Triton’s hacker abilities wouldn’t do me any good if he couldn’t find us. We must’ve been too far for Tristan’s premonition to alerted him that we were in danger. Or maybe we weren’t, and I hadn’t gotten his message or call in time. I hadn't taken my phone to the bathroom with me.
I ran through the list of them, only coming up with the possibility of Kellan and Tristan, possibly Triton if he could locate us, and then my thoughts turned to the newest team members. There were four of them, all unstable this early on in the change, but one of them could mind speak. He couldn’t tell what a person was thinking, but he was able to speak to someone's mind and give them the ability to speak back to him. It was a short-term ability, but Corbin could do it.
The second one in that group, Young, was no help. His ability was language. He could hear a phrase, listen to a person speak in their native tongue, and pick up the dialect. After an hour or two of listening, he could speak it fluently.
The third newest team member, Taki, could hold his breath underwater for what seemed like hours, defying the laws of physics in one's body for needing air to breathe. Still, he wouldn’t be any help.
The fourth one, Jaques, was fast. His speed, the last time I checked, maxed out at a hundred miles per hour. The downfall with his speed was his diet. He had to eat protein, carbs, and vegetables like crazy to keep up his energy. Very little sugar for him. He might be able to help, but even then, I was most likely out of range to reach Corbin, who I could possibly talk to.
Footsteps sounded at the door, and the rustle of the metal silenced as I paused and tensed. Then came the unmistakable sound of a lock twisting.
I tensed, wondering what the fuck was next.
***
They took me. I fought. They drugged me up and the fuckers tested on me, then put me back. It was in one of those half lucid moments I heard it. A voice inside my head. One that argued with me.
Get your ass into gear, man. We found you. We’re about an hour out. Do jumping jacks, push-ups, whatever you gotta do to slam that poison out of you. Water and a chopper will be waiting. Your job is to get her, we’ll do the rest. We got you, buddy.
“I don’t know where she is,” I told the empty room, getting up like a crazy person and doing what the voice said.
I knew on some level this was real, but I kept flipping back and forth between insanity and reality. It was after my hundredth push-up, or maybe it was two hundred, I couldn’t keep count, that I started to think clearly.
Corbin spoke through the mind link, and Kellan sent images of where we were being held, an ability he hijacked through Corbin. Luckily, Bane didn’t know about our new team members.
Through them, I now knew where Amber was, but what they’d done to her… I bit my cheek, grunting as I did another few rounds of push-ups. I’d worry about that when we came to it. As far as I could tell, all they’d done to me was drug me and take blood. Who the hell knows what they did to her.
The chains moved and made a lot of noise as I kept up, sweating the drugs out. We were going to get out of this.
Almost there. Wait for the extraction team. We’ll be right behind them.
“Weston and Seth?”
Who do you think is leading the extraction?
A heaviness settled in my chest with that knowledge. My family would never leave me behind. I let out a harsh breath, pushing the emotions back. “Tell them they owe me a beer.”
Through the ceiling came the whir of the chopper blades, and I readied myself.
You can tell them yourself. We’re here. Get ready.
“I’m as ready as I can be while chained to the floor.”
Blow torch is on its way.
Flash Back
Amber
Cold and wet, I gasped for breath in the dark chamber I was caged in. Panic started to set in as my hands lifted, scrambling to feel the cold, metal zipper that would release me from my confines. Quickly, unzipped it only to find more darkness.
I was trapped.
I heard voices and started to scream. Tears streamed down my cold cheeks, and I banged against the metallic chamber. “I’m here! I’m here!”
I found myself pulled out, brightness blinding me. “There she is,” he said.
Despite being blinded, I would never forget his voice.
My friend was with me, and we clung together. We were taken to a facility, separated, and placed in cages meant to keep animals. Then we were forced to do testing. Test after test, until I felt like giving up. Cured of a deadly disease only to be tested on for an evil man's gain.
After the last test, I was going to give up. Do something. Kill myself. I laid on the floor as a hand came through the bars of the cage next to mine. My one and only true friend gave me hope.
Our hands clutched together through the bars that held us in as she offered strength.
“We’re going to get through this,” she stated with fierceness as she tried to chase away my worries.
He was crazy. A raving lunatic. A man who wanted an army of superhumans. Did he even think about how long he’d have to wait? All the diapers he’d have to change? That this was wrong? How could I find strength when it all seemed to be taken?
“Don’t listen to the voices of doubt,” she pleaded, gripping my hand to bring me back to the present. “Because once your faith, courage, and beliefs in escaping are gone, it’s then that you’re truly broken and they’ve won. Don’t let them break you,” she whispered. “We have to escape.”
Days later, when it was confirmed we were pregnant, my friend and I came up with a plan.
My friend started to scream. “Guards! Guards! She’s bleeding. I think there’s something wrong with the baby!”
My palms were cold and clammy as I curled into a ball and held onto a piece of metal I had managed to unscrew from the bottom rails of the metal bed frame that held the mattress up.
I heard the keys and the creek of the hinges as they came in. The two guards never saw it coming. My friend hit one through the slats in the bars, and I swung at the other one.
“Keys, grab the keys!” she whispered urgently.
