INCAPABLE - BOOK I: THE FALLEN

C H A P T E R 14

THE door slid open as it sensed me, wiping away the reflection I saw in it of Jack's saddened face behind me. I let the conveyor carry me through before I stepped off to collapse in the empty booth. I propped myself up and stared out the window at the ocean outside the underwater train, forcing myself to remember what Jack did to me. I have to know what is happening. I don't remember much and everything is foggy and so distorted that I don't even know what happened when. So, I have to start from the beginning.

"Come on Val", Jack said smiling at me and linking our arms. "I know a shortcut." She pulled me in the opposite direction of the route we usually take throughout the hideout to lunch. She grabbed my arm and pulled me around the corner down an even darker hallway.

"Are you sure?" I asked intimidated by the darkness, clutching onto her arm a bit tighter.

"Yeah of course" she assured me with a bright smile, gripping my hand and dragging me down the hallway. She pulled me faster and faster, until we were floating into a space that was so dark I could not see a thing. I heard a slide door close behind me, and a lock input, right before I felt her strong fist collide with my face.

"I'm sorry Valerie", she said right before she punched me in the face. My eye hurt tremendously as she punched my face again, kneeing my in the gut simultaneously. The blows came back-to-back, one behind another, into my cheekbones and my eyes. Jack didn't apologize one more time after her fist slammed into my face one final time before I was gone. I tried to open an eye, and I did enough to see what was happening. I saw Jack pointing a gun at me, letting it shake in her hand, harboring a terrified look on her face. "I can't do it" she said between sobs and dropped the gun and ran out of the room.

I woke up again, and my head throbbed massively. I decided against opening my eyes because the hurt so much. But the thought finalized as I heard a mix of footsteps walk into the room. I held back grunting in pain and grabbing my stomach that stung with blood.

"You were supposed to kill her!" I heard yelled, followed by a kick in my side. I hurt immensely, but I held back howling as another one came.

"Looks dead to me" I heard a male voice say, with another kick, "as a doornail."

"Well she isn't" the female voice complained again. I knew that voice.

"I'm sorry, I―" I heard Jack's voice start, but halted.

"Save it", she said. "Max, pick her up and carry her to my office.

"Why not just kill her off here and leave her?"

"Because" the woman started, "Its easier for me to take her powers when she's awake and weak, and willing to take the injections. After I have them, you can do with her, what you please."

As her heals clicked out of the room, I felt myself being picked up and carried out of the room. After that, everything just stopped.

I remember waking up again in a familiar room. The conversation continued when I woke up, too drowsy to notice the needles pricking me as I felt the injections. The more I felt the pinching, the more I felt drained and powerless. The last thing I remembered was hearing Jack's screaming and I woke up from my trance.

I turned around, away from the train's window, where I found myself standing into the abyss of the ocean. It was so empty. Like me. Then I see Jack and the wall I attempted to build around me immediately shatters at the look of her damaged face."What happened to you?" I asked, almost whispering, when I curved to see Jack's face. It was bruised all over, and her eye was almost as swollen as mine. "You really want to know?" she asked me. "What I want to know is why you did what you did", I corrected. I didn't have a problem holding back tears, because my anger easily overcame my sadness.