He's Just a Kid

Revelations

We were trapped. Literally. We were stuck inside the cage with Mr. Davenport now.

At least . . . everyone else was. I wasn't in the cage with them. I was strapped to a metal plate that looked like a torture bed, my hands and ankles latched to the rough surface. I didn't know why he hadn't put me in the cage with the rest of them. Why was I out here and they were in there?

I was awake and the others weren't. They were all collapsed on the floor in the laser cage and Mr. Davenport was crouched around them, making sure they were all okay. I craned my neck to see Marcus in his birdcage-like capsule, his head down like he was sleeping standing up and something attached to the back of his neck.

I looked around me, trying to distract myself from Marcus. We were in an old, abandoned warehouse. It still had the old, rickety fans and the catwalks where the factory workers would walk around, inspecting the machinery and the products. It was clearly the oldest thing in the entirety of Mission Creek that was still standing. Probably from the '50s, or maybe the 60s.

And it was underneath Marcus's house.

The lighting was dim, but I could still see relatively well. The most modern piece of equipment was the high-tech desk and the computer that sat on it. On the computer screen was a diagram of what looked like Marcus's capsule with Marcus in it. A progress bar was slowly filling up underneath the image, and what it could be for I had no idea.

I tugged at my restraints, trying my best to make my hands slip through without much noise. I didn't want to wake Marcus up. I could easily rip out of them in my cat form, but that would be too loud.

Subtlety. That was the answer. And it wasn't an answer I was usually comfortable with.

I was actually starting to make some progress, but then the door thumped open across the room, a man with spiky hair trudging through angrily. He looked . . . familiar. Really familiar. Like, I had just seen him from somewhere . . .

Mr. Davenport was on his feet in an instant, shooting the most stone-cold glare I had ever seen from him at the man. They knew each other. I don't know how, but they knew each other.

"Douglas," Mr. Davenport began, "why are you keeping us here? Take me, let the kids go."

Douglas sneered. "Well, Donnie, the entire purpose for me bringing you here was to get the kids. The ones you stole from me!"

Mr. Davenport ran a hand through his short black hair in frustration. "I didn't steal them! I saved them from you!"

"And why would they need saving from me?"

"You were training them to be living weapons, killers of people!" Mr. Davenport shouted. "That's not something someone with good intentions does!"

I heard one of the Davenport kids stir on the ground beneath Mr. Davenport, causing the two men to go completely quiet. What did they have to say that couldn't be heard by Adam, Bree and Chase?

That was when Douglas looked directly at me and I knew exactly where I had seen him before.

But it couldn't be possible.

"You, little Missy," he taunted, trotting over to where I was strapped down, "have been causing me a great deal of trouble these past few days."

I gritted my teeth and glared right back at him. "What do you want with me?"

He smiled. "I want to see what makes you tick, what makes your gears run."

The way he said that sentence sent a chill down my spine. What did he mean by that? What were his intentions?