Chapter 12 – Break
(Inspired by: Break - Three Days Grace)
The next thing happens in a flurry of emotion. It starts with Quinn digging his fingers into my hips, my lips crashing against his, his tongue battling mine for dominance, hands grabbing at anything in a drunken passion for more, and the whole while, I see Alec instead. Swallowing hard, I blink the images away from my mind and take a step back, chest heaving. My body seems to meet gravity all at once, feeling like cement as I crumble to my knees. A stream of ice slithers through my veins as the separation from my family, their lives at risk, becomes very real in that moment.
"You're never going to survive this mission if you break so easily," Quinn says, his voice edging along sympathetic, but never veering too far from his usual condescending tenor. "You're not as pathetically weak as you think."
Narrowing my eyes at him, I snarl at him, "Get out of my head."
"Doll face," Quinn drops to one knee, grinning at me from under his soft bangs and snickers under his breath. He tucks a loose hair behind my ear as I twist my face away from his grasp. "No one has to be in your head to see how low you think of yourself; you carry yourself with a face of stone, but your eyes give you away. You hate being half human, you think it makes you less than a being. You have one foot in each world and for whatever reason, you think that's some horrible disadvantage."
Heat flowers over my cheeks, spreading over my nose and lighting my face aflame. Shame echoes in my ears or maybe that's the onrush of blood pounding through my skull. Swallowing the lump in my throat, I try to keep the tears in my eyes from overflowing. Quinn stood, taking a deep breath.
"I was born in 1514. My mother died after my birth and my father feared for the longest time that I too would die. He raised me to be cautious about everything, hide from everyone, and I lived as a cowardly rat until the day I stopped aging. Twenty years of my life was wasted and should my father had had his way, I'd still be living as the dutifully weak child he'd always dreamt of. Instead, I rose to my highest potential, traveled the world, and become a self-sufficient being. Although, I ran away for a century, my father understood and was proud of all that I accomplished," he paused, glancing at me to assure I was paying attention. "My little sob story will hopefully serve as inspiration to you. You have so much power in your, so much strength, and you're wasting yourself with all this self-loathing. If anything about you is pathetic, it's that. Being a half breed is the best edge you could have; everyone will underestimate you, giving you the chance to slit their throats without ever having to hide in the shadows."
That was the final straw to break the camel's back. Training became my only priority; in the course of a week and a half, I'd gone through an irreversible change. My final growth spurt occurred during one of the few rests I was allowed, changing my appearance from that of a sixteen-year-old to an easily justifiable twenty-two. When I reentered the gym, Quinn was the only one falling behind.
My once childlike, curious persona was lost, replaced by the desire to become unstoppable and great. The hopeless romantic of my soul seemed to wither under the increasingly large predator that emerged from the darkest depths of my mind, the vampire within seeming to creep out once and for all. For a fleeting moment, I wondered whether Alec would still care for me as I was now, but the question died as I took my next breath. There was a greater woe that burned in the hearts of all those who had joined B.R.A.V.O, the entirety of the agents had been brutally scarred by the Volturi. My romance was an incredibly irrelevant facet of the story that led to this.
As I took a swig from my canteen, one filled to the brim with O-negative blood to ensure my body was being maintained with the highest care, Quinn reentered the gym with an iPhone in his palm. The bluish light cast shadows over his face as he approached, his thumbs swiftly moving over the screen.
"I didn't realize you were up-to-date with social media; updating your twitter?" I grin, capping my bottle and moving on to the mat to start stretching. Quinn chortles out a dry scoff, "No, Kylie was updating me on the recent Intel we've received regarding the Volturi case… none of it is good."
I pause for a moment, taking a breath and offering a stiff nod before resuming my stretches.
"Give it to me straight."
Clearing his throat, Quinn goes on. "They're being held in the dungeon, Carlisle has been traveling in and out to discuss the matter with Aro. Bella, Edward, and Alice are being held in a separate part of the castle. Aro thinks if he treats them well, they'll join his guard. Everyone else… well, if things continue on this way, he'll start to use their lives as negotiation pawns. Kylie thinks we should shave off two days of training and leave by Friday."
