Overload

Chapter Sixteen - Keeping Promises

Things should have gotten less chaotic but June had guessed wrong.

Like Ian had said, in a matter of seconds after they’d departed, a large bus came roaring down the empty streets. Out poured a stream of men and women in black, adorning weapons of all sorts. They spread out to clear the area just as another team, this time dressed in white, made a beeline for June.

The moment she was ushered onto the vehicle, the white team was joined by more faculty from the school. They pounced her like a pack of ravaged wolves. She could hardly hear herself think with the number of questions being pelted at her, not to mention the multitude of voices that called her name repeatedly. Many hands reached and grabbed her, checking her over for any signs of injuries.

I wish they’d just shut up, she grumbled silently.

June let them nudge her around. They dropped her down into the nearest seat. One of them started tending to her cut knees. June winced at feeling the tweezers nip at the grazes, feeling them take out the bits of glass and grit here and there. It stung but at least it was bearable.

However, what wasn’t as bearable were the hectic voices that surrounded her.

June clucked in irritation, turning away from a man who’d demanded to know if she’d had any contact with the rebels.

Another asked if she’d been brainwashed and a couple more kept asking the same thing, others asking whether or not she’d seen the culprits responsible.

But she’d made a promise to Erica and June kept her promises. Though Erica may have been a rebel all this time, the enemy no less, she was still June’s best friend. All those years of friendship couldn’t be destroyed based on one chance encounter, albeit very unfortunate. June didn’t know both sides of the story anyway.

“Easy, we don’t want to overwhelm her.”

Finally, a familiar face. June sighed with relief, managing to relax in her seat as the bus clambered deep into a narrow path winding through the countryside. Trees and distant hills replaced the roads of the town. “Mrs. Weaver! Am I glad to see you.”

Her biology teacher smiled kindly. “How are you feeling? Did you fall over or did someone do this to you?”

June’s immediate response was to look away and mutter some random excuse but it was only in the nick of time that she realised how suspicious that would be – and it would jeopardise the promise she’d made. June stopped herself before looking away, staring blankly at her teacher instead. She needed to keep her mouth shut until she got an explanation from Erica. For the sake of their friendship, Erica deserved that much.

“One of the rebels, they caught me,” she began hesitantly. Her heart started thudding heavily in her chest and she prayed that nobody in the room had super-hearing. “He was a strength-talent. He – he just pushed me over but once he touched me, I knocked him out.”

It was a partial truth as to what had happened as a whole. That in itself didn’t give June too much guilt to dwell on.

“So you saw one of them,” the woman cleaning her knees deduced with a gasp.

The team around her tensed.

“No – I just ran before I got a good look,” she said hastily. Technically, she hadn’t been too focused on what the rebels looked like. June had been more worried about how she was going to escape and then the fact that Erica was a rebel. All the other faces were just a blur. “I hid in time to see them leave but I didn’t get any of their faces. They must have had a teleporter or something.”

June forced herself to stop there. She pursed her lips shut and averted her gaze to her knees, hoping desperately that none of them weren’t catching on to her pounding heart and guiltily hunched shoulders. Then she began praying that none of them were telepaths.