Devour

Chapter 24 - Dax

Every day I wake up and spend a moment saying good morning to everyone who has died. My biological parents. Rose. My dad. Miss Cora who was never anything but my real mum. And I never told her that. I lay there and I think about them and I wish them good morning and I tell them I love them and that I'm here today doing what I hope they'd want me to do.

And everyday I never get an answer.

That's quite all right. I've grown accustomed to being alone. Ever since that horrible night when Cora and Errol died. I know I'm supposed to have some tortured memories of smoke and such. But I don't. All I remember is standing by the fire trucks wrapped in a trauma blanket, with Nel hugging me and sobbing and Emma begging to see their bodies while Patch hugged her and Jules. They told us there was a fire. And Cora died from inhaling too much smoke not burning up. But the house was ruined. And we couldn't live there anymore. And Errol was dead too he probably started it. Because he'd been burned before and wasn't well. But I didn't believe that. It must have been an accident.

But that's all okay. Because someday I'll die. Someday it will be my turn and I too will simply disappear.

But for now I have a job to do. I have to do everything they would have with their lives and more because there's not just the five of them, there's dozens of them. Millions who have died. And I live for everyone of them and not for me because I have nothing to live for.

My parents were lawyers, among the youngest to pass bar. My mother had a genius IQ. Cora was a decorated Royal marine, starting as a rescue paratrooper and ending as a special agent with clearances high enough to be left alone with the most powerful psychic ever detected, Errol, for all intents and purposes my father, who murdered thousands of people in cold blood and never raised his voice at me. Rose was bottom of her classes except math but had won local art competitions, and had encyclopedic knowledge of comics.

Any one of them could have done more with their lives than I.

But I'm here.

Existing.

My siblings and I are split up now. Patch lives with his mother and attends local university. He's a .5 level threat with one handler and they do as they like, since he'll likely be phased out of the program.

Jules remains a level one and with no family, he, like me, lives in the dorms, but he's in a lower security dorm than me. He takes his school classes and does general Agent training. He doesn't have a permanent handler since he stays in the dorms. He gets one at random if he goes on an outing or something.

Emma lives with her parents who adore her and by default the rest of us. They have an open invitation for myself and the others to come over if we can get a pass, and have actively tried to get guardianship of myself and Jules. They recognize we are family and want Emma to have her family with her. They send me food and things as well if I don't come around often enough. It's kind. I'm busy.

Emma has a handler, a middle aged woman who is kind enough and appreciates that Emma wants to take double university classes along with her Agent training and missions.

Nel lives with her mum and grandparents, who love her and are welcoming to me as well. Nel is a level seven, and so she requires a live in handler. A nice young man who boards with Nel's family, since they were open to the arrangement. She is in school still and taking classes here at the compound. They use her on missions occasionally, but not so much as Emma and I.

I live in the dorms. There's nothing in my room, because they wouldn't let me take anything from the farm house, and I didn't want anything else. I take classes in the morning, just enough to complete my A levels. I won't go after that. I don't care. My parents were very clever. I'm not very clever. I have a handler. Christine. A woman a bit more than twice my age, with a husband a bit older than her, and two small children. Her husband travels for work a good deal, which suites me well enough.