Extraordinary Mistakes

25. Dear other

"How lucky am I? I'll get to kill this traitor here," the assassin smiles and moves his gun away from Emily and focuses on Rachel instead, "and the head of the weakest movement our kind has ever seen. Matthew Moore would be ashamed."

"Bravo! What a meritorious performance!" Rachel claps while laughing hysterically. "You have no powers, and I highly doubt you have the gene. Just some human pretending to be a deviant." her tone drops.

Rachel looks around to analyze each ability. Jade's invincibility would be useful to her, but not so much if they shoot Alex or Megan. Telekinesis it is. She absorbs Emily's ability, suddenly, time goes slower. She sees the bullets slowly leaving the weapon, one by one, in her direction. She stops it with little effort, takes her time to return it. Smiling, almost as if she is seizing the moment.

When the bullets hit the assassins' knees and arms, Rachel's spine freezes. While Emily has massive wounds, to them it is like it's made of rubber instead. 

Are these bullets designed to be more effective on us? Has science come this far?

They get too tired from being shot, allowing Alex to control one by one and put them to sleep. He and Megan go closer and take their masks off, photographing their faces.

Rachel's right hand turns blue, and she heals Emily's wounds. Who opens her eyes slowly, still too tired.

"I'm surprised." Megan tells Rachel while searching the assassins' pockets for any clue.

Everyone in the room is also surprised. They thought that the Angel of Death couldn't speak, since on their videos, she never did.

"I'm trying not to end up dead." Rachel smiles.

On the outside of the building, Abigail and Ánh hide.

"This is Abigail Parker speaking. The Institute is under attack." She hangs up. "It's time for you to leave. The security corps will arrive soon."

Ánh nods and begins to walk away.

"Are you happier... with the terrorists?"

"I don't think I am, but I am less unhappy than I was in the Institute."

"Fair enough."

"I know it doesn't make any sense to you, Abigail. I don't expect you to understand."

"You're a very rational person, and I don't mean because of your ability. I'm sure you had your reasons."

"I did, yes... But I regret how I kept you in the dark about leaving. You and Aminu. You both deserved better than that."

"Regrets are useless, Ánh." Abigail scoffs.

"You sound just like your mother!"

"Do I? You won't ever get a chance to tell her this, which is why I can admit it... General Lewis is right 99% of the time." Abigail turns around and starts crying. Ánh comes closer. "Why let me think you were dead?! I've been mourning nothing but an earth-shattering lie for three years, Ánh! It never stopped hurting. I miss you every day, and it's not even real! How could you?!"

"There were two scenarios..." tears roll down on Ánh's face too, "You'd either try to convince me to stay and I wouldn't be confident enough to go, or they would've used you to find me. Find them! And if that happened, my parents would know... that I'm just a traitor."

Abigail wipes her tears with the back of her hand, "what about a third scenario, uh?"

Despite her ability, Ánh couldn't find the answer. There wasn't a third option. Back then, she ran the possibilities. That was it.