“Who are you?”

            “You’re probably used to seeing me a little bigger than this,” the woman answered as she gently placed the picture frame back on the side table where she’d found it.

            Frowning, Alexandra studied the features of her face with trickling recognition.

            “You’re… Kayla Everett, aren’t you?”

            Kayla gave a single, steady nod of her head before taking a step forward into the center of the apartment’s living room.

            “Okay.  Um…” the Alpha responded hesitantly, the air catching in her chest for reasons she couldn’t explain.  “What… are you doing here?  In my house?”

            “I was hoping to get the chance to speak to you personally, but didn’t want to disturb your healing process.  I’d heard you turned away most of my representatives at the hospital, so I decided it was best to wait,” the Omega responded as she folded her hands smoothly behind her back.  “I apologize if I startled you with my intrusion.”

            “How did you even… I mean, I only have one key, and it’s still…”

            “I have ways of getting where I need to.  You don’t need to be concerned with the security of your home.”

            “Okay.  Fine,” Alexandra said, incredibly off-put by the oddity of the situation and nervous about walking too far into the apartment, despite the woman’s seeming lack of ill will.  “So is there something you want from me?  Because if there is, you’ll probably want to make it quick.”

            “You don’t have to leave, Alexandra.”

            “Yeah?  Who said I’m leaving?”

            “That’s what you want to do, though, isn’t it?” Kayla pressed.

            “Maybe.  So what?  Can somebody not just leave anymore if they want?  Am I still under arrest for something else I forgot about?” Alexandra spoke obdurately as she took the final steps into the room and set her bag down on the kitchen table.

            “Of course you’re not under arrest.  I’m not here to talk about the crime that was done to you.  You are free to leave if you wish.”

            “Well, isn’t that a relief,” the Alpha answered as she limped her way into the kitchenette to root through the drawers for items she’d need to travel with.  She was becoming increasingly aggravated with the lead Omega’s cryptic nonresponses and had already abandoned what little social convention the surprise of seeing someone in her house had mechanically afforded.  “It’s really great of you to not let the only people I had left in the world torture me for another couple weeks.”

            The apartment fell silent, save for the lonely clattering of the drawers as Alexandra pulled the few items out she was looking for and set them on the countertop.  Once finished, she made her way past the monumentally still Kayla and into the adjoining bedroom to collect a bigger bag for clothing.

            “I am so very sorry, Alexandra,” Kayla called out with wistful agony at last, as though each word had been passed along the edge of a blade before reaching her lips.  “I don’t suppose repeating it over and over again will do any good for you, though.”

            “Probably a good guess,” came the pernicious reply from the bedroom as the Alpha began rummaging through her closet and rolling up enough articles for storage in her bag.  There was little attention paid to what was thrown into the case.

            “Would you sit down with me for a moment?” Kayla requested softly, still having barely moved a muscle in minutes as Alexandra reappeared in the living room with a half-filled rolling suitcase.

            “I thought you said I could leave if I wanted.”

            “Of course you can.  I have no desire to stop you.  I only ask that you hear what I have to say before you go,” the Omega insisted gently.  Taking several steps over to the wall, the leader of the world and most powerful being on the planet lowered herself politely onto Alexandra’s old green couch.  “Please.”

            “Why should I?” the Alpha huffed instantly, then at last sighed to let out the inflating fury and try to relax.  It wasn’t that she wanted to spare Kayla’s feelings, but after all this time she’d spent stewing in her pain, she was resolved to put the violent matters out of mind and simply start trying to rebuild some semblance of her reality.  Swallowing, she closed her eyes and steadied herself, repeating back quietly: “Why should I?”

            “I have an offer I’d like to make you.  If you could just sit down with me for a few minutes, I can explain it.  And then you can do whatever you want without another word from me.”

            Biting her lip and nodding with lingering paranoia, Alexandra paused before speaking up.  “I’d… rather stay standing.”

            “All right, then,” Kayla said respectfully as she folded her hands neatly in her lap.

            Despite her position of being seated so innocuously on the worn-out couch, there was a presence surrounding Kayla, an invisible aura of otherworldly wonder and might that made the Alpha feel just uneasy enough to keep her distance.

            “There are certain things I’m afraid I can’t fully explain to you, Alexandra.  About the way Aegis operates, and about the measures at my disposal.  All I can do is provide you with the opportunity.  If you choose to take it, I will take care of everything.  Is that understood?” Kayla continued.

