Chapter Twelve

Revelation

It was with pressing concern that the four of them—and Cesium in sleep mode—made their way back to the tent. Aden had bruised his arm disastrously during his fall when he was with Charlotte, but as they walked, the pain seemed to ebb him back into consciousness. They were all exhausted from rowing the drifter to Spiro. But from the remnants of the tropical storm, trying to scour a humid forest full of dangers, twists, and turns for a robotic Great Dane and somehow managing to get split up in a mudslide, it was no wonder they had not passed out on their feet.

Charlotte, on the other hand, kept looking over her shoulder to the cavern they had just been lifted from. She had seen stones decorating the walls but did not know how to address them. It was one thing if everyone was in top shape and stable to mention them, but she decided it was in everyone’s best interests to come back when they were rested and properly looked after.

Keeping the information to herself was not as hard as she thought it would be. No one mentioned anything about the cavern as they maneuvered through the bedrock made with a makeshift palisade.

“I noticed this on our way in from the southeast side that most of this path was man-made, meaning there is probably some village or town nearby,” Damien examined the palisade with his hand on his chin.

“It’s relatively in good shape too,” Aden—dark and gloomy as he normally was—muttered in front of the group.

“That must mean they have maintenance on this path at least monthly or biweekly at best. If you look at the intricate floor slabs they have installed, you can see where it was cemented in,” Damien was on his haunches as he replied while examining the floor. 

Xavier gazed over his shoulder to see Charlotte wandering slightly away from the three of them. “Hey, Charie!” 

The boys glared at Xavier when he called the girl this, and he amended himself. “I mean Charle. I didn’t mean any disrespect.”

“Huh?” Distracted, Charlotte shrugged her shoulders. “You’ve been calling me ‘bestie’ and Lottie this whole entire time, and you’re getting flustered from calling me Charie?” She chuckled before explaining to them with an amused expression.

“Charie was my nickname since I was a kid, but I know when Charie was made.” She paused before she excitedly turned her attention back to the boys. “Sorry, you may not know her since it was Olivia’s first invention. Charie was a makeshift droid that she made to babysit my younger brother when she and I had to go to school. My brother kept calling her Charie, so it stuck too. I really loved her. I wonder if she’s still in storage.”

The three of the boys stood uncomfortably in their silence while the girl continued her pace a couple of steps away. 

It took Xavier a few moments before swallowing the huge lump in his throat to respond back. “Just be sure not to go too far away, okay? We’ll be discussing what our next actions will be.”

“Mmm hmmm,” Charlotte responded absentmindedly to the men’s obvious discomfort. She figured they were probably concerned about the lack of traffic coming from maybe a nearby village of men and women.

Normally, she would have tagged along in the conversation, adding in that the technology was far ahead based upon what she had seen with the palisades, but her mind was far too jumbled to have a working conversation. She was too busy kicking some small stones off the path into the tiny divots, and then she decided to walk slightly ahead of the group. They had stopped walking to investigate the origin of the stones now, and that was something Charlotte was not interested in.

Besides, she was still thinking back to the last twenty minutes of being in the cavern with Aden alone. The steamy look, how soft he pressed his lips to her skin, only to add some slight bit of urgency, how she was lost in his touch.

Out of focus, she ran into one of the brothers as she rounded the corner. “I am so sorry!” Her brain felt that something was out of order, but she nonetheless apologized. If it was Aden she ran into, that would have been mortifying for her and her nerves. But for some reason, she felt that no one should have been in front of her. She did recall passing by the group briefly.

Turning her eyes up to the male, she immediately recognized that it was definitely not Aden. “’Ello, Poppet.”

“What’s a wee lass like yourself doing in these parts?”

“Is that a robot dog?”

“Looks to me like we found our stragglers,” another replied with a sneer.

“Oh, goodie, we have ourselves some more specimens,” the one farthest away from the group of ten men merely uttered and motioned the men by Charlotte to capture her.

It had to be a hoard of men with drawn swords, daggers, and rifles. Some were wearing the state’s uniform, and oddly enough, some were wearing what the pirates normally wore. 

“You have got to be kidding me!” Charlotte replied with exasperation. Rowing, losing a robot dog, getting exhausted and injured to the point of breaking down, and now this.

۞ ۞ ۞ ۞ ۞ ۞ ۞ ۞

The accommodations that were given to her were just about as bad as she thought they were going to be. She was placed in a tiny cell with a creaky cage door that locked on the outside using an old bolted lock. The other three guys were indicated in their own cells just like Charlotte’s. Xavier was placed in the cell right beside Charlotte while Damien was placed directly in front of her. The cell in front of Xavier’s belonged to Aden who had taken this time to pass out on the cot their captives graciously provided.

