Chapter 15 #2
“Why? Who are you? Why are you doing this? Why can’t you just leave me alone?”
“All of that will come soon enough. The Founders have been searching for you for a long time. Once you accept that this is where you should be, everything will go smoothly,” Diane said, smiling down at her before she turned, looked at the mirrored glass, and nodded.
“We’ll be back,” Oscar added, walking toward the door.
Kiki stared at the mirrored wall. The locking mechanism on the door click and the couple left, the door sealed with a hydraulic sigh.
The silence pressed down on her until it felt like the walls were moving. She huddled in the corner of the bed, her knees drawn to her chest.
She knew what was going to happen. Anne had explained it all to her—along with what she would have to endure.
“Time will begin to blur, but it’s both your friend and your enemy.”
“What do you mean?” she had asked.
“When they capture you, resist—but not too strongly or too long. You don’t want them to drain you.
Do what they tell you to do, but don’t reveal everything.
They won’t know exactly what you are capable of, never let them find out.
It will feel like forever. I won’t lie to you, it may take years before you can escape, but the moment you can—the moment you know that you can safely get away without them catching you—take it.
Don’t give up. Don’t grow lazy. You have to be smarter than them, Kiki.
Memorize these locations. There will be documentation and money hidden here.
Don’t write it down. Don’t think about it until you need it.
You’ll only get one chance, Kiki. One chance to be free. ”
Kiki suddenly realized that Anne had said ‘when’ not ‘if’ she was captured. The woman who had treated her like a daughter had known this day would come… and had done what she could do to prepare her.
Tears burned in Kiki’s eyes, and she buried her face against her knees. She was alone now. There was no Mama, Anne, or Father Bishop to save and protect her.
Time. I just need to be smart and wait.
Days blurred together after the first one. Her meals were left through a small slot, footsteps in the hall, the faint hum of machinery behind the walls. No one spoke to her. No one came the first two days.
She counted the drips from the leaky pipe above her bed.
She tried not to scream.
But sometimes she did anyway.
Because the room was too small.
The air felt too heavy.
She was too young to understand why the world had decided she was something to fear.
A week after she arrived, she decided she’d had enough. She wouldn’t let them control her. She would fight back in her own way.
Using the metal fork from her meal, she scratched a line in the metal frame of her bed to count the days. She had also given her prison a name—The Facility.
It was a place where the light in the room was never soft. It was bright white—so harsh it made her eyes sting. Where her small room smelled of death.
She learned quickly that crying only made things worse. When she felt like it, she would close her eyes and think of random things. Things like what else she could do that she would never reveal to the cameras and people behind the glass.
Her lips curved into a tiny smile. Secrets. My secrets.
She opened her eyes when the door opened and Diana entered. Diana came more than Oscar. She always wore heels that clicked on the concrete and a perfume that smelled too sweet, like rotting flowers.
“Good morning, Kiki,” she greeted in a singsong voice. “Ready to be helpful today?”
It wasn’t a question. It was never about if she was ready. It was about would she’d surrender. Kiki wondered if a week was long enough to pretend resistance without making them suspicious.
Diana rolled the familiar metal cart into the room. Machines blinked on top of it—screens with bright green lines, long wires that coiled like snakes.
Kiki sat on the cot, her small hands balled in her lap. Her eyes narrowed when three men entered behind her. The man in the middle was handcuffed, just like the ones before him.
The two men pushed him down into a chair in the corner.
She pulled her gaze away from the man’s terrified face and stared at Diana, wondering if she dared reach into the woman’s mind for answers about what they were trying to accomplish.
They already knew she could kill. Why prove it over and over by bringing different people to her room every day?
Diana smiled. “Are you ready, sweetheart?”
Kiki pursed her lips.
She gave a curt nod as a cold sweat washed over her when Diana glanced at the mirror and smiled before turning back to her. Kiki breathed through her nose, trying to quell the desire to strike out.
Her eyes locked with Diana’s as the woman attached cold pads to her skin—her temples, her wrists, the back of her neck. Kiki flinched when the machine hummed to life. A sharp sting raced up her spine.
