I looked up at her in surprise, feeling like something was off, and she flashed me another grin as she pulled the end of the chain up to her chest, giving it a light tug once it was taut between the two of us. The handcuffs securing my wrists helplessly pulled forward slightly. But that wasn’t right. That couldn’t be right. Because I wasn’t that weak anymore. Now that I had fully awakened my abilities, I was stronger now. A lot stronger. Was she still that much stronger than me? It was like my new strength was still nothing to her.
Uncertain of what was going on, I slowly stood up as her grin widened.
“Good boy,” she said approvingly. “I’ll go slow for you.” She then whipped around and gave me another tug, encouraging me to fall in step behind her. I quickly found myself distracted by the dimples in her lower back again, as we walked out of the room and down the hallway. Her swaying hips made it almost impossible not to be distracted. Her walk wasn’t exaggerated – if anything it was very casual – yet her hips still moved hypnotically. The black shiny belt she was wearing only made her more distracting.
After a few seconds, I tried to focus on the back of her head, again feeling like something was off. She looked back then, seeming disappointed that I was looking up. “Aw, you’re no fun!” She complained with an adorable pout. She then grinned when I focused on her full lips. “Or maybe you are!”
Faster than should be possible, she spun around on her heels and was suddenly barely an inch away from my face. I gasped in surprise as her eyes were suddenly so close to mine.
Then, she did the unexpected. She leaned in and rested her soft lips on mine. My eyes widened as I felt her warm tongue slip into my mouth. Her hand then slid down my stomach and began exploring in between my legs. A rush of pleasure erupted in my core as she began squeezing me in between my thighs. She then broke the kiss, and brought her mouth up to my ear, whispering.
“Jake…Jake wake up.”
Suddenly I was staring at the night sky. Trinity was practically on top of me, her hand in between my legs. I gasped, and she brought her head up from beside mine. Her red eyes were intense, looking at me with a deep concern.
“Trinity?” I asked. “What happened?”
She sighed then, and abruptly got to her feet, looking off in the distance as she spoke. “You were attacked with some kind of hypnotizing ability. We killed the culprit, but you didn’t wake up. Since you can’t feel pain, we really only had one other option to try to break its hold on you.” There was something in her expression that bothered me again as she spoke. A sort of bitterness…and fear. Although I couldn’t imagine what she would be afraid of right now.
“Was it that bad of a kiss?” I wondered seriously. I couldn’t figure out what was going on with her, but she didn’t seem very happy.
Someone laughed, and I finally tore my gaze from her to see that I was surrounded by everyone. Zane, Ava, Zayden, and Reynolds were all standing over me. It felt awkward knowing they had all just been watching Trinity kiss and fondle me. I slowly sat up, and then got to my feet.
Trinity spoke again to everyone, her arms crossed, ignoring my question. “Anyway, all of you need to get to the pickup location like I asked.”
“R-Right,” I said, still feeling confused by her expression. She was refusing to look at me again. I kept staring at her as she and Reynolds walked off back to the mansion. “Did I do something to upset her?” I wondered out loud, asking no one in particular once she was out of earshot.
Zane rested his hand on my shoulder. “You can ask her later. Right now, we need to follow orders.”
I looked at him, his expression more gentle now, and nodded. The pickup locations ended up being at the front end of the property. We had to walk about half a mile to get there. When we arrived, there was already a van waiting for us. I was told to get in and wait, only to have everyone else get in and the van take off down the road. Did the driver not know we were missing a person?
“Wait,” I said to Zane who was sitting next to me again. “Trinity’s not here. Are we just going to leave her?”
He quickly shook his head. “She’s been ordered to stay behind for debriefing.” He then crossed his arms and gave me a serious look. “And Jake, you need to be careful with your feelings for her.”
“What?” I was shocked.
Ava chimed in then. “Jake, you’re acting a little possessive. She’s not your girlfriend.”
Zane quickly added. “And this is the military. You follow orders and nothing else. You don’t need to know what’s going on with her every second of the day. She’s our leader, not our friend.”
I looked at both of them, and then glanced at Zayden. He wasn’t looking at me, staying out of the little ‘gang up on Jake’ festival. I then looked at Ava again. “Okay, seriously, please explain to me specifically how I’m being possessive.”
Zane was the one to answer. “Needing to know what she’s doing, where she’s going, wanting to stay with her instead of following orders – do I need to go on?”
“What are you talking about?” I said seriously. “That’s all normal stuff to be curious about.”
Zane unexpectedly echoed my comment from earlier. “I believe you said, ‘I’d rather not’ when asked to go to the pickup point. This is the military Jake. No one cares about your opinion, and voicing it is a good way to get yourself into trouble.”
I was about to respond, but then sighed and sat back in my seat. There was no point in arguing about it. Maybe I was concerned about her. Maybe I did miss her already even though we had only been separated for a short time. But those were all normal things to feel when you liked someone. I certainly wasn’t being possessive.
They were all quiet for a few minutes, uncertain if I really wasn’t going to respond, but then seemed to decide they had made their point. After a few more minutes of silence, Ava spoke up.
