Lucy sighed, absorbing the comforting atmosphere of the bustling mixed-class shopping center where all the chattering voices could meld so seamlessly into a sensory cornucopia with the brisk autumn breeze and nearby scent of smoky grilled sausage.  She flattened the palm of her left hand against the glass picnic table, splaying her fingers outward and catching every vibration as other Alphas scurried past with their crinkling department store packages in tow.  It was like a quiet symphony for just her fingertips, while the rest of her had everything else to feel.  Coiling her fingers gently around her neatly tied braid, she shifted the dark, silky tresses over her shoulder and smoothed out a few hairs that had come loose during the walk over to the table.

            Suddenly a soft twinge was experienced in her thumb from a pinpoint-sized source, something so slight it might easily have been the tip of a wind-swept dandelion seed alighting on her skin, but Lucy could tell the difference beyond even the shadow of a doubt.  She muttered an amused chuckle under her breath as a knowing smirk spread over her lips.

            “You got here sooner than I thought,” she said, politely tilting her chin down in the direction of the Beta who’d touched her finger, and trying not to let too much gleeful smugness come through in her words.  “With all the traffic on those trains at this hour, I’d have thought another ten minutes at least.”

            “No.  No, no, no,” Neil groused as he took a step away from her enormous hand, crossing his arms and pouting playfully.  “There is no freaking way you felt that one!”

            “Sorry,” she said with the slightest of shrugs, no longer trying to hold back her pride in this victory.  She twiddled her braid between the fingers of her opposite hand.  “What did you use?  Pinky?”

            “Yeah,” he muttered.  “I don’t know why I even try anymore.”

            “Me neither,” she agreed, as at last both dropped their pious acts with a snort of laughter.  Lucy slowly turned her hand over on the tabletop so that her palm faced up, inviting her friend in.  A moment later she felt the familiar little rubber-soled shoes of the Beta padding across the length of her middle finger like a balance beam, followed by the tiny plop as Neil took a seat in the center of the girl’s hand.

            Steadily the Alpha’s appendage ascended off the table.  She propped her elbow up on the glass surface, allowing Neil to rest nearly at eye level with her as she reclined in her chair.  The sun had shifted overhead in the past few minutes, providing some welcome shade, courtesy of the broad umbrella that stemmed from the center of the circle, and Lucy ensured to halt the motion of her hand where she could feel the warmth beginning, to avoid placing Neil in its direct rays.

            “So what’s up with you?” the Beta questioned.  “Wasn’t today they day they were supposed to get in those fancy new readers for your campus computers?”

            “God, yes,” Lucy drawled with some sporting exasperation, letting her tongue hang out of her lips as though to pant.  “Finally I don’t have to deal with that annoying voice reading me everything on the screen, I can just plug in with the reader and get it all.  I think I only got about half the notes in class because I was too busy screwing around with all the features.  I don’t know how much Aegis spent to put it in, but it’s totally worth every penny.”

            “Sounds like it,” Neil mused.

            “Well, are you going to tell me what you did in classes today, or do I have to use my mystical powers again to pull it out of your head?” Lucy asked cordially after a brief silence, then added in a hushed tone: “Because I told you I won’t use them in public anymore.”

            “No, no, anything but that,” he said sarcastically, pounding his tiny fists mockingly against the Alpha’s palm with just enough delicacy that it tickled.  “Nothing huge.  History exam, then a lecture about Mars or something.  I think the only reason anybody stays awake in there is because of the professor’s coffee breath whenever she leans over the class.”

            “Maybe you should bring her a breath mint,” Lucy suggested with a half-smile.

            “Yeah, I don’t know about that.  I think I’d need at least a gross for it to make any kind of impact on a mouth that size, and by that point she’d probably just be insulted,” he concluded, earning a giggle from the Alpha.

            Having settled in, Lucy’s thumb curled slowly into the center of her hand until she rested it across the Beta’s knees, which was answered as he hung his arms over the soft finger and leaned his face against its curved surface.  Lucy’s hands were almost always warm but never became clammy no matter the weather or temperature, something that made her particularly popular among her Beta acquaintances if extended carrying was required.  Of course, none experienced being in her capable grasp quite as often as Neil, and he wouldn’t have traded this kind of embrace for anything.

            “What about after classes?” she asked.

            “Definitely not as bad,” he said.  “Some of us from the volunteer agency went down to West Brook Elementary a couple hours ago.  Today was one of those meet and greets for a bunch of the Beta and Omega kids and they wanted chaperones there in case anyone needed help getting into their hands.”

            “That’s sweet,” Lucy said genuinely.  “So did they?  Need help, I mean.”

            “Barely.  It was really nice to see,” he said.  “The whole process is so friendly now.  I mean, not that it didn’t used to be, but with how excited some of those Betas are to step in now, you’d think they were on their way to the carnival instead of some hundred-foot seventeen-year-old’s hand.”

            “Get any naysayers?”

            “A few.  This one kid, Brady, he was having trouble looking up from the ground.  Not like he was scared out of his mind, just super quiet, reserved.  The Omega who was assigned to hold his class was really sweet, but good grief did she have a wide smile.  Kind of intimidating if it’s your first time stepping in for lift-off.”

            “No kidding,” Lucy uttered, twiddling absentmindedly with her braid.  “Did you bring him around?”

            “Eventually.  I just sat him down and told him I’d be with him for the whole trip up, and he seemed cool with it after that.  So I held his hand and he took his first ride with an Omega,” Neil said.  “Real smooth, too.  The girl knew how to handle a group.”

