“Please.”

            Surprised at the voice, soft and fragile though it was, Halle Paradise turned away from the stage.  She couldn’t help but smirk with admiring delight at the velvet void of the auditorium, where Mona Collins had just summoned enough courage to eke out this desperate syllable.

            The group of seemingly victorious extremists, having finally finished loading up all one hundred thousand innocent lives into their execution chambers, was taking a much-needed rest.  Only Alma remained too on edge to cease tinkering with her mechanical masterpiece.  Sonja and Roger, meanwhile, snacked on dozens of the pre-made Beta lunches Gail had discovered in a mess hall.  Halle had almost forgotten their guest, except for the feeling of the girl’s Beta sibling squirming in her pocket, fighting for release.

            “Need something, hon?” Halle answered pleasantly as she cantered back toward the teenage Alpha, her hands folded neatly behind her back.  Her tactical attire caught the dim glow of the few lights still burning in the cavernous hall, making it seem as though she might melt into the shade if not for the argent gleam of her eyes.  At last she came to a stop in front of Mona and edged a boot against the ornate carpeting.  As if to twist the knife, she dipped her glove-clad hand into her pocket and curled her fingers around Audrey Collins.

            “Please,” Mona said, swallowing as her gaze fell away from the moonlike irises glaring so cheerily down at her.  She knew if she made eye contact she’d burst into tears again at the thought of her helpless sibling struggling between Halle’s fingers.  “Please.  If… if you have to take one of us, please… let my sister go.  Do… whatever you’re going to do to… me.”

            “Tsk, tsk,” Halle sighed.  She chuckled, lowering herself onto her haunches and placed a hand on Mona’s shoulder as if to comfort her, for the first time actually allowing her eye line to dip below the terrified youth’s.  “You really don’t know much about negotiating, do you, Mona?  I can already do anything I want to either of you.  You’re not exactly in a position to use yourself as a bargaining chip.”

            “I know,” the Alpha muttered meekly, already beginning to regret the outburst.  “I just-”

            “I appreciate the sentiment, though,” Halle said genuinely.  “It shows you’re thinking.”

            Trembling, Mona forced herself to look back up at those silvery crescent eyes.  “T-Thinking?  What do y-”

            “Well, of course you are.  Who in your position wouldn’t be thinking about ways to get the better of me?” Halle said.  “After all, we’re talking about giving all of your little boy and girl scouts here a cyanide bath.  There’s a lot at stake.  Surely it’s at least crossed your mind?”

            “N-No!  No.  I would n-never…” Mona choked out.  The Alpha could already feel the tears flowing down her cheeks, despite how hard she was biting down on her lip to keep from doing it. She tasted blood on her tongue.  If anything ever happened to a single one of those Betas because of something she said, Mona knew she’d never be able to forgive herself even if she lived forever.

            “All you’d have to do is wait for one of us to turn our backs,” Halle said gently.  She stroked her hand along Mona’s clammy cheek, brushing her hair back.  “Like me, for example.  You could grab one of my blades and put it right into me.”

            As she said this, Halle’s free hand tugged a knife from her belt and brandished it before Mona’s face, then lowered it down to the girl’s lap.  Mona flinched as the metal touched her fingers until she realized Halle was sliding the handle of the weapon between her fingers, giving it to her.

            “It would be a tough getaway, sure, but the door’s not far.  You stick me in the side, grab your sister, make a run for it.  You might have a chance,” Halle said.  Her voice had lowered to a whisper now and her eyelids had seemingly stopped blinking, letting their metallic glow continue imprisoning Mona unimpeded.  Once the knife was slid completely between the girl’s fingers, Halle wrapped her gloved fist back around Mona’s hand, pulling her closer until the blade’s tip was pointed at the Alpha’s own ribcage.

            “I’m wearing armor under this suit, of course, but it’s a lightweight synthetic material designed to allow for freedom of motion.  If you get me at the right angle, all there is between my skin and this knife is a few knitted strings,” Halle explained.  She continued to direct Mona’s hand, sliding the edge of the blade over the curve of her own hip until she could find an opening in the armor, and poked at it so the young Alpha could believe her.  “Right… here would be good, I think.  Do you feel it?”

            Mona’s eyes had only widened as her now-armed grip was guided right over the body of this monster who could so easily extinguish her little sister’s life.

            She had, indeed, been thinking.  Far too fast and panicked for it to be of any use, though, as she watched Halle’s hand continually fish back into her pocket to play with Audrey.  It filled Mona with such rage and horror that tactical rationality wasn’t exactly coming easily, yet here she was, with a blade in her hand and aimed at the terrorist’s body.  Her shoulder trembled with the urge to thrust her hand just a little further forward and up, burying the knife into Halle’s chest.

