"Two of them? Who's the other guy?" Marcello asked into his phone.
"Not a guy," Gemo replied. "Looks like Zheanni."
After a long silence, Marcello spoke, "Alright, that doesn't matter. Everything's gonna remain the same. They're still following the route?"
"Yup."
"Okay, when they cross the street, start following."
Zoe sprinted and jumped, landing safely on the next building. It was a little higher than the other, but she cleared it rather effortlessly. Gemo was on the next building over; a long apartment complex.
Below, Poatan casually strolled down the street. Civilians gave him and his friend a wide berth, moving out of the way as they walked past.
Poatan stopped outside the doorway, looking around. The windows that faced the alley were dark, or curtains had been pulled in front of them. He couldn't escape the feeling of being watched. His instincts were hardly ever wrong. "There're energy users near," he muttered, casually leaning against the back apartment door.
"Huh," Zheanni yawned, looking around tiredly.
"You don't feel that."
"I haven't felt anything for like ten minutes."
"Shit, I know das' right. How many did you do?"
"Two," she chuckled. Her eyes felt heavy, barely able to look up at his face.
"Yo," he looked at a nearby brick wall, seeing a massive gash that ran several feet along it. "Dis' where they found him, right?"
"Who?"
"Antwan! Who else would I be talking about?"
Zheanni shrugged lazily. He noticed her eyes were glassy and had a hard time focusing. "I dunno."
"You are slower than usual today, ain't'chu? But yeah, Conor was tellin' me that unless we can get some kind of energy healer, then that dude is gonna stay cooked. Like in a coma forever."
"An energy-healer? Shit, that reminds me," she said. Poatan rolled his eyes, knowing that whenever Zheanni said, 'that reminds me,' he knew what was coming next was absolutely irrelevant to the previous statement. "My dad was tellin' me a long-ass time ago when I was a little kid, right? This was when my little brother, Augustine, was...uh...I can't remember the...what's it called when a baby debuts?"
An absolutely dumbfounded look crossed Poatan's face. "You mean being born?"
"Shit, yeah."
"What in the hell is wrong with- You sure you only took two? You really gotta get off that." He stopped walking and grabbed her by the face, his concerned eyes studying her dilated, unfocused pupils. "All jokes to the left, I'm being for real, Z; you could OD off this shit."
"Fuck off me," She pushed him away. "You can't OD when you have energy. Everyone knows that. Shit, my dumbass woulda been cooked long ago."
"You know Conor hates it when you do this. He does care, ya know, it's tough for him seeing you be a fiend. Y'all are family after all-" He was cut off by what felt like a bunch of invisible pillows lifting him softly but quickly into the air, disappearing from Zheanni's sight in under a second.
Zheanni looked up, absolutely stunned. Her jaw hung open. She normally would've felt her brain race from anxiety, but the crushed Xanax she'd snorted twenty minutes prior muted those feelings.
In the back of a limo, Poatan sat, bound with a blindfold over his eyes.
Bulwark and Marcello sat in the back with him, staring at the massive man in front of them, and the almost gleeful grin on his face.
The two exchanged looks before Marcello spoke. "Do you know where you are? And do you know who we are?"
"Am I being detained…officer?" He said in a slow mocking voice.
Marcello got out of the seat opposite Poatan. Stepping over, he hauled back his fist and punched him as hard as he could in the face. As he sat back down, Bulwark noticed several missing rings on his left hand.
Poatan swore as his head rocked back from the hit. "What'd I do to you?"
"Don't answer my question with another question!"
The grin returned, "When I get outta here, you, your family, your friends, they're dead!" He flexed, trying to rip through the bindings. A low growl, like an earthquake, rippled through the car as he strained against his restraints. "What did you do?" He yelled, attempting to thrash back and forth but only shifting slightly in his seat. He let out a cry. It felt like someone had stuck a molten fire poker to his side. Earlier, Bulwark had driven his knife into his stomach, the catalyst for Poatan's inability to use his energy or move his body—an ability of Bulwark's.
"Answer my questions!" Marcello demanded.