“Why were those state officials and pirates working together?” Damien spoke aloud to the group, hoping his inquiry would get more of a response. 

It was an eerie feeling that they were captured by both parties working for the same side.

“I think everything flip-flopped after the Cheric estate incident with the revealing of Charie being Charlotte,” Xavier replied sullenly before a clanking sound was heard from his cell. “Damn, this door won’t even budge.”

“Wait, you guys know about Charie? Here I thought she was still in storage! Why didn’t you stop me from explaining earlier?” Charlotte asked before frowning. “Wait, why did she reveal herself as me?” The girl became concerned, and a long silence filled the prison block. “Was that why Olivia’s home was attacked? Because Charie said she was me?”

“Not exactly—” Damien muttered from his cell.

“Not exactly what, Damien?” the girl countered just as fast, and this allowed Xavier to see how left out the girl had been from everything that had happened.

No one told her of how they received the three stones from Olivia, how they maintained their powers, how the attack was a ruse to smoke out the rats within the state. No one told her that Zaine killed Charie, thinking it was her. No one told her that someone higher up wanted her dead.

“What happened to Charie? Why isn’t she with Olivia anyway? What happened?”

Xavier interrupted quickly, “It’d probably be best to save such talk for when we’re safe.”

Damien caught Charlotte’s eyes as she made contact with him. Ashamed, he averted his gaze to the floor. “The state has people higher up who would like to see us all dead, Lionsheart. Please know that we’re not trying to withhold information from you. There just wasn’t enough time.”

“Dead . . .” she whispered turning so that her profile was the only thing Damien could see. “My uncle really did have those Relic stones then? But how did Olivia wind up with them?”

Xavier sighed, knowing that this conversation was not going to be changed. “Your uncle had something that dealt with the Relic stones, yes. That is why he was probably targeted like he was. You, on the other hand, saw who attacked your estate and survived a seemingly fatal drop off the cliff. We know Zaine and Claire were there, but there was probably someone who was affiliated with the state that either led or assisted in the assault. As for the stones, we don’t know how she received them.”

Charlotte frowned at the information. “Zeke said it was his twin. He is skilled in fencing, swordplay, and martial arts.” 

Xavier and Damien jolted in their places.

“What?” Damien yelped.

“His twin? Who is his twin?” Xavier asked in turn. 

And the older gent with the moon-and-stars tattoo continued with his barrage of questions, “Did you get a name?”

“No—wait Giselle said Viktor. Does that help?” Charlotte raked her brain for the memories for that night. She barely remembered much of that night, and even then, it was foggy. She only remembered his visage with coffee brown eyes and sneering expression. She mistook Zeke for her assailant, only to find out that it was not him but his twin brother. She pondered that for a few minutes.

“We’re back to square one again,” Xavier said with a heavy sigh. “There’s plenty of Viktor’s in the world.”

Damien lightly threw a rock in the direction of Xavier’s cell. 

Xavier grimaced, giving his only response right back, “Would you knock it out with the rock throwing? You’re going to take someone’s eye out!”

“Who can we even trust?” Charlotte wondered. She wasn’t paying attention to the brothers as she looked absentmindedly forward, unsure of who they could rely on. Zeke had said that she should be wary of those around her, and now she has to watch out for those who are within the state as well. “Those pirates are in league with the state’s officials. How does any of this make sense?” Thinking to herself, she added, Zeke informed me that the state wants to get more stones out to experiment with, but the original stone is with Mom.

The blond picked up a pebble from the ground before tossing it at the third bar on his cell door. “I know it has to do with the Relic stones.” He sighed before rubbing his fingers together in a circular motion. “Cheric discussed the possibility of the state making the stones and distributing them to the pirates to create havoc. My question now is how all of that ties into this place we are being held captive.”

Xavier nodded his head in agreement. “Yes, it does seem off that Spiro suddenly sprouted a new building. The geography of this terrain is harsh, and it is really incapable of supporting infrastructure for long. You guys saw what happened on the path near the mountain. My hunch is that these guys are in league with Zaine.”

“Who happens to be one of the pirates who want me dead,” Charlotte stated in a tense tone, “and is trying to get their hands on the Relic stone so that they can give that to the state.” Without missing a beat, her mind quipped, Who also is in league with Zeke’s lookalike twin, and they all—including Zeke—are looking for my mother who is a part of some program called the Protectors that is protecting the original Relic stone.

