“We barely got away, thanks to Cranston and Nyla.” Blink clutched her tiny cup of tea while telling Evan and the other two about what had happened.

  They sat around a creaky pine table, joined by Luis, Twitch, and Daniel. “Last I saw them; they were running for cover while Nyla was sending fireballs at the interceptors. She clipped one, but we had flown away before I saw what had happened to it.”

  Vihn shook his head. “We didn’t see any wrecks. She must not have hit anything important.”

  Nan tended to Andrea with a special salve she had mixed up. “Tsk. Disgusting what they did, absolute atrocity. What has happened to this nation? They massacre children in the name of politics.”

  “It’s not the first time they’ve done this. It won’t be the last, either.” Vihn poured something extra into his cup and drank.

  Evan muttered, “We’ll never be able to stop this. No matter what we do, this keeps happening.”

  Blink protested. “We can’t give up. If we did, then all their deaths would be wasted. We have to beat them, even if it takes everything.”

  “Beat them how?”

  This was the question that no one had an answer for, and maybe one that there was no answer for.

  After a while, the group separated, and Blink and Evan were left alone in the cell rooms below – except for Andrea who slept behind them.

  “You know,” Blink began, “I never told you.”

  “Told me what?”

  “My birthname is Anya Briar… my brother is Teague Briar. Ew, that feels weird to say.” She played with the words in her mouth.

  It was something Evan hadn’t realized he’d ever want to know. He was happy for the distraction. “Why tell me now?”

  She shrugged. “We’ve fought life and death, and I never thought to tell you.”

  “Well, I mean, I don’t mind – Anya… That’s not a bad name.”

  “Oh? You don’t think so?”

  “No, but do you?”

  She bobbed her head about. “No, it’s not a bad name.”

  “So… why did you and Twitch-Teague, both change your names?”

  “To separate ourselves from the past,” she said. “Evan. I used to be a different person. I haven’t told you the full truth about how I got my powers. You know, I was scared of becoming Afflicted, just like every other kid in the East Coast, and then it happened. I used to always pray, ‘not me, please not me.’ Though, it was never really up to me, I’ve realized. My brother and I were in the car with our parents one day, they were arguing about my brother and I… whether they should take us to get screened, because like all parents back then, they were paranoid over every weird thing a developing child goes through. That freaked my brother out, he started crying. We’d heard stories of kids who got screened, how they were taken away on the spot and were never seen again. It just made my parents yell louder, so, he screamed even louder. The glass shattered, and my dad swerved, all of our ears bleeding. Twitch was Afflicted. I grabbed my brother so, so tight, and prayed he wouldn’t be taken away, that we could escape. When I opened my eyes, my brother and I were in some random alleyway. Well, it was an alleyway that I’d seen in a movie once, I think. The heroes had gone there to escape from the bad guys. It was the first time I ever teleported. I was sooo happy, and scared, but then I heard my brother gurgling. I looked back and he was grabbing his throat. I thought he was choking on something, but he was trying to speak. I hadn’t brought all of him with me. So, the same day he discovered his powers, I took them away.”

  Blink brushed tears away from her face. “Anyway… that’s when the heroin addict found us and took us. I hated him. I put everything, all of what was happening to us, on him. He eventually sold us to the Blood Red Army, but the pain had never healed. Years later, I found him. I wanted to kill him. I tried to. I almost did. But then I realized, looking at his crinkly old body, him begging for his life… what was the point? He abused me, kidnapped me. So what? That was the past, and I was about to give him what little humanity I had left. I had found my new family because of him, and he was pathetic, nothing. So, I forgave him… I let go of the pain. I moved on to try and help the people I loved instead of letting the people I hated control me.”

  Evan couldn’t find the words to say. He was thankful for her, and what she’d told him ran through his mind. Forgave the man who’d hurt her. Let it go. Given the opportunity, could Evan do the same? He didn’t think he would. How could he consider forgiveness when the people he wanted to hurt were still strong, still powerful? He’d have to think more about it. Still, he reached an arm over Blink, wanting to comfort her. She relaxed in his embrace.

  “Thank you for listening to that, I’m sorry,” she said.

