Subjects Vengeance // The Death Cure [2]

►xxvi

T W E N T Y S I X
"There were ghosts in the room and one strangely and sadly was the ghost of herself"

MATAYA WAS quickly beginning to put all the pieces back together. The hushed and frantic whispers in the middle of the night with Ava and her Dad. Normally, she wouldn't be up that late at night but there was a sense of apprehension that washed over her that night, the nightmares rolling in like a dark storm. Little her woke up in a sweat, her chest heaving up and down, her hands gripping so tightly to the blanket she felt like her bones would pop out.

She left the comfort of her sheets, her feet touching the cold wooden floor beneath her, the long comfy t-shirt reaching her bare knees. It was her fathers.

Something felt different that night, and that's why she found herself slowly walking down the stairs, she heard it then. Her father's voice suddenly grew louder and more frantic. She clutched the teddy she decided to bring with her tightly to her chest and peered between the railings, into her fathers office which was adjacent to the stairs.

He paced back and forth behind his desk, his hands wrapped in his hair as he pulled and rubbed at his head.

"Maxwell, please sit down." It was the voice of her aunt.

Mataya watched with wide eyes as her fathers hands landed with a bang against the wooden desk and he looked up at Ava with what seemed like anger. He only shook his head again, looking away from the blonde.

Ava shifted, blocking Mataya from seeing her father. "Maxwell, there isn't much time left. Please, just let me help your family. My family."

"Your family?" There was a bitter laugh. "That's rich coming from you. You come around once a year, take the kids on a nice little play date but I see right through it, Ava. Just because Makena can't doesn't mean I don't. You are just like your parents. Power and money hungry leeches."

Ava took a seat on the velvet chair that sat across from her brother. "I want what's best for everyone. I'm trying to save people, just like my parents. Your in laws."

"Save people? They killed people, Ava. They took innocent people and experimented for the sake of health and science and here you are, on my door step, talking about protecting my family with the Sun Flares and taking my kids out to study them so you can use them as a pawn in your game." Maxwell began to pace back and forth behind the desk again.

"I'm appalled to see how you view me. It seems as if my sister has been making up lies about me again. I would never hurt your children like that." Ava said softly, her chin held high with pose and grace. "And it's not like your family is any better."

Maxwell laughed again, "Don't sit there and lie to my face. I know about the scouting of kids, the announcements you've already programmed to give people false hopes, a reassurance that if they hand their kids over everything will be okay. They might just get a future one day." He stopped again, looking at his sister. "We can take care of ourselves, now get out of my house and never come back."

☼

THOMAS, FRYPAN, Minho and Mataya sat in the truck as it drove along the long windy road. She looked out at the what seemed like never ending grass fields that stretched for days. A longing was present, to just run. Letting the grass brush across the lower half of her bare legs, her hands out at her side. Twirling, skipping, running. Just absolutely care free and living the life most people got to before the Flares; carefree.