Chapter 30

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Anesthetic burns my nose making me pop upright. My eyes frantically travel around the room and stop at a window on the far side of the room. I crawl to it when I realize it's too hard for me to stand up, whatever they put in that shot must still be running through my veins. I look through the window and don't see anything except for a white room similar to mine. Realization hits me and I press my cheek against the window to see if Peter is laying in the corners but they both bring me the same outcome: nothing. My hands begin to shake and I try to summon flames but instead I summon a headache. My hands run through my hair and I look down at my clothes for they have changed, grey shorts and t-shirt are placed instead of my jeans and t-shirt. My shoes are also gone leaving me in socks that are also grey. 

My legs and arms begin to prickle as feeling slowly spreads throughout them. I push myself up and begin to walk around the room, gliding my fingers over the surface as I look for a crack. My eyes close to heighten my touch receptors on my fingertips. I place my other hand out to make sure I don't walk into a wall. I made it around all four corners without feeling anything. This time, I redirect my attention to my hearing receptors but I still come out with nothing. I try to summon my flames once more, but my head begins to pound, they must have injected something in me. I make my way to one corner and begin to count my steps to the other, I count ten I do it to the other and find the same outcome. I'm a size nine so that will make it seventy-five square feet. 

A buzzing sound comes from the other side of the window and I run over to it to see what is happening. Two men appear, one carrying Peter and the other holding a shot in his hand that is filled with green liquid. I pound my fists against the glass to try and break it or distract them but it doesn't work. Memories begin to flash before my eyes, my sister being taken from me to be experimented on, going into the chemically induced coma, being forced to use our abilities beyond our limit. 

"That's not going to work," a voice says smoothly behind me. I turn around and see a man with light brown hair and a crooked nose stare at me with bright blue eyes. I've seen this man before. He was in a file for Most Wanted because he was incorporated with Hydra. His name clicks into my mind.

"Draven Sormien," I say, walking up to him. My nose hits something and the rest of my body follows. I place my hand up and feel a solid wall when nothing is there. "Fascinating," I mumble before looking up at him. "I thought the feds finally caught you last year."

"Hydra has plenty of followers," he simply says. 

"Why am I here?" 

"You are here for a variety of reasons, Grace," He says. 

"How do you know who I am?" 

"I know a lot about you, Grace. Such as you go to Midtown Middle School, you struggle with depression along with a minor case of PTSD, you lost your sister seven years ago and you are an Avenger, or more formally known as The Valiant." His voice says it smoothly as if he had been practicing it. 

"You didn't answer my question," I repeat it and he just smirks. The buzzing sound returns from Peter's cell and I turn around to see him laying there, a gash barely healed on the side of his head along with scrapes covering his whole arm and neck. A bruise surrounds his eye causing hot anger to fill me. 

"I've known this for years. I was in S.H.I.E.L.D. while you were training, when you went to live in the cabin, when you were creating earthquakes as you slept,  if you haven't gone to Germany our plan would have worked." 

"What was that plan exactly?" I ask, the anger still boiling in my veins. 

"To bring you here, now the plan may be behind schedule but you know what they say, 'better late than never'." He chuckles at his own joke like a madman. I turn around to check on Peter and see a faint yellow tint to his skin, my heart leaps out of my chest but then calms down when I see him take a faint breath. 

"What did you do to him?" I whisper as tears fill my eyes, I want to but can't pull my eyes away from him. He looks like he's in so much pain, it looks like even breathing causes him pain. 

"We did it for good reasons," the man says. I turn towards him, the boiling in my blood starting to become impossibly hotter. 

"What did you do to him?" I repeat. 

"I don't believe that will help us with continuing on with our plan, therefore it is not the type of information that is necessary for you to know." I slam my fist against the invisible shield and feel the ground shake. Draven looks fearfully at me and quickly pulls out a button from his jean pocket. I look down at my hands before hitting the shield again and again. Gears shifting above me cause me to stop and look up. Sprinklers emerge and begin to spray water onto me; almost, almost covering the sound of electrical buzzing. A bright light fills the room or my vision, I'm not quite sure which, but it's followed by searing pain as electricity travels throughout my body. My jaw clenches as I try to hide my screams from escaping my lips, but they fail miserably. 

The light dims and the sprinklers stop, but the pain continues. I lay on the ground shaking and jolting every few seconds from the electricity still left in my system. My ears fill with ringing and I watch as Draven walks out of the room through my blurred eyes. 

"Grace?" I lift my head and see Peter leaning against the glass. His face is drenched in sweat and he is still pale, but the yellow tint is gone from his skin. 

"What have they done to you?" I whisper before I crawl over to the window and lean against the window when I realize I can't stand up again. I place my palm onto the glass once I felt Peter sit down and lean against the glass as I had. 

"Grace," he begins and I mumble a 'yeah' to let him know I'm listening. "Are you The Valiant?" 

"What makes you say that?" I ask trying to play dumb. 

"Well, to start off we are in a cell and I don't believe I am special enough to be the reason for that. You have abilities similar to her and you're an Avenger." I can't help but grin at his analogies, at how he analyzed the whole situation but I stop when I started to replay what he said in my mind. 

"What do you mean 'you're not special enough'?" I ask. "Peter, the reason you're still alive is because you're special to me, you mean something to me. You're my best friend, Peter." 

"You're my best friend, too, Grace," he says. Despite the fact that I had said something similar to that I felt my heart drop in my chest. 

"You're right by the way, about the rest of what you said. I am The Valiant and I am an Avenger, or at least I will be once we graduate." 

"What do you mean? I've seen the footage and I've seen you fighting in New York and in Sokovia." 

"You know how I am going to be going to a different high school than you guys?" I hear him mumble something so I continue. "That's actually going to be me moving to the new facility and getting a tutor. That's when I will become a full-time Avenger."

"Wait, so all those days of you missing school, you were a part-time Avenger?" 

"Yeah, they only took me out for the major missions, or the missions that would be too difficult if I wasn't there," I look back to see he is also leaning against the glass. "Everything is going to be alright, Peter." 

"You know I did it, right?" Peter says. 

"Did what?" He twists around with a small smile on his face. 

"I called Tony Stark and gave him our location when we were getting kidnapped. I gave him our location," His eyes sparkle with hope and I can't help but feel hope travel into my veins as well. 

The doors on the opposite side of my cell begin to whir and click as they open. I try to push myself up, but my muscles cramp up causing me to collapse back to the ground. Three men walk in and look between the two of us. 

"Playtime's over," Says a man with the grey hair as the other two men come and grab me. As we pass by him, he stops the men and looks me directly in the eye. "And don't try anything, or else there will be consequences." He looked over at Peter with that. My muscles still hurt, every nerve in my body clenches with the electrical currents traveling up and down it, but my blood still continues to boil as more rage continuously builds up as every minute passes. 

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