Rise of Alpha (The Prodian Journey #1) (35 page)

“He’s dead,” she said and dropped her head on my shoulder.
 

Life as I knew it began to crumble. Dad had been healthy. How could he be dead?
 

“What do you mean dead? We were together yesterday. He was fine.”

Her continued sobs answered me. My heart pounded, and tears started to fall. I couldn’t believe it. Dad was still young. “No . . . no . . . no . . . ” I kept shaking my head. Maybe if I believed hard enough, it would prove to be nothing but a bad dream.

Mom and I sat on the cold, hard floor, hanging on to each other and crying over our loss. I tried my best to console her, in spite of my own grief. Many minutes passed before she pulled away. She held my face with shaking hands.

“We have to see him now.”
 

Never had I wished for anything as fervently as I wanted him alive. I wanted to hug him and tell him how much I loved him.
 

The drive over to the hospital took forever. I didn’t trust myself to drive, but under the circumstances, I was in better shape than Mom. She didn’t say much on the way, not that there was anything either of us could say to make us feel better.
 

When we reached the front desk, the nurse ushered us to the waiting room, where a man in a disheveled suit flashed his badge at us.
 

“Mrs. Morrison, I’m Detective John Sander. I was called in when your husband was found.”

This brought another bout of tears from my mom. I swallowed the lump in my throat and tried to speak. “I’m Brian, his son. What happened?”

The detective turned his beady eyes on me and nodded. “The coroner does not believe this was a natural death. We did find an empty bottle of prescription sleeping pills he’d just filled yesterday, so it looks like an overdose is a possibility.”

“What?” I couldn’t believe my ears.

“Overdose? Why would he do such a thing?” Mom asked in a faint voice.
 

“I’m sorry, but that’s all the information we have at the moment.
 
There are no overt signs of foul play, but we’ve dusted for fingerprints. We’ll try to find out more once the autopsy is performed. We will be conducting a full investigation, but without more information, we can’t rule anything out yet.”
 

“How long before we can see him?” Mom asked. She swayed, and both Detective Sander and I helped her to the nearest chair.
 

“He’s been transferred to the morgue. If you head over there, they can arrange for you to see him.”

Hearing the word “morgue” brought fresh tears to my eyes. It sounded so final.
 

He was gone. It was real. But why? There was no way I’d believe that he wanted to kill himself.
 

The next few hours passed in a blur. We were ushered into a cold, bright white room, where I listened to my mother’s lamentations during the painful wait. Seeing his body lying cold and lifeless on a gurney hurt more than I ever thought possible, and a nurse had to help me when Mom collapsed, crushed by the weight of our overwhelming loss. It might be days before we found out what killed my father and could give him a proper burial. Deep in my heart, I knew it was the Ergans’ doing, just like I knew they had caused Mr. Peter’s death.
 

During the drive home, my guilt got the best of me. I should’ve spent more time with him instead of playing video games. I should’ve tried harder to communicate instead of running out of the house to be with my friends. There were no words that could bring him back, so I stayed silent and held my mother’s hand.
 

When we got home, Mom did not argue when I led her to her bedroom. “You need to get some sleep,” I said in a dead voice. My body shook from the tics I’d been holding in all day.
 

“I should make some phone calls,” she said when I lifted the comforter so she could slide in. “We’ll have to make arrangements, and—”

I was gentle, but firm. “You can make the calls later.”
 

A sob tore through her when she finally rested her head on the pillow. There was no comfort I could give her, though. She would be lost without him. Things would never be right again for our family.

I turned down the wooden blinds to block out the sunlight. “If you need me, I’ll be in my room,” I said, leaving the door ajar when I stepped back into the hallway.
 

Once inside my room, I sagged to the floor, unable to handle the sudden turn of events. One minute I’d been on top of the world and the next, I was in hell. The weight of my grief began to sink in, and the tics were unleashed. I pulled a pillow from the bed and crushed it against my chest while the waves of tremors and twitches ravaged me.
 

“Fuck! Fuck! FUCK!”
 

By the time the spasms ebbed, I was drenched in sweat and angry tears streamed down my face. My father should not be dead, and no matter what the investigation found, I was certain he hadn’t committed suicide.

“I think you’re right,” Matro said from the corner of the room.
 

I whipped my head around and lashed out, “Will you stop trying to give me a heart attack?”

“I didn’t mean to scare you.” Matro moved toward my desk and sat on the chair, his typical smirk absent for once. “I’m sorry about your father. Your mother got the call before I was able to locate him.”

“He didn’t kill himself,” I said.
 

“I agree.” He sighed. “Car and Orida are scouring your father’s office for leads. We couldn’t move in until the cops left.”

“How did you know?”

“I know a lot of things,” he murmured.

Maybe it was fatigue or the shock that pushed me to the edge. I jumped at Matro and directed all my anger at him. “And you didn’t bother to save him? You couldn’t even warn me?” I wrapped my fingers around his thick neck and squeezed.
 

Matro didn’t fight back, although he did pry my hands from his neck. “There are many things I wish I could prevent, but I can’t. Our enemies continue to grow in number, and we are not as strong as they are here in your world.”

