Robert Crane - Omega

“He’s lived for thousands of years,” Reed said, looking over to see Winter watching us. “If he’s scared and telling you to run, maybe you should take a hint from him.”

“No,” I said, pushing my bravest, most belligerent front forward, determined not to let my brother see me shake. “Because I’m young and stupid,” I said with a smile, “and I don’t fear anything anymore, not after Wolfe. If the worst comes, maybe I’ll just let him out of his kennel to run around and see what happens.”

“I can’t believe you’re joking at a moment like this,” he said, shaking his head, grim.

“Gallows humor. It’ll be okay. We’ll hold ‘til you get back.” I didn’t bite my lip, but I pursed them, holding them stiff to keep the emotion bleeding over from moving them.

“Who’s being a jinx now? Should I say, ‘I’ll be right back’?”

“Only if you want to die in a plane crash.”

“I’ll hurry,” he said, and the levity vanished. “Like Old Man Winter said, I’ll get what they know, and I’ll come back. I’ve got a couple friends who owe me favors. If nothing else, we’ll come trotting back as fast as I can get a turnaround flight. Two or three days, maybe.”

“Hurry back,” I said, and I let him start to turn for only a second before I pulled him around, taking care to keep my hands on his coat, not touching his skin. I pulled him close to me, ignoring the cologne that I always hated, and buried my face in his hair, smelled the sweet fragrance of it, hugged him tighter, his broad chest against me. I felt him hug me back, strong arms holding me in them, and I wondered for just a second if this is what it’d be like to be hugged by our father, then I banished the thought from my mind and pulled away, gingerly, giving him a kiss on the cheek as we broke.

“Don’t do anything stupid while I’m gone,” he said, letting his hand rest on my shoulder for another moment before he started toward the door.

“You mean like fighting off an Omega attack on our campus?” I smiled through the screaming crying in my head. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

He paused at the door and gave me a nod. “You know…I wish I’d told you. Earlier, you know. When we first met. I should have trusted you could handle it. We could have had…so much more time…to talk about it, and whatnot.”

I made my face a mask, tried to pretend concrete had been poured over it so my cheeks wouldn’t move, but even still I felt my eyes get glazed, blurry. “I wouldn’t have believed you,” I said. “I didn’t know what family really felt like until…” I looked around, suddenly a little embarrassed. “I’m glad you waited until I was ready.”

He looked like he wanted to say something else, but he rapped his hand against the doorframe, a nervous thing, a few different emotions alternating on his face. I thought he might speak, but he finally just turned and disappeared into the hallway with a last wave—but no last look.

It was just as well. I felt the first drops coming down my cheeks, hot, stinging, and I wondered when or if I’d see my brother again.

The fading shadows of day were growing long when I reached my quarters. The darkening sky reflected the grim sadness closing in on me as I lay on my couch and waited for the sun to set. I felt like I was being swallowed up in the inevitability of the darkness. I thought of Scott, and how I’d seen him earlier, a shell of his former self, and I wallowed in misery like he did. In spite of my brave face for Reed, I worried about when Omega was coming, about what form their attack would take, and who, if anyone, would be taken. I felt my cheek against the soft velvet of the chair I was lying against, and I watched the darkness descend in my room as the shadows rose along the walls with the fall of day, and I felt hopeless, truly hopeless, for the first time in a long time.

A knock woke me from a sleep I didn’t even know I was in. I hesitated at the door. “Who is it?”

“No one,” came Zack’s voice from the other side. “Well, maybe someone. I dunno. What do you think?”

I opened the door to see him standing tall, wearing a sweater that made him look particularly dashing, kind of…homespun, in a way. I pulled him to me, letting the door close. I kissed him full on the lips for as long as I thought I could get away with, and then hugged him tight, felt the fuzz of his sweater against my cheek. “You’re somebody to me.”

“Whoa, there,” he said. “Take it easy on that meta strength.” I loosened the grip, not realizing how hard I had been holding him, and he smiled down at me. “What’s the matter?” he asked, his smile fading. “What’s wrong?”

“Reed left,” I said, stifling emotion. “His bosses ordered him home, and he didn’t want to go, but Old Man Winter told him to, so…he left.”

Zack did not react to this for a moment, almost seeming like he was rocking back on his heels. “Wow. I guess I figured Reed would stick around no matter what.”

“He wanted to,” I said, leading Zack back to the couch. “He really wanted to, but…he’ll be back in a few days.” I sat down on the couch and Zack sat on the arm of it. He seemed uncomfortable, and I looked at him quizzically but he waved it off. “I don’t know. I think it’s gonna get bad.”

“I don’t get it,” Zack said. “We’ve captured three of their operatives in the last few days, I mean, some tough ones, too, as I understand it. Fries is a pretty nasty incubus from the reports I’ve read. Bjorn didn’t sound like a real picnic; I mean, for strength he had to be top of the scale, and this last one, Madigan—I haven’t seen the report yet, but a Thor-type? Nasty. They’re throwing their A-listers at you, and you’re bouncing them back like they’re nothing.” He gave me an encouraging smile. “Unless this Operation Stanchion consists of stacking all their people in our jail cells until they burst at the seams, it would appear that they are losing this round so far.” He hesitated, and looked to me for approval. “Wouldn’t it?”

“Yes,” I said. “No. I don’t know. The problem is the uncertainty. Yeah, you’re right, we’ve kicked the ass of everything they’ve sent along so far, with some skill, some luck—but it just feels like…they’re in the shadows. They’re unknown. We’re in the dark, waiting for something bad to happen. You ever have that? Where you’re waiting for something you think is gonna be bad, and it comes and it wasn’t as bad as what you anticipated?”

“Sure,” Zack said. “That’s exactly what I’m saying. The fact that you’re beating their best, taking down every meta they throw at you…doesn’t that give you some confidence that with everything we’ve got at our disposal, that we can take whatever they push at us and cram it right back down their throat?”

“Maybe. I just know that what they’ve thrown at us so far hasn’t exactly gone down painlessly.” I pointed to the wall, on the other side of which lay Scott’s quarters. “Look at what happened to Kat. She’s never gonna remember a thousand things about her relationship with Scott. And that’s pretty mild as far as consequences go, but it’s devastated him. What if they kill someone? What if their attack is focused, and determined, and draws a bead on one person and just…takes them out?” I bit my lip. “That’s what I’m afraid of. That this time they’re not coming to capture me at all, that they’re coming to kill Old Man Winter so that they hit the Directorate in a place where it never recovers.”

Zack slid off the arm of the couch to sit next to me. “It’s sweet that you’re more worried about the Director than yourself in all this.”

“I worry about you, too, lunkhead,” I said, and put my head on his shoulder, letting my hair flow down his chest. “Humans are just disposable foot soldiers to Omega.”