The Fortress

Chapter 10 - Feeling of belonging

"CAN'T BELIEVE ANY human would come here," Sarah grumbled as she kept combing through the forest. She had to park her car outside of the woods as there was no way her car could pass through the gigantic trees. She had been rummaging the forest for almost thirty minutes and had not come across any sign of a single human. Frustration was beginning to eat her insides.

"Ugh!" She grunted as she kicked a tree in frustration.

"I should have planned better before coming here."

She heaved a sigh after realizing the high probability of being lost.

"Are you looking for me?" Her attention swept to the trails of the voice that had startled her. Lo and behold! It was Ian.

She smiled at first but her smile slowly turned into a facial expression of horror as everything seemed crystal clear to her whilst fragments of her nightmare the night before reappeared.

She turned to run but her limbs froze. A struggle to move ensued and she shrilled out of fear "what's happening?!"

Someone else was in control of her limbs as she couldn't figure out why her legs wouldn't move at her own impulse but was suddenly dragging her backwards until she rammed her back against one of the huge trees in the forest and her limbs failed her again. She kept struggling and groaning without the iota of giving up soon and let out a scream as all efforts to free herself from whatever gripped and paralyzed her was null.

"You finally found me," Ian said smirking as he approached the tree that seemed to be holding her captive. She raised her head and beheld the bearded man also approaching her. The bearded man she had seen from her nightmare and transition.

She looked at her supposed persecutor as he approached her and her heart started throbbing.

"Do you recognize me?" The voice from earlier in the day resounded in her head again.

"You...you are the one," she whispered amidst stuttering. Her eyes widened in surprise rather than fear. She regained control over her limbs and fell on her knees.

Henry stopped walking towards her and with his left hand in his pocket, he stretched out his right arm, signalling Ian to halt.

"Yes, I'm the one," He replied her telepathically.

"Why did you lead me here?" She asked weakly, standing to her feet.

Henry approached her and stretched out his hands to her.

"I'm Henry. How are you doing Sarah?"

Sarah displayed her skills in martial art by swinging a kick that aimed at Henry's knees and delivered a punch aimed at his face. Unfortunately for her, he already saw it coming before she had even made the move. He countered her attacks and dodged a punch from her, grabbing her wrist and curling it behind her back. She growled in pain.

"What do you want from me," she growled amidst the pain oozing from her arm

"I know you are going to be tough so I'd rather not have this conversation with you here," he said to her telepathically as he squeezed her wrist more tightly and pulled it up her back. She flinched.

"Ian, grab her," Henry pushed her towards Ian who had been boiling for action but was waiting for Henry signals to dive into it. Ian grinned and lifted her to his shoulder with little or no effort. She groaned and screamed as she wrestled to be free from Ian's grip.

"So, what are you all? Like a group of people with extraordinary abilities, trying to be superheroes?" Sarah asked as she adjusted to a more comfortable position on the plastic chair she had been tied to. She peered at the faces of the five people in the room.

"Yeah, more like it. Except for the superhero part," Michael replied her.

"Guys, are the strings and cuffs really necessary?" Evan asked sheepishly as he shifted his gaze from the monitor he had been staring at with Zoe to the corner Sarah was tied.

"Shut up!" Michael and Ian chorused.

"Uhm, okay. She just doesn't look harmful," Evan replied and continued staring at the monitor.

Sarah was partly pleased that she had been led to a group of extraordinaries but the unpleasant part was she was being held hostage.

"Everyone this is Sarah and Sarah, I'm Henry, this is Michael, Ian, that's Zoe and Evan over there," Henry said with a Stern look, pointing a finger at everyone he introduced to Sarah as he mentioned their names.

"Yeah, I don't care about your den of criminals. I can tell everyone here is a criminal," Sarah replied affirmatively. Even she herself was surprised by how comfortable she was with her guts.

"What do you want from me?" She asked quickly asked hoping to evade the consequences of mentioning that they were all criminals.

"We want you to be part of us," Henry replied, leaning forward.

"Never! I can never be part of your gang. You recruit people with special abilities and use them to steal and carry out criminal activities, I will never be part of that!" A vehement reply from Sarah followed Henry's request.

"That's not it, you are getting the whole concept wrong. Yes, I recruit extraordinaries but I don't use them for criminal activities or crime. Instead, I offer them a better life."

"Oh, so why do you need me? Why do you need them? Why do you need us?" She asked with every iota of doubt and disbelief on her face.

"Untie her Michael," Henry said with his eyes fixed on her.

Michael untied her as quickly as he could. She wriggled her wrists and blurted. "What next?"

"Nothing. Just want you to know that if you return back to the city, you'll regret it especially when people begin to find out you have those abilities," Henry replied calmly.

Sarah didn't know if he was making a threat or just a statement. "What do you mean?"

"I mean that the ordinary people are highly uncomfortable and scared with the emergence of people with abilities. Very soon, people like you, like us will have never place in the society as we'd be placed behind bars restricted from exercising our potentials," Henry replied, his eyes still fixed on her.

