Brave Fear (boyxboy)

Chapter 19

The nine soldiers flooded around the corner. Evident was Wawrzynski's intent to corral them back into his experiment rather than kill them, because no rifles or pistols were raised. They were armed with tasers and tranquilizer guns instead. Shocks of lightning rippled across the tasers and their fingers rested on the non-lethal triggers.

Almost immediately, the soldier in front fired. As if in slow motion, Zane watched as the tranquilizer dart twisted and twisted, flying toward Marcus. Joseph took a hesitant step forward, but Marcus had it covered.

In a flourish of his hand, Marcus deflected the dart with one of his katanas. It struck off a side wall and fell to the floor, still loaded with tranquilizer. Zane couldn't tear his eyes from it, knowing it still carried enough power to knock a human being out. Such a small amount of liquid with such deadly consequences. Just like the serum Wawrzynski had injected them with. He shivered.

He was still confused with Marcus's extreme capabilities with the katanas. He wondered if it was perhaps a result of the previous testing Wawrzynski had done to him. Daisy had mentioned experiments that had targeted the Australian boy's mind, so perhaps this was what Wawrzynski had intended Marcus to do. He had wanted a weapon.

"Stand down, subjects!" a soldier yelled, his voice echoing, as if a thousand soldiers were screaming the same phrase over and over, and it jarred Zane's brain. He felt a compulsory need to obey the order, submit to authority. It was outweighed by the urge to have the visions he'd seen not moments before. Those promises overwhelmed the seventeen year-old urge.

When Marcus stepped out of his shoes, Zane crinkled his eyebrows.

It became evident when he saw Marcus's feet. They were an odd shape and slightly reptilian. Five long toes protruded from an oddly small foot. Short claws extended from the ends of the toes, and they looked surprisingly harmless. When a foot lifted up, Zane caught sight of small ridges along the sole of the foot and the bottoms of the toes, and they seemed to stick to the floor. Whenever he removed his foot from the floor, a strange tearing sound reverbed from the walls that sounded oddly like ripping a sticker from paper.

The resemblance to whatever strange animal he was impersonating ended at his ankles, where his body transformed back to pale, human skin.

Marcus raised his swords. Zane could not see his face, but he pictured the defiant and somewhat pitiful look on Marcus's face. The boy charged forward, the strange yellow-green feet suctioning to the floor, creating strange sounds. Every time a tranquilizer dart neared him it was sliced out of the air, rolling down to the bottom of the curved floor with the others.

The girls had retreated to a safe distance, and Zane was tempted to join them, but he couldn't leave Joseph. Marcus's words came back to him. You need him, and he definitely needs you. Zane stood his ground. Don't lose it.

A babble of yells and commands echoed from the assembled nine soldiers as Marcus leapt. Not forward, but up. His wicked feet left the metal with a slightly amusing squelching sound. He flipped and twisted, the tunnel barely tall enough for his body. Abruptly, he stopped. His body was upside down, still facing away from Zane, but he was completely turned over.

His reptilian feet had stuck to the ceiling, immobilizing further movement. "If you do not comply, we will use force!" yelled a female soldier who had stepped to the front of the pack.

Marcus's voice was deathly calm, dripping with sarcasm and anger and fear. "So will we," he said, his voice dangerously low. Zane had never seen him like this, so completely attuned to violence, drawn to it, even. The world seemed to have narrowed for him, filling his vision with red.