Just a little warning: Part Two has more frequent strong language
***
UNKNOWN DATE — UNKNOWN LOCATION — UNKNOWN TIME
2832 felt like she had been set on fire.
When she awoke, she could tell she had been unconscious for much too long. Her body felt worn and tired, but her skin seemed like it has been burned. The amount of time she had been sitting there had clearly been long enough for her body to heal what she guessed had been burn marks, but the pain resided heavily.
She tried to remember what happened. She had been at the Fidden household... Then ran into Siphon. He had struck her with a lightning bolt, and that was the last thing she could remember.
A blindfold was placed over her eyes and her wrists were cuffed together. That meant nothing good.
Her heart skipped a beat before she forced it to calm. Siphon had caught her in order to hand her over to the AMO. That would have to be where she was now. In the custody of her enemies.
She tried to assess where she was exactly. She made very small movements incase someone was watching, and tried to feel around for the texture of the ground she was laying on. It wasn't a moving vehicle, for she couldn't feel it moving. Not grass, or stone, but rocky and dirty. No tiles either.
Suddenly, she felt her blindfold being whipped off. She tried to adjust to the brightness of the room, and when she finally did, she was looking up at the smiling face of Siphon. Her wrists were cuffed behind her to a pole, and although they could have been power dampening ones, she doubted it, for this felt different.
She glared at him and observed her surroundings from the corner of her eye. It looked to be some sort of old basement with stone wall and an almost dirt flooring. The ceiling was low, but she guessed Siphon, a fairly tall man, could stand straight up with a few inches to spare.
"Where the hell am I?" She demanded.
"Woah." He chuckled. "No need to be so hostile."
"Just because you kidnapped me?" She retorted sarcastically. "You took my powers, didn't you?"
He waved it off dismissively, standing. "Temporarily. You shouldn't be worried about that though. The AMO is pissed at you."
"You're not even concerned that they'll likely turn on you sometime soon?"
"Trust me, they won't."
"And, what? They're coming today? Tomorrow?" She questioned.
"Tomorrow, Morgie," he said.
She furrowed her eyebrows. The nickname sounded familiar but she couldn't quite place it. She decided not to ask about it. "How long have I been here for?"
"Oh," he dragged, looking at his gloved fingernails. "Three or four days. I can throw a good bolt when I want to."
"And the others: Rylie, Pepper, Tyler, Monica and Marcus?" She narrowed her eyes in hatred. "You didn't do anything to them, did you?"
"Your friends are fine, not for much longer though," he said. "Those last four have went into hiding. Nobody knows where they are. Quite smart of them, I might add."
"And Rylie?"
He sent her a wicked smile. "Oh, him? Your old teammate picked him up right around the time I grabbed you."
Her breath hitched. "They've got him?"
He laughed. "It's really amusing, too. They believe he's just refusing to use his powers—" he bent over, laughing hysterically, "—but really, he just doesn't have any! And they keep torturing and torturing him!"
"You're insane," she spat.
"Maybe," he said. "But I'm the one free, and you two are the ones suffering. Insanity doesn't seem so bad now, does it?"
She scowle. "You haven't given me up yet," she stated. "Why?"
He shrugged. "They never said when I had to. Besides, I did the hard work. And now, they want me to find Rylie's accomplices—"
"Don't you dare," she growled.
"You really care for those four now, don't you?" He said, then snorted. "They certainly failed with you. I suggested they get rid of the AST training program, as just rushing it was too unpredictable, but they ignored me. Said I was only good for pick my up difficult stray SNs and—" he cut himself short, and sent her a smirk. "Well, that I'll keep for later."
He turned around and picked up a plate he had left by the door. He set it in front of her. A peanut butter sandwich and a bottle of water. He waved a hand and she found her self uncuffed. She brought her hands to the front in confusion, only to have the cuffs reappear tightly on her wrists. "I'm going out. Eat, you'll need your strength for tomorrow."
"You mean for my death date?" She called as he walked again to the door.
"I'm trying to be nice. We both know your death won't be a fast one."
FEBRUARY — SECRET LOCATION — 4:48 PM
Tyler paced around nervously. He felt like a criminal—secluding himself away from the world, completely off the radar. In the rare occasions they went outside, Monica insisted they wear hoodies and sunglasses. They destroyed all their electronics(Pepper and Marcus were especially heartbroken over it) and had worked with shady people to get to a location where they couldn't be found.
"This is insane," he kept repeating.
"What? Running from a literally power hungry SN and the government, all the while leaving our two friends behind?" Pepper summed up, bitterly. "No, actually, I'd consider that fairly normal."
"I know you both don't like this—" Monica began.
"Don't like this?" Tyler scoffed. "Don't freaking like this? My best friend is in a torture chamber, and Sav is with our enemy and you expect us to do nothing!"
"We don't like this either," Marcus stated. "But being out in the open won't help Rylie, Sav or us in any way. It's a sucky situation."
"No, it's a fucked up situation," Pepper shot back, then murmured, "What a fucking twisted world we live in."
"Pep—" Monica put a hand on her shoulder but she shoved it off.
"No! Quit it!" Pepper yelled. "I—I can't do this! This is impossible! Pointless! When we started this whole thing, it was to find Rylie's sister. It's been a year, Mon. And from what we've discovered, Alexis might not even be..." She sighed, running a hand through her hair that was losing it colourful tinge, holding back tears. Tyler's eyes widened: he had never seen Pepper like this before. She was usually so put together.
Pepper stormed off, leaving them in a stunned, awkward silence. "Should we just leave her be?" Tyler asked, quietly.
"I think she needs someone right now, even if she won't admit it," Monica replied, smiling sadly at him and motioned with her head towards the door to her room. Tyler returned the smile and closed the door behind him.
Pepper was sitting on her air mattress on the ground that she used as a bed, facing the corner. The windows had the curtains drawn, and the ugly yellow walls had chipping paint. "Hey," Tyler said.
She sniffled. "I'm sorry, I'm just—"
"Yeah."
There was a brief silence, and he sat down on the mattress. "I'm scared," she confessed. "I'm so goddamn scared everyday, Tyler. Especially for Rylie. I just want to find him. And Sav—she sacrificed so much to help us and the thought that she might be dead..."
"Hey, don't think about that," he said softly, scooting closer. "She's strong. She'll figure it out. Rylie might be pissing himself right now—" She let out a choked laugh. "—but he's going to make it out, too. We all will."
"How can you say that?" She whispered.
"Because I'm optimistic. Sure, we're against the entire United States government and some power-sucking freak but we've got two super smart nerds, a bossy nurse, a stupidly brave powerless kid, a kickass supernatural, and one clueless idiot."
She laughed. "You're not completely clueless."
He gasped. "Is that a compliment?"
"It must really be the apocalypse now, then." She sent him a grin, and dropped her head, moving a lock of hair behind her ear.
"Pepper?" He said, staring into her eyes. "I... Well... I don't know what's going to happen in the next few days. So... I like you." He paused, then as an afterthought, he quickly said, "Like more than a friend! With romance and stuff."
She stared at him for a while. He ridiculed himself in his head for telling her. She obviously only liked him as a friend and he had ruined everything. With all the crap going on in their life, she probably didn't even want a relationship.
"It's about damn time."
Then, she leaned forward and kissed him.