The world around me was blurred, and I felt very numb. There was nothing I could do, and that was from the feeling of being unable to do something. . .anything to help her. I could only watch her as she had been killed in the most brutal way possible.

I reached out to Damian to cover his eyes with my hand. There were some things he should never have to see, no matter how his childhood had been like. Whether the two of them were willing to outright say it, they were pretty close to each other. Damian caught my hand, and he stepped away from me, never once looking away from the screen that was in front of us.

"If anything," he had said to me. "I should be covering your eyes."

I could not say anything because I had no idea what I could say. She did not need me breaking down at the moment, not when she had needed my help. Not then. Not ever. That was when I realized it. A part of me could not really believe what I had seen. That strong part of me refused to believe that Birdie had been killed.

She would never have given up without a fight. Not the Birdie I knew. She would have made it all very difficult for them to be able to easily kill her.

My own convictions about her did not change what I saw.

"I know what was happening," Damian said to me. "I know where that was. That place. . ."

He turned the screen off, and he made sure to look up his theory. Damian appeared to be very confident on where she was, and I could not seem to stop him. Had no heart.

"As I suspected," he said to me. "She is not too far from here."

Taken from the transcripts of the F.B.I.'s files from the Behavioral Analysis Unit. It was an investigation under potential cult-like activity across the whole country.

There were certain individuals who were targeted. To the untrained eye, they had nothing too much in common, but upon further investigation, they were individuals who turned out to have powers. Something about their genetic code would have allowed for that to even be possible.

The other people who were chosen by this group of people were also individuals who could influence the people around them. They were full of great hope and idealism. Their public displays of death would bring darkness down on the people who would witness them.

The case of Rebecca Tjaden was a different one.

She was taken and apparently killed as she had connections to Captain America. They may not have been able to get to him, but they would have been able to get to her. They used her to get to him, which was why he was shown her outright execution.

They were called the Religion of Crime, which claimed to have been a religion founded in very ancient times that worshipped a liberator that was likened to Lucifer Morningstar of Christianity and Kali, the Destroyer in Hindu mythology. It was classified as a cult. They believed they were preparing the world for the return of their dark god, so the world would have been liberated from any sense of freedom or choice.

Their symbol was the omega symbol, which they show anywhere and everywhere.

We came to a small-ish home in the suburbs. There was nothing about that home that would have shown how dangerous these people were.

Damian looked at me pretty closely when we came to that home, and he narrowed his eyes back at me. "You need to clear your head."

I shook my head. "I am fine."

He did not seem to believe what I was telling him, though as his facial expression did not really change. "You are distraught and upset. Anyone would have been when they saw that, but if we are going to stop them, you need to have your mind clear. I cannot have you ruining this for us."

"My mind is clear."

"It is not. You want revenge. You are barely able to hold yourself together. We cannot have that ruining what we are about to do."

I let out a breath.

I didn't want to admit it, but he was correct. I could barely hold myself together. I wanted to cry, and I wanted to find the people responsible and kill them. The killing part was not exactly me, but I wanted to do it. Nothing would change what happened, but it would be necessary. I wanted them to be able to suffer for what they did, and it would have felt really good to be able to do something like that.

Honestly, I could barely hold myself together, and my focus was shot. I kept thinking about her and about our very short time together and how she made everything better since I woke up from the ice into a very unfamiliar time and place.

Now, I felt like there was no point in me being there. I felt that directionless and hopeless. There was no reason why I should be there. None at all. She was my reason to be there, and now, she was long gone. Gone.

I looked at that house, and I could not help but feel that there really was something wrong with that place. It just was not that obvious when we just got there. The door was open slightly.

"Let's go," I said to the boy.

"What?" He asked.

"Look at the front door."

"It's open."

"Right," I said to him. "If they were going to do something nefarious, then they would have made sure they were more secure."

"Someone beat us here."

"Someone beat us here. Come on. Let's see what's going on in there."