Chapter 9 Past
Past
Rohan
When Aaron corrals me into his office after he gets back from overseeing the interrogation of Armitage, there’s a strange expression on his face, a mix of relief and disgust that kicks awake the creature that lives inside my stomach.
I stand in front of his desk, waiting on whatever information has gotten Aaron so conflicted, trying to ignore the poisoned claws viciously mauling my stomach lining.
Aaron doesn’t beat around the issue, stating bluntly, “We were wrong. OI hasn’t managed to recreate Liquid Onyx.”
So there’s the reason for his relief.
My mind whirrs at a thousand miles an hour, contemplating what this revelation means about the children with black blood that we found in that OI facility.
I didn’t ask Aaron about them, because I didn’t want to know what FISA did with them, but if I had to guess, I’d say they’re probably being kept on base or in a FISA safe house until their parents can be identified.
The options are extremely limited as to why those children could have Liquid Onyx blood, and their young age narrows those options down to only one that seems plausible, forcing me to come to a very dismal conclusion.
“Their parents are Liquid Onyx survivors, aren’t they?” I ask grimly.
Aaron doesn’t need to clarify what I mean. He nods, mouth pressed together in a firm, unhappy line, his amber eyes hard as stone.
“Are there any others?” I prod and then ask, “Does OI have the parents?”
Either is as likely as it is disturbing.
OI wouldn’t kill a Liquid Onyx survivor, no matter the age.
Even if they couldn’t turn them into agents, they would still keep them for the purpose of further experimentation.
Their appetite for discovery is ravenous and unyielding.
They’ll strip away everything a Liquid Onyx survivor has just to test the density of the bare bones that lie beneath.
“Yes, on both counts,” Aaron says. “Armitage didn’t know much more than that, but we’ve been given a lead by an undercover operative within OI who has confirmed a possible location worth checking out.”
It’s a struggle not to grit my teeth, or worse, to open my mouth and scream at the fucking nightmare of it.
As if most Liquid Onyx survivors didn’t lose enough; now OI is taking their children, trying to subject them to the same horror their parents were subjected to without conscience.
It makes my own black blood burn inside my veins, my power aching with a sweet pain to be let loose on those who deserve so much worse than anything they are ever going to get.
I tilt my chin up, exhaling through my nose and releasing some of the tension from my shoulders. “Guessing that’s our next mission, then?” I ask with forced steadiness.
Aaron doesn’t seem fooled by the pretense, but he doesn’t pull me up on it either, falling back on the necessity of our mission taking priority over how either of us feels about it.
“We’re leaving within the hour, Agent.”
“Got it, boss.” I jerk a thumb over my shoulder. “I’ll go pack my can-do attitude and my positive-vibes helmet and meet you in the garage.”
“You do that, kid.” Aaron gives me that mean little smile again, baring white teeth that are a bit crooked along the bottom, like the turrets of an old castle. The imperfection suits him, and the glint of malice in his eyes does too. “Bad guys won’t stand a chance.”
…….
We take one of FISA’s nondescript black jeeps to the port and then hop a ride on the ferry to Ireland. Armitage gave us the location of an OI facility in a city called Rogue. FISA has to reach out to two active supers, Guardian and Blue Storm, to let them know we’ll be entering their territory.
Aaron tells me that FISA has a tentative working relationship with them that mostly relies on FISA leaving them alone unless the Irish supers ask for help directly.
If we just show up, setting fire to random buildings and causing mayhem on their streets, there will be a reckoning, and even a powerhouse of an agency like FISA doesn’t want to piss off a couple of superhumans if they don’t have to.
Guardian and Blue Storm have agreed to help us rescue any Liquid Onyx survivors that OI has in their custody, and we meet them in a FISA safe house near the facility to plan our attack.
Both supers are women. Guardian is short and compact, all dressed up in black Kevlar.
She looks young, with her incredibly pale, heart-shaped face and short, light-brown curls pulled up into bunches.
Blue Storm is her opposite in every way, tall and broad, with dark-brown skin and long hair twisted into one long plait, dyed a bright cobalt blue.
The only similarities between them are the thick Kevlar they’re wearing and the solemnity on their faces when we talk about the second gen Liquid Onyx survivors.