Damien sighed when silence overcame them. “We need to get back to the Phoenix as soon as possible. I think it would be in our best interests to lay down all the facts and be on the same page. I, for one, would like to know the intentions of our next move. Nielsen sent us here to Spiro for a reason, and I think it may have been to find this place.”

Xavier scratched his head underneath his beanie. “I don’t know what this trip was for. Aden was the one who read the assignment and then hid it from prying eyes. I honestly thought it was so we could have fun exploring on the drifter with Charlotte to get her mind off things that happened with Zeke.”

Charlotte shook her head. “Zeke informed me that a client paid him to give me the information that he did. Someone must be watching to know exactly where I was specifically, but what is strange is that I received a box saying that it was from my uncle. What on earth is going on?”

This time, it was Xavier who slammed his hands on the bars of his cell door. 

“What the hell’s your problem, Xavier?” Damien replied with wide azure eyes.

Xavier was the only one unnerved by the fact that the raven-haired kempt boy was sleeping as if being captured by pirates was something he was used to.

“I need to learn his secret because seriously, look at him!” Xavier was hanging his arms out from the bars; one hand in particular was pointing directly at Aden’s cell. 

Charlotte who was anxiously sitting on her own cot looked up to see Damien give her a reassuring smile from his own cell.

“I am sure he knows we are not in any immediate danger since he is sleeping soundly.” The blond plopped down on his cot before leaning his back to the brick mortar behind him. “In my opinion, I think this is going to be the best sleep we could have gotten rather than in the tent.”

“Is that so?” a new voice emerged from the depths of the dark dungeon. “I am glad to hear the accommodations are fitting for our guests.”

Charlotte snapped her attention to the front of her cell where a stout man with a monocle on his left eye appeared. He was dressed in a dress suit with a ruffled collar puffed out at the nape of his neck. The smirk on his face was an evident indication that he was proud of his accommodations, despite the fact that his guests were unwilling to be held within those spaces.

“And who are you?” Xavier waved his right hand, indicating the new arrival with packets of paper in his arms. “I don’t recall a fat man running any pirate operations in these parts.”

Charlotte saw the wince the man made at the comment but did not bother to correct Xavier’s speech. If she were as upset as he was for being in the cell, she’d have acted the same way. Luckily, she was too exhausted to really do anything.

“I am no pirate, boy,” the man sneered before looking to his right where Charlotte was positioned. “You three in particular are in for a treat, especially since the state has you down for treason.” The man dropped a boatload of the papers he had in his arm on the ground with head shots of everyone currently aboard the Phoenix. His hand was positioned on the waistband where a ring full of keys were located. “Odd enough, I could not find a warrant for her.”

Damien decided it best to intervene before the man could stare any longer at Charlotte. “Treason? On what grounds?” The stout man turned his head a quarter to peer at Damien. “No need to drag her into this situation.”

“You three facilitated an attack on Chiariotti’s main estate and murdered the esteemed,” Jonas Werslithe gave a disgusted snarl before uttering her name aloud, “Charlotte Rothschild, even though she was requesting assistance in the protection of her uncle’s memento. You three then deserted your posts with your chums after being given personal instructions to fight the pirates.” The stout man instructed as if that was the truth of the sentence and that was that. 

Damien and Xavier jumped up to object the reason. Aden merely sat up gazing unfazed.

“Are you out of your bloody mind, wonker?” Damien gaped. “We didn’t murder Charlotte!” 

A stone was thrown from the cell a few feet away from where Jonas was standing. The stone ricocheted off the metal bar in Xavier’s cell, effectively bringing Werslithe’s attention to the stone thrower.

A cold voice came from Aden’s cell. “Charlotte was murdered by Zaine.”

“Serves the bitch right for sticking her nose where it shouldn’t have been. It must be some trait of theirs . . .” Jonas replied darkly before taking a look at the girl. He gave her a pointed look before narrowing his eyes. “Odd indeed.”

Aden threw two more rocks out of his cell, each one precisely and accurately hitting the metal bar of his brother’s cell. The pebbles each elicited a different sound, one of which caught Xavier’s attention.

The older brother shifted contact to his youngest sibling before turning toward Jonas. It took seven other pebbles to connect to the metal for Xavier to gather his brother’s message.

Glaring, the warden walked over to Aden’s cell. He paid no mind  to what he was doing, but became furious that he was making a mess out of his dungeon. As Jonas walked, he raised his chin up high to make those in the cell seem inferior.

