Kaidon
It started right after I saw her enter the restaurant. Her long curls were tied into a loose braid on her side. Her cheekbones were flushed red, and her eyes sparkled as they reflected off the chandelier lights. A crimson-coloured off-shoulder dress perfectly hung around her curves, giving an uninterrupted view of her slender collar bones. As she closed in on me, her scent entered my brain right through my nose and squandered all my thoughts. I felt like some anaesthetic intoxicated me.
The feeling went away when I was crawling through the air vents, and I thought it was only a momentary lapse of my nervous system, but it struck me back when I went to get her out and perhaps even escalated. That moment in the elevator when my lips were almost touching hers, I nearly forgot everything. I forgot who she was and who I was and what we were there to do or the fact that she was my brother's fiancee. All I could think about was that if she had moved even an inch closer to me, I'd have unapologetically kissed her.
"Maybe it's just the face." A nonchalant voice interrupted my trail of thoughts.
"What?"
Alex stole a toast from my plate and, as he began applying jam to it, continued, "The infatuation you have with her. It could be the face."
"What the hell are you talking about?"
He turned his head and stared at me, his raised eyebrow mocking me, "Seriously? Dude, I can see the way you are gaping at her." He pointed in the direction of the kitchen where Ariel was beating the eggs in a bowl. I also noticed Griffin chopping vegetables on the other side with inhuman speed and precision. God, he was like a ghost. He rarely ever spoke to us. We sometimes even forgot that he existed in the house.
"I know it sounds crazy, and we have never properly talked about it, but do you think there could be a slight chance that it's her?"
Her? Alice?
I recalled those few strands of her hair I pulled out the other day when she hugged me. I didn't know what I intended to do with them. And now they were just lying around inside a container in my office.
"You are suggesting that Seydon betrayed us?"
"It doesn't necessarily have to be betrayal!" He looked around once and then continued, "You know what Seydon is like, right? He gets suspicious about everything! Five years ago, my sister dies, and at the exact same time, her lookalike also goes through an accident and conveniently loses her memories. The Seydon I know would have been the first one to point it out."
"Or he just decided to move on."
"Are you kidding me? I thought at least you would see reason in this!"
I wanted to. I could not tell him how desperately I wanted to believe she was alive, but I didn't want him going through that disappointment. Alex was still just a child. Alice loved him dearly, and he surely did take her death hard. If at this moment, he were to get his hopes high only for them to get crushed later, I wasn't sure if he would deal with it well. Something inside of me considered him as my responsibility now.
"I'll do something about it, okay?" I wasn't sure if it was him I was giving assurance to or myself. I had no reason to explain why I was so attracted to her, and I felt guilty towards Alice. Perhaps it really was just the face.
"Hey, hey, c'mon, we need to leave." Alex interrupted me as he picked up a toast and held it to his mouth, and hurried toward the kitchen. "C'mon, Ariel, you need to come too!"
She nodded as she handed over her bowl to Griffin, pulled off her apron and dashed towards the first floor.
"What's this about?" Griffin asked us while I checked my phone for messages. There it was, a message for an urgent mission.
"... there are terrorists, okay?! I am not going out on vacation!" I heard Alex yell to Rihanna in the living room.
"But I can help, can't I? I am a doctor in training! And I have got healing powers!"
"Rihanna, alright, look, can I talk to you in private for a moment?" He mumbled as he urged her towards the guest room.
"But Alex I-"
Before she could complete, Alex pushed her in and then locked the room from outside. She started banging the door from the other side while he pretended to be deaf and made a cross like gesture in Griffin's direction, asking him not to let her out. Well, it ought to be said, it was a pretty convenient solution.
"Uh- what's going on?" Ariel asked when she noticed the banging while descending the stairs.
"We have got no time for this! Come on, there's a bomb!" Everyone followed out Alex in a hurry towards the garage.
Less than an hour later, we were all seated inside our van, parked right outside the international airport. There was information from a credible source that some terrorists had infiltrated the place and planned to bomb it.
Helen passed along special security clearance cards to everyone and a small box of contact lenses.
