Immortals

Chapter Three // Mia

"What are we supposed to do now?

Ten hours later, and everything still felt unreal. Shane was gone. He had been captured by the enemies we had spent countless hours trying to evade.

It was unthinkable. Maybe we didn't even want to think about it. None of us knew exactly how the brainwashing that turned Unfavorables into government servants worked. But we knew it was to be Shane's fate.

Ten hours later, and we knew that there was nothing we could do. We had a hunch as to where he was taken, the regional headquarters out in Massachusetts, but we had no way of getting there. We had no directions, no transportation, no way of getting there undetected.

We had targets on our backs now, after all, open to shooters that even Parker's false trail couldn't fend off forever.

The thought was chilling. Ashe, Emery, Parker and I had targets on our backs now. Maybe we had forever, but they were disguised in the dust we left when we ran. But now we were toeing the line of being lambs to the slaughter, all because one was sacrificed.

"Please just tell me what we're supposed to do now?"

Ashe's question hung in the air, desperate and pleading for some sort of miracle no one had to deliver. She was taking the loss of Shane hard, crying on and off all afternoon, pushing away any sort of help the rest of us could even attempt to offer.

"I don't know."

Emery hadn't come out of his room until now since we returned to the hideout, all birthday festivities for him were canceled in the midst of tragedy. He was grieving the loss of a friend on a day that was supposed to be so special.

As we all were, the unbelievable tainting the spirit of a beautiful day.

"There has to be something."

"I know. I wish I knew what, but this is the government we're talking about. How are we supposed to get past that?"

I watched as Emery's eyes flicked over to Parker, but he was completely silent, lost in his own world of thought while the conversation watched over him.

We all knew if there was any way to get through the barriers, it would be through him. He was the only one of us equipped with the technological knowledge to break down security systems for us to commit a breakout.

But we knew he wouldn't, especially not in a state like this. Not when he was in his head, likely thinking about the ones he lost at the beginning of this battle against control.

I still remembered their names like ghosts haunting my mind. Daniel and Aidan. Parker's older twin brothers that danced in and out of my life for the years before the end of theirs.

They were part of our band of fugitives at the very beginning. Neither one wanted to leave their kid brother behind while the world was falling apart, but they were only able to stay with him for a week.

Daniel was a Favorable. If he didn't run, he never would've been at risk for the fate he met. He could've gone on to what a new normal was with no struggle, no repercussions. He could've lived intact if he left Aidan and Parker, his Unfavorable brothers, in the dust.

But he didn't, and he paid the price the first time we were found.

It was still fresh in my mind two years later. The way Emery. Ashe, and Shane were able to run away immediately, heading for hiding while Parker, Aidan, Daniel, and I were left behind with two guards trying to take us down.

The way Aidan and Daniel pushed Parker and I away, told us to run. They knew what they were doing, the sacrifice they were making. When their eyes met ours for the last time, and we all knew deep down the tragedy we were about to be marked with.