Ten-year-old Alexandra Warren sat on a cushion atop the vast expanse of Evelyn Cade’s pearly-white Aegis desk. With knees pressed to her chest and her arms wrapped around her shoulders, she rested her cheek on her forearms and rocked slowly back and forth to unsuccessfully reach some kind of equilibrium. Her upper lip quivered, desperate to let the trembling metastasize and turn into full-body heaving that would inevitably be followed by agonized sobbing, but her mind was far too paralyzed for her to do anything other than silently shake.
She gazed numbly around the unbelievably huge Aegis office. Alexandra had never been inside any building constructed for Omegas before, let alone what was essentially the city’s central command center. The sight ordinarily would’ve captured her sense of wonder and prompted her to test out the distance with a few delighted shouts rebounded as echoes.
No such impetus was inside her as she hardly attempted to process what her eyes were actually seeing at the moment, with her mind’s eye still trapped firmly in what she’d witnessed a mere half hour ago. She was beyond weary, exhausted after the evening’s events, and desired the sweet embrace of sleep, but it seemed the nightmarish vision of it all would never again permit such a luxury. Alexandra was almost positive of this, in fact, and that was enough to scare her into further quivering.
“Yes, you heard me,” Evelyn Cade whispered anxiously into her phone on the other end of the room, in an effort to minimize what the traumatized Alpha could hear. “She said she ran, got chased onto the subway, and then just showed up here at the elevators. No one else is here now, otherwise I would’ve put her with… yes, yes, I know, someone will be up to process her, but I’m going to need an enforcer to come here now to help handle this too, all right? There’s something else they need to hear. Thank you. What? Fine, fine…”
Aegis’ urban planner continued pacing as she waited for another answer, chancing a glance back at her desk every few seconds to ensure Alexandra had remained where she’d placed her to try and calm down after she’d carried her back to the desk inside a transportation car. Evelyn could tell, though, with a single look in the tiny girl’s hollow eyes that such a peaceful outcome would probably just be optimistic thinking, considering what the Alpha had managed to describe to her before falling utterly silent and immovable.
Alexandra’s eyes began to water, not yet from tears, but from her having forgotten to blink as she continued staring off into the glowing white space of the room.
Their pleas. Their screams. Their faces.
She wouldn’t have believed any living thing could look like that until she’d seen it with her own eyes and subsequently wished she could spend as many hours as was required to scrub it from her memory.
Their faces.
“Mom? I thought you said we could go home at ten, I…” Bridget Cade piped up, blonde curls bouncing against her shoulders as she bounded around the corner toward Evelyn’s desk, though she stopped in her tracks when she noticed the only occupant, about the size of one of her fingers, curled up in a trembling ball on the desk cushion reserved for visiting Alphas.
Alexandra heard the voice but didn’t bother turning to look at its twelve-year-old Omega owner, and probably couldn’t have repeated back what was said an instant later from memory. All she could do was keep replaying the images and sounds of those Betas again and again on a continuous loop. They were tormenting her ceaselessly, and with each repetition, it only got worse.
“Hi there,” Bridget said sweetly to her unexpected companion as she sauntered slowly up to the desk, still keeping her distance at the sight of the guarded Alpha stranger. She looked across the room and spotted her mother, who had her back turned to them as she continued talking on her phone, then returned her attention down to the occupant of Evelyn’s workspace.
Immediately sensing the dire tension surrounding the unknown little girl, Bridget carefully kneeled down next to the desk so that only her head was fully in Alexandra’s view, then gingerly gripped the edge for support without rattling it in the slightest.
No response came from the Alpha.
“Are you okay?” the Omega asked apprehensively, hushing her voice lower so as not to spook the girl. She cocked her head to the side curiously, unable to comprehend the show of wallowing before her in such a small, delicate form.
Blinking at this second direct address, Alexandra was pulled just enough from her hateful mental slideshow to glance over at Bridget’s face framed by the cascading curls. She flinched at the first meeting of those enormous swimming green eyes, but relaxed almost instantly when she saw only concern in them. Compassion, even. It was a refreshing replacement to briefly focus on instead of the haunting visages of recent memory.
She still didn’t speak to respond, but found herself keeping eye contact with the Omega, and for a few stunted moments, the shivering stopped.