            “Sure,” Alexandra mumbled hollowly, leaning more heavily on the crutch.

            “I… understand that you’ve seen a lot of suffering in your life.  In the midst of that darkness, you found something to cling to, and you were happy for some time.  And I understand you feel now that that’s been taken away from you.  That you have to run because there’s nothing left.”

            “So what are you getting at?” the Alpha interjected with a crack in her voice, the anger alit again at this uncomfortably precise reading of her current state.  “Just say it already.”

            “I have the means to make that feeling go away,” Kayla stated.  “If you wish those memories… the bad ones… could be gone forever, I can do that.  I can make it like those two weeks never happened.”

            “You mean…”

            “I can make you forget it.  Completely wipe it from your memory.  If that is your desire.”

            Kayla, who’d still barely been moving with each soft-spoken proclamation, now returned to her statuesque poise, her florid irises locked patiently to the Alpha.

            The macabre words of outlandish fantasy mulled in a conflicted jumble through Alexandra’s mind.

            So there it was.  A chance at a clean slate.  A chance for a blank on the damaged path of her life.  The idea of it all going away.  The idea of being free forever from the torments that teased through her mind every night and almost every waking moment now.

            Right there.  Hers to take.  Freedom.

            “No,” Alexandra sighed at last, her red eyes welling heavily.  “I… don’t want to forget.  I can’t.”

            A look of somber acceptance crossing Kayla’s face, she nodded once again, as though reassured by alternate confirmation of this resolution.  “I had a feeling.  You really are very alike.”

            “What?”

            “Bridget refused as well.  Immediately, actually.”

            Sniffling softly as a fresh tear tumbled down her cheek, Alexandra gasped quietly for breath.  “Where… w-where is…”

            “Off where she can take a rest from her duties.  She has some healing to do as well.”

            The Alpha shook her head knowingly and began making her way for the door again, resolved to avoid any further distractions from her goal of dispersing into an anonymous sea of faces where she wouldn’t be recognized.

            “Alexandra, wait.”

            “You just keep on dragging this out, don’t you?”

            “This is a card reserved for our special operatives,” Kayla explained, removing a slick white rectangle from her pocket and brandishing the object between two fingers as an offering.  “It’ll ensure you can go anywhere you want, for as long as you want.  No limits.  Please take it.”

            “You can’t just buy everything in the world up.  People don’t work like that,” Alexandra spat, her fire refueled at the woman’s desperation to patch things up.  “Besides.  I already told your lady at the hospital I’m not going to throw a fit at you and your super-justice squad.”

            “I don’t want to buy your silence, Alexandra,” Kayla intoned firmly, at last moving another part of her body with a sudden clenching of her fingers together, which quivered as though they contained the strength to tear the room in half if she had a mind to.  “Nor is this an apology.  I know nothing else I can say right now will convince you.  I only want to help you.  Please let me.”

            Momentarily afronted, the Alpha chewed the words over and found she couldn’t detect any disingenuousness, but at this point, it was beyond mattering.

            “Well, even so,” Alexandra uttered.  “I… don’t need your help.”

            Grasping the handle of her rolling suitcase, then, the Alpha began awkwardly ambling for the kitchen table to scoop up her other bag and make her way toward the door.  “I guess if you found a way to break in without messing with the door, you can get out, too.  Help yourself to some food if you want, but I bet it went bad a while ago.”

            “Lexi,” Kayla spoke with startling warmth and familiarity.  “Please.  You don’t have to be alone again.  You don’t have to disappear into that void.  That’s not where you belong.”

            “How the hell would you know?” Alexandra answered with her back turned, the words so hoarse and concealed under her breath that they couldn’t possibly have been directly heard and understood.

            “Trust me,” Kayla said.  “I do.  And even if you don’t believe me now, I just want to remind you that trusting someone, even in the midst of everything going wrong all around you, even in the midst of unjust strife being placed upon you, does not make you weak.”

            “Then what does it make me?”

            “Human.”

            “Oh, I see.  Just like you, huh?”

            “Exactly.  Please.  Please take the card.”

