CINCO (Five) [On Indefinite Hiatus]

Chapter 5: Trigger

“CINCO”

 Chapter 5: Trigger

 ***

 Uno

“Where are they?” Dolores asked of a silver-haired man, who delicately twirled a wooden cane in his slender fingers, unlikely for a man of his stature.

Señor De Vita’s answer was straightforward. “They are safe, but we cannot tell you.”

Dolores felt frustration compounding with her muted temper. “Why?”

“It’s too dangerous even for you to know.”

 “I don’t understand. They’re my family. It’s been five months, and no one knows I’m back.”

Señor De Vita knew Dolores to be a discerning young lady. Her grandfather, after all, had been a good friend of his. With her contained outburst, he still kept silent.

Dolores felt a twinge in pit of her stomach. “You sent me into the Laboratory and back. You conditioned me, you recalibrated my limits. Yet you think I can still get captured by authorities, and have little faith that I’ll keep secrets should they try to torture me.”

Señor De Vita’s silver eyes narrowed and pored into hers. Dolores continued.

“I was born out of your project. I endured all what you’ve let me through. What makes you think I’ll let the enemy lay a hand on me?”

Señor De Vita, instead, chose to offer her advice on prudence. “Señorita Cardones, you may now be different, with abilities beyond any known man’s, but that does not give you the reckless confidence to be supercilious.”

Dolores, this time, was silent. She retracted her retort. In the weighted silence, Señor de Vita took this opportunity to let her be further aware of the circumstances.

“Your time has come, Señorita Cardones.”

“What?”

“In three minutes, four civil guards will come to terrorize a family two streets away. You must stop them.”

Dolores felt a humorless smile on her lips, but some sort of elation overtook her. “As simple as that,” she whispered, but loud enough for the silver-eyed man to hear.

Señor de Vita tossed the cane into the air to catch it again, in a feat of detached playfulness. “As simple as that,” he echoed matter-of-factly.

Ten minutes later, Dolores stepped out of the said family’s home, the mother crying shocked tears, the children hiding in the room after being told. The father sat frozen on the floor, open-mouthed, wide-eyed, not quite believing what he had witnessed at that moment.

Just as two among four armed Guardia Civiles were about to take him away, a young lady casually barged into their living room, a tiny knife in hand, small enough that her slender fingers swallowed it from sight, and without uttering a single word, she brandished her arm, and in rhythmic succession—one, two, three, four—all four guards fell to the floor, throats open, without even a slightest chance to cry out or fight back.

The man’s wife was about to scream when Dolores, soundlessly and swiftly, glided across to room to cover the woman’s mouth ever so gently. The woman’s eyes were ablaze with fear, and she was trembling like a leaf.

The man, on the other hand, was trying with all his might to utter something he could not say. It was the apparent shock that stilled his tongue, but Dolores knew that he was pleading her not to hurt his family.