Fated to the Alpha

8

Brandon

I felt my legs going weak as she told me what she had seen. I sat down on her bed, listening to each word seriously. I didn’t blame Alice anymore. If I’d had a vision like that, maybe I would have behaved the same way.

“And these men, they were wearing uniforms?” I asked.

“Yes, like they were soldiers or something,” she said.

There was no way she was making things up at this point. The Department of Preternatural Control had been picking us off one by one for some time now. Their mission was to purge the country of all sorts of preternatural life. Including werewolves. Including my family.

“Alice, I know you’re traumatized from what happened, but I need you to come with me. There’s an explanation for your visions. I just need you to come with me to my elders. Will you do that?”

Alice’s skepticism softened, her face giving away what she was thinking. It wasn’t cold or stern any longer. It was warm, concerned.

“I just told you that I saw you die. How are you taking it this well?”

“When you are born into a world full of magic and mysteries, when you grow up knowing that there’s a whole new world out there, a world with werewolves and faeries and elves and such, few things faze you. I’m shook. I wish you had told me earlier. But still, I’ve had worse,” I said. “Now, will you come with me?”

“Where are we going?”

“I do not claim to have all of the answers. But my elders do. I trust them. Don’t you want to know why you can see the future? Why you saw me die?”

“All I want is for this madness to end. Can your elders help with that?” she asked. “This chaos has been haunting me since I was a kid. Even back in Chicago. Hell, it’s the reason we moved in the first place.”

“What happened, if you don’t mind my asking?”

Alice sat down beside me on her bed. “There was this kid. I was in class and I had this vision where everyone in the school was dead. And in my vision, the kid was holding, well, one of those big military rifles.”

“Jesus,” I whispered.

“I alerted the cops, the principal, and even pulled one of those new alarms they have in schools in case of a school shooter. It was a complete mess. It turned out, there was no school shooting. Whether I managed to stop it in time or whether there was nothing of that sort happening in the first place, we’ll never know. All I know is that the principal and the police had me admitted to a psych ward for an evaluation. The doctor said to my mom that the pressure of the big city had gotten to me. We freaking moved here. Everyone I ever knew back there, they looked at me like I was some sort of attention-w***e. You can’t even begin to imagine what it feels like when your life ends like that.” Alice’s voice broke off into a trail of sobs and whimpers.

I came near her and wrapped my arm around her shoulder, giving it a gentle squeeze.

“I may not know that, but I sympathize with you. I’m here for you. You don’t have to go through this alone,” I said.

Once she stopped crying, she lifted her head off my shoulder and stared at me with bewilderment.

“You’re still here. You haven’t run away from me, thinking I’m crazy. Why?” she asked.

“I don’t know how things work back in Chicago, but here at Rapid Falls, we look after our own,” I said. I went back to the window, holding out my hand. “In the words of the inimitable Arnold Schwarzenegger, come with me if you want to live.”

Alice chuckled dryly, then took my hand and followed me out of her room through the window. “We could have gone through the door.”

“I tend to finish things the way I start them,” I said. Even though she had dropped a bombshell on me, I felt relieved. Now that I had some semblance of a logical explanation for what had happened, I felt at ease. The elders would help. I was sure of it.