Then when he came into range of Aden’s cell, a rock precisely hit the warden’s right temple. Anger was the most evident emotion the warden was experiencing as he reached behind his belt loop for his keys and a remote control. “Need I teach you manners each time we meet, boy?” 

Everyone went silent as the two exchanged dark looks. Confused, Charlotte stared out of her darkened cell to see the warden open Aden’s cell. She thought Aden would have knocked the warden out but he had not. 

Xavier grimaced when he saw Jonas Werslithe press the button on a remote control. Shortly thereafter Aden clutched his head in agony. “What the hell is he doing to Aden?”

Charlotte began to shove onto her cell door, but Damien stopped her with a look. It was pleading her to not aggravate things further. He gripped his cell bars to the point his knuckles whitened. 

Two guards came down the stairwell from the facility. They walked in conjunction with each other before they turned right into Aden’s cell. Walking around Jonas, they grabbed Aden’s forearms and dragged him out.

“Wait! Where are you taking him?” Charlotte yelled out, while Xavier banged onto his own cell to stop what the guards were doing.

Damien outstretched his hand out to grasp one of the guard’s arm passing by, but he felt the cold sting of electrocution as Jonas brought the remote onto Damien’s hand.

“Welcome to the facility. I am the warden of this fine establishment you four have been acquainted with: Jonas Werslithe. You have two rules to follow under my facility, and that is this: do not disobey any order given to you and—”

Xavier interrupted him with a question that had been gnawing all of them earlier, “What is this facility’s objective? Why is there a need to have such a thing?”

Snapping his beady black eyes to the male, he snarled, “That is none of your business, and if you would like to keep that tongue, I would suggest you shut up.” His harsh Kelian accent was accentuated near the end of his statement.

“Second and most important to remember in my facility is that you will not speak unless spoken to.” He heard a scoff from Xavier’s cell but continued on with the harshest of glares. “Tomorrow is the day you meet death’s treacherous villains. I am sure hell will welcome you in its arms by daybreak.”

Charlotte could see the sparks flying between Damien’s and Xavier’s cells as the stout man directed his attention to each of their cells. Finally, it seemed that they met a quiet consensus because the man with the keys moved his hands to behind his back. He then silently walked up the stairwell where Aden had been dragged out.

۞ ۞ ۞ ۞ ۞ ۞ ۞ ۞

The murmuring of Xavier and Damien continued drifting into the space of Charlotte’s cell. She was quietly waiting for anyone or anything to occur in their small confined space, but other than their guest, they had received no other notions.

“We need to find out what the guard schedule is going to be. When does their cycle end? When does their new rotation begin for new guards?” The tallest male in the group fiddled for the twentieth time on the lock pad attached to the metal bars.

Damien was leaning forward on his left knee while his right shin was parallel to the ground. He looked ready to pounce at the wall, but he did not move a muscle. It appeared to Charlotte that the blond male was mentally preparing himself. “I can tell they are barely changing the guard rotations. The ground is too cold to signify a rotation in this area.”

“That’s fortunate for us,” Xavier remarked with a smile before shaking the lock pad on the metal door handle. “We will be out in no time if I can get this blasted lock undone. Then we can rescue the damsel and be on our way.”

Damien merely shook his head before taking a glance to his right. Aden’s cell had hardly had any life to it since they arrived. “I hope that Aden is all right.”

“He planned for that to happen, so I assume he knew what he was getting into.” Xavier pulled his attention away from opening the door to looking straight ahead to the cell. Xavier blew out some air from his parted lips. “That was strange that he got electrocuted from the remote though. I wonder if it was a taser or something.”

“It was some rod contraption.” He raised his hand up so that Xavier could see the burnt electrified part on the top of his hand. “‘Painful’ is putting it lightly.”

“No, that’s not what shocked him,” Xavier replied suddenly, thinking back. “He was grasping his head around his ears like this.” He demonstrated for Damien to see. “Could he have sensitive ears or something?”

Damien gave his own puzzled look. “Grabbing his ears? That doesn’t seem right.”

Charlotte was quietly mulling over everything that she had just discovered. Charie died. Died because of Zaine because he thought she was her, and now her friends who had helped her were being charged with treason for murdering her. How did it come to this?

How did Zaine kill me? Charlotte stopped to think about the facts that were just given. Earlier, they said Charie revealed herself as Charlotte Rothschild. Zaine killed Charie thinking it was her. I think I’m going to be sick.

