"Sometimes it's better to stop trying to make sense of things. Life isn't clear cut, there are always gray areas."
Number Twenty-Three
Faye heard heavy boots approaching. She curled herself into a ball, tucking herself in one dank corner as the metal door opened and a sliver of light flooded the empty room. Dizzy with hunger and pain, her eyes took some time to adjust.
"I brought your breakfast."
She peered at the plastic tray on her feet, her impaired vision giving her a headache. She couldn't see well, and the room was dark. The brownish gruel looked appetizing, and the glass of dark liquid seemed like the most mouthwatering thing in the world. Slowly, she reached for them, but the sudden pain in her joints cleared the fog in her mind. Those are drugged, her mind warned. Her figure retreated again, slightly shivering with the agony of the small movement.
The voice of the man they call M was coaxing. "You haven't eaten anything for two days. I can't let you starve to death."
Faye tried to wet her cracked lips with her tongue, but even that was as dry and rough as sandpaper. Her voice was weak but steady. "Let me go?"
M made no response.
She cast another gaze at him before shutting her eyes. When she was captured, she had accepted her fate. She knew she would be tortured, defiled, maybe killed, yet despite everything, she couldn't bring herself to betray Creed. As much as she hated its master, the people in it are not all bad. Some of them are her friends. She couldn't betray her friends.
Something warm covered her shoulders. M had placed his jacket over her naked body. She pulled it closer, relishing the first warmth she received for what seemed like eternity.
"Thank you," she murmured fervently. M was the one assigned to look after her, and among all the men here, she liked him best. He wasn't particularly nice, but he wasn't mean like the rest. He's the only one who doesn't use brute force on her.
"Don't misunderstand," he growled. She realized that he was sitting to her left, leaning against the wall. "I just didn't like what they did to you."
Faye tried to stop her mind from returning to all those painful memories the Light had given her. Even so, her body stiffened. She hummed a soft lullaby to calm herself, trying to remember good memories. She remembered her parents smiling proudly at her the first time she cooked a meal for them. Although her cooking was terrible at that time, they claimed it to be delicious. She recalled the screams of her fans once she stood on stage, the incredible feeling of touching people's hearts through her songs. She saw Gneiss the time he brought her to that special place of his and told her that he love her. Fireflies danced around the glade, and the moment he kissed her, the place became magical. She remembered Arashi and his lame attempts at joking. Trying to teach him was the funniest thing ever, but heck that man could cook. Then there was Ivan and his ridiculous love of girls, his carefree attitude contagious even at the most unlikely times.
Without realizing it, she was crying. She was too weak to even wipe her tears.
"You'll die if you don't eat, you know," M casually mentioned. She almost forgot he was beside her.
"I won't die if you let me go, you know," she mimicked.
Faye was nearly asleep when M spoke again. "Do you know why my Gift isn't affecting you?"
She didn't know what his Gift was, and she wasn't stupid enough to tell him what he wanted. Instead, she asked him a question. "Why are you with these men? Are you fine with them treating you like a dog?"
He stared ahead, rubbing his hands together. "I hate Creed."
"Why?"
"Because they cause suffering among our Kind." When she didn't respond, he continued. "Creed is not invincible, you know. It can be defeated. If only you joined our ranks, you wouldn't need to experience all these."
"I have something to protect," she whispered softly.
His voice was hard. "I, too, have to protect something important. My loved ones. The Light is not evil, 00. We are waging a war for freedom. Creed is monopolizing all Rare Kinds. Once a child was seen to have a potential, he or she is taken from home and brought up as an assassin. Isn't that sick? Don't we get to have a say on what we want? How about the parents? The family? Once Creed takes a child, he or she simply disappears, as if his existence was erased in this world."
One of the things Faye learned in the past year is that everyone thinks they are in the right. The authorities do what they think is proper. Criminals feel justified with their acts. Murderers kill for a reason. Governments react the way they deemed fit.
Evil is relative. Good is relative. Everything has two sides, even something as thin as paper. Nothing can make everyone happy, because satisfaction is not the same for every person.
Creed is not simply an organization or government; it is a society. It has its own pros or cons. After all, how can Creed be truly evil if it can produce people like Gneiss? Denna, Arashi and Ivan? TJ and all those other agents? True, they were raised as killers because their Master thought it was the most profitable way to earn a living – they get to control nations in the shadows, they get to make easy money, they get to rid the world of filth and they get to help Rare Kinds who were in the slumps. Like in Rael's case, to help his family of ten, he joined Creed willingly. In Arashi's case, he escaped a life of drug slavery. For Ivan, he found the means to locate his lost sister. For her, she got the chance to save Gneiss' life.
Well, Kreuz Creed was a separate issue altogether.
"Creed teaches its agents on how to utilize and control their Gifts," she told him, "A lot of Rare Kinds would have died without proper education."
M gave her a leveled glare. "That's what clans are for."
Faye shook her head, ignoring the pain it caused. She smiled wistfully as she parroted the words Arashi told him once before when she asked him why he loved Creed so much. She never imagined that his words would come out of her mouth, that a time would come when she would defend Creed's honor. "Most Gifts skip generations. No one is left to teach or guide a young one. Almost in all cases, the Gifted is banished or killed by the community."
"But Creed didn't have to take the others," the man argued, now smoking a cigarette. "And not everyone should be trained as murderers."
She had no answer to that.
"Come on, eat, 00," M urged her one more time. "We talked. Don't you suppose you should listen to me now?"
"Nah-uh."
"I didn't drug it."
She studied him for a few seconds. "Uh-huh?"
" 'Cause I figured that's the only way to keep you alive. I can't convince you to eat otherwise."