Through the glass wall, shapes shifted—people in lab coats, faceless behind the mirrored surface. They were always there. Watching. Waiting. Probing.
Kiki could feel them in her head.
Like insects crawling behind her eyes. This was another ‘gift’ that had awakened as she lay there. The ability to ‘see’ people and things, sometimes before they happened. She had to be careful because she ‘sensed’ others who had similar gifts like hers.
There was one behind the glass. He was powerful and wanted to know what she could do.
He wanted to use her.
“Focus on the man in the corner,” Diana instructed.
Kiki looked up again, turning to look at the man.
He sat in the far corner, his hands cuffed behind his back, his eyes wild. The smell hit her before she saw the puddle spreading beneath the chair. His lips moved soundlessly, muttering prayers in a language she didn’t understand.
“No,” Kiki whispered, shaking her head, already knowing what they wanted her to do. “I told you, I won’t do it.”
“You know the rules,” Diana said, her tone still light but her eyes hard. “You don’t want me to press that pretty little button, do you?”
The bandage there itched constantly, a reminder of the device buried under her skin. The stitches were ready to be removed, but Diana hadn’t done so yet.
Kiki wanted to rip them out—to claw the device buried in her neck free—but she was too afraid. She had seen what they did when the others disobeyed. One a day for the past six days.
Behind the glass, someone shifted. The pressure in her mind grew sharper, invasive. She knew they were there. Testing her limits. Probing her thoughts.
Tears burned the corners of her eyes.
“Do it,” Diana ordered.
“I don’t want to,” Kiki mumbled.
“Do it!”
Her power flickered before she could stop it. The man gasped, jerking as an invisible force rippled under his skin. His scream tore through the sterile air.
“Good girl,” Diana cooed. “Again.”
Kiki’s body trembled. “No. Please. I can’t—”
“Again!”
Something inside her snapped.
“I said no!”
Her voice cracked like thunder. The lights overhead flickered and shattered. The machine on the cart sparked. The air thickened—alive with static, with fury.
Diana’s smile faltered.
Kiki rose to her feet, her tiny frame shaking with anger and fear. “You can’t make me! I don’t care what you do—I won’t hurt him anymore! My gifts weren’t meant for this!”
Diana’s expression twisted. She raised her hand. “You ungrateful little—”
“Enough.”
The voice cut through the room, deep and calm, so commanding that it stopped everything.
Even the air seemed to still.
The walls seemed to expand as the door hissed open. A man stepped through—a silhouette first, then a face Kiki didn’t recognize. His uniform was immaculate. His eyes, cold and unreadable.
He didn’t look at Diana. He looked only at Kiki.
“She’s done for today,” he said quietly.
“But, sir, we’ve just started—” Diana began.
He didn’t raise his voice, but the authority in it made Kiki’s stomach twist. “You’ll stand down, Diana.”
For a heartbeat, no one moved. Then, Diana lowered her hand, her jaw tight.
The man turned to Kiki. “You’re right,” he said softly. “Your gifts weren’t meant for this. But if you ever want to understand them… you’ll do what we ask. For now.”
His eyes lingered on her, assessing—calculating—before he turned back towards the door and exited. He murmured something to another man outside the doorway.
Kiki stood trembling, her fists clenched, the smell of ozone thick in the air.
She didn’t know his name—yet.
But she would learn it.
And she would never forget it.
Kiki stiffened when the door opened again.
The man who stepped inside wasn’t like the others.
He didn’t smell of antiseptic and fake kindness.
He didn’t wear a white coat or military uniform.
He wore a charcoal suit, perfectly pressed, and shoes that didn’t make a sound as he crossed the concrete floor.
But that wasn’t what made her stumble back.
It was the power—thick, invisible, humming in the air like static before lightning. She saw it—not with her eyes, but with the part of her that reached beyond the skin, where her gifts lived. It wrapped around him like smoke. Controlled. Contained. Deadly.
He stopped a few feet from her and lifted one hand.
An invitation to join him.
Come with me.
