Revolution- Runaways 3 [EDITING]

Chapter 24: Eli

My thoughts were an ugly mess of fear and old memories as I tried to fall asleep. I was restless, but I didn't want to wake Peyton. Recollections of the uncle I knew from my childhood, before my father turned me in to the camp in Alabama, attempted to rise to the surface. I pushed them down, afraid to unpack them. I decided to get up and walk around for a little bit. It should help me clear my head.

It was already one in the morning, so I had to be as quiet as possible as I swung my legs off the edge of the queen bed we shared. Just getting up and moving already helped my thoughts slow down. I opened the door to our room, and it creaked slightly. I jumped, glancing to make sure Peyton was still asleep. She hadn't stirred.

Breathing a tiny sigh of relief, I stepped out into the hallway. The bright lights nearly blinded me. We didn't even have the light of the moon shining through our window anymore after Michelle put us on lockdown, so our room was in pitch darkness. I squinted, unsure of where I was heading. Maybe I should just walk a few laps to stretch my legs.

As I walked, I started sorting through the thoughts in my head. I had less than forty-eight hours to prepare for my invasion of Red Shield, and I hadn't allowed myself to deal with the trauma he had given me my entire life. I could do one of two things: shove it down again and decide to deal with it later when I had a very expensive therapist by my side or try to get over it in the next few hours.

I knew what I wanted to do, and I knew what I had to do. Unfortunately, they were different choices. If I wanted to be at one-hundred-percent mental capacity when I stepped inside that building, I had to at least try to make peace with what had happened.

I used to think my uncle was a good man. I truly believed that for a little while. He freed me from my camp in Littleville, Alabama, in January. I had been different then, and I had cowered when he got too close. But he proved that he wasn't going to hurt me, so I let him get me out. When he brought me home, I thought he was just trying to be nice. I didn't think he knew what my father had done to me and my sister.

That was one thing that I never told Peyton. About a week ago, we found out who the president of Red Shield was. He hadn't even allowed Skye to know his identity. Actually, almost no one knew. And he wanted to keep it that way because he knew I was working against him. I still hadn't been able to fully grasp the fact that the president was my father.

My uncle had returned me home all those months ago to be an experiment. I was going to be the test subject to see if they could really build an organization to create a superhuman race. By some sick miracle, I had been spared only by McKenna's death and the effect it had on my mental health. I have no doubt that Clayson was furious that I was trying to die without a purpose, so he sent Raven to collect me. I guess his uses for me shifted then, but I wouldn't have been surprised if he still wanted to experiment on me. I was so thankful that I had gotten out of that environment when I did.

Obviously, my uncle hadn't changed a bit since he abused me in my grandparents' spare bedroom. He had always been the calculating monster he was now, and I had been too blind and naïve to see it.

I've walked almost two laps around our floor now. My bedroom door was just a few feet in front of me. Except, I noticed that the door was hanging open. I sighed. Peyton must have woken up and seen that I wasn't there.

I poked my head inside and almost bumped into her. "Eli?" she said. "Are you okay?"

"Fine," I told her.

She practically glared at me, but she didn't question me further. "Okay, let me know if you want to talk." Her hand brushed my shoulder for a brief second before she went back to the bed. It surprised me. Usually, she would draw the words out of me one by one until the weight on my chest had lifted. For a moment I wondered if she was mad at me, but I doubted it. She was just giving me space. She knew this was going to be hard on me, even if she didn't know the whole story.