Betrayed Luna's Second Chance Alphas
Betrayed Luna’s Second Chance Alphas – Chapter 56

-Adrian-

“I love you, Riley. I love you so damn much. Please don’t- don’t leave me!”

We both froze as she looked me in the eyes and I winced. Why the hell would I say that out of nowhere? But I was always worried she might leave me, because I knew she loved Roman, and… she didn’t love me, not yet.

She caressed my cheeks as she pulled me down. My heart felt strange. Suddenly, she was the world, the bigger part of the word, and I didn’t think I was ready for that.

Before her, everything was just a pit-stop. But she was the destination and it still scared me to think that I might not be her destination. What if-

“You are overthinking, Adrian. She told you we are hers, and we are. You don’t feel what she feels, what Gem feels?”

“I am heavy,” I said, and she chuckled.

“Just stay there,” she whispered. “Can you hear my heart, Adrian?”

I listened closely and it was thundering, almost in sync with mine. She ran her nails along my spine and then pushed her nails into my skin.

“I told you, Adrian. Why don’t you believe me? Why do you think I will leave you?”

I rolled down from her and looked into her eyes. Softest of green. Like the grass that dotted the ground. When I looked into her eyes, the world disappeared. Everything disappeared.

“I didn’t mean to say it. Just forget it, Riley.”

“You were thinking it, Adrian, and I don’t want you to think it. I don’t want you to feel it. I won’t leave you, I can’t leave you, Adrian. I already told you you are mine, and that is the only truth I know right now. Everything else in my life is like a shredded piece of paper right now, and I feel like I was flying along with the papers, just moving along with the wind, but you and Roman, you are the only truths I believe, and you stop me from disappearing into thin air.”

She cupped my face and moved closer to me, until her legs were tangled with mine.

“This is where I always want to be, and I would never leave you. Okay?”

She poked my forehead and yawned.

“Go to sleep, Red.”

She nodded and curled closer to me and closed her eyes.

“Good night, Adrian.”

“Good night, my mate,” I said with a smile. Clay was right. I should stop overthinking and just enjoy this, enjoy her.

Because she was everything.

***

-Riley-

The room was nothing but a cage. The soft whimper accompanied the songs of machines.

The girl’s small body was folded like a fortune cookie.

I banged against the door. This time, it wasn’t Claire. I knew who she was. Me.

She looked up and showed me her teeth in a snarl.

Long, sharp canines and she grinned as she licked her lips. Her eyes were wide, dotted with b***d red.

“Come on, let’s go.”

She laughed.

“You can’t save me.” Her voice slapped against the glass walls, making a thundering boom. She laughed and then she cried. “Mommy is coming.”

I quickly turned back and, sure enough, I saw a woman with long, silky red hair, with a man wearing a lab coat. I tried to replace somewhere to hide, but it looked like they didn’t see me.

The man wearing a labcoat was humming.

The woods eats the woman and dumps her honey-body in the mud…. hmmm…

Her dress floats down the well

And it assumes the shape of the body of a little girl…

My body shuddered as the girl screamed.

“I hate this song. The song meant- pain,” she whispered so that only I could hear.

The woman was talking. “She is a miracle, isn’t she, doctor?”

The man she called doctor laughed. “She is yours and Marcus’s daughter. How can she not be a miracle.”

“I never thought the experiment Marcus went through would affect her, but it is a surprising turn of our experiment. We have come a long way in seven years.”

The woman walked into the room and the man followed.

“Please mommy, make him stop.”

“Oh, baby girl, we are going to make history. The world will remember us.”

“I want- I want daddy,” the girl whimpered and wailed and thrashed.

“What did mommy tell you, baby? Why are you crying? Only bad, ungrateful little girls cry and waste tears.”

The doctor checked the girl’s vitals. She sniffled, and big tears rolled down her eyes as she kept asking for her daddy.

He grabbed a syringe and a vial full of transparent yellow liquid. “This makes the third, cooler side of you dominant, and it will also allow you to control it.”

“I don’t want the third side. I love Rene and dad says I will hear my wolf’s voice soon.”

“Rene is cool, she is perfect, but imagine… being so strong and powerful that no one can match you in a fight.”

“Let me go, please,” the girl wailed as the doctor grabbed her hand and stuck it into her veins. Her scream was heart-breaking.

I whimpered and took a step back, tears dripping down my cheeks. I felt her pain. I felt her loss and suffering.

“Mommy loves you. Here, you can have your coloring book back, because you are a good little girl.”

The girl shook her head. She didn’t look up as the woman and the man walked away.

She looked up at me, her eyes accusing.

“I told you you couldn’t save me. You can’t even save yourself.”

“Riley, Riley…”

“Riley, wake up. You are dreaming. It is okay, you are safe here with me. Baby, Wake up.”

Adrian looked blurry. I blinked and tears rolled down my face. He pulled me closer to him and wrapped me up in a blanket as he rocked me back and forth.