My head shoots up at that, eyes bulging from my skull. "But… that's tomorrow."
"I know; this happens sometimes. When missions become life or death situations, time is no longer a luxury we have. We need to get to your family out of there as soon as possible and the team we have is more than ready, including you. You've made incredible progress; not to let this go to your head, but you're one of the best after no less than eleven days. You're a natural and as long as you keep up the badass confidence you've had around here, this op will go smoothly," he examines my face, staring lasers in to my eyes before offering a reassuring grin, "And if it's any consolation, we still have today to get ready."
Thus began the shortest twenty-four hours of my life. Quinn and I began our usual session of hand-to-hand combat, as usual, I won. We began unarmed, gradually moving to armed, and finally, concentration combat. While physically, I'd matured and bypassed the heredity lack of hand-eye coordination, my gift was still growing. Most of the practice I'd done in that department had been on my own.
Quinn did not have your typical telepathic abilities; any mind he'd been in, he could recreate their power. Somehow, his power was a gift reflector of sorts. His codename was Copycat, specifically because of this. He didn't hold back on me as he threw every mind trick he could in my head. All I had to do was deflect it, but even that was a seemingly insurmountable feat. We had less than four hours before the pre-inspection for the operation would be set in motion and I'd made little progress. As Quinn tuned in to Jane's powers, I, for the eighty-sixth time, crumbled to the ground gasping in agony. It was gone in a blink.
"This is ridiculous, Renesmee!" he hissed, fury turning his metallic eyes in to carbon powder. I shakily pushed up on my aching muscles only for Quinn to press his boot in to my back, squashing me against the floor with an echoing crunch. I was too weak to fight back, far too defeated. I hardly rose from the ground as I fogged the chilled linoleum with each heavy breath that passed my lips. I tried to refrain from blaming my human-half on my weakness, but that was the only thing that made this all connect; although mostly vampire, the part of my mind that was still human couldn't fight against the powers that were all vampire.
"No," Quinn growled beside my ear, his cool breath wafting on my cheek. "That's just you making excuses because you're too scared to actually try and fight back. Maybe, if you actually gave a damn about your family, you'd stop acting like a little girl. To think Alec actually fell for someone as weak as you act; here I was thinking you could be great only to watch you waste yourself."
His boot lifts from my back a moment later, pure ice burning through my fiery veins. I can feel the venom pooling in my throat as it shoots through every tissue of my being at all the insults he dug in to me. The second he walked away was the second I finally became the person I'd always been, but never believed I could be. Flicking myself up from the ground, I squared my shoulders and faced Quinn's retreating form.
"I want to try again." I snap, my tone clipping through the acoustics of the gym. He didn't stop, his head shaking, "I don't have time for these spurts of adrenaline you rely on; they'll get you killed."
Flashing in front of him, I shove Quinn back and focus every ounce of energy I have on making him stop. As my palms connect against his chest, I feel electricity in my fingertips just as he flies back. Quinn crashes in to the far wall, concrete crumbling behind him. Through a puff of smoke, he stares at me with wide eyes. Shock registers in my mind, but I shove it away; I need to get a grip on my powers before the clock times out.
"I said, I want to try again. We don't leave until we finish our session." I say, crossing my arms over my chest with a narrowed gaze; my body language daring him to question him. For a split second, I see something akin to respect in Quinn's eyes, but it's replaced with annoyance before I feel the fire rip through me. I tense my muscles, searching within to find the barrier that will end the pain. It feels like hours of endless torture before I find the base of my shield, throwing it against Quinn's mind. He physically stumbles back, catching himself on his knee and the internal flames disappear in an instant. His eyes flash up to mine, bulging and in awe.
"That's fucking impressive."
Pre-inspection can be compared to a history class in the human world in terms of how interesting it is. Everyone apart of the mission is compacted in to a room where we all sit at desks with folders of the plan in front of us. The leader of team, ours is Kylie, stands at the head of the room like a teacher with a power-point slide and a long speech that walks us through the information in our folders. If you have a question, you raise your hand.
