Brianna Acero and the Second One's Return

72. Cassie works her magic

It's anything you would expect from a hospital room. It isn't very big but has a large window on the wall next to the bed that lets you see the streets and buildings on the outside. The color is your usual white with light blue curtains and grey furniture. A little TV stands on a table that is placed in the middle of the room, on a yellow rug that provides the only pop of color in the otherwise monochrome room. On the left-hand side there's a bed, and in it we find our friend.

She looks paler than usual, and her hair is disheveled, with various tubes coming out of her hands and arms. But what has me looking at her is the large white bandage that covers half of her face, wrapping around her eyes. She turns in our general direction when she hears us come in, but her face remains expressionless.

"So," she starts, "I'm guessing this is the part where I say hello?"

Nobody says anything, watching Anna with pity and rage, but not towards her, no, towards the man that did this to her.

Xavier is in the chair next to her bed, and his eyes look even more sunken than usual. Asher looks between the five of us and his teammate, making a slight gesture with his hand, as if saying "come on, she is blind, not deaf".

"Anna, we are so sorry," I start, but she holds up a hand to stop me.

"I've heard enough of that from these two," she says, talking about Ash and Xavier.

"I don't need you telling me as well. What's done is done, there is nothing you could have done to stop him, and there is nothing I could have done to avoid... this," she says, waving a hand in front of her face, and I wince.

"I know," I answer, "but we are still sorry. And if you want we won't be sorry for what happened to you, but I am sorry about what we've come here to say"

I tell them everything, from the time we left them at the factory to interrogate Khan, up to the voice that spoke to me in the patio at our compound. I let my friends fill in the blanks that I can't tell, like Jayson and Cassie getting caught and almost being sent to the council to stand trial. Cassie tells that part of the story, waving her hands animatedly, seemingly forgetting the real reason we are here for a few seconds, instead getting sucked into the story. Xavier and Ash listen attentively, but when we tell them why we came to warn them, worry starts to show on their tired faces.

Anna, who had been quiet up until now, just laughs from her bed, a dry sound that makes it seem as if she were incapable of being surprised by anything at this point.

"Let him come," she says, "I'm useless anyway."

My heart sinks at her words, and I feel Mara shift anxiously next to me. I turn to look at her and find her watching Anna with a pained look on her face, looking like she just got punched in the gut. But it's Cassie who speaks up, a mad frown plastered on her face. She puts her hands on her hips, cocking her head to the side like an angry mother, even though she knows Anna doesn't see any of it.

"Listen here," she says, "you are one of the strongest Elites I ever had the pleasure of meeting, and I don't want to hear you put yourself down like that again. Okay, so you lost your sight, you lost your Gift."

"Cass!" I hiss, surprised by her words. But She ignores me and keeps going.

"But you know what? That doesn't matter, because you are Anna Brooks, Elite trainee from the second-best compound in the entire country, and you are going to learn how to adapt. Because isn't that how we all got our Gifts in the first place? By adapting? Well, you will learn how to adapt, you will survive, and you will become one of the best Elites out there, regardless of your loss of vision, or your lack of a Gift. I mean sure, you won't be better than me, but that doesn't mean you can't try to be. So why don't you stop feeling sorry for your self and start finding a way to get back to the top, because once you are better there is no doubt in my mind that you will best every single one of the Elites back at your compound."