  “Don’t be… Thank you for… all of it. Thank you for trusting me. For what it’s worth, I’m glad you’re here. I’m glad I know you. Thank you.” He felt silly, unsure how to form the words for how he felt, but he tried, nonetheless.

  She sat up, a bittersweet twist in her lips. “Hey, do you still have that music I leant you?”

  “Oh!” He ran to his backpack and pulled out the device and ear pods. Together they listened to the swell of sympathy and electronic. The harmony adapting to them, as one. It was a moment of peace again.

  Until the question infected Evan’s mind again. He needed to know the truth about his father. He looked back to Andrea, who still slept. “How long do you think it’ll take for her to wake up?”

  Blink shrugged. “I don’t know why she hasn’t already.”

  “It’s a coma.”

  “Hey, don’t worry. She’ll be fine. We’re safe here for now…”

  “Sorry,” Evan said, “I think I have an idea.”

  Blink nodded compliantly, as Evan left her and approached Andrea. One of her hands hung off the side of the bed. He held it. Nothing happened, the same as each time before. He sat next to the bed, closed his eyes, and waited. Instead of holding in his emotions, he allowed his anger and fear to bubble to the surface. He felt his body radiate and shiver. His mind spun, until he was no longer in the cell but was now in a great empty white space.

  Ahead sat Andrea with her back to him, the same way as she had sat in her chamber in Alpha base. Her great book was set out in front of her on a podium, with some candles lit around her.

  As Evan took a step forward, the white floor rippled like water, revealing glimpses of concrete within the waves until the ripples settled back into whiteness. He took another step, and again the floor distorted, but this time showing red carpeting. Another step, but now the floor was sand on a beach. He finished the journey to Andrea. Her face was clear of any wounds or injury, looking healthier than the first day he’d met her.

  “Hello, Evan,” she said with her eyes closed.

  He sat next to her. The floor rippled out, showing Andrea’s chambers again for a brief time.

  “What happened to you?” he asked.

  She sighed. “Child, I don’t think I’ll be waking up again.”

  He was speechless.

  “I won’t die, no, but I will not wake. The damage has been done. You have my mind, and that is the most useful part of me anyway.” She smiled bitterly.

  “It’s my fault. We shouldn’t have gone to meet with Shwood, it was a trap.”

  Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.

  She opened her eyes and looked at him with that gaze of night and day. “Evan, the future plays out on its own. What has happened cannot be undone. All we can do is be ready for when the next opportunity to act presents itself.”

  He didn’t know what to make of what she said. Destiny, he’d almost accepted it, but now… it was harder to believe in that ever before.

  Then she grew serious. “Evan, I can show you what happened that day, when the base was attacked. I can show you the truth about your father.”

  Evan tried to suppress his hope, but he knew she could sense it.

  Andrea sighed. “What I offer to show you won’t bring you peace, only answers.”

  He considered this for a moment, and then nodded.

  The floor plunged them into an eruption of color, melting the white away until Evan was floating – no, standing in the air overlooking the terraces of Alpha base. It was like being on a glass bridge. Andrea floated next to him as they watched the morning smoke of the marketplace overcasting the ant-like people below.

  “This,” Andrea began, “was the same day you left for Dogma Isle with the others.”

  Suddenly, Evan was amongst the market goers. They walked through him as if he were a ghost. The world panned by him like a movie played out in virtual reality. He was standing on the upper terrace now, Andrea still beside him with her arms crossed over a guardrail, taking in the city view.

  “Everything looks normal,” Evan said.

  “It did,” said a voice behind him.

  He turned to see another Andrea walking to the side of him. He looked back and forth between the one who had addressed him, and the one looking over the city. The one standing on the guardrail must have been Andrea from the past.

  The Andrea who was guiding Evan said, “I was unaware of what was unraveling before me. All the pieces of a plot were in place. I had seen visions that a day like this would come, but I did not know how. I did not know, because my enemy was a clever one.”

  Father joined the past Andrea on the railing. “This is rather impressive, Ark,” he said.

  She gave him a calculated grin. “Impressed that you haven’t been able to find it sooner?”

