“Hello, Alexandra,” Evelyn Cade sighed mutedly as she allowed the door of her daughter’s bedroom to swing gently open, granting her entry.  Though dressed in her Aegis uniform, her posture was relaxed, and her hair was tied back.  Her eyes, hazel rather than her daughter’s striking green, were no less piercing in their unmoving stare as she made her way slowly to the shelf upon which the incarcerated Alpha’s cell rested.

            The imprisoned girl leaned forward on her bed where she’d been sitting motionless for the past two hours and her mouth couldn’t help but hang slightly open at the intimidating visage of the woman who’d essentially been her adoptive mother for the past decade.

            “Ev… E-Evelyn,” Alexandra peeped meekly, gazing up at her looming face as the elder Cade peered inside.  She couldn’t have said whether her weakness was due to shock or simply the secondhand dredges of joy at the mere sight of the woman after a full nine days with no human contact other than Bridget.  As Evelyn’s fingers curled nonthreateningly around the edge of the cell, tapping softly at the glassy surface, the Alpha was tempted to feel relief. 

            Almost immediately, though, Alexandra hung her head, deciding it was best not to look the Omega directly in the eye.  The fact that Evelyn had managed to enter the room and strike up a conversation in her normal hushed and amiable tone didn’t change the fact that she obviously believed the crime that had been pinned on Alexandra, or she otherwise would’ve shown her face sooner to proclaim her intent to fight for the justice Bridget obviously was blind to now.

            This couldn’t possibly have been a mission of mercy, like the Alpha so desperately wished it could be at the automatically comforting sight of her mother-figure.  At best, it was probably a peace-making attempt when Bridget’s more forceful attempts at coercing a confession hadn’t exactly produced the most promising results.

            After the second session, where Alexandra had been compressed down to six inches, she’d remained in abject silence during the following days following the regaining of her previous height a few hours later, even at a couple of paltry attempts on Bridget’s part to engage in conversation on the alleged crime.  It simply wasn’t worth it any longer.

            “If I take you out of there for a little while…” began Evelyn with a labored swallow, blinking several times.  “…will you talk to me?”

            “I…” Alexandra murmured bashfully, perfectly willing to talk, but almost certain that the Omega’s definition of “talking” in this case didn’t line up with her own.

            “Will you?”

            “Yes,” the Alpha grunted, sliding off of the bed and taking several steps into the center of the cell, placing her hands obediently at her sides to make the surely inevitable snatching go over more smoothly.  It seemed the best way to begin a conversation that was surely fated to rapidly go downhill at the first insistence that she wasn’t, in fact, a murderous Beta-bashing psycho.

            To Alexandra’s surprise, though, Evelyn’s hand laid palm-up on the floor of the cell a couple feet away from where the Alpha stood.  Wondering if it was a trick, she eyed the unmoving fleshy floor with hesitant suspicion.

            “You can climb in,” Evelyn offered, instantly recognizing the issue.  “I’m not just going to pick you up.  You don’t have to come out if you don’t want to.”

            Alexandra had to frown as she boarded obediently into her adoptive mother’s inviting palm and took a seat.  Of course she had to come out even if she didn’t want to.  Evelyn would be well within her rights here to pluck the Alpha out by a leg and dangle her upside down one hundred feet above the ground.  The only choice she would have in the matter would be whether to scream or not.

            Apparently this fact was generously going ignored by Aegis’ urban planner, though, as she lifted Alexandra out of the cell and held her at chest height with a hand nearly as rigidly steady as her daughter’s, though not quite.

            “Where is Br- I mean, where is Enforcer Cade?” Alexandra asked demurely, still not making eye contact.

            “She’s working,” Evelyn answered, knowing instantly what the real question was.  “She doesn’t know I’m in here.”

            “Oh.”

            “I don’t know if she said anything, but they did go to your house and saw your shoes,” Evelyn said quietly.

            “They… they did?”

            “Yes.  And there were traces of gum on them.”

            “Can they… I mean, can…”

            “They’re going to run a couple of tests to see if they can prove it came from that road, but…”

            “It’s not going to be enough,” Alexandra whimpered.

            “No, it’s not.”

            “What do you want to talk about, then?” the Alpha asked after a pause, not so much emboldened as simply drained of all emotional fortitude or humility.  She still couldn’t bring herself to look up at the woman.

            “I wanted to see if I could convince you to tell me what happened.”

            “Okay, if that’s what you want,” the girl said with a shrug.  “I went shopping and walked straight through the alley to my car and drove home.  I didn’t talk to anybody or stop to look at anything.  The end.”

            “I see,” Evelyn said, biting her lip and nodding painfully.  “And that’s all you’ve got to say about it, I suppose?”

            “Yes.”

