Young Writers Society

I know it's a little small but it was the best place to stop the chapter.

Chapter 8

Sarah

Lamar turns around just in time to see the bubble disappear. He runs towards me anticipating me falling over in pain. I was right. I don’t hear the voices any more. When Lamar reaches me, the look on his face is priceless. First, there’s worry, but it soon gets replaced by confusion. I can’t help but laugh.

“How?” Lamar asks in a dumbfounded voice.

I smile sweetly up at him and say, “It seemed obvious to me once I had all the information I needed. With three viewpoints of a situation I was able to determine that I had already figured out how to stop the voices. You all just over reacted. I never needed to be put in the bubble.”

“But . . . you were writhing in pain . . . I don’t understand.”

“That was before my command. You see what happened is I mentally commanded you all to shut up. You and Marco would have automatically heard it because you both can hear my thoughts. Dylan was the one to put the bubble around me and once I saw the memory and heard his story I figured out that a mental command is all it takes. I can see if I can hear people’s thoughts if I think about it but I don’t want to test that right now. We have a group meeting to start. So now that that’s all settled, I am going to go get something to drink and we are all going to have a chat.” As I finish talking to Lamar I look around the room. With my reptiles on that wall and only two couches I should probably go down stairs and get a couple more chairs. “Hey Demitri, can you go down stairs and get the two rolling chairs that are in my office? And don’t go snooping around.”

“Yes, I can do that.” Demitri responds stoically like usual.

At the thought of my office, I start to think about work. It’s a good thing I don’t have actual office hours. I would be so screwed. I do have to finish my assignment though. I wonder if they left messages on my phone. I feel in my pocket for my phone. Where the hell is my phone?

“Lamar, did I have my phone with me when you guys took me to the compound?” I ask urgently.

“I don’t know. Why?”

As he says this I rapidly shift through my memories and find that I left it on my desk in the basement. I am about to breathe a sigh of relief when I remember who I was texting. In a hurry, I run down stairs and try to get to my phone. I get to the bottom step when I hear the tell-tale ringtone of my boss.

“Shit.” I say as I race towards Demitri and grab my phone from his hand. I answer it before it has a chance to ring again.

“Hello.” I say breathlessly.

“Where the hell have you been? I’ve called you hundreds of times over the past four days. Is there a reason you disappeared off the face of the earth?” My boss, Alessandro, screams.

“Yes there is a reason. I was chased and kidnapped by the government.” I say as I see Demitri leave the room wide eyed.

“What part of the government? You already work for us. Who the hell do I have to call and yell at now?”

“Look up my parent’s line of work. It was a facility under Lyons, not that far from you actually.” I pause while I think about the location of HQ, “What business is HQ under, and what street?”

“You really don’t remember?” Alessandro responds, disbelief evident in his voice

“I go in the back any time I come in. Now just answer the stupid question.”

“Fine! It’s under Subway, okay. I think its 303 Main.”

“Shit. We were in there earlier today. I was with a group of about four guys. Look at the security cams. I didn’t even think about it till just now. Do you know anything about them? The facility would have to be anywhere in a 5 block radius of HQ.”

“Give me a moment to look it up.”

As I can hear him pounding on his keyboard I can feel eyes on me. I turn around and see everyone in the stair well. I guess I’ll have to explain this too. I roll my eyes and wave them into the basement. We all stand there. It starts to get awkward so I start to pace, I get edgy just listening to the annoying clicking of his keyboard. Before I get the chance to express my irritation, Alessandro speaks.

“Um . . . shit.” I hear him say in a hushed voice.

“What?” I ask slightly irritated

“It’s started hasn’t it?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Has anything . . . strange . . . happened in the last few days?”

“You knew.” I state in disbelief. “How deep in this are you Alessandro?”

“Probably just as deep as you are.”

He has information I need and I am not doing this over the phone. “What are you doing right now?”

“Helping you, what else would I be doing?”

“Okay, meet me at the back of the facility. Don’t bring anyone with you, and tell them you will be back tomorrow.”

“Why?” He asks suspiciously

“Just do it, okay! I will be there momentarily.” I say right before I hang up on him. I look over to the Grimlock and am reminded that I still don’t know his name. “What is your name, by the way?”