I rummaged their hips until my hands landed on the cool metal and unclipped it, scurrying out of my cell and locking the men in. Then I went to the other cell and let out my friend.
Together, we found a window which we climbed out of and ran into the night, our hearts slamming in our chest with what we’d just done.
We reached a stretch of road where cars flew by every so often. My friend got close to the street and waved down a trucker. He pulled over, rolling down his window to peer down at us. “You girls in trouble? Need a ride?”
“Yes! Just a second.” She turned to me. “You go. We can’t stay together. We’re easier to find that way. I’ll get another ride.”
“But…”
She opened the door and shoved me in. “You’re going. We don’t have time for this! Go!”
“You girls done making up your mind?”
I cleared my throat and jumped in, buckling up. “Yes.”
“Good.”
As he started to drive off, I kept my eyes on the side mirror to see if she got a ride. And what I saw was her getting sideswiped by a car. “No!” I cried.
The man looked in his rearview mirror, seeing the horror. “Shit.”
I’d lost my best friend.
***
I woke up slowly, laying on my side. The stiffness of the bedsheets beneath me crinkled when I moved, slowly twisting around as the metal springs squeaked from my weight.
My eyes adjusted, and I found myself surrounded by white walls, a single bar of light on the ceiling, and hospital blue, linoleum floors. I remembered a part of who I was, of what happened.
I panicked, my strength taken out of me as I realized I was back in hell, but this time, I was alone.
The pinching at the inside of my arm drew my gaze to tape and gauze on the inside of my elbow, and I tore it off to find a spot of red. The assholes already drew b
lood. If they did that, what else did they do to me while I was blacked out?
I stayed like that for at least an hour before I heard signs of life outside the door. I crowded back against the wall, hiking my knees up to my chest as I watched it creak opened. A man stepped through with a white coat, then another man dressed in a suit. These were the men from before, when Amy and I were taken. The ones that hurt me.
The man in the suite spoke first. “Well, well, well, Ms. Myter. It seems we caught up with you once again.” His comb-over lifted as the AC turned on, but his gray eyes glinted with rage. “You see, I would really like your cooperation.” He stepped forward, hands behind his back, and he started to pace. “It seems so interesting that you would be the first one we found.”
“My friend is dead,” I spit out, tightening my arms as if they could save me. “She’s gone.”
The man in the suit paused, his lips thinning as he turned to the white coat.
White coat shifted his glasses on his nose and spoke. “Not possible. They are practically indestructible. The other one lived. I’m sure of it.”
I thought about how I was before, when the Jameses found me. We weren’t indestructible, but we did heal quickly.
The suit turned back to me. “See there? She’s out there somewhere.”
“Why? Why are you doing this? Couldn't you have just left us alone?”
White coat gave a quick, harsh laugh, his expression annoyed. “Because you two are the only ones who were able to conceive. None of the other women have. That’s why we need you.”
The suit picked up the conversation, his voice soft. “I’m sorry about your miscarriage. I found the person who beat you. You won’t have to worry about him anymore.”
This caught my attention. “W-what?”
A smile ticked at the corners of his mouth. “It was a street rat druggie, and you stepped into his territory looking for a place to sleep. Well, at least that’s what he said before he died.”
I shuddered, hearing events about me that I couldn’t recall fall from this man's mouth. Had he always been hunting me?
He paused and then went on. “I don’t want you to be uncomfortable. There’s an easier way to do things. You can cooperate. Build trust between us and come home to my house with my wife and me. Have a nice room. Nice things. A television. Cable.”
His attempt to entice my cooperation only made me sick inside. “Someone's going to come.”
“No one is. You have no one. Not even your own father, who crossed the line to be able to find a cure for you, only getting himself killed in the process. No one's coming.”
“That's not true,” I muttered.
His brow lifted. “And why do you insist on that? I've eliminated all obstacles. No one can touch or come for you.”
My blood ran cold as my head shot toward him at this information. “You killed them?”
Now, his brow scrunched up. “Them?” I pressed my mouth closed. “Them? Who do you mean by ‘them’? The old couple? Your friends? Aaron?” he questioned softly. “They’re not coming. Aaron is dead and any of the others will think you are too when they find out your car is at the bottom of Tempe Town Lake. Young Amber’s cry out for help ends in tragedy as she succeeded in ending her own life. The police will sweep the river looking for a body,” he mocked. “You see? No one.”
My soul crushed at the information that Aaron was gone. I trembled as rage built. “You’re a sick bastard.”
“But I’m a thorough one. You can either cooperate and things could be a lot easier, or you can fight me and I’ll make your life a living hell.” After his speech, he walked out with white coat following behind him, slamming the door and locking me in.
A sob tore through my throat. Aaron was dead, and they didn’t know the other two. They didn’t know about Weston and Seth. About what they knew about him. I cried. Aaron didn’t deserve to die.
The light stayed on. Time drifted. I didn't know if it was night or day anymore. Hours blended together.
I stayed, wondering what they were waiting on. What they were going to do. I wasn't sure how long I stayed curled up in a ball on the bed, trying to think of anything, something, I could do to escape. I drew the gray blanket from the foot of the bed up over my body and covered my head, pretending I was somewhere else. That things were different.
