Skyfall (The Flash) (Book Two) (Vera Pyra Series)

Chapter 19__Flash Back

We let it happen again. We trusted someone we shouldn't  have. Jay Garrick. Zoom. Just like we trusted Harrison Wells. Or Eobard Thawne. You see what I mean? We made the same mistake twice. We thought they had wanted to teach us how to use our powers, train us to get better, faster, stronger, but they didn't come here to help us. They came to use us, and take everything we love away from us. But no more. We were gonna crack the code. We were gonna train harder, get stronger. And then we were gonna stop Zoom and Phoenix. Jay and Natalia.

No one was taking the betrayal worse than Quinn. But that was because Jay had pretended to love her and used her more than he had used anyone else.

And Natalia...

She was someone from Quinn's past.

Someone that Quinn didn't like to talk about. Or think about.

But now she had to. Because Natalia was Phoenix, and we were gonna figure out what this meant, not just for Quinn, but for all of us.

~

The team, except for Joe, Iris and Harrison, were in the Cortex.

Quinn was writing an algorithm on the board.

Cisco saw Jay's helmet on the table, dropping his books. "Can we please get rid of Jay' s helmet?"

"No," Quinn answered. "Sorry. It keeps me motivated."

"Well, it's giving me day-mares," Cisco told us, picking up his books. "This is everything I could find even remotely related to increasing speed. How are these supposed to help apply the speed equation to you, Barry?"

"The answer's got to be here somewhere," Barry told us.

"I think I found something interesting," Caitlin told us.

"Good interesting or bad interesting?" I asked. "'Cause that word could go either way."

Caitlin looked at Barry. "After running some comparative data, it appears that you, the Reverse-Flash and Zoom are moving your legs at essentially the same speed."

"Then why are they so much faster than him?" I asked.

"Best I can tell, with each stride, their feet spend less time on the ground, thus propelling them forward much faster," Caitlin answered.

"By almost 30%," Barry told us. "Great. All right, well, I gotta make up that difference somehow."

"That's just one variable," Quinn told us. "It could be many other things that contribute to their things. Diet, exercise, how they get more power, more speed." She was still working on the algorithm, becoming more and more frustrated, hitting the eraser against the board, leaning her head against it, sighing. We looked at her in concern, sympathy. Quinn took a deep breath, raising her head. "God."

"Quinn?" Caitlin asked. "Look, after what those monsters did, we want to stop Jay and Natalia just as badly as you do."

Quinn chuckled without humor, sad and bitter. "Right. Yeah, no, I know you do. I'm not saying that you don't."

"We get that this is a lot more personal for you," I told her. "You loved Jay, and he betrayed you. And Natalia..."

"Natalia is my stepsister that I thought was dead," Quinn finished. "The stepsister that I thought died over on Earth 2 when our particle accelerator exploded. Obviously, I was wrong."

"So, Merida has an evil stepsister," Cisco told her. "Are sure you're not in the wrong Disney movie?"

Caitlin gave him a look. "Cisco..."