“Ramos.” The Grimlock responds matter-a-factly

“Awesome, Ramos, you are going to transport me to the back of the Subway I was at earlier today. Can you transport more than one person at a time?”

“That should have minimal difficulty. You merely need to remember the place and it will take us there. That’s how I got us here. My home wouldn’t work, so I chose yours.”

“Well, that clears that up. Let’s go.” I walk towards him but before I can reach Ramos, Lamar grabs my arm and gets my attention.

“What’s going on, why are you going to Subway?” Lamar asks with a look of concern on his face.

“I’ll explain later. It will only take a few minutes.” Lamar takes his hand away and I make my way over to Ramos. He grabs my hand and transports us to the front of Subway. We try to hurry around back as not to cause panic due to his appearance. Yea, how much panic would it cause to have a grey spikey demon standing in the middle of Main Street. Tempting to find out. I shake the devious thought from my head and refocus on my purpose here.

“Why did you . . .” Alessandro starts saying until he sees Ramos, “Why the hell did you bring that thing here. It’s going to eat me!”

“He is not going to eat you. His name is Ramos and I brought him because he can teleport. Come on we have to go.”

“I’m not going with that thing! Are you crazy? That thing does worse things to people than my family is accused of!”

“Okay, I really don’t care right now. Stop being a wuss and get over here before I make you. You may be my boss but you have officially pissed me off.” Alessandro eyes Ramos, who has been standing stoically the whole time. He makes a show of taking slow calculative steps towards Ramos. After a few steps, I walk forward, grabbing his arm, and start pulling him over to Ramos so we can go. I unconsciously create the ribbon as pull him in front of me and let go of him. “Are you done with stupid stereotypes? Because if you aren’t I can make you regret it.”

“Fine.” He responds sheepishly.

I just roll my eyes at his response. “Okay Ramos, we can go back to the cabin now.”

Ramos transports us straight to the basement. I see that everyone is still here and they all turn to look at us when we appear. “Alessandro, everybody” I say gesturing towards the group in front of me, “Everybody, this is Alessandro, my boss who seems to know more about what’s going on than I do. First of all, thank you Demitri for putting those chairs upstairs. I think that it would be better if we reconvene there. I’ll bring drinks in before we start with the sharing of information. Second, I think we will start with Alessandro,” I smirk at him when I see his eyes get wide, “Since he seems to be the person with the most information at the moment.” When I feel him start to panic I roll my eyes and say, “Calm down, we only want you to explain what you know, and I know you know something otherwise you wouldn’t have said anything over the phone.”

“Yes, but I am only supposed to tell you. The repercussions could be dire if I tell other people.” Alessandro says in a hushed whisper.

“They will all know what you are saying seconds after you say it so it doesn’t matter either way.” I smell his worry but thankfully he concedes when he realizes that he won’t win this argument. I start walking up the stairs before I realize . . . I don’t hear his thoughts and I didn’t expel them. I turn around and look strait at him. “Why can’t I hear your thoughts?”

Stunned, he responds, “I don’t know. I just know what I am supposed to tell you and where one of your abilities came from. I don’t know the extent of your other abilities, that’s something your parents would know. After all they did prepare you for your destiny, at least they said they did.”

“You’re just as cryptic as Ramos is. Ugh, you annoying little man.” I say in frustration. I turn around and continue walking up the stairs. I ask them to lead Alessandro into the living room and sit while I get the drinks. I ponder being rude and serving everyone alcohol except Dylan (since he’s the only one under 21) but decide that it would be nicer if we all just had water. Since I had bottled water, I just grabbed one for everyone, put them in a plastic bag, and carried them out there. When I got out there, I noticed the chips from my destroyed coffee table were still on the floor. I really liked that table. Now I’ll have to go find a new one. I really don’t want to do that. Maybe I’ll just order one online. . . I am pulled out of my thoughts when someone clears their throat. I look up and realize I had been standing there for a while. I grab a bottle of water and hand the bag to Lamar, who is at my right, and tell him that there’s one for everyone and to take one and pass the bag on. Once everyone got a bottle I sat and said, “Okay, so where do we begin.”