            “That’s good.”

            “Once we were up in her hand, the Omega… Sylvie, I think… she could tell he was having some trouble, too, so she just started talking through this little song, like the kind you’d do around a campfire.  The whole class got into it after a minute, and even this kid who was hanging onto me for dear life started humming along,” the Beta concluded, and received an approving sigh from his handler.

            Tenderly, Lucy’s thumb lifted from Neil’s lap and moved up to his face, completing its normal ritual of motion for every conversation she had with the Beta by touching his countenance: her best way of seeing him.

            With her finger pressed easily against the tiny college student’s cheek, normally swelled up with an ever-present smile, the Alpha instantly recognized that Neil’s skin was cooler than normal, and pulled taut, like he was about to become sick.  His tone may have been questionable earlier, but there was no mistaking this distinctive disruption in the norm.  To Lucy, it might as well have been a third eyeball she’d discovered on Neil’s face.

            The smile faded from her lips as her quicksilver eyes darted invisibly over the Beta, who seemed to immediately sense the issue, because he was smiling an instant later, but this couldn’t fool Lucy either.  It was a forced, artificial grin, and only enhanced her sinking feeling of unease to realize that something was not only different, but that Neil didn’t want her to know about whatever it was.

            “What?” she whispered with urgency, furrowing her brow a little as she leaned in closer.  “What is it?”

            “Hmm?” he intoned pleasantly.  He patted a hand against the thumb as it continued resting against the side of his head like an enormous fleshy pillow.

            “What’s wrong?” she asked.  Her voice was soft, but the question poked with the intensity of a concerned demand.  Lucy steadily began to slide the end of her finger the differential of fractional inches up and down the length of Neil’s little head.

            “Wrong?  Why would something be wrong?”

            “I don’t know,” she said solemnly.  “That’s why I’m asking you.”

            “Luce, nothing’s… I mean, I’m fine.  What makes you think I’m-”

            “Please,” she cut in, pursing her lips.  She caressed the cushy tip of her thumb down Neil’s cheek again.  “Just talk to me.”

Neil hugged his arms around Lucy’s soft thumb as the massive digit stroked the side of his head in a calming rhythm that helped definitively remind him that there was no way to hide anything from this girl.

            “It’s… really not anything big,” he said, swallowing hard enough that Lucy could hear.  “I, uh… I moved out.”

            The Alpha nodded once, processing the news.  Neil’s parents and sister, all Alphas, although they’d always ensured their only Beta family member had clothes on his back and plenty of food, had never exactly treated him with the warmth Lucy thought he deserved, as his class was viewed as an unspoken blight on their family tree.

            Now that he was old enough to attend college, she’d been secretly wishing he would break free at last.  Such news, frankly, made her happier than anything she’d heard in the past month, but she didn’t want to let it show since the transition had apparently taken some kind of toll on him.  Why had he been affected so?  Wasn’t this a good thing?

            “Why now?  It’s the middle of the week.  Why didn’t you wait until a Saturday?” she asked cautiously.

            “Oh, you know,” he said with a cavalier shrug.  “Just figured it was time, you know?”

            “Where are you moving?”

            “I’ll figure that out later.  You know they have plenty of apartment openings.  Right now I’m just in one of those shelters they have for runaways for a few days,” he explained.  “It’s real comfortable.  The bed’s way better than the one I had.”

            “You mean you just moved out in the middle of the week without having a new place to go?” the Alpha pressed, her volume rising slightly.  Her thumb quickened its pace stroking along Neil’s face and shoulder.  “W-”

            “Just trying to be spontaneous, you know?  That’s what you always tell me,” he laughed, forcing more feigned joy into his voice, as he clearly sensed he’d already been caught in the lie.  He gave the girl’s thumb another reassuring pat, but it obviously wasn’t going to help matters now.

            “You didn’t choose to leave, did you?” Lucy uttered after a cold silence, the words coming out half-choked from the back of her throat.  “Did you?”

            “I… L-Luce…”

            The Alpha’s opposite hand stopped twirling around her braid, her wrist trembling, as she raised it to chin level and balled it into a fist.  Out of instinct she chewed the corner of her knuckle to quell the rapidly mounting rage.

            “Those motherfu-”

            “Hey, it’s not a big deal, really!” he blurted, leaping in over her growled consonants, as he ham-handedly injected more false chuckling into his meager defense.  He rocked from side to side while still clinging to Lucy’s finger, hoping to pull her attention fully back to him, though he knew it was a losing battle.  “I’m not a kid anymore.  It’s… it’s really okay.  I can be on my own now.”

            “That’s how you got here so fast, isn’t it?” the Alpha questioned gravely, keeping her fist pressed to her quivering chin.  “You didn’t come from home because they threw you out.”

            Neil stared up into the moonlike eyes of the caring young woman, which seemed oddly capable of focus on him in this moment even though they were unable to detect him.

            “It was bound to happen eventually.  I… know you wouldn’t say it, but I know you wanted me to leave as soon as I turned eighteen last year,” he said.  “See, it’s a good thing!”

            At last Lucy began to calm down, the shivering ceasing in her wrists.  Maybe he was right.  She exhaled heavily and rolled her thumb up to the top of Neil’s head, where she gently ruffled his hair, combing it over and over to the side.  No matter how awful those people were, they would be out of his life now.

            “Well, for starters,” she said.  “You’re not staying in some shelter that’s probably already filled with a bunch of kids where it’d be too loud to get any sleep.”

