4. Raegan
Chapter four
Raegan
I lose track of the days when all it seems I do is use my gift, get shocked awake, and use my gift again with brief intervals of eating food and taking a shower while sitting on my ass.
If I want to look for a silver lining in anything, it’s that the lightning from the sky is not as painful as it looks. Sure, it feels like tiny needles stabbing me from head to toe until my entire body is a ball of pain and I can’t move after it stops. But that’s where it ends. There’s no lingering aftereffects other than the temporary paralysis. No visible wounds or deeper damage.
It sucks, but only in the moment.
I can handle that.
What I can’t handle is how Gordon is apparently set to wear me to the point of exhaustion each and every day.
He has some predetermined goal in his mind of where he wants me to be or what he wants me to accomplish by the end of a day. If I meet that goal, he’ll ask Holt to carry me back to my room. If I don’t, he’ll leave me in the training circle to crawl back myself.
One night, I couldn’t make it up the hill, and I passed out there, too tired to move or so much as breathe.
The next day, without any dinner or breakfast, was the worst in all my time here so far.
I’ve promised myself to never let that happen again. Even if it takes me hours to crawl back to the mansion to get some food, I have to do it.
I’m back in the training circle at the end of the day, working on a new trick I’ve learned. I can already see the improvement in my stamina and the decreased time to activate my gift, but this one is…well, the possible applications of it will be terrifying, but I try not to think too hard about it.
I’m trying to convince myself that I’m just in a training boot camp. That my life isn’t in danger, Gordon isn’t going to use me as his weapon like he’d planned before, and I’ll eventually be going home and I’ll be stronger for it.
It’s the only thing keeping me going at this point. That, and the fact that I have no other choice.
My hands press into the concrete slab at the same moment I’ve called on my gift so that the response is almost instant as soon as I make contact. Instead of throwing everything I have into that single piece, I focus my gift into a steady stream, holding half of it back and directing it to reach out to everything that this slab touches. Cracks appear in the current slab and stretch outward, dancing out to every connecting piece of concrete until I’ve reached the entire pile.
And then I use the full power of my gift, and everything I’ve already connected to crumbles to dust.
The pile that took me days to destroy in my early time here is now gone in the span of minutes.
Gordon scribbles notes on his tablet. I don’t know why I look to him for any sort of positive feedback, so I know if I’ll be crawling back tonight or catching the Holt-Express, but I do anyway. He finishes his notes and then looks at me. “Too slow. That took three minutes and forty-nine seconds. You need to stop thinking about the steps in your head and just do it. Go to the next pile and do it again. We’ll keep going tonight until you’re at least under three minutes.”
I release a shaky breath.
Then I move to the next mound and get back to work.
I must make it under three minutes by the time the sun goes down, because Holt has me cradled in his arms and is walking me up the hill to deliver me to my room. I hate that I actually look forward to this. It has nothing to do with the brute who's carrying me and everything to do with the fact that my arms and legs are jelly and I couldn’t bear weight on anything if I wanted to.
I’ve tried talking to Holt before. Maybe to gain an ally or get him to see things from my side. But the guy’s an absolute, stone-cold dick. I think he gets off on shocking me and then insults me for the fact that I have to be carried after my training sessions.
I’d like to see him do what I have over and over again and not collapse into a heap afterward.
I wait until I’m back in my cage and Holt leaves before I grab the alarm clock I’d requested and set an alarm for an hour from now. I’ll give myself one hour to get some energy back. Then I’ll eat and go searching for clues of my past.
If I wait until I have a night where I’m not too tired, I think I’ll never get there. I need to just do it. If I’m on an island with Gordon, odds are that my file will be around here somewhere, too. And that just might have information about my parents.
First, sleep. Then, answers.
The library is on the third floor at the very end of the right wing, but it takes up almost two-thirds of this side. After a quick meal in the dining hall, I ask the staff for its location and then muster up enough energy to make it there.
There are books of all kinds here. Fiction and non-fiction alike. I’m wondering who all these books are for and why they have so many of them on such a small island, when I’m reminded of something Gordon told me earlier.