            “Mona, honey,” Halle murmured after a pause.  “I said do you feel it?”

            “Yes.”

            “But then you’d have to ask yourself something…” the woman cut in again.  Her opposite hand snaked back along her thigh and into her pocket, where she retrieved Audrey once again, lifting her three-inch body up to the same height as the knife, just under a foot away from the razor’s edge.  The Beta wriggled in terror at the sight of the blade, her face stained with tears, but at the sight of her equally endangered sister fought to remain steady in the leathery fist.

            Mona’s fingers instantly weakened as the knife began to slide from her hand, but Halle gave her a squeeze, ensuring the blade not only stayed in place but was pressed into her own body hard enough that another ounce of pressure would split the flesh open.  Once there, she released her grip on Mona’s hand as well as the knife, leaving it entirely free to be plunged in.

            “Are you fast enough?” Halle asked pleasantly, as though she herself truly didn’t know the answer.  “If you stab me, and put this entire blade in before I can make my move, little Audrey will be just fine.  But if you take too long… if you’re not strong enough to put it all the way in, and my other hand happens to slip…”

            Steadily Halle inched Audrey closer to the knife, until the Beta’s tiny head was not much more than a hair’s breadth from the sharpened curve.

            “…well, I wouldn’t even have to stick her.  You’d be doing the job for me,” Halle sighed, nodding in self-satisfaction.  “So what do you think?  Are you fast enough, Mona?  Maybe you’ve thought it through, but have you thought it through far enough?  And even if you think you have, does little baby sissy here trust that you have?”

            Blinking in a vain attempt to dam up her cascading tears, Mona at last found the bravery within herself to look her little sister in the face through the cage of Halle’s fingers.  The Beta’s hair was matted back, her body slicked with panicky sweat after so long in the grasp of the disturbed Alpha’s hand, but her eyes still held the same loyalty and adoration for Mona, who’d spent her whole life fiercely protecting her smaller sibling from harm.

            Mona knew Audrey would trust her without the slightest hesitation to try thrusting the blade.

            Which was precisely why she couldn’t dream of risking it.

            “I didn’t think so,” Halle said knowingly as she watched Mona’s soft features shift almost imperceptibly from determination to surrender.  The girl’s fingers loosened around the handle of the knife again, and this time its owner accepted the weapon back, sliding it into its sheath.  “But hey.  Can’t say I didn’t give you a chance.”

            “W-What are you… what are you g-going t-to-”

            “I’ll save you the effort, hon,” Halle interrupted as she shifted her weight and ascended back to full height.  “We’re going to be packing up very soon for a trip, so I’m going to do the fair thing and make sure little Audrey has some company on the way.”

            “No.  No, please, please, I’ll-” Mona croaked.

            “I thought we already went over this,” Halle snapped with more apparent irritation.  She marched haughtily away from the emotionally drained chaperone and back toward the stage, where the nearest of Alma’s miniature gas chambers was positioned.  “You have zip.  No bargaining chips.  Nothing.  Try to keep up, all right?  Or I’ll be retracting that job offer I gave you.”

            Mona could only bury her head in her hands to stifle the choking sobs that followed as Halle snapped open the door of one of the boxes and callously rolled Audrey inside.  Immediately the girl was helped to her feet by several weeping students and shepherded away from the opening.  A Beta teacher inside attempted to plead for a chance to speak about sparing the youngest prisoners, but Halle had already slammed the hatch shut, cutting off his protest along with a chorus of high-pitched cries and guttural screams.

            “God, I can’t even stand to listen to them.  Like a bunch of fucking crickets,” Gail muttered, cramming a handful of Beta-scaled sandwiches between her discolored teeth.  She spun one of her kerambits around her thumb without looking at it, earning a few nervous glances from Sonja.  “I think it’s time we sent another message.  Slice a few open, just to remind the freaks out there who’s in charge.”

            Gail let the blade fall comfortably back into her palm, pointing it hungrily at the rows of Beta-filled boxes.  The others present considered this proposition, hesitantly nodding but still returning their attention to their leader for permission to agree.  Roger, clearly game, even pulled a machete up from a sheath along his calf and slaked its tip along the edge of his boot.

            “That won’t be necessary,” Halle said curtly.  “I saw the look in that bitch’s eye when I made a fresh batch of Beta jam.  No one is going to try and break in here.”

            “So maybe that’s true, but what about later?  When we have to move them all upstairs to the roof?  You really think they’ll let us be without some extra encouragement?” Gail challenged.  She drew the blade back closer to her body and tapped its curled edge thoughtfully against her top row of teeth.  “I say we crack open a box and butterfly them all right in front of a camera.”