“Stop throwing riddles at me.” I wiggled free from his grasp and collapsed on my bed. “Why are these things happening to me?”

“You are not yet able to see the bigger picture, my friend.” Matro followed me to the bed.

“I’m tired. I’m freakin’ angry and lost. Can’t you tell me
anything?
”

“Believe me, I know what you are feeling. I lost so much in the war.” The sorrow in his voice made me pause. “I’m still mourning my family, as I mourn for your loss and Shannon’s.”

I shuddered at an incoming spasm and squared my shoulders, but when Matro laid his big palm on my back, the pressure instantly disappeared. More tears threatened to spill, and I buried my face in my hands.
 

Matro sat beside me. “I’m sorry this had to happen. With each passing day, their strength grows greater. I’m afraid that time is running out. We must leave soon.”

I lifted my face to look at him. “Who’s ‘we’?” I asked.

“All of us.”

The faint scent of rain drifted in from the window. It comforted me until I heard a muffled noise from across the hallway. My heart skipped, and I shot out of bed and ran to my parents’ bedroom. Before I could open the door, I heard a familiar voice

“I’m sorry you’re grieving again, Cynthia.”
 

Matro was right on my heels when I burst in, expecting the worst. I was surprised to find my mother and Detherina looking up at me.
 

“What’s going on here?” I looked at my mom, at Detherina, and then back at Mom. “Can you see her?”

Mom nodded and sniffed.
 

“Then somebody’d better start talking!” I shouted.
 

Alpha

It was clear that my mother and Detherina knew each other.
 

I crossed my arms and waited for an explanation.
 

“Why don’t we talk in the kitchen while I make breakfast?” Mom said, tightening her robe.
 

“I’m not hungry,” I snapped.

There were footsteps behind me. “Let your mother do whatever she needs to cope,” Matro whispered in my ear, “and you will listen like a good boy.” He turned me around to face the door.
 

We descended the stairs in silence, Detherina holding my mother’s hand. Once we reached the kitchen, Mom went straight to the fridge. She juggled eggs, sausages, bell peppers, mushrooms, and a carton of orange juice setting them on the counter. She sliced and diced the ingredients with precise movements, looking reluctant to have the conversation we all knew was coming.

Detherina settled in the breakfast nook while Matro moved to stand behind her. I followed my mother’s obsessive movement with my eyes until, unable to rein in my mounting impatience, I blurted out a question that had been bothering me.
 

“How do you know each other?” I directed the question at Detherina.

The set of her jaw when she leveled her eyes at me told me that I might not like her answer. “You’d better sit down,” she said.
 

I sat down, even though I resented the additional delay. “Tell me.”
 

“You’re the son of the true leader of Tranak, Brian. Your real name is Alpha,” Detherina said. She glanced in my mother’s direction.
 

I sprang from my chair. “Mom, what is she saying?”
 

“It’s a long story,” she murmured while attacking the bell peppers.
 

I turned back to Detherina. My vision had already been spinning from lack of sleep, and this crazy revelation made it even worse. “What do you mean I’m the son of the true leader of Tranak? My father was Gerald, and he just
died,
in case you weren’t paying attention.”

“I told you before that you would learn things that would come as a shock to you. Your real father is Drenton, the fallen leader of our realm.”

How in the hell was it even possible? Was I some sort of rotten hot potato that everyone was just passing around? “Drenton?” I turned to my mother again. “What about Dad?”

This time, she stopped chopping and met my eyes. When she made a shaky gesture toward the breakfast table and sat down, I followed.

“I met your real father . . . ” she paused and blew her nose. “We met when I was still studying at the university. I found him one night at the bus stop, near death. I helped him to my apartment and nursed him back to health.”
 

“Wait. If he was an Aarmark, what was he doing here on Earth?”

Detherina answered, “We escaped here when we were being pursued by our enemies. At that time, they couldn’t penetrate the Earth’s atmosphere. The air was too thick and stifled them. Since they were more powerful than us and were killing everything and everyone in sight, we hid here until we could go back to fight.”

I pressed my hands over my ears, refusing to believe their story. “No. I’m Dad’s child. I have baby pictures with him.” My shoulders grew tight and a powerful tremor rocked me. “Fuckkkkkkkk.”
 

Detherina glided over and placed a hand on my shoulder. The instant her palm touched my body, the tics dissipated. Her touch was like a balm to my taut muscles.
 

Then my mother took my hand. “While I was pregnant with you, your father had to leave and help fight the war against Pratrim.”

“And?” My eyes were suddenly blurry with tears. What had possessed her to keep this important detail from me? What gave anyone the right to withhold such vital information from me?

Detherina spoke again. “With your father’s leadership and an alliance with another race, we were able to win that war. However, he took a blow to the head in battle, and he died.”

I was getting sick to my stomach. “And I’m not supposed to know about this?”

“You are the heir to your father’s throne. To keep you safe, the committee leaders decided to keep your existence a secret until the time came for you to lead our people.”
 

“What about all the stuff you told me before? You said you’re the Totren, a queen of some sort. Is all that a lie, too?”