New “guests” would be arriving this week. And this place is nothing, if not a larger version, of what I’d experienced on the island growing up. An overwhelming building with all the entertainment and activities one could think of within your reach. It’s hard to think of this place as a prison when it’s made to seem like a paradise.
I frown at that stark reminder and keep walking beyond the aisles of bookcases organized by genre until I reach the back of the library. There’s a sign for the restroom right in the middle, but I see other doors further down one side and wander to those.
The words on the glass window read Records Room .
Perfect.
I try the handle and the door opens . A mistake, or do they really not care if anyone snoops around in here?
Or there’s nothing important stored inside .
The room is a simple rectangle with filing cabinets lining the three walls and making up aisles down the middle.
Of course, none of them are labeled with anything as simple as letters of the alphabet. They each have numbers on them that are five digits long and mean absolutely nothing to me. So, I start with the cabinet closest to me and start flicking through files for a name or picture that looks familiar.
I’m sure I’m in here for hours by the time I make it through a single row with nothing to show for it. Well, not nothing. My legs are shaking with weariness, and I know I’m not going to be able to stay awake much longer. I’ll have to pick up where I leave off tomorrow and keep going.
Even though that’s what I tell myself, I still open the next drawer and start checking each file.
I freeze, my fingers pincered open on a file when I see a picture of a girl who looks startlingly like me. Her eyes are a bit bigger, her smile less jaded than mine, and her nose and ears aren’t quite the same, but there’s no mistaking the resemblance.
I yank the folder from the drawer and flip to the first page.
Merina Laivins.
Discovered by Gifted Enterprise when she was seventeen and a senior in high school. She destroyed a parking garage while at the mall with her friends. Two of her three friends died, and the third wound up in a coma.
I stare horrified at the newspaper article about the parking garage that’s nothing but rubble in the image.
The next pages look more like medical records once she’s under GE’s care. There are psych notes discussing her progress in controlling her gift and her desire to do anything GE asks. She doesn’t want to return to her old life out of shame and guilt for what happened over a misunderstanding.
Her gift was apparently explosions emitted from her body and a high level of heat resistance. She was a walking bomb who could detonate and then walk away without a scratch on her. The heat and energy radiating from her immediately after she went off kept any harm from coming to her like a protective shield until it eventually faded.
More medical records go over her vitals repeatedly, which I swiftly page through until I get back to a training report of her progress.
Training Note 985: Subject unable to continue beyond two hours of training today. She reports increased tiredness.
Training Note 988: Training session canceled today due to subject’s tiredness and mild nausea. It is my recommendation that a slowed training schedule be implemented over the next few months to prioritize the subject’s health. She has shown greater control over her gift and at this point is no longer considered a threat to GE.
Medical Note: 1. Viability scan completed. Fetus has normal heart rhythm and measures at 9 weeks. 2. Reviewed care plan with the patient, including diet changes and supplements to take. Training limitations will be put in place for the safety of the patient and fetus. 3. Kitchen staff will be provided a list of approved meals and snacks. 4. Science department will be provided recurring status notes of current limitations. 5. Supplements were provided to the patient today. 6. The president was updated per his request and will be copied on all future notes.
I stare at the proof of her pregnancy with me on the island. The rest of her pregnancy is uneventful, and I skip past all the doctor visits and unremarkable training notes until I find one that mentions my birth.
September 26th Raegan Laivins. 6 pounds 8 ounces. 20 inches. Born to Merina Laivins and Charles Whitmore.
I take note of my father’s name. There was no mention of him in any of the earlier notes, but maybe I’ll see his name more after this.
Training Note 1270: Subject is continuing to refuse completing tasks in her training. She is proving uncooperative, unwilling to use her gift, and I am unable to re-assess her threat level and current control over her gift at this time. Recommending psych eval for feedback on motivating the subject before I’m forced to retire the subject in the current program.
Medical Note: Following a thorough interview and discussion with the patient, I have determined that the birth of the patient’s daughter has changed her goals and they no longer align with the company. The patient wishes to go back to a regular life to raise her daughter and has asked the company for assistance to return to her home country with a fake identity. I advised that this is not an option for her, especially now that her threat level cannot be confirmed after so much time out of training. Any willingness the patient has at this point will hinge solely on her daughter. Strongly advise an alternate training program or separation from the child.