            “I was gonna go check out the apartments right after this, I swear,” he promised.  “I heard the process is really easy for Betas getting their first start.  Like, you pretty much just choose the one you want and they toss you the keys, nothing else.  Easy as pie.”

            “Nonsense.  You still need help moving your stuff in,” Lucy objected snappily.  “Until then, you’re coming home with me.  You know all I’d have to do is text my mom now and you’d have a bed set up before we even got back.”

            Neil laughed, genuinely for the first time in several minutes, and allowed himself to enjoy the soothing sensation of Lucy’s finger playing with his shaggy hair.  He did, indeed, know this to be true.

            “In fact,” she said with a sly smile.  “Why don’t we skip out on the coffee for now and just go pick up your stuff and take it back to my house?  I’ve got my big bag today, so we’ll get it all in one trip, no problem.”  She nudged a leather satchel hanging from one arm of her chair.  It was easily large enough to carry a full set of Beta furniture.

            “What if I was really looking forward to that coffee?” Neil wheedled playfully, lightly punching Lucy’s finger as it lowered itself back into his lap for an easier embrace.

            “My dad will probably brew some tonight.  And you know he makes it strong.  I think you’ll be set,” she smarmed.  “You’ll be up all night from it, and then we can finally play that trivia game we keep saying we’re going to do.”

            “I thought the point of staying at your house was to get some sleep?” he teased.

            “Well, obviously, we’re just having a slumber party then, and nobody’s getting any sleep.”

            “Sounds like a ball,” Neil confirmed with another snicker.

            “So let’s get moving, huh?” Lucy said.  Bracing her other hand against the edge of the table, she smoothly rose to her feet without jostling her passenger.  “Which shelter are you staying at?  You’ll have to lug most of your stuff out to the front door yourself, but I’ll get it for the rest of the walk home.  Promise.”

            “Seriously, Luce, the stuff isn’t an issue at all.  We can just go straight to your-”

            “You’re staaaaalling,” she sang softly with another accusing smile.  “C’mon.  Spit it out.  Where’s your stuff?”

            “I… well, it’s kind of funny, actually!  You’re gonna think I’m crazy, probably,” he said with more inflated enthusiasm, and instantly Lucy was put back on high alert.  Her whole body stiffened and she bit her lip in the corner, training all focus on the sensation of Neil’s near-feather weight in her palm.  Even as he remained seated, she could feel his knees wobbling gently against her palm.

            “What?” she drawled, wanting to get past whatever defensive non-truth was coming as soon as possible so she could get to work on piecing the real answer together.

            “I figured I’m moving out, so new start, right?  And that apartment probably at least has a couch or something.  So still going with that spontaneous thing, I kind of…” he continued, bouncing carefully between each buoyant syllable.  Neil released his grip on Lucy’s thumb and clasped his hands to his knees, trying to keep them from shaking, and knowing that the damage was probably already long-done, he made the feeble attempt anyway.  “…I kind of threw away all my stuff…”

            The Beta wasn’t the least bit surprised to find that this final lie didn’t even warrant a probing response from his highly perceptive carrier; she was clearly onto him before the first word was out of his mouth.

            Lucy’s face became stone at this final revelation, and an eerie calm seemed to pass through her, as though she’d skipped over the trembling this time and gone straight into rampage mode.  Her free hand fished in her satchel for a moment before retrieving the specialized headband Neil had crafted for her five years ago in his high school shop class, and soon the rounded implement was hugging into her hair.

            Abruptly the Beta found the hand he occupied rising higher on Lucy’s face and nearer to her ear, where a small chair was welded to the side of the accessory for him to sit in.  Knowing there would be no arguing with her at this point, Neil reluctantly scrambled out of the girl’s palm and into the seat.  He strapped himself in and nudged his shoe against her ear lobe to let her know he was secure: their normal signal.

            With her precious living cargo safely in place next to her ear, Lucy took off striding down the pathway, swerving skillfully around passerby who nearly bumped into her.  Talented as she was at using her ears to navigate, the Alpha often relied on the extra help from her friend’s pair of eyes, and never more than now as she practically broke into a jog on the rage-fueled journey to Neil’s old house.

After at least a minute of no communication between them, the three-inch passenger reached into Lucy’s ear and tapped at her warm skin, which ordinarily served as a signal for the Alpha to stop walking, but it went completely unacknowledged.  He attempted it several more times until he realized Lucy didn’t intend on halting her determined glide down the outdoor shopping center sidewalk until she reached the house her best friend had been kicked out of that morning.

            “Luce… c’mon, you… you don’t need to-” Neil pleaded awkwardly, leaning into her ear to make sure it was heard clearly amongst the bristling fall wind and clamorous din of shoppers all around them.  An Omega, standing in the canyon-like primary passage canal that ran through the center of the area, bellowed appreciative laughter at something said by an Alpha perched in his hand with enough volume to shame stadium stereos.  The colossus would’ve easily drowned out Neil’s voice if the latter wasn’t seated so close to his friend’s ear drums.

            “Who did it?” Lucy demanded curtly, keeping her voice enough for the Beta to hear as she dodged between the people.  “Who?”

            “It’s not a big deal.  I didn’t have much.  You know how I am about keeping stuff around that I don’t use anymore.”

            This, too, was a gross mollifying of reality.  Neil had in his possession several small but prized collections of action figures from some of his favorite childhood comic books, and though Lucy would occasionally tease him about his plastic trinkets, she respected that they were the closest things to personalized treasures he’d ever own, considering how few Christmas and birthday presents he usually received from his family.