  “Certainly. We had always suspected there was an enclave of Afflicted out in the area, but we’d been so focused on the city on the surface that we missed the one beneath it.” Father leaned on the railing.

  She reached for his hand, but he took a step back and slipped his hands into his pockets. She scoffed. “You’re hiding something you don’t want me to see, Governor.”

  “I am,” he nodded. “For the sake of my son, I don’t want to make a bad impression on his friends.”

  “I’m sure you could block me out again, you’re very good at hiding your intentions. But about Evan, you care so much for him? After everything you’ve done to other Afflicted, I’d have imagined you’d put him out like the rest.”

  Father dropped his smile. “Never.”

  “I suppose it’d have tarnished your reputation, wouldn’t it? You could not risk your position as a leader,” she said.

  He shook his head and pulled his hands from his pockets. “I would do anything for my son. See if I am lying.”

  Andrea looked suspiciously at the upturned palms. “That was a sudden change.”

  “I remembered that I am not afraid of you,” he jousted darkly.

  The Ark took his palms. Her eyes flickered for a moment, along with Father’s. He pulled away.

  Andrea’s confident demeanor shifted. She looked at Father with something between understanding and disdain. “You would do anything, it seems.”

  The Governor righted his clothing, and said to her, “Anything.”

  Evan was confused. “What did he show you?” He asked the Andrea guiding him.

  She pursed her lips. “Perhaps I will show you later. For now, the story at hand.”

  The world around Evan whooshed through time, as the lights of the city turned to darkness. He found himself at the mouth of the prison cells where the two captured Feds had been, one of which had been Luna, who’s memory ignited a ping of grief in him.

  A cloaked figure walked into the hall.

  A guard halted it.

  The cloaked figure struck him with lightning, sending the guard to the ground in a twitch of electricity.

  Evan gasped. “Another Afflicted?”

  “Look closer,” suggested Andrea.

  In the figure’s hand was some device that must have been what produced the electrical shock.

  The hooded figure made its way to Kira’s cell, Luna’s ex-officer. The figure unlocked the cell and the two ran with each other away from the jail block.

  “Wait,” Evan interrupted, “how are you showing me this if you weren’t there?”

  “I was watching from the security cameras,” Andrea answered.

  “Why didn’t you do anything?”

  “I wanted to see where this was leading, I had my suspicions as to who was responsible, but I had to know for sure.”

  The vision changed perspective to points where security cameras must have been facing.

  Kira and the figure made it up the lift, all the way to the mountain exit, and out of the base.

  “Why did you let them escape?” Evan looked to see if there was more to the vision, but the perspective did not extend past the secret entrance.

  Andrea said, “They would not have gotten far. We have others who would have pursued them, and I knew who it was by this point. But something else had drawn my attention that I did not expect. The Federation invasion force.”

  The visions leapt to Andrea in the communications room with dozens of other Afflicted battling enforcers and a fearsome purifier. The purifier yanked Andrea off the floor by grabbing her face. It bashed her against a terminal, sending sparks into the air. The vision warped with colorful artifacts and tears, much like a computer might when malfunctioning. The images became sporadic, but the picture was clear enough. The Afflicted could not bring down the beast. Fire, ice, tentacles, and gunfire deflected off the powerful armor, all while the purifier unleashed endless machine gun volleys against the assailants.

  “Purge Protocol, ready,” an automated voice said.

  Evan remembered the term. He’d seen it firsthand as he fought Krow in the sewers.

  Panels opened along the purifier’s armor, revealing black ribbings. But, just as the machine ignited, Jeck raised his arms into the air like Atlas lifting the world. The purifier’s helmet was ripped off her head and spiraled in a twister of nanites, revealing her scarred face. Jeck leapt over Andrea’s bloody body, a gravitational field distorting around them. Before the purifier could reassemble her helmet again, the suit of armor ignited with blinding radiance.

  The next thing that was shown was a brief glimpse of the destroyed facility, corpses everywhere, the mutilated purifier, and Vihn standing before Andrea.

  It had gone the way Evan had thought. He felt no better having seen it.

  Andrea, the guide, explained. “I’m afraid that the damage the purifier has done to me is irreversible. Even now, I feel as though all the pieces of my mind and body are fractured, which is why I am convinced I will remain in this state you have seen me in for the last few days.”