"Please, for God's sake, do not accidentally flush them down the toilet this time!" she warned, giving a particular glare in Alex's direction, who barely hid his face behind my back. That was exactly what I meant when I said he was still just a child.
"Alright, let's go over the plan once again." I leaned over the table and slid my index finger across the airport blueprint. "HQ has identified twelve suspects, and their data has been fed into the master computer at the command centre here. Your lenses will capture the image of every person you see, and their face will be matched with the data in real-time. You will command the teams from this gate all the way to this one. You are here, and you take care of these check-in counters. I will be covering the departure entry, and you-" I spoke, pointing at Ariel, "-you'll be posted at the arrival exits. We need them all alive, so we are going to sedate them. We will identify them and capture them all together."
With that, everyone switched on their microphones and scurried off in their directions. Everyone was disguised as either a passenger or staff of the airport. We had multiple teams deployed at every gate, and each agent commanded a handful of these teams. We had been in touch with the airport security, and they were instructed to facilitate civilian evacuation in the worst-case scenario. This was identified as an S-rank mission that could not be trusted to government security alone.
The plan was to capture them all alive for interrogation. At the same time to prevent any casualties, we were first to identify all of them, follow them and then sedate them all together simultaneously. I was connected to five team leaders, Alex and Ariel being two, who were further connected to seven teams each under them. I also had my own personal teams deployed in my area.
Our lenses scanned through the crowd at an inhuman speed. Helen at the command centre was also browsing through the CCTV feed as a backup.
"Two targets identified on this side. In pursuit now." I heard Alex's voice from the other side.
"We have eyes on five of them."
"My team identified three more."
"This side is clear."
"Arrivals are clear."
"Two identified at departures," I replied to the team leaders. All twelve suspects were accounted for, and it was time to capture them. I pushed on a button on the earphone so that the entire team could hear me. "We sedate them all at the count of three. One. Two. Three!"
My teammates closed in on the suspects and injected them, who instantly collapsed, and my team wheeled them away in wheelchairs.
"They have bombs attached to their bodies!" Alex screeched on the line. "You need to be careful, everyone!"
"One target compromised." A team leader announced on the line. "Blonde, white shirt, blue jacket, black pants, armed, headed towards the exits."
"Command centre," I ordered and heard Helen's voice on the other side. "On it. I am sending the picture to everyone. He is headed in Little Mermaid's direction."
We heard the sound of a gunshot at a distance from the floor below, followed by screams of passengers around. Everyone started running around in disarray, making it difficult for us to cut through the crowd.
"Follow him. You are to shoot at sight, Little Mermaid." I barked my orders to her and then asked the others, "I want to know the situation on your sides."
Everyone gave me a rundown of their areas while I ran in the direction Helen pointed me to. Eleven were captured successfully, while one managed to escape, who then fired a gunshot in the air to create panic, making it difficult for the team to pursue him.
"I have got eyes on the suspect." Ariel's voice resounded in my ears, and I halted in my steps and answered instantly, "Shoot him down!"
I waited for a moment, but she gave me no response.
"Shoot him, Little mermaid," I heard a confused Helen on the other side.
"I-I can't-" Ariel's voice broke over the earpiece with that phrase.
"Are you kidding me?!" I snapped. "Shoot him down right now! That's an order!"
I heard another gunshot which was undoubtedly not Ariel because our guns were installed with silencers. I hand signalled my team to surround the guy on the ground floor. Then I ran towards the railings and jumped down for the ground floor arrivals. I landed on my side and rolled ahead, and then pushed myself up and sprinted past Ariel's figure, who looked like she had frozen at her position with a gun held in both her hands.
I spotted the man, took aim and fired, but before my bullet could hit him, he raised his pistol and shot at someone.
"Twelfth suspect is down." I heard one of my teammates report from the other side, "but... one of ours is down as well."
