Chapter 52: Ch91. Keep your enemies close
Collins moved his hands, signaling the men to go back to stand by the door, as he looked at his prisoners.
Director Roosevelt just looked at agent Collins, his face so swollen that his lips barely opened for him to breathe.
Dr. Lee, however, was in a slightly better shape, so she glared at the agent, and spat a mouthful of words at him.
"Are you really sure you want us to answer something?" She scoffed. "Because it looks to me, like you are more inclined to just kill us then have us say anything about whatever it is you want."
Collins couldn’t hold his laughter after Dr. Lee’s remark.
"Do you really think I don’t know about the director’s ability of healing himself over and over as soon as he reaches the brink of death? What was its name again?" He thought for a few seconds and then snapped his fingers. "Oh, yes! Reverse Rebirth! Yes, that’s it!"
Dr. Lee’s eyes widened, and the director sighed, frustrated.
"And here I was, thinking that my last name would give me some safety after my cousin assumed the White House."
Collins smiled politely.
"Well, that might’ve been true, if you kept yourself away from this country’s affairs, Mr. Roosevelt. Which clearly hasn’t been the case, because you’re here, with me, right now."
Collins’ eyes glowed and his aura expanded.
Suddenly, then, Collins vanished completely from everyone’s sight.
"I guess you’re right." His voice echoed from all around the room. "But not completely. Because, you know, I do need you to answer my questions, but..."
Director Roosevelt’s throat opened up like it had been slit by a very sharp blade, and blood began to gush while the wound immediately began to heal.
As the director choked on his own blood.
"... But it doesn’t mean that both of you have to remain with your heads above your shoulders, right?" Collins’ voice echoed again with a laugh.
Before the cut on Roosevelt’s neck could fully heal, the invisible agent and his invisible blade finished the job.
And Roosevelt’s head fell flat onto the floor.
Everything happened so fast, that the men by the door couldn’t react in time, and their throats were cut open too.
Their lifeless bodies falling like sacks of potatoes.
Collins appeared again right before Dr. Lee, who breathed heavily and had tears in her eyes.
He got so close to her that she could smell his breath, but the primal fear that filled her blood, kept her from thinking of anything other than the desperate desire to live.
"Now... What do you know about Kurt Blake that is so important or valuable, that made you and our director friend here..." He pointed at the head and the gushing neck. "keep it a secret even from the Association AND from the hospital staff itself...?"
Dr. Lee wanted to speak.
She wanted to scream, to beg for her life.
But out of everything she had done or seen in her life, whether as a soldier or a scholar, or even a scientist...
Nothing prepared her for an ability that exerted the element of fear in a human being like that.
"Oh my God!" Collins looked at her from top to bottom. His voice carried a slight trace of disgust and a lot of delight. "What’s that between your legs? Oh, no. Don’t tell me you peed yourself!"
He burst out in laughter but, suddenly, he pressed the blade against her throat and the air, that just a while ago felt so hard to inhale to Dr. Lee, all at once became way too easy to breathe.
"I hope you’re feeling a bit better now, so... Can we finally talk?"
Dr. Lee’s face was soaking wet in tears, her pants were ruined after she peed herself, and her hair was a sweaty mess.
Saliva dripped from her bobbing head, but she let out a chuckle that took the agent slightly by surprise.
"What’s so funny?"
"If I’m gonna die here... At least tell me... How were you able to infuse... An ability that only a very specific beast can... Use...? I’ll... Tell you... Everything about... The Blake kid... If you tell me this..."
Collins’ expression went from maniac to surprise, to complete nonchalance, and then to a grin that made the person on the other side of the mirror-looking window shiver.
"I’m starting to think that we’re going to be good friends, Dr. Lee..."
***
Outside the room, a girl with horn-rimmed glasses and a nerdy look was almost done erasing the footage files of Collins’ arrival at the army base.
However, not before she could successfully copy the data and transfer it to her encoded Holowatch.
A young Nadia Cross looked at the silent signal on her Holowatch, telling her that the copying process was over, right at the same time that the deletion of the footage data was over, too.
And when agent Collins was done talking with Dr. Lee, whom he most politely uncuffed and unrestrained, he nodded towards the fake mirror like nothing had happened and left, leaving Nadia shaking on the other side.
But as much as she was shaking, she had a smirk on her face.
She had recorded an audio file with everything the agent and Dr. Lee had talked.
***
"It’s here." Delilah stated to the group.
Nikolai and Evellyn were near her while the others were a bit behind.
Caleb, Johan and Christina were with the others, too, in case of an ambush or anything that could put them in danger.
They had been traveling from the Dark Forest to the plains for an entire day nonstop, and there was simply no sign of Kurt, despite their efforts to track his location.