“Jake…do you remember what happened under the mansion?”
I glanced at her, uncertain what she was getting at. “Yeah, why?”
She hesitated, before continuing. “Can you tell me?”
I looked at her for second, and then remembered that she had been unconscious for probably most of the time. Sighing again, I answered her. “I sensed it when you were attacked, so Trinity and I ran to come help you. We found you, except it wasn’t quite you. We basically just found the ground covered in a black mist. But I could sense that it was you, and that you were still alive.” I then looked at her, pausing for emphasis. “Trinity was really upset by the way, at least briefly, when she thought you were dead.”
“Really?” She asked in surprise.
I quickly nodded. “Yes. Why is that surprising?”
She hesitated again, looking at Zane as if quietly asking if she should answer that question. Much to my surprise, Zayden answered, speaking up for the first time. “Because she’s almost impossible to read. That’s why. One minute you think she actually has a heart, and then the next minute she’s stone cold. Today has been the most lively I think we’ve ever seen her.”
I briefly thought about how Trinity had admitted to me earlier that she did care about her teammates. Did they not know that? She had spoken quietly enough for the others not to hear, but I hadn’t realized it was a secret. A secret she had only shared with me.
Ava nodded in agreement. “She seems to have her guard dropped when she’s around you, which might not be a good thing.”
“And why is that?” I wondered seriously.
Zane finally chimed in again. “Because it makes her vulnerable, at least in her perception. Don’t be surprised if she pulls back from you and gives you the cold shoulder.”
I hadn’t realized it, but I was leaning forward in my seat, eagerly trying to learn more about the girl that I was quickly become enamored with. I leaned back as I considered what they were all saying.
“She’s already doing it.” I realized. Unsurprisingly, no one said anything. But I didn’t need their confirmation. It wasn’t a question anyway.
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br /> After a few minutes, Ava decided to change subjects back to her original question. “So…then what happened? After you two found me?”
I looked at her for a few seconds, holding her gaze, before responding. “Well, basically Trinity knocked down the door and Weaver immediately attacked her with his ability. Although, if he could attack her from that distance, then I’m not sure why he didn’t sooner.”
“Line of sight.” Ava quickly answered. “He had to be able to see his target. He got me when I peeked through the door – my shadow body still has water in it after all. Weren’t you paying attention earlier?”
“Oh…I guess I missed that part. Anyway, I ran at him to try to make him stop killing Trinity. He tried his ability on me and then I killed him once I realized I could control my own blood.”
“What triggered it?” Zane wondered. “Your ability?”
I looked up at him as I thought about it. “Well, I didn’t feel threatened at all actually. So, I think what triggered it was Trinity getting hurt. It made me really angry – pissed – and things just kind of happened from there.”
“How long were you angry?” Ava abruptly wondered.
I had no idea why that was important. “Probably for like two seconds. After that I was just kind of…” I hesitated, as I tried to think of a good word to describe how I had felt.
“Kind of what?” She encouraged.
“Kind of…emotionless? I guess? Why does it matter?”
She looked at Zane, as if he had the answer. I looked at him expectantly too, and he responded. “Because we need to know that we can trust you. You were like a completely different person when you came up with Trinity on your shoulder, dragging along that little girl like she was a ragdoll.”
“What?! You think I was too inhumane?!” I snapped. “I figured not killing her was plenty humane!”
Ava’s voice was gentle as she quickly held up her hand to get my attention. “No, that’s not what we’re saying. What we’re saying is that the Jake we had started to get to know didn’t seem like the kind of person who would do that. You had the look of a cold killer, and it was a little unnerving.”
I scoffed, looking away. “Says the group of murderers who killed way more people than I did tonight.” When no one responded, I finally resigned myself. “Okay, I get it. Your worried I wasn’t myself. But I was myself, just a slightly less emotional version of myself. I remembered what happened, and the fact that I spared that girl’s life should be enough proof that it was still me.”
Everyone continued to be quiet for a few minutes, until Zane finally spoke again. “What caused the sudden change? Like, when did you start to feel emotionless and when did it come back?”
I was pensive for a few seconds as I thought about it. “Well, I was briefly really angry when Trinity got hurt, and then suddenly I wasn’t. Then, once Trinity was alright…literally, the moment she opened her eyes, my emotions returned like someone had slapped me in the back of the head.”
Ava and Zane exchanged a look, before Zane responded. “So, then it sounds like the lack of emotions isn’t triggered by your ability. Instead, it’s triggered when you experience something highly upsetting. Sound about right?”
“Hmm. Yeah, actually it does, now that I think about it. I also ended up remembering the mall incident. Turns out it was me after all. My blood sort of went out of control, and my sudden horror seemed to trigger that emotionless feeling.”
“Wait, what?” Ava asked suddenly. “You lost control?”