Both of them would have been kidnapped from their homes as very young children and injected with the substance that gave them the powers they now wield.
I’ve seen them fight on the news and in vids online.
They’re a formidable team with Guardian’s ability to fly and Blue Storm’s weather-based powers.
“You Ian Stone’s son?” Blue Storm asks, eyeing me from across a table in the kitchen where the OI facility’s floor plan is laid out. She doesn’t sound angry or accusatory about it, but there’s a mistrust in the downturn of her mouth and hawkishness of her gaze that I can’t blame her for.
“Yes,” I answer simply, combating her suspicious stare with a bored once-over, dismissing any threat they might pose. The only time I’m afraid of heroes is when they’re trying to save me. I have zero interest in being anybody’s emotional support mission.
“You worked for OI,” Blue Storm says, and this time there is some acidic bite to her voice, the snap at the end of each word like a reprimand. “You helped him fight against us.”
“Yes,” I say. No point in trying to apologise for it.
I did it for my mum, and she was worth more to me than any consequence my actions might cause for other people.
In some ways, the world is probably quite lucky that she’s dead.
I’d need to be a lot less sober than I am now to feel anything but rage over that fact.
“But you’re working with FISA now?” This time it’s a question, not a statement.
I shoot a wicked smirk at Aaron, who doesn’t react to it, apparently in full handler mode and unable to emote just in case one of the supers thinks he’s a person with weaknesses or whatever the shit they teach at baby spy school.
“He seduced me into it,” I tell Blue Storm.
She turns her head slowly to arch an eyebrow at Aaron in moderate disbelief. I don’t know if that’s because she thinks it’s an absurd idea altogether, or if she just can’t imagine Aaron doing such a low thing as to use sex to manipulate someone into turning traitor.
Aaron decides to show off that he’s a real boy after all by not denying it and just staring back at Blue Storm until she gets uncomfortable and looks away.
Then he glances over at me and rakes his eyes up and down my slimmer body with absolutely nil percent subtlety at what that slow drag was meant to communicate.
But it can’t be for Blue Storm’s benefit, because she’s too busy having a silent conversation with Guardian via intense staring.
Heat ignites in my sternum, a crackling burst of sensation that spreads through my chest cavity like roots through earth, spindles of flame reaching out to wind around my ribs.
Aaron notices my reaction, and the slight upturn of his mouth indicates his smug satisfaction although there’s a hint of surprise on his face too, like he wasn’t expecting that kind of response from me.
It makes me wonder for a second if Aaron would consider fucking me if I let him know it was a real option, and I file that thought away for later inspection.
There have been very few people in my life who I’ve found interesting enough to bother with the often twisty and barbed results that come from acting on physical attraction.
I’m not ultimately sure, yet, if Aaron really is interesting enough, but he hasn’t been excluded either, which is an anomaly within itself.
Blue Storm doesn’t ask me anything else, and Guardian doesn’t speak at all.
She just watches all of us from the corner of the room, blending in with the shadows, her body so still and slight she’d disappear from view entirely if it weren’t for the stark whiteness of her face, like a mark of chalk on a blackboard.
With their help, infiltration of the facility is easy. Guardian flies each of us onto the roof of the building, and we enter from the top, making our way down, giving us the high ground as well as the benefit of surprise for every altercation with OI agents and guards.
Our thorough search of the facility comes to an end when we discover the parents of all three previously rescued children alive and able-bodied enough to aid in their own escape. They’re being kept in cells with electronic locks that require a passcode.
Blue Storm uses her lightning power to fry the system, making it far easier to break in the doors as well as avoiding triggering any alarms. Not that we’re overly worried by that at this point.
A group of Liquid Onyx survivors should be more than a match for however many OI personnel are roaming around the facility.
The parents, apart from looking a little worse for wear after being kept prisoner for however long they’ve been here, seem ready to fight their way out if they need to, especially once we reveal that their children are alive and waiting for them.
To be safe, Aaron sends Guardian back off to the roof with the parents so they can be flown to safety while we remain behind so we can search the rest of the facility for any other Liquid Onyx survivors.