Rebel Born [FIRST DRAFT]

Chapter 29: Plan

I skidded to a stop in front of the Syndicate's house, Christopher not far behind me. I jumped up some steps and knocked on the door in a continuous frenzy. There was no answer and I continued to knock on the door. Were they asleep already?

I eyed the biometric key pad before slamming my palm on it, hoping my handprint was still in the system. To my surprise, and relief, it was and the door clicked open. I pushed the door open and stepped into the house to see Vanessa stepping off the last step of the staircase, rubbing her eyes.

She paused for a moment, just staring at me before she completely exploded. "Amelia?" Before I could open my mouth to talk, or even take another breath, Vanessa was in front of me, holding at arm's length.

"Are you okay? I've been so worried about you. You didn't even keep in touch with us. Did something happen? Are you okay? Oh my goodness, Amelia, are you okay?"

She raised each of my arms to inspect them and then leaned closer to inspect my face. "Amelia, why do you look like you haven't gotten much sleep? You're getting so thin again. You were already too thin to begin with so this is not a good thing. Have you been feeding yourself properly?"

"Vanessa –" I tried to cut in only for my words to go right over Vanessa's head. I glanced backwards to check on Christopher, to see him leaning against the door looking pale and breathing heavily.

I remembered about his wound and tried to get Vanessa's attention again, "Vanessa, you can fuss over me later but Christopher needs to get rebandaged." I looked back at Christopher and tilted my head inwards motioning for him to come in.

He stumbled in, clutching his abdomen and collapsed onto the couch with a sigh.

"Here's the medical kit." Kyle walked in holding the box and handed it to Christopher who immediately got to work.

"Wait, Amelia, did something happen? Why are you guys here?" Vanessa asked, finally noticing the situation at hand.

"I discovered something that you guys need to know about. I... I got myself into something stupid."

Vanessa placed a soothing hand on my shoulder. "Let's wait for when Hugh comes back from his night patrol. We can talk in the morning. You and Christopher should get some rest. You both look like you need it."

Though her tone was soft, it was stern. There was absolutely no arguing with her.

I nodded reluctantly. She gave me a calm smile, "you can use your room. We didn't do anything to that room. Just cleaned it once a week so it doesn't get dusty."

I smiled back at her. Even after I had left them because of my own selfish reasons, they still cared for me. My heart feels heavy.

Sleep came easily. Vanessa woke me up in the morning and the five of us sat on the sofas after breakfast, the other four looking at me expectantly. I took a breath before I began to tell them what happened, starting from when I first signed up for the training sessions after the death of Max and Cossette.

I described the training sessions and what I had to do in each of them. How I felt after each of them, my dizziness, my vision going red when I go out of control. They stayed quiet as I spilled it all, but their facial expressions gave away their thoughts.

"Yesterday, I found a hidden room and I went in to see what was in there. It was a room filled with paper. I went through the paper and the first thing I saw was a paper with my name, full body picture with statistics, health levels, and a percentage labeled compatibility level. There was a report on the bottom of the paper saying how the experiment was going nicely."