The Enhanced

Chapter Thirty Eight

We all lounge around in the sun, eating, drinking, laughing. The time passes quickly as we all play games and chatter and laugh with each other. I become more and more aware of the time as I realise its getting closer and closer to a point where I will never see any one of them ever again.

By that point, I feel a damper on my mood and avoid any more conversation after that. I can't bring myself to talk to these people, to lie to them and then leave. Aiden senses my mood and sits with me at the edge of the group.

"Why aren't you talking?" He asks, lying next to me.

I sigh, "I can't. I don't want to leave these people," I admit, "I want to stay,"

Aiden reaches over and takes one of my hand in his, "I know, and I'd love to tell you that you can stay, that you should. But the little I know and have seen of these people... I don't think they're the patient type."

A silence falls over us before Aiden sits up, "What will happen if you go back?" He asks.

I stop. Aiden had asked the one question I had willed him not to ask. I couldn't lie to him, I had promised myself I wouldn't. But at the same time, I knew that if I told him what going back meant, I knew he would try to make me stay.

I clear my throat and sit up as well, facing him. I would just have the bite the bullet. "I'll go back to my old life. With the classes and the scientists and the tests and everything else."

"What was your old life like?"

"Dreary, a bit sad. I don't know. It just felt forced, it's not what I wanted." I explain.

"Then why are you going back?"

"Because I have to. I was born into it. And I will see it through for the sake of science, the people I have met, and the girls that are dying in that facility." I decide.

Aiden's tone turns sad, "Sometimes, I wish you much less of a do-good heroine, and much more pouty, selfish teenager," he admits, with a small smile.

I find myself smirking back.

My attention is pulled towards the rest of the group, where Hayden is rousing everybody to play with a frisbee. Some people stand to join in and I deicde to as well.

Aiden and I wander away from the rest of them and allow Hayden to launch the frisbee at me. Realising how far it will go, I spring away from it, and jump to catch it but it flies over me and away.

I heave a sigh, and begin to trudge towards its direction, I notice Hayden jogging towards us as well. I finally find the frisbee in a nearby bush just as Hayden reaches Aiden and I. Aiden glances at Hayden before announcing that he'll leave us to it and walking back towards the group.

Hayden and I stand awkardly for a moment before he snatches the frsibee from my hands and holds it high in the air, much too high for m e to grab. I play along and dance around him anyhow, reaching and jumping for the piece of plastic. Hayden laughs as he watches me do so.

I sidestep and go to grab the frisbee from the side when something catches my eye. A movement from the bushes which would otherwise be normal if the person wasn't standing so deep in the shrubbery, as if they were hiding.

I glance over the and stifle a fasp as a large man shifts to a crouching position. I see the glint of metal, the glint of a gun, tucked in his waistband. And I recognise the man's face. He looked European and I immediately notice him from the last mission I had been sent on.

He had been the other side to the deal where I was present. He had been the man to give over the goods. One of the few men that had recognised me that were not killed that night. My breath catches in my throat and I look away before the man can tell I've spotted him.