"Oh, you really asking for it. Z gon' come through. Split yo' shit open. You must not love yo moms, huh? This is signing her death warrant right here. What'chu think her last words are gonna be? You think she's gonna be thinking about you? Prolly not, 'cause I'm gonna make her choose which caliber is going through her frontal lobe!"
Marcello got up once more, hitting him until Bulwark spoke up, "Hey, we should stop."
"Yeah, good girl. Good bitch," Poatan said as Marcello walked back to his seat.
Bulwark looked from his bruised and bloody face then at Marcello with nervous eyes, 'This is rough. I'd be lying if I said I never expected this to come from him. Still, damn, dude.'
Zoe and Gemo continued following until Zoe noticed the boarded windows and police tape from the bakery.
"Oh, we're back here."
Gemo glanced to the nearby buildings, smirking at a badly burnt building. "So this was all that action I missed out on."
"I'm not going to ask you again," Marcello said.
"Okay, we're the guys who did the bank heist," Poatan sighed. "Ya happy now?"
The chain pinched his skin as it was wrapped tightly around Poatan's body, tying him to the old doctor's table. He spoke. It hurt to do so. Still, he pushed through. "I don't know anyone named Ayla," Poatan spat. "Look lil' bro, either kill me, or let me go or some shit, 'cause I ain't the one."
Marcello grabbed Bulwark's knife, which was still in his side, twisting it, "I don't think I do!" Marcello yelled over his screams of pain. After a few more seconds, he let go and stormed out of the room, leaving Bulwark and Poatan alone in the dark chamber; not before warning Bulwark, "Of the five trees, he seems to be of the enhancer class, so be careful."
Marcello shook his head, "This doesn't make sense. He's not saying anything."
Bulwark looked down at Poatan. His initially bright green blindfold was stained red. His face was bruised, and his nose was bleeding slowly. Fresh cuts and burns covered the rest of his muscular frame.
Poatan twitched, wincing as he felt the knife shift in his side. He tried moving once more, feeling the fiery sensation as the dagger moved again. "That kid's lil' outburst might've been a blessing in disguise."
Zoe squinted at Marcello, "Are you sure it doesn't make sense?"
"What?" Marcello said in confusion, "Yeah, I'm sure."
"Uh," Mitani started, "What do we do now?"
Poatan felt the finger on his left hand twitch. 'Whatever spell I'm under seems to be wearing off,' he internally smiled. "Hey," he said, his voice raspy and barely above a whisper. "I wanna come clean." He curled his fingers into a fist. He heard Bulwark move from the corner of the room toward himself, stopping next to his head.
"Hm? What'd'ja say?"
"I think I know where she is," Poatan mumbled.
Marcello reached into his pocket, taking out his buzzing phone. "It's Alder," he said. Stepping out from the hallway into the back alley of the building. Curiously, Zoe followed, staying a few feet behind him. He sat on the back steps, putting the call on speaker, and setting the device on the concrete step next to him.
"So?" His deep voice echoed off the concrete alleyway walls.
"He's been captured," Marcello said. "It's just…he hasn't given us anything to work with. He's acting as if he doesn't even recognize her name. This may take time for me to-"
"I want you to cease contact with him; I've got others to do that for us now."
There was a long pause as Marcello stared at the phone. "But, sir…that wasn't the plan."
"Yeah, but like feelings, plans, they change."
"Are you sure?"
"I've sent for a crew from the black market to your building. They'll be there any minute. We won't have to do a thing. They'll get everything we need to know from the guy. I'm going to make an example out of this boy."
"So, what do you want me to do…sir?"
"Who is watching him?"
"Right now, only Bulwark, sir."
"He stays and goes with them. The rest of you come back."
"Understood," Marcello said, hanging up the phone call and getting to his feet. "What do you want?" He asked, seeing Zoe as he turned.
Zoe became shifty before steeling herself and looking at him, "Who is John Doe to you?"
Marcello looked behind her, then around the dim alley. Zoe guessed he was seeing if anyone was within ear-shot. 'I suppose I should tell her. It'd only be fair,' he thought. "Okay, have you have you heard about the Kiala Reef and the Kiala Star Tribe?"