            Alexandra turned back to face the woman again, revealing her tear-stained face wrinkled into a pained scowl.  “I learned a long time ago what it gets me to have to rely on people.  And then I had to learn it again pretty recently.  I don’t feel like doing it again.  Look what it got me last time.”

            “Look what it got you the first time,” came the soft reply.  “No matter what’s happened now, would you trade any of those years?  Any of that time?  Would you give up a single second of the last ten years for even the most painful week of your life?”

            Alexandra’s knees wobbled.  Gripping the handle of the crutch hard enough to squeeze all the blood from her hand, she wrapped her other arm over her wrist to steady herself from trembling.

            No.

            Of course she wouldn’t.

            Never.

            “Okay,” Alexandra sputtered, wiping a wrist over her swollen eyelids.  “I’ll… I’ll take it.”

            “Thank you,” Kayla breathed as she rose up from the couch and walked to Alexandra to hand it over.  Again, the sight of the reduced Omega approaching her brought with it an air of intimidating magnificence that made the Alpha consider taking another step back, but the glowing benevolence of those eyes overruled such an instinct.

            “Yeah.  Um,” the Alpha muttered sheepishly.  “Thanks.”

            “If you’d like, I can call you a car to take you somewhere.  Anywhere you want.  Just say the word.”

            “No.  No, that’s okay.  I could… use the practice first,” Alexandra reassured with a glance down at her healing leg as she took a few steps back out into the hallway.

            “All right,” Kayla agreed, switching the light off in the apartment and following her host out of the home.  Seeing Alexandra struggling somewhat with the armload, the Omega quickly scooped up the largest bag and slung it over her shoulder as though it was filled with feathers.  “If you’re sure, then this is where I leave you.  That card will get you anything you need, no questions asked, but in the unlikely event that something does arise, or… you simply wish to reach me, for whatever reason, there’s a number you can call on the back.  When my work makes it such that I can’t be reached, you will be able to find someone to help you.  Never hesitate to use it.”

            “All right,” Alexandra agreed as the pair began slowly making their way down the hallway, with Kayla slowing her stride considerably to stay beside the Alpha with every pace.  “Miss… Everett.”

            “Yes, Alexandra?”

            “Please… when you… when you see…” the Alpha exhaled, an overwhelming peace at last overtaking her as though she’d been cradled into a still ocean, and she breathed easier for the first time in what felt like a century.  “Please tell my sister that I love her, too.”

            Miles beyond the outskirts of the city in a sea of dust, concealed behind towering walls of bulletproof steel, armed guard posts, and the homicidal grimaces of four hundred of the world’s most wretched souls, in the cold silence of a metal cell, a woman was hunched on the floor over a pipe in the wall.  The antiquated plumbing hadn’t been worked on in years, but thanks to some severe rust issues, the prison had finally seen to its replacement today.

            Alma Warren had noticed the new type of screw holding the bends together almost immediately upon returning to her cell from the yard that morning, and had set to work without delay on removing them.  It was tightly melded into the line, but thanks to a couple of utensils she’d acquired over the last two years from some resourceful cohorts, removing the screws was now a viable option given enough time.  The forty-five-year-old Beta-killer didn’t know just yet how they could be used, but given their unique shape, any available tool was something she wanted in her arsenal.  Collecting tools for gaining favors and even possibilities of escaping the isolated super max facility someday was never a poor choice, and Alma had all the time in the world.

            Her mind, a mechanically-affected steel trap, had been deprived of real challenges for so long now.  Luckily, constructing solutions from raw material in difficult circumstances had always been a passion of hers, and in her previous line of work, she’d never been bored.

            Unfortunately for her, she found her progress halted with a hard knock on the other side of the reinforced door.  Quickly slipping the objects back into her pants, the woman hopped onto the bed that sat locked to the wall a foot away and crossed her sinewy arms over her jumpsuit-clad chest before blowing up on a stray tuft of hair out of her eyes that had fallen over.  Her cold, black marble eyes darted like a cat’s across each edge of the door, prepared if the opportunity arose to make a move.

            “Soup’s on, Warren,” the guard announced with bored resignation as he opened the door all the way for the woman to fold into the throngs ambling like reanimated corpses toward the dining hall.  “C’mon, let’s get moving before it gets cold.”

            “Well, we wouldn’t want that, would we?” Alma sneered under her breath as she climbed off the bed in one smooth motion and slipped out into the hall.  “I wonder if they made it rat or piss flavor today?”

