Rebel

by L. C. Mawson

  “No, I haven’t killed anyone,” Alex admitted. “I ran away from the Demons I encountered, and then when I met Freya, she took over dealing with them. She would shackle them and leave them for the Demon officials to arrest. After that, there weren’t really any more enemies for a while. We were trying to figure out who was behind the attacks in the city, but it’s clear to me now that it was my monitor. And then, when he kidnapped Freya and locked me up, Freya must have killed him when getting free. I don’t know, she doesn’t really remember what happened, but she said that she was sure that she killed him.”

  “And you didn’t face anyone else? Not after you went on the run?”

  Alex shook her head. “Only that Council of Light agent ever got close, and Freya let him go once we were far enough out of town to no longer be tracked.”

  Gus went to go and sit opposite her, and Alex finally turned to face him.

  “Why does it matter?” she asked. “You didn’t say before, you just said that you hadn’t thought about it until now.”

  Gus looked away. “I... I don’t know. It just does.”

  Alex wasn’t convinced. “We’ll have to do it at some point,” she reasoned. “Just because I haven’t yet doesn’t mean that I won’t. The older Enhanced won’t hesitate, and I won’t give them the chance to kill me because I couldn’t pull the trigger.”

  Gus clenched his fists, still looking away.

  “If you want to die, go right ahead,” Alex continued. “But we just lost a fight. Weren’t you the one going on about how we couldn’t face the other Enhanced? About how we didn’t have the strength? And you were right. How do you think we’re going to win this if we don’t give it everything we have?”

  “We’ll get more people,” Gus replied through gritted teeth. “We’ll be able to fight them when we have more people.”

  “Even if we have more people, they will always have even more to draw upon. They will always have more reinforcements, more backup, and we will only ever be able to beat them while they underestimate us. If we restrain ourselves even further, our job will be impossible. You cannot deny that.”

  “I won’t just kill my family, Alex!” he snapped, banging his fist on the table between them as Alex stared at him with wide eyes.

  “I’m not suggesting shooting our siblings,” she eventually said, still a little shaken from his surprise outburst. “If you joined me, I imagine they will as well. I was talking about the others.”

  “So was I,” he retorted, his voice thick with venom. “I can’t believe you, Alex. I mean, I know that your monitor hurt you-”

  “Do you?” she asked, the heat in her voice rising to match his. “Because if you knew, if you understood, you wouldn’t be trying to claim that he and those like him are our family.”

  “You don’t get it, Alex. You got to leave,” he spat. “You got to leave and not look back, to have your little adventure with Freya. It wasn’t as if you had ever been particularly close with anyone outside of our siblings, anyway, so was it really that difficult for you to just walk away?”

  “Of course it was! They betrayed me, Gus. I didn’t want to leave, they forced me out!”

  “And yet you never looked back. You just stopped caring about the rest of us.”

  “If I stopped caring, why the hell do you think I called you?! Why the hell do you think I risked my safety so soon after I was betrayed?”

  Gus looked away. “You needed information. You needed an ally on the inside.”

  Alex just stared at him. “No, I really didn’t. If I wanted to run and not look back, I would have. But that isn’t what happened. I called you because I was scared and alone, and to be honest, I needed to know that someone was still on my side. That I could still trust even one other Enhanced. And I was right to trust you. You and our batch-siblings. No one else.”

  Gus just shook his head. “Our family doesn’t just end at our siblings. What about all the others? The others like us?”

  “You mean like Bob? You just saw how well that went.”

  “He was scared,” Gus defended. “And he doesn’t want to turn on his family. You can’t fault him for that, and you certainly can’t shoot him for it.”

  “I can if he threatens my safety,” Alex retorted. “I can if he threatens yours. I will not stand idly by and allow us to be captured.”

  “Even if it means sacrificing the others?”

  “Even if,” Alex said firmly.

  Gus shook his head. “I can’t. I can’t think like that, Alex. I can’t just flip the switch and start thinking of all of my friends as enemies.”

  “If they side with the other Enhanced, then they are not your friend.”

  “They will side with the others because they’re scared or unsure, not because they want to see us hurt. This is what I mean, Alex. Your monitor betrayed you and then you just walked away. You declared the rest of the Enhanced your enemies without stopping to think for even a moment that anyone but your siblings would ever have reason to want to leave as well. You got to walk away and stop thinking of them as your family. I didn’t. I went back. I went back and had to pretend that I didn’t know that your monitor had betrayed you. That I didn’t know the specifics of what had happened. And I wanted to consider them all enemies as well, but I couldn’t. I didn’t return to a viper’s nest, I returned to my family. And while I will do everything I can to protect you, Alex, I won’t hurt them if I can avoid it.”

  Alex just shook her head, standing up. “You do whatever you want,” she told him as she headed for the door. “But I’m not going to hesitate if the others put either of us in danger.”

  At that, she left, and they didn’t speak again until they arrived at the airport.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Tina

  Keeping an eye on Ty was harder than Tina had anticipated.

