Cat Eyes: Acrux [Book 2]

Chapter 3: Awaken

For the first time, I felt myself falling. I saw the sky and didn't understand why until I realized that I was on the asphalt. The wind blew a bit, and I blinked in confusion.

Where was my helmet? And my colleagues? The man who controlled us? I sniffed him close, so I sat back and saw him unconscious, not far away, which surprised me.

I also observed a small place that seemed to have been destroyed, and I was sure that it had been us. I saw Alpha and Centauri in there, sitting back, confused as well. We were a team. I had already remembered.

Some voices made me look ahead, surprising me even more. Humans, and an evolved man like me.

I hadn't managed to kill him, but he was wounded. He hadn't killed me either, despite everything. I frowned when I saw him so close to those people. They spoke to him as if he were one of them. I no longer lost my sanity, nor did I rush to attack. Was it that I was already free? Were those humans going to die in my hands too?

I got to my feet with difficulty, and my companions barely left that place. As they were about to leave, the EH noticed and fixed his gaze on us, growling low, indicating that he could still pounce and attack, so I raised my hands in surrender. I didn't want any more trouble, and I was free from that hell. I no longer wanted to kill.

"Sorry, they had us under control," I explained, hoping he would believe me. I rehearsed that phrase in my mind a thousand times, and now, at last, I was saying it. "I'm Acrux. They're Alpha and Centauri," I pointed at them. "I guess... Thanks for not killing us."

"Needless to say," replied a brown-haired human.

"We'll get rid of the man and leave. No one will see us," Centauri assured. He, too, longed for freedom.

"No. We'll wait for you. We'll take you to the hospital," another human asked. "If you stay wounder, the other controlled evolved will track and find you faster and easier."

I was engrossed in it. Did they just treat us as equals? Did they live with that EH without fighting?

"Let's hurry, Acrux," Alpha said.

We recovered the helmets from the destroyed place and continued. I breathed the air carefully. It was a very crowded city. It reeked of stress. We still didn't assimilate the fact that we could move by our own means on their streets. I even felt myself shaking slightly. The brothers looked at me, and even though we were wearing helmets, I knew they were just as scared as I was.

We were terrified. My body was waiting for punishment. I was traumatized. What was I afraid of? Maybe for others to see us and recapture us. I started shaking more. No, no-no.

Everything but that, I preferred to die!

"Will you go back to those humans? Will you trust?" Alpha asked. "We are free now. Let's run away. What happens if we are recaptured?"

"They have one of ours. I don't think they'll hurt us. Besides, I don't know where to go back."

"What does it matter? We would go anywhere. That's not all. What if that one we saw was controlled as well?"

"No, I saw it in his eyes. He's not controlled. And if they didn't kill us but freed us, it's because they must know that we are used by someone else. Don't you want to ask who? Don't you want to be able to make them pay?" Anger was reborn in me, giving me strength.

They frowned and nodded determinedly.

"You're right. We're going to find the one who knows about this."

***

After leaving the man in a garbage container, we went with them until we reached a large hospital building, as we saw on its sign. While still covering us with helmets, they were in charge of dispatching the humans to help us in the 'emergency' zone or something like that.