Page 93 of Ruined Omega

“Hines,” she says, touching my arm lightly. “Abaddon said that the Outsiders sent him?”

I nod. “That’s right. It must have been government forces. The same people who tried to catch me in the city hive. The ones Tal rescued me from.”

Lily thinks for a moment.

“They couldn’t follow you here to the center of the Zone, so they hired these Farlanders instead? But why would they go to such lengths to capture you, Hines? I knew you were in danger while you were still in the city. But I never expected this...

She sweeps her hand over the carnage and the mass of dead betas who were, until a few minutes ago, rabid Farlanders.

“It’s the medicine,” I say in a hushed voice. “The cure.”

“The cure?”

“Yes. That’s what I was going to tell you before this happened…”

I take a deep breath. The air is still scented with smoke and blood from the attack, but I let the oxygen stream in and out of my lungs, easing my frazzled nerves. Then I start to explain.

“One of the projects that I had been working on at SynerGen was a drug that would counteract the contamination of the Quarantine Zone. It would allow Outsiders to travel into the Zone without being mutated. I thought this could be a way to finally bring about peace between the Outside and the Zone. But I soon realized I was wrong. SynerGen and the government only saw it as a means to conquer the Zone and force the Alphas into submission.”

Lily’s eyes grow wide as I speak.

“Could this drug turn Alphas and omegas back into, you know, normal people too?”

“Possibly. But it was never perfected, and the quantities were still small. When I escaped from SynerGen six months ago, I took the only bottle of the medicine with me. And all of the data about the ingredients was stored on my computer and nowhere else.”

“So that’s why the government wanted to get to you so badly,” Lily says. “But why did you hang on to the medicine?”

I shrug. “While I was in hiding, I kept working on it. I guess I still held onto the belief that it could be used for good—you know, to open the door for diplomatic relations between the Outsiders and the Alphas…”

I look across the chamber where my pack is helping to care for the wounded. They are doubly lit by the pale blue glow of Seraph’s hovering face and the warm, flickering orange of the leftover flames that have not been extinguished yet. As they work, Tal’s gaze catches mine briefly. My piercings throb with the connection, the bond, that I now share with him and the others.

“And maybe it was something else, too,” I say. “A premonition. A feeling that I might have to flee to the Zone someday. I was afraid of what might happen.”

I turn toward Lily again.

“But that’s all over now,” I say. “The pills are gone.”

“What about the data?” She asks. “The recipe?”

“Erased,” I tell her. “Tal destroyed the only computer that still had that information on it. That’s why the government hired Abaddon and his followers to capture me alive.”

I tap my temple with my index finger.

“The only place the recipe is stored now is up here.”

No sooner have I spoken the words than a queasy, liquid feeling grips my guts. I double over with a gasp. Despite the usual warmth of this chamber, my skin grows cold. The color seems to drain from my vision as the world becomes shades of gray.

“Hines!” I hear Lily shout. Though she is right next to me, her voice sounds distant, like an echo at the far end of a long tunnel.

I raise my eyes to look at her, and her face tightens into a mask of shock and horror.

“Oh God,” she whispers. “Oh no…”

I look down at my hands and arms, and that’s when I realize what is happening. The dark veins tracing from my elbows up to my wrists are a dead giveaway.

I’m turning into a beta.

CHAPTER 31: HINES