AN: I've decided to update this story weekly from now on. I'll continue to work on it throughout the week, and then, once a week (I'm going to say "Saturday", but that could also mean early Sunday morning [as in 1-4 AM CST]) update it with everything I have done up to that point. The reason for the decision is to give a more definitive date on when the story will be published and updated, as well as allowing for me to have more ample time to work through reviews and include them. And on that note, feel free to add in any criticism possible. I won't take it personally, and will actually enjoy the opportunity to utilize reviews in refining my writing. However, that is not to say that I want anyone to feel an obligation to have a thorough review. Other than that, thanks for the speedy replies, kind words, and group of dedicated readers. Enjoy.

"Cody," she repeated, "we've got to get going! There are going to be people here any minute!" Sarah nervously glanced up and down the street. Sirens could be heard making their way to the inflamed building. There was no sight of Mom, Dad, or Zack. I had just gotten my brother back. Had this insane kid burnt him alive? And my parents? I looked down at Evan. He was starting to come to. With a groan, he brought a hand up and rubbed his forehead, his eyes fluttering. Sarah bent down to check on him.

"Evan, are you alright?" He started to push himself up, and she put an arm behind his back, helping him into a sitting position. He nodded slowly and rubbed back at his head. "How do you feel?"

"Ugh, my head hurts." He rubbed again. I glared down at him. I wanted to do nothing more than jump at him right now. Beat him senseless, into an inch of his life. Throw him back into that fire. Make him feel like I did. He might've killed my parents. My brother. All because he was insane! "What happened? All I remember is toasting those guys and then everything went black."

Sarah looked up at me awkwardly, clearly unsure of what to do. Evan followed her gaze. I barely contained my yelling through gritted teeth. "You...are an idiot!"

"What?" He started to stand up.

"Cody, please." Sarah begged.

"You could have killed us! You probably killed them!" He stood up.

"Hey, in case you hadn't noticed, they were getting ready to take us all out. I was busy saving our lives."

"Those were my parents!" I grabbed him by the front of his shirt. He pushed off.

"Lemme go! I was just protecting myself. I don't give a damn who they were." I felt Sarah's hand grab my shoulder. She grabbed Evan too and forced us to stay at an arms length.

"Look, kids, we've got to get moving. All of us."

"I'm not going anywhere with him!" I shouted, not caring about the number of people within earshot. All that mattered was making this psychopath pay.

"Fine by me. Come on, Sarah, we got along fine before we got to Boston. We don't need this kid. Besides, he's a liability. Compromised. He's related to the enemy."

"Enemy? My mom wasn't the enemy! My brother saved our lives."

"Like hell he did. If I hadn't turned him to a crisp, we'd all be dead right now because your brother took us out with a thought." I growled and took a swing at him, still out of reach. In a second, Evan's hand was engulfed in fire. Forming his hand into a fist, he smiled that so very dangerous smile that seemed to beg me to try again. "Do that again and you'll go out the same way," he promised. I was about to respond in kind before I heard the sirens of nearby emergency vehicles and the parking of cars. Men slammed doors shut and ran out. Sarah, Evan, and I darted towards the bushes along the side of the building, making sure to stay as pulled back into the shadows as possible. Voices sounded.

"Who's in charge here?" Peeking around, I saw Dad, clothes burnt, face red, but very much alive was addressing the large group of firemen who were setting up hoses, getting ladders ready, and were preparing for an overall assault on the flaming building. Screams could be heard inside from residents and seen in the building. Police had already blocked off the street, directing traffic away from the Tipton. Several ambulances were parked nearby, ready to take all those rescued to safety. It wouldn't be enough, though. If the fire couldn't be put out, there weren't enough doctors in the city to save the people trapped inside.

A single fireman broke away from the rest of the group and walked over towards Dad. "Captain Arnold here. Who're you?"

Dad pulled out his wallet and showed it to him. "Federal agent. I was staying here at the hotel." The man nodded.

"You're the guy with the kid, right? The one they just loaded up in the ambulance? He looked like he got burnt pretty good, but I 'spect he'll be alright. Do you know how it started?"

