A/N: I hope you guys enjoyed the first chapter of the sequel! I barely have any reads on it, but I hope that will change soon
Beatrix took the phone away from her ear, and hung up. For a moment we just looked at each other. I was surprised to see the black colour was almost gone from her hair, leaving it a few shades darker then her natural platinum blonde.
"Your hair's blonde again." I said, breaking the silence.
"I'm using a dye-removing shampoo," she responded. "You should come in."
I walked around the house and entered it. She was sitting on the table when I came in. "So you found me," she said.
"Obviously," I replied.
She smirked. "I'm impressed. I assumed it would have taken you longer."
I shrugged. "I wasn't sure you were here, but it seemed best to check."
She raised one dark eyebrow coyly, playing with the thing around her neck that looked more like a bicycle chain than an actual necklace. That was my necklace, I realized. Or it had been. Damn her, it looked better on her. "So, why are you here? D'you miss me?"
"I want the computer stick," I said cooly, refusing to be fazed by her charming Britishness.
"I don't have it," Beatrix replied innocently.
"I didn't come all this way for you to lie to me."
She rolled her eyes. "Fine. I have it. But you can't have it right now."
"Why not?"
She gestured behind her, and I noticed a laptop on the floor, with a the very thing I was looking for plugged into it. "Because it's my USB, and I'm using it right now," she said, like we were little kids fighting over a toy.
"Where did you get the laptop?" I asked, though I was guessing she had stolen it.
"I didn't steal it," she told me, like she could read my mind. "I bought it from some guy in the city before I came out here. It had like, twenty viruses though, probably why it was so cheap."
"What are you doing with it?" I asked, walking over to it.
She flipped down on the floor beside the laptop. "I'm making copies of everything on here, it's taking forever because of said viruses."
"What have you gotten so far?" I asked.
She leaned against the wall. "The location of some of the hospitals Thomas went to. And the names of all the kids like us. Thank God he didn't go international, that would be so difficult for me."
It took me a few seconds to process everything she had said."Wait, so they're in this area? Like, close to us? And what are you planning?"
"Yeah, they are. There's a few in the city and a few outside. My plan is to track them down."
That sent chills through me. I suddenly felt as if I was part of something much bigger then I had imagined. I had thought for months that it was possible there were others like me. It seemed impossible that I was the only one. But now that it has been confirmed, I couldn't stop thinking about it. I partly wanted to meet them, and I was partly scared to.
"You know what else I found out?" she asked, continuing before I could respond. "Most of the kids weren't given the serum like we were. They were genetically enhanced before they were born. Some of them had parents who were in on it, and some of their parents didn't even know, depending on where they were in the development of it. There are others that have more specific powers because of that, while ours is more crazy, unstable energy. You got more than me, by the way. A ton more."
"I can't believe someone would agree to having that done to their child," I said, shuddering.
Beatrix tugged at my necklace. I wanted to rip it off her slender neck. "Money is money, I guess. I've already tracked one of the kids down," she told me. "One of the ones who's parents didn't know. I have a suspicion that his parents were killed off for getting too close. I left him a voicemail, so I'm just waiting for a response."
My eyes widened. "You've been able to do a lot in such short time."
She shrugged. "Just the power of the Internet, slow as it may be. And I work well on my own."
Something about her last comment saddened me. "Guess you're better off without me," I said quietly.
Her smile faded, though it was barely there to begin with. "I didn't mean it like that," she told me. "If anything, you're better off without me."
I leaned back on my palms. "So, why did you leave me that message then? Why did you want me to find you?"
"Believe it or not, what we are to each other is not my first priority," Beatrix responded. "I just figured you would want to know I had information on the other kids with powers."
I probably should have expected that. After all, she wasn't my first priority anymore either. "When is it done copying?" I asked.
"Sometime tonight. You can have the USB after that."
"Okay. I'll leave tomorrow."
This seemed to surprise her. "What, you don't want help find the others?" She tilted her head to the side, studying me. "What is your agenda anyway? What's your plan?"
"In general? Taking down the people who let this happen. Specifically, Thomas. I haven't figured out how to do that though. I don't even know where to start," I admitted.
"We should team up, then," she said. "It makes logical sense. In simplified terms, I have brains, you have brawn."
I raised my eyebrows. "What, you wanna be friends again? No thanks, too high a risk you'll stab me in the back."
For a minute I saw a flash of hurt on her face, and I instantly felt guilty, even thought what I had said was true. Then, it morphed to anger. "Is that really what you think of me?" she asked. "I helped you escape from the orphanage. I tampered with evidence in a murder investigation. I broke you out of that underground lab."
"But you betrayed me, too. So I guess it's even. And I didn't ask you to do any of that."
She exhaled bitterly. "Oh, fuck you. That's really convenient of you to say now, when I've already done it. When was the last time you did anything for me?"
"Don't start," I snapped. "I said, we're even."
"Where does that leave us, then?" she asked.
I shrugged. "I guess we're strangers again. Or, I dunno, allies? I mean, we kinda have the same goal. Right now I just need to figure out some things by myself."
"That's fair," she said. "If you promise me one thing."
"What?"
She smiled slightly. "That you'll stop denying your feelings. You're still in love with me."
"That's presumptous."
"Emotion reader, remember?" I had forgotten for a second.
"So, what if I do?" I asked. She didn't answer. She just leaned forward at the same time I did.
Her lips were soft and warm, as her hand ran through my hair. I crawled towards her, straddling her lap and pushing her against the wall. It was as if fireworks were going off in my head, sending ripples and explosions all through my body. I felt my nerves tingling. She felt like fire, and I was melting in her arms as she tugged at my hair, her nails digging into my side.
When we stopped, she just rested her forehead against mine. I closed my eyes, and we sat there for a moment. And for that moment I pretended that everything was normal. That we were still in the motel, that my powers and Thomas and all that didn't exist, that it had never happened. But as I pulled away, I had to face the hard truth. We were not together. We couldn't be together. And I had only come here for one thing.
I got up, and picked up my bag I had dropped on the floor. "It's getting late," I said. "Do you have food?"
Beatrix shook her head, looking up at me with unusually dilated pupils. "I was planning to survive on water."
I tossed her a handful of granola bars from my bag, before taking one out for myself. "Where are you gonna go when you run out of that, too?"
"I have empty bottles set up outside."
I shook my head at that. "I wouldn't do that, radio said it was gonna rain acid."
"Then I don't know," she admitted. "The police are still searching for both of us regarding Alyssa's case. And now Thomas and his coworkers want me dead. I'm good at hiding. I'm good at tricking people. I'm good at surviving. But that can only get me so far."
"So that's why you want to get in touch with the others?" I asked.
"Safety in numbers, I suppose. Some backup would be nice."
I looked out the window, or, the hole in the wall, as I saw the sun had set, and without all the artificial light out here, it actually got dark. "I'm gonna try to sleep," I said, placing my bag on the floor to use as a pillow.
"Really?" she replied, coming down beside me, and my stomach swooped. Before I could change my mind, I pulled her into me.