Alpha’s Hybrid Cinderella
Chapter 55

"There's something in these fumes! It's stopping us from being able to shift!"

The fire was so loud as it raced up the walls and across the ceiling that I barely heard Peelle's voice over the din. But no, wait, it wasn't only that. His voice was warped in my ears like I was listening to him from the other end of a long tunnel underwater. I strained, dizzy and confused, but my arms couldn't even rise to grab hold of anything.

"Claudia, stay still! I've got you."

Another voice. Much closer. Wait, that was Evan, how could I forget? I had woken up to him lifting me out of bed and carrying me in his arms like a princess. What would Raf say? She would laugh about how cheesy it was. So embarrassing. But he was warm and solid and strong, and he was so big that I couldn't imagine anything ever hurting me if he was near. I snuggled into his chest as he pounded down the steps, trusting him to sweep away all of the terrible noise and heat the way he always did to his enemies. "She's worse affected than we are! We have to get her out of the back. The Deltas are holding them off in the front but they're going to fall, there's too many of them!"

"We'll take the back way to the garages. The spare keys are hidden in that tree, do you remember which one?"

I couldn't see what was going on. All red, orange, and black charring the walls and the paintings that adorned them. We passed by a window so fast I almost missed it, but in that one glimpse, a brief flash of clarity lent me insight.

Outside, there had been movement. Lots of movement, like teeming ants clashing on a hill. There had been dozens of bodies fighting, clearly visible even through that narrow glass pane, but what was anyone fighting for? What was going on, why wasn't anyone putting out the fire...? This poor, beautiful manor would all burn down if no one did anything. I flailed again in Evan's arms, but this time my struggles were even weaker. He almost didn't even notice I was trying to get away. "Claudia, don't close your eyes! Look at me. Look at me!"

"Evan..."

"I know you're tired but they filled the whole manor with some kind of poison gas before they attacked. It came in through the vents and you took a strong dose of it. You can't close your eyes, understand!"

I was well-versed in Herbology and the basics of common sense. Poison gas through the vents? If that was true, then those of smaller statures and weaker constitution would the worst and first affected. That was me. Made sense why I would feel so terribly dazed and weak when Evan and Peelle were pounding through the manor for the exit, seemingly unaffected.

But no, wait. Peelle had said something about not being able to shift. They were affected after all. And Evan was carrying me! I was dead weight, doing nothing but slowing him down. And yet there was no strength in me to even lift my head. Breathing was getting so hard, too...

The shirt bunched by my face must have been meant to act as a crude filter for the smoke, but it wasn't really the smoke that made it so hard to breathe. My chest felt murky like something sticky and heavy had gone into my lungs, like tar. Once upon a time, the small hut where I and some of the other human slaves slept when I was little, there had been a fire too. The door had been locked from the outside so we couldn't escape on our own, and that acrid tang of smoke from the growing fire would never leave my memory. But that wasn't like how it was now. If anything, the sharp stinging in my throat was an afterthought.

What was it? This choking, watery, molasses-like thing blocking my throat and nose? I was going to suffocate. I couldn't breathe, couldn't swallow-

But Evan was trying to save me. What good would it do to whine about it to him? I would stay quiet and hang on. That was the least I could do.

My vision wavered. Red and orange gave way to inky black, and at last, the scorching heat tormenting my skin gave way to blessed coolness. I wanted to fall asleep in all that comforting cold, ice kissing my skin like little breezy butterflies, but Evan had asked me to stay awake. I had to do that for him. He was doing so much for me, and I owed him so much. Couldn't I do just that little thing? Was I so weak? So ungrateful?

"Claudia! Claudia, look at me!"

"Why is it affecting her so fast! There were the Delta girls who breathed in more than she did, but they're not-"

"She's half-human. She doesn't have our regeneration."

"The fumes are dampening ours too!"

"They're dampening hers even more. We have to find a doctor."