            “No.  No, I don’t think we’re going to do that,” Halle said coolly.  “We all know what the plan is.  And the only reason we’ve gotten this far is by sticking to it.  No playing games.”

            “I’m not talking about playing games, sis,” Gail said.  She leaned back in her chair and crossed her legs, clearly not the least bit intimidated by her sibling’s veto.  “I’m talking about just getting started with what we all know we came here to do in the first place.”

            “I think you’re forgetting what we came here to do, then,” Halle retorted.  “Because it sure as hell wasn’t to let you make a mess of the most valuable asset we’ve ever had over Aegis.”

            “Then maybe it’s time we rethought your plan,” Gail said.  Refusing to flinch, the woman pressed her tongue against the kerambit, clouding its cold surface.  “Maybe we should just throw the big switch now on Alma’s fun-box and watch the fireworks.”

            Halle only blinked.  Her monolithic expression remained static.  For the others, though, it was a bracing moment as they all recognized their leader all but going nuclear.  The collective intake of breath was palpable.

            “Gail, love?” Halle said, smiling broadly enough that even her mercenary employees were chilled to the marrow.

            “Halle, dearest?” Gail responded.

            “Would you mind stepping over here with me for just a minute?”  Halle extended an arm and wrapped it around her animalistic sister’s shoulders, forcing her to stand up.

            “Of course not,” the woman snorted as the namesake duo of Paradise meandered between the rows of theatre chairs, away from the stage and past a now-despondent Mona until they were in the deepest corner of the lavish auditorium.

            Once under cover of darkness and beyond earshot of their cohorts, Halle slapped her sister across the cheek.

            “What the hell do you think you’re-” Gail growled, grabbing her twin’s wrist to retaliate, but Halle had already thrust her knee into her sister’s stomach, interrupting the protest.

            “We need to get something clear right now,” Halle said calmly as Gail clutched an arm over her abdomen, huffing quietly to regain lost air without looking too pathetic.  “I’ve spent the last three years planning out every detail of today.  To give us the tools we need to rebuild our world.  Without all the little fucks in those boxes alive, we’ve got nothing, and the Omegas will hunt us to the edge of the Earth.  We’re not going to throw all of that away just because you want to play butcher.”

            “What’s the matter, sis?” Gail snickered.  “You’ve gone soft.  Don’t you remember that summer in the backwoods when we found that Beta nest?  Mom had to tell you to wash their blood out of your clothes, not me.”

            “You’re a good soldier for the cause, Gail, but you never were able to look at the big picture,” Halle said.  “That’s why I’m in charge here, and you’re carrying the boxes.  Understand?  You’re not going to undermine me again.  Especially not in front of the others.”

            “I could be crazy-”

            “Is that even a question?”

            “-but I seem to remember my connections being the only reason we have others even working with us,” Gail hissed, ruffling her matted locks.  She pointed an accusing index finger at her sister and prodded her in the chest.  Then, taking a step forward, she put herself almost nose-to-nose with Halle, until each woman could feel the carnivorous warm breath of the other on their cheeks.  “And I’m starting to get sick of you acting like you own me just because you popped out of Mom’s vag six minutes ahead.”

            “As far as I’m concerned, sis…” Halle said with a withering snarl.  “…I do as long as we’re on this job.  Until we have what we need, you’re on a leash.  My leash.  So keep your hands off the Betas.”

            Gail’s eyes darkened, her lip quivering on the verge of a poisonous smile.  No human in the world could’ve said this to her, other than her sister, and not wound up with their intestines unspooling onto the floor a half second later.

            “Just try to keep a cool head, Hal,” the more disgruntled twin breathed, allowing a manic grin to play across her lips.  “You might be the smart one, but if things suddenly start going haywire, and your plan fucks us over, we’re going to need some new ideas.  Maybe some new leadership.”

            “Then we’ll handle it as it comes, like we always have.”

            “We?” Gail gasped dramatically, cupping her cheeks in her hands.  “I thought it was just you.”

            “Listen,” Halle spat, grabbing hold of her sister’s tactical vest to prevent her from turning away.  “Either you get the fuck back in line with me, or-”

            Before her sister could expel the next toxic word, Gail had sliced the kerambit back through the air, stopping an inch away from Halle’s ear.  Rather than planting it in her sibling’s skull, though, the woman instead arched her arm back and threw.  The weapon sang out a deadly whistle as it carved through the silence and into the back wall, where it became embedded a mere two inches above the floor.

            Ben, a matter of paces away from Sonja’s littered gear in the auditorium shadows, cowered on his back, having dove to the carpet just in time to look up and see his sallow reflection in the glistening blade that so nearly removed his head.