To Err Is Human

80. No permission

Anna exhaled nervously at of the whirling sound the large door in front of her made as it opened slowly.
She looked around to make sure she wasn't followed before she walked right inside the empty warehouse. God, she didn't have so much time. She just had to get her answers and leave before anyone noticed she was gone, especially Angelo.

Anna looked around.
They were supposed to be there already. She looked at her wrist watch for a second. Just how long did she need to wait?

"For someone who just survived torture at the NSS base, you sure cleaned up pretty well."

The lights came on at the sound of Gina's voice. Anna shook a little, blinking her eyes so she could get used to the brightness in the room. She could hear footsteps approach her, a few of them.

"What brings you to our hideout Anna? "

The room became bearable to look at as they got closer to her. Anna could count four of them, Gina and three people she had never seen.

"Don't you have a company to run?"
Anna exhaled

"They found a body in the river Gina." Anna said shrugging her shoulder. They all glared at her clueless of what she meant.

"Anna you'd have to be more specific. We don't really leave this warehouse." Gina smiled.

"Nathan's body was found in the river." Anna cut her off glaring at her. She needed some kind of explanation or at least an expression to help her understand all the questions that flossed her thoughts.

Silence filled the room as the smile on Gina's face turned to a frown. She wasn't surprised.

"I told you throwing the body in the river was a bad idea." The guy beside Gina blurted out as he turned to her, glaring fearlessly.

"I knew it." He sounded really scared.
"Now they are going to trace it back to us."

Anna watched him turn around in frustration and pace round the room while Gina rolled her eyes. What was going on? What did she mean? Was it true? Did Gina and her group have something to do with what happened? What was that? What did they mean?

"Stop whining Aaron. We took care of things without a trace. No one is ever going to find out it was us."  She watched how Gina turned a little to him

"Can someone please explain to me what exactly is going on here?" Anna raised her voice. "Did you guys have anything to do with this?"

Gina slowly turned to her

"Did you guys murder Nathan?"

"She asks a lot of questions." The girl beside Gina said. She had spiky hair. Really spiky hair that looked like it was made of wood. Anna watched her raise one of her hands in the air while it transformed to a large wooden spike. She twirled her gum round her mouth with it, grinning at Anna.

Anna shook her head. She was sure she didn't want to know what her powers were, she couldn't care less about her little freak show. It was obvious. She turned back to Gina. She needed an answer and she needed it now.

"We did."
Anna held her breath. Everything went static, she became so numb, she could barely move.

"W-What?"

"Two years ago,"

"Two years-"

Anna could feel the air in her lungs shorten as lots of thoughts and questions clouded her head. It was getting really hard to breathe or focus on anything.

"We needed a place in the Trusk's home, at the mansion. We needed everything to be in place so we had to create one," Gina sounded so honest, too honest, it was like she didn't care, she was so confident in her actions, in what they had done that it scared Anna.

"We killed Nathan to make that happen. It was a tiny sacrifice for a greater good."

"A tiny-" Anna raised a hand to her forehead, she couldn't understand a thing. "Gina, Christ, since when did we do this? Since when did we start killing people? Humans?"

"Since Nathan Trusk put out a target on all our heads. His death is nothing compared to the number of our people he has killed, that they all killed."

"What are you even talking about?"

"They are planning a war Anna. A war that they are going to win and even his death didn't stop them. We need to take whatever risks we can to make sure we are at the winning side." Anna exhaled. All that was too much for her to take in

"So the wedding, and the company-"

"We made it happen." Gina scoffed as she took a step towards Anna. She paced around her like she was watching her, examining her from head to toe.

"Did you really think Nathaniel Trusk was really going to hand over his life's work, his legacy to one of our kind? To you? Did you really think he was going to accept you into his home? Let you get married to one of his sons after an Atian took the life of the only woman he ever loved?"

She stopped in front of her and looked Anna right in the eyes.

"We had to take it. We had to make sure you had everything you needed to save all of us. We saw an opportunity to get rid of our limitations and we did."

Anna had gone absolutely cold. She was lost of words, and all she felt was just-shock.

"How- how did you- who did you-"

"Replace him with?"
Anna raised her head to Gina the moment she completed what she was going to say. Was Gina just good at reading minds or was she just transparent?

She watched Gina turn and started to walk towards the little crowd she had come in with. She paused for a while right behind the last guy among them. He was the youngest and the only person who had not said a word since she got in

"Let me introduce you to our greatest asset, Alex."

Gina wrapped her arm around his shoulders. He had a large frown on his face and his eyes were glued to Anna. Anna looked at him closely, there was something so similar about him, about his eyes.

"Alex's parents used to live in hiding at one of our underground bases nineteen years ago. He was born in secret and never had to wear a bracelet. If the NSS had known that right before they wiped out the entire underground and killed everyone in it including his parents, we would have never had the opportunity we had two years ago. We found him when he was two years old. He's the only one of his kind, without a bracelet."

Anna looked at his wrist. Gina was right. There was no bracelet on it. What was she trying to say? What did it have to do with anything? Anna looked at him and he welcomed her gaze as well.

"Anna, he has the most fascinating ability ever. Shapeshifting, human shapeshifting."

Anna watched the boy for a while, while he tried to toughen up and broaden his shoulders.

"Unlike the rest of his kind, all he has to do is think about what or who he needs to impersonate and-"

Anna watched him slowly transform into Nathan. Her jaw dropped, it was it, it was real. She swallowed hard watching him exhibit every feature she remembered of him, down to the stress lines on his forehead. She had never imagined it or thought about it, he looked just like him. Anna could hardly tell a difference.

"Do you remember the last words I said to you?"

He asked her as Gina stepped back.

Anna could remember it perfectly. How could she ever forget that day? It was the first time she met Angelo at the pool. She remembered how the maid had asked her to hurry to Nathan's room that night. She could still remember how pale and cold his skin was. How ill he looked. She remembered him holding her hand and thanking her for always looking after him and Andre and then she remembered those last words he said to her

"You're on the right path, we have found you. You'll never be alone ever again."

The boy reminded her.
Anna held her breath as memories of that day and those exact words began to flash back into her head.
She swallowed hard.

She was fucked. She knew that now.
Everything was fucked.