Voltage

Six

A/N: Seeing as the last time I posted was in 2016 I recommend re-reading the whole story. Like for real.

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[Alex's POV]

Alex really hadn't wanted to re-kidnap Kaden. One time was normally enough. The dark haired accomplice of Eros sat behind the wheel of a car his boss had given him the keys to. Imogen sat beside him riding shotgun while Calum and Kaden both sat in the backseat.

Moments before his speech, Mr. Cadwell had spotted the flaw in his plan. Kaden couldn't come up on the stage with him while the museum owner spoke, so he had kept his beady gaze on the masked, memory-less metahuman the whole time. When Mr. Cadwell spotted Kaden slip away he had excused himself and sent Alex to bring him back to the mansion before someone screwed everything up. What the criminal mastermind's team had done was already very risky and it was all starting to fall apart.

Alex had quickly grabbed Kaden and gained Imogen and Calum in toll as they slipped away from the party and into the black jeep.

"Dude, what the hell were you thinking? You had orders!" Alex said, shifting his gaze to the rearview mirror where he could see Kaden who looked more nervous than students on exam days.

"I don't know," Kaden released a shaky breath. "I can't remember anything. Every time something happens, my memory wipes it away. And that girl, she said she was my girlfriend. Do I have a girlfriend? I don't remember her name. Guys, I can't remember anything. Am I going crazy?" Kaden's voice was filled with such innocence and obliviousness, Alex was tempted to open the door and let the boy run free. He didn't succumb to this temptation though because Alex liked his head when it was attached to his neck.

"It's the serum. It's messing with his head," Calum leaned forward, so that he was between Imogen and Alex's seats.

"Thanks, Brooks. We didn't need to be a genius like you to figure that out," Alex said shortly. There was too much happening. Everything in his life was crashing down again and Alex wasn't sure how to fix it.

He took a turn to the left and could see the mansion meters away down the illuminated street. The neighborhood where the Cadwells lived was nothing short of extremely classy. Beautiful and elaborate houses lined up the streets, each paired with a matching front yard that probably cost more to maintain than Alex's whole apartment.

The dark haired driver stopped at a red light and the four of them didn't utter a word as the world around them stayed still. The streets around them may have been barren and empty but inside each person there was a hurricane of thoughts swirling inside them so quickly it made it hard to concentrate on a single concrete thought.

Imogen and Calum seemed to be mouthing something to one another while shooting glances at Kaden, whose face was buried in his hands and the former SPQR member seemed to be muttering to himself.

Alex could hear crickets chirping outside the car window, nature's lullaby. Once the light had turned from red to green, Alex was trying his hardest to focus on not crashing the car.

But there was a tugging feeling in Alex's stomach again, one he's been getting for a week and that he's been drowning out by piling work and extra hours of it onto his plate.

"Alex," Imogen whispered to him, her up-do had started to fall apart and wisps of blonde hair were framing her face. "What do we do? I don't think anyone saw us leave with Kaden but he was spotted by an SPQR member."

At that, Kaden's head popped up from his spot in the backseat, a lightbulb illuminating the washed out memories inside his head. "The SPQR," he muttered. "I have to go see them." Kaden violently jiggled the handle to the car door and Alex was thankful for child lock.