Survivor

Chapter 13

There was silence as Nikita climbed the stairs leading out of the cellar.

Torin walked ahead, while Aaron was beside her when they arrived in a wide corridor. His attempts to inconspicuously side-eye her failed miserably. Nikita turned his head to him, which immediately made him look away, his cheeks turning pink.

"Ask."

"Am I that obvious?"

That made her smile briefly.

"Yes."

Aaron put his hands on his burning cheeks as he pondered how to phrase his question.

"When you were there for so long, with no prospect of an end to all the agony, all the terrible things they did to you..." He paused for a moment, taking a breath, before continuing. "Did you ever get to the point where you just wanted to die?"

Nikita looked at Aaron, seeing her own reflection in those piercing blue lakes. The question felt too serious. She had only known him for a few minutes, but he radiated warmth. Happiness. Perhaps his cheerfulness was a mask. Or she simply interpreted too much into his curiosity.

"Not just once. I've considered giving up countless times. To simply stop in the middle of a fight and just let my opponent finish it."

Aaron stared at the floor as they turned a corner and climbed another flight of stairs.

"What made you continue?"

"Honestly, I don't know. I just didn't stop."

She shrugged her shoulders.

"My mind wanted to die, but my body wanted to live. In the end, my survival instinct won long enough."

Aaron remained silent after her answer, his eyes fixed on the distance. Only when Torin stopped in front of a wooden door and opened it, his gaze cleared again.

Six screens stood in a semicircle on a massive oak table. On shelves and on the floor next to the table were various technical devices, small lights flashing everywhere. Miller sat in a large office chair behind the table. Torin stepped into the room, while Aaron leaned against the door frame. Nikita stood between the two as she looked at the man.

"Have you been able to find out anything about her?"

Miller leaned back in his chair and shook his head.

"No. The ID card is fake and there is nothing on the mobile phone except the saved route here."

Nikita pointed in the direction of the purple strangulation marks around his neck that stood out against his skin.

"Sorry for that. Nothing personal."

He stood up and waved him off.

"I know, it's fine. You didn't do it voluntarily and I'm okay. Well, more or less. I'm Benjamin, by the way, but I think you already know that. Just call me Benji."

A friendly smile played around the lips of the man Nikita had tried to kill just a few hours ago.

"I might be able to help you get rid of the collar. Have you tried anything before?"

"I haven't had the opportunity yet, but I've been thinking about trying a bolt cutter. If I can find one somewhere. The risk that I slip and cut my neck is quite big if I do it alone, though, so I've been trying to find another solution."

Benji listened to her plan with wide eyes, shaking his head.

"Don't do that! The last E-bands I removed had a fuse. As soon as they're seriously damaged, they release a charge of electricity that kills you instantly."

"Nikita said that a man named Sam sent her. Do you think it could be Samuel?"

Torin's voice made them both look at him.

"I've already thought about him too."

Aaron looked worriedly from Torin to Benji.

"If it's him, he's actually managed to find a shapeshifter. That's really bad."

Benji closed his eyes, before looking at Nikita's collar again.

"Sam has always been a talented technician. That E-collar could be from him."

Nikita had sat down on a low, sturdy cabinet while listening to the three men.

"How do you know Sam?"

The question made Aaron sigh. Benji began talking after nobody spoke for a few moments.

"Samuel was a good friend of mine. My best I would say. After Torin saved me from a highway robbery three years ago and half a year later Aaron joined us, Sam got to know them through me. Unfortunately, he saw Aaron shifting at one point. Since that day, he has been obsessed with shapeshifters. He often threatened that he would tell the government if we didn't tell him everything. A few months later, Sam invited us all to dinner."

Benji sighed, closing his eyes, before continuing.

"As you can imagine, after everything we were very surprised by the gesture and thought that he might wanted to apologize. We were wrong. A few weeks earlier, I told him about the healing powers of the shapeshifters when Torin accidentally cut his hand and Sam saw the bloody knife. At that dinner, he apparently wanted to test a theory. Aaron had played in the garden with Sam's little daughter Molly. The evening had been nice, Samuel was friendly, and everything seemed like it was before. Until Sam drew his gun and shot Aaron. But what he didn't notice was that Aaron had lifted Molly up and at that moment turned towards him."

Benji tensed at his next words. His eyes reflected such sadness that Nikita had to avert his gaze. Whatever had happened pained him a lot.

"Sam shot his own daughter. It was him who pulled the trigger, but he blamed all of us, especially Aaron, for his child's death. At that time, he swore that he would kill us all. Seems like, he found a way."

Aaron's face was expressionless as he looked at Nikita, the cheerfulness from earlier swept away entirely.

"Apparently, his plan was to fight fire with fire. Shapeshifter vs. Shapeshifter."

Torin shook her head and started pacing up and down.

"At the moment, the biggest problem is that we don't know if Sam can activate the E-collar from afar. Because if he does, Nikita will attack us. She won't have a choice, I know that."

"He now actually has the possibility to prove the existence of shapeshifters to anyone. With Torin and Aaron, he could never carry out his threats because he couldn't control them. He is able to force Nikita to shift in front of anyone he wants to. It would be an absolute disaster if the existence of shapeshifters came to light. Your kind would be hunted like animals."