Favourite Crime

Cada

I heard blasts and gunshots but I could scarcely focus.

Cada was Jorebian for someone who lacked culture and morality. They named me such because they saw me as less than human, more of a beast.

I adopted it because I do lack culture and morality. But it's not because I can't think critically. It's because I was stolen from my culture, and I chose to abandon my morals.

Filthy, savage, wild, and a lot of other things. That's what they called me, and now I learned they were turning others into the same creature and stealing their sense of self, their control over themselves, their individuality.

I felt my legs give out under me as my mind revisited the nightmares. The realness of them. The strangeness of the body from which I saw them.

My eyes focused on the different experimental mediums, each with different mixtures, all involving my blood, files open in front of each.

I was supposed to be the bloodthirsty one, but they seemed to love my blood way too much, especially the things they could do with it.

The door opened and someone entered, and I could hear their heavy breaths.

"Cada." I heard Haoun breathe out.

He was here. Despite everything he had said, he was here.

And, despite everything I'd wanted to believe, I was relieved that he was here.

"Cada, we have to leave."

I couldn't move, and I think he realised because he came to me.

"Fucking hell..." He whispered as he saw the glass cage, the sedatives, the table where they put me.

I finally looked at him when he suddenly dripped the surface in front of us and let out a troubled breath. He pulled out his cane but his eyes were shut tight. "Haoun, you need to get out of here." I said, despite myself.

"Not... without... you." He had trouble saying each word.

He looked up for a moment and grabbed me, pulling me down with him as a bullet passed by where we had been only seconds ago and hit the floor behind him.

That seemed to have pulled the last of his strength from him. He moved a little further and put his back against the surface as I turned to face the woman that had joined us.

She held a smoking gun in her hand. "Interesting escorts you have, bringing you back to us."

I moved away from Haoun to keep her focus away from him. "What have you done, Micheala?"

"We've come so far, Fifty four. We've advanced, we've created unimaginable things, and we've made use of you." She gestured to the vials protected by the thick glass. "Did you think just because you weren't here, we would stop working on you?"

"You're turning people into animals." I spat. "You're spreading my genes like a disease."

"I agree, in the beginning it was like a plain epidemic." She nodded. "But we are evolving. We have come up with a solution that will allow us to control those we infect with your blood, through your voice." She moved to a box on one of the surfaces and opened it. She did a little pressing and whatnot until the box erupted with a sound thick but sharp, the noise of the creature I had once been. "And it's all through your blood that we've been able to come this far. We intend to spread this to our greatest threats and fulfil our duty of making our country great." She looked pleased with herself. "Startung with you." She shot at me.

I jumped and landed on the file table.

She shot above me and had I not been so close to Haoun, I would've jumped again.

The indoor hanging plant's pit was big and made of hard material that would've shattered our heads, but I grabbed Haoun's cane and held it above myself.

The pot hit the cane and I swung it towards Michaela.

She hadn't been expecting that, and the pot passed right above her head, and she was frozen for a moment before pointing her gun at me again, angry now that the pot had shattered against one of the protective glass cases and could've destroyed something.

"You should really consider your options, Cada. Cooperate." She said. "Come back and no one gets hurt."

"Alright." My hand went into my coat as I pulled out the small ball I had with me.

"Put your hands away from yourself." She ordered.

"Okay." I spread my hands, the ball held in one of them.

"Drop that." She gestured towards the ball.

"Alright, Michaela." This discussion had given me enough time to open the grenade and I threw it at her.