Inner Demons | Phoenix Force Book II

Chapter Four

Where I Belong
Clayton Jones

I walked down into Hayden's basement, to find him, beer in hand, sitting in a leather chair, looking at a wall full of shut down monitors.

The room was a mess, more then usual. Pieces of devices were  scattered all along the floor.

"What happened here?" I asked, already knowing the answer.

The sight of me snapped him up. He jumped up to me and spoke loudly, waving his arms through the air.

"That virus is dangerous! We need to stop it!" Hayden exclaimed.

I nodded and handed him a six pack of beer that I brought as a gift.

"I bought this, figured you could use a present for all your help earlier. The virus is being dealt with Hayden, don't worry" I assured him, Kwin and the others could handle this, after all they got themselves in this mess.

"No no no no" Hayden spoke dropping his beer and running over to his messy work station.

"It's like a plague, it will keep spreading and infecting more and more devices, it needs to be shut down but it can't because it is bonding with the code itself" Hayden explained pulling a USB drive from the mess.

"It needs to be destoryed, if the virus is a plague then this code that I made is our cure" Hayden explained.

I placed the six pack of beer on a table nearby.

"Yeah, you have fun with that" I turned and began to walk up the steps.

Hayden tripped on his own feet and fell to the ground, Jesus he was drunk.

"Clayton! Wait! We have to fix this!" He called.

I ignored him, I needed a drink myself, and like hell was I gonna drink with that pathetic bag.

Eric Lockwood
This house was huge, I remember it as a kid. Kwin and I played here a few times, but Kwin would always have nightmares as a kid. He would come over to my house for sleep overs, not wanting to be all alone.

The rooms to the upper floors were all but empty. Most were covered in layers of dust and cobwebs, the furniture being covered in those plastic sheets.

I made my way back downstairs to the ground level where I found Jennifer. She was cross legged in the living room. Eyes closed, sitting on the floor, hands stretched out and palms facing the ceiling.

"Ugh, you sleeping?" I asked.

"Meditating" Jennifer answered. "It helps me control my powers, you should try it"

I smiled, as great as that would be I think I'll pass.

"Yeah, no, I'm fine thanks" I smiled figuring that maybe I could go check out the grounds.

I made my way to the back yard, where I found Cyblow packing his things into a backpack next to Cleaver, who was fast asleep in Kwins swimming pool.

"Hey Cyblow" I smiled walking over to him.

Cyblow swung a rifle over his back and then I noticed, the bag he was packing was almost entirely full of guns.

"You going to war or something?" I asked.

"Nah, worse, I'm going to space" he answered.

He glanced at me, packed a couple of magazines into his bag and looked at me with softer eyes.

"Don't fuck it up" he spoke.

"I beg your pardon?" I asked surprised.

"I mean, that with your abilities you could hurt a lot of people. Especially those near you, I just want you to know that those you were care about need to come first. I'm speaking from experience" he spoke with sadness deeply rooted in his eyes.