Heroes

Chapter 17. Questions answered

I looked around for Nate, but he'd disappeared. We were almost swept up in the rampage of hundreds of inmates escaping at one time, but Mat pulled us all off to one side and we avoided them.
"Ah, it's been so long," Morgan stated, gazing with wonder up at the bottle-blue sky. I thought about how elated Nate must feel right now. I continued searching for him, wondering where he'd got to, when he suddenly appeared next to me.
"Looking for someone, Mark?" He asked me, before smiling. I returned it and looked back at the group, who were all still, obviously concerned that Nate was 3 feet away from them. Nate though didn't seem at all perturbed by the others.
"So, where do we go from here?" I asked to no-one in particular.
"We can try and find our parents," Steph replied, and we all fixed our stares on her.
"What? You never know, they might regret what they did!"
I put my hand on her shoulder.
"Steph, they gave us away for a reason. Do you really think they want us back?"
It sounded harsh, but I knew that she was being ridiculous. There was absolutely no way that any of our parents wanted us back. Steph's eyes were welling up with tears and Mat gave her a tight hug. Nate's eyes seemed to soften a little at Steph's demeanour. I could see that he genuinely cared about those three and didn't like to see them upset.
"Maybe we should just start walking and see where it takes us," Morgan suggested, keeping half an eye on Nate as she spoke. We all collectively agreed and we set off. Nate was at the back of our little procession and I joined him.
"Can I help you, Mark?" He asked while not looking at me.
"I just wanted to ask you some questions."
"Ok, go ahead."
"First off, who was the first guy here? You know, the first guy with powers?"
Nate didn't stop walking but he did start straight ahead for a couple of seconds.
"His name was Cody," he said eventually. "Nice guy. I got on well with him."
"And what happened to him?" I pressed on, wanting as many answers as possible. Once again, Nate took a little time to reply.
"He lost his powers. They found a way of transferring his powers to other people. And I was the test subject. In the end, Cody ended up losing his life."
I listened in silence. Nate was given the powers of someone else who subsequently died as a result. That's a bit morbid, don't you think? I did, at the time.
"Another question," I said to him and once again he awaited my question.
"You seemed really annoyed that Morgan told me your name. Why?"
"Ah, now that is information I will not be disclosing. In other words, you're never getting that answer out of me and if you try I will end up hurting you. Understand?"
Nate had become scary again. I nodded and agreed, but then immediately went up front to Jack and asked him instead.
"I thought it was because he's insecure about his name," Jack responded when I asked him.
"Insecure? Why?"
"I dunno. I just remember hearing that he doesn't like people spreading his name around. He trusts very few people with his name."
I thought about this new information for a long time, even after we'd been walking for a few hours. Why was Nate so concerned about people finding out his name? It's not like it's anything to be embarrassed about. His name's fine. If it was a really bad name then, yeah sure, I understand that. But Nate's fine. I couldn't figure out why it bothered him so much, but I'll tell you more about that later.

It was nightfall. Stars glistened on the black blanket that made up the sky and the moon shone in a perfect sphere down onto the earth.  It truly was a beautiful sight. I could tell the others were transfixed by it. Except Nate. He looked like he couldn't give less of a shit about the beauty of the night. I would've thought he'd be glad to see the night sky after so many years, but apparently not. Although, now that I recall, he was acting a bit funny that night. I'll try and remember the details for another time. Let's just skip ahead a little bit, okay? Let's skip to...