Without much to see, Charlotte dropped her shoulders and tried her hardest not to think about the gruesome details. “Aden is strong. Let’s just hope he is all right by the time we get to him.” Charlotte sighed before dropping her hand from the bars. “In fact, he probably will come by and rescue us instead. Then for the hell of it, he’ll give us that infamous cocky and frowny face he always does.” She then attempted to copy what she assumed his face would be. 

Damien, surprised at her attempt of copying Aden, burst out chuckling before falling back onto the wall behind him. “I doubt that even he would have such an expression, Lionheart!” Damien shook his head at the thought while Xavier pointed at another cell with an index finger. “Xav, what is it?”

“I wonder if they are going to skin us alive, kill us executioner style, or let us rot down there in the cells forever.” 

Damien gave him a quizzical look from the random observation. “Why’d you think that?”

Xavier grimly remarked, “Because there’s a couple of rotting corpses in the cells adjacent to where Aden’s was. They look fresh.”

Charlotte shivered. “That’s deplorable. Who would sentence someone to death and leave them to rot in the dungeons?”

Damien shook his head. “The sick kind.” Regardless, it still left all their thoughts with gruesome deaths to picture in either event.

Damien got up from his sitting position to walk over to the entrance of his cell to lean out his arms and head on the cool iron bars. “Blasted lock! If only one of us had a pick or something.”

The girl with brunette hair fumbled with her bag and then her shorts’ hemline before blustering out a response. “I thought I packed something like that here somewhere.” She looked, but nothing popped up. Cesium roused from its sleep to rub its eyes with its paws. “Cesium, sorry to bother you when you were sleeping, but could you help me search for the lockpick?”

The Great Dane blinked a couple of times before nodding its head. When it stopped nodding its head, it wagged its tail and stuck its nose into her bag. Two seconds later, the robot pulled out the lockpick kit that was buried underneath everything. Damien watched with horrid fascination as the robot magically produced the kit. 

“Bloody hell!” 

Charlotte watched in a similar fashion to Damien.

Cesium barked happily and handed over the kit to the girl. 

“Good puppy,” she replied and reached into her back pocket. There she had a velvet pouch full of pseudo glass bones for treats. “Here you go.” She gave the dog the treat, and it happily munched on its glass bone.

“Char, Cesium is not a puppy,” Xavier replied with a bemused remark before leaning his body against the bars.

“Slightly disturbed” was the only way Damien could feel about this situation, but at least they had the lockpick. 

“Thank you, Cesium!” the girl replied without hesitation and then positioned herself in front of the cell door.

With the face of concentration and focus, she brought one of the picks out and fiddled with the lock. She scrunched her face up a couple of times, trying to get the lock to click open, but even she had difficulty.

“Try twisting the pick to the right a little,” Damien explained, gripping his bars.

The girl did as she was told, but the lock was still being stubborn. “Stupid lock. Jakob didn’t tell me I’d have to open locks until much later.” She growled lightly before attempting at the lock again.

The walls shook with a ferocity that shocked the inhabitants within the dungeon. Sirens began to ring as dirt shifted from the ceiling and stairwell.

Auburn hair disheveled, hands hurting from blisters, and dirt admonishing her face, Charlotte calculated her chances of opening the door. With her luck, their chances were not too swell.

“What the hell was that?” Damien remarked with concern.

“Sounded like an explosion.” Xavier became alert.

“Lionsheart, toss me the pick. I’ll unlock mine and get everyone’s after that,” Damien urged, but before Charlotte could pass the pick over, the foundation shook from yet another explosion.

Suddenly, dirt and dust fell from the ceiling in Charlotte’s cell as a block from her cell fell abruptly. Charlotte, surprised by the shift, snapped her back to the holding cell door while keeping her attention at the ceiling. Damien jumped up from the floor in his cell and approached the bars of his own cell. His grip was tight on the bars as he watched the phenomena happening in the girl’s cell.

Two pairs of feet appeared from the ceiling before plummeting into the cell entirely. Surprised, shocked, and bewildered, Charlotte looked over her shoulder to Damien and could hear Xavier shuffling in her neighboring cell to figure out what was going on.

“I guess that means we’re the damsels being rescued,” Damien said finally as Aden merely walked over to her cell door so he could open the door with the pick.

“Better you all than me. Scat, damsel, I need some room.”

She gaped at the male as he walked past. Both his ears were bleeding because he, or perhaps someone else, had ripped off his earrings. “You’re injured.” She gaped. He ignored her all the while Xavier was complaining in his cell next door.

