Influx (Book Four)

Chapter Eleven

"Things change, I am not the same person I was ten years ago," I say coldly, and she looks at me.

"No one is spilling what happened, what this incident was. All I know is that you have severe burns on your face which caused some facial paralysis and that those black dots in your eye are something, they aren't burns," she says, and I realize where she is pivoting the conversation to a little too late; she's good.

"It's not my place to say," I mumble as I scrap the one digital model and start another one

"Not your place? It's your face!" She exclaims baffled.

"That would be correct, but I want them to be the ones to tell you what they did. We were all younger and stupider, but I want them to have to look you in the eye and own up to their mistakes, and I want them to have to beg you for forgiveness for lying to you for years," I hiss as I continue to build.

"You're angry on my behalf?" She asks surprised and I can't back down from what I said.

"Of course, I am. I am their biggest mistake, everyone's biggest blunder. It stings that they thought they could just not talk about it and sweep it all away and as much as I wanted to hate you for being one of them, for marrying one of them for Pete's sake! I couldn't Aviva, you are a victim of circumstance and how protective this family is," I say seriously, and she leans back on the couch.

"Done," I say, and I spin the model for her, and her jaw hits the floor at the drastically revised model. Now I can build one and see what happens.

"How did you do that so quickly?" She asks shocked.

"This program is insanely cool," I say with a grin. She told me that this a program that an old friend of hers is developing, I think her name was Camila, and Aviva is trying to get people in the company to test it. I wasn't about to say no to something so revolutionary.

"I am glad you like it," she mumbles as she spins the model and looks everything over, I can see the approval in her eyes from a mile away.

"Well I can confidently say that telling Alexander I wanted you as my beta tester was one of my better choices within the last two years," Aviva says as she saves everything and pushes it up to Voyagers servers. Before I can even reply the alarm goes off. Aviva runs to the computer and checks it out.

"Oh boy," she says, and I watch in shock as her suit slowly builds onto her.

"Alexander is babysitting Cathleen and Macie is out of town, shit," Aviva says worried and she looks at me processing. Guilt eats at me; she needs help and I seem to be the only available person.

"Give me a suit," I say while rolling my eyes. So much for not being a hero, I guess I can play pretend for today. 

 A suit builds over my clothes and I grab my mask out of my new work bag and she hands me a phone and earpiece. Dropping my glasses onto the couch, I grab my board from my watch and we both take off quickly. Within minutes we are right over the chaos.

"I will take care of the shooter," she says, and her voice is loud in the com. Turning the sound down, I rush and start helping injured people out of the line of fire. Running around like crazy I hear her talking to the shooter, trying to coax him out of whatever delirious state he is in. Carefully approaching the situation, I watch him and without thinking I hurl my board in the way and three bullets hit it rather than Aviva. When I blink, she's gone, and I call the board back and protect myself from the fire. There is a loud crack and when I peer up, the man is out cold on the ground and Aviva drops something wooden.