Dad shook his head. "Can't say that I do. I was just down in the lobby when it happened. Lucky, I guess. There were a few more kids who were in there, but we got separated. If you see them, I'd like you to let me know." Dad handed him a card. "That's my number. It's really important that I get those kids."

"Will do," the man looked out at the card, "Mr. Martin. If that's everything, though, I've got work to do." The man walked back towards the group that was already well into hosing down the building and preparing to storm the fiery walls of the hotel. Dad walked out of sight but towards the parking garage of the hotel.

Sarah nodded and motioned for us to move, but moved a finger up towards her mouth, indicating that we should all be quiet. Once we got a safe distance away, she eyed us both carefully and spoke. "Look, guys, we'll settle this little fight later. For now, agree to not kill each other, because we've got to move. There are people coming here after us, and we just saw that this was only the beginning." She looked at me. "Cody, I know you think that man is your father, but you've got to trust me on this, he's far more dangerous than you realize. I'm going to try and take us somewhere safe."

"Where?" Evan and I asked in unison, but then stared at each other with mutual hatred.

"Somewhere to get answers. Now, I need you both to promise to play nicely." I nodded, but Evan didn't seem quite as keen.

"Why are we hooking up with him?" He pointed at me, talking as if I weren't there. I wanted to hit him.

"Cody needs our protection, and we're going to need him. Evan, we've got to stick together." He nodded his consent, and we took off.

***

"Where are we going anyway?" Evan asked, voicing my thoughts. We had been running for a good twenty minutes, dodging our way through back alleys and cutting across buildings and parks. It was just now that I was realizing how utterly exhausted I was. Adrenaline was fading, and I was left with nothing but the cold, terrifying fear that was the memory of this night. Only hours ago I was with Dad at that pizza place, trying to decide if I should let him back into my life. Now here I was, running away in the dead of night from an arson and possibly several-time-over homicide.

Sarah slowed down to a trot and then stopped altogether. We both followed suit. Since we were so much smaller, we had to pump our legs twice as fast to keep up, and, after all that we had been through, this was pretty draining. I don't think I could have gotten up to a full speed run again if I had tried. As it was, I was gasping for every ounce of breath my lungs would take in. Sweat covered my face and dripped into my eyes, mouth, and nose. My shirt, damp with my own perspiration, clung uncomfortably to me. Evan looked just as badly off as I was, and Sarah didn't seem much better. I looked up at her expectantly. Whatever my doubts about these two being dangerous, Zack had told me to go with them, and I didn't have much of a better plan anyway. Besides, I was alone and scared now. I needed to have someone to take care of me. Evan might be crazy, but his sister seemed better.

She shook her head. "We need to get out of the city. To Foxborough." Her sentences were short and broken with her rapid breathing. It was clear we wouldn't be making it that far out of the city on foot. Foxborough was a suburb of Boston, just about twenty miles south and west of the city. It wasn't really that far, but going by foot would be a workout, especially in our condition. I didn't really think we'd be able to make it.

I took a deep breath to steady myself. "There's...no way we're running there."

Evan glared at me, looking like he wanted to challenge it. Fine. Try it. Be my guest to run twenty some odd miles without any sense of direction. I wanted him to just so I could throw his stupid idea back in his face. He shrugged. "Probably not. How are we getting there then?"

It was late and dark. Nearby, a parking garage loomed. Sarah nodded towards it. "We need a car."

"We're going to steal one?"

"Cody, we just burnt down a hotel. I think a little auto-theft is just jay-walking at this point." We walked towards the garage.

"What's in Foxborough?" I was curious. After cryptically telling us that we were going to get some answers, Sarah had been pretty silent. I had begun to notice some differences about the siblings. Probably due to their age, Sarah was by far the more responsible of the two. In fact, she was almost more like Evan's mother than his sister. She took charge, decided where we were going, what we were doing, and reprimanded him. Still, Evan seemed to not care too much about what rules were in place. He had wandered out of his hotel room. Showed off his abilities without having much idea who I was. Burnt down a hotel and incinerated another human without batting an eye, and had even been ready to go another round with me on the Tipton's lawn.

