Chapter 12: Secrets
"DAD!" She said sitting up suddenly out of breath. She was in a white room hooked up to a dozen beeping machines and sitting in a white hospital bed. She looked down at her light blue hospital gown she was now clad in. Her blonde hair was down and completely straight. She began pulling off the machine wires connected to her and slipped off the bed.
Her legs were a little shaky and her head throbbed. She walked the halls wandering.
"You know that gown doesn't have a back to it." She turned towards Dylan her face blank. His smirk turned into a frown. He had expected her to retort with a witty comment and spark him for checking out her backside. Instead she just stared at him her lower lip quivering and her legs buckling. He caught her before she fell and she held onto him. She rested her head on his shoulder and wept.
"Hey, Hey it's okay, I'm here you're safe."
"I'm an idiot, I'm sorry, I didn't want to put anyone's life endanger but that…that's not my brother, not anymore. Those aren't even his powers. Carter's primary powers are heat manipulation and heightened intuition and the ability to mentally block emotions or thoughts from telepaths and empaths. He has never been able to heat your blood or whatever he did back there, gamma 13 must have increased his power to that. I..I…Dylan I don't know what to do."
He can hear the uneasiness in her voice it scares him and he tries to tell her in his most assertive voice that they'll figure something out. She appreciates his assertive lies and nods her head.
"How much trouble am I in?" She asks looking up at him with those big eyes. His smile falters.
"Nothing I can't save you from." He smiles a toothy smile at his own response. She gives him a weak smile.
"My knight in shining amour ladies and gentlemen." She says somewhat sarcastically because she knows and he knows that he saved her ass out there tonight. Her lips gently graze his and he leans in to deepen in the kiss. She pulls back and helps herself up and grabs his jacket, which in his haste to catch her from loosing her balance is haphazardly thrown on the floor beside them, and ties it around her waist.
"No peeking Perv." She says sauntering off to her room her walls of sarcasm and wit effectively put back in place. Dylan watches her walk regardless.
She's in her room lying on her back looking back up at the ceiling. She'e been sleeping for a while now having been uninvited to the latest meeting. She's feeling a bit better still she feels like death. It's times like these where she needs advice and time to think. She grabs her coat and keys to one of the 'company' cars she swiped earlier on for times like these. She drives for about an hour in silence turning into a small cemetery and parking. It's her place to go when she needs clarity. The only person that ironically seems to give it to her. "Dad" she whispers kneeling next to the gravestone. She begins to speak to the open air fingering the lettering on the marble slab.
"You know you wouldn't be so proud of me if you could see me right now. Or maybe you can I don't know. I haven't come to see you in a while, since mom left. Carters gone and I have no one. I don't know what to do. I've been giving everyone a hard time I'm no superhero, nothing like you dad. I'm lost." She almost whimpers.
"I'll say, this is nowhere near base camp, how the hell did you get out here don't you know you are already in enough trouble?" She turns around to find Zoom and she wipes at her eyes embarrassed at the fact that he caught her crying and looking pathetic. There goes all her hard work. She eyes him carefully, as he walks closer to her.
"How'd you find me?" She decides to begin. "All the cars have a gps in them you know, I figured you would have taken off rather than face being grounded." He says as if it's some kind of joke, and maybe it is he's trying to lighten the mood, he's never seen her so...so…vulnerable.
"Look." She sighs looking back to her fathers grave.
"I'm sorry, about today it was reckless and stupid I should have told you he tried to contact me but I didn't want to put anyone else in danger."
"You know what kid, you're selfish, stubborn, reckless, an overall pain in my ass sometimes, but you have a good heart, it reminds me of your fathers. And you're wrong you are a superhero, your one of us kid no matter how hard headed you are." She smiles lightly at this. It's probably the nicest thing he's ever said to her. Zoom clears his throat.
"You're not back at base before I do night check you don't even want to know what kind of punishment I'm going to enforce got it?" She raises her eyebrow at him.
"Please you enforce anything? I'm not scared." She says cockily.
"Right." He says shaking his head and heading back to his car.
Training is taken seriously this morning. There is no school because they know a face off, a dangerous one is going to happen any day now. It's on everyone's minds. Sam reties her blonde hair and tries to hold her tongue when Zoom demands she and Summer work together.
"Wonder you and Sparky over here are going to train together and work on her marksmenship." She cringes at the word always has. Summer begins floating objects trying to purposely hit her. It just makes her that much more determined to shut her down. It's when Miss Perfect breaks routine that Sam finally smiles at her. She's pissed and rightfully so.
Summer is tossing larger objects at her whatever is in the room, Sam deflects these easily burning them to a crisp or tossing them aside with her force field. It's only when Summer starts tossing weight machines at her that she's dodging and rolling on the floor. Sam holds out for as long as she can until her patience wears down (she never had much to begin with) and she starts fighting back, and fighting back her way, dirty. Summer gets zapped a few times and soon they're not even using powers but wrestling with the other.
