INCAPABLE - BOOK I: THE FALLEN

C H A P T E R 18

WE fell into a dark, gray painted room. I looked ahead of me, at everyone behind metal bars. I pushed my way through the small crowd, and reached to do something, but I felt a hand on my shoulder pull me away. I turned around to face Anthony. "Don't touch it", he said, his caramel eyes pleading along with him. "It'll electrocute you, putting you in shock, and you might not wake up. He pointed over to a girl slumped over in the corner, her hand black with burnt flesh. Her eyes were closed, and she looked dead. My prayer went out for her, hoping she wasn't. She didn't deserve this. No one did.

I suppressed from touching the bars. I wanted to blow them to smithereens, but I knew better. They're like the handcuffs that held me back, back at Elizabeth's office. Our powers won't work on them. I walked forward. I turned back to Anthony, still behind me. "When we were escaping, I noticed something", I whispered. I didn't want to upset anyone.

"What did you see?" he questioned.

"Mar― Elizabeth was gone." His eyes bulged, and he opened his mouth, but he was at a loss for words.

"What are we doing in here?" I yelled outside of the bars. I heard a familiar clack of heels click into the room. And from the meager light of a solitary desk lamp, I made out the face of Margaret in Elizabeth's body. "You all thought you could kill me that easily?" she questioned, laughing, coming closer to the large cell. "Yes, you did crush a few bones" she continued, "But they healed within minutes. You think I didn't come prepared for that sort of thing?" She laughed loud, looking menacingly at all of us, facing her, pacing back and forth across the breadth of the cell. "You don't get it yet", she said, glaring directly at me, smirking her signature devilish grin. "The mere likes of you, cannot kill me!" She continued pacing, talking, taunting us. "I am more powerful than any of you! I have the entire government under my control, had your kind exiled out of the country, and executed, and you still don't get it. I'm not going anywhere." She came as close to the bars as she could, and lowered her face to be at my height. "But you are" she said, "You all are." She pressed a button on the wall on the side of the cell. "Going up" she said, laughing, as the cell began to move. It elevated up, as I watched Margaret disappear from the room.

***

We appeared in the middle of a court. A judge looked down on us, along with rows upon rows of spectators. A small jury sat at the rightmost side of the room. Each person in the large booth was dressed head to toe in white. I could already tell that the odds of us leaving here alive were none. Margaret, dressed in Elizabeth's body, stood at the front us the room, in front of the judge's throne and the witness' booth. There were no prosecutor and defendant tables, no one to speak for us, just Savage.

The gossips in the spectator balcony came to an immediate halt as the judge banged her gavel against its plate. "This is a sad, predicable case, so can we just get it over with, so we can all go home?" she yelled. I gulped at this. Behind her careless words she was truly saying, "They are all going to be sentenced to an immediate, public death, so this isn't necessary." When the room was to a complete, scary silence, she continued. "As the rules of the new Declaration states, you are given the right to choose one person to speak on all of your behalves." Everyone turned to Cole, sitting silently in the corner of the cell. His eyes remained wide, and he was clearly hurt. His father tricked and betrayed him. I don't know much about this man, but I think that this may have been the last straw leading him to completely breaking down. I pushed my way to him. I looked at him, his head down, and his familiar hard exterior completely absent. "Cole" I softly spoke, touching his shoulder. He slightly jumped at my touch. Without moving, or looking at me, he muttered, "Take my place." Everything inside me said not to. I've never been anywhere near valiant until I came here. No one volunteered, and easily cleared the path for me as I walked back through the crowd. The door whisked open, and screeched as it did. "Good luck", I heard Connor whisper to me as I marched out into outside court. The door slammed closed loudly behind me as soon as my last foot was out. I snuck a glance over at my father, the left guard of our cell. He showed no emotion. Quickly, I pulled away. It was too late before our eyes were locked in a gaze.

"Let's begin", the judge said, clearing her throat. "Is it true that your... group trespassed into the White House?"

"Yes, but―"

"Is it true that your group killed several government officials, guarding the White House?"

"Well yes, however―"

"And is it true that you all attacked Elizabeth Savage?" Instead of answering the yes or no question this time, I shouted, "She attacked us first. We merely defended ourselves."

The judge raised an eyebrow at this, and turned to Savage. "Do you deny attacking them prior to their assault?"

"Yes I do, your honor" Margaret firmly answered.

"Not only that" I continued, dismissing Margaret's lie, "But she also has the entire council under mind control."

The judge threw her head back and laughed at this. "All mind control devices have been outlawed decades ago", she said after she was finished.

"They weren't outlawed in Elizabeth's time", I answered, grinning at the judge's perplexed look. "They were not even known of."

"Miss, what are you talking about?" the judge questioned.

"That woman's name is not Elizabeth Savage" I firmly said, "It is her daughter Margaret." I felt all the eyes on the Renegades on me. They probably thought I'd gone insane.

"That's absurd" Margaret said laughing.

"Then you wouldn't mind taking off your silver bracelet" I said, referring to the device on her wrist that she spoke into in order to continuously change her appearance. The judge looked down on her and waited.

"It you don't, I will", I said between my teeth. My hatred towards this woman grew by the second. I stared at it hard, bearing my eyes through the silver, as Cole had done with the shackles. Break, I commanded in my thought, Break into a million pieces. After too many seconds, it exploded from her wrist, shattering to pieces around Margaret. Her image began to ripple and soon it dissolved, evolving into an entirely different woman.

"Arrest this woman for possession of illegal goods", ordered the judge, pointing her finger at a newly exposed Margaret Savage. My father, held out his handgun, and neared her; a pair of handcuffs in his other hand.

"Oh please", Margaret said, "I'm not going that easily." She smiled and her image disappeared. I looked a few feet away, and she reappeared instantaneously on the other side of the room. "You'll have to catch me first" she said as she transported again, to the to the back of the court, then again to the front. My father shot repeatedly, missing her each time. She cackled, the laughs echoing in the room, even after she disappeared each time. She reappeared ahead, standing on the thick railing of the balcony. "Goodbye for now" she said laughing, as she jumped from the balcony. She vanished before she hit the floor.