Who We Were Born To Be (Niam) [ON HOLD]

Chapter 35: Aftermath

Chapter 35

Zayn's point of view

Later that week the boys were summoned back to Colombia to attend a meeting updating them on what had been discovered from the fortress.

Zayn suggested, and the boys agreed, that they go earlier and meet the prisoners they had freed. Paul went with them also this time.

The freed prisoners were being housed in a large series of tents beside a large old farmhouse that gave Zayn fond memories of both Nadine's house and the farm in Australia. The freed prisoners were being taught how to use their powers by a half dozen different teachers, some of whom Zayn knew from the ranch in Texas where the freed US prisoners had been trained.

Most of the prisoners had been captured before their powers manifested and so didn't know anything about using them. How were they captured before their powers manifested? Zayn wondered. How did the people know to capture them?

Zayn used his power to share the knowledge of Spanish temporarily with the boys and with Paul so they could speak to the freed prisoners. I should have done that the night of the raid, thought Zayn. He'd only thought of it the next day.

Many of the ex-prisoners broke down in tears when they saw the boys. And all of them hugged the boys, some of them several times, thanking them over and over again. “You're welcome,” Zayn told one middle-aged woman for what seemed like the tenth time. “We're glad to have been able to help.”

The prisoners shared their life stories with the boys and Paul. They were mostly all the same. Around the age of 18, they had been kidnapped away from their family and friends and taken to that facility and held there in awful conditions. Many of them had been there years, some for decades. It seemed they had been subjected to a large variety of experiments and tests. Apparently they had been given daily injections to suppress their powers up until a year ago, when the injections had just been stopped without warning. The suppression fields must be new. Invented between when James took out the facility in Alabama and when he get captured in Guantanamo. These guys are making technological breakthroughs from studying people with powers.

“Their families are all convinced they are dead,” one of the supervisors told the boys and Paul sadly. “Whoever kidnapped them made it look like they died. We traced their families. We're not quite sure yet about whether to send them back to their families. The ones taken recently can go back, sure. But the ones that have been away for several years or decades?”

Zayn tried to imagine what it would be like to be taken away from everyone that knew you at the age of 18, and having to spend the rest of your life locked up in such an awful place. I can't even imagine. And I've seen it, and talked to these people. But I still can't imagine how awful it would be.

Paul was looking angry, very angry. “Who did this too them? And why?” he demanded. Zayn shrugged at Paul. That is something we might be able to find out though. The army got in fast this time. Someone they captured might know something, or some documents might shed some light.

The meeting itself with General McGuire was to be in the fortress that they had captured. The US army guards at the gate challenged them as soon as they approached, but the boys were admitted as soon as they identified themselves.

I have an idea. Zayn led Paul and the boys back to the room where the prisoners had been kept.

When they go there, Niall flatly refused to re-enter the prison room, which caused Liam to pull Niall into a tender hug. None of the other boys seemed too keen about going back into the room with the cages either.