Burning Desire

15. Haunted Memories

I started walking slowly toward the house as everyone awaited my arrival. Panicking that Alec and Eli still hadn't made their move yet, I began to walk even more slowly. I wondered how I had gotten into this predicament. Yesterday, I woke up on the hard floor which left my body very sore. Then, getting up, I saw Don through the small window in my door. He explained the plan to get everyone back from Tomas' clutches unharmed. Getting to work quickly, we went over the plan numerous times with the projector and used the test dummies to simulate the mission. From what we could gather on the computer, all of Tomas' henchmen were there as well. Grace, the mind- controlled healing assistant; Ryle, my best friend who had become mind-controlled also after Grace had resurrected him; and Mitch, the school bully who could make so many copies of himself that he could become quite a formidable army. We captured him on one of our first missions and trapped him in the subway in one of the abandoned subway cars but Tomas must've eventually found him.

So there I was, slowly walking toward the house with enough explosives in the basement to cover three blocks in rubble. I was walking toward three hypnotized superpowered villains who were keeping my friends captive, and I had the body of a steroid-using winged demon. How could I have complained about my life before all this happened?

Up near the house, Ryle suddenly appeared next to Tomas and began talking to him. I couldn't figure out what they were saying, but Tomas was smiling ear to ear. The rest of the group looked on in horror. Something had happened... I counted all of my friends on the porch trying to figure out what was going on.

"I'm almost five feet away from the porch and I don't see Alec and Eli. They must not have made it... I guess i'm going to have to wing it," I thought to myself, as Tomas suddenly spotted me, still smiling a sadistic smile.

"Welcome, Levi, to my humble abode!" Tomas said, putting his arms in the air, excited to see me.

"I'm here, so let them go!" I said, gesturing toward the group of my close friends who still held the shocked expression on their faces.

"Hmmm, I don't think so," Tomas said, smiling his twisted smile.

"We had a deal!" I said, stepping close to him and angrily pronouncing every word.

"Let's see, what's wrong with this picture? I asked for you only! But no, you had to be a bigshot and bring those two with you!" Tomas said, getting in my face.

Unable to speak, I stood there dumbfounded.

"Yeah, we found them, so don't pull that crap with me!" Tomas said, still in my face, obviously an act to intimidate everyone there.

"What did you do with them?" I asked, in a threatening tone, obviously protective of my friends.

"How about you open your little portal and find out?" Tomas asked, in a sarcastic tone.

When he said this, a plethora of emotions ran through my mind: sadness, depression, denial, but most of all anger. I looked deep into his eyes, showing the rage on my face.

"You made a big mistake!" I told him, as I held myself back from lashing out for my friends' sake.

"Enough talk! Ryle, you know what to do," Tomas said, commanding Ryle to step toward my group of friends.

"Relieve them of their powers!" Tomas commanded. Ryle put his hand on his first victim, Brookelynne. All the while, Grace kept the gun pointed toward all of them.

"No! You can't!" I yelled, making Ryle stop. He stepped back, then he looked to Tomas for the go ahead.

"They either leave powerless or they'll meet the same fate as Alec and Eli." Tomas said. Then motioning with his hand, he signaled to Ryle to proceed.