  His accident had blinded him, not to mention all of the other injuries! She had expected that he would stay put, waiting until he had recovered before attempting to get about. Or that he would at least wait for someone to help him.

  How did he even know where he was going if he couldn’t see?

  But no, instead of just checking up on him in the infirmary, Tina was having to venture all over the base to keep her promise to Mia.

  After walking for what felt like forever, not wanting to seem like she was in any hurry to find someone, in case someone asked who and Ty got in trouble, she eventually stumbled across him in the atrium.

  Tina loved the atrium. The base was otherwise completely sterile. Just an expanse of silver metal and white plastic that was devoid of windows, and the only doors were thick metal that didn’t even let in air without heavily filtering it.

  The lights inside the base simulated sunlight and that was thought to be enough of the outside world for the Enhanced children kept there. That and the atrium, which had apparently been built after some of the scientists there had complained about how depressing it was in the base. It wasn’t much, just a common room where the floor had been dug up and replaced with soil so that grass and a few shrubs could grow around a large tree in the centre of the room, the soil artificially provided with nutrients. Between the shrubs, there were a few benches scattered around, but the greenery was otherwise undisturbed.

  Of course, they were never supposed to be kept in the base for their entire lives. Or even only allowed out for extremely short missions. The bases were designed to keep Enhanced children safe, not to house adults.

  And then the war had ended, and the Enhanced were terrified that magical beings would track them down and kill them, which was only exacerbated by the fact that there were very few adult Enhanced left. Just a handful, while the rest of the base was the scientists working there and the children.

  But now those children were grown.

  Initially, they had thought to return to the old ways of the Enhanced mostly living away from the bases, only returning for check-ups and mission updates.

  To test the idea, they had sele
cted the top student from one of the older batches and tasked her with finding out what had happened to the other bases.

  Alex.

  Tina had heard several different rumours about what had actually happened, and the older Enhanced and scientists had infuriatingly kept quiet, other than saying that Alex had betrayed them to the magical beings.

  Two things were certain: the older Enhanced tasked with monitoring Alex was dead, and an Angel had been involved.

  Some rumours said that the Angel had tempted Alex with a magical boon, though what that was differed from rumour to rumour. Some said she was given immortality, while others said that she was given all of the luxuries of the outside world.

  Other rumours said that the Angel had found her and her monitor and that Alex had freaked out in the fight, unable to kill the Angel.

  That was the rumour Tina believed the least. How could the best of them ever be a coward?

  Then there were the rumours that no one dared to speak aloud without first checking that they definitely wouldn’t be overheard.

  Such moments were fleeting on the base, so it was more than telling that they used those moments to trade this rumour.

  The rumour that Alex’s monitor had captured the Angel, unprovoked. That he had done so because the scientists didn’t have enough data on that species and considered them the greatest threat of the magical beings.

  After that, there were two schools of thought concerning why Alex had helped the Angel to escape. One said that she simply didn’t have the stomach for the type of experimentation her monitor had in mind.

  And the others, in low, hushed voices even once the speaker was sure they were alone, said that Alex had fallen in love with the Angel.

  Of course, being the more interesting and romantic of the stories, the last one, despite not being spoken openly, had gained the most traction.

  Tina wasn’t sure what to believe, and now there were even more rumours coming, this time about Gus.

  She was pulled from her thoughts by Ty leaping down from the large tree, only to stumble his landing, crashing to the ground.

  “Ty!” Tina hissed as she walked over to him, grabbing his arm to help him up.

  Ty responded by yanking his arm away, shaking his head. “Tina? Why are you here?”

  “I was looking for you.”

  Ty shrugged as he got to his feet. “Well, you found me. What did you want?”

  “Nothing. I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”

  “Well, now you know.”

  Tina sighed, trying not to feel put out as Ty immediately made his way back to the tree.

  “How did you even get here?” Tina eventually asked as he felt the branches of the tree with his hands before hoisting himself up. “Without being able to see, I mean?”

  Ty let out a frustrated groan. “I’ve lived here all my life, Tina. I didn’t suddenly forget where things were.”

  Tina gave a hum of thought, before deciding that, even if she pushed him, he probably wouldn’t give her any further explanation.

  “Since you’re here,” Ty said as he clambered back up to the higher branches, “might as well fill me in on the latest gossip.”

  Tina gave him an unamused look, despite the fact that he couldn’t see it. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she huffed.

  Ty sighed. “Yes, because you have never known anything you weren’t supposed to,” he said sarcastically.

  Tina rolled her eyes. “What I do is information gathering.”

  “Which is a fancy way of saying that you know all of the rumours and don’t subscribe to any of them without proof. That’s why I asked you and not someone less bothersome.”

  Tina shook her head. “Fine. Though I don’t believe you haven’t heard already.”

  “People are ignoring me,” Ty explained. “I’ve overheard some whispers about Gus not reporting in, but that’s about it.”