            Her blood was in serious danger of boiling over.

            “It was your sister, wasn’t it?  She tossed your things, didn’t she?” Lucy spat, and in the lack of a response, she knew she’d guessed correctly.  She scowled.

            “It was all she did.  Honest.  Nothing else.  It’s not a big deal,” he gasped, realizing what a rapidly losing battle this was becoming.

            “What about your figurines?” she asked.  “Did she toss those, too?”

            “Luce, everything’s… r-replaceable, you know?”

            “Neil, I know you’re technically related to her, but I need permission to do something.”

            “What?”

            “I need permission to break your sister’s fucking jaw.”

            As hyperbolic as the statement sounded, especially in the vigor of Lucy’s barely controlled stampede, Neil knew there had to at least be a grain of truth to it.

            The first time they’d ever tried the Beta-toting headband, with Lucy gleefully insisting that they test it out in public, a passing teenage Alpha had casually thrown them a comment about Neil making a cute accessory in the only real “job” his kind was intended to have.

            It hadn’t taken more than a few seconds for Lucy to pivot back around and land a beautiful right hook on the girl’s face with the grace and accuracy of a seasoned prizefighter.  The Beta was grateful their detractor had landed on grass instead of concrete, because otherwise she’d probably have ended up with even more legal grievances to bring against the unlikely pair, in addition to the black eye.  To this day, he knew the only reason Lucy hadn’t ended up with a mark on her permanent record was because the Alpha Aegis employee who’d reviewed the event happened to be engaged to a Beta.

            “I’m not sure I’m authorized to grant something like that,” he sighed after a minute.  “It doesn’t matter anymore, anyway.”

            “Doesn’t matter?” Lucy hissed.  She cupped a hand around her passenger as a bike messenger zoomed past near the edge of the sidewalk.  “She’s been pushing you around for years, doing whatever the hell she pleases, and then when they’re throwing you out in the cold, she goes and… and…”

            “She hasn’t been that bad that last couple years.  You know that!” Neil said, using up every possible paper-thin excuse to keep Lucy from blowing a gasket at his family’s final act of calculated emotional abuse.  He placed a reassuring hand on the shading wall of Lucy’s palm as it protectively covered him, but it didn’t seem to aid in cooling her off.

            “And I guess that just lets her off the hook for everything else, huh?” the Alpha snapped, the words of her rant spilling over one another.  “For all the times she spit in your food, or dropped you in a sock, or-”

            “Lucy, please.  I’m… I’m out of there now, see?  There’s no need for this.  It’s all okay now, I promise.  They even told me they never even wanted to see me again, so it’s not like-”

            Nearly choking on his poorly chosen words, Neil realized that in the process of hastily crafting a defense, he’d probably just made things worse.  Indeed, he could already feel Lucy’s pace quickening as she ducked between clusters of shopping Alphas.  Her jawline seemed to be vibrating now, most likely as she ground her teeth together like blades in preparation to chew through an offending party’s jugular.

            At last, nearing the Beta’s former place of residence, Lucy came to a stop before a crosswalk in the street.  “All right, are there any cars coming?  I don’t hear any.”

            “I c-can’t…”

            “I said, are there any cars coming?  You’re gonna just be kicking yourself so much if you didn’t tell me about one and then I walked right out into the road and we both got pulverized,” the Alpha warned, mostly facetiously, but still with enough fire that Neil at least had to question how much of it she believed.

            “N-No.  No cars,” he said after thoroughly checking.  “The light’s about to change anyway.”

            “Cool,” the Alpha said, swiftly making her way across the street, practically pile-driving through pedestrians going the opposite direction.

            “Puddle,” Neil peeped suddenly, just in time for Lucy to keep her foot in midair for a few more seconds and avoid splashing into the mud.

            “Thanks.  See, you’re getting the hang of it again,” she said.  “Curb?”

            “Three.  Two.  One,” the Beta counted down obediently, not wanting his sputtered protests to get in the way of Lucy’s safety when she was so clearly intent on arriving at her destination regardless of how much guidance he provided her with.  Trusting completely in her friend’s timing, Lucy took a higher step at the bottom of the count and landed smoothly on the sidewalk, where she continued power-walking without missing a beat.

            Neil knew Lucy would be perfectly capable of safely catching him if she were to take a tumble due to a misconstrued directional suggestion, as she had demonstrated several times in their youth before she was quite so talented at sightless locomotion.  Of course, those occasions had always come at the cost of a few scabs on Lucy’s knees, as she always put his safety before hers when carrying him, and it never failed to leave Neil feeling guilty for weeks after.  He certainly didn’t need that being repeated today, on top of his already heavily heaped stress from his familial expulsion.

            “Don’t do this, Luce.  Please,” he whispered desperately after another few minutes of silence.  His tone had shifted from one of anxious imperiousness to outright fear, and this, finally, couldn’t go ignored by his friend.

            “You don’t have to be scared.  I swear to God, none of them are ever going to touch you again.  We’ll find a good place for you to stay hidden outside,” Lucy explained with sudden rigidity.  “But I am going to do this for you.  And a little bit for me, too.”

            “Why?  I don’t want it to turn into anything else.  I’m out now.  I don’t want you to do something that might…” the Beta trailed off, pain evident in his voice, and at last Lucy began to understand the real reason he was afraid to go back.

