InFAMOUS Second Son - Your Snowflake

Chapter 5

"Well, here we are." I announced after unlocking the door. "Make yourselves at home, I guess." I stepped aside, letting Reggie and Delsin into my apartment before closing the door. 'This is weird.' I thought. I have spent so much time hiding from Augustine and the D.U.P. that it felt strange to actually have guests. I felt so out of place in my own home that I wasn't sure just how to act.

My apartment was by no means big or fancy. In fact, it was actually pretty small. It only had one bedroom with a conjoining bathroom, an open living room and a small kitchen. But it was efficient, and not to mention free. Besides, it wasn't like I had anybody else to share it with. So in short it was perfect, at least for me it was.

Delsin had already started to wander around. Sometimes he would pick up something and examine it just to put it back down with a small "huh." Reggie had taken the liberty of looking behind curtains and out of windows, as if checking that nobody had followed us. For a few minutes I just stood awkwardly at the door.

'Now what am I supposed to do? I can't just stand here forever....but what am I supposed to say? Talking to people isn't exactly your forte Bella.'

I started to make my way towards the center of my living room, where two armchairs faced a single couch from across a quaint coffee table.

"So Isabella," Delsin started while flopping down onto one of the armchairs. "How'd ya snatch up a place like this?"

"Delsin." Reggie snapped towards his brother. I guess you could say that Reggie had always been the more "polite" of the two, especially when it came to talking to others. But he would be lying if he said that he wasn't curious as well. Not too many bio-terrorist could say that they had an apartment, so why did I?

"What?" Delsin lazily looked towards his brother. "I'm just curious, Reg. I mean, think about it. Maybe she has mind control powers or can make money shoot out of her hands!" Delsin looked back at me, "Wait, you don't have mind control powers, do you?"

I couldn't help but shake my head and smile. 'I wish I had the power to control minds. That would make everything so much easier.'

"No, I don't have mind control powers. And before you even ask, I can't make money magically appear either. My powers are much more....different than those."

The two brothers just stared at me with a questioning look. I sighed. "Wait here."

Reggie nodded and took the unoccupied chair next to his brother as they both watched me walk over to the kitchen and up to my refrigerator. Gripping one of the handles I pulled open the freezer door, releasing a small blast of cool air. Lifting up my hand, I placed my palm facing the opening and began to absorb the cold into my body. Delsin and Reggie watched in silence as the white clouds in the freezer were absorbed into my skin.

After a few minutes I lowered my hand and shut the door before returning to the waiting brothers. As I took a seat on the couch I leaned forward over the coffee table. "Watch," was all that I said as I raised my hand palm up before them. Taking a deep breath I began to concentrate as an ice shard slowly formed in my hand. "I'm not exactly sure what you would call my power. It's a mixture between being able to control fog and ice." Placing the ice shard on the table, I sat up to look at Reggie and Delsin.

For a moment, neither of them said anything. They just sat there staring at the shard. Delsin was the first to speak. "So, can you make anything else? Like, maybe something bigger?" He asked.

"Sadly no. This is the extent of my powers." I replied sadly. "Augustine made sure of that."

"Augustine?" Reggie asked. "What does Augustine have to do with this?"

Another sigh escaped from my lips as I stared down at my hands.
"Augustine has a thing for experimenting on conduits and their abilities. Before any of this stuff with the D.U.P happened, I was alone. Ever since I could remember I've been on my own, traveling from city to city just to survive. I had no memory of what life was like before then. I didn't know if I had a family or home. Hell, I didn't even know if I had a name. All I knew was that I was lost and that nobody was looking for me." I stopped for a moment, remembering the pain from my childhood.

"Isabella?" asked Delsin. "Hey, you okay?"

I barley nodded my head as I tried to fight back the tears that were threatening to fall. I took in a deep shaky breath before continuing. "That....that was before I found them."

It was now Reggie's turn to speak. "Them?"

"Th-the village....when I was still a kid I had wandered into this village. At the time I had just gotten incredibly sick. Guess sleeping on the cold ground all of the time can do that to you. That's when I came across what looked like a little town. At first I tried to find a place to hide but I was tired and hungry. It was a miracle that I could even walk in the condition that I was in. Finally, when I reached an abandoned doorstep, I decided that I couldn't go on any longer and collapsed. By the time I woke up I found that I was in a warm bed. At first I started to panic. I had no idea where I was or what I was doing there. All I knew was that I was in some stranger's house. Before I could completely freak out, an elderly couple walked into the room. They told me that they had found me out cold on their steps with a dangerously high fever a few days before. They said that I was so sick that they weren't even sure that I would make it, but they still tried to help me. I had no idea what to say to them. Nobody had ever helped me before, let alone cared for me, so why did they? All I could do was thank them. I didn't want to become more of a burden than I already was so I tried to leave, but they instantly stopped me. They said that I was still too sick to leave and that it would be another few weeks before I would even be able to get out of bed. I knew that there was no use in arguing with them so I agreed to stay. After that, they took me in and took care of me, even after I had fully recovered. They gave me food, a home....they even gave me a name. For the first time in my life I had a family, a place where I was loved and belonged. I never did think that all of it could have ended so easily.

A couple of years later, I began to show signs of being a conduit. At first it started out with fog just appearing out of nowhere and filling the house, but after a while it evolved into something more dangerous. Whenever I was scared or upset sharp shards of ice would just shoot out of the ground around me. I couldn't control when or where my little displays would happen, so eventually word got out easy enough that I was a conduit. The whole village, the one place that I had come to love, feared my powers and shunned me for it. But my parents, the couple who adopted me, they didn't care. They loved me even when everyone else saw me as a monster. They told me that my powers were a part of me, something that made me unique. They said to me that when they took me in, they promised to always be there for me, all of me, no matter what. For a while I began to feel happy....no, I began to feel hopeful that everything was going to be okay. I should have known better. I should have run away when I had the chance. Maybe then the village wouldn't have turned them in, that the D.U.P. wouldn't have shown up and terrorized my home. My parents did all they could to hide me, but when Augustine showed up I knew that it was all over. I was watching from underneath the house through the floorboards when it happened. Augustine had been interrogating my parents, threatening to kill them unless they turned me in. My parents just looked at her with defiance and said that the only way for her to get ahold of me would be if she went through them. Apparently, Augustine took that as an invitation because right after the words had left their mouths, she ordered for them to immediately be executed. As for me, all I could do was watch my parents as the triggers were pulled."