Chapter Eight: The Eye For An Eye

Luke ran. He ran as fast as could, pumping his lungs for air and going until his legs were mechanical, moving like clockwork.

"Four minutes, forty-eight seconds," called the physical education teacher. "Nice job, boys."

"Hey! Hey, professor! Who was first?" panted the one young man, who had his hands on his knees, bending over. He coughed, wiped his forehead, and stood up.

The teacher watched the other students still running around the track. "By a tenth of a second, Luke."

"Son of a bitch!" the young man laughed. He smiled, coughing again, but lunged for Luke, who played off a grand smile and was chased around the track for one more lap.

By the end, Luke's knees gave out, and he was pummelled into the dust by his friend. He laid and laughed, while the dust was blown away in a moment, and Luke could've swore he heard a "Careful," whispered into his ear. He looked up, expecting to see no one as Florence Gibbon had been his guard for some odd months now. But, Florence wasn't a speedster, she was just invisible. Now, why couldn't anyone tell him fully of what was going on?

"Hey, alright?" his friend called, getting up from the dust a few feet away.

Luke nodded, brushing himself off. This was getting ridiculous. The only people he saw to be mysteriously following him were the Ten, or a person that he later learned to be another one who had joined the Ten, and named themselves proudly as a Kenshi. Yes, his brother had been killed in their very own house, but for the past seven months, absolutely nothing had happened that had threatened his life. The Kenshi said that was because they were doing their job.

He felt sorry to say this, but it was like a cult. It was secretive, with hand signals and symbols spray painted white on the sides of buildings. It was invisible to anyone who didn't know about it, but to people like Luke who recognized the symbols, it was a message board with notes left and right. It seemed that every one of the Ten had their own branch of friends that focused on a different aspect of bringing Joseph Allen back to power, and they were all shockingly enthusiastic about it. Luke didn't quite understand.

"That's it," the physical education teacher called as the last student treaded across the finish line. "Head on in."

The next bell rang. Luke slipped his bookbag over her shoulder and attempted to cross the raging river of people also known as the hallway. It took him nearly five minutes to walk down eight doors to his next class.

"Heya, Luke, see Melbourne last night? Yeah, rough game. Listen, I've been doing terrible in Chem lately. Yeah, there's like a trillion stuff to remem-- Oh thanks man! You're a real lifesaver, yeah?"

"Luke! Hiya Luke. Don't you know you're the cutest-- Oh, I've said already? Well, I was wondering if you could give me a refresher. You know, big Music Theory exam. Luke, you are such a sweetheart! Oh, alright. See you later!"

"So I was thinking, you know how I am. I know Georgina is busy with all her films, but no! Just stop for a second! Check it, every 12th of the month, she goes to Rosaline's Coffee Shop, with sunglasses and all that so that people don't know she's famous, and she sits at the same spot-- How? Oh, I read it online. Listen, Luke, just listen--"

Luke dropped his books at his desk. "No, Wallace! Georgina Harrison doesn't remember you as her lover simply because you never were her lover, and me trying to bring back any of her memories isn't going to change that! Ever! So quit trying, will you?"

Wallace frowned and shrugged, dragging himself back to his seat and muttering something incomprehensible to the photograph of the actress that lived in his pocket.

With a roll of the eyes, Luke plodded into his own seat, and held his head. When he finally opened his eyes at the sound of a second bell, he read the board and let his head fall to the desk. It read, "Exam Today! Clear your desks. Pencil only," with a roughly drawn smiley face.

Pathetic. What a completely pathetic ability. While everyone else reaps the benefits with suddenly remembrance everything if they just visit me before an exam, I can't even help myself. God, I hate Mandarin. Why couldn't I have taken Cantonese? Or Japanese; everyone loves Japanese. Maybe I should've taken my chances on Italian. Maybe, Arabic. Maybe. Damn, I can't even read the directions... they could've at least put that in English. Or even French. I could read that. Wait, why would they put the directions in French? It's a Mandarin exam. That doesn't make any sense. Oh, the numbers are in English. And the multiple choice, they're A, B, C, and--

The classroom door smacked open. "Jesus Christ, Ellen! Turn on your telly!"