            Sighing, the girl reached up to her ear and scooped Neil into her palm, cradling him on her curled fingers as she brought him back in front of her face to hear better.  Those silvery eyes, once again, trained down on him even if it didn’t do anything for Lucy herself.

            “They can’t hurt me,” she promised.  Gently, she stroked her pinky finger down the Beta’s arm, until the tip of her digit could be placed atop Neil’s trembling hand.  “I’m a big girl.”

            He hugged her finger back to his chest.  The blood seemed to be pumping under her flesh just as rapidly as his own heart, and for a moment they were synced.  “Yes you are.”

            “You know I can handle myself.”

            “I know.”

            “So why, when you help me find my way so often…” Lucy pleaded, softening in her previously fuming tone.  “…can’t I help you find yours right now?”

            There wouldn’t be any contesting that one.  Neil bowed his head to relent at last and, taking a deep breath to steady himself in this act he’d been too terrified to make for the past several years, planted a kiss on the Alpha’s fingertip that startled and flooded each young adult with a tidal wave of goose bumps.

            “Maybe you already did,” Neil mumbled sheepishly as he pulled away.  He looked back up just in time to see Lucy’s lips looming closer and closer, puckered like soft pink pillows as they found his bashfully awaiting face to return the favor.

            The kiss lasted for upwards of thirty seconds as each gave themselves fully to the moment, despite standing out in the open on the sidewalk, but neither would’ve cared even if they were doing it on a stage in front of a thousand leering onlookers.  Neil hugged himself against the plush wall of Lucy’s gentle mouth, leaving smaller pecks on her skin, and she smooched back with the kind of incredible tenderness the Beta didn’t think would be possible to bestow on a being so much smaller than herself.  At last they pulled apart with some reluctance, allowing a dazed Neil to flop backwards in the girl’s palm, and the Alpha herself to dreamily catch her breath again.

            “All right, all right, Mr. Smoothie,” Lucy sighed, having seemingly had the edge taken off her rage by this long-overdue gesture, but still no less determined.  “What can I do to convince you that nothing is going to happen to me in that hellhole you used to live in?”

            “I think some back-up would be good,” Neil offered with some effort, unable now more than ever to let go of Lucy’s finger.  She, too, relished the contact with renewed zeal.

            “No offense, but when I said none of them are ever touching you again, I also meant they don’t even deserve to talk to you again, so that’s probably out,” Lucy admitted.  “Plan B?”

            “I… didn’t mean me, actually,” Neil chuckled.

            “Who, then?  One of your buddies from the volunteer place?”

            He winked and dug through his pocket for his cell.  “Before you go kicking that door down, give me one minute to make a call.”

            “Okay, fine, you have one minute,” Lucy groaned as she leaned begrudgingly against a storefront and allowed herself to be calmed again by stroking Neil’s shoulder with her finger.  “But don’t go getting a swell head.  It’s only because I like you a whole lot, got it?”

Lucy pounded her fist against the front door of Neil’s old house with enough force that it threatened to bruise her knuckles, but she hardly noticed as she braced herself with her most serene thoughts of her best friend, in order to avoid outright assaulting the slimy trio of Alphas that lived inside as soon as she was within striking distance.

            “What the hell is with the-” a disgruntled voice complained, swinging the door open.  Neil’s father stood in the frame, his face flushing a distinctly ticked-off hue as the words caught in his throat, and the effect only compounded as he recognized the door’s assailant.  “Oh.  It’s you.”

            “Who was kicking the door, Gene?” Neil’s mother Debra squawked as she came down the hallway and took a stand behind her spouse.  Her countenance and voice took on a similarly revolted mask of disdain.  “Ah.  Of course.  I should’ve guessed.”

            “I’m here to pick up Neil’s things,” Lucy declared through gritted teeth, layering on as much civility as she was capable of, though this didn’t amount to a particularly large quantity.  She knew Neil’s parents had never quite forgiven her for the years of kindness and encouragement she’d shown their son, as these acts had led to him occasionally demanding more equal treatment from them, among other humane things the old-school Alphas weren’t quite on board with.

            “He doesn’t have his things here anymore.  He left and took everything with him,” Debra responded curtly.

            “That’s not what I heard,” Lucy said, cracking a smile.  “I guess I’ve got my stories crossed.”

            “I guess you do,” Gene grunted.  “Is there anything else we can do for you?  Maybe call someone to help you find your way home?  I’d be happy to take care of that right now.”

            “No, it’s all right.  I know where I’m going now,” the girl answered, crossing her arms.

            “Oh my God, is that his weird friend here again?  So where’s the pipsqueak?” Neil’s younger sister Shirley asked with a snort as she suddenly appeared in the doorway, and for once Lucy was somewhat glad she couldn’t see, because she was fairly certain that if she had to look at the girl’s face in addition to hearing her words, she’d just end up bashing it in.

            “I’m here on his behalf.  So there wouldn’t be any funny business.  I figured even you mouth-breathing pieces of shit wouldn’t sink low enough to hit a blind girl,” Lucy said casually, shrugging, then plastered on an even broader smile.  “But if I’m wrong about that, I’d be glad to go a couple rounds, and we’ll see how many teeth I let you keep.”

            “So who are you supposed to be, then?  The muscle?” Neil’s unimpressed father drawled, dripping with sarcasm.

            “No, actually, I think that’s supposed to be me,” a voice boomed from on high, startling everyone except Lucy and ensnaring their anxious attentions.  Truck-sized footsteps echoed through the concrete valley.  The birdbath next to the house rumbled as though an earthquake was rattling through the earth’s crust, splashing water out either rim of the basin.