“What the hell?” Xavier guffawed before continuing, “You said you had it under control, and look at you! Bestie, kick him in the shin for me!”

Aden popped the lock on the door with a solid click and proceeded to exit. He then ignored Xavier’s quip and made for Damien’s cell. “We don’t have time for nonsense. We probably have twenty minutes to get out before some of those guards wake up.”

Charlotte rushed out of her cell with an alerted Cesium following after. Aden had just finished unlocking the door for Damien and then moved over to Xavier’s cell last.

“What the hell is happening upstairs?” Xavier pointed up at the ceiling that shook violently the third time with a loud burst of sound.

Aden merely clicked the cell door open and peered back at the person in the cell. “Cheric gave me a prototype bomb.”

“Fascinating,” Charlotte replied before gazing at Cesium next to her. “All her inventions are so productive and resourceful! Did you know that she made Charie from scratch too?”

Damien stared into his partner’s cell before frowning. “I think it’s best if we move on now.”

“Yeah—I’m sorry,” Charlotte murmured and went to stroking Cesium on top of its head.

It took another heartbeat for them to recover their wits in the hall. Xavier was finally out of his cell and, sensing the dark atmosphere from Charlotte, decided to ask Aden about his whereabouts. “Where did you have the time to set off a bomb when you were taken away?”

“A couple of guards who didn’t know who they were messing with and two seconds of peace,” Aden merely scoffed at the question before walking over to the door heading toward the stairs. “If you want to stay here for the execution guys, continue with the twenty questions. I, for one, would like to get out.” 

And with that, the five of them left the holding block and entered the facility.

۞ ۞ ۞ ۞ ۞ ۞ ۞ ۞

Sirens greeted the group with each corner they passed. White linoleum and white plaster walls with red flashing lights stretched forward and around as they maneuvered through the building. Apparently, finding an exit was easier said than actually done, and it was evident that everyone was at their limit. From all the excitement from surviving the jungle to cave, it was another to be completely submerged in enemy territory. Earlier, they had passed multiple guards and scientists knocked out, unconscious, or dead by the holding cells.

Aden explained that while the warden’s guards were giving him a warm welcome with their fists, he had managed to escape and set off the bombs. It was easier to understand how he did it when he pulled out a laser pocketknife, created again by Olivia, from his pocket.

Around the time he finished explaining, Charlotte stopped walking down the white halls and burst into tears. The thoughts of Charie dying in some unknown way weighed heavily in her mind. Cesium nuzzled its head into the crook of her arm, trying to comfort her despite just being woken up.

“Charie . . .” Xavier remarked and pinched the bridge of his nose. It appeared the brothers were not good at handling ladies who cried. “I’m sorry, okay? I know all of this is hard to comprehend. I can’t even begin to fathom what we’ve all been through.”

Damien moved over to Charlotte’s side and beckoned the awakened Cesium over to him. She reluctantly let the robot go and wrapped her arms around her.

“Damsel, we don’t have time for this. Keep walking,” Aden replied before pushing them onward. The smoke was billowing from a couple of research rooms nearby that he had set off with spare flares.

And while they were running, she bumbled through her words, “I remember Charie coming to life. Olivia was determined to make a robot that would be sentient just like a human. Further, she created it to make others smile. She claimed that if she could make the world greater, one smile at a time, she had done her job.” She wiped the tears off her cheeks. “She was a friend, babysitter, tutor, expert, teacher, guide, advisor, and mediator—pretty much everything you could picture. The only thing I never understood was why she resembled me.”

She peered down at her hands that were now shaking. “Did Olivia see this happening to her invention? I’m sure she wouldn’t have let it happen if she were better prepared. How—” She stopped to gaze at Aden. Out of all the guys, she knew he would be the most direct. “How did she die?”

Aden closed his eyes for some seconds before grunting. He was reliving the moment every single time he closed his eyes throughout the last couple of weeks. Even though he knew Charie was not a real sentient being, he still couldn’t think of the alarming image of blood seeping from her chest or the smile that she gave him before she whined her last gear.

“She died trying to stop Zaine from killing me.”

Damien interjected midway, “Aden, you—”

Aden cut him off just as abruptly. “She died because I was too powerless to protect anyone. It was a harsh reminder that I am still young and inexperienced.”

“If you think for a second you’re going to take all the blame in this, Aden, you have another thing coming!” Damien surprisingly raised his voice out of character. “I told her to help you. If anyone is to blame, it’s me! I should have left the bloody door and come to your aid! I let her die too!”