“My name is Bridget,” the Omega whispered with an earnest smile out of the corner of her mouth. Upon meeting the stranger’s eyes, she was immediately startled by the raw grief evident in them, but refused to let it show in her face. “What’s yours?”
“L…” the Alpha peeped after a dry silence. “L-Lexi.”
“Lexi. I like your name, Lexi,” Bridget repeated back amiably. “Is something wrong?”
Alexandra considered trying to open her mouth again to explain, but after the ordeal of summarizing everything to Evelyn in a blind and stupefied panic before completely collapsing in on herself from the magnitude of it all, the words weren’t exactly on the tip of her tongue. She simply nodded her head in the affirmative as she continued leaning her cheek against her huddled arms and legs, with her sweat-matted long dark hair in a tangled mess.
“I’m sorry,” Bridget cooed, biting her lip. “Is there anything I can do?”
Alexandra had to frown at this, and was shaken even further from her emotional paralysis out of pure bewilderment.
She didn’t know who this girl was. Had never even seen her before. In fact, she could count the number of Omegas she’d ever spoken to on two fingers, and both of those encounters were from within the last fifteen minutes. Her mother had always been stringent on how many people she had contact with, even among the Alpha community, and outside of her class, the girl was permitted no opportunities to connect. To Bridget, she knew she was only some stranger curled up and shaking like a leaf, tiny and insignificant.
What did she care?
“No,” Alexandra admitted at last with difficulty, her voice half-devolved into a low wheeze.
“Are you sure?” Bridget followed up as tamely as she could. She leaned her head forward a few more feet across the surface of the desk, but still kept her distance from the unmoving Alpha child.
Alexandra bobbed her head before burying her face back against her crossed arms and shivering, feeling the tears finally beginning to trickle down her cheeks and not wanting to embarrass herself even further in front of this perfect stranger. She appreciated the anesthetizing sweetness of the girl’s words, but there was no way she would allow herself to let her guard down now. Not after everything she’d seen that night, and might very well still see more of if she managed to track her down here.
However, in the near-silence of the moment, the Alpha knew her quietly choked sobs could be heard, and listening intently, she could tell the Omega was still waiting with bated breath next to the desk as near to eye level as she could manage. Alexandra’s barely controlled demeanor was then broken when she felt a fingertip as thick as a tree stroking down from her shoulders to the small of her back.
The girl flinched, yelping in surprise, and the tremendous fingertip retracted instantly. It was by no means the strength of the contact that got the reaction. Bridget’s single caress in its attempt at comfort was actually gentler than most Alphas she had encountered in her life.
It was simply the first time she’d ever been touched by an Omega.
“I’m so sorry!” Bridget gasped, still keeping her voice at a respectfully low whisper as she cupped her hands around her mouth. She laid her fingertips back on the edge of the desk, but this time kept a cautious distance. “I… I d-didn’t mean t-to…”
The Omega’s bright green eyes, so eager to help moments before, appeared to be glistening now.
“It’s okay,” Alexandra gulped with clarity that surprised even herself as she forced herself to look back out at her companion.
“You j-just looked… so s-sad, I…” Bridget continued liltingly. Leaning in further over the edge of the desk, she turned her head to the side and rested her cheek against the surface so that the faces of both girls were aligned in the same direction. “…I’m s-so sorry, Lexi.”
“No,” Alexandra murmured. She didn’t know how it happened, but she had became aware that the ghastly images playing through her mind were beginning to fade into the background the more she focused on Bridget’s words. In this moment of horrifically melded fear and uncertainty, it seemed like the best thing to continue doing.
“What?”
“It’s okay. I j-just haven’t m-met a… a…” Alexandra sputtered nervously.
“Oh, God,” Bridget exhaled anxiously, feeling guiltier than ever at what she immediately assumed was a very threatening first impression of her class. “I… I p-promise, I won’t t-touch you again. Do you want me to leave you alone now?”
“No,” the marginally relaxed Alpha answered.
“You’re crying,” the Omega observed dolefully, biting her lip and looking to be dangerously on the verge of tears herself, having decided that this new development must’ve been her fault.
“No I’m not,” Alexandra responded bashfully, quickly rubbing her wrists over the tiny twinkling trails on her cheeks.
