Caged.

5

The next morning, Crimson and I got dressed and went down to the large room where I was tested. Volcano came in a few minutes later and smiled at me, saying, "Alright, Lila. You ready?" I nodded and Volcano placed a log in front of me, saying, "Focus on the log. Try to clear your mind of all other thoughts. Imagine the log on fire. Picture it." Smoke began rising from the log as I cleared my mind and envisioned it bursting into flames. A small flame popped up on the top and slowly spread, until the log was engulfed in flame. Volcano clapped, cheering, "That was amazing, Lila! Your first try without my help and you lit it on fire in," she checked the stop watch in her hand, "eight minutes! On my first unassisted try, it took me almost an hour." Crimson whistled and stated softly, "When I first tried my power unassisted, it took me six hours to do anything." Volcano and I stared at her for a minute or two, then shook our heads in unison and went back to practicing. Within a few hours, I was able to light the log on fire in under two minutes with Volcano helping me focus. The practice ended with Volcano clapping her hand on my shoulder and saying, "Tomorrow we'll bring in some distractions. Good work." I was exhausted as Crimson and I walked through a blank black door into a large track. Black Mamba came in through another door and called across the track, "Crimson, Gallic wants you. Alone." Crimson started to protest, until Black Mamba raced across the room and got very close to Crimson, sticking one very sharp nail under Crimson's chin and whispering, "Get out." Crimson mumbled something under her breath and stormed out, leaving me with Black Mamba. Black Mamba smiled at me and stated, "We won't be running today." I tilted my head in confusion and she finished, "Before you start running, you need to work on breathing exercises. Otherwise, there is a high possibility that you could die of oxygen depletion. And we can't have that happening, now can we?" She spoke so calmly of me dying that it unnerved me, causing me to blurt out, "You're not going to kill me, are you?" Black Mamba laughed and answered, "I only kill when it's needed. And I don't need to kill you as far as I know. So you're safe." I blinked as my mind tried to processes it. Then Black Mamba called from across the room, where she had run to, "Alright, I want you to walk over here, taking deep breaths the whole time." As I walked and took deep breaths, I thought about the past few days. In that time, my life had been turned completely upside down, but in a good way. I had gone from sitting in a cage all alone to lighting things on fire with my mind and having friends. It was amazing. Before I knew it, I ran into Black Mamba and nearly jumped out of my skin. She ran across the room again and called, "Alright, now walk a bit faster, continuing with the deep breaths." I did as I was told, this time paying attention to where I was going. I continued getting faster until I was at a brisk jog. Then Crimson came in, looking pale, and said, "Lila, we need to go back to our dorm." Black Mamba gave Crimson a hard look and said, "We're in the middle of a lesson. Can it wait?" Crimson shook her head and whispered something to Black Mamba. Black Mamba paled and nodded, then turned to me, saying, "Class dismissed." I followed Crimson back to the dorm, asking, "What is it? What's going on?" Crimson turned to me with tears in her eyes and mumbled, "We're going to interrogate Mason and Jonathan. And you're the lead interrogator." Anger bubbled up in my stomach and I grinned evilly, saying, "Good. There are a few things I'd like to know." Crimson stared at me in fright, asking, "You do know that it can get a bit, um, violent during interrogations, right?" I nodded and Crimson nodded, then, as we went into the dorm, continued, "You'll need the questions. Hold on." She dug through her closet and pulled out a bag of notecards with questions on them. "These are just standard questions," she stated, "so some of them won't be applied. Alpha will give you the more specific questions once we get to the interrogation room." I nodded and ran through the questions in the bag mentally. There were normal ones, like name, occupation, and if they had any family. There were also ones that were a bit odder, like if they had any powers. We got to the interrogation room and went in.