Xavier shook his head at this comment. “I don’t think Charie would like you guys thinking like that! I think she knew that you all had something more important to live for. Something to protect, and that it wasn’t your time to die.”

Charlotte was silently watching the trio argue back and forth between one another. Shock, regret, confusion, and disbelief were still apparent in her mind, still playing nonstop as she continued down this bloody path of destruction and death.

“She died because I was trapped underneath Zaine’s boot and couldn’t find the willpower to push him off. I was thinking like an immature brat and that I was guaranteed to see another day. It took a sword through her chest—him sawing into her body vertically to see that that was not the case!” Aden lashed out and snapped his head away when he saw the hurt expressions on all their faces. “The robot died, and it made me think that I was seeing the real thing die.”

The next couple of seconds were tense. No one wanted to move because of how tense the statements he made were. It took a surprising event when the last person they were expecting to move moved in front of Aden to grab his cold hand resting on top of his forearm.

“I think”—Charlotte choked out, looking straight into his emerald eyes—“I think Charie was feeling exactly like Xavier said. She knew you had something else to do and that it was her place to see that you would survive. I think she knew what she was getting into, Damien. Even if you didn’t say anything to her, I think she would have run over to help. She would have done that because I would have done it.”

Aden snapped, “Don’t you see that this is a revolving door where you endlessly throw yourself into danger for me or for any of us? You’re asking to die and then leaving us behind to mourn for you! I don’t want nightmares of you dying in our arms and burning you on the fucking funeral pyre because you were trying to be fucking selfless!”

“She wouldn’t want you to mourn, and neither would I!” Charlotte snapped back, her tears now drying on her cheeks. “I am here, alive and kicking! I just do not want to see the people I love dying before or because of me again! I’d rather die than see that again!”

Two guards ran around with their guns up, but before they could shoot, Aden had thrown a couple of pieces of debris at the men. Both hit them bull’s-eye in the center of their forehead, and they dropped like flies.

Damien interceded Charlotte, not even batting an eyelash at the two guards that had been rendered unconscious. “We all feel that way, Lionsheart! You can’t assume that we do not feel the same! When you fell off the Division and we couldn’t find you, we all felt our stomachs drop! We didn’t know where you were and assumed you were good as dead! Imagine getting picked up by Cheric and then having her unearth a robot that resembled the one person we thought had been lost at sea!”

“Further,” Xavier added—picking up a sturdy piece of wood—and handled it like a bat, “to find out that the girl we rescued lied about her identity, although it was to protect herself. You were someone with great importance.” He swiveled on the balls of his foot just as a guard tried to ambush him from the side. Bringing his makeshift bat down, he thrashed the guard before continuing a beat later.

“You are one of the precious links of what transpired that night and the state’s vision of what they’re trying to gain. This all isn’t some dream that someone conjured up. This is reality that drags all of us in as puppets being placed by its masters to dance. We magically start getting mail from you, saying that you’re all right and that you wish you were with us… That tore me up, Char! It was devastating that you weren’t nearby, and then Cheric created that scheme where Charie would use the stones as buffer to reveal the rat—”

Aden grunted, “Robert Petersons, that son of a bitch started his onslaught as soon as the sun set down. He went straight for the one impersonating you: Charie. All the pirates didn’t give two shits about the stones. All they cared about was killing you or, rather, her. You see where I’m getting at?”

Charlotte widened her eyes. The raven haired male grabbed her wrist to yank her out of the way as some bullets fired overhead. “You are more important than the Relic stones. You are the thing that can put all of this to an end, and while they don’t know it, I do!”

Damien whistled by placing his two fingers between his lips, and blue and yellow macaws flew in through an open window with glaring eyes and began preoccupying the guards. Cesium, who was scared of the blaring sirens, had jumped up on top of some of the guards in fright.

Aden clung onto Charlotte to make his point known that she was the one that needed to live. “They do not want to stop producing the stones, and the only way to prevent that is to keep their controversies hidden. I don’t know what you saw that night, what went down between you and the pirates but it doesn’t matter. What matters is something here—”

He moved her hand to put it onto her chest. Resolutely he said, “You’re capable of stopping them. You have a heart with compassion and warmth. While we may not know what the hell you can do quite yet, we need to keep you safe and sound. Get that in your head already and stop giving us grief!”

Charlotte stared at all of them, dumbfounded at the new revelation. She couldn’t be, but they all were looking at her with such serious expressions. She was going to deny everything that he said, but Aden interrupted by pulling his own hand away.

“Now can we move along so that we don’t have our blood paint the hallway?” He didn’t wait for an answer because he began running again with Charlotte in tow. 

