Uncontrollable

Chapter Forty-Two

After what felt like at least an hour of talking, Vanessa and I walked out of the woods and toward the Base. We needed to talk to Bruno more about why he did what he did, not matter how much we hated him for doing it.

"Do you think your family will feel safe here, or no?" Vanessa asked as I blew the leaves off of the top of the Base.

"I don't think so, but we'll see. At least for me I wouldn't feel secure and protected in a place where I'd been shackled and beaten. And my father and brother seem to hate me just for being a wizard," I explained as we yanked open the hatch and descended the staircase.

"What do you mean?"

"When my brother saw me performing magic, he looked at me in disgust and questioned me about being one of 'them'. I think by 'them' he meant wizards. I don't blame him, in all honesty, for hating me for being one. I mean, they tortured them for who knows how long!" I exclaimed as we continued, walking deeper into the heart of the Base.

"I guess it does makes sense," Vanessa said, "but you'd think they'd trust their family, right?"

"That's hard to say. My father and brother left my mother and I when I was young, remember, so I never really knew them that well. Would you trust a stranger even if you knew you were related? We can't even trust Bruno and we know him and he never tortured us."

"You have a very good point. It's just so hard to imagine. The whole situation is disgusting," Vanessa said, leading me through the hallways of the Base because at this point I wasn't sure how to get anywhere that Bruno may be.

"Yeah, it is, and I wish it never happened to any of them."

"Do you blame yourself?" Vanessa asked.

"For their torture and things? I do a little bit. I mean if I wasn't a wizard and running around stopping mass murderers, wouldn't this have never happened to them? They wouldn't be kidnapped and locked away in a dark room. It does just seem like my fault," I answered, closing my eyes for a moment to regain my composure. Speaking about what happened and blaming myself for it wasn't easy; it was all too fresh in my mind. The same way when you touch an open wound, it hurts much more than if it had time to heal.

"I would too, but you can't let that stop you. It's not your fault they were put in their and hurt the way they were. It's Grey's or Bruno's or whoever that put them in there. You saved them. They should be thankful for that."

"I guess so, but life isn't that simple. It's never just black and white; there is always a gray area. Maybe my actions are what caused them to get put there," I said, not able to accept the fact that someone put them there for a reason not involving me somehow. The more I talked, the more aware I was of the fact that there was guilt eating away at my gut for what happened with them.

"Don't beat yourself up about this. We need to focus on finding Bruno, talking to him about where his alliance lies and why he'd just leave them there, and then we'll focus on your family," Vanessa said, grabbing my hand and leaning into me as we walked.

I remained silent, turning over any possible reasons that my family could've been captured in my head.

There were the obvious reasons that it was a consequence for my reckless actions, or that someone wanted to try to bribe my by torturing them. Besides that, maybe my mother, father, or brother - although judging from my brother's reaction to me being a wizard, it wasn't him - possessed magical abilities and had set something off on their own, but I highly doubted that.

It could have to do with Trent; it seemed like he'd been alive for a while and done some terrible things. I remembered Grey thinking that my family helped hide Trent. Could that be why?