G.U.A.R.D. Book #2: Aberrations

-12-

    I took a small walk around the place after that. I needed to clear my thoughts, and being in the G.U.A.R.D. environment wasn't exactly helping. So my mom was an amazing secret agent that was on a special team known as the Elite Squad. I was guessing they disbanded, since Slade didn't exactly seem to be on a team.

Cindy and Anthony were metahumans. Conner had been kidnapped; my sister was sort of kidnapped, but for the greater good; all of us were injured pretty badly; and finally, it seemed Lady Scarlet, a creepy lady with black eyes, was the only one who knew the location of the youngest Hunter. On top of all that, we were defying orders going after him; an agent named Bobby Mustard might not even let us go on; and she had just received a message from Director Alexander, who was the director of Base 5. Did that sum up this whole situation?

I felt so edgy. What if we never even found Conner? All of this would be for nothing.

"Ah! Ouch," I muttered, slipping in some mud. Pain spiked up my right leg, and I leaned on the crutches for support before the aching edged away. Hearing a snap to my right, I glanced there to see Ninja staring at me from a tree overhead. She didn't seem to care that I had caught her, nor the fact that she had been staring at me. "And how long have you been there?"

Without waiting for an answer, I continued walking, stepping carefully over the gnarled roots, pointy rocks, and chipped stones. I couldn't hear her, but I did see Ninja leaping from tree to tree, trialing me as I slowly continued.

"Is there a reason why you're following me?"

She just crouched on the branch and waited for me to pick up the pace. Eventually, I came back to the camp and wandered back to the campfire, where Winter and Anthony sat. Looking up, I was fully prepared to tell Ninja I was safe now, but when I glanced to her tree, no one was there. Kind of stereotypical.

"Dustin?" Winter asked from the log.

"Yeah... I'm fine." I turned back to them and sat on a different log. "How's Cindy doing?"

"She's fine. Did any of the agents tell you about codenames?"

"We were talking about them the whole time," Anthony groaned, fingers rubbing his temples.

"Oh, please, like you've had such trouble with them in the past, Mr. One and Only."

He slapped her leg.

I blinked. "Yes. Mustard told me about them."

"I voted Freako for her," Anthony informed me.

She sniffed. "Yeah, and I voted Party Pooper for him."

I could see they were both trying to keep a light spirit, despite what we had been through. So I played along. "Those are the best you two could come up with?"

Winter acted hurt. "What? It took me all night to come up with that one."

"Wow," a voice said. "It must've been a boring night."
We all looked to the newcomer and saw Cindy herself walking up, her right leg seeming to give her a bit of trouble, and her stomach newly bandaged. She wore different clothes: the same brown combat boots; knee-long black leggings; tight black leg warmers—only her knees were bare—a black shirt; and a dark green, off the shoulders shirt went over.

Cindy had a semi-deep cut on her arms, where the man had nearly killed her right in front of my eyes. I winced at the memory. Another, around two to three inches long, slid along her along her cheek, and of course, there was her bullet wound, but nothing else seemed to be wrong besides her foot.