SIGNS OF TWENTY ONE ✓

XV

The drive from Toledo to Charleston was around ten hours, with Jenna and Josh switching halfway to let the other rest.

Josh drove the second half of the trip as he slept off his injuries from his encounter with Marina, which took longer than expected. He still had a few bruises on his neck and wrists left behind that didn't heal as fast, which was disconcerting, but Josh didn't say anything to Jenna. She already had enough on her plate to worry about.

Jenna was currently curled in the passenger side, her head tucked in between her knees. Her position looked incredibly uncomfortable, but for someone like Jenna, it probably felt like sleeping on a cloud.

She kept mumbling something under her breath in Italian, her peaceful expression twisting into something of horror. Her Italian switched to Romanian, then Portuguese, Russian, before finally landing on English.

"No... let me go... don't touch me... please don't make me hurt him..."

She had nightmares often, her past full of more death and trauma more than a person could handle on their own. Even though she never talked about them, Josh pieced together what she wasn't telling him. He never pushed the matter.

Josh reached over and gently shook her shoulder, not flinching when her hand shot out from between her legs and her chest. He felt the cold press of a knife against his neck before Jenna's brain caught up with her movements and she dropped the knife.

"Wakey, wakey, eggs and tofu."

"I don't eat eggs either," she mumbled, untangling herself from her uncomfortable position. "That's like eating someone's unborn child."

"Great. We're almost there."

Jenna shifted so her feet were on the dashboard and pulled out her cellphone from the glove compartment. "You think the Templar will come after us even though we ditched the Audi?"

"Probably," Josh responded. "But it'll be a lot harder to track us when they don't know what we're driving or where we're going."

"How do you even know how to Hotwire a car? I thought you were an illustrator before this job," Jenna raised an eyebrow.

He rolled his eyes. "I work in mysterious ways. Get your feet off the dash."

"I have an inquiry."

"You don't have to ask so formally."

"How did someone who used to draw for children's books become a well trained soldier in the span of a couple years?"

Josh readjusted his grip on the wheel, taking a deep breath before answering. "After I got kicked out of my house, I didn't have much money for college, so I joined the army. They must've saw some potential that I didn't, because they put me in special forces, then into a group called Cerberus."

"I heard about them," Jenna said. "Clean work. They were almost undetectable."

"Yeah, I guess," Josh replied. "But I don't remember any of it. After I was medically discharged, I moved into what was your apartment then, and the rest you already know. So, I guess the skills I picked up while with Cerberus stuck and Pete recruited me."

"Wow."

"Yeah."

Jenna slipped her feet off the dashboard and tucked them into her chest. She stretched her arms, groaning as her joints popped loudly. "Okay, where to look first. "This whole thing has to do with the twenty one soldiers Gerard made, right? So, maybe we should check where you, Kiyoko and Brendon stayed while you were here."

"On base?" Josh suggested.

She shook her head. "Nah, that's too obvious. Did you guys stay in an apartment somewhere?"

Josh furrowed his brows, trying to rummage through his still jumbled memories. A sign on the side of the road caught his eye.

St. George Warehouse Inc.

"Shit."

He did a u-turn, making Jenna yelp. "Where are we going?"

"My parents used to rent a warehouse around here," Josh explained. "They used it for useless shit, but when I was in basic training, I stayed in there with Brendon and the rest of the Cerberus team."

"And you think there'll be something there?"

Josh shrugged. "The Cerberus team basically spawned the super soldier project, right? A group of strong, skilled individuals who are good at following orders, even if that means killing. It's like we gave them the idea."

"Are you blaming yourself for this?" Jenna scowled.

"Is it really that surprising? If I hadn't joined Cerberus, if I hadn't provoked Kiyoko, this probably never would've happened."

"It's not your fault, Josh. You weren't the first soldier, and you weren't the last. You just got caught up in dorm weird cult experiments."

"Then who was the first?"

Jenna leaned back and covered her eyes with her forearm, not speaking again. She had a pink, puffy scar that ran from just below her elbow to her pinky finger. It was the newest, from an undercover mission in Quebec that ended with her arm being ripped open by a terrorist group.

The metal implants in her skin were still there. The small slivers of metal adorned her skin like jewelry, in a twisted way. Josh never got implants. He wondered how much it would've hurt, especially before Jenna went crazy.

She was covered in scars. Josh was too. He wondered whether any of them could've been avoided, or if this is what God always intended to happen. If it was their destiny to be just the two of them, broken and battered, in a stolen car trying to take down a murderous asset to the cult that ruined their lives and killed all of their friends.

What a shitty destiny.