My sensory high came crashing down as I landed in the storage car, knocking the breath from my body. The aching horribleness that was my body came crashing back in, as well as my sense of dread. Horror washed through me as I regained my mind and realized what I had done. How many people I had just killed. Killed. Just like before, in the large storage room beneath the compound. But back then, I hadn't known whether I had done that. I mean, it could have been a freak accident, an earthquake, maybe. That affected only that shelf? Yeah right. But now, I knew for a fact that it was my fault. Somehow, I had lifted that man into the air and threw him into the van. With nothing but a thought. How that was possible, I had no idea.
Shock still riddling through my body, I slowly sat up and started to take stock of what we had left. Since I had thrown my bag of supplies away, all we had left was Riffs. Two bags, one filled with a single hiking bag and thermos, the other with a few packets of nuts and trailmix and two water bottles. That was all that was left of our haul. Better then nothing, I suppose.
As I started to get out items and move them over, Riff still sat there, staring at me. I refused to look at him, to see the shock in his eyes that so perfectly matched my own. To see the suspicion. I was transferring the water from the bottles into the single thermos to keep it cold when Riff asked the question I was dreading. "What was that?"
I didn't answer him at first. After all, what could I say? I knew just about as much as him about what I had just done. I continued pouring the water, and was almost done when Riff stopped me. He gently took the water from my hands and recapped both bottles. I turned to busy myself doing something else, anything else, but Riff stopped me by grabbing my arm. I pulled away, annoyed at his touch, and he sighed in frustration. "Seriously, River. What did you just do?"
"I don't know, okay?" I snapped in irritation, finally meeting his eyes. "I just snapped and he went flying. What does it matter? It saved us. Or me, anyway," I grumbled and shifted my eyes away from his again. That was true. Whatever I had just done, no matter how many people it killed, it had saved me from being dragged away. So was that the trigger? The thing that turned on these mysterious powers of mine? I had to be in serious danger? It was the best answer that I could think of at the moment.
And yet it still haunted me as I grabbed a packet of nuts and looked around for a place to get comfortable. The car we were in was filled with boxes on one side and stacks of hay on the other. I walked to the hay and sat on top of a barrel. Not the most comfortable of seats but better then nothing. I opened the nuts and chewed solemnly, deep in thought.
"So..." Riff stood and stuffed his hands in his pockets. Thinking better, he bent and grabbed a packet of trailmix, studied it, and scoffed. "I can tell you what. I can not wait until I can get a hot meal. Another day of dry foods and I might just give myself up just to get that crappy guards meal they serve back at the compound."
I glanced up at his smile, not amused, and he sighed before settling down beside me. We sat in silence for some time, quietly chewing our dry meals. It was the first time that I felt almost companionable with him, like we were almost friends. Or could have been, if our worlds were different. But all good things have to come to an end eventually, right?
And that's exactly what happened when I opened my mouth and asked the thing that had been bothering me for two days now.
"Why did you rescue me?"
He didn't reply right away. In fact, so much time passed before he replied that I thought he wasn't going to answer me, that the question would yet again go unanswered until further notice. Irritation started to set in again, and I started to get up. That was when he answered."I didn't plan on it. Not at first."
That answer surprised me so much that I sank back down on the hay. I suppose it shouldn't have. Of course he hadn't infiltrated the compound just to rescue me. But there was a small, hidden part of me that hoped he had. That he had held a key, or at least a piece, of my forgotten past. Of course not. I shouldn't have hoped. Hope just brings disappointment.
"My original mission was just to infiltrate, to gather data and report back-."
"To spy," I interrupted and he glared at me. "Sorry. Continue."
"Yes, to spy," he acknowledged. "But more then that. I was to get to know everything, to gain their trust, to work my way up the ranks. And, at first, that was exactly what I did. For months, I worked alongside them, forced to drag helpless children to their doom, all for the sake of my image. Children that all seemed so lifeless, emotionless. Robotic. Dead. But then one day I came across one person who wasn't dead. Who was, in fact, every much alive." His eyes flashed in my direction, but he didn't turn towards me fully.
"Me." I was surprised at how soft my voice was as I said that. How hesitant.
"Yeah. You had more life in you then anyone I had encountered there before. Even when you were constantly beaten and broken and shot repeatedly, you still refused to stay down. To give up. That's what made me decide to rescue you. I couldn't save those other children. But you?" He finally turned to look at me, and his eyes, for the first time that I had known him, were soft, remorseful. "I had to try."
We sat there staring at each other in silence, the wind whistling through the open door the only sound. Now I understood. He hadn't rescued me because he wanted to save me in particular. He had rescued me because he couldn't save anyone else, and that he been killing him. I could see it in his eyes, the haunted quality of his stare, and for the first time I wondered what it was like for the other side, for the guards that are forced to do all the scientists wishes. Were there more like Riff, forced to do things they didn't want to do just for another cause? Or did they do it for families, people they had to provide for? Horror washed through me at my next thought. Or what if the scientist, the big shots, whoever was in control of the compound, had stolen their children as well and forced them to do everything they said for fear of them getting hurt? That made a scary kind of sense, and it filled me with more dread then before.
But then something else he had said penetrated my thoughts. "Wait... Shot repeatedly?" The only time I had been shot repeatedly was that one time with evil, psychotic Dr. Porter and the can that he kept insisting I crush with my mind. Which also made sense now but that wasn't what caught my attention. There had only been one guard in the room at the time... "You were the one that shot me?"
His guilty expression was the only answer I got. It was enough. I pulled back my arm and punched him, hard, and automatically the grim mood that had descended on us evaporated. "Ow!" He exclaimed, grinning, rubbing his arm.
"You shot me!" I growled, reeling back my arm to punch him again. "Do you know how much that hurts?"
He dodged my fist, laughing, and danced away as I came at him again.
Riffs laughter filled the small storage car and drifted on the wind out the open door, more carefree then I could ever hope to be.
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