Page 83 of Shared Omega

“That’s what I thought at first. But think about it Sloane. Somebody is obviously receiving the message. Somebody at SynerGen. And they are not happy about it. That’s why they want me dead.”

She sits down on the floor with a sigh. Little Eva has stopped feeding and drifted off into slumber.

“To be honest,” she says. “I’ve been expecting someone like you to come. I knew that SynerGen would be pissed about what I was doing, and I figured they would send someone to kill me. I just hoped that my message would get out to the public first, so it wouldn’t all be in vain.”

I slowly lower myself to the floor beside her. We just sit there as the silent moment stretches out into a minute.

At last I ask her a question.

“If you knew you were risking your life, why did you do it, Lily? Why did you keep sending those messages to the hive? I mean, you’ve got a new life here. You’ve got babies, a family.”

I try my best to keep my voice steady, to keep from betraying how much I envy those things.

Lily sighs again. She glances across the vast chamber to where her Alphas are sitting playing with her other two children. My three guys are talking with them too. I even notice that Kane is smiling and holding one of the little ones.

Shit, I think it may be the first time I’ve seen that guy actually smile.

“I know,” Lily explains. “All of those things are so important to me, Sloane. I can’t even put into words how much I love my children and my Alphas. I feel a bond with them that defies comprehension. But at the same time, the truth matters. The people who live outside the Zone deserve to know what happened here, and they deserve to know what horrible things SynerGen is planning to do to them. If I didn’t believe that, I wouldn’t be staying true to myself.”

She stares at me, her eyes moist with emotion.

“You must have suspected that SynerGen had sent me to kill you,” I say at last. “Or at least capture you and take you back to the city hive to be imprisoned. You could have just had your Alphas tear me to shreds as soon as you saw me in the cathedral.”

Lily just laughs quietly.

“Fuck that,” she says. “If wasn’t you, it would just be somebody else, Sloane. SynerGen is just going to keep sending assassins until they finally manage to shut me up. But I refuse to stop, and I refuse to live my life in fear. Whatever happens happens, but I’m not going to give up.”

She leans back and looks up at the Source, basking in the energy humming out of it, her little baby cradled in her arms.

I look at the cracked data slate again. The one that Lily has been trying to use to send her transmissions to the hive. Etched along the edge is the SynerGen logo.

“Lily,” I say, “I think I know why your transmissions haven’t been getting through.”

“You do?”

I nod and look one more time at my Alphas across the room.

“Yeah. And not just that. I think I have a plan for how we can change that.”

CHAPTER 25: SLOANE

The council chamber of the Alphas is an old theater.

I don’t mean a cinema. This was once an actual live venue, with a wide, wooden stage, an orchestra pit, and an upper level mezzanine in the back. Based on the ornate, arabesque architecture, I would say this place was already old at the time of the Cataclysm. I can imagine how it must have once looked, the box-seats along the walls filled with men in tuxedos and women in fancy gowns peering through opera glasses at the stage.

The years, however, have been unkind. Now the blood-colored stage curtains hang in moth-eaten tatters. The air is tinged with the smell of mildew, and the elaborate relief carvings along the walls and ceilings are streaked with dark grime and furred with green moss.

Dripping candles, hundreds upon hundreds of them positioned along the balconies and footlights of the stage, cast an eerie, flickering glow over the gathered Alphas who are murmuring to one another, filling the theater with the white-noise of their combined voices.

I’m seated in the front row, along with Dog and Truk. Lily is nearby with two of her Alphas, the ones named Hasker and Kadmon. Her third, Addom, is on the stage, along with the other dozen or so council leaders.

Up on the stage, Addom raises his arms high and calls out in a booming voice.

“Silence!”

Addom is the leader of the council of the Alphas. As Lily explained to me, he only ascended to this position a few months ago, but he fills the role as if he has been doing it his whole life.

As the leader of the Alphas, he wears no special garment or crown to designate his status, and he doesn’t need it. His sheer confidence and thunderous voice is enough to make it clear that he is in charge, and he will brook no dissention.