"This doesn't make any sense," I say to Brianna for what feels like the thousandth time, my mind still whirling from everything that happened.
She keeps a safe distance from me, her boots splashing in the water as she shifts from foot to foot. "Why doesn't it?" she asks in her normal British accent, tearing off a strip of her uniform to wrap around a wound on her arm. "I'm a Freak, I've been one since I was twelve." She winces when she pulls the material even tighter. "Why don't you get it, Jackson?"
"My name's not Jackson," I snap, the words scraping harshly against my dry throat.
"Fine!" She scoffs and crosses her arms over her chest. "What is your real name?"
I shake my head slowly, looking down at the ground as I say, "It doesn't matter anymore. The person who I was before no longer exists."
I bury my hands in my hair, red still present in my eyes. It's not as intense as it was only a couple of minutes ago, but it's still there. I still feel the anger coursing through me, the fire and lightning ready at my fingertips if need be. If Brianna tries anything funny.
"So why don't you get it then?" she repeats, impatience lining her tone.
"Because you've killed Freaks." My voice is one volume away from shouting. "You shot that boy in the head back at the office block, and I don't even want to know how many others you've probably killed."
Brianna looks down at the floor, sighing softly before raising her gaze to mine again. "Listen," she says calmingly, shaking her head at me slowly. "I did what I had to do to survive in a world filled with people trying to kill me. It wasn't easy. When I saw my opportunity to pretend to be a Soldier, I took it." She looks down but doesn't take another step forward. "It's what I had to do. Surviving isn't as simple as staying alive, you know."
"No, it wasn't what you had to do," I reply. "You didn't have to kill them, Brianna—if that's even your real name."
"It is," she replies quietly. Then her eyebrows furrow as hisses through gritted teeth, "And what about you, huh?"
I stare blankly at her, not able to respond.
She does take a step forward this time, like she has a death wish. "What were you doing here, playing a Soldier?"
I would take a step back if there wasn't a wall behind me. "Saving the Freaks!" I shout, the red getting brighter. "I would bring the endangered Freaks to safety to protect them from them." I point to the now-dead bodies around me, some charred, some drowned from the amount of water, some poisoned from the smoke. All caused by me.
Brianna laughs, like this is some kind of joke. "Well, I guess all of that was for nothing then." She shakes her head and spreads her arms out wide. "Look around you, mate. Look at all of this bloody mess you made."
I do as she says. All of the walls and floor are black, burned and ruined forever. The fire and lightning I produced caused a catastrophe beyond words. The Soldiers are all now dead, by the smoke or whatever else, including Nox—a friend that trusted me from the start of the mission.
"I killed all of them," I say quietly, not wanting to hear my voice any louder. "Every single one."
"Not all," Brianna says, looking at me and not the Soldiers. "I saw a handful of them run out of the building before you burned down the whole place."
My heart drops at the fact that there are some left alive. I feel worse knowing that they survived, because I want them all to be dead so they won't cause us any more pain. I look around at the bodies once more, feeling an odd sense of detachment from the whole situation.
"I can't believe you killed them," she suddenly whispers, like she's trying to convince herself of the truth. She digs her hands into her hair and shakes her head, her eyes wide. "I can't believe it."
I want to reply to her, to scream or shout or say anything, but something in my mind keeps my mouth shut.
"If your whole mission was to be some kind of hero," Brianna continues, her voice breaking, "then tell me: do heroes do something like this?"
"I thought I was the hero in our world. I guess it turns out I'm the villain."
Brianna nods, crossing her arms over her chest. "Yes, you're right," she agrees. "Because heroes don't do something like this." She shakes her head like she can't bear the sight of me anymore. "And you're no hero."
I've never seen so much red before as I take a step forward, my teeth clenched hard around words I want to scream at her. I raise my hand in the air to throw her backwards or electrocute her with lightning or burn her with fire—
But nothing comes out.
I try again but I feel nothing. No power coursing through my veins. The familiar electrical charge that comes when I form lightning is no longer there, just a buzz where there was once something.
I just feel nothing now. Numb, like there should be something there.
"If you were curious," Brianna says, no fear visible on her face or in her voice, "that was how I survived this whole time."
"What?" I lower my hand and no longer see red.
She nods at me. "That little thing you were going to do to me?" She smiles wickedly. "I stopped it, just like that."
