The Seraphim Project

Chapter Eight

The next morning, I found myself sitting in the same conference room as the night before, but with breakfast piled on the table in front of me. Following my example, none of the misfits touched the food.

We were left alone for a while, until finally, two men in suits entered the room and shut the door behind them. They looked pretty clichéd FBI agents: plain black suits, sunglasses, etc.

“Good morning, kids,” one of them said. He was the older of the two, with mostly gray hair. “Aren’t you hungry?”

“No,” I answered, but my stomach betrayed me with a loud growl. I scowled, daring the agent to comment.

He didn’t. Instead, the two took chairs on the opposite side of the table. This time, I’d chosen to sit in the center, with Falcon and Beast on either side, and Sunny and Russ on their other sides.

“I know you’ve probably already been asked this, but I need to know your names and ages,” the older man said. I dubbed him Boss in my head because he was obviously in charge.

The other man, who I dubbed Lackey, took out a pad of paper and a pen. Boss looked to Sunny, who looked at me. I nodded my consent, and he said, “Sunny, 15.”

After that, we just went down the line. “Falcon, 17.”

“Kite, 15.”

“Beast, 17.”

“Russ, 15.”

Lackey shook his head, but wrote everything down. Boss’s eyes narrowed as we went down the line. “Okay,” he said finally. “Now what are your real names? Full names, not nicknames.”

“We’ve already been over this with the police. We don’t have last names, and those are our real names,” Falcon said. My fists were already clenched, and I really wasn’t in the mood for this.

“And where are your parents?” Boss directed this question at Falcon. One would assume that the biggest, oldest boy would be in charge. I decided I need to set them straight.

“Also something we went over with the police. We don’t have parents.”

“Okay, sweetheart,” Boss said before turning back to Falcon. “We know you ran away. We need to find your parents.”

I slammed my hand on the table, and all eyes turned to me. The misfits wisely scooted their chairs further away from me as I glared at Boss.

“I am nobody’s sweetheart. I suggest you never call me that again. The closest think we have to parents are a bunch of scientists that screwed with our DNA and kept us in crates in a place called the Labs until seven years ago.”

Lackey stared dumbfounded at me until Boss gave him a look. Then he hastily wrote down everything I’d said as Boss turned back to me. “And where have you been these last seven years?”

I didn’t like his tone. It made me suspect that he wasn’t really taking me seriously. “I don’t know. It’s that way,” I pointed back in the direction of the house, “but I don’t know how far. We’ve been on the run for about a week now.”

“But you don’t have parents.”

Sunny spoke up before I could answer. “Kite acts like our mother sometimes.” I rolled my eyes in his direction.

“So you’re in charge?” Boss raised his eyebrows, and I glared at him.

“Yes. I’m in charge.”

“Why?”

Falcon shuddered. “’Cause when she gets mad, she gets scary.” The rest of the misfits shuddered too. I rolled my eyes at them. I wasn’t really that scary, was I?

Boss crossed his arms over his chest. “And you’re not angry now?”

I forced my fists to unclench and inspected my hands. There were little crescent moons of blood dotting my palm where my fingernails had bit through the skin. “Oh, I’d say I’m mad. I’m holding myself back because I’d really rather not kill anyone.” The misfits scooted their chairs further away.

The FBI agents weren’t so smart. In fact, Boss was stupid enough to laugh at me. I leapt across the table and pushed him against the wall, pinning him there. Lackey got up as if to help him, but one glare from me had him sinking back into his seat.

I turned back to Boss. “Do not laugh at me. Ever. I am here because I choose to be. If I hadn’t wanted to be caught, we would have escaped last night. I am not playing with you. I am not joking. You will take everything I say seriously. Understood?”

He nodded, and I released him, walking back around the table to take my seat. Everyone was silent for a few moments, Lackey scribbling furiously and Boss rubbing at his neck.

“Why did you want to be caught?” he asked finally.

I waited a moment, thinking through my answer. “I’m exhausted. I’m scared. I’m tired of knowing that there is no safe place for us, of not being able to sleep at night because I’m afraid that the Labs will catch up with us again and I’ll lose someone else.”

I met Boss’s eyes, and there was a long silence before he asked, “Who did you lose?”

I fought back tears. I couldn’t let them see my cry. I didn’t want to be weak. “My best friend, Hawk. He’s sixteen.”

“What happened?”

“The Labs sent some of their experiments to our home. We fought them off, but we had to leave. That night, we slept in the woods. They sent more experiments after us. There were too many, we couldn’t fight them off. Eventually they just disappeared, and took Hawk with them. I don’t know why, but they didn’t seem to really care about the rest of us.”

“And now you’re running from them.”

I shook my head. “To them. I’m going to find Hawk and take him back.”

His eyebrows shot up. “So you know where this place is?”

I shrugged, but Falcon spoke up before I could. “She thinks she does. The rest of us aren’t so sure.”

“Just shut up, Falcon!” I yelled, rising from my chair. He cowered away as I glared down at him. “I know how you feel about this. I get it. I really do. But this isn’t the time to question my judgment. You know that I know where I’m going.”

He shook his head. “No, Kite, I really don’t. You say you just know, that you’re sure we’re going in the right direction, but what proof do you have? We’ve been running for a week, and you still don’t know how much farther it is.”

“I told you that you didn’t have to come with me! You chose this! Why are you doubting me now?”

“We all doubted you from the beginning, Kite. We just didn’t want to lose you,” Russ said. I looked around at the rest of the misfits, but no one denied his statement. Betrayal burned through me, and I found myself fighting back tears for the umpteenth time.

After a moment, I managed to pull myself together enough to turn back to Boss. The FBI agents had been silent throughout our argument, but Lackey was still scribbling furiously on his notepad. “I know where it is. Even if no one else believes me.”

“We can’t let you go after him. You’re minors. By law, we have to send you into foster care as we don’t have any way of finding your parents.”

“We don’t have parents! And I am not going into foster care. I’ve seen what that’s like on TV, and I am not going there. No way,” I said, shaking my head.

“By law, we can’t let you go. But I think I have another solution. We also have to send you to school. If you go to a boarding school, then you will still have adult supervision. Will you agree to that?”

I hesitated before I answered. “We have to go after Hawk.”

“We’ll find him for you. You can even help us look, but you have to go to school too.”

This was not what I wanted. But then, I wasn’t entirely sure what I’d expected when I’d allowed us to be caught by the police. I glanced around at the other misfits. They also seemed hesitant, but no one openly opposed the idea.

Finally, I said, “Okay. We’ll do it.”