Kiki’s body tensed when she heard the thread of a voice in her head.
Every part of her screamed to stay rooted in place.
To pretend that she hadn’t heard him, but something else pushed her forward.
Not her feet—not entirely. A compulsion, subtle but powerful, began to nudge her will. She clenched her jaw.
No.
Her chin lifted in defiance.
A slow smirk curved his lips.
He didn’t speak. He didn’t need to. His amusement said everything—he liked her spark. It didn’t matter. He knew she’d follow.
And she did.
Each step was a quiet betrayal of her fear. Her bare feet padded across the cold floor as she followed him into the hallway. This was the first time she’d been allowed to leave that room since her capture.
She looked behind her.
The door hissed shut.
Through the small window in the door, she caught the last glimpse of Diana raising a small weapon, her expression twisted in fury.
Pfft.
The sound was soft—barely audible.
Her breath hitched as she glimpsed the room behind the one-way glass: two men in lab jackets had jumped to their feet. A third—the man who had ordered Diana to stand down—stood expressionless.
The man beside her simply continued walking as if nothing had happened. As if a man hadn’t just been murdered in cold-blood in the room where she was kept caged like an animal.
“He isn’t worth your sympathy. He was sloppy, disloyal,” he said calmly, not looking at her. “Unfit for their role. Your care requires a higher standard. You’ll learn to be grateful for that, in time.”
She said nothing.
“Diana and Oscar will now be your guardians. You can think of them as your mother and father if it helps,” he added, his tone coldly practical.
Kiki’s fists curled.
Mother? Father?
Her mother was dead.
Her father was a ghost her mom barely spoke of—an American soldier who didn’t care about anyone but himself.
Now, she was supposed to act like these people were her family?
Never.
Rage and grief collided inside her chest, but she swallowed them down like poison. He didn’t deserve to see it.
No one here did.
They passed through two security doors, deeper into the compound. The lights grew softer, the scent of pine replacing bleach and steel. She tracked each turn—left, right, long corridor, stairs—etching the path into her mind like a map she might one day need.
“You are special, Kiki,” the man said as they turned another corner. “The research being done here—our work—is to protect the world from chaos. You and the others… you’re the future. One day, you’ll understand.”
She bit the inside of her cheek to keep from screaming she would never understand why they would murder her mother—murder Anne and who knew how many others—just to gain power.
He stopped in front of a pair of reinforced glass doors guarded by two soldiers. A scanner passed over his face. The lock disengaged with a mechanical chime.
The doors opened.
Kiki blinked at the change.
Beyond the threshold was sunlight.
No… not real sunlight, she realized. But an illusion so good it made her eyes water. A massive atrium stretched out before her—lush with green vines, fruit trees, and flowering bushes. It looked like a jungle someone had tamed into something beautiful.
A false paradise.
A fountain bubbled in the center, its gentle music oddly soothing. A wooden swing hung nearby from a tree, and on the swing sat a young girl with hair the color of sunlight.
She was slightly older—maybe eleven. Her legs kicked gently, her head tilted, her eyes dreamy as she stared at the water. There was something about her that felt… steady. Strong.
Kiki’s heart panged.
Then a sharp presence pulled her gaze.
A tall, teenage boy with an olive complexion stood just beyond the fountain, half-shrouded in shadow. He was lean, with dark eyes and black hair cut short. His arms were crossed, and he watched her like a predator trying to decide if she was prey or a threat.
Their eyes locked.
The boy’s eyes narrowed—suspicion, mistrust—before his expression smoothed into indifference, and he shrugged and turned away.
The man beside her finally spoke again.
“Kiki, I’d like you to meet Brie.”
He gestured toward the girl on the swing.
“And that’s Eric. They are like you. Gifted in different ways, but still gifted.”
Neither child moved.
Brie looked up and offered a small, hesitant smile. Kiki felt her breath catch. Somewhere deep in her chest, the first spark of something new stirred.
Not hope.
Not yet.
But… possibility.
The man placed a hand on her shoulder. It was meant to be reassuring.
It wasn’t.
“Welcome to your new life… and your new family.”