Robert Crane - Omega

“I’ll be fine,” she said. “I just…need to get to Scott.” She crawled into the back of the van.

I dragged my Omega enemy off the wreckage of the car and tossed him in the van next to Kat, who was already ministering to Scott as Clary trotted up. “Clary…” I said, favoring him with narrowed eyes.

“What?” he said, perturbed. “I was just trying to make sure we got out of here! If you had a better, faster suggestion to wrap this up other than tossing him like a lawn dart, I would have loved to hear it.”

There was a creaking noise from behind us and I turned my head. The porch roof began to cave in where Clary had taken out the support pillar with his throw, which prompted an additional collapse of some side rooms as the second floor came down on the first. A cloud of dust blew out in a billowing, bellowing mess that swept over us, obscuring my vision.

I held my breath, closed my eyes, and let myself stand there immovable as the white cloud swept over me. I counted a slow count to ten, and when it was done, I opened my eyes and saw Clary standing in front of me, still, his lip quivering, his face caked in white. I looked at my hands and surmised I was likely covered in the dust of the collapse. It was in my nose, my hair, and I felt it cake my face like the worst, driest facemask I could ever have imagined. I glanced briefly at the house; it was as near as it could be to gone, fallen in on itself, with little to show but wreckage, a crater of boards, beams and roofing tiles with almost no structure left on display. Clary stared back at me and I almost thought he was going to cry.

“Let’s go,” I said, controlling my instinct to toss Clary back in the cellar and let whoever found him deal with him. I made my way to the driver’s seat. “Clary, cuff that Omega stooge. Hands behind his back. Then cuff his ankles together, and then handcuff the cuffs together like—”

“You want me hogtie him?” The cornpone was a little too evident in the way he said this.

“Whatever you call it, just make it happen,” I said as I stepped on the accelerator and heard the sputter of the van’s engine. “Kat, get on the phone and call HQ, we need a new vehicle, this one’s been seen leaving the scene of a…” I thought about it for a moment, “…a housing crisis.”

“She’s passed out,” Clary said.

“What?” I looked back, at the pile of bodies on the floor. Kat was indeed passed out, her skin pressed against Scott. “Get her off of him!”

“What?” Clary frowned at me, one eyebrow knitted. “I thought you told me to cuff—”

“GET HER OFF OF SCOTT!” I swerved to avoid oncoming traffic, and I heard flesh hit metal in the back and prayed that Clary could carry out my command.

“Okay, okay,” I heard Clary after a moment. “She’s moved, but, you know, there ain’t much space back here with all the damned bodies—”

“Shut up, Clary,” I said, reaching into my coat pocket. I fumbled, pulling out a cell phone that was shattered into three distinct pieces. I dropped all three of them onto the floor and started rummaging; Kat’s coat was on the seat next to me. I searched the pocket while keeping one eye on the road and pulled out a phone in a pink plastic case. “For real, Kat?” I thumbed it on and was presented with a screen prompting me to enter the eight—digit lock code. “Dammit!” I shouted and swerved again, trying to drive the heavy, overladen van with one hand. I tossed the phone onto the seat. “Clary, do you still have your phone?”

“Yeah, hold on a second.” I waited, almost holding my breath, the cars streaking by as I got us onto the interstate. “Here you go,” he said, handing it to me, a small, thin lump of plastic about half the size of the phone I carried.

“Thanks.” I started to hold it up to my head but stopped, looking at it, confused.

“Hey, you want the rest of it?” I glanced back; he still held the other half of it.

“DAMMIT!” I started to hit the steering wheel out of sheer frustration and thought the better of it at the last minute, realizing my meta strength would enable me to break it into pieces and leave us stranded. I hit the gas instead as we made the turn onto the on-ramp, and I throttled up the gas as we raced up the interstate.

“Status report,” I said after a few minutes of silence.

There was a hesitation, then Clary spoke. “You talking to me?”

“No, I’m talking to the four unconscious people. Use your head, Clary! Of course I’m talking to you.”

“Umm,” he withered under my glare. “Scott’s still bleeding, but not as bad. Reed’s out and his face looks like someone took a brick to it.” He frowned. “What happened to him, anyway?”

“Someone took a brick to his face,” I said, clenching my jaw. “What about our friend from Omega?”

“Oh, yeah, he ain’t movin’.” Clary’s voice revealed a hint of self-satisfaction. “I got him trussed up real good, three sets of our heavy handcuffs on his wrists, two on his ankles, and one holding it all together like that plastic thingy they use on six-packs.”

“How’s Kat?”

“She looks like she ain’t been out in the sun for about a hundred years,” Clary said, no trace of irony. “But she’s breathing and all, seems all right. I pinched her on the tit and she didn’t move, though, so I think she might be out pretty hard.”

I let that settle for a second. “You did…what?”

“Well, I—”

“Never mind. Keep your damned hands off her, Clary, and see if you can find a way to call the Directorate.”

He was silent for a moment. “Maybe a pay phone?”

I thought about that. “Do you know the number?”

“No. It’s in my cell phone—”

I sighed, but not really at him. The sad truth was, I knew the number, but I was still working through things in my head. “Is Kat all right? Still breathing?”

“Yep.” I heard a silence for a beat. “She’s definitely still breathing and all. Feels nice and warm.”

I turned my head at a snap to look at what he was doing and found him with a hand on her chest. “Clary, you pervert! Hands off!”

“I was checking her pulse!”

“Her pulse is way north of where you were checking for it!”

“I was trying to see if I could feel her heartbeat, you know, close to the heart itself, because it would be stronger there, right?”

“Never mind,” I said. “No one’s in critical condition. They’ll all survive…so let’s just drive. Really fast. We’ll stop in a few minutes and change the license plates and then we’ll just haul ass to get home.” I bit my lower lip. “And hopefully everything will work out.”

We pulled through the gates of the Directorate a few hours later. The ride had been quiet, the opposite of the trip down, Clary keeping himself silent. Our prisoner did not awaken, nor did any of our other passengers. When we stopped, I did a quick check of Reed and Scott. My brother’s face was a mess, but had already started to heal because of his meta abilities and what Kat had done with her powers. Scott, on the other hand, was pale from what I assumed to be extreme blood loss. He’d started to regain his color by the time we were pulling up to the gates, but I wasn’t terribly eager to hear Dr. Perugini’s assessment of what had happened (or Old Man Winter’s, come to think of it, or Ariadne’s).

We pulled up to the front of headquarters and I found Ariadne waiting for us. As I stepped out, her jaw dropped and she rushed forward. “What happened to you?”

“Clary,” I said through gritted teeth. I wasn’t over it yet. “We’ve got wounded—Kat, Scott and Reed—but we also have a prisoner.” I opened the back doors to the van. “Can you get Dr. Perugini out here?”