I grabbed Troy’s hand and he nodded at me. I could see the hesitance in his eyes, but he was going to do what I felt was necessary. He was supporting my decision.
I closed my eyes and imagined the anger I felt for Horatio. In his quest for dominance, he had harmed too many innocent people. He had greedily coveted things and people that weren’t his to control or use. As I felt our connection reach its crescendo I lifted our arms towards the building. I watched as the ball of flame the size of car erupted from our hands.
We stumbled as the backdraft pushed us back. The building immediately began to go up in flames. The flame greedily fed by the breeze of the cold autumn day. The smell of smoke nearly choked us. We systematically made our way around the building, helping the flames spread faster.
“Time to go,” Troy said firmly after watching the building begin to crash.
“I want to make sure he doesn’t escape,” I said obstinately.
“We can’t,” Micah cried out as we saw the dark shapes running towards us, yelling, their bodies outlined by the fire behind them.
“We need to go,” Troy said in a clipped tone.
I looked at Micah, Rachel, and Sierra’s faces. They were scared. We needed to get to safety. My quest for vengeance would have to wait.
“They’re coming to get us,” Troy stated as he leaned back in the booth.
I had healed all the wounds on his face, and he had washed the blood off in the small bathroom located in the back of the diner. Unfortunately, I was unable to heal my own wounds. I looked like I had jumped in the ring with Mohammed Ali, did several rounds with him, and lost horribly.
We had to sit and wait for a rescue team to get us. Leaving in the helicopter that brought us here was out of the question. The place was crawling with men in black. We had to wait when all I wanted to do was go home to all my guys, curl up, and go to sleep. Maybe when I woke up, I would find out this was a dream. A horrible, messed up, dream.
We were all sitting in a booth in a small obscure town, far from Detroit. We had received odd looks when we came in, but it was growing late, and we were hungry. We smelled of smoke and fire. I tried to do the food justice, but I just couldn’t. My mind kept going to Steven. We had hidden his body in some woods close to our rendezvous point.
Troy pulled me closer to his side, caressing my arm as he kissed my temple. “Eat please,” he murmured quietly.
I looked up at him, feeling numb and hollowed out. “You too,” I responded back to him.
I was so tired and hungry, but my mind wouldn’t stop replaying everything repeatedly. I couldn’t help but wonder if I would have just spoken up, if the results would have been the same. If I had told Will that we all felt wary, would he have done something about it? We had received reports that all the other missions were successful, but the feeling of failure would not leave me.
He took a bite of his biscuit before placing it to my lips. I grudgingly took a bite of it, even though it tasted like sawdust in my mouth.
“You never told us your name or story,” Rachel finally said, after hours of silence. It was like she was waking from a dream as she looked at the exotic looking female sitting across from us.
She was slightly taller than me, but more curvaceous. She had long dark hair and large dark eyes. She had a great complexion and beautiful olive skin. She wasn’t classically beautiful, but someone that would still turn heads. She hadn’t spoken much, and I could tell she was just being respectful of our solemn dispositions.
“Sierra helped me.” Micah smiled in adoration at her, and I could tell he had a crush on her. “I could only take one person with me, but with her, I could bring you all.”
Sierra blushed a pretty shade of red. “My name is Sierra. I’m nineteen years old,” she said hesitantly as she eyed us skeptically. “My parents passed away when I was young, so I lived with my Grandmother. She—" She struggled with her next words. “She died last year. I was a student in New Jersey. A few months ago, I was slipped a drug when I was out drinking with some friends. I woke up in this facility that was run by…” she paused, shuddering, “…that monster. When I was given the drugs, at first they worked, but as each day passed I became more aware of my surroundings. I’m pretty sure my gift level is too high. I wasn’t supposed to be there tonight. One of the other girls started having complications with her pregnancy, so they pulled her at the last second.”
“So, you’re aware of the gifted community. What is your gift? Are you—" Troy started asking. We can see the discomfort on his face as he tried to delicately ask if she was pregnant, his gaze on her flat stomach.
“I am gifted. My Grandmother was gifted. My Dad, her son, had not been and, no” she stated emphatically. “Thank the Lord, no! They were actually getting pretty frustrated about that. They,” she shuddered. “…tried numerous times, but it wasn’t working. I am like a…catalyst. I can make any gifted person stronger than they already are,” she almost said smugly. The more she talked the more fire I saw in her spirit. She was a strong girl. “Although,” she pointed a fork at Troy and I with a shrewd look, “I don’t think you two need any help in that area.”
“Those other girls, some of them were pregnant, were they there willingly?” Troy asked as he fed me some of his biscuits and gravy.
Once again, I grudgingly took a bite. He was concerned about me. His constant looks told me as much.
“Oh yeah,” Sierra rolled her eyes. “There were a lot of us that weren’t there by choice, but then these two bitches came in and they started acting like everything was great. That we were honored to bring strong, gifted children into the world. Some of those girls ate that stuff up. They forgot that they were brought there against their will. All the ‘test subjects’ were there against their wills. We were like damn science experiments.
“They became…complacent. They became…brainwashed. It was like they became different girls. They got their implants taken out. I guess they were running low on the implants. The guy who created them was taken. Was it you guys who took him? ”
“But you didn’t buy it?” Rachel almost sounded impressed by her as she nodded assent at her question.
“No,” she rolled her eyes. “Have you ever seen the movie Mean Girls? Think Regina George. This bitch was Regina. With her pretty blond hair and blue eyes.”
I gasped as I looked over at Troy. I knew we were thinking the same thing. “Do you remember her name?” I asked quietly.