Unspoken Love

Chapter 1. Flint & Matches

Michael blinked slowly, hating the heavy feeling of the yellow pollen that numbed his powers and had nausea rippling through him. He'd been stuck here, wherever here was, for what felt like an eternity, the exact march of time lost to him in his pain-fueled haze. Being kidnapped, he decided was embarrassing enough, but only partly succeeding in doing what Flint wanted, once again for Alex's life, then being trussed up like a pig in chains was somehow worse.

His siblings were going to be next, if he failed. Flint had significant interest in them which had fear burrowing deeper into his heart.

The demands exacted on him were confusing, contradictory. They wanted his mind and powers, but were too afraid of what he could do. Putting him in this twilight zone of trying to achieve what Flint wanted so he didn't hurt Alex and barely being able to lift his head.

He hadn't really fought when they came for him in the junkyard, the threat to Alex's life enough to have him lowering his guard. He hadn't wanted to alert them to Sanders either.

Flint's triumphant smile was sickening, but his threats were so damn creative when he detailed what he would do to his own little brother, if Guerin didn't comply, had Michael's tongue silent and why didn't chuck him into a wall like he wanted to. He didn't send out a distress signal to his siblings or fight at all when they threw Alex's jacket on the ground and played a recording of Alex arguing with Flint, ending with a meaty thud. A fist hitting bone. Flint hitting Alex.

They had brought him here, to wherever this place was and made their demands.

Flint at first had wanted him to make sense of blueprints from the 1940s, which for Alex he had agreed to do. They had remnants of a system from the crash site, not necessarily the one in 1947, but Oasian in design certainly. It was a ship weapon, a pulse attack that obliterates whatever it hits. The exact kind of thing that Guerin would rather die than build, but again he played that recording, added threats. A bloodied Air Force t-shirt was dumped in front of him and worst of all, a bloodied prosthetic leg.

Michael couldn't really build it without the needed materials, but he could make a prototype. That was in the first few days.

When that was mostly done, they moved on to project two. An alien device that Flint was obsessed with, salvaged from a facility that Michael presumes Alex had destroyed during his Project Shepard quest.

They wanted him to activate this piece of technology that wasn't - as far as he could work out - even Oasian. It was another alien device, sleek and oval in shape, it's purpose a mystery. It defied tools and telekinesis.

As useful as an plastic egg or a nice desk ornament.

When he mentally prodded it, the device struck out with energy trying to wrap around his mind. A terrifying experience that Michael had fought tooth and nail against, and eventually after a battle that felt like it had raged for years, he had succeeded in denying it access to his head. Flint didn't care and since he came back to the barn with bloodied knuckles, Michael stopped talking, afraid that blood was Alex's.

Flint had seen it work apparently, had seen footage of it killing an Oasian, presumably in Caulfield. So what Michael was supposed to do with it, he didn't know. Kill himself and save Flint the effort of firing a bullet?

Since that enlightening talk, and the prosthetic leg - Michael had been left mostly alone. The cold had him shivering, huddling in his chains as he ignored the taunts and threats.

The temperature was dropping, now they had moved closer to true winter, the barn damp and freezing. Michael couldn't really feel his feet anymore and had reached that stage where the cold had stopped mattering, his core temperature too low to really notice. Not that Flint was going to care if his tied up alien had hypothermia.