The expression of doubt on Sarah's face was slowly replaced with a thoughful one. There was sense and truth in everything he said. There was so many mean comments regarding what should be done to people that had special abilities if they were caught on the blog post she had made.

"As much as I hate to agree with you, you are right," she huffed.

"So, what's the plan?" She asked looking back at Henry enthusiastically.

"Well, you were the last piece of us and since we have you now, plans will be drastically made," Henry smirked.

"For how long have you been here?" Jared asked Jamie.

"Since four years ago," Jamie replied uninterestingly.

"Woah! You've discovered your powers since four years ago, that's cool."

"Yeah. When I first arrived here, there was no one except for Alex and Mrs Bradley and few of the teachers we have now."

"How did you come about this place?" Jared asked inquisitively.

"Alex is my uncle. The first time I had disappeared, I was in school, I appeared at home. I was about to be beaten by some mean students in school back then. I only dissappeared and appeared when I was afraid at first. If I was not in the confines of my home and I was scared, I would appear right in my room involuntarily. Later on, I started appearing and dissappearing when I was excited, surprised and even sad. My mom told Alex about it and in few days, I was here already."

"That's nice, my step-dad found out about this place virtually and thought we should try it," Jared said.

"Virtually? How did that happen? This place is supposed to be a secret." Jamie was obviously shocked.

"Oh, really? I didn't know about that. When last did you seen your mom?"

"Two years ago," Jamie said and his face fell.

"Why? Are you okay?" Jared asked noticing the sudden sadness that seemed to have sprung up in Jamie's voice and face.

"I lost my mom two years back. She died of ovarian cancer."

"I'm really sorry. I know how it feels. What about your dad?"

"I don't know. Never seen him nor heard of him," Jamie's voice was shaking.

Jared heaved a sigh and wished he had not asked those emotion triggering questions.

"I also lost my dad to a car accident. I was with him. I survived with minor injuries but he died." Jared found his voice, after few seconds of silence.

Jamie turned to face him. "I'm sorry. You know, I try to not bother about all of these because I feel we are all definitely going to see again, everyone we lost to the cold hands of death."

"How?" Jared asked.

"In the afterlife. You don't believe in afterlife?"

"I honestly don't know what to believe in," Jared nodded his head.

"You know, I once appeared in the middle of the Atlantic ocean during one of my training with Alex," Jamie chuckled.

"What?" Jared didn't know if he was supposed to laugh but it sounded funny and dangerous at the same time.

"Then I appeared back in front of Alex, dripping wet. He totally freaked out." They both burst into laughter.

Just as they were laughing, Ruby walked past them and Jared thought of using his newly discovered abilities to communicate with her.

"Hi Ruby," he said telepathically and Ruby stopped walking.

"It's Jared."

She gasped, turned back to face Jared at the corner of the lobby he was sitting and ran towards him. Jamie was trying to figure out what was wrong when Jared opened his eyes and stood up. Before he could say a word, Ruby delivered a flying kick that sent Jared him to the ground.

"What!" Jamie yelled and tried to grab Ruby by her arm.

She yelled in defence. "Don't touch me!" She swung her hand away from Jamie. Jamie's eyebrows knitted together, he was obviously consumed with anger. He grabbed Ruby by her shoulder and disappeared with her but appeared alone in few seconds.

"Where is she? Where did you take her?" Jared asked as he staggered to his feet.

"Antarctica. A little punishment for doing that to you."

"What?! She's going to freeze to death," a voice cried out, it was Alex's voice. He was walking hurriedly towards Jamie.

"Go and get her now!" He yelled. Jamie disappeared and appeared with her. She dropped to the ground as she struggled for breath. She was looking very pale already.

Alex rushed over to her. "You are fine now." He patted her back as she coughed severally.

Alex rushed back to Jamie, held out his hand and clasped a metallic watch to his wrist looking at him straight in the face.

"I've pulled up to you for too long. You are going to be quarantined."

Jamie tried to dissappear but he couldn't. The metallic object on his wrist prevented him from doing so.

"Master Alex, I can explain, it's all my fault," Jared tried intervening.

"No, it's not. Stay out of this. I've entertained his mischief enough," Alex replied dragging Jamie along to be quarantined.

A little crowd had gathered regarding the incident. Santiago, Lily, Wong, Dawn and Alessia were part of the crowd. They rushed over to Jared and asked what happened as they inspected Ruby's wet body.

"It was all my fault, I shouldn't have tried communicating with Ruby telepathically," Jared said soberly.

He turned to Ruby and offered her a hand to stand to her feet. She grabbed it and he pulled her up.

"I'm sorry," He said the moment she was on her feet and turned to see Jamie still being dragged away by Alex to be quarantined.

"Don't worry about him, he will be okay, he often gets into trouble like this," Santiago said to Jared as he also watched Jamie being dragged by Alex.

Jamie walked away without a reply. He was angry but more of sad. He was angry at himself that he had not though before he acted and someone else had to suffer the consequences of his actions.