I yanked the earpiece off and threw it on the ground. Several panicked people ran past me, and my earpiece was crushed under their steps, but I didn't care for that. All I was doing was trying to process what had just happened. It wasn't like I hadn't lost men before. It was a high-risk job, and everyone recruited was aware of that. We lost people all the time, but it didn't make the guilt that came along with it any less. It was easier to deal with a failed mission but safe team rather than a successful mission with casualties. If given a choice, I would always prefer the former.
I found my anger being directed towards Ariel. All teams departed separately; it was a tacit rule in the organisation that when there were casualties in a mission, the junior teams were to be dismissed for the day. I stayed silent throughout the ride, but I was fuming inside. We reached our headquarters, where all team leaders made their way to the conference room. While everyone gave me a brief report -being careful not to mention the man we lost- Ariel sat there silently at the table, not lifting her head even once, and I didn't urge her to speak either. I wasn't sure if I could be civil with her at that moment without having an outburst.
"Everyone can leave now except Ariel. I need to have a word with her."
They stared at each other but then proceeded to leave. Alex came up to me, his expression a mixture of sympathy and guilt, "Kaidon, please don't-"
"Alex. Leave. Now." I grumbled to him under my breath, barely keeping myself together.
Before taking his leave, he hesitantly looked at Ariel, who sat there with her elbows on the table and her head between her hands, barely uttering a word. We sat in there silently like that for a while, just the two of us.
Finally, I decided to break the quiet. "What the hell happened out there, Ariel?"
I heard no reply. The only response I received was the slight shaking of her head and a soft hiccup.
"Are you aware of the trolley problem?"
When she didn't reply again, I continued, "You are the driver of a trolley, and it will collide with ten people in your path and kill them. But you can pull a lever to put it on a different path with just one person on it. Are you going to pull the lever, Ariel?"
I tried my best to remain as calm as possible, but her silence got on my nerves. If I were using my heart to feel her pain, I'd know that she was left too aghast to answer me at that moment. But my anger was getting the worst of me, and I growled, "ANSWER ME, ARIEL FORD! ARE YOU GOING TO PULL THE LEVER?!"
I noticed her body tremble, and she shifted her palms to cover her eyes. I kicked the table under me and then stood up from my seat to look the other way. My head felt like it was exploding. I wasn't sure why I was being so biased toward her. Everyone made such mistakes before. We'd reprimand them but at the same time offer them support because it was a tough thing to witness. Many of our agents would often quit when something like this happened. It was heavy guilt to bear. Perhaps this side of hers reminded me of Alice the most, and it infuriated me to my core.
"Why didn't you shoot that man down, Ariel?! ANSWER ME!"
"I-I..." She barely got that one word out of her mouth before her speech got replaced by a flurry of hiccups.
"He was a terrorist, for God's sake! He was there to kill people! Do you really think just because you show mercy to them, they'll return it back to you!?"
It was something we were taught right from day one of our training. We were taught about trade-offs and the 'greater good'. We were fed with countless texts on ethics and morality and our duty as the keepers of peace. Right until the first kill of every agent, they'd make sure to get rid of any speck of guilt in our minds. There was barely anyone who didn't break down after their first day, even after going through those countless lessons. Ariel hadn't been through any of those. Seydon had always made sure to get her on missions that didn't require her to make this kind of a decision. What I didn't understand was why would she even join us even though she knew what she was signing up for!
A part of me felt like I was being unfair to her. But the central part of me felt guilty towards the man I lost.
I picked up the file of the deceased agent. He was a single dad with one daughter. The Order had already started working its way to recruit the girl. In fact, most of our current agents were children of deceased agents. It was particularly easier to recruit them with the promise of revenge, and the most convenient part was, a person who had lost someone, as much as they understood the value of life, their hands shook the least when shooting down their enemies. Our enemies.
"Tyson Hannigan," I muttered while tossing the file on the table before her. "You better not forget that name for the rest of your life."
I banged the door shut behind me, not waiting for her response. I decided to take a detour that day. I figured it was time I put the doubts in my mind to rest. Hence my first stop was the genetics facility of a friend of mine, where I dropped the sample of Ariel's hair.