I stare down at my hands, curling them into fists until they hurt. I still feel nothing, even when I focus hard enough to put a thought into her head. It's the same feeling when the Soldiers put the power-suppressant cuffs on me. I relax my tense muscles when I know I can't do anything.
"You can shut off powers," I mumble, looking up at her.
"Correct."
"And now I've got yours?"
"Yes."
"Wait a minute." I shake my head. "How did you get past the Soldiers when you first arrived? I heard that they do blood tests on new Soldiers."
She smirks, looking down as she curls her fingers into a fist. "I turned them off, then back on."
"You can do that?"
She nods, smiling still. "Practice really does make perfect, right?"
Training inside the Ghetto flashes across my vision, but I push it away quickly so I don't see the faces of the Freaks that I've come to know so well.
"How did you know that I was a Freak?" I ask, to change the subject and to distract my wandering mind.
Brianna shrugs slowly but a little laugh escapes her lips. "I wasn't certain." She tilts her head at me. "But when I got paired with you for Freak hunting, I got to see how you were as a Soldier." She pauses. "And you were a terrible Soldier."
I clench my jaw, feeling it pop under the pressure, but I don't feel the pain anymore. I just feel numb—from everything. "The moment you turn my abilities back on," I say slowly, keeping her eyes on mine, "I will kill you."
Brianna just continues to smile. "And that's why I'm not going to yet." She crosses her arms again, and stares me down. "Until we come to an agreement."
I lift my head a fraction, a droplet of water falling off my hair and down my nose. "What do you suggest?"
She turns her head and spots one of the tables that hasn't been fully burnt. She pulls up two chairs and motions for me to sit down while she sits in the other one, pressing her hands against the table despite it being soaking wet.
"As soon as we finish from here, I'll leave you alone," Brianna says, taking a quick glance around the room. "Since pretty much all of the Soldiers are dead, I have no one trying to kill me. I'll be able to live my life without the fear of Soldiers knocking down my door and taking me here."
I stay silent, waiting for her to finish.
Brianna sighs before she continues. "I'll turn your powers back on if you promise not to kill me before I leave," she says. "I'll go as far away as I can so you never have to see me again."
I think about this for a moment. Despite the buzzing in my head telling me to kill her, that she lied to me this whole time, that it would be so easy to lie and kill her as soon as my powers come back—
But I just nod. What would be the point of lying or saying no? I've already crossed some kind of line, I can't do anything else. "Okay," I say, my mind still wondering if I'll regret this. "I'll let you go."
She holds out her hand for me to take. The first thing that comes to my mind as I take her hand is how easily I could break it with one simple, quick tug. I shake the thought from my head, wondering what exactly is wrong with me. I wonder when everything went wrong with me.
Brianna releases my hand and rises from her chair, shooting me a smile that doesn't quite meet her eyes. "Good doing business with you," she says sarcastically. Then she nods once and I feel all the power rush back to me in one wave that almost knocks me over if I wasn't still sitting in the chair.
I gasp and stare down my hands, creating a ball of lightning and feeling the familiar, comforting charge inside my blood. I turn it off with a squeeze of my hand and nod once at Brianna, who nods back.
"It was nice knowing you, while it lasted," she says, turning around to face the entrance. "Even when you were being an arsehole." She looks over her shoulder at me and says, "Bye," before exiting the building, and disappearing into the now-dark sky.
I don't know how long we've been here. It takes me a moment to realize as soon as she leaves just how dark it really is outside the burnt building. A few of the lights are still on in this building, for some reason. Everything I did—from killing the Soldiers, to destroying the building—was a blur I don't think I'll ever know the truth of.
A sudden crackling sounds from the corner of the room, startling me. I make my way towards the source, exactly where Hartman was before I killed him. There's some kind of radio clipped onto the back of his belt that's making this noise, somehow completely fine from the water on the floor and the charred mess that Hartman is. I pull it off and stare at it for a moment. It's not the same radios that the normal Soldiers used. This is slightly smaller but looks so much more powerful, like it can pick up transmissions from the other side of the world.
When the crackle doesn't stop I press the button on the side and lean into it before saying, "Hello?"
"Captain Hartman?" the voice on the other end replies, the voice crackly and almost inaudible. "Thank God you picked up."
I don't reply. I don't even know what to say to the person.
"We have a situation up here," the man continues. "A terrible one. Over."
I bring back my American accent, trying my hardest to mimic Hartman's rough voice. "What's the situation?" I ask, cringing at my voice. "Over."