Zoe blinked. Truthfully, she didn't expect an answer. "Uh, I…no?" She stuttered.
"They were special. Really special," he started. "We aren't around anymore. The reason I think I'm even alive now is just by pure luck—I just happened to not be in the village. No one was there when I came back." As he talked, his eyes looked vacant as he stared past Zoe. "I didn't even register what I was looking at until almost a day later. I just kept remembering how I found this cool insect that I wanted to show my dad while I was traveling. I went out and found a glass jar and everything put the bug inside, and even went through the trouble of finding it food and poking air holes in the lid… but I just couldn't find him. There was blood everywhere." He stopped talking.
"You think he…" Zoe trailed off.
"He wasn't a native to the island, but a few weeks prior, the village took him in, thinking he needed help. Despite who we were and what we were known for, we didn't get many visitors at all. Most would come to the island on massive pirating ships, looking to take any and everything, I presume. That's where it always started and ended. None of them knew energy—that was the difference between us and everyone else. My tribe, my people, me…we were known for having certain genetic traits. But besides the blood, there was nothing. No trace. It wasn't as if he tried to hide the bodies or bury them; why would he at that point? They were just gone. I don't know if they died, I don't know if they're captured. I just don't know."
"What do you mean by genetic traits?"
"As I understand it, you had to learn the ability to use energy, right?"
"Yeah," Zoe nodded.
"We can naturally do that since birth. Our blood also has a special metal in it. The material is so rare that the average adult with one and a half gallons of blood would bring in millions of dollars." Marcello pointed to the smoggy Apris sky, "Metal from the stars. Since John Doe purposefully spilt it, it was like a mocking—like he knew its value, but what he was doing was somehow more important to the point that he would just throw it away."
"You're positive this is the same guy?"
"Yeah, though he goes by a different name now. He used to call himself 'Marionette,' but yes, one thousand percent sure." His eyes shifted, looking her up and down.
'This is why you were being subversive,' Zoe guessed.
"Now I'm here. An orphan. When people look at me, when you look at me, even—who do you see truly?"
'His eyes. Haunting and soulful eyes,' Zoe thought. "I see only you."
"So, what about you?"
"Uh, me?"
"Why are you doing this job? Maybe I'm making a false assumption, but you aren't the type for this kind of thing."
Before Zoe could answer, they both turned, hearing a fast-approaching vehicle.
A dark car screeched to a stop in front of the alleyway. The dull thud of loud music reverberated as the doors opened and several men stepped out. A quick glance would be enough to inform someone they weren't with KTA.
"I heard dude's got a bit of a bounty," one laughed as they walked through the front doors of the abandoned building.
Another responded, "Shit's crazy. Never knew the Parks would be the first family to ice a member of a group like this."
Zoe paused, thinking for a long time. "Marcello, do you remember when we first saw each other? In Neph's cabin."
Marcello thought for a bit, "I think so, why?"
"Why were you wanting Crater's help?"
Bulwark leaned down to the table to which Poatan was chained and tied. "I can't hear you."
Poatan strained as hard as he could, driven by an overwhelming surge of desperation, sank his teeth into the side of his head. A wet tear followed, accompanied by the grotesque sound of tearing flesh. Bulwark's howl of pain reverberated through the chamber, drowning in the unsettling mixture of blood and agony.
As Bulwark crumpled to the floor, clutching the mutilated remnants of his ear and cheek, the air thickened with the metallic scent of blood.
A low hum filled the room as a yellow light flickered around Poatan. He flexed slightly, and the bindings fell off him and onto the concrete floor. With a swift movement, he pulled the knife from his side, letting it clatter to the floor.
In the corner of the room was a bag full of his belongings. He strolled over, stretching as he did so. He grabbed his phone, turned it on, and instantly got bombarded with hundreds of notifications—text messages and missed calls.
The metal door to the chamber squeaked open as the men walked in, stopping once they saw Poatan looming over them; their eyes shifted to Bulwark—his face stained with tears, and his bloody hands holding the side of his head.