chest rises and falls, and her breath quickens as her heart rate speeds up. But her trigger finger relaxes.

“Because number one, you’re too sweet and good to hurt people, Molly. Number two, you fell in love with me seventeen years ago when I made you mine. And number three, you’re the hero in this story, gun girl. Not me.”

She blinks. Then again.

Thomas, like the rest of us, is wearing a vest, so he’s picked himself up after being shot in the chest and walks over to Case, who is holding his bloody shoulder, his arm limp by his side. “We gotta go,” he says, pointing a gun at Molly’s head.

He’s always been immune, I realize. He’s always been immune to the inhibitor and he could’ve killed any of us at any time.

“Are you listing me, bike boy?” Molly yells over the
womp, womp, womp
of the ’copter hovering above. “Because I never pegged you for a lister.”

I smile at Thomas and wait for him to stop aiming at my Omega before I start laughing. I drag Molly down to my chest and kiss her head over and over and over.

Thomas attaches Case to one of the grappling hooks in the middle of the room and sends him flying up towards the ’copter.

Eighteen thirty-three and thirty-nine seconds.

He wraps the other hook around Molly and me and we go flying up as well.

I push Molly into the ’copter, then help Case. Thomas enters behind me. I grab his arm just as Sheila says,
Eighteen thirty-three and fifty seconds.

“Initiate,” I tell Sheila.

Blue Corp explodes. Every floor from twenty-one up starts to crumble.

Thomas looks at me and exhales a huge sigh of relief. His smile leaks out after that, and then all three of us are laughing. Molly looks around like we are crazy.

And we are, I guess. But it’s a super kind of crazy.

Thomas might be in charge. I’ll give him that. He might be rich and on the verge of taking over the world. And Case might be the one who has the tech to get us through the next stage in the plan. But they’re not SuperAlpha Lincoln. I’m the only asshole here with my own motherfucking artificial intelligence who can blow our corporate enemy as sky-high as the SkyEye satellites.

“Thanks,” Thomas mouths. If he actually says the words, they are not audible over the helicopter.

I flip him off and mouth, “You’re not welcome.”

I catch Case smiling out of the corner of my eye.

“Molly?” I ask, leaning into her ear and handing her a headset after putting my own on. “Are you OK?”

She looks up at me and shrugs, but doesn’t put it on. It’s an honest answer. So I give her the same thing back.

A smile. And then a squeeze. And then a kiss. We sit like that for a little while, holding each other. She’s shaking and her body is hot, like she’s got a fever. I’m wrapping her up in a blanket from the crash kit when another explosion erupts off in the east.

We only see it for a second because the ’copter eases back into the cover of the mountains.

“What the fuck was that?” I ask into the headset.

“Several explosions are being reported from the security guards at Cathedral City Asylum,” Sheila says.

I look at Thomas and he shakes his head. “Wasn’t me. I swear to God, it wasn’t me.”

“I think it was me.” We all turn to see Molly holding a headset up to her face. Her eyes are downcast and her shoulders are slumped. She forces herself to look me in the eye. “I guess I’m not the hero of this story after all.”

Chapter Fifty-One - Lincoln

Thomas hit his self-imposed Friday deadline. I admit, I’m surprised. Twelve hours ago we were racing away from the scene of a massive explosion at Blue Castle. The whole electrical grid went down, the town went black, the asylum exploded, and Channel Nine somehow got a hold of Chief O’Neil’s indiscretions over in the Merchant District. There have been no fewer than four news conferences this morning. Thomas is about to start number five.

It’s been a pretty fucked-up twelve hours.

Well, unless you’re us. Because it’s been pretty sweet for us.

I’m watching Thomas on TV, Molly still sleeping, her head resting on my chest as I play with her hair. She’s been changed, just like me. But we’re still not sure exactly how. Sheila has the bots running tests on her blood and DNA, but it will take time to figure it all out.

