Destruction - The Oasis Project Book 2 (Complete)

Thirty-Two - Linkin

At the airstrip in Spain, a car was waiting for us. Ishmael waited back, arguing softly with Asmar before he came into the car alone. "What was that about?" I asked, glancing out the window to the city off in the distance.

"Ishmael is nervous about all of this. Does not wish for us to go," Asmar admitted which surprised me. Most people I knew lied about that sort of thing, it was refreshing. "But here we are. No one has been able to reach your handler so we're going to the last known location."

I was starting to become irked at the phrase they kept using to describe General Hewett. It wasn't something worth getting into a fight over. "So, why go through all the trouble of kidnapping me from Egypt and bringing me here? What does your boss get out of it?" It seemed like a lot of work, was I really worth that much to them.

"Our cause is suffering without you. We need you to work for us again. We return you, you're at our beck and call." Before I could object, he raised a hand to soothe my anger and added in, "Within reason. If we're going to win, we need all the help we can get."

Wars weren't exactly something I liked to get involved with, but if it meant I would get back sooner, it was a deal I could tolerate having. "They won't like this. I am not something that should be shared." I pointed out. Asmar stayed silent so I continued, "Plus, they send me on their own missions. Your boss would have to work around those."

"He would," Asmar said quickly. "People like you are invaluable, Linkin, we need anyone we can get on our side, anyway we can."

That wasn't a phrase I heard often. I tensed slightly and frowned, "People like me?" I questioned, shaking my head. I didn't understand.

Asmar frowned, glancing to me, "Sorry, I didn't mean to make that sound rude. I just, don't know what to call your kind."

"My kind?" I echoed once more, he seemed to have information I didn't.

Asmar nodded and chose his next words carefully, "Yes, others who are unique through mutation... Those who have genes which have changed to give them extraordinary abilities. The deviations."

I nearly choked on my laughter. "Deviations?"

"Thought it sounded better than freaks," he mumbled with a new sense of boldness which he instantly regretted at my raised brow. "I don't know! We just know there are more people who aren't completely human out there. Last week we met a seven-year-old boy who could make his body temperature go so hot, things he touched turn to fire and it isn't just people like us noticing."

A lump appeared in my throat and I tilted my head. The Oasis Project stopped dealing with children under the age of ten after the Delilah Incident in 2014 in Prague. She was from the Russian division, only nine and she had developed amazing talents. The muscles in her body could mimic those of anything she saw. Delilah became a black belt in an afternoon. She was still young though and she was watching the news one day and watched a man kill himself. It was still unknown if she thought it was another skill to learn or she lost control. Either way, she didn't survive the five-story drop.

"I thought you knew there was more like you out there?" Asmar interrupted my memory.

I did know there was more, but not outside of the Oasis Project, not unless something had gone very wrong. "Can you get me more information about this boy?"

Asmar nodded and started to tell the tale of a young, homeless boy who lived on the streets of China. The beginning part of the story was a typical sob story, until one day the police found him and tried to take him into the foster system. He burned one of the officers alive; they got it on the dash camera. The child evidently disappeared and Asmar's boss caught him coming off a flight landing in Egypt. Asmar was a little more scarce on the details after that, all he said that the boy was with a girl in her mid-twenties.

When I asked about experiments or signs the boy was abused, Asmar didn't know for sure, but remembered seeing the child and thinking he looked healthy, as happy as any seven-year-old.

It didn't make sense.

A homeless Chinese boy, while it fit the criteria of the Oasis Project, it also didn't. I was a fluke to be taken from them, one which was quickly being rectified. A seven year old boy wouldn't have the mindset or the will to escape. The people who ran the Oasis Project were brilliant and manipulative, they wouldn't that large of a mistake happen.

On top of all that, I had just left China. I would have gotten the report or at least heard whispers from someone there. Something was wrong, off about all of this and I couldn't put my finger on it. The car pulled to the side of the road and my time to worry about the story Asmar had just told me disappeared. "We're here," he informed me, the car coming to a full stop.

I glanced out the window as Asmar opened his door. "A strip club?" I asked, opening my door as well. The headache which often plagued me slowly started to return. Something was off, wrong. General Hewett would never agree to a meeting in a place like this. "What's happening?"