Damien followed after whistling for Cesium to come. Xavier gave the girl a sympathetic glance before gesturing that they had lingered too long.

۞ ۞ ۞ ۞ ۞ ۞ ۞ ۞

The group had yet to see a door as they continued to wander farther into the research grounds. It wasn’t until the last turn from the previous corridor that led them to a hall with a door at the end. There were paintings of the landscape on the walls, and past those were monitors.

“It’s kind of eerie,” Xavier remarked as they continued walking. “You would have thought from all our shouting back, there we would have had some company here. It’s like nobody’s around. Guards and people alike.”

Aden grunted, and Damien grabbed his chin in thought.

“It’s a trap,” the blond surmised, and the raven-haired lad all but agreed. Only they did not know what kind of trap it was. “Only one way of finding out, I suppose.”

As the group walked by, they realized that the monitors were showing video feed from all over the facility. The top row of monitors had the visuals from outside of the building, and below that, there were visuals from the inside of the facility. These were particularly interesting to see because they were decimated because of the bombs. Of course, intermingled in those rows were monitors that were not giving any feedback.

There were cameras moving throughout the halls. On the opposite wall were another two rows of monitors, but these had some peculiarity to them. The top row indicated a room, probably the one they were about to enter, with tubes filled with strange-colored liquid. There seemed to be something inside the tube, but it was hard to determine from the distance. The row underneath that screen were blacked out or showing no feed entirely.

“It’s not showing a feed,” Damien said, breaking the silence, and then he tapped on one of the screens.

“Yup,” Aden nonchalantly grunted. “I took out those cameras.”

Xavier gaped at the youth. “How many did you take out? There are probably twelve to fifteen screens blacked out or playing the obnoxious buzz stuff!”

Charlotte was still fixated on the top row with the room full of test tubes. “What is that?” Curiosity was getting the best of her as she continued to stare. “It looks—alive!”

Damien moved beside her to ponder her fixation. He could not see what she saw, but maybe further investigation would prove useful. 

Xavier read into the atmosphere and walked over to the only door in the hall. “Well, only one way to find out. Let’s check it out.”

Aden took a couple of steps after the group before stopping to peer at the screens himself. “This isn’t—” 

“What is it, Aden?” Charlotte tilted her head in question to his comment.

“This.” He started staring at the screen and then shook his head.

“Char, Addie, we ain’t got all day!” Xavier called from within the doorway. The only one who had gone into the room entirely was Damien, who hadn’t said much of anything.

“Never mind. Come on, damsel.” He pushed past Xavier and walked over to Damien, staring up at the rows of tubes aligned.

“My name is not Damsel!”

“Okay, ‘Char . . .well, you know.’”

“Would you quit it?” Charlotte was the last to enter and gave an audible gasp at the sheer mass amount of tubes and technical equipment. “What is this?” she inaudibly mouthed out and walked over to another set of tubes connected to the ceiling. There was a strange glow in each tube that drew her attention, and with strange fascination, she looked closer.

“These look like finished stones,” Xavier remarked at another set of tubes. “Is the facility a manufacturer for—” He was about to finish but stopped short, remembering the previous conversation with Olivia, Simone, Elliot, and Andy.

“Someone is manufacturing fake Relic stones, using the true Relic stone. But since even we do not know what other thing these stones are made of, we must assume they all possess a variety of powers and consequences that we have never dreamed of.”

Xavier bumped his arm into a padded tray where multitudes of reports laid in a mess. FAILURE was printed on all the papers. Easily, Xavier picked them up and wandered over to Charlotte.

Damien watched as what he assumed was one of their finished products floating in the oddly fluorescent-colored fluid. “How on earth are they making them?”

Aden grunted, but his grunt was drowned out by the scream Charlotte gave from a couple of rows down. Damien and Aden rushed over to where her scream originated from and discovered her on the floor with tears streaming down her face. 

Xavier became pale as a ghost. He remained staring between the sheets of paper in his hand and what Charlotte had seen.

Damien went to the girl’s side to drape a protective arm around her shoulders, and she in turn twisted her head away from what was inside. Aden took a step in front of the fallen girl to block her view from what was inside the tube. A malnourished, floating dead human bobbed in the fluid. What remained of the flesh was a growing stone, but it was not as large as the ones Olivia had shown them. 

“They were creating the stones by absorbing the life from human subjects,” Xavier gathered, stating what everyone did not want to say aloud. “They were using humans as a means of creating these fake stones.”