They came for me while I was sleeping. Drugged me, and did their tests. Then brought me back hurting and confused.
I wanted to die, I should have died, but I stilled lived.
***
Hours, maybe even days, passed filled with tests and drugs before things changed. It felt like a bomb went off, then the call of someone outside the door. Time and space seemed disoriented as a piercing noise filled the air. I curled up tighter into my ball, covering my ears, delusional, as someone banged on the door.
It slammed open.
I tensed. Hands grabbed me. I went wild. Screaming and thrashing around, I tried to get rid of them. It wasn’t until I finally realized that the tingles I share with my guys was present and stopped fighting.
They soothed me as strong arms picked me up and carried me out of the room. I clutched his chest and sobbed. I was safe. They found me.
I wasn't sure what happened or how they got in. I didn’t care who got away and who was dead. I only cared about the man who carried me and being free once again.
Glancing up, I saw the shoulder-length blond hair tied at his neck and tears clouding my vision as I breathed, “Aaron.”
He was alive. I was no longer scared.
He dashed us down a stairwell, shoved open a door, and he ran to a chopper that was waiting. He yelled at me to jump in when we got to the roaring beast. Unnerved, I moved from his arms into the machine as my hair flew into my face. A man I didn’t know helped me climb in and guided me with support at my elbow to a seat as Aaron hopped in and sat next to me.
I reached for him, but he was all business, leaning over to buckle me in as we started to rise into the sky. Only when he safely secured me did he cup my cheeks and lean in to kiss my forehead. He dipped down and kissed my lips, causing a slight flutter to creep up into my heart. After, he proceeded to buckle himself in and grab the headphones one of the guys held out for him. Handing one to me, the two of us put them on, and Aaron tapped the headphones with his forefinger, signaling he could hear me and wiggled the mic.
My lip trembled as I nodded, grabbed his hand, and hung on. His mouth was tight, eyes guarded as his voice came over the line, broken and torn. “I’m so sorry, honey. I’m so sorry. I should have been more aware, but I never saw them coming.”
I couldn’t help it, my mouth turned downward as my nose burned, and the first tear fell. I wished he’d been more aware. Saved me then instead of now. My memories were back, along with the awful sick feeling that came with them. My body was violated. My virginity taken, given fertility drugs that made me sick, and impregnated by a painful medical procedure just to lose the baby.
What was my condition now? Was I broken?
“How could you know?” I finally swiped away my runny nose before Aaron cradled my body into his, holding me tight. “They’re monsters. Monsters prey on the unexpected. Believe they’re God. Taking everything away and leaving you an empty shell. Empty shell,” I repeated. “Everything gone.”
“I’m so sorry.” He broke, holding me tight as I cried into his shoulder. “Those monsters won’t be able to reach you anymore. They’re dead. General Bane, the doctor, they're all dead. No one's coming to hurt you or any of us.”
But I was already hurt. Already broken. I remembered. My best friend was dead, despite what the doctor said. I saw it. No history, no family. I was someone who could fade away. That’s why they took me from the hospital. I had no one. No one who loved me. I was an orphan.
I heard his vow from the mic. “We’re going to the airport and meeting the others. We’re headed home. Back to the mountain. We’ll be safe there. Better.”
Even though he mean
t it to be a comfort, it wasn’t. I’d still be caged. It was just a bigger one. Never alone, but now forever broken. There was no coming back. Or forgetting.
We flew to the airport where a jet waited. I didn't question him as we loaded inside, my eyes meeting the cream leather with sparkly glazed wood fit for a princess. I was almost afraid to let my dirty frame sit in the seat for fear of smudging it.
Aaron didn't hesitate as he once again put me in my seat and buckled me up. I was lost in my own thoughts. I was sure he was as well. By the look of him, Bane had tortured him, or at least experimented on him. His eyes held a darkness they hadn’t had before. I didn't remember much of what they did to me, but I remember feeling hurt on the inside, violated, while other times I didn't remember anything at all.
Aaron took my hand in his, holding it. “We’re just waiting on the others.”
A mere fifteen minutes passed before the shuffle of feet could be heard boarding the plane. I whirled around, worried about who it was, and found Weston and Seth climbing inside, all decked out in their Amy gear as a few others followed.
Weston immediately came to me, lowered to his knees, and drew me to his chest. “Babe.” One word, and I could tell he was tortured. “Never again.”
He pulled away and rested his head against mine. “You’re safe from them.” He gently leaned in, his intimidating frame bumping against Aaron’s knees, and captured my lips, telling me without words how scared he had been. He trembled as he drew away. “You’re safe, babe.”
Weston rose from his position and slammed his body into the seat next to mine, taking a hold of my hand. Seth was next in line, brushing his lips against my already swollen ones.
He lifted his head and whispered, “Later,” before he got up and placed himself in the seat across from mine, taking out a cell phone. I knew he wasn’t ignoring me, not dismissing the situation, but getting things done. Things that needed to be done.
Weston drew the hand he held up to his mouth, letting his lips graze against the top, telling me without words that he was here. Not planning on going anywhere.
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