For about an hour and a half, we're briefed in great detail before she assigns everyone codenames and dismisses us for dinner. Quinn is flanked by other agents as he leaves the room, being well-liked by nearly everyone. My name, similar to my present situation, is Loner as through most of the mission, I'll be on my own. I make my way down to the cafeteria and pick up two bottles of special ordered O-negative blood before I turn down the hall to my bunk. I sift through my drawers for my running clothes, the need to get out of these congested walls burns an undeniable craving in my bones. I down the blood and head back down the hall, but hang a left toward the exit. The guard, a bulky, monster-of-a-man, nods me out as I hold up my ID.
The B.R.A.V.O headquarters is exactly what you'd expect of an undercover agency; a giant titanium box with no windows, a single story above ground and nineteen more below. It's hidden deep in the middle of nowhere, I'm pretty sure somewhere in Europe; Kylie told me it was better if I didn't know the exact location. Just that not an inch of this land is North America.
I find the trail the team had to run the first time I'd joined for group training. Taking a deep breath, arms stretched above my head, I start in a jog like we were told to, but I had no one yelling orders at me; I was free. My legs pump harder, faster, stronger. The burn of energy being exerted is similar to that of an old, familiar blanket, cradling me like my mother's gentle embrace. I find my inner peace, hoping that it will somehow help in tomorrow's events. Being on my own means that if something goes wrong, I'll be expected to improvise with the utmost caution. I have to be completely confident in everything I do because if I'm not, demise of the operation, of the team, of my family, of everything at stake is ensured.
I slow to a stop, the bitter chill in the air whips through the trees, rustling the leaves. Taking a deep breath, I regulate my heartbeat as it calms from its crazed flutter and I lean against the trunk of a large tree. Closing my eyes, I silently gather all the courage within, hoping to all that is holy that tomorrow goes as smoothly as possible.
Four am, the wakeup alarm blares in my room, shattering the calm fog that had settled. I push off the mattress and quickly dress in the standard-issue agent uniform; being a Level 5, ranked by ability, this is comprised of a black tank-top, black spandex pants, combat boots, and a leather jacket. Pulling my flat-ironed waves tightly back to the base of my skull, I tie it in a neat pony tail. Jogging down the hall to the assembly room, I join the rest of the team, a total of twenty-five of the best agents in B.R.A.V.O.
The final debriefing commences and everyone is given an ear piece before being dismissed to collect their weapons. By four thirty, we load on the jet. Once we take off, everyone begins loading their guns and strapping their holsters to different parts of the body. Unlike them, my weapon is inside of me; my gift. Quinn and Kylie rejected my request to be issued a weapon. You won't need it, they had told me, but that gave me no reassurance in the fact that I had to have complete faith in myself.
I pop echoes from above our heads, silence falling over the soft murmur of voices as the piolet makes an announcement over the intercom. Glancing up at the speaker, I hang on each word with unnecessary attention. "Ten minutes till landing; please find a seat and fasten your seat belts."
Doing as instructed, I focus on breathing, keeping my heart beat even. Quinn, appearing out of thin air, plops in the seat beside me and buckles himself down. He offers a sideways look of question, saying nothing for a moment. I don't dare look at him, the fear of him seeing my confidence slipping keeps my gaze glued to the window directly in front of me. Quinn leans toward me, but I still don't break.
"We can all smell your insecurity, Doll face," he whispers, his tone deep with insinuations. I grit my teeth, turning my head away, "The only one who's insecure is the man sitting next to me, often compensating for his pea-sized intellect with snippy comments and snotty looks."
Grinning, he leans away. I assume I satisfied his concern with my usual impudence, but deep down, he's right; I'm incredibly insecure of my ability… I have been since I hit puberty, then again, what girl isn't insecure at that time? However, the fear of my gift failing me in a life or death situation is a little more rational than the terror that lurks when a human girl looks in the mirror and finds a blemish marring her once smooth complexion. The pimple I found was the inconsistency of my gift, only emerging in times of extreme emotional imbalance making me a liability to myself and others.
Swallowing hard, I clip the seatbelt in to place and narrow my mind on the goal: saving my family. That's the only priority. I shove the doubt from my mind, hoping that will be enough to keep my confidence from wavering when the mission is truly set in motion.
If it slips… we all die.