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 fucking 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.”
“There is no us for you, Boar. There is only the we of Molly and Lincoln.”
“You mean Alpha and Omega. All things must end, Alpha Three. Even you.” He nods his head towards Molly. “Even her.”
“Yeah,” I say, nodding as I keep a wary eye on Molly. “There’s an end coming all right. But it won’t be me and her.”
“No?” he asks. “You can’t even fight back, Alpha Three. You can’t harm me, I’m your maker. And you can’t harm her, she’s your Omega. Isn’t inhibition sickness inconvenient?”
Eighteen twenty-five and forty seconds, Sheila says in my head. Keep him talking, Lincoln.
Molly is on me before I can even open my mouth. Her foot kicks me in the jaw and makes me spin, blood spattering out of my busted lip. I stagger to the side, but hold my balance.
“Lincoln Wade, meet your worst nightmare.”
“Molly,” I say, my hands up in the air. Her eyes are blank, like she doesn’t even see me. And nothing about her says she is the least bit afraid, even though she should be. I am just as dangerous to her as she is to me now. But the difference is, I will never—ever—hurt her again.
Shots are fired from the hole in the broken glass of the spire, hitting random things around the office. Molly looks up to see Case entering the same way I did, minus the bike. He’s got a thin metal line attached to him that ends inside the helicopter. He falls hard, and the ’copter weaves so close to the building, I have a moment of panic that Sheila might crash it.
Another kick from Molly snaps my attention back to the fight, but she catches me off guard this time and I go down to one knee.
Case is firing at the chair where the Blue Boar was just sitting. Pieces of tattered leather go flying, but his target is gone.
“Looking for me?” the Boar says, from atop a desk a few feet away.
His distraction works because Molly takes Case’s rifle and throws it across the room. Case has got a pistol out before the gun even lands and he shoots the ground near her feet. She doesn’t even flinch.
“Do not hit her, Case!” I yell.
“He can’t hit her, Alpha Three.” The Boar laughs. “Wishful thinking, but so protective. I made you a good Alpha, didn’t I?”
Molly’s attention returns to me even as Case continues to shoot the floor as she steps. He misses her by mere inches and even that is enough to make him sick. The bullets go wild but still she never even notices.
“Molly,” I say, putting my hands up as she comes towards me. “Molly, listen to me!”
Eighteen twenty-eight and fifty-five seconds, Sheila says in my head. Blue Corp inner security has been breached.
“Molly,” I say again. But she never slows. She never falters. She sees right through me like I am nothing to her. A fist comes crashing down on my jaw and Case sends a few more rounds off. One skims her arm. She stops for a moment, giving me a fraction to look at Case.
He’s doubled over, clutching his stomach as Molly sends that gold rope hurtling towards me. It wraps around my forearm, and she pulls.
Razor-sharp barbs penetrate the leather of my jacket, right through to my skin, scraping along the steel plate where my poison grenades are mounted. A barb digs into a canister and gas starts spewing out in an ugly red cloud.
A smoke screen, Lincoln, Sheila says in my head. Use it!
But I can’t use it. Pain floods my body. Pain like I have never felt before. The little barbs on Molly’s lariat are tipped with something. My vision goes blurry and I begin to lose consciousness.
“Take him alive, Omega!” Boar yells as he jumps down into the cloud of red smoke. “Take him alive and I will make him my slave!”
Case is shooting again, but his bullets are wild. Window glass shatters and the rotors of the helicopter become louder.
I reach for the gun from the port on my thigh, but Molly is there, kicking it from my grip. It goes sliding across the black tile floor and comes to rest a few feet away.
I push the pain down. Tuck it away. My whole arm is burning, but I’m used to the burning. The energy inside me builds and builds until I’m nothing but a living crescendo that ends in a climactic explosion of red heat from my palms. The light escapes in waves, split by the mesh cover, and blasts past Molly’s face. She squeezes her eyes shut and screams as she drops to her knees.
I roll over, instantaneously sick. So fucking sick. Bile churns in my stomach and I don’t know what is worse—the fact that I hurt Molly so badly or the inhibition consequences. “I’m sorry,” I whisper through the pain. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it, Molly. I swear.”
Eighteen thirty and three seconds, Sheila says in my head. Disable her, Lincoln! Or you will lose everything in three minutes!
Molly is still on the floor, her face a bright pink from the burn I caused. Her eyes are flashing, angry, and filled with hate. She holds her fists together and slams them down onto my chest, knocking the breath right out of me. But that pain is nothing compared to the writhing pain in my gut. I try to roll over to see her face, but she pounds me with her fists again.
“Get up, Lincoln!” Case yells from across the office. Bullets spray on either side of Molly’s body and she turns to him, the rage still there.
Cackling from the Blue Boar fills the room, even as he dances to the tune of the helicopter rotors through the cloud of red smoke.
Molly’s lithe body parts the mist of scarlet vapor, and I have just enough resolve to send a small arm-mounted rocket off in that general direction. Case is the one who goes flying and the inhibition sickness hits me again, reminding me that no one in this room is susceptible to my new powers.
Molly stops, and then the Blue Boar is dancing on a table. He’s got a swine mask on now, playing his part perfectly. “Collar him, Omega! Collar him now!”
The barbs from the lariat are still embedded into my skin when she pulls it. My flesh tears and more pain sends me right back to the place I was just climbing out of. Once the length is free, Molly snaps the rope, and it slaps against Case’s neck and—
Gunfire erupts. I force myself up onto my knees and see Thomas in the open office door. He shoots the lariat and snaps the tension before Molly can behead Case.
The Blue Boar is screaming. Case is screaming. Thomas is roaring insults and bullets. Glass is shattering everywhere I look. Falling down on me. Shards inches long embed into my legs, my chest, my arms—forcing me back down to the floor.
Eighteen thirty-two and ten seconds, Sheila says in my head. Get out of there, you’re out of time.
Three grappling hooks shoot into the office from the ’copter hovering above and land on the floor in the middle of the room.
I spy my gun a few feet away from my outstretched right hand, just waiting for me to pick it up. And then Case takes a bullet to his shoulder and goes down. It came from Molly’s gun and she moves on to Thomas. She shoots him too, his body spinning as his chest takes the brunt of the force.
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.”