Strong For Too Long Trilogy ✔️

31. Baby On The Way

CHAPTER 31: Baby On The Way

She groans from the chair I tied her up in, the lights are no longer flickering in red. I checked the entire building. None of them were here. No Aaron, No Pierce, No Fern, No Eight or Thirteen or anyone. I pull up the main database, tracking Aaron's car from when he previously was able to get to the mall, they were all with him.

I watch as Aaron shops through baby books at a certain book store, Branson showing him a few while Tobias clamps a hand on his back, smiling wide, they're all chuckling.

They only ended up buying books. No cribs. No soft toys, no overdoing anything and the second Aaron made it back to the car, he came face-to-face with himself. They all did. I watch in anger as each one are tasered...before I see the crib get moved into the car, more books too, bags of soft toys...while Aaron is dragged into a black van. I watch Branson, Reynolds, Tobias, Harrison...every single one of them is dragged away.

My thoughts are racing, what happened? Why were they taken so soon after we'd all gotten out?

"You'll...never...find...them." She puffs out behind me.

I stare at the screen, "I should've killed you when I had the chance." I tell her in a cold, seeping snake of a voice.

"They killed the wedding planner...anyone who helps you dies...Candidate Four was shot in the head, Forty had all his limbs broken...Thirteen, now she's gonna be fun to break. I have a code you can type in on your network if you want to watch." She breathes out behind me, fighting against the restraints. I grab my taser, strengthening the charge on it and sending it straight into her abdomen. She shudders before she screams and I learn just how far it could go, as if her blood boils, it's her eyes that burn.

"Still want to send threats against my friends my way?" I ask her, she coughs up blood.

I turn away, staring at the drones I'm sending strictly to the places in which I knew were still on that list. The stupid list that started all this when I awoke from that forsaken place, when I shook away the shackles, but was never able to remove the brand they left behind, the dent in my skin they marked forever.

"Sorry about the wedding planner, she was a real looker." Candidate Nine taunts behind me. Her brunette curls looked like fizzed shambles at the mere moment, she smiles where she sits, razor sharp-her claws...she had yet to see mine.

"I don't truly care for the Candidate they hired to manipulate me, where is my husband?" I ask her, darkly. It seeps like a black misty shadow hoping to choke her, revive her and then feed on her fear once I sniff it out.

I open Pearson Contractors, the drone sent there to pause Manufacturing while I use Candidate Nine's tracer in order to locate where in Vancouver she originated, and my bet was from within Crest Industries, "Do you even know your real name? Your date of birth? Family? Loved ones?" I wonder, looking over to her in mild curiosity.

She stares through me, "No, I prefer it that way."

"No, you think you prefer it that way. There's a difference." I tell her.

"Explain it to me then, oh-wise-one. Am I brainwashed? Set to win subconsciously." She chuckles darkly.

I raise an eyebrow, "Yes, you're winning so well. Can't lean back and bathe in the victory considering you're tied to a chair? Rope too tight and suffocating, hands too bound and no plans ahead, but sure, you're victorious, honey? Bathe in the riches of a delusional sub-reality, because clearly...you have a dozen contradictions in your act of...what did you call it...winning? Yes, winning subconsciously, you're doing great, keep going, just another step and you've won yourself an Oscar and a golden ticket to never land, yay right?" My words are humourlessly expressed.