"The Phoenix's air supply is running dangerously low." A pause, but the crackling continues. "The passengers are freaking out. The Soldiers can barely keep them calm. Over."
"And what do you want me to do about it?" I ask, snapping the words and feeling weirdly powerful. "I'm down here on Earth. Over."
"I know that, sir," the voice replies, trying to keep calm. "I'm just informing you that we are coming down to Earth."
My heart pounds. My fingers hover on the speak button but I can't seem to press it again. Thankfully, the man speaks up before I can.
"We will be down there in about two weeks' time, sir. Over."
I breathe in deeply, pressing and holding the button as I reply, "Ten-four. Thank you for letting me know. Over and out."
As soon as the radio silences, I burn it with fire, waiting for it to turn black and completely useless. I crush it to make sure it's definitely damaged, looking down at the remains in the palm of my hand.
We will be down there in about two weeks' time.
I almost laugh, but I stop myself. I thought I took care of the Soldiers trying to kill the Freaks. I shake my head. It doesn't matter—I'll be gone before anyone sees what happened here. All the other Freaks will be gone too.
I throw the remains of the radio on the floor beside Hartman's body, checking around inside his pockets for anything I can use. His gun has been burned to a crisp so I can't use that. His radio connecting the ones we used is also destroyed. I almost give up before my fingers tug on the material of the poncho, thankfully not fully ruined.
I stand up and check the condition of the clothing. Only a few burn marks cover the bottom half of the material, but it's still wearable. I slip it onto my body, the familiar feeling almost comforting.
As I move to look at Nox's unmoving body again, I realize I can't ever return to the Ghetto again, not after I killed Serena's brother.
Serena.
Oh, no. No, no, no. Once she finds out—and she will find out—she'll hate me forever. I bury my hands in my hair and scream until my throat hurts. This is all my fault. It's all my fault.
I start to see red again.
I push it away, as far as it will go.
I definitely can't go back to the Ghetto. Whatever happened there is now a distant memory. They'll live their lives and train the Freaks I saved. They'll forget me. They have to forget me, for their own good.
It's the only way for life to move forward.
When the Soldiers come down from the Phoenix is another story. I'll either deal with them if they cause us trouble, or I'll let them go as they please.
Whatever happens in the future, happens.
I need to finish this mission. I may now be a murderer, but I don't want to be a liar. I can't be both. I owe everyone in the Ghetto that much.
The walk down the hallways is strange knowing that most of the Soldiers are dead. I expect one to turn up sooner or later, but no one does. It seems they haven't come back here, even when I thought they would.
It's eerily quiet.
I snap the locks off the cells holding the Freaks quickly, breaking the power-suppressant cuffs even quicker. None of them say anything to me as I move around them, just looking up at me with wide eyes as they try and work out who—or what—I am.
I am a Freak, like I'll always be. But I am now also a monster.
Within seconds, I send all of the remaining fifty Freaks from the prison into the entrance of the Ghetto, not venturing any farther forward with a risk of raising alarm of the others. I tell them to huddle together and they do. It must be the tone of my voice that makes them do it. It's like they can sense who I have become.
As the young Freaks move farther into the Ghetto, down the stairs and into the darkness, I press my palm against the familiar stone. "I'm sorry," I whisper into the air, the words catching in my throat.
I jump back to the surface quickly, right inside the burnt and ruined building again.
I turn to face Nox and lift him up, carry him in my arms, whispering an apology for all that I've done, for all that I've become—a monster, a villain, whatever you want to call it. I whisper an apology to Serena and everyone else down in the Ghetto. They've lost not only a brother but also a loyal friend.
All because of me.
"I'm sorry, Nox," I whisper one last time before I set his body on fire, letting the orange glow and the heat wash over me in one wave. The crackle of flames echoes around me, building higher and higher as if it wants to touch the sky. Nox may be gone from this world, but I know with an ironclad certainty that a part of him stays with me. Whether it's a part that will haunt me forever will remain to be seen, but I push that thought away for the moment.
All of this is my fault, but it's also the Soldiers fault as well. If they never existed, if they never came down to Earth, Nox would still be alive and I wouldn't have had to risk my life pretending to be one. Maybe one day, when the rest of them return, I will bring an end to them after how much they wronged me and the Freaks.
But all I know now is that this was just the beginning of something much, much bigger.
I pull my hood up over my head and turn away from the orange glow, keeping it at my back as I continue into the darkness.