            From around the corner of the block, standing down in the Omega-path reservoir but still filling up an impossible amount of the horizon, came the Junior Enforcer Bridget Cade, her curly blonde locks fastened in back with pins to prevent anything from impeding the seething gaze of her steely emerald eyes as they zeroed like guided missiles on Neil’s family.

            Lucy heard the family’s unanimous and mortified flinch at this building-sized new arrival behind her, and she wasn’t shy about displaying her satisfied smile.

            Neil, meanwhile, watched all this from his gilded perch in Bridget’s hand far above, where he was seated in the palpable valley of one of the creases in her palm.  He wasn’t a particularly prideful person, but even he couldn’t help but take some minute pleasure in, for once, being the one to look down on his cold kin.  It was lucky that Bridget was already out on the road and within two minutes’ walking distance when she’d received his call, though he had a feeling she’d have been willing to show up even if she’d been a couple counties over.

            Behind him on the heel of the Omega’s hand sat an Alpha he hadn’t met before, probably a couple years younger than himself, with kind eyes and long dark hair: a friend of Bridget’s, he’d presumed, who’d just happened to be with her when he sent the message.  It sounded like they were on their way to see a movie at the time.  The brunette had offered to hold Neil while this confrontation took place to give him some more comparatively smooth terrain to stand upon, considering the sheer scale of Bridget’s field-sized palm to the Beta, but he’d insisted on sitting closer to the edge so he could witness every last word.

            “G-Gene…” Debra croaked to her husband, clutching his shoulder as she stared gape-mouthed up at the tower that was Bridget, whose stoic expression suggested she wasn’t greatly interested in dragging this out for very long.

            Somehow composing himself despite the monstrous nineteen-year-old darkening his entire property in her shadow, Gene forced his gaze back down to Lucy, though his knees jittered just a little.  He tried to overcompensate with a guttural growl: “Now see here.  I don’t know if you think those ghost-eyes of yours earn you special treatment or what, but you’re… you’re not going to just show up to my home like this and bully us just for some sick sense of-”

            “Yeah, using size to get what we want and try to make you feel powerless,” Lucy cut in with a nod, casting her silver gaze over the trio of Alphas with raw recognition of their sins that chilled them almost as much as the sight of the Omega standing sentinel above.  “What can I say?  We learned from the best.”

            “We don’t have any of the LITTLE SHIT’S STUFF ANYMORE!” Shirley erupted, shifting her panicked attentions between Lucy and Bridget.  “So why don’t all you FREAKS just get the HELL AWAY FROM OUR HOUSE!”

            Neil, used to this kind of address by this point in his life and no longer the least bit affected by it, turned around in time to see both Bridget and her Alpha friend cringing bitterly at his sister’s diatribe.

            “Boy, she’s got a mouth on her,” the Omega commented quietly, her eyes widening in some disbelief.  “Was this always how it was for you here?”

            “Uh… yeah, kinda,” the notoriously private Beta mumbled.

            “Jesus, why didn’t you say something to me sooner?” Bridget sighed.  She inhaled deeply to maintain her cool and shot her other handheld passenger a shared look of revulsion for the Alphas below, then switched back to Neil.  “All right, all right.  Is it okay if I get this moving a little faster now?”

            “Be my guest,” Neil said humbly.

            The Omega’s free hand ascended from where it hung at her side, fingers extending as they rapidly approached the family below.  Both Debra and Shirley let out a terrified scream as the palm, large enough to easily wad the whole family into an inescapable fist, soared toward them.  Even Gene, with all his loud bravado, had lost all the color in his face.

            However, just before making contact, the girl’s probing appendage instead diverted in its course.  Her palm flattened and rose upward, shooting toward the two-story brick wall.  Fingers coming to rest on the tiny ledges of the windows, Bridget’s clawed hand braced against the house, prepared to rip an entire floor out if she so chose.  The threat of such a spectacle had clearly crossed the minds of all three bug-eyed Alphas as they quivered on the threshold of their home.

            “Here’s the thing.  Somebody is going to give Neil his things back.  Now, either one of you can go inside and get them…” Lucy said in a hush, though her sharp words caught the attention of the family all the same.  “…or you can let this nice young lady here do it for you.”

            Nodding appreciatively down to the group, Bridget’s fingers shifted up around the edge of the roof and started to peel away.  In a spray of mortar and dust, the top of the house began to open up with the slightest of flicks in the wrist of its monumental intruder, her powerful fingers hardly putting in any effort.  Shingles rained down toward the grass below, littering the group as the Omega continued tearing open the residence as though it was her childhood dollhouse.

            “STOP!  PLEASE STOP!” Debra screeched after a few seconds of this demonstration, throwing herself down the front steps and out to the sidewalk to beg on her knees for the preservation of her home.  Her final words were lost in a humiliated choke: “We’ll… we’ll get the things.  Please stop.”

            Bridget stifled a giggle and relented, pulling her fingers delicately back out of the structure to ensure it wasn’t crumbled by any sudden movements, although a heavy, powdery cloud still descended as she lowered her hand back down to the sidewalk and drummed her fingers impatiently in front of Debra, who winced on each repetition as if she’d been violently struck by the soft digits herself.

            “Well?” Lucy intoned calmly.  “We’re waiting.”

            “Mom!” Shirley shrieked with embarrassment.

