The Captain (The Attolian #1.5)

Chapter 6

Day 373

I have been in this cabin for a week, all I have done was watch all of the movies they gave me, ran on the treadmill for twelve miles and listened to all of the songs from the 60s and 70s. A woman comes here once a day to check in on me and drop off the meals S.H.I.E.L.D. had made for me. She has been here everyday except for today, which seems strange. She usually comes at 6:30 and it's noon right now. She left me extra food yesterday so I would have enough for breakfast and lunch but it is still odd.

At around 3:00, I'm laying on the couch in the living area watching some kind of animated movie for the hundredth time it felt like when there's a knock at the door and I quickly fly off of the couch and open the door. Standing there is Fury with a man behind him.

"Hello, Grace." He says. "Remember that person I had Barton talk to you about?" I nod, remembering him describing him as a 'pretty chill dude.' Fury moves out of the way and a tired looking man stands there. He looks up and down at me, mouth a-gap. Bags sit under his blue-green eyes. I recognize him from somewhere. "This is Captain Ro-"

"Steve. I'm Steve." He says quietly.

"Steve." Fury finishes.

"Isn't it wrong for you to have a kid alone in a cabin?" He asks Fury quietly.

"She is smarter than you think. She has also been through more than me and you combined." Fury defends. "We have someone come visit her at least once a day."

"Isn't it also wrong for a male, like myself, to stay in a cabin with a girl." He asks even quieter to Fury.

"Not since the two of you have separate parts in the cabin." Fury says. "Grace will be staying in this part and you will be staying in that part." He points to the other half of the cabin. Only one doors gives access to the two sections. Steve nods but still looks like he disagrees, but he's too tired to have an argument. Fury hands Steve a key to his part of the cabin and Steve walks over to his door with a duffle-bag. He takes one look at us before he enters his cabin. I look up at Fury. "May I come in?"

I nod and move out of the doorway so he can enter. He sits down on the couch in front of the T.V., which was where I was laying.

"That's a pretty good movie." Fury says holding up the box for "Toy Story".

"Why didn't you come sooner?" I ask before he continues with the sweet talk. "I've been here for a week, all you have done for me was send someone to give me meals. Why did you send me here."

"I couldn't come sooner because I was dealing with something for the past month." He says gesturing to the cabin Steve is in. "And I sent you here because you weren't improving. We thought you were but you're not. We realized that when you had that little shenanigan a week and a half ago."

"I didn't have it the night before you sent me here. I went almost five nights without having any shenanigan." I shout. "You don't call that improvement."

"Not when we gave you some help." A voice echoes in my head. You've got to be kidding me.

"You drugged me?" I ask and Fury looks up at me. "Fury, you made me think I was improving for a month and that was just another little game you decided to try with my head? I thought you were here to protect me, help me, make control my abilities!"

"Grace, calm down." He says calmly. "You do have control over your abilities but not your emotions. We drugged you because we had to."

"You don't have to drug a person to make them better!" I shout back I begin to pace the living room to try to calm myself down. I can't lose control again.

"We had too because people could feel your little earthquakes up to a mile away." Fury shouts back at me, he's never done that before. "Now calm down before I have no choice but to drug you again!"

I stop pacing and look over at Fury. "If you continue to drug me to control me then you're no better than the Harolese." I snap. I go to my room and shut the door. I stand with my back to the door quietly crying waiting for Fury to come in and comfort me. When I hear the door to the cabin open and close I collapse to the floor. I cover my mouth to stifle my sobs as the memories fly into my mind and be replaced by other horrors.

I command my sister to fire a gun at a civilian and she does, I command her to use her abilities against another civilian and she does, I am drugged and laying on the table as the Harolese test both me and my sister, our cries stay in harmony as they run the series of tests on the two of us. Memories worse than the last slide through my vision, the last one is me seeing my sister collapse onto the pavement. The horrors continue in other forms too, I wonder what could have I have done differently so my sister could have survived, I wonder what I could have done to get my sister out of the Harolics' possession, I wonder what could have done differently so Margeratha could have survived instead of me. Somewhere in the midst of this I slipped into unconsciousness, but don't think it was an escape, for my demons know how to get to places that I didn't know was possible for them to reach. The demons created new horrors for me to see in my sleep.