And what about me? I'm running around with criminals, murderers, and, worst of all, strangers, all because they promised to give me some answers. I hadn't stopped long enough to think about the situation. If I did, self-doubt and anxiety would have frozen me in place. Fear would have reduced me to tears. It was by purely not thinking that I was able to remain with them, all because Zack had told me to. I had to trust him. He could read their minds. Even if he hadn't read everything, he had to have known enough to tell me to go with them. He had to have a reason.

I sighed inwardly. Zack was twelve. I was twelve. Evan was twelve. We were prepubescent kids. Children. I couldn't even use the toilet most of the year without a pass from a teacher. And I was trusting my life to Zack's to trust in Evan who had already shown himself to be unstable. It was insanity at its finest. Yep, we were children. Children with innate weapons so powerful we'd make even the staunchest gun advocate rethink his position.

"There's a man who lives there. He used to do research on people like us. I could sit here and try to explain pieces of what's happening to you, Cody, but there are a lot of holes that I can't fill in. Evan and I have been running from these people almost as long as he can remember." He looked slightly embarrassed at the mention of his youth. Question – why is it that we have such a problem with people mentioning our being young? Do we not like being seen as vulnerable when we feel so very weak and powerless most of the time? "I'm hoping he'll be able to explain it all, start to finish. From there, well, from there we'll decide what to do. Together."

***

One stolen car later, we were cruising along the inner-city roads, heading for Foxborough. I mentally added this to the list of crimes I had personally committed while in the company of others. When I was younger, they used to show us these clips in school about being peer pressured into committing crimes, and the kid who was too wimpy to say anything always ended up taking the fall, even though they always painted him as basically a good kid who just wanted to fit in. I smiled in the backseat, pressing my head up against the window. They imagined petty theft, drugs, maybe even a little violence is what I'd get myself into. I doubt they ever expected burning down a hotel and maybe straight up murder. Even though the thoughts made me want to vomit, there was a certain humor to the whole thing. As if the entire universe had suddenly rearranged itself to be a joke on ole' Cody Martin, the kid who was so good in school he may as well have been a stereotype.

"What did you mean back there, Cody?" Evan turned in his seat, already bored at fiddling with all the car's settings. He was obviously still mad at me, but that apparently wasn't going to get in the way of alleviating boredom.

"Hm? Mean what?" I didn't even bother to look back towards him. Apparently, boredom was enough of an excuse for him to bury his hatchet, but it wasn't going to be one for me.

"About your brother being the one to save us?" Sarah looked up in the rear-view-mirror, obviously paying attention to me now. She wanted to know too.

Maybe telling them was dangerous, but I was too tired to care at this point. I shouldn't be expected to have to deal with so much so soon. "After Zack took both of you out, he sort of paused everything." I shook my head as Evan's face turned incredulous and opened his mouth to scoff at my statement. "He sort of tapped into everyone else's mind and I guess made it so they didn't realize time was flowing? He did it so he could talk to me, I think. He said that he wanted to talk to me, anyway, he told me he was going to pretend that I had knocked him down and let the two of you up. He wanted us to get out of there and told me to stay away from Dad."

"That's kind of dumb. He went to all that trouble just to tell you to leave? I mean, he could've, I dunno, stopped them from even coming after us. And that's all he had to say to you? Leave?" I just shook my head and ignored him. Sarah explained.

"Evan, shut up. Cody's not going to tell you everything. That kind of conversation is probably personal." She looked back towards me. "Cody, I promise, you're going to see your brother again." I didn't have anything to say so I didn't. She finally turned back around and slammed on the breaks, narrowly avoiding smashing into the car in front of us.

It took us almost forty-five minutes to get to Foxborough, and another fifteen to turn down a neighborhood and pull to a stop in front of a house. I opened my door and got out. The night was cool and inviting, so very different from the inferno of the hotel we had so recently left. This little suburb didn't know the danger that had just driven in. I looked up at Sarah. "This is where we get answers?"

She nodded. "This is the man who began it all, and he's the one who's going to give us the full story. This is the house of Dr. Alexander Burns."

At that name, my heart nearly stopped.