Salient Secret

Chapter 48

"Who the hell are they?" Lorenzo asks aggressively,  Palmer doesn't say anything.

"Palmer, who are they?" Kai asks expecting an answer. 

"They are an organization called Salutis, it's Latin for salvation," she says over giving it thought.

"What exactly does Salutis do?" I ask.

"That is the tricky part, all I know is that they recruited Dane when he was 22 because of his remarkable achievements at university, and he was told to create a serum that makes soldiers stronger and faster, but when the serum didn't work, Dane came up with 'imperium' which is Latin for power-"

"What is up with these people and Latin words?" I say, specifically thinking about 'fulminares.'

"Salutis was founded in Rome, 2 of the founders were Latin," wow, Arlo really knows his stuff. 

"Focus," Kai says and Palmer continues...

"Imperium is what we got injected with, well imperium 10.0, the first few versions were unsuccessful and harmful to it's hosts. That is why Salutis banned Dane from creating it, but then he started experimenting on himself, he gained strength and agility but it also had major side effects like serious anger. When Salutis found out what he was doing they exiled him. He didn't let that stop him, he acquired a large sum of money and gathered the resources he needed to continue down his path. He killed people with his failed experiments, but eventually he got it right. It took years but when he perfected the serum, he altered it to be able to be better. Imperium didn't work on Dane because his body went through too much strain with the other experiments. Arlo was his first successful lab rat, Dane met Arlo at a fighting match and Dane gave Arlo imperium when they became friends. After Dane's success, his life fell apart, his affair was over, his wife left, his child left, his family hated him, he felt betrayed. So he swore to use imperium to get revenge on the people who he felt betrayed him.

 Julia was first, he felt the most betrayed by her, therefore he did the worst thing he possibly could to her... kill her child, so he kidnapped her, and then threw her on a fire after injecting her. When he saw what he created, a child immune to fire in addition to the ability to create fire, he decided to return Emilia and let Julia die at the hands of her own child. But, Emilia was just a baby, she accidentally set the house on fire. Dane then faked her death and raised her as weapon. Kai and Lorenzo were next, since he couldn't find Melanie, he targeted her boys. And then Avery, just because your mother called social services after she saw bruises on TJ."

"That doesn't explain why he went to Salutis now," I say. 

"He thinks if he shows them imperium, they will welcome him back."

"Wait, rewind, Dane has gotten his revenge on everyone who betrayed him except for  TJ. Why?" Lorenzo asks.

"Arlo may have been faking it with the 3 of you but he loved TJ like a son. My guess is, Dane respected Arlo enough to let TJ live in peace," Palmer explains.   

"So if we can protect TJ, maybe Arlo will take our side," Lorenzo says with hope in his voice. 

"No Lorenzo, I was inside of his mind, he will kill you, your brother and your dad without hesitation, TJ is his priority, he won't protect you just because TJ is on your side. I'm sorry,"  after she clarifies, the hope in Lorenzos eyes fades away quickly and is replaced with anger.

"You're a 7 year old fucking girl, you don't know shit about how Arlo feels," he yells in her face and storms out. 

"I'll get him," Kai says running after him. 

"You okay?" Palmer asks.

"I'm not the one who just got yelled at," I reply. 

"I know what I  saw, I'm smart enough to see emotions are getting in the way of his judgement. This is a lesson he will have to learn on his own. But Ave, there's something else, I didn't want to bring it up in front of the boys..."

"What is it?"

"Dane was creating a serum to control all fulminares, if he goes back to Salutis and they take him back and give his serum to soldiers... Dane will have an army under his control."

"There's no way Salutis would let him have that kind of power." 

"Yes but they wouldn't know about it until it's too late."

"Then we have to warn them."

"They are a secret organization, even if we could find them what makes you think they will believe us?"

"I don't know Palmer, we will make them believe us."

Kai's pov

"UH! I feel so stupid!" Lorenzo screams while kicking his car.

"Bro, we'll figure this out."

"HOW?" He yells. "That man lives in our home, he is our dads best friend, who's gonna tell him that he actually doesn't give a shit about anyone but TJ? We went to dinner with him, he taught us everything we know about fighting, he wrapped up my fucking wrist whenever I sprained it! He was there through it all man..." his voice breaks towards the end, I just put my arms around him and he starts crying on my shoulder. The last time he cried, and it wasn't for an injury, was when our mom left. He never cries anymore unless he is in excruciating  pain. So seeing him like this really breaks my heart because I know it must be hurting him like hell. 

"I know this is hard, but we got each other, we got Sammy, TJ  and dad, we will get through this man. It won't be easy but we will."