The trip seemed to be taking forever. I was starting to get agitated, I really did not like being inside such a small space as a car for any extended period of time. It made me feel trapped. My reactions were not that different than that of a cornered animal, instantly defensive. There was no way I could doze at the moment, but I would let them think that I was asleep. I kept my breath even while still having irregularity in it, most of my breathing coming from my mouth and going into my stomach, the diaphragm acting as a roof. I forced my jaw to stay relaxed along with shoulders, my head still leaning against the window of the vehicle.
“What are we going to do with her?” It was the voice of the young man, the first time I had heard him speak. The two men had been silent since I had decided to take a nap. His voice was a little higher than one would have thought, almost pretty sounding.
“Didn’t I tell you?” The gruffer voice spoke this time, a hushed tone, a bit of a growl of anger tainting the voice. There was a little bit of a pause before I heard the older man exhale in a bit of frustration, I could almost hear the frown in his voice as he spoke again. “I thought I had. Simple, we are going to steal her powers. She doesn’t seem to be...able to use her abilities yet, so we will have to fix that first, but that shouldn’t take too long, by the end of the week we’ll have her powers. Too bad that doing so would result in leaving her an empty husk.”
My heart seemed to skip a bit as my brain buzzed with somewhat scattered thoughts running through them. Powers? She seemed to be perfectly human. Another surprise. I hate surprises. At least she couldn’t use them yet, or at least I think that’s a good thing, I don’t know. What are her abilities? Wait! They’re going to kill her!
I knew then and there what I needed to do, what was going to be the right thing to do, I had to find a way to get her out of this car and to the safe house, and I had to do it when the car stopped. I could go away from rolling out of a moving vehicle with hardly a scratch, though she probably couldn’t, and I couldn’t do it while carrying her. I really did not like working with other people, then I had to put what they could do in the equation, and right now all she was good for was to be dead weight at the moment.
The next hour was agonizing, pretending to be asleep, making the occasional movement where it would be deemed a good time to move while sleeping, I couldn’t just start thrashing around in my sleep, that wouldn’t do, one had to be consistent when pretending to be asleep. The father and son didn’t speak at all for the rest of the ride, though I heard the occasional turn of a page, the groan of a leather seat as weight was shifted, the sound of the tires rumbling against the asphalt underneath it, until it jostled, starting to roll on a smoother surface, maybe cement. I was starting to get agitated; the waiting was getting to me. My survival instincts told me to run, get away, that I too was in danger, whether I tried to take the girl or not.
I was relieved when the car slowed down to a complete stop, feeling the gearshift to park right before the car turned off. I waited, a bit more, I had to be patient until just the right moment otherwise all of this could go extremely wrong. I could feel the slight shift in the vehicle as the younger man leaned across the space to unbuckle her seat belt, both of theirs already done. I heard the older man tell the driver to drop me off somewhere, that he knew I could easily find my way. I parted my eyes slightly as the younger man pulled her out of the vehicle, the older man coming out on the other side.
I let my hand fall to the clip of the seat belt, tensing my leg muscles. I added light pressure to the button, then heard the click and felt the release. Like a runner after the sound of the gunshot, I quickly leaped out of the vehicle, planting a prompt kick to the boy’s stomach, catching the girl as I started to run toward the tree line. Behind me I was expecting to hear screaming, yelling, cursing, but nothing. I listened closely, but all I heard was a quiet noise, something that was almost like a hum and the sound of grass being kicked. I looked back behind me, not sure what could make that kind of noise. At first I didn’t see anything, but then I saw what was a minor disturbance in the light, it was slightly twisted, almost like a bubble, but it was nowhere near as noticeable. I attempted to judge, but it was faster and larger than what I had thought it was.
I didn’t know what to expect, but what it felt like someone had hit the back of my ankles with a baseball bat, except that it felt more like it was going through me than anything. Next thing I knew, my feet were over my head and my back was hitting the ground. I felt the air rush out of me as the girl landed on top of my diaphragm. I pushed her off, rolling onto all fours. I looked up just in time to see the older man stretch out his hand, holding it out in front of him, then another of that energy, rushing at me. This one didn’t feel as solid, but it was followed by multiple blows, each one draining the energy from me. The world was growing darker, my arms gave out from underneath me. I looked up at the darkening blue sky, watching as a silhouette of a young man loomed above me, then felt a sharp kick to the head, and then there was nothing.
- - -
My first sensation was that of cool metal through the fabric of my shirt. I let my hand slide across the stainless steel a little, letting my thoughts come back together. I had a slight ache in my head. I felt heavy, really heavy. My heart started to pump faster, my thoughts coming clearer. Drugs, someone drugged me, that much was obvious. But it was quickly clearing out of my system. I let my eyes slowly open, flinching a bit at the sudden bright light that left me blinded for a few moments. I blinked away the dark spots that obstructed my vision. I was in a hospital room, though it was without the posters and what not. It was as if someone had combined a doctor’s office with a morgue, the thought sending a shiver down my spine.