  “I’m sorry,” Evan said. “We led them to you.

  “Don’t apologize. It was my fate.” Andrea smiled, though her eyes waned.

  “This… still doesn’t explain anything about my father.”

  Andrea dispersed the vision, placing them back into the white space.

  “Tell me,” She started, “who else do you think would know to escape the facility that same night we were attacked?”

  Evan shook his head. “It doesn’t make sense…” But inside, he knew it did, it made more sense the more he thought about it. His father had orchestrated everything. Evan was empty, with no arguments left to present against the truth.

  “You must wake.”

  The white world evaporated, and Evan was dumped on to the hard ground of Nan’s basement. He flailed as his mind attempted to latch on to reality.

  “Evan!” Rowic pulled him out of the trance.

  “What’s going on?” He sputtered.

  A burst of light filled the room as Blink appeared with two very battered individuals by her side: Cranston and Nyla.

  Evan was elated to see them alive but, judging by the gashes on their arms and legs, they had just barely escaped something nasty.

  “Wolves,” Cranston coughed as he and Nyla were sat in one of the cells. Nyla added more context through Spanish, in such an animated way that Evan was glad he couldn’t understand what she was saying.

  Vihn went to work healing Nyla with his plants. “We ran into the same creatures on our way here.”

  Cranston dropped to a bench and ripped the sheets with his teeth before tying them around his wounds while he waited. “I don’t know why those things are all the way out here.”

  Evan recalled the gold eyes of the pack leader. It gave him chills.

  Rowic tittered, jumbling his tablet in his hands. “Hey, guys. Someone else followed you.”

  Evan, Daniel, and the twins huddled around the hacker. A cluster of red dots made its way toward the town where they were.

  “I’ll tap into their comms.” With a few swipes, the enforcer’s voices played on Rowic’s device.

  “Tracking anomaly. Appears to have originated from the town.”

  “Check the feed. I see something a few clicks south.”

  “Copy.”

  Blink let out a deep breath. “They must’ve caught me jumping back and forth to get Ny and pops.”

  “Gaaah,” Nyla shrieked. At first, Evan thought it was her usual expression for hating everything, but then he realized how very pale she had become.

  “When was the last time she used her powers?” Vihn asked.

  “Not since Alpha,” Cranston answered. “We knew the Feds were on us, we couldn’t risk them seeing us. It was fine until those bleeding wolves came out of nowhere.”

  Vihn snapped to Blink and Twitch, his eyes glazed over with white. “Ice.”

  The twins shot up the ladder without hesitation.

  “It – Hurts!” Nyla screeched. Her head arched back against the table, almost a perfect ninety degrees. The medical room was a furnace, and the air rippled.

  She’s going to explode.

  Vihn and Daniel held her down, their faces drenched in sweat. All of Vihn’s plants shriveled away from her body; nothing but dead brown twigs.

  “They’re here,” Rowic called out.

  Nyla sobbed and jerked. Her fingers bled as she dug them into the table.

  The room took on a red hue.

  “I’m detecting a spike in energy,” came a voice from Rowic’s tablet.

  Everyone in the room held their collective breaths as Blink and Twitch slid down the ladder with sacks of ice and sandbagged them against Nyla’s quivering body.

  Evan took in the situation. He thought about Alpha base and the carnage wrought there. That would be them, strewn out across Nan’s basement, and it’d be the end of hope. He wanted to do something about it, he wanted to save them… but he was afraid. Afraid that he’d fail again, that he’d be the reason why someone else died. He hadn’t saved anyone since the beginning. Well, no one except…

  “Blink,” he whispered. She walked over with him to the corner of the room. “I think I know what I need to do, but I don’t know if I can do it alone.”

  She scrunched up her brow and squeezed his shoulder. “I have your back.”

  He nodded. “I have a plan.”

  LIKE WHAT YOU'RE READING?

  https://www.royalroad.com/amazon/B0CV681KGC

  WANT TO STAY UPDATED ON OTHER FUTURE WORKS?

  https://www.patreon.com/c/Jonco/membership