I waived it off like it was nothing. “Yeah, but it won’t happen again. My ability must have been recessive until recently, because my body is totally different now. I did use to feel pain before today, and I certainly couldn’t heal instantly. If I got a cut or something, it took a good few days to heal like a normal person. But now everything is different. I heal instantly, I can control my blood, and I’m a lot stronger too.” I then paused as I looked at each of them. “I’m pretty sure the only reason it went out of control is because my body was adjusting to it. Now, I’m in completely control. See?” I held up my hand, and a bead of blood suddenly popped through my skin into my palm. As usual, there was no sense of pain. It then raised up into the air like a spike, before instantly disappearing beneath my skin again.
Once I showed them I could control of my ability, they seemed to relax a little. The rest of the ride back was much less tense. However, once we did get back, I soon discovered that my body was more different than I had thought – I apparently didn’t need to sleep anymore. Or eat.
Granted, I wasn’t ready to share that information with everyone, so I tried to keep it to myself as long as possible.
The warehouse-like building where I had originally been brought was one of several buildings on a secret military base. That’s where the ‘Thorns’ lived, which was the nickname give to their team of four – now five – ability users. Apparently, the commander had started calling the metahuman squad that when he was first assigned over a decade ago, because they were a ‘thorn in his side.’ The original team had been quite the handful, which was not surprising when considering the type of people typically assigned.
The nickname stuck, and now all the soldiers referred to their group that way. The actual official squad name sometimes changed, just like their codenames might change. Currently, they were Omega Squad.
There were also two teams of regular soldiers on the base who worked alongside us, with interchanging members – Beta and Gamma Squad. The rest of the soldiers on the base were for security and maintaining the general functionality of the facilities – everything from janitors to cooks to office workers. Zane was explaining this all to me as he and Ava were showing me around the building where they essentially lived. It was an old barracks.
The original team had been all male, so they had slept in a massive room that at one time had over fifty beds just out in the open. Now, there were only four beds, although I quickly found out only two – now three – were used.
When Trinity had first joined the team roughly three years ago at the age of thirteen, she had demanded to have her own space. She had used her leadership status as the reason, but they probably would have given in to her anyway. After all, she was just a little girl surrounded by a bunch of grown men – who were typically murderers. At least they never let rapists on the team – there was a certain level of antisocial behavior they just didn’t allow or otherwise the team wouldn’t be able to function.
Trinity wasn’t the first girl to ever be on the squad. There had definitely been a few women in past years, but they had all slept in the same room as the guys like anyone else. Trinity, on the other hand, ended up with an old windowless office as her room. It wasn’t a big deal for them to give it to her, since the large building was now completely empty except for their small group.
When Ava joined, she ended up getting her own office room too, down the hall from Trinity.
There was primarily only one massive bathroom, but it had two entrances with two separate shower rooms on opposite sides. The women who came before Trinity and Ava had demanded a wall be erected in the common toilet area, so they could use the restroom whenever they wanted without a schedule. According to Zane, normally that type of demand wouldn’t have been met, but the team wasn’t heavily supervised and the environment was more relaxed than it was for regular soldiers.
Rule-breaking wasn’t much of a problem though since the punishment was so severe – either a special session of torture from the mysterious ‘pain’ ability user, or else just removal from the team with no hope of return…or ever seeing the sun again.
Once Ava and Zane were done with the tour, they gave me a general rundown of the rules and what would be expected of me.
“Generally, we have to be up by six in the morning, followed by a mile run and then breakfast,” Ava was telling me. “Then we run another two miles, followed by five hundred sit-ups and a hundred pushups. You can do more if you want, but that’s the minimum req
uired. Afterwards, it’s weight-lifting in the gym for a couple of hours – we all have to do it, including the girls. They will develop a personalized workout routine for you depending on what you need to work on. Then, it’s another mile run before lunch.” She smirked at my expression as my eyes widened even more. “They may spend time teaching you to work a gun, but it depends. They don’t emphasize weapons much with us, since abilities often are the weapon, and a superior one at that, although we are free to do target practice if we are so inclined. In the afternoon, you can have some free-time to do what you want, followed by a five-mile run before dinner – that’s assuming it’s a non-mission day.”
Zane chimed in then. “We get a day’s notice before a mission. On those days we don’t eat or exercise. They give us files to study, and then we have a meeting to go over the details again to make sure everyone is on the same page. Everyone studies the material intently, since knowing that information might make the difference between life and death.”
“What about today?” I wondered. “You were prepared for the mission even though you didn’t know about me yet.”
Zane shook his head. “We were preparing for a different mission – a much easier one. However, when you popped up on their radar, they changed their minds. They’ve been looking for an opportunity to take down that guy for a very long time. And let’s just say that he was on their top ten list. I don’t think you realize just how much of a big deal it is that we finally got him.”
“But what if I hadn’t been compliant? What then?”
Zane smirked. “Well, their AI studied all your records, everything from your school grades and attendance to speeding tickets. It determined you would comply. But in the hypothetical event that you didn’t, then you would have been locked up for awhile and we would have proceeded with our original mission.”
Once he had said that, I realized I already knew the answer. I decided to change subjects. “So, is that what you usually do then? Kill mob bosses?”
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