The room smelled clean, like bleach. I searched the room for whatever could be used as a weapon, but there was something else that the office was missing, anything that could be used as a weapon. No trays, no jars, no needles, nothing. I was slightly disappointed, but there wasn’t much time for that. I heard footsteps coming down the hall, toward my door. The floor was hard outside, I could tell that from the way it echoed. I slid off of the table onto the floor, being careful to walk quietly as I came to the back of the door.
On the other side I could hear the jingling of keys, then the sound of metal on metal as someone inserted it, the click of the lock pulling back. I let the door open a bit, then kicked the door hard. I heard a slight crunching sound, a broken nose. I moved to the other side of the door quickly, quickly striking the surprised man’s throat. He was carrying a clipboard and wearing a lab coat, a doctor probably. The clipboard fell from his now slack grip. I quickly stuck my foot out to catch the clipboard so that the sound of it hitting the hard ground did not echo through the room, then I pulled him toward me, pinching the nerve clusters in the neck. I could feel the slowing beat of his heart and I could hear as his breath quickened before he stilled, slumping against me a bit.
I gently lowered him to a sitting position against a wall before I exited the room, making sure that my footsteps hardly made a sound against the dark, wooden floors. I was crouched low, feeling like a fox in an enemy’s den, trying to get out of the unfamiliar territory. I had to get the girl first, but I knew that they had taken the needle from my pocket, probably just in case something like this happened, and I wasn’t as familiar with her chemical signature to be able to track her without first having an item of hers, something that she had held for an extended period of time.
My brows came closer together as I thought about it. I gripped a bit of my shirt with my hand, holding it to my nose, taking a quick sniff. It smelled of perfume, which meant that it might just have enough of a chemical signature to track her if she was close by, preferably in the building. I kept a grip on the fabric, closing my eyes, concentrating a little bit. The sensation of tracking someone was an odd one, something that I had been completely unprepared for when I first tried it. It was almost like my mind and body were both drawn to origin of the trail, to that person. It didn’t take in account other objects though; it was more like a compass that gave that pointed up and down as well. Something in my mind clicked, there were a few chemical signatures there, but there was one that was feminine, the rest had a more masculine touch to the chemical composition. I focused on that single strand. The pull was weak, pulling up. So either she was extremely high up or she had touched my shirt just long enough to leave a little bit of her.
There was no way I could go straight up though, so it was time to search for a flight of stairs. Forward seemed as good as an option as any. It was made quickly obvious that I was on the first floor of the building and that I was in the same house that we had stopped at, I saw the same tree line and what I could see of the house looked the same. I was facing the front lawn; I could see the driveway and the car parked in the same place.
After a little more searching it was made obvious that, despite the size of the house, there wasn’t that many people here. I couldn’t blame the man though. From the information I had, he was doing something that was best kept secret and a secret was best kept when few people knew the secret.
The tugging sensation was weakening as I approached the stairs, I was getting farther away from her, but it was quickly apparent that I was coming to the right floor as the magnetic feeling became lateral, no longer pulling up. The hallways on this floor seemed to mirror the one I had just come from though, which made it easier to navigate them, until I started getting closer to the room that would have directly above mine.
I could see the door at the end of a hallway. The location was far from what I would call ideal, it sat at the end of the hall, which meant a possibility of becoming trapped. A risk, but it was one that I was going to take.
The door slid open silently as I pushed it inward. It was quickly apparent that her surroundings were meant to be a bit more on the homier side with its dark colored woods and the thick, green comforter on the canopy covered bed. I saw a few locks of blonde hair poking out from underneath the comforter and I could tell from the chemical signature that it was her. I looked around a little to assess my surroundings, which seemed safe at the moment, before I closed the door behind me.
I quickly made my way over to the bed, wondering why they were taking the effort to make her more comfortable before killing her. I had heard of people who did this from other Hunters, but it never really made sense to me, it would be a lot better to just kill them, no special treatment.
The girl’s skin was fair, smooth, almost looking like it would be cool to the touch. I would almost go as far to say that she looked as if she had just died peacefully in her sleep, but there was a very subtle rise and fall of her chest. I was just about to check her pulse when I heard footsteps coming toward the room.
Thinking fast, I quickly and quietly slid a chair underneath the door, jamming it shut. There was only one way to get out of here; the window was partially open, letting in a nice breeze. It was only a second story window, but I would still have to find something to climb down at least halfway to the ground. If it were only me I would jump out of the window and land running for the woods with only a slight jarring sensation, but it wouldn’t be the case with the girl.
I looked around a bit, then it hit me, the canopy. I reached up, ripping it off, cringing at the noise it made. I was able to hear the person outside pause at the noise; I was going to need to work fast. Tying the fabric to the bed was easy, a quick clove hitch would secure it. It was going to be getting down that was going to be the harder part.
The window seemed to be a bit stuck when I started to tug on it, but it slowly lifted up. The person was closer to the door, I had a feeling that they, male judging from his chemical composition, had his ear pressed against the door. The the door handle started to rattle and they were starting to push on the door. It was quiet for a bit, but then the loud bang of the man throwing his weight into the door echoed in the room. I quickly tossed the rest of the fabric out of the window as the man started yelling. Moving over to the side of the bed, I quickly scooped the girl up in one arm, sat on the window sill with one arm around her and my free hand gripping the makeshift rope. Right as I jumped, the girl began to stir.