            “Please, Alexandra,” the Omega stated, her hazel eyes on the verge of glistening.  “You… must’ve heard the real circumstances explained.  You must understand how hard it was for anyone to believe this about you, and that it only came to this because there simply is no other explanation.”

            “It can’t be that simple, because otherwise, they’d know I didn’t do anything,” Alexandra said, finally summoning the courage to look up into the agonized irises of her surrogate mother.  “They’d know I could never.  Hurt.  Anyone.”

            “They did know that, Alexandra.  They… they used to know it very well.  I did.  And so did Bridget.”

            “Did,” repeated back the Alpha, clenching her fists together with bereavement and working very hard to keep from screeching with unimpeded acidity.

            “I’m… going to go back to work.  And I’m going to leave you here now,” Evelyn said.  “If you decide you want to talk more… in-depth about what happened, with me or… Enforcer Cade, then both of us are still more than willing to hear it.”

            Evelyn’s hand lowered back into the cell, trembling slightly with emotion but not jostling its passenger, and her upturned palm stopped against the floor, where the Alpha could clamber out and scamper back to the seeming sanctity of her bed.

            “If in-depth means me saying I hurt those Betas,” Alexandra gulped, her words now trembling just as much as she choked back a new onslaught of sobs in her throat.  “Then you’ll both be waiting a really long time.”

            “Alexandra,” Evelyn breathed gently as she backed steadily toward the door.

            “Yes?”

            “I know this might not mean anything to you.  I wouldn’t blame you if it didn’t, or even if it made you angry, but… I just thought you should know, because Bridget wouldn’t say it to you, I know.”

            “What?”

            “She had an oversized training doll in her… mouth every hour of every day for the last week practicing, over and over and over,” Evelyn said, her words quavering with sadness at the recognition of what had clearly transpired but still confident in some distantly redeeming factor of the statement.  “To… be absolutely sure that she could do it.  Without it hurting.”

            “Guess that didn’t work,” Alexandra uttered pitifully under her breath as she glanced down at her body, physically uninjured from the second session, and felt a fresh wave of tears finally welling in her eyes just as Evelyn softly shut the door of Bridget’s bedroom again.

            “Thank you for coming back,” the middle-aged Beta said with a grimace to his only visitor, adjusting his glasses on the ridge of his nose as he leaned over the countertop of the clothing store he operated before running a clammy palm over his balding head.  “I… didn’t want to say anything over the phone.”

            “It’s fine, but can you make it quick?” Nathaniel Tyler said under his breath, his arms crossed defensively as he leaned against a rack of inch-long pants.  Finally, he took a step forward and buried his hands into the pockets of his brown jacket.  “Even though you’re closed now, it’s best nobody sees me around here too much.  You know, just to keep things clean.”

            “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about, though,” the man swallowed.  “Keeping things… clean.”

            “What’s the problem?  Everything went over perfectly.  You played your part well.  I paid you for your daughter’s fancy overseas school programs… thing.”

            “That, too.  I mean, how did you ever come across that kind of money?  Someone of our class, I would’ve expected-”

            “Well, it’s not like it’s any of your business, but my parents worked their asses off so they could save up, and I ended up with a pretty decent inheritance after they went,” Nathaniel sneered.  “But we’re not talking about me right now.  We’re talking about you.  All you had to do was jump your security feed forward a few minutes, and nobody suspects you of anything.  I promise you that.”

            “No, no, it’s… it’s not that.”

            “Well, what is it, then?” Nathaniel pressed with a concerned frown as he approached the countertop, his eyes darting past the racks of clothes and to the door to ensure no one else was coming in.

            “It’s… everything, really.  I know you explained to me what you… thought was the good of it, but… I just don’t know anymore.”

            “Don’t know what?”

            “I can’t sleep anymore, all right?  I just can’t.  I thought it would be easy after the things you described to me, what that girl and her mother did all those years ago to your p-”

            “We’re not talking about my parents right now,” Nathaniel cut in icily, his black hair hanging low enough to nearly cover his right eye.

            “Sorry.  But look, even given that, I… well, I’ve become a part of something I didn’t intend to.  No matter what it was that happened, I helped you get that Alpha girl in trouble for something she didn’t do.  That’s the bottom line.  And now she’s off with Aegis, and judging by what they think she did, she’s probably getting far less sleep than I am.  I mean… she didn’t do anything to any of you!”

            “Maybe I didn’t make something clear enough to you the first time we spoke,” Nathaniel said with an exasperated sigh, now leaning across the counter as well and stroking his chin thoughtfully.  “I’m well aware that she didn’t touch me or my friends, let alone break anyone’s bones.  That doesn’t matter.”

            “How could it not matter-”

            “Because what did happen to me went unpunished for ten fucking years,” growled the young Beta, grabbing the storekeeper’s shirt collar aggressively and contorting his mousy face into a sneer.  With a muted yelp, the man wrapped his hands around Nathaniel’s wrists to try and free himself, but the latter’s wiry strength allowed him to keep a firm grip.

