A Game Of Love And Lies

Part 19

Steve

"Lock up all the exit doors and search all the cameras footage to see where they went!"

Every agent was crouched over a computer trying to notice anything unusual. Even the seconds counted. A trained warrior and a God were running loose in the building trying to find a way to escape. Metal bars dropped to every window and exit door. No one was allowed to enter or get out.

"Found them!"

Fury scanned the room to see which person said that. He almost ran in her direction. The video showed a crowd of agents heading to the nearest exit when out of the blue, two more of them appeared out of thin air and joined them. It was extremely hard to notice due to the large number of people and everyone wearing the same attire, including a headpiece that covered their features.

"They were trying to leave from the main exit! Split up and find them!"

None of us wasted any time. Thor wielded his hammer and Tony his suit. We all split up and we demanded to see the face of every agent we encountered while touching their arms. According to Thor, the illusions could not last when there was physical contact. They could not hide forever.

After a few minutes, I ended up back at the same hallways meeting the same people. At a big establishment like that one, it was hard not to get lost. Others seemed to have the same problem as well. I took a left turn and I saw Bruce and Nat running towards the elevators.

"Which floor are you going to search next?"

Before the lift's walls closed Nat yelled.

"We are going to the storage room in case they are looking for the Tesseract."

"But we saw them at the West side of the building trying to esc..."

No point in continuing they were gone. As I was making my way through the floors I accidentally spotted a few broken cameras hanging off the sides of the walls. They must have not been replaced yet from the last Hulk incident we had. Blind spots...

I was about to speak through the microphone that was attached to my uniform and ask if we had any visuals of those corridors but I saw Nat approaching again.

"Everything okay at the storage room?"

She stopped running and glanced at me confused.

"They could not have accessed the storage room. No agents are allowed in there. They most likely managed to exit before we secured the building."

Then it hit me. "They could have, if they looked like us..."

I could not believe this. They were right in front of me and I let them go. As I was about to sprint to the bottom floor, Fury spoke through the speakers.

"Radiation Gamma was detected... They are gone..."

Althea

Loki transported us to a windowless, rather sketchy room. The jump must have been massive since we both fell on the ground and everything around us shook similarly if an earthquake happened. A few frames on the walls dropped, smashing the protective glass everywhere.

I felt less nauseous and dizzy this time. Turned out that the more you used the stone the easier it got. Loki proved my theory right when he got immediately on his feet, unfazed from our trip.

Considering a few seconds before, shield's radiant white lights were blinding us, we could not exactly see where we were standing. Our only light source was the faint glow that was shining from the crack under the door in front of us. After a few seconds, my eyes adjusted to the darkness. We were in a living room. A very old fashioned furnished living room. The brown couch seemed to be made out of a very uncomfortable squeaky material and the decorations were old items that must have had no real value in the present day.

"Where are we?" I whispered, afraid that the owner of the house might hear me.

My reply was fast footsteps running up the stairs and coming our way. I held my breath when I saw the shadow of two feet, under the door. The door wedged open revealing a slender, ill-looking man on the other side.

The first thing that I noticed was that he was wearing two pairs of outdated glasses for his four eyes. An oversized lab coat was hanging off of him with smudges and cuts all over it. His trembling hand was holding a scalpel ready to slice any intruders. He looked very afraid and his eyes widened when he saw Loki.

With his blade still pointing at him, Loki approached the man and took it from his grip.

"Cador I can see you are still frightened of your own shadow... Jokes aside, did I notice your hands shaking?"

He passed him and started walking down the stairs not caring for an answer. The doctor did not even give me a second glance, he just simply went after him. They were both going to just leave me in there. I followed them, visibly irritated.

Cador wiped the cold sweat behind his neck with his hand and readjusted his glasses.

"My hands tremble when I'm nervous."

Loki scoffed and replied sarcastically. "Good thing you are not a doctor then... I'll need you to run a memory test on my friend."

Friends... You could call us a lot of things but definitely not friends. Cador did not even need to reply. It was not a request but an order. He was definitely terrified of Loki.

We entered what seemed to be the basement, where Cador had built his own unprofessional laboratory. A room filled with machinery and 'medicine'. It did not look sanitized. I grabbed Loki by his sleeve to draw his attention and whispered to him.

"That man will not lay his hands on me!"

"Are you not fond of Cador?"

We both slightly turned our backs to see what he was up to. He was fixing a label on one of his bottles. I must admit everything in that lab was a mess except the table with the bottles on it. Dozens of them in rows, containing natural herbs and labeled carefully with their names and numbers.

"I must admit he is an odd-looking fellow but he is your only chance of getting your memories back."

He gave me a one-sided hug and a reassuring smile. This reminded me of the time I got injured and he held my hand. He made me feel a bit safer. Medical procedures brought back dreadful memories so I needed someone by my side to remind me that I'm not alone this time.

I found the courage to lay down on that operating table. Cador was sanitizing his tools so I had a bit of time to study the room around me. Two radiant lights were blinding me but they were not strong enough to fill the whole basement, making the atmosphere very eerie. In front of me, there was a screen that showed only static and made that very familiar white noise. My eyes glanced again at the table full of bottles. Everything was neatly placed but heavily dusted. Something peculiar caught my attention. There was a clean circle in the place a bottle should have been. The dust had not yet reached that spot meaning something was very recently removed. I read the label in front of that empty spot...Sage.

Loki pulled me out of my thoughts when he held my hand again. It was as if he knew this experience was quite traumatic to me and he made me feel better. He stroked with his thumb my hand making my heart flutter.

"Do not worry everything will be fine."