Seven Sins: Wrath

The Butterfly Effect

She gazed at me expectantly as I hesitated. I knew what I wanted to say, but no words came out. Her coal-like eyes looked at me, willing me to speak. But there was nothing. Was there anything I could say to make the situation seem any better? It was doubtful. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.When I opened them, I was staring back at Fala. I pursed my lips and then opened them, making a small pop sound.

I gazed directly into her black eyes, "Have you ever heard of The Butterfly Effect?"

She looked at me quizzically, "The movie?"

I smiled and shook my head, her innocence was absolutely adorable, "No, the chaos theory."

Her blank face told me she had no idea what I was talking about, "The theory states that something as small as the flutter of a butterflies wings could cause a typhoon somewhere else."

She listened intently, blinking her eyes every so often. I continued to speak, "So basically it means that something really small can, over time, have a gigantic effect. Everything you do, everything you say, no matter how small can have monumental consequences.

I've always thought that, that perfectly summed up my life thus far. My life has never been perfect, far from it actually. After I turned eight, my life kind of quickly went downhill." I paused to take another deep breath before beginning again.

"It was a few weeks after my eighth birthday, and my parents decided to go out. They left me and my younger sister L-" My voice caught in my throat, "they left us with a babysitter. It was raining pretty heavily that night, there were huge puddles everywhere. It had been hours after the time my parents were supposed to be home. The storm had gotten worse, there were even flood warnings going on in certain parts of the city. The babysitter was getting antsy, she started asking us questions about where they might be. And then the phone rang."

My eyes fell and I looked down at the floor, so she wouldn't see the tears that had started to well up. My voice had become softer, "There was a man, he had been drinking pretty heavily that night, the storm was so bad that he didn't even see them coming, let alone realize that he was in the wrong lane. The roads had become really slippery. As soon as the car was hit, it slid right off the ridge that they had been driving on. They wer-" My voice faltered slightly, "They were killed instantly due to impact.

After that, everything changed. My sister and I were wisked away to foster care. They told us things would get better, but they were wrong. Things only got worse. We could never get placed in a permanent home, our social service worker told us it was because we just hadn't found the right home yet. As I got older I had realized what the real reason was; Me. My sister had been at the perfect age, she was perfect adoption material. I on the other hand, was at the awkward stage in my life, where I wasn't really a kid but was far from being a teenager. But social services tried desperately to keep us together

By the time I had turned thirteen, I had already gained the reputation of lashing out and being generally bad tempered. Some of my foster parents tried to reach out to me, tried to make things easier for me. None of it worked though. Eventually, social services concluded that I was a lost cause. They told me that I was too difficult to place. And then they took the last member of my family away. They spilt us up, she was only eight, she still needed her family, she still needed me. After that I kinda spiraled out of control, even built up a pretty serious criminal record." I laughed ruefully, "I believe I still hold the record for the most extensive one here

Anyways, almost a year after I was left alone in the system, I pretty much fucked up real big. After landing myself into some really serious shit, I wound up in a holding pen for young criminals. And once again my life was changed.

Adam, the tech and mission supervisor here found me; said I demonstrated skill traits that could prove useful to a government project he was working on," I laughed at the memory, "I told him he was psychotic and then proceeded to knee him in the balls. Once he had recovered, he posed to me, the most important question I had ever heard. 'Would you rather be here, rotting away for the rest of your life, or would you rather aid us in a bigger picture?' guess you know what decision I made.

That night I was taken away, in secret by a black SUV. My death was faked at the holding pen and from there on the Institution took care of everything else. I got here and began training. There were about ten of us, all around the same age, all extremely dangerous. None of us spoke about why we were there, and honestly I don't think most of us knew exactly why we were all chosen to be here. I'm sure Shayla has explained to you what exactly we do here. " I stopped talking once she nodded in reply.

There was a palpable awkward silence, neither of us chose to look at each other. I leaned my head onto the wall and closed my eyes. I heard her sigh.

"Do you ever miss it?" Her small voice filled the otherwise quiet room.

I didn't even bother to open my eyes, "Miss what?"

"Having a normal life, your family, just everything." Fala's voice was barely above a whisper.

This time, I opened my eyes and looked at her. 

"Okay lets get one thing straight, my life hasn't been normal for 12 years. I didn't grow up with a stable family, I didn't stay in one place for very long, I was a foster kid. So normal for me is nonexistent. I miss my real family every goddamn day of my life. But the people here, at the Institution, they're my family"

"But didn't you have dreams? Didn't you want to do something with your life? Or did you always picture yourself killing people"

I stared at her for a long time, her gaze was unwavering. After a while I laughed, causing her expression to change to one of surprise. "Of course I had dreams, still do, but they're completely irrelevant ."

Her facial expression told me that she was confused. I leaned my head back against the wall, "Dreams are only reflections of what we want, it's our actions that decide how badly we want it."

"Oh. I never thought about it like that"

"Mhmm, so got anymore questions?"

"How old are you?"

I chuckled softly, "How old do you think I am?" 

She narrowed her dark eyes as she studied me, "You talk like you've lived a long life but you can't be much older than eighteen."

"Life can have some odd effects on you. I'm sixteen." She blinked at me in surprise and I gave her a cool look in return, "You're like fourteen right?"

Her neat eyebrows furrowed in blantant confusion, "How'd you know that?"

I gave her a smug smirk, "Lucky guess."

I was about to ask her if she had anymore questions when a loud knock came from the door. "It's open!" I yelled.

The door slid open and Viper walked with a scowl on her face. Without even looking at me or Fala, she grabbed her phone off of her nightstand. She was halfway back to the door when she turned around, "Adam needs you at MC as soon as possible." She stated and with a turn of her heel she was walking out of the room.

I stared at the door completely perplexed about Viper's attitude and unsure of what to do next. Part of me wanted to rush out of my room and find out what was going on, but the other part of me wanted to stay and finish my conversation with Fala. With a sigh, I got up, motioning for Fala to follow.

"Come on, your questions will just have to wait for a little while."

A/N: Hi guys! Sorry for the delay, school has been kind of hectic lately. I should be updating and stuff more frequently now. Anways I'd love to hear some of your feedback and whatnot. Comment, Vote, Fan, Read <3

                                                                XOXO Jaz