Franklin (Mutants #9)

Chapter One

“Your form’s off.”

Franklin looked up from where he was trying a disarming technique to find one of the younger mutants staring at him with open skepticism. The kid couldn’t be more than nineteen, but he had the eyes of someone who’d seen too much.

He probably had to be a mutant at his age. Franklin had spent enough time working in labs to know what this guy had gone through. That was why he tried not to be offended by the kid’s tone. He was angry and scornful, which made sense. He’d been through too much for his age already.

“It works,” Franklin said evenly, even though his stomach twisted.

The kid was right. Franklin’s technique was more street fighting than proper training.

He’d learned it to survive. He’d had to when he decided to find his siblings.

There hadn’t been a choice or time for him to get training.

He’d known that the longer they stayed in the labs, the worse off they would be.

His stomach churned. Both of them were still in some lab, away from Franklin, going through God knew what. There was nothing Franklin could do for them, not from where he was, although the chances of him finding them had definitely gone up since he’d decided to work with the tribe.

He just wasn’t sure the tribe wanted to work with him.

“If you say so.” The kid turned away, but Franklin caught the word he muttered as he walked away. “Guard.”

Franklin had been a guard. He couldn’t deny it, and he didn’t want to.

Anyone who knew him was aware of the fact that his siblings were trapped in a cage right now, and that the only reason Franklin had worked for the Glass Research Company was to find them.

He still hadn’t, but the people who spoke to him with scorn didn’t seem to care about that.

Hell, Franklin wasn’t sure this kid even knew about them.

It wasn’t like he went around pouring his heart out about his lost siblings and how sad he was over their loss.

He gritted his teeth. He didn’t owe this kid or anyone else an explanation.

The only people he owed anything to were his siblings, Rikar, and Moore, since they were the leaders of the tribe and the mutants.

They knew why Franklin had done what he’d done, and they’d still welcomed him into the tribe. That was good enough for Franklin.

Or at least, it was good enough for him most days.

Sometimes, though, knowing that most people around him hated him made him feel hollow.

He hadn’t expected to find a home here, or even friends, and he was used to being alone, but he kind of wished people wouldn’t keep staring at him like they wanted to kill him, even if they did.

He understood where they were coming from, and he didn’t blame them.

He was pretty sure he’d feel the same way about any guard he might meet.

The guards might not be the ones hurting the people who ended up in those cages—or at least, they shouldn’t be—but they didn’t do anything to help, either.

They stood by as the scientists hurt people, they dragged shifters and humans in and out of cages, and they were paid to do it—and pretty well, too.

Franklin’s skin prickled every time he thought about the money in his bank account.

He wanted to set all of it on fire, down to every single cent, but he couldn’t.

He needed that money to find his siblings, and he’d probably need even more once he did find them.

He knew enough about the labs to be sure that Garrett and Leah would need a lot of help once he found them.

Franklin probably wouldn’t be able to work for a bit, and while technically, he belonged with the tribe now, he wasn’t sure they’d be on his side.

As long as Franklin could convince them to help his siblings, he didn’t care what they thought of him, though.

Well, mostly. He did wish he had someone to talk to who wouldn’t talk back in a tone that made it clear they wouldn’t spit on him if he was on fire.

But either people were afraid of him, or they despised him for what he’d done, and he couldn’t blame them.

A lot of the time, he despised himself for it.

He’d had to stand by and watch people being hurt, and he hadn’t been able to do anything to help them because he would’ve blown his cover if he had.

He’d chosen his siblings over countless hurting people, and the memories still made it hard for him to sleep at night.

Still, he wouldn’t do anything differently, even if he had to redo all of this. His main focus was his siblings, and while he felt sorry for everyone else involved, they weren’t his priority. They couldn’t be.

“Well, that was rude,” a voice said to him.

Franklin turned to look at Davey, who was frowning at the kid from earlier.

The kid was now talking to a group of three other kids who seemed barely older than he was.

The thought of what had happened to all of them made Franklin’s stomach churn.