“Please don’t be sad,” Bridget requested softly. “They’re really nice here at Aegis. They’ll take care of you. They’ll fix what’s wrong, whatever it is.”
“They can’t fix it,” the young girl said with a stuttered sigh, rocking back and forth anew. “They can’t.”
“Why not?”
“They can’t s-stop her. She’ll d-do it again, and then she’ll… she’ll f-find me…”
“Nobody can find you here,” Bridget said firmly, her voice still hushed. “You’re safe.”
“She can,” Alexandra gasped as the bloody visions forced their way back to the forefront of her mind. Her mouth hung open and the tears flowed freely again. “And then she’ll… she’ll h-”
“Nobody will hurt you, Lexi,” Bridget reaffirmed with a determined furrow of her brow, absolutely aching at the sight of the Alpha’s suffering. “Nobody.”
“How do you know?” Alexandra squeaked, trembling and clenching her eyes shut in a failed attempt to escape the waking nightmare.
“Because I won’t let them,” the Omega answered simply, and despite the terror gripping Alexandra, the absolute and calm certainty of Bridget’s answer allowed another glimmer of hope to fight its way through the distress.
“How can you…” Alexandra muttered.
“What?” Bridget asked, her cheek still resting against the desk.
“How can you be sure?”
“Alexandra, honey, are you doing all right?” Evelyn Cade asked daintily as she paced back toward the desk, the mouthpiece of her phone covered by a palm.
“Yes, ma'am,” the Alpha answered automatically as she turned her head away, not wanting yet another person to see her tears.
“I have one more call to make, and then we’re going to take you to see some people here that want to help you. Would you like that?”
Alexandra only nodded, but it was sincere.
“Do you need anything?”
A small shake of the head this time.
Evelyn briefly made eye contact with her daughter, with knowledge and trust in the girl’s disposition, and only smiled before putting the phone back to her ear and continuing the call as she marched back across the room.
“Because,” Bridget whispered in answer to her companion once the pair were alone again. “Anyone who wants to get to you will have to go through me first.”
Alexandra felt warmth shoot through her nervously chilly skin, and couldn’t help but be soothed by the unmoving honesty in the girl’s promise. She inherently knew Bridget meant every last word of it.
“T-Thank you,” the Alpha said with a hesitant swallow, nodding her head and daring herself to fend off the frightful images again. Steadily, her rigid posture began to relax until she was merely sitting on the cushion instead of cringingly knotted up.
“You’re welcome,” Bridget said tenderly.
As she took deep breaths, calming her nerves against impossible odds, Alexandra turned her head away as more tears poured down.
“Here you go,” the Omega said, slowly extending a pointer finger toward the weeping ten-year-old and stopping about a foot away. A tissue scrap rested on the tip of her finger. Reluctantly, the girl accepted it.
“I’m s-s-sorry…” Alexandra huffed, humiliated to be seen like this as she wiped the trickled moisture from her cheeks and neck.
“Please don’t be sorry. It’s okay,” Bridget reassured. “I just want you to feel better.”
“Why?”
“What?”
“Why? I don’t… know you,” Alexandra whispered with imperiousness that came from the lasting paranoia at being treated so well by someone from a class she’d been taught to avoid her entire life.
“Because I don’t like it when people are sad or afraid,” the Omega explained, somewhat confused that the answer wasn’t obvious. “And I want to protect you.”
“Protect me?”
“Yes. If you’ll let me.”
“I…” Alexandra gaped, too lost in a haze of simultaneous lingering fear and hope at the girl’s words. “Why?”
“That’s what you do for your friends,” Bridget smirked.
“F-Friends?” the lonesome Alpha repeated back, getting jitters at the mere possibility of such a thing. Her mother had always lorded over her relationships so tightly, never giving her the opportunity to create a lasting connection with anyone, that the very idea was foreign in her mind as well as in her vocal cords. For a moment, she considered the possibility that she was being joked with.
“Uh-huh,” Bridget confirmed. “If you want.”
“I d-do,” Alexandra stammered, no longer out of aversion at the idea of danger, but simply with subdued joy.
“Is there anything else I can do for you now?” the Omega pressed. “Anything?”
“I… I want to… get up now,” Alexandra mustered. “Off the lady’s desk.”
