Unspoken Fears

Chapter 8~ Codenames

            The next day, I sat on the couch in the lounge with my knees pulled up in front of me, arms held close to my chest.

The day had been uneventful. As to whether or not I was building relationships not, well Raven spoke me a little, and Hank gave me a glance every now and then to include me in whatever they were discussing but mostly I observed. After our dinner of pizza, we gathered around the coffee table. There wasn't a TV, or a library. Someone had dropped off a deck of cards and a puzzle, and earlier a few of them played poker using popcorn as the poker chips.

Maybe we weren't imprisoned here, but the government agents sure knew how to make us feel like we were.

"We should think of code names," Raven announced. "We're government agents now. I want to be called Mystique," She said in a way that said she had been thinking about this for a while.

Sean, a kid who looked no older than seventeen, groaned from his chair. "I wanted to be called Mystique."

Without missing a beat, Raven-Mystique- changed her form to match his exactly. "Well too bad," She said in his voice, "I'm much more mysterious than you." We all applauded. "Darwin, what about you?"

He shrugged. "Well, Darwin is already a nickname and you know, sort of fits. Adapt to survive and all. Check this out," He said and got up and strutted to the fish tank. He stuck his head in. Not even a second later, gills appeared on the sides of his neck so he could breathe under the water.

We all applauded again and laughed.

Darwin pointed to Sean. "What about you?" He shook his head so water droplets went spraying. I wiped a few off of my face and looked to Sean.

"I want to be..." He leaned forward and pressed his fingers together, "Banshee."

"Why do you want to be named after a wailing spirit?" Hank asked, raising his eyebrows.

At that Sean stood up. "You might want to cover your ears."

We all did, slowly. He took a deep breath and let out a brief, high pitched screech that hurt my ears even with them covered. The glass window overlooking the courtyard shattered and fell to the ground.

I laughed. And here I had been unhappy we didn't have a door, now we could step right outside with no problem.

"Your turn." Banshee gestured to me.

My face heated and my smile fell away. Every else could demonstrate their powers harmlessly. I had barely any control off mine, a slight demonstration could lead too- I squeezed my eyes closed to block out the image of dead, twitching Nazi guards. "I don't know."

"Come on," Raven said easily. "We're all friends here."