  Tina shrugged. “That’s about all there is to it. He was supposed to check in with his monitor and hasn’t. They tried to track him, but it looks like he disabled the GPS in all of his equipment, or just dumped it.”

  “So, not just distracted by the outside world?” Ty asked before launching himself from the branches again, this time staying on his feet when he landed. He wobbled, but he stayed on his feet.

  “Most likely not,” Tina agreed, keeping her voice low now that Ty was next to her again. “The most popular theory is that he joined Alex, though the real question then becomes if she’s just approached him now, or if he really did see her when he was sent after her. Maybe he’s been working with her this whole time.”

  “Either way, good for him,” Ty said with a grim smile. “I hope they burn this place to the ground.”

  “Ty!” Tina hissed. “I know that you’re frustrated at the minute, but you can’t just say things like that! You’ll get in trouble.”

  “What are they going to do, threaten to kill me?” Ty bit back bitterly. “Stop babying me, Tina. I don’t need or want it...”

  Tina suppressed a sigh. He might not need or want her worry, but it was clear that he already thought he was a dead man. If he wasn’t going to show caution, it would be up to her to make sure he wasn’t right.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Alex

  Once they arrived in the city of the next recruit – Jan – it didn’t take them long to find her.

  Jan’s genetic stock meant that she perfectly blended in amongst the citizens of the Chinese city, but Alex recognised her well enough. Jan had never exactly been close to beating her or Gus, but she had still been safely within the top tier of their cohort.

  Not that she and Alex were friends, particularly, or even close. Alex wasn’t sure that she had shed a single conversation with Jan that hadn’t been practical in purpose. Maybe asking her to pass something over, or discussing tactics when they had to work together on battle sims.

  Not that Alex would have considered herself close with any of the Enhanced outside of her batch-siblings, Gus had been right about that, at least. The only other she had ever felt close to had been her monitor, and that hadn’t exactly worked out well for her.

  Jan, much to Alex’s surprise, smiled as she saw her and Gus across the street.

  She bounded over to them, still smiling. “Alex!” she cried. “I had worried you might have died.”

  Alex frowned in confusion. She and Jan had never been close, so why was she so relieved to see that she was still alive?

  “No, I’m still here,” Alex said, the confusion evident in her voice.

  Jan continued to grin as she turned to Gus. “And you’re with her? Does that mean that you have left the Enhanced as well?”

  Gus nodded. “It does,” he confirmed. “Alex told me what they had done to her after they had realised that she had been speaking with a magical being and I couldn’t just stand by. In truth, I’ve been on her side for a while now, I was just remaining with the Enhanced until we were ready to... Well, to stop them. From starting up another war with the magical beings, I mean. We would much rather try to maintain the peace.”

  Jan nodded eagerly. “And if you’re here, does that mean you’re looking for people to join you? Because I would be more than happy to help.”

  Gus and Alex just exchanged a confused look.

  “Right, good,” Gus said, clearing his throat. “I’m sorry, we just expected to have a much harder time convincing people.”

  Jan rolled her eyes. “Look, if I join you, are you going to dictate every single second of my life, or are you just going to let me do whatever I want outside of helping you deal with the Enhanced?”

  Gus frowned. “Well, we haven’t really thought about it, but I suppose you can do whatever you want...”

  “Then I’m in.”

  Alex narrowed her eyes, Jan’s enthusiasm not sitting well with her.

  They had been raised since birth to be loyal to the Enhanced. It was the only home and family any of them had ever known. It had l
iterally taken her monitor trying to kill the woman she loved, and using her as an emotional weapon, to get Alex to snap out of that mentality.

  And then it had taken Gus a while, and the details of what had been done to Alex, to get on board as well.

  Not that he had apparently stopped thinking of them as family...

  Alex’s stomach chilled at the thought as her mind kept going back to the same question over and over.

  What if Gus changed his mind?

  What if he decided to choose them over her?

  Even her own brother couldn’t stop seeing the Enhanced as family, so what chance did anyone else have of managing it without suffering the same betrayal as Alex?

  What was the chance of Jan being willing to throw it all away simply because she didn’t like being told what to do?

  Even if she was willing to help them, and this wasn’t a trap, Alex wasn’t entirely sure that she wanted someone so flaky on their side.

  But before she could voice her concerns, Gus was saying, “Well then, welcome to the team.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Gus

  They took a plane, followed by another train, heading back into Europe.

  Gus caught Jan up to speed, but he was more than aware of how Alex remained silent throughout her makeshift induction.

  Alex seemed to be focused on watching the new arrival, taking note of every little movement, and every word she spoke. It didn’t take Gus long to realise that she was looking for any sign that it might be a trap from the other Enhanced.

  “Alex,” Gus eventually said, drawing her attention back over to him. “Can I speak with you for a moment? In private?”

  She nodded, a brief flash of relief across her features. Gus felt a twinge of sympathy for his sister at that. Was she really so uncomfortable around Jan?

  Gus led her to a compartment where they could speak privately, closing the door firmly behind them.