Luke's Mandarin teacher looked cross, responding with a "Excuse me? We're testing!"

Whether it was the teacher or the student that telepathically turned on the television was never known to Luke. The televisions were usually reserved for school announcements, and he didn't even know that they could receive normal programming.

The students ignored their exam papers, and their eyes were glued on the television, where the caption below the newscaster was in bold, capital, and white letters.

"-- Minister intended to honour a historical bank in St. Rollox, but within moments of her speech was shot in the back of the head. Shortly after, a banner that was supposed to announce the bank's new status was... was replaced instead with the words, 'an eye for an eye.' Well, we'll be rolling the footage, as that seems to explain this terrible incident much more clearly."

The anchorman swallowed with a painful look, but the screen switched over to the footage, which was silent with the anchorman's words commentating instead.

Luke stared. He gulped. Prime Minister Kimball was making a speech, and seemed completely normal and charismatic as she was. It seemed totally out of the blue that she was to suddenly jolt for a moment, then fall gracefully behind the podium.

The camera shook, and it was clear that in front, the crowds were going crazy. The cameras were flashing like no tomorrow. Then, the banner dropped, displaying in front of the bank's entrance those very words in big, black capital letters, "AN EYE FOR AN EYE." The public at the scene went crazy, and the camera was being shaken so terribly that the it tried to back out of the crowd, but people were running left and right.

"As of yet, investigators have no leads to the assassins," the anchorman continued, "but do believe it was a very carefully planned assassination attempt, as the Prime Minister's security is at the highest consideration. The public present at the ceremony are being investigated individually, although the vast majority of people believe the shot was fired from kilometres afar. At this point, we have-- Oh? Oh God."

The newscaster took off his glasses for a moment, wiping his face. He blinked a few times, put his glasses back on and addressed the screen again.

"I've just received news that Prime Minister Jocelyn Ann Kimball is confirmed dead."

A few students of Luke's class gasped, and a girl held her mouth to stop her cries. The rest of the class blinked at the screen with gaping mouths.

Luke couldn't look at it anymore. A shiver flew down his spine. He held his head, got up from his seat without a word. Only a few students even noticed when he left the classroom. He sat in the nearest janitorial closet that he could find.

"Was it us?" he asked quietly. He held his head.

Florence appeared, and sat down beside him. "She allied with the Fergusons. She was mad at your father and told them where he lived. It's because of her that your brother is dead."

So it was, an eye for an eye. Luke said, "I thought you kept people from dying. I thought you were for peace."

"Oh Lukie Baby, we are for peace. The Individualists were getting sick of her, the annoying little woman. They would've gotten to her before we did." Florence leaned up against the concrete wall, placing a grim smile to the young man. "I bet they're thankful for what we've done. Oh, they'll get to blame it on the terrorists and write it off as a tragedy. Meanwhile, they'll run out of steam. They'll lose their trust."

Tragedy. What was tragic was the irony that Joseph Allen, the first tragedy, would be the one to cause the second. "I know," Luke said, "I know she had to go. I just... I can't believe we killed her."

In a way, he was sort of glad. Someone needed to pay for his brother's death. This would be a blow to the Fergusons' chest. It wasn't just some assassination, not even just some tragedy. It was the premiere. It was the Kenshi's debutante. They had made a grand entrance, indeed.

Luke licked his lips. "Do I still have to take my exam?" he asked.

A/N: Oooh, dark. :P Loved this chapter. Some of them just flow right on to the page.

And last episode of the year tomorrow! You know, I had a dream about a preview saying it would be a 2-hour special and and the NBC guy's voice and everything. Imagine my disappointment when I found out it wasn't. No, just a normal episode, though no doubt it will be have an cliffhanger ending that will leave me screaming.

Oh, the tortures of a Heroes fan.