Since they were here, it meant they’d been experimented on.

It meant they’d been turned into mutants.

That didn’t happen to everyone who spent time in those labs, but the scientists had made a lot of progress over the past few decades.

Before, they’d just managed to turn humans into shifters.

Now, they were turning them and shifters into super shifters, giving them incredible abilities that made Franklin’s mind spin.

Davey, for example, could manipulate water.

Franklin had seen him do it, and it was really fucking impressive.

It was like watching a real-life superhero, but Franklin was pretty sure that Davey didn’t feel like a superhero.

He shrugged, hoping he looked like he didn’t care much. “Maybe so, but he wasn’t wrong. My form does suck.”

“It doesn’t have to be good. As long as it’s enough for you to defend yourself, I’d say it’s a good way to fight. That kid should know it. You don’t always have time or opportunity to keep your form perfect. If he tries to do that, he’s going to end up beaten, or worse.”

Davey wasn’t wrong, but Franklin wasn’t about to explain that to the kid. He might have agreed to help train the youngest recruits, but that was mostly because he felt he owed it to the tribe and to Moore. He had no idea what he was doing, and most of these people didn’t respect him.

He was glad when he was finally able to leave.

He could feel people watching him, and it made his skin prickle with unease.

He wanted to go straight home to the tiny cottage he’d been offered, but he knew his fridge was empty, and if he wanted to eat, he needed to find food.

That unfortunately meant going to the grocery store.

The village grocery store was quiet at three in the afternoon.

Franklin preferred it that way because it meant he had fewer people to avoid eye contact with, and fewer forced conversations where he’d see that flicker of distrust in their expression.

It wasn’t only the mutants who disliked him.

It was also a lot of people in the tribe.

From what he’d been told, while most of the people the tribe had rescued from the labs over the decades had gone back home to their families, some had chosen to stay with the tribe and become tribe members.

There was no way for Franklin to know which one of the people around him had spent time in the labs and which hadn’t, and since he didn’t want to hurt anyone, that meant he had to keep his distance from most people.

He was okay with that, and he was pretty sure that the people around him were, too.

Never mind that he’d only taken the job at the labs to find Garrett and Leah and that he’d hated every second.

The uniform he’d worn was enough to point him out as an enemy, and he would have to learn to deal with it.

He probably would never be happy at the village, but he didn’t need to be.

The village would be the best place for his siblings to recuperate once he found them, which meant that he wasn’t going anywhere.

He could deal with the isolation, but the people around him would have to learn to live with him.

He wasn’t sure they could.

Franklin grabbed a basket and headed for the produce section, his mind already planning dinner for one. He almost slammed into someone coming up the aisle, and he quickly stepped back, not wanting to antagonize them. To his surprise, the man smiled at him. “Hey, Franklin.”

It took Franklin a second to remember the man’s name. “Matthew.”

Matthew grinned at him as if they were friends. It was confusing. “We haven’t had time to talk since you moved into the village. How about we grab a drink later?”

Franklin blinked. If he hadn’t known that Matthew had a mate, he would’ve thought the man was coming on to him. “Why?”

Matthew blinked. “Why do I want to grab a drink with you? Because I’d like to talk to you and get to know you.”

That confused Franklin even more, although maybe it shouldn’t have. Matthew knew why Franklin had done what he’d done and had clearly taken it to heart. He was offering Franklin an olive branch.

Franklin decided to take it.

* * * *

REED TOOK NOTE OF THE make and model of the car that drove through the facility gates. He’d already written down the plate number, and he’d check all of it later, but he was too busy to focus on the people coming and going from the facility right now.

They were never good people. Good people had no place in these labs. The only good people there were the ones in the cages, and they weren’t coming out of there anytime soon.

That was why Reed was there. He didn’t know how to free these people, but he knew that he needed more information.

He wanted to know everything that happened in this lab because having information meant it would be easier for him to free the people.

Unfortunately for him, he was only one man, and he couldn’t work miracles, even with his ability.