            “No need for that kind of attitude,” the guard groaned as he locked up the cell behind her.  “The way they provide for this place, you’d think you were just on vacation.”

            “If that’s the case, I could use a vacation from this vacation,” Alma sighed, running a veiny hand through her matted hair and down her waspy face with exasperation.

            No sooner had the two guards finished releasing the row of female prisoners into line to exit when the door leading out to the central cell block wing abruptly slammed shut, the crimson monitor above blinking with neon urgency.  All present immediately burst into chattering speculation.

            Glancing idly around the hall, Alma caught instantly onto the sight of the hall security camera, which seemed to be rotating much further out of its normal range such that it couldn’t see the entire area, and instead was now trained directly on her.

            “All right, all right, everyone needs to keep it down for a minute,” the other guard ordered as he pulled out his radio and marched into the corner of the room to hear better.  “Can I get an update out here?  I’m not seeing any kind of disturbance in any sector, so I’m assuming we’ve got a door malfunction of some kind, if-”

            The man’s droning voice was interrupted by the ear-shredding obliteration of the back wall that sent a rain of crumbled brick and shrapnel spraying across the room, burying the guard closest to it and knocking back a dozen prisoners who’d been huddled too close to the impact zone, though Alma was safely out of range of the explosion.

            Eardrums still ringing mercilessly, she placed a hand over her eyes and rapidly blinked as the dust billowed into the hall.  She pulled herself slowly back to a standing position, above most of the other women who’d dove to the ground for safety or at least crouched down.

            Three figures appeared in the newly created opening, shrouded in the white cloud, and marched without hesitation across the rubble and into the hallway.  The other guard stood up, his gun drawn, but the tallest figure in the back of the trio had already fired into the man’s skull by the time he could steady his aim, putting him back on the ground in a puddle of his own brain.

            “If everyone could remain calm and not make any quick movements, we can get our work done and let you get back to slowly rotting away in here,” the first figure announced loudly to the room, and Alma was surprised to hear that the voice was distinctly feminine.

            With the dust adequately settled, Alma realized the Alphas were comprised of two women and a man, all dressed in black tactical suits with combat boots and loaded utility belts around their waists.

            The woman in front who’d addressed the room had her jet-black hair tied tightly behind her head to keep it out of her hollow coal eyes.  As her gaze flashed over the room, just like the security camera, she locked onto Alma.  A smirk spread over her lips as she crossed the room with a singular purpose toward the incarcerated woman.

            “Alma Warren,” she uttered with reverence.

            “What’s it to you?” scoffed the guilty Alpha.

            “It’s a real pleasure.  I’m very familiar with your work, and I have to say… it’s an honor.”

            “Halle,” coughed the voice of the man from behind her.

            “We’re fine, Roger, relax,” the woman answered without turning around or breaking her admiring concentration on Alma.  Tapping her finger to a tiny earpiece attached to her lobe, she whispered: “Alice, go ahead and give them something to entertain themselves with while we chat.”

            As though in answer, the security camera bobbed up and down, and suddenly the lockdown gate was thrown open again.  Hesitant at first, the spooked criminals all inched toward the door, and after a casual wave of Halle’s glove-clad hand, they all took off unsupervised into the hallway.  Further down the corridor, Alma could hear the rush of feet and the discharging of a couple weapons, followed by several more alarms going off.

            “Good girl,” Halle congratulated softly into the earpiece before returning her attention squarely back to Alma.  “Well, we don’t have very long, so I’ll keep this moving.  Are you at all interested in checking out of this dump early?”

            Uneasy with the mad proceedings before her, Alma squinted unconvinced at the faces of the man and woman behind Halle.

            “What do you want with me?” she posed at last, still as paranoid as ever, but not one to question the opportunity for too long when her other option was to continue shriveling away into nothing inside that mindless metal block.

            “It’s simple, really,” Halle said with a chuckle.  “We’ve got a job offer that we’d like to talk to you about.”

            “What kind of job?”

            “The kind that would ensure your considerable talents don’t have to go to waste any longer.”

            Alma nodded resolutely and took a step closer to the opening in the wall, receiving a delighted grin from the trio.  She balled her hands into tight enough fists that her bony knuckles cracked with a self-satisfied vengeance.

            “I’m listening.”