The group fought some small beasts throughout their way to the vast green plains, but even when they finally arrived at the foot of the mountain, Kurt wasn’t there.
Instead, there was a great bubble waiting for them, like a host pointing the door for the next room of the party.
"That’s it, folks, I guess X marks the spot, but the treasure isn’t anywhere near here to be found." Delilah crossed her arms, looking at the bubble. "He might as well have crossed to the next floor, you know, right?" I mean, what he said to us before leaving..."
Evellyn looked at Delilah and grimaced.
"But..." Her eyes glowed slightly, and as her aura expanded a little, her face went vacant for the briefest of moments. "No, he didn’t go through the bubble. But..."
"But what?" Caleb asked, a bit angry.
The boy had red hair, same as Evellyn, but his were military short, and despite the color of the hair, they didn’t look alike at all.
His dark brown eyes and athletic built made him look as if he were a cool kid, a sports player or anything that made teenagers popular at school.
"You’re not gonna wait for him here, are you?" He asked.
But Evellyn’s eyes still glowed, and she hesitated a little.
It wasn’t news to her that the remaining group of Indigo had a serious discussion before heading towards the outskirts of the Dark Forest, about Kurt.
They didn’t like how he acted after saving them, and Delilah was the first one to throw him into the fire.
Nikolai remained silent, not picking any side, but Evellyn felt something that made her choose Kurt’s.
And it made Caleb very angry.
"Look, I know we’re Indigo and all, but if you’re gonna wait for him here, suit yourself. I’m going to the next floor, and no one’s going to stop me."
"Feel free to die at your own risk, Caleb." Nikolai laughed. "You may have not liked what Kurt said about the whole thing with the level of this Nest, and not wanting to carry us around, but you know he’s right, yes? You can’t deny it. Even though we’re quite strong for awakened our age, I know that some of you, like me, have a little deal of combat experience. So why the hell couldn’t we take the Direwolves down?"
"SOME of us couldn’t." Delilah emphasized.
She didn’t want to give it to him, but she was one of the very few who were able to kill the beasts in the Nest.
Every single one of them, even Evellyn, who was the only awakened there with no combat experience at all, was able to survive until that point, because each one of them managed to kill at least one of those enormous beasts.
And they didn’t want to accept that truth, but the only ones who died, even though it was the majority of the Indigo group that crossed the bubble, were the ones that couldn’t fend for themselves and were solely saved by Kurt.
"Shit..." Christina sighed. "He’s right, isn’t he? This isn’t a regular Nest."
Suddenly, Delilah raised her head and she squinted her eyes to a slit.
"Everybody shut up... Are you hearing it?"
None of them said a word, and as everyone fell silent, a subtle, very faint buzz could be heard in the distance.
On their right, on their left, in front of them, and behind them.
"And above us..." Delilah said in a hush.
"What’s that?" Johan asked.
"I don’t know, but it’s been around us since we left the outskirts of the forest." Nikolai answered, putting his hand over the hilt of his knife. "I didn’t mind it because whatever it was, didn’t seem to have any intention of harming us, and it didn’t have a presence at all. The only thing that gave whatever it is away was the noise."
"You were hearing it since there and you told us nothing about it?" Caleb huffed.
He composed himself back again and closed his eyes.
"Kurt this, Kurt that, I’ll show you some..."
Hi clenched his fists, and when Caleb opened his eyes, his energy flowed out in a slight burst. It formed a dome that reached several meters above them and several more meters around them.
"Recognition, scout." Christina hushed. "It’s his side ability with barriers. Caleb is a good barrier caster, but his main talent lies in uncovering what’s hidden." Her lips curled up ever so slightly.
But their expressions didn’t carry much confidence when the drones appeared inside Caleb’s recognition barrier.
Much less when the voice echoed in front of them, and the invisible figure finally showed up.
"I didn’t think that so many of you would survive this test, but I’m actually glad to see so many students still alive and kicking." Zaval said, walking forward one step at a time. "Now, would anyone of you be so kind and tell me what happened to the student named... Kurt Blake?"
Caleb gritted his teeth.
"We don’t know, sir." Delilah said. "We actually came here to find him. What are you doing here?"
"Did you come to rescue us?" Another student asked, his eyes gleaming with hope.
Zaval looked straight at the student, walking towards him.
The boy, a bit scrawny, but very strong when it needed, felt the immensely overwhelming presence of Zaval and almost fell to his knees.
He never saw Zaval’s clawed hand coming, piercing his chest and ripping his heart out.
His lifeless body fell to the grass as Zaval licked his fingers and spoke again.
"Kids should learn manners from the adults." And as he turned around to face the rest of the students, his eyes glowed in a dark tone of red. "I asked a question, and I expect an answer from you, IF any of you wishes to go back alive to the other side..."