"But my powers will return."
"I'll deal with that problem when the time comes," he muttered. Faye could only offer him a smile as she sniffed the food. "Wary as always."
"A habit dies hard."
Faye put on the jacket, wincing as her skin came in contact with the leather, but wearing something felt good. She was careful as she ate, keeping her movements small. Despite her hunger, it took her an hour to finish eating. The swallowing part was hard, but keeping the food in her stomach was most difficult. After all the injuries the bastard H inflicted on her, she was vomiting in an hourly basis.
"See? It wasn't so hard," M told her.
"As long as there's nothing weird mixed, I'm in."
"Who's Gneiss?"
Faye gave him a murderous glare, her senses suddenly heightened. M backed up a little, holding his hands innocently. "Whoa. Did I step on a landmine?"
"How did you know that name?" she hissed.
M frowned at her. "You called out that name in your sleep. You were delirious. Someone special?"
Faye analyzed the situation. Was there harm in answering that question? M didn't know who Gneiss is. If his question led to anything that might harm Creed, she could always stop. As she licked her lips, she wanted to laugh at herself for wanting to open up to a complete stranger, not to mention her enemy. But heck, she's going to die anyway. Since she purposely left Creed, no one's going to look for her. She's as good as dead. There's no harm in telling him.
"Well, he's jerk." Faye flashed him a small smile as her lashes lowered, a low blush forming on her pale cheeks.
"Oh. Your boyfriend?"
"Not really."
To her surprise, M chuckled. "Well, aren't that something. I thought you people only cared for assassination and stuffs."
"We're humans too," she said dryly.
"Now, I know." M had a faraway look on his face. "I have children, the oldest daughter younger than you, but I guess that she now has a guy. I wish I'm there to scare him off. Hope my eldest boy play that role for me." He glanced at her expression. "Don't relationships get in the way of your work? I had to cut off mine with my family."
"That's pretty basic," she answered, "but I won't give up just because others say I should. These are my feelings. I'm not handing them over to anyone."
"You're one strong girl."
She snorted. "If I'm strong, I'll be outta here in a jiffy."
"Well, you're seriously underfed. What can you expect?"
There was an explosion outside. The building rocked slightly, and it made her nauseous. Another explosion occurred, this time nearer, followed by gunfire.
"Shit." M quickly went out and locked the door. He shouted, loud enough for her to hear, "Stay put there, 00. If you leave, it's my head."
Faye dared not hope, but what if those outside causing a ruckus are there to save her? Was there hope for her to come out of this stinking room alive? She tried to stand, but realized it was futile effort. She couldn't even sit straight without the walls to support her.
After trying in vain for a couple of minutes, she closed her eyes and concentrated on the sounds outside, trying to decipher what was happening. There were gunshots at intervals, but other than that it was quiet. No shouting, no more explosions, not even the sound of hurried footsteps within the building. Maybe it was impossible to hear them clearly with only one good ear – her left – but she still persisted. She counted her heartbeats as measure of time that elapsed. Five minutes. Ten minutes. Thirty minutes. The exchange of bullets stopped. Was it finished? Whose side won?
Soon, she heard police sirens at a distance and her hopes plummeted. There's no way ordinary men could handle Rare Kinds. She shouldn't have expected something impossible. Even if Creed was aware that she was taken by the enemy, she imagined that Kreuz would be only too happy to get rid of her. He wouldn't retrieve her. She was a nuisance.
"00 is here! Take her before they come!"
Faye opened her eyes to see a group of four masked men storming in, and she screamed in agony as one of them pulled her broken arm.
"Let me go!" she shrieked, trying to pull away, her struggles increasing the damage of the fracture. "Let me go, you scumbags!"
"Faye! Faye! It's us!"
She breathed through her mouth as one of the men pulled off his mask. He knelt in front of her, giving her a brittle smile. Rael? The other man, the one who tried to pull her arm, removed his mask too, revealing no other than Arashi.
"I'm not dreaming, am I?" she sniffed.
"We're here to save you," Arashi smiled, combing back some of her hair with one gloved hand.
The man guarding the door barked at them, an ArmaLite rifle in his hands. "Sorry to ruin the reunion, but we need to hurry. They called for back-ups."
Her chest clenched at the sound of his voice. Gneiss came too! She tried to stand up, but she ended falling to her side, gasping for much-needed air at the same time dealing with excruciating pain. Rael and Arashi realized only then the extent of her injuries.
"What are you doing?" Gneiss shouted, checking the halls as look-out. "We need to head out!"
Rael yelled frantically. "My Gift is not working on her!"
"What?!"
Faye could hear the grim realization in Arashi's voice. "Dammit. I forgot! Her Subtractive Gift negates other Gifts. Your healing won't work on her!"
As the other masked man moved out of the room to exchange shots with the Light, Gneiss came over to assess her. She didn't want him to see her this way. Not only was she naked – the jacket only covering her upper half – her body was also enveloped with scars and bruises and lots of blood.
His fingers were warm against her skin as he checked her physical condition. "We can't move her like this. Both her legs are fractured. That includes at least four ribs. There's a high chance that her head has a concussion."
"I'm fine," she insisted.
Arashi and Krad shared a brief, silent look. Arashi nodded reluctantly, took off a large black plastic from his bag and wrapped it around her waist. Krad stood up and quickly averted his eyes as the Japanese agent gave Faye a heavy punch in a stomach, causing her to faint. 04 carried her out of the room, the others looking after his back.
A man suddenly appeared in front of them, a machine gun in his hand. He spat out the cigarette stick from his mouth. "Where the hell do you brats think you're going?"
After a beat of silence, Rael stepped out.
"Dad?"
*
Unedited