The Return - A Michael Vey Fanfic

Chapter 34

"You let them get away?" Quentin yelled furiously, nearly knocking the lamp off of his desk.

"I didn't let the get away, they knocked me out," Axel muttered.

"Okay, and did you even think about fighting back?" Quentin asked. "You had your powers! They didn't."

"Yeah, but they were too fast for me," Axel said.

"To fast for you? You know, I should really burn her alive for this."

Axel knew Quentin had only said that to get a reaction out of him but Axel couldn't help it. He felt a harsh fear flash threw him and Axel could bet Quentin had seen it too.

Axel shook his head and looked down at his hands in his lap. "Please," is all he said.

"And why shouldn't I?"

"Because, I found out something about the girl."

"What girl?"

"Emily," Axel said softly.

Quentin paused for a moment. "Alright, go on."

"She doesn't have powers. Definitely. And her father is powerless too. It seems that when being transferred to her brothers, the electricity within Michael weakened and then split between the two boys to make them no more powerful than the other glows." Axel subconsciously pushed his hand back through his hair. Quentin was going to kill him for this if he ever found out.

In reality, Axel had decided that because Michael was so powerful, he was able to charge no just Jacob and Ethan but Emily too, making all three of them equally powerfully or possibly even one of them, Emily, more powerful. Axel still didn't know why they had administered Nichelle's blood into Emily's but he had a feeling he never would find out. Not by himself anyway.

"How can you be so certain?" Quentin asked.

"Emily's blood, it doesn't match up with any of the other glows' blood," Axel explained.

Quentin nodded. "Good inquiry," he said. "For that, I will excuse your act of stupidity, if you tell me what you were doing down there in the first place?"

"What was I doing down where?"

"Down in their cell," Quentin said impatiently.

"Oh. I was- uh, checking up on them?"

"Checking up on them?"

"Yeah, I..." Quentin took a threatening step forward and Axel swallows hard. He knew he couldn't tell Quentin that he went in there to inform them of Emily's death, or Quentin would accuse him of feeling bad. That would lead to Quentin to teach Axel yet again why he can't feel bad for the pain of others. Though Axel always did.

Axel tried to come up with a small lie, one that would make sense and was subtle enough that Quentin wouldn't catch it, but nothing came to mind.

"Well?" Quentin asked.

Axel was about to spit out some random, half thought through answer when the door slide open. Tara walked through and Quentin redirected his attention to her.

Axel sighed in relief. Saved by the bell.

"What's the news?" Quentin asked.

"It's him. The body has been confirmed as being that of Ostin Liss," Tara reported.

They had found the body with a bullet in its chest right after the glows had fleed Tara and Quentin initially thought that it was a decoy.

Turns out that it wasn't.

"Well that's just fantastic," Quentin muttered.

"Not the best turn of events but not the worst either," Tara said. "He was able to replicate twelve powers of the original glows and eight powers of the new ones. We have enough resources to continue."

"Are you sure?" Quentin asked.

"Yes," Tara answered confidently.

Axel watched the two converse as he flexed and unflexed his hands in his lap. He wished for nothing more than to destroy the two glows who had been manipulating him since the day he even came to this retched place. Emily was his highest possibility in finally doing that. Unfortunately, she was gone but Axel had been doing more research on this Nichelle girl, before Quentin decided to interrogate him, and had decided that she lived here. In Texas.

It was hard to find out anything about her as she disguised herself well, probably to protect herself from Quentin and Tara, but Axel wasn't going to allow a small detail like that stop him.

Quentin turned back to Axel and raised an eyebrow. "So, you wanna answer my question."

"What question?"

"Of why you were in the prisoners cell."

Axel raised his chin confidently. Now that he had had more time to think about this, he had a legitimate answer. "The prisoners were fighting within their jail cells so I had to stop them."

Quentin stared at Axel for a moment but then frowned, defeated. The excuse was good enough and Quentin couldn't point out the lie within it.

Quentin crossed his arms. "And what of Emily's body?"

"Disposed of it," Axel answered simply. To be honest, when he had actually come back down to dispose of Emily's body, it was no longer in the eel tank. Axel figured that the glows had taken her and felt no need to report it to Quentin. It wasn't like it would make a difference. Emily was dead and that was all that mattered.

"Fine," Quentin said and waved his hand at Axel. "You are dismissed."

Axel quickly to stood up to leave when Quentin stopped him.

"Just... One more thing."

"Yes?"

"Find them. Find the glows who are still alive, and bring them back here. Dead or alive."

Axel nodded. "Yes sir," he said then raced out of the room.

He pulled out the short range tracking device Quentin and Tara had forced Ostin to make for him and set it to detect only the electricity from glows. Nichelle would not necessarily be able to be tracked by one of these devices but Axel could bet that the other glows would be with her, and he could certainly track them.

Axel checked over his shoulder once to make sure no one was following him then quietly left the compound.

Sure, Axel was planning on finding the glows, those who were still alive anyway, but he had no intention of bringing them back to Quentin. He finally had an escape plan and he was not going to blow it this time.