            “Shirley…”

            “Mom, you can’t just-”

            “SHIRLEY, PLEASE GET YOUR BROTHER’S GODDAMNED THINGS AND BRING THEM HERE,” the hysterical woman moaned at the top of her lungs, finally summoning the strength to fling herself back toward the house again, away from the slender tapping fingers that might tear her entire lawn up at any moment with a single pluck.  Too scared now to disobey, her daughter scurried back inside, clearly already sobbing and hoping to hide it.

            “That’s more like it,” Lucy said.  “Aren’t we all going to be happier now?”

            “I don’t want to see you or him anywhere near my home ever ag-” Gene threatened, vomiting up every word, but he was cut off by a voice with even more venom than his own.

            “Oh, you don’t have to worry about that,” Lucy reassured with delight.  “Especially because if I happen to find out any of you came near him again for the rest of your lives, I might be tempted to give you the kind of makeover that would require you to see with your ears from then on.”

            The dumbfounded couple shut their traps at this as Shirley shuffled her way around them, sheepishly carrying a bowl containing the sticky, garbage-flecked remains of Neil’s belongings that she’d trashed that morning.

            “You especially,” Lucy breathed as she snatched the object from the trembling Alpha’s hands and reverently deposited its contents into her satchel.  “If we even see you again…”

            “S-See?” Shirley blurted, now reaching the fever pitch of her adrenaline high, and obviously too drunk on the fear of Bridget to access logic.  In spite of herself, she managed a condescending hack of pitiful laughter.  “How the fuck are you supposed to see me without your little seeing-eye d-”

            Neil’s sister was interrupted with a shocked squeal as the bowl was hurled back into the bridge of her nose with tremendous force.

            “Trust me.  I have my ways,” Lucy simpered.  She watched the girl crumple to the ground, weeping again and wiping at her bleeding nose, as Gene and Debra bravely shielded their Alpha offspring with their bodies, though the dread was still seething in their eyes.

            “You can’t do anything to us.  You wouldn’t get away with it,” Gene menaced meekly, fighting to keep his trembling lip from stuttering the words.  His tone suggested he was having trouble believing it himself as his eyes darted furtively back up to the Omega who’d radically redesigned their roof with a few flicks of her fingers.  Bridget winked at him, causing Gene to defensively divert his gaze back to his son’s best friend.

            “You don’t have to worry.  We’re done with you forever,” Lucy said honestly.  “I just… I wanted you to know something before we go.  To thank you, actually.”

            “What?” Debra uttered, gape-mouthed.

            “Yes,” the young woman sighed.  “Because I’m pretty sure the only reason I believe in any kind of God is because somehow Neil ended up the way he did even though he grew up with you sorry excuses for life tearing him down every day.”

            The silence that followed cut deeply: a small but indelible crack of shame chipped into the hard hearts of each of the three, and functioning eyes weren’t required to detect it.

            “He’s a beautiful person,” Lucy murmured piteously.  “I wish you could’ve seen him like I can.”

            With this, the Alpha turned away from them all for the final time and regally made her way down the steps toward Bridget’s hand, which had since upturned, the titanic palm awaiting its last triumphant passenger.

            “I was surprised you called me and not Jenna,” Bridget said.  After the Omega had carried them all a sufficient distance away from the neighborhood, she’d stopped back in the mixed-class shopping center at a mostly deserted higher terrace and set down Lucy and Neil so they could all converse more easily.

            “Why?” he asked up to the titaness, clutching Lucy’s thumb to his chest as she hugged her fingers around his sides.  The Beta and Lucy could hardly wait to grab hold of one another again once the confrontation was over, and didn’t show any sign of letting go soon.

            The Omega raised an eyebrow, smirking in reference to their fellow service volunteer, and stared down at her flea-sized conversationalist with peculiar focus, despite their staggering divergence in stature.  “Not that I wasn’t happy to help, of course, but… well, you know, she’s definitely more in her element for this kind of thing.”

            “Yeah, I know,” Neil chuckled, laying his cheek on Lucy’s finger and planting a light peck before looking back up to the colossal blonde.  “I guess I figured if I asked her, she’d take the whole roof off instead of just a few shingles.”

            “Don’t let her know about any of this, then,” Bridget whispered playfully.  “She’d probably come back and do it anyway.”

            She and Neil shared a laugh, knowing full-well this wasn’t at all a joke.

            “Thanks, Bridget,” the Beta said, feeling infinitely more cheerful now than he had this morning.  “Sorry I made you guys late for your movie.”

            “You’re kidding, right?” the brunette Alpha snickered down to her new acquaintances, rising to her feet and stepping daintily across the tips of Bridget’s fingers.  “Bridge, is he kidding?”

            “No he’s not,” the Omega answered to her passenger.  She closed her eyes for a moment, reflecting with some evident remorse.  “We should’ve had you out of there a long time ago, Neil.  I’m sorry I couldn’t do anything sooner.”

            “You didn’t even know about it,” he said gently.  “It doesn’t matter now.  I’m out, thanks to you all.”

            “All you have to do is talk to your friends,” Bridget vowed.  “That’s what we’re for.”

            “Yeah,” Neil sighed, looking up to his handler’s beaming countenance.  “I think I’m starting to figure that out now.”

            “Better late than never,” Lucy whispered, softly kissing the back of the Beta’s head.

            “Oh my God, you two, stop,” the young Alpha squealed with adoration from Bridget’s palm, clasping her hands to her cheeks as she observed the affectionate pair like her own personal soap opera.