"We have to get to safety first! Wait. The new safe house we were setting up last week! The other ones are compromised but the only ones who know about that are you and me and my squad. And my squad isn't the one with the traitor, I guarantee it." "Then we'll go there. The doctor on call, get him there."

More pounding of feet. I tried to cling to Evan but my fingers were jelly. Or did they exist at all? I was floating away...

The sound of a car door latch. Movement. Evan placing me in the backseat, buckling me as well as he could. I forced my eyes to open, and through hazy vision, I saw Peelle climbing into the driver's seat. Where were we going? The house was on fire. We should be helping everyone get it under control... Oh, wait. No. It was dangerous.

The road was bumpy. Or maybe Peelle was driving so fast he was crashing over all the potholes in the road when he was normally so careful to avoid them. For some reason, even though it hurt with each impact and bound, I wanted to laugh. But my breathing was so shallow, so forced. I had to conserve that tiny pinprick of space for things more vital than laughing.

"Wait. What is that? s**t! s**t, s**t!"

Peelle's voice. What was it? Why did he sound so scared all of a sudden? "Hang on!"

The warning must have been to Evan, because I had no strength to hold onto anything myself. The car swerved hard, and I curled onto my side with all the strength I had left to keep the belts from digging into me. My head thumped against the window, and Evan glanced back, but I sent him only a faint smile. I didn't want him to worry. He shouldn't. I might be small, and I might be delusional right now, but I refused to be a weakling. What? I couldn't handle a little bumpy ride-

The car swerved again, but this time there was an impact like a rocket crashing into the road inches from the back wheels. It felt that way at least. The car rocked like someone had picked it up from the side and tried to tip it over, and Peelle snapped the wheel this way and that to try to regain control of the vehicle.

"Can you shift!" he shouted, frantic. "I'm still stuck! I can get maybe a hand, but that's it!"

"My body's still decomposing the gas." Evan's voice, gruff and gravelly. "I need more time before I can shift anything more than my head and arms."

"That's going to have to be enough. We have to split up!"

"We're not splitting up, Peelle!"

"At this rate, all three of us are going to die. We have to hold them off. Or are you going to let Claudia choke to death two feet from us! Huh!"

Peelle had always been close to him. He could get away shouting at Evan like that. Really, I loved it. Everyone should have at least one friend who was fearless enough to yell whenever they were being a dolt. Raf was mine. I was glad Evan had Peelle... "We're not abandoning each other. Just keep driving. We'll outpace them."

"No we won't, and you know it. That took out our tires and we'll roll for maybe five more miles before this thing conks out. The safe house isn't for another ten, and we are not going to outpace them on foot! And we can't dodge them, they can follow all the water we're leaking like a damn treasure map!"

"Just keep going, Peelle!"

"s**t. Fine! Then while they're still out of sight, we can change out the back tires. I have two spares in the trunk. You and me, if we do it together, we can get that s**t swapped out in less than five minutes. It'll take them that long to follow the trail we left when I took the side road into the woods, and maybe we can even outpace them again with a full set of wheels. And we can swap Claudia to the front seat so she's more protected. If they bash into us from behind again, it'll be safer that way. You sit in the back and jump out through the back windshield to tear off their faces, if they get close enough for you to do that."

"All right, let's do it. I'll get the spares out."

Genius. I was still dazed but Peelle's sense of strategy was unmatched. No wonder they worked so well together.

Wait. What was Peelle doing?

He pulled me out of the backseat all right. But he quietly placed me at the base of the tree we parked next to instead of in the front seat, out of Evan's line of sight. Evan was too busy rummaging around in the trunk.

"Sorry, Claudia," Peelle whispered. "But I gotta save you two if I can. I won't let him get himself killed. And you, too. I'll draw them off."

I was too weak to speak. My mouth would no longer move.

"Peelle, what's taking you so long, hurry back here-"

The car vanished with a squeal. The half-open trunk door bobbed as Peelle raced off, leaving both of us in utter darkness on the side of the road.