Next, I went back to that road where I had my first mission as the Black Wolf with my father. The first time I had to kill someone. All the memories came flooding back to me. I, too, had hesitated just like Ariel that day. But my mother's dead body loomed before my eyes like a ghost. I knew I had to do it if I wanted revenge. If I had broken down at that moment, I never could have mustered the courage to kill anyone ever again.
I reached home at around midnight only to get welcomed by Griffin's fist, which I barely managed to dodge. Before I could recollect myself, he grabbed me by my shirt collar, backed me against the wall and reached for my arm.
"What the hell did you do to my sister?!" He growled at me. His eyes spoke blood. He seemed like he was ready to kill someone at that moment. His powers must have allowed him a peek into my memories because I watched his expression darken another degree, but I was already too spent that night to deal with another bullshit. I grabbed hold of the arm that was pulling on my collar and then twisted it away from me. When he tried to attack, I grabbed his other arm and then used my powers, "Stand down!"
His willpower was a force to be reckoned with. He tried to struggle against my powers, and it took everything in me to keep him away. After a few minutes of back and forth struggling, finally, he yanked himself away from me with a grunt and gave in.
"Pay heed to my words, Cross. If I lose her again, I am coming after you and your entire family."
Again?
With that threat, he marched away from the living room, leaving me dazed, exhausted and gasping for air. I went straight to my room and sank onto the mattress. I didn't sleep a wink that night, my thoughts occupied with only her.
Ariel.
I reflected on what happened the entire night. She did make a huge mistake, but I felt responsible for it. I was aware of her unwillingness to kill, and regardless I put her in that difficult position.
I stood pondering over that for several minutes before finally mustering the courage to knock on her door. When I didn't receive an answer, I turned the knob, only to find it unlocked and the room inside empty.
I jogged towards Alex's room and barged inside. The scene there almost made me choke on my spit.
There lay Alex, almost half asleep in pain, while Rihanna had him head-locked between her arms and legs. This was probably her revenge for the day before.
"Does nobody ever knock in here!" He howled as he tried to struggle against her hold.
"Where's Ariel?"
"I barely woke up just now. I have absolutely no clue!"
"I noticed her leave early morning." Rihanna chirped in while tightening her grip on Alex, making him cry in discomfort.
"Did she still have her tracking bracelet on from the mission?"
"I am not sure, Kaidon."
I turned to leave when Alex yelled to me, "Hey! A little help here would be appreciated!"
"Oh no, no, don't get me in the middle of this! You got yourself in this mess, and you deal with it! By the way, little sister, good going!" I gave her a thumbs up and then shut the door behind me. I sprinted across the hallway down to the living room while I pulled up the team tracking app on my phone to locate her.
The app got me outside our old academy. It was labelled as a private school for children with special abilities and was heavily fortified and guarded. It brought back a lot of memories for me. Any time not spent with Alice back then was spent in here. While the lessons were a pain, this place made me stronger and moulded me into the person I was today.
I walked in through the metal doors, approaching closer to the red blinking dot on my phone that represented Ariel. I first noticed her crimson hair gently being flung into the air due to the wind. She was sitting on the stairs at a corner staring at a small group of newly recruited kids who were being shown around the campus. I followed her gaze and caught sight of a familiar face. It was the daughter of the agent that died yesterday.
My phone dinged with a message. It was my friend giving me a report on the DNA test.
The sample was no match.
My hand with my phone dangled to my side, my hope crushed. I glanced at her again and noticed the redness in her eyes.
It's just the face, Kaidon. It's nothing more.
She raised her hands to her eyes, trying to hide the tears that kept escaping. It gave me a sinking feeling in my heart, like it broke into a thousand sharp pieces and kept hurting my insides.
It's more than just the face.
I felt my feet heading in her direction, and my chest felt like all the broken pieces were coming together with every step I took closer to her. Quietly, I sat myself next to her and then pulled her in for a hug. She embraced me back instantly, finally letting her tears flow freely, muttering some inaudible words of apology in between her sobs.
Perhaps it was just my imagination, but at the far end of the ground, I noticed a faint image of a young Alice smiling at me as she turned to dust and faded away.