I remembered. I remembered so many things. The song. The cage. The smell of antiseptic and b***d. The dissonant sound of a broken roar in my head. The red and black blurry haze that came whenever that side woke up. They didn’t have a name for that. What they created in me was… an accident that made them greedy for more.

My body froze from the memory.

“It was a dream, but- no, it wasn’t. These are my memories. I was back in the cage…” My body trembled and Adrian embraced me tighter. “And a woman- my mom… she was a part of all of this.”

“s**t, baby, I am so sorry,” Adrian said as I curled against his chest.

“And-“

Someone knocked on the room door.

“Who is-“

“It is Rome. I tried to wake you up for a long time, Riley, and you just wouldn’t wake up. You were sobbing and thrashing and clawing… I called him.”

Roman walked in and took one look at me and sighed.

“Oh Riley…”

“Her mom was a part of all of this.” Adrian repeated everything I told him to Roman.

“Shit.”

“And the man in the subway… Adrian, I know why the song… was familiar. The Doctor was always singing that song. He is the one from the subway. It is him. He was the one doing the experiments, the trials. I am sure he is the one who is doing it now, too, and I am sure he recognized me. Now, they will be looking for me.”

“Doctor?”

“Everyone called him doctor. But his name is Doctor Kaspar Evansky.”

“Doctor Kaspar? Isn’t he- F**k… Roman…” Adrian looked at Roman and Roman blinked.

“Do you know him?”

“Yes, a little. He was once very famous in the field of gene therapy,” Roman said with a hiss. “He was a very good friend of my father.”

“Was? What happened?” I looked at Roman and Roman stood up with a growl. I could see the anger rippling off of him in waves. A loud growl filled the room and I felt the room shudder. And then somehow, he controlled himself and shook his head.

“He died. Doctor Kaspar Evansky is dead.”

“If what Riley said was true, he isn’t dead. He is just hiding. The man in the subway is old and wearing a trench coat, and I couldn’t recognize him, but…”

“You said he was famous. His pictures must be on the internet?” I said as I pulled away from Adrian, my eyes suddenly focused. Yes. I wasn’t the little girl anymore, and she was wrong. The little Riley was wrong.

I could save myself now. And now, I was not alone. Now I had people who would go to any length for me.

“Yes, you are right,” Roman said and pulled out his phone. Adrian grabbed a t-shirt for me, and I realized I didn’t even remember I was naked. I quickly pulled it down and waited for Roman.

“Here…” Roman handed me the phone. My heart froze and then started to race.

I nodded. “It is HIM. He is the one who stuck all those needles inside me. He is the one who- who made me scream in pain. Roman, I don’t want to kill Hiran anymore. I want to kill HIM, Adrian. I want to make him scream just as he made me scream.”

“Yes, Riley. Yes. We will kill him. We will hunt him down and destroy him.”

“And my mother, if she is alive… I want to hurt her, too.” I only felt anger for that woman. She wasn’t my mother.

“Oh Riley, I wish I was there for you,” Gem said.

“You remember your mother’s name, Riley?” Adrian asked as he ran his finger up and down my arm.

“Nadia. Nadia Lowe. Marcus Lowe, that is my father…”

That makes me Riley Lowe. I had grown up without a last name, either. That made me even more odd. Alpha James did really try so hard to keep me under the radar.

“Nadia?”

I nodded.

“Let me check the name,” Roman said as he grabbed his laptop and opened what looked like a database website. He typed her name in. “Nothing pops up.”

“Try Nadia Andreas.”

“There is one result. She was a scientist too. She had received an Edwin Grant Conklin award for her research in developmental biology, and a big research fellowship, before she disappeared a few years ago.”

“That is her. My mommy. Look how happy she looks with the award.” I scoffed, as I glared at the image. I felt the red haze in me rising, and I wanted to replace her and rip her into pieces.

Roman pulled me closer and shook his head.

“Go back to sleep. We will talk in the morning, okay?”

Adrian brought me a glass of warm milk. “Here, drink this.”

We slept together, the three of us. I felt safe with both Roman and Adrian next to me. When I woke up, they were already drinking coffee.

“Want a cup?” Roman asked as I walked out of the room, and I nodded. It reminded me of that first morning at Hotel Delta.

I sat down and took a sip of coffee.

“Did you replace anything more?”

“Not yet, but Riley, we were blindly searching in the darkness for so long. This is everything. Now I have hope we can save Dean, and the others too. I called Captain Matthews and Finn, and the Red Watchers. We are going to keep searching.”

I leaned against the couch and closed my eyes. My eyes still burned from the lack of sleep.

“I remember something else,” I whispered. “I almost forgot about it, but… Rene. In my dream, I said to the doctor I had Rene.”

“Who is Rene?” Adrian asked.

“I don’t know. I don’t remember.”

“And one more thing.”

“Yes.”

“The doctor called the side- you know when I become a Hulk-” They laughed and I smiled a little. “The third side. Why? Does That mean…”

“You are a hybrid with a third side too? A tribrid? But the third side is made in a lab? It is impossible, isn’t it?”

“I don’t know anything anymore.”

!!!