Of Smoke and Stardust [[COMPLETE]]]

CHAPTER 27-ALYA

Alya tried to wrench herself free—to put up a fight. If she couldn't escape, she needed to shoot herself before they could dissect her alive like a lab rat. She would rather die a human than be transformed into a monster.

Both her hands were pinned behind her so tightly that the grip around her wrist bit though her muscles, threating to break her bones. At least ten soldiers surrounded her and another hand gripped the back of her head and kept it down so she couldn't even look back at Parker.

If not this door, maybe the next one, the thought scorched the corner of her mind as they dragged her through a white passage; lined with glass window panels—labs—but they didn't throw her in one. Still it didn't quite suppress the sense of something worse than death pressing down the sterile air.

The soldiers pulled her into an elevator to the upper level. The door opened to another short flight of stairs. They pushed her up to the glass booth where the lab coat guy was standing. All the while, she could only hope, a wistful thinking, for time to slow—even stop— as they dragged her up the pristine steps, leaving a train of her blood behind. Maybe that was it. Maybe she'd bleed out. She hadn't even noticed a wound. Was it even her blood? Her stomach sunk at the thought of it being Parker's.

The soldiers hauled her up and pushed her in, her back was to the glass so she couldn't see the training room. The soldiers and lab coat guy left, and the panel closed after them. Alya tried to calm herself with deep breathed as she looked around to find a way escape, a weapon, anything.

The booth went back far longer than she thought. The walls to the either sides were lined with flat screen monitors, each running some kind of neural network simulation to track the brain activities of the soldiers and other things she couldn't make out. Then her eyes fell to the tall figure—a familiar figure. The man was standing by a table and looking out the booth window to the training arena before. His fingers skimmed the edged of the table and held up a tablet. And then he turned. Time stood still as everything clicked into place. Alya could barely stomach it.

The whole world went silent, the only sound remained was her heart. It was him and her, just the two of them. As if they were meeting for a casual talk. Like the old times.

"I assume you have a lot of questions and comments." Her dad said with a knowing smile. Alya hated that smile now, the smile that she once would have given up anything to see. She searched his face to find an iota of guilt, but there was nothing. No remorse. His face was like a mask. Steel, cold, hard. How could she have been so naive not to see the person underneath the visage of her loving father? The man she once worshiped. And now she was looking at a darkness that had swallowed the light she knew as a father.

"How—" her voice choked. There were so many questions she wanted to ask. How could you? How dare you, Papa.... Why? Why? Why? All the questions clamoring to be asked.

"How is the easy part." He waved a hand through the air as if dismissing her question—her feelings. "How can lead to many questions. How disappointed am I? How you remind me of your mother, and how I had hoped you wouldn't be as short sighted as her."

The mention of her mother...Alya swallowed the lump in her throat. "What about her? Tell me!" She hasn't meant to shriek, to allow her emotions to completely take control to a point where she feared her throat would explode. "What about my mother?"

Her father sighed and turned his back to her. "She made mistakes."

Deep down Alya knew what happened without him saying it. "No." She cringed. "Monster." She thought out out loud. "Tell me it isn't true."

"I loved her more than anything in the universe. But she never understood me, she never understood what I was doing was for her, for you, for us, for our planet." There was a semblance pf sadness to the tone, but Alya didn't believe it. "She never stood by my side. She joined those wretched people, for their lost cause. She never loved me, she never loved you."

"No!" Alya let herself scream, let the word rip out of her like a punch. If she said it loud enough, powerful enough, maybe it would cut into his brain and he'd accept it.

He put down the tablet he held and looked over his shoulder, back to the arena. "Then how could she throw away your future for those rebels? She abandoned you for them."

"Because she was right. Because you've been wrong all along. Please Papa," Alya pleaded. There was still time to mend the damage that had been done, to save all the innocent lives. Parker, Jayden, that kid in the cell, and thousands like him; to save her father from his own conscience.

"I wish you would understand me. I wish—" His voice trailed off.

"It wasn't the rebels that killed her." It was a statement and a question rolled into one. She had to know, even though she already knew deep down, she had to know for sure. As she waited for the answer, she hoped, desperately, for her thoughts to be wrong. Only to have her father's silence confirmed it.

"They were the reason," he said a moment later. The calmness of his voice was unflinching. "It was the rebel's fault. She chose to abandon the both of us. She made a choice, and it was the wrong choice."

The rebels might have been the reason, but they weren't the culprits. They weren't the murderers. He was. "Murderer." She seethed.

"They're no good, Alya. Dogs. Just look at them." President Nayar scrunched up his nose, as if he smelled something foul. "Do you really want a life like that?" He extended his hands to invite her, the same elegant way he used to invite her to the dance floor. All those memories flooded over her, threatening to pull her under. She wished they never existed in the first place.

Alya didn't take his hand. She pushed past him, to the glass window and looked down.

Parker.

Lying in a pool of blood and trying to get up. He was holding on. Her heart stopped for a second. She tried to call out his name, but all that came out was a strangled whisper. She had to go, she had stop Jayden from killing his brother. She had lost Rowan, but she wouldn't lose Parker.

"Your place is not with him." Her father whispered into her ear, standing just behind her. "Your place is—"

Before he could finish, she whirled around, a caged animal lashing out. She didn't know what part of his face her blow hit. All she knew was that she channeled all her anger into it. And it felt like release.

He staggered back, hit a monitor, then the wall, and slumped to the ground. A stream of blood dribbled from his nose, but his chest moved as he breathed.

"I know exactly where my place is." Alya rushed towards the door. She had to save the boy with one wing, and all the other innocent lives.