The Powered People

Chapter 21

"We need to go full chaos on these guys," Nolan whispered to Evian.

"I agree," Evian said, semi-sarcastically and half asleep.

"Yeah, we just need to find a way to get out. Maybe Toby could do what he did before..."

"When are you gonna be over this? We're all outta hope."

"Just like you said. You can't just hope you have to do."

Evian smirked. "Hate it when you use my own words against me. Even though it still technically means I'm right."

"Oh shut up."

"And keep in mind that we can't just create water out of thin air. We manipulate it."

"Then, get a quick route to the bathroom."

"We can't just reload every two seconds. Maybe Toby could burst the pipes and we'll flood the place."

"That's gonna take a lot of convincing. You know how...Toby is."

"I could hear you!" Toby yelled from a few cells away. "Also, the walls have ears."

The security guards watched him with hawk eyes. Nolan gulped.

"Listen, I'm not gonna be apart of your breakout, okay? It's stupid," Toby said out loud.

"But-"

"Just shut the hell up. We're not getting out of here."

"You shut up too!" the security guard barked. Rolling his eyes, Toby retreated back into the darkness of his cell.

Throughout the day, five people from the hall went in and out for experimenting. Two went in a pair, while the other three went individually. The first two were Taiga and Evie, who were sent out side by side. As they marched out, Nolan caught a few of the two of them. Though their arms were restrained, they still held pinkies. When they came back a painstaking hour later, Evie was on the brink of tears. Taiga was roughly tugging at her wrists as the guards escorted her down.

"I could walk by myself," she grumbled. As she passed by Nolan's cell, she whispered, "I want out, too."

The next person to go out was someone that Nolan had never seen. The man didn't look like anyone Nolan had seen from the house. The prisoner must have been completely used to this, as he walked solemnly down the hallway as if it were any other day. And when wasn't returned for another ninety minutes, no one batted an eye. When the man returned to his cell with burns all over his body, he kept the same face. The same can't be said for the rest of the people in the hallway. They were all right up at their doors, eyes following the man's every step.

At that time, the guard pushed a button. Suddenly, a little portion of the wall opened up, revealing a small shelf that had one slice of weirdly white bread. Evian seized it and split it in half, handing the other half to Nolan before shoving her half in her mouth. She cringed.

"Why does it taste like chemicals?" she asked.

"It's genetically modified to include all the basic nutrients to keep a patient alive," Nolan answered. Feeling a little weird. He hadn't been able to casually talk about science in a while.

"Is that the only thing the scientists told you about here?" Evian quipped with a small smile before slipping back into her dark corner to remain as silent as ever.

The next person to go was Meg. They threw open her cell door, and she asked, "Wait me? You guys want me? Hey!"

They pulled her up and pulled her away. For some reason, she just let them take her. No resistance or anything. The same couldn't be said about when she came back. Her brown hair was a lot more frizzy and there were jagged scars on her hands. She was yelling right at the guards as they shoved her back to her cell. She struggled, but not as much as Evian had. And when they finally left, she grumbled, "They think they could just electrocute me until I-"

"Meg, it's not the time," Imani whispered as another prisoner was being escorted down the hall. The next one was a teenage girl with a tuft of gingerish-brown-ish hair. She looked irritated as she was guided down, but didn't fight it. Everyone watched as she disappeared over the corner with guards holding her arms. She took one last look over her shoulder as if someone back there was waiting for her.

Unlike the others, this girl didn't come back.

By the end of the day, Evian had resorted to playing rock-paper-scissors with Nolan for what felt like an hour. She thought it'd be good to keep herself occupied. The longer she thought about how double finger gun technically beat single finger gun, the less she'd think about everything that happened to her yesterday. Coming up with ways to one-up her brother became the priority. Her and Nolan were at the point where an earthquake and an alien invasion were possible things to compete with when the guards shouted loud enough to get the attention of everyone on the cell block.

"We're not sending that one to room 12!" a guard shouted. "We put in subject H20 and G25 yesterday!"

"So?" the other guard snapped in reply. Evian peered out of her cell to see Toby halfway down the hall, one guard holding him back another blocking their path as he stared at a tablet.

"It said this kid's number somewhere in there," the guard grabbing Toby defended.

"He's scheduled to go to room 5 tomorrow," the guy with the tablet explained.

"What's in room 5?" Evian whispered to Nolan.

"That's the burn room," Nolan quietly replied.

"The burn room?!"
"Sh!" The guard with Toby shot them a glare, and the both of them stayed quiet and moved back. Fortunately, Toby seemed to pick up what they said. He raised his eyebrows at them, biting his lip to hold back an exclaim.

"Anyway, we send someone from the same block two days in a row," the guard with the tablet pointed out.

"But the brat from last time didn't even get the job done!" the guard holding Toby protested.

"Doesn't matter. Just put the kid back. Anyway, we wouldn't want to send someone down that young."

"I don't care." The other guards reluctantly dragged Toby back.

"Well, I do." The guard with the tablet pounded the button again, and the little hole in the wall opened once again. Nolan tore off a piece for Evian, but she didn't take it. She just stared forward with her eyes glistening.

"I broke him out of here to escape getting tortured...but it's gonna happen anyway," she breathed. Before Nolan could respond, the lights went out in the hallway, and she collapsed on the mattress. Wordlessly, Nolan collapsed next to her.

Evian woke up to a slight creaking noise. She slowly opened her eyelids. For some reason, she wasn't even tired. She hadn't even been sleeping that deeply. Evian peered through the bars of her cell to see that the two security guards were bound against the wall with iron bars. Each had one around their mouths so they wouldn't make a sound. Suddenly, a figure slipped right in front of her cell. It was Toby.

He started to break the bars of her cell like he did on that fateful day about a week ago, whispering, "We're getting out of here."