            “Don’t embarrass them, Lexi,” Bridget murmured, unable to hide her grin.

            “That would be pretty tough,” Neil admitted.

            “It really would,” Lucy smarmed, stroking the Beta’s cheek and craning her neck up to help project her voice to Bridget.  “What he said, though.  Thank you.”

            “You’re welcome,” the towering blonde said modestly.  “I doubt you even needed me, though.  It looked like you could’ve had that whole thing under control yourself.”

            “Well, this way, nobody goes to the ER or gets arrested,” Lucy said with a shrug, then frowned, clearly not having yet paused to consider the legal ramifications of terrorizing a family of Alphas, their identities as human scum notwithstanding.  “That’s… true, right?”

            There was a brief silence as Bridget and her handheld friend smirked knowingly at the concerned pair.

            “You can relax.  She’s the goodie-two-shoes,” the Alpha said, feigning trying to keep Bridget from hearing, and only giggled as the Omega’s thumb gave her a playful jab in the shoulder before proceeding to tickle the smaller girl’s stomach without mercy.  “Except to me.  She’s a freaking huge jerk to me.”

            “Nonsense.  I’m a perfect angel,” Bridget snickered dryly.

            “Could’ve fooled me,” Neil laughed.

            “Excuse me?” she said.

            “Like the time that Alpha kid was shooting spitballs into our baseball diamond and you came up behind him and picked him up by the-”

            “Hey, I thought that one was between us,” the Omega snapped jokingly, pressing her index finger against her pursed lips to shush her tiny whistleblower, then winked at him.  “She’s right, though.  You don’t have to deal with those people anymore.  If anything comes up, I’ll take care of it all.”

            As small as he was, everyone present could see the pressure visibly deflate from Neil.

            “Your movie probably only started a little while ago.  You could still catch it if you hurried,” Lucy said after another pause.  “I guess you’ll have to just look up what happened at the start.”

            “Who cares about how it started?  This was way more worth watching than some rom-com anyway,” Bridget’s friend said as she casually reclined again in the massive palm such that she could continue dreamily spectating the gentle PDA below.

            “Seriously,” the Omega chuckled.  “And anyway, I take long steps.  We’ll make up the time.”

            “I’ll see you Tuesday at the next school, then,” Neil said, waving as the mighty young woman began to turn around, practically blotting out the sun behind her with her statuesque frame.  The Beta’s eye caught on Bridget’s friend peering over the edge of the gargantuan curled fingers, and quickly added: “And it was good to meet you, Lexi.”

            “Nice to meet you, too.  Both of you,” Alexandra Warren said sweetly, waving goodbye in unison with her towering best friend’s opposite hand.  She and Bridget exchanged adoringly cheeky glances, fawning over the clearly star-crossed lovebirds, as they made their way back down the street.

            And finally, Lucy and Neil were left alone on the bricked terrace.  Turning away from the railing, the Alpha began strolling pointedly down the empty cobblestone path, forcing herself to focus on taking precise steps rather than the tingling sensation of her adoring Beta’s chest rising and falling against her finger.  Placing him back in the headband seat by her ear was an option as well, but Lucy doubted she had the willpower to let Neil out of her palm again for the foreseeable future.  Eventually, it got too difficult trying to multi-task like this.

            “Where can I sit?” she asked distractedly.

            “Uhh… about fourteen steps away, eleven o’clock,” he mumbled, just as half-concentrated as she was.

            As though walking on a cloud, Lucy made the journey and pivoted at the supposed destination, feeling the soft wood of the bench against her hamstrings right where Neil had said.  Somehow managing to widen the smile that was already permanently etched on her lips, the girl lowered herself into the seat in order to put her full focus at last into feeling Neil nuzzling against her fingers.  He really was as good at estimating distance by now as she was at interpreting the words into motion, and she knew now she’d never want anyone else to be her navigator.

            By the way he was embracing her fingers and gently kissing the ends of each, she had a hunch his feelings on the matter were similar to hers.          

            “Neil?” she breathed contentedly, cuddling her cheek back against his head.

            “Luce?”

            There were so many words she wanted to say to him now that she’d been protecting silently for years, but in the wonderful surprise of this whole day, they’d come jumbled impossibly together.  She held them in the back of her mouth, rolled the potential syllables around with her tongue, and settled herself with an absolving exhalation instead.  At last, Lucy managed to piece together two coherent sounds: “Trivia game?”

            “Trivia game,” Neil responded, not missing a beat.

            “Strong coffee?”

            “Strong coffee.”

            “Sleepover?”

            “Sleepover.”

            Bowing her head lower, Lucy pressed her tender lower lip against Neil’s cheek.

            “Maybe some more of this, too,” Neil suggested as he reciprocated the kiss, hardly able to form words either.  “You know, if you want, too.”

            “Oh, gee,” Lucy murmured lovingly.  “I guess so.”

            The sun had shifted now over the concrete canyons and found the pair again after their retreat from under the umbrella less than an hour ago.  Feeling its warmth on her cheeks, Lucy turned her face up and soaked it up, curling her fingers over the Beta just enough that he had the option of shade.  Like her, though, he chose to remain in the rays.

            This was all new, even for two people who’d known each other for more than ten years and had probably been pining for one another for just as long.  Words would wait.  Now that they’d started off Neil’s freshly independent life with a glorious bang, there would be more than enough time to discover for themselves what the future held rather than rushing headlong into it now.  And they’d have each other to provide directions every step of the way.