            “Please…”

            “I’ve had to live with that, you know.  All this time.  She not only got away with what she and her mom did, but was praised for being the one to tell someone about it.  They made Alexandra Warren a goddamned hero for what she did!” Nathaniel continued through gritted teeth, flecks of moisture spitting out between words.  “And you’ve got the nerve to tell ME that YOU can’t sleep anymore?”

            “What about the other girl?” the storekeeper wheezed nervously, finally relaxing in his attempts to pull away from Nathaniel.  “The one you were with.  Iris.”

            At this, the Beta mastermind scowled, his upper lip stiffening and his eyes practically going bloodshot.  He released his grip on the fabric and socked the storekeeper across the lower jaw with a bony knuckle, but grabbed him again before he could pull backward to safety.  Tightening his quivering fists on the man’s collar, he slammed the unfortunate accomplice downward onto the countertop with a hard crash that instantly robbed the man of air and toppled him to the floor behind the counter, his glasses knocked off his face from the force of the blow.

            “That wasn’t supposed to happen to her, and you know it, because I told you about the plan.  We had no intentions of her having to come to… that kind of harm.  But, in a way…” Nathaniel pontificated with an unsettling calm after what he’d just done as he strolled around the counter to stand over his fellow Beta, still sprawled anxiously on the ground with his hands wrapped protectively around his stomach.  “…in a way, it worked out better than we could’ve dreamed.  And I think Iris will agree when she wakes up.”

            “How could she possibly agree with what you did to her?” the shopkeeper interrogated boldly as he squinted up at the blurred visage of his aggressor, his anger at the twenty-year-old far outweighing his timidity in the heat of the moment.

            “Can you really not see it?” Nathaniel responded with a chuckle as he crouched down on the ground so his face could be made out.  “This way, it’s guaranteed to stick.  Before, we were just going to come away with some bruises.  After what happened to her, we realized how much better it was going to look if we were all… well, you know.”

            “What happened there on the path?” the man demanded softly.  “How did you-”

            “Just like you, she started to have second thoughts,” Nathaniel interrupted with a shrug.  “Like I said, we had no plans for anything like what happened to her to actually happen, but we did have a plan, and she was bound and determined to wreck it at the most crucial moment, so we had to improvise.”

            “How?  By… by throwing her off the… the…”

            “Improvisations are never perfect.  That’s why they’re improvisations,” Nathaniel answered coldly.  “Besides, we didn’t throw her.  It was self-defense.  She took one of the… items we were about to use to give the scene some authenticity for Aegis, started threatening us with it and was going to run off and use it to make sure we were all put away.  So we did what we had to.”

            There was an aching silence as the storekeeper mulled this over fearfully, closing his eyes after having become too intimidated by the ironically towering sight of the three-inch-tall criminal.

            “Cheer up, old man,” Nathaniel said brightly after a few moments, patting the storekeeper gently on the cheek before snatching up the glasses that had landed just out of his reach after being struck on the countertop.  Gingerly opening up the temples of the spectacles and blowing on the lenses to clear away any dust, he slid them back over the man’s ears, allowing him to see clearly again.

            “How?”

            “What do you mean, how?  You could try smiling every once in a while.  And they say laughter’s good for the soul or some shit, don’t they?” Nathaniel suggested, grasping the man’s hand and helping to pull him to his feet, where he patted him amiably on the back.

            “That’s not what I mean.  I mean how are you so calm about all of this?”

            “It’s simple.  I just think about all the good I’ve done for our class.”

            “But… but this isn’t necessary anymore.  Aegis has been doing so much so quickly for all of us.  They’ve made it so we can have lives, so that we don’t have to be afraid anymore!” the shopkeeper declared almost pleadingly, making sure to keep a safe distance from the edge of the countertop now in case the young man tried anything again.

            “Right.  And do you want to know what happens to fools who are naïve enough to stop being afraid of what’s out there?” Nathaniel groused, rolling his eyes as he began marching toward the front door of the clothing store.  “They get their fucking legs snapped off.  Aegis doesn’t do anything until after one of us has been beaten and squeezed into a pulp for some Alpha’s breakfast juice.  If we don’t watch out for ourselves, we’re as good as dead, and the sooner you realize that, the longer you’ll live.  I’ve just done you the biggest favor of your whole pointless existence.”

            “But-”

            “You want to know how I’m staying fucking calm about this, huh?  I’ll tell you how.  Because finally, things are happening in the right order.  For once, we’ve got them working for us.”

            “No-”

            “Oh, and one more thing,” Nathaniel said as he opened the door to leave, pivoting to give one last glance into the store.  “If you can’t sleep, you might try sleeping pills.  A lot of sleeping pills.”