“Oh,” Bridget said hopefully after an uncertain pause with a lift of an eyebrow as she straightened up her posture again. “You… you mean you want…”
“Yes,” Alexandra answered knowingly, nodding her head as she shakily rose to her feet and wrung her hands nervously behind her back.
“Do you want to ride on the transport car?” Bridget offered, slowly reaching across the desk for the device her mother had left before walking away to make the calls and wrapping her fingers around the handle to demonstrate her aptitude for safe carrying.
“N-No,” the Alpha said. “I d-don’t… need it.”
“You mean… you want me to…”
“Yes. P-Please.”
“All right,” Bridget said, trying to hide the eager enthusiasm in her voice. She gingerly upturned her hand about a foot from Alexandra’s legs and flattened her peachy fingers against the surface of the desk. “Are you ready?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t be scared,” the Omega wheedled. “I’ve never ever let anybody fall.”
“Never?”
“Never ever.”
“Okay,” Alexandra said, trusting her first-ever friend implicitly as she took the first quivering step onto the girl’s enormous fingertips. They were soft and strangely inviting, and suddenly it felt oddly familiar to be climbing into a giant person’s hand to let her pick her up, like being reunited in an embrace with a long-lost relative. Serenity overtook her almost immediately.
“I’ve got you. I promise,” Bridget insisted as her hand began to rise up from the table with its passenger in tow.
It was a bizarre experience for the Alpha, but for reasons entirely separate than she was expecting. The malleable floor of Bridget’s fleshy palm and fingertips yielded slightly to each of her footsteps as she made her way to the soft center, but aside from this, it was like standing on concrete as Bridget’s arm ascended. She doubted she could’ve swayed the stillness of the girl’s hand even if she jumped up and down and leapt from side to side, and it made her feel more secure than she had in years.
“Comfy?” Bridget asked while carefully observing the girl’s progress.
“Yes.”
“You can sit down if you want,” the Omega suggested gently.
“Thank you,” Alexandra uttered as she lowered herself down into Bridget’s warm palm and crossed her legs together, gazing at the room from her slightly elevated perch with fresh confidence in her security. The Omega’s thumb carefully arched itself up to provide extra security around the edge of the hand, and Alexandra placed both hands upon it for balance.
“I’ve got everything taken care of, Alexandra. We’re going to introduce you to some nice people here at Aegis who are going to help. Are you ready?” Evelyn asked, placing her phone back in a pocket as she approached the desk again from across the room. She pursed her lips at the sight of the traumatized Alpha resting in her daughter’s palm, but didn’t say anything about it, having faith that Bridget wouldn’t have touched the girl without express permission.
“Yes, ma'am,” the Alpha answered with a bob of her head. Hardly thinking about it, she hugged Bridget’s thumb closer to her stomach, which the Omega’s finger obligingly allowed as it cuddled her back. “Ma'am?”
“You can just call me Evelyn, honey. What do you need?” the elder Omega asked as she looked down at the occupant of her daughter’s hand.
“Can… can Bridget… c-come with me to see the people?”
An appreciative smile crossing her lips, Evelyn made brief eye contact with her daughter, who returned her mother’s glance with pleading green irises, obviously desperate to remain with Alexandra as well.
“Yes, she can.”
“Please will you s-stay with me?” Alexandra whimpered as she gazed up at the face of her handler, wrapping her arms even tighter around Bridget’s finger with hope and gratefully resting her cheek against the soft pad of the enormous thumbprint.
“Of course I will,” the Omega promised, cracking a disbelieving smile that such a thing even needed to be asked and getting goose bumps at the sensation of this brave little girl hugging her finger. Without even knowing Alexandra’s story yet, she could sense how difficult all of this was, and it made her admire her new friend immensely to see her soldiering on. It seemed the least she could do to stay with her and help any way she could. “As long as you want.”
“Bridget?”
“Yes?”
“Are… are you… sure nobody can c-come in here and find me? I… I just…” Alexandra asked as the final wave of tears in the exhausting aftermath of the emotional episode quietly burst forth. She no longer tried to hide her face from the Omega as she was gently cradled in Bridget’s steady palm.
“I swear, Lexi,” Bridget vowed solemnly as she stroked her fingertip along her new friend’s cheek to wipe the fresh tears away as delicately as a feather. “You never have to be afraid again.”