Dylan yells for them to stop but can't help but be a teenage boy and shut the hell up while enjoy two girls he's attracted to fight. Both Zoom and Marsha are yelling over the intercom repeatedly until physically they have to be broken up. They end up both sitting in the isolation room until they can work out their problems themselves. Sam sits on one end of the small room playing with her blonde hair a bored and peeved expression clearly displayed on her face. Summer paces the room something clearly on her mind.
"You obviously have something on your mind to say to me, you might as well get it off your chest now." Sam says rudely. Summer huffs walking right up to Sam to push her as she starts to stand.
"Stay the Hell away from my boyfriend!" She yells in her face and slaps her across the face. She goes to do it again and Sam stops her hand from making contact. She's angry now even though she knows she's the one in the wrong.
"Well maybe if you weren't such a sell out cold bitch maybe he wouldn't have to look anywhere else!" She yells back.
"Home-wrecker! This is what happens when you grow up in a broken family you have to go around ruining everyone else's life!" Sam scrunches his eyebrows. That hurt more than she'd care to let on and with her defenses down Summer was able to feel that pain for little more than a second before it was gone replaced with the usual void she felt from her.
"Yeah well we all can't be little miss pom pom over here hypocrite."
"Excuse me?"
"You heard me fine! I said you were nothing but just like those cheerleader girls who used to pick on you, now you're one of them! And just for your information Dylan sought me out I never went after him." Summer took a step back and slid down to the floor.
"Things are different now." She said not looking at Sam. The blonde sat down in front of her leaning against the wall.
"I, I just wanted to fit in and I lost myself in the process and Dylan too. Things just haven't been the same between us." Sam nodded.
"He loves you, you know."
"I know." She whispers.
"But he loves you too. I feel it. I keep trying to hold on but now I'm not so sure what I'm fighting for. I've just been so angry lately." Sam felt bad for the girl. She patted her knee.
"We all have those moments. I'm scared to death and so angry I don't know where to direct all these emotions to. I've always had my brother to talk to and now he's not my brother anymore. He's not Carter and I don't have anyone else. My mom's a deadbeat villain whose retired I have no clue where she is and I don't see the general as much as I'd like he has his own life, but Carter, Carter and I were close."
"You have us." Summer said. "I'm sorry, for everything I put you through."
"Me too." Sam said giving her a smile. Figures she would never actually say the words.
"Truce?" Sam offered her hand out.
"Truce." Summer said. The doors opened and one of the guards came to get them stating there was a meeting it was necessary for them to attend.
"Were gathering information as best we can, we need to know how to capture and apprehend Carter James as best we can without anyone getting hurt." Zoom said. They all sat in comfy chairs around a large black desk.
"Your father's power was to always hit his mark how does that relate in anyway to yours or Carters power?" Zoom asked Sam directly.
"Have I ever missed?" She asked cockily. He responded to her pursed lips with a pointed look for her to be serious.
"I'll take your silence as a definitive answer." She said smirking. Laraby slapped his papers on the desk.
"This is seriously business little girl!" he said.
"I am being serious." She said wishing the General was here to back her up he had been detained for another serious matter.
"I never miss the spot I'm aiming, neither will Carter. We were training and we have the genes remember? Mothers got the fire power Fathers got the skill. You're gamma 13 General Laraby created a monster whose coming to collect if anyone's to blame its you." Laraby snorted in disgust at her.
"What else can we expect?" Marsha asked.
"Carter has the power of heat manipulation, heightened intuition and blocking anything from a telepath or empath. Two of which I have been transferred during the governments little 'training sessions.' But what I saw from yesterday he's definitely stronger and his powers have increased tenfold. If he touches you he can boiling your blood from the inside of you his skin paralyses you." She informed them.
"Best way to attack would be all at once." Dylan suggested.
"Circular formation." Summer added. Zoom nodded. Laraby hung up the phone he was on.
"Agent Grant has some news for us." He said motioning to the door. A curly blonde headed agent walked into the room with a black suit and a folder in hand.
"General, here is the information you requested. We have intel on the enemy's position. Sam's jaw dropped as did Summers and Dylans.
"Denny?" he looked up at her his blue eyes searching her brown ones. Laraby laughed a disgusting gurgling sound.
"This is Agent Tyler Grant he is an agent of the government sent to keep an eye on you little miss can't follow the rules pain in my ass." Laraby announced. Denny who was really Tyler looked down at his shoes.
"Is that true?" she asked. She needed to hear it from him.
"Yes Ma'am." He said curtly.
"I can't believe this." She said the air cracking with electricity. She balled her hands into fists at her sides and stormed out of the room regardless if the meeting was finished or not.
"Sam! Sam wait!" Tyler Grant called running after her.
"You lied to me!"
"It was part of my job. I couldn't blow cover." They argued in the hall way the meeting room quietly listening to every word.
"Don't touch me!" She yelled at him. Seconds later the agent yelled a slue of curses as she had shocked him.
"You know a part of me really did fall for you, I liked you but duty comes first always will for me."
"Don't follow me this time or you'll regret it." She said turning around and storming down the hall.
"We all have secrets Sam!" He yells at her. She's already half way down the hall way.
