Alone, on a dark road, in the middle of the night.

Nice job Alexa. What do you think you're going to do when you get there?

Boogie men, bumps in the night, demonic possessions, and other such fact-less drivel had never bothered her. Now she couldn't look her own daughter in the eye and tell her monsters don't exist. With the tri-alleles running rampant, she needed to find the solution. If the darts don't work? She didn't even want to think about them not working. Hypothetically, they should work on a live specimen. Hypothetically.

Several miles south of the highway 22 junction, high beams illuminated the road from the turned over semi-truck and the black SUV. Her high beams lit up a tri-allele standing in the road behind Teagan. Alexa veered across lanes, aiming the Volvo straight at the creature. This would at least stun or knock him out. Maybe even give her time to shoot it with the formula?

Run baby. Run.

Teagan rolled out of the way.

The front end of the Volvo slammed into the side of the creature and stopped the car. Airbags exploded in all directions. From out of the corner of her eye, through the airbags, she realized she'd stayed on the road. But where had Teagan gone?

The engine rumbled and steam whistled from the front of the car. Though muffled, she thought she heard someone calling her name. She reached up to her keys and unlocked the doors.

Both passenger and drivers side doors opened.

"Alexa!" Ross wrestled with an airbag.

"Mom!" Teagan called out.

Before she could catch her breath, Teagan and Ross both pushed and pulled on airbags until their faces popped up on both sides of her. After taking several deep breaths, she blew the hair out of her eyes.

"I'm glad you're both safe. Where'd the tri-allele go?"

"Ran off. Are you hurt?" Ross gazed into her eyes. It wasn't a glance to see if she'd been injured. To her, it felt as if he'd reached into her soul.

"I'm not hurt. Could you please assist me? I do seem to be stuck at the moment."

One thick hand held back the airbag; the other took her left arm and helped her out of the car. Then he leaned over her and turned the car off.

When she stood, purple dots and squiggles danced before her eyes.

"Little wobbly. Did you hit your head?" This time Ross's eyes did a quick once over of her entire body.

"No. I'm fine." She searched her trench coat pocket, relieved to find the weapon she brought for him intact.

"Here." She handed him the pistol.

He took the gun and examined it. "This is a dart gun. What's it for?"

Still dazed and a bit woozy she pulled the box of darts out of her other pocket.

"It's the gene blocking agent, modified into a serum."

"For what, Mom?" She hadn't noticed Teagan who'd made her way to the other side of the car.

Alexa gawked at her daughter for a moment, making sure she wasn't hurt too bad. A small cut above her left brow and some other small scrapes and bruises.

Thank God she's okay.

"In theory, it will reverse the effects of the mutated gene, suppressing their altered DNA for a short period. And should render them vulnerable to our weapons." Her eyes fixed to Ross's.

"You don't need to do all of that. Ross killed one." Teagan smiled.

Alexa's eyes widened. Killed one?

"You did what?"

"He blew its damn head off."

Ross shook his head. "It's the one Teagan injured. I think the loss of blood weakened him."

A thought which made sense to Alexa. "You haven't been up against a female yet, have you?"

Teagan and Ross shook their heads.

"From my research, online and the government files, I've found females are stronger, faster, more agile, and more resistant to our firearms than the males."

"Great," Teagan said. "How many of those are there?"

"No one knows how many are out there. We know of two born in Oregon. The Staten baby and one born in Dallas a few days after."

Ross loaded the dart gun. "I need to check the perimeter and get down to Beef."

"Who's Beef?" Alexa asked.

Teagan took her by the hand. "I'll explain it all to you."

Ellie moaned from the FBI truck.

Ross picked the shotgun off the ground and swung it over his shoulder. "Both of you, get to the SUV, take care of Ellie."

"We'll be fine." Alexa tried to blow the confounded bangs out of her eyes again.

Teagan pulled a clip from her hair and tucked Alexa's out of the way.

"Thank you." She held Teagan's hand up to her mouth and kissed a bruise.

"We're good. Go get those pricks." Teagan nodded toward the field.

"Okay. But if you hear anything other than me, duck and cover. Get your mom and Ellie to safety. Understand?" Ross put his hand on Teagan's shoulder.

With the dart gun in one hand and the riot shotgun in the other, he headed into the sea of grass behind the wrecked semi-tractor trailer. Alexa hoped he would come back soon.

"You really think you can reverse the mutated gene?" Teagan asked.

"The facts point to that conclusion. They will become vulnerable once the mutated gene is blocked. We just don't know for how long."

Teagan smiled. "Awesome, Mom. You created Kryptonite." Then her face went blank.

Alexa knew the look well. "What is it? You have something to tell me, I know that look. So, spit it out."

"This is big though, Mom. Huge." She sobbed as they walked toward the SUV.

"You know you can tell me anything, Teagan? We look at it objectively, come to a conclusion, then ..."

"... rationalize the outcome. I know the drill. Ughh. You're so infuriating."

Alexa didn't understand where the animosity had come from.

"You remember the talk you and Dad gave me a few years ago?" Teagan stopped and gave Alexa another look, through tears. Her makeup had smudged her cheeks and the whites had striations of red throughout.

"We gave you many talks."

Teagan's teeth ground together. "The one about-boys."

"The birds and the bees." Alexa mused. The tone of the conversation had taken a wrong turn somewhere.

"After that."

"What?" Then it came to her. "Protection?"

A tension built in the pit of her stomach like a thousand cockroaches in a box. It couldn't be? Not my daughter. Well she had started her period several years earlier. But they had always talked about her first time, how she would inform her parents first and use protection no matter what. Teagan's eyes told it all.

"You're pregnant." Not a question. A fact. Alexa hadn't cried in a long time. Only a few forced tears when her husband died so people wouldn't think her heartless at the funeral. There wasn't anything in the world which could have prepared her for this. And she certainly didn't think it would affect her this much. The tri-allele births had been horrific. What these babies do to the mothers, she couldn't bear the thought of her daughter being eaten from the inside out.

"M...M...Mom!" Teagan's eyes bulged.

"What?" Alexa's body stiffened from her head to her toes. The horror in Teagan's expression wailed on her heart.

Teagan pointed. "There's one behind you."

Please comment and vote if you enjoyed the chapter.

What will happen now that Ross is not around to protect Alexa and Teagan?