She’s slipping into a depression over it, I think. She is convinced that the Blue Boar made her blow up Atticus and her mother. Somehow, some way. She won’t listen to any other explanation. She blames herself for all of it.

It’s dumb, but it’s natural. And she will come out of it sooner or later once she gets some perspective. All she needs is time. “We’ll get all the answers, Molls,” I whisper into her. “We’ll solve all those leftover mysteries and you’ll be better than ever. I promise.”

She stirs slightly as Thomas begins to speak on the screen.

“Good morning, citizens of Cathedral City,” Thomas says, beginning his announcement. “We are all reeling together as the explosions at Blue Corp and the Cathedral City Asylum sink in. And some might say this is not the right time for such an announcement, but I say it is.”

Thomas’ expression hardens as he looks straight into the camera.

“I say today is the perfect day to announce that I have initiated a hostile takeover of Blue Corp. And the gross negligence you witnessed last night due to improper chemical storage will never threaten the safety and wellbeing of Cathedral City again. SkyEye will incorporate and take over all of Blue Corp’s many subsidiaries.”

His stare is like granite. He’s so focused on these words.

Who is he talking to?
I wonder. Not the city. Not me or Case, who is downstairs in the cave recovering from his shoulder injury after Sheila injected him with jellyfish goop. Not Molly. Not the Blue Boar—he’s dead. Blew that motherfucker’s skull to pieces, I did.

“By this time next week,” Thomas continues, “I will be a steward of the community in a way that Blue Corp never was. SkyEye,” he says, pointing up to the satellites that hold vigil above, “will take care of you.”

Atticus,
I think. Even though Molly thinks he’s dead, blown up in that explosion, I don’t think he is. Sheila reported a city-wide blackout at the time of Blue Corp’s explosion. That would’ve been twenty minutes before the asylum one happened.

Plenty of time for an Alpha like Atticus to get away.

So I think Thomas is talking to Atticus. A warning, maybe. A warning that says,
Don’t try it, brother. You had your chance and this one’s mine
.

Thomas still creeps me out. He’s probably gonna fuck Cathedral City up in a way Blue Corp never even dreamed of. He’s psychotic and emotionless and all that talk about satellites taking care of people should be sending chills up every spine within a hundred miles.

But fuck it. That’s what happens when people lose respect for good and evil.

Even the bad guys get to win sometimes.

Epilogue - Molly

Two Months Later

“Oh, my God. What the hell is that?”

“Don’t answer it,” I whisper to Lincoln. “It’s bad news.”

“Sheila!” he bellows from under the covers of our bed. We’ve been staying in his little house above the cave since the whole let’s-take-over-the-town debacle. Sheila has been unbearably snoopy and invasive as far as our private lives go. “The fucking doorbell!”

“I’m sorry, Lincoln,” Sheila says from his phone sitting on the nightstand. “It’s a delivery for you and Molly. And since I have no access to the house, you’re going to have to answer it yourself.”

“Bitch,” he mutters. “It’s Sunday! There are no deliveries on Sunday!”

The doorbell rings again, several times in succession.

“Just go tell them to take it back.” I have a moment of panic as I imagine what she might’ve sent this time. “Lincoln,” I say, sitting up and grabbing his bare shoulders. “Do not sign for it. For the love of God, do not sign.”

Lincoln grumbles as he swings his legs out of bed and rubs his face. He shoots me a look over his shoulder that says,
We’re fucked
, and then stands up and walks out of the bedroom.

“Molly,” Sheila says as soon as he’s out of earshot. “I detect a slight rise in your core temperature. I predict you will be ovulating within the next hour.”

“Oh, my God.” I hold the pillow over my head to try to drown her out.

“I’ve taken the liberty of uploading
What To Expect When You’re Expecting
to your eReader. We’re having a quiz on Friday.”

“Go away. I’m not getting pregnant. I’m going back to work tomorrow.” I am too. Chief was fired two months ago and I’m actually looking forward to it.