I keep scanning through the next pages, but they’re all the same.
No progress.
Training has stalled.
Unfocused on anything beyond her daughter, so they try separating them. This only makes her worse.
A news article falls from the stack. I bend and pick it up.
Terrorist bombs office building downtown At 3:17 pm, on Wednesday, October 3 rd , a bomb was detonated in the lobby of the Gifted International building. The explosion caused the five-story building to collapse, trapping victims inside. There have been over twenty reported fatalities so far. Rescue teams are still searching for survivors.
The terrorist was identified as Merina Laivins, a woman in her early twenties who had gone missing seven years ago during an investigation of a similar explosion at a mall parking garage. Her body has been recovered from the rubble.
I grip the papers and slide down the filing cabinet until my butt hits the floor.
She couldn’t have died from her own explosion. The notes on her gift were clear that her gift protected her during it.
Someone killed her.
There’s a final report at the end, with a note that her daughter, Raegan, was taken to the States by Merina, and her whereabouts are unknown.
I close the file and hold it against my chest. She risked her life to get me free. I’m sure of it. She got me to Grams and then went somewhere that would get their attention and used her gift as a distraction. Grams must have known what was going on because I spent my early childhood in Alaska, as far away from the islands as she could get without having to leave the country.
She wasn’t a terrorist.
She was a human being who made a mistake, and GE swooped in to take advantage of her. And then she risked her life to save her innocent daughter before she could be caught up by them, too.
“I hear you were poking around the Records Room last night.” Gordon’s words trip my concentration, and my gift destroys only half the mound at once rather than all of it. He tsks loudly at my failure.
I stumble over to the rest of it, falling onto my knees and practically leaning against the concrete to keep myself upright as I try again.
I thought I woke up with more energy today. Or more…something, after learning about my mother last night. But Gordon’s session still wears me into the ground. I don’t have anything left in me to raise a finger, let alone talk back if I wanted to.
“Useless! What if you’re being attacked while using your gift? Do you think anyone is going to stop and wait for you to get your head on straight? How could you let some simple words mess you up so easily?”
I grit my teeth and concentrate on controlling my gift while unsuccessfully trying to block him out.
“Holt!”
Wait. No, he wouldn’t.
Who am I kidding? Of course, he would.
Holt’s lightning hits me without further warning, grabbing me with a burning fist that rakes across my skin and pounds into my muscles, seizing them in a vise.
“Even if you can’t move, your gift can. Finish the job!” Gordon snaps. He sounds closer now, like he’s moved from his seat to get a closer view of my punishment.
I try to home in on my gift, but the pain is overwhelming my thoughts until it’s all I can think about. Pain. Pain.
It stops abruptly. My body is still frozen in place, my muscles locked exactly as they were as my body twitches from the residual energy zapping through me.
Gordon grabs my hair while I’m still paralyzed and yanks it backward until I can see him sneering over me. I can’t move or even scream at the rough move that feels even worse while my body is over-sensitized. “Are you even listening to me, or is your head so full of thoughts of your mother that I need to clear it for you? She at least had better control over her gift and would have been a true asset had it not been so wasted. You pale in comparison.”
He shoves me forward into the concrete, and because my reflexes aren’t back yet, I can’t stop my nose from smashing into it. Hot blood pours down my face and throat, choking me. My fingers twitch around the concrete as feeling and control slowly returns. I cling to it to keep myself upright as my head swims from exhaustion and pain.
“Now, I’ll give you a head start before Holt strikes you again. Don’t let my kindness go to waste.”
I reach for my gift and send it into the piece I’m holding on to and keep pushing it farther and farther out. It feels like I’m shooting fresh lava through my veins, and I scream, forcing myself through it to try to get it done quickly enough, but then the lightning finds me again.
My mouth stays open in a silent scream as I’m burning from both the inside and out, but I shove through the pain and keep feeding my gift more and more until I unleash everything I have left.
The cement pile bursts and then falls into rubble and ash, and my body collapses with it, no longer there to hold me up.
I feel empty.
Numb.
Like the end of an ice cream bucket scraped clean.
I don’t even feel when Holt’s attack ends. Only that one minute, I’m lying on the ground, lost in a haze of fiery pain, and the next, I’m being carried.
I expect to arrive in my room, like usual, but when my eyes crack open after he sets me down, I have no idea where he took me. It’s dark, wherever this is, with no lights in the ceiling and no windows. The only source of light in the room is the blue glow emanating from a white pod that I’m leaning against to keep me upright. It’s taller than me at my sitting height, so I can’t see what’s inside, and then there’s a curved lid sprung open above it.
Something gets shoved into my ears, and then Holt lifts me again.
I try to speak, but only air escapes past my lips. I suck them into my mouth to moisten them and taste dried blood.
I’m lowered down in water within the pod. I couldn’t even feel it when my body touched it. It’s just warm enough that it feels like sinking into a cloud.
I have a moment where I wonder if Holt plans to drown me. If this is why I’ve been brought here, but it passes as soon as I think it. Holt is Gordon’s dog. He wouldn’t spend all this time on me just to kill me like this.
Holt keeps moving around me, strapping me in, I think, because I’m suddenly floating on my back, half submerged in the water, as something helps keep me perfectly afloat. I go to touch my nose, to feel if it broke or just burst a blood vessel, but my hand doesn’t budge.
Neither does the other one.
My eyes snap to Holt, and his lips move, but I can’t hear anything.
Then, he closes the lid, and I’m trapped in darkness.
My heart pounds, which is now the only thing freely able to move after I test every other body part. Even my head is restricted. I’m stuck in this position, floating half in and half out of water, in pitch-black silence.
I close my eyes and take a deep breath.
This isn’t so bad if I stop worrying about how vulnerable I am right now.
I continue with calming breaths as I begin to drift in and out of consciousness. It feels like my mind is floating in space, cocooned in a cloud. I have no body. Just my mind. And it feels freeing. Weightless.
I drift off for a bit and then Gordon’s voice is suddenly clear as day in my head.
“You’re a monster. A danger to everyone around you.”
My eyes fly open, but there’s still nothing and no one to see. I’m alone here.
“It would be better for you to be alone.”
I remember Holt sticking something in my ears. I thought it had been to keep the water out, but it must also have some sort of Bluetooth or recording in it of Gordon’s voice.
Shut up , my mind tells him.
“How many people have to be hurt before you realize that you’re too dangerous to be around them? That girl you chased after? Vera? Those boys you think who still care about you? They don’t, you know.”
My chest tightens at his words.
They do! Well, maybe not all of them. But Kellan and Jackson care about me. And Dane…we just started working things out.
“All they ever wanted was to make their family whole again. And now they have that. They’ve forgotten all about you now that Vera is with them. They don’t need you anymore.”
That’s…not true.
But…I was the one who broke our family. I’m the one who betrayed them. Now that they have her again…are they happier? Are they better off?
“No one needs you. Not your dead mother. Not your friends who only get hurt by being near you. No one.”
The water swallows any tears from my eyes before they get a chance to fall.
Stop.
“I’ve been checking up on them to make sure they are holding up their end of our bargain. They’re living happily in some firehouse. No one is looking for you. No one even cares that you’re gone. They have everything they’ve ever wanted.”
Please… I plead as if he could somehow hear my thoughts. No more.
“But I need you, pet. I’m the only person who wants you. I can make you into something great, if you’ll only let me in. Give yourself to me completely, and you’ll want for nothing. Just obey my every wish, make sure to please me, and do whatever I command, and I will take care of you. You’ll find great rewards waiting for you. You won’t ever feel forgotten or left behind again. And together, we’ll save the world.”
I fist my hands and try to tug on my restraints, to ground myself with pain or pressure to remind me of where I am. He’s lying. I know he is. It’s what he does: lie, cheat, and manipulate.
But it doesn’t stop the sliver of doubt that slips in. It doesn’t stop me from wondering if they are all happy now that I’m gone. Now that I’m not there to cause stress within the group or mess up Aiden’s plans. Now that they have Vera again. They wouldn’t risk getting me back if it meant losing her again.
He even knows about the firehouse. How could he be lying if he knows that?
Fuck, stop it!
I’m trapped in my mind, with nothing but Gordon’s voice to keep me company for what feels like an eternity.