F I N N

I walked in the front of the group as we made our way inside the ONNT building back in New York. Mr. Hunt had instructed us to return in no less than two days to inform him what we'd found, and we had much to tell him now that we knew what was going on.

My heart plummeted in my chest when my mind went back to the massive fortress in the middle of the dank forest. It had almost radiated an aura of evil. Even now, as I thought about it while thousands of miles away, I was still rendered uneasy.

We were in over our heads now. It took many sacrifices and a lot of time to finally have some semblance of power over Hundsen. And judging by Delphinium's description of the people that had trained her, they were much, much worse than Hundsen.

I snuck a glance at the tall girl. Her shoulders were thrown back and her regal head was held high. A determined look was set on her finely-featured face. But I knew better than anyone what it was like to have an inner battle raging within yourself, to be much more frightened than you let on.

My chest still felt oddly tight as two of Hunt's soldiers held open the doors of a conference room for us to enter into. I tried to ignore it for now.

Inside, Mr. Hunt was seated at the table. Paperwork was splayed out before him on the table and he was deep in thought.

When Riley cleared her throat to catch his attention, his eyes snapped upwards. "Ah, so you've returned." He shot a glance at Delphinium. "Find anything interesting?"

He'd let Delphinium go to humor her. He didn't think that we'd actually find anything. Of course, neither did the rest of us until Delphinium had spoken to us on the car ride there, with her blue eyes wide and her voice grave. There was much we didn't know about her.

"Yes."

Mr. Hunt frowned at Delphinium's quiet tone. It mirrored the terror all of us were feeling now.

"Elaborate, Delphinium."

"Imperium's back," she said, so soft it was almost a whisper. "I don't know how, but they're still alive."

The ONNT director removed his reading glasses and placed them on the table. "What makes you believe that?"

"The fortress that I once destroyed was rebuilt. Trucks were steadily bringing in supplies. We were then attacked by a group of assassins sent by my teachers when we tried to leave."

Mr. Hunt closed his eyes and exhaled slowly. "What happened to the assassins that attacked you? Did you take them all out?"

"All but one."

"We also found out that Hundsen has been working with them to bring us back to the fortress. That's why we were kidnapped," I told him when she was finished speaking, not wanting to leave out that important piece of information.

The director buried his face in his hands, fully aware of the deeply troublesome situation we were now in. He stayed like that for several long moments.

Then, he raised his head again, stood from his chair and straightened his tie. "Do you know what this means?"

"That we're screwed?" Arlo asked curiously, for once not using any swear words.

"That we're going to die?" Kane mumbled under his breath.

Mr. Hunt walked from behind his desk to the doorway. "It means that I need to talk to a lot of people immediately."

"Wait," I called after him. "What are we going to do about this?"

"I don't know," he answered, looking deeply troubled, "I don't know." And with that, he left the room.

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I sat on the edge of my bed with my head bent down, forcing myself to take deep breaths. My fingernails dug crescent moons into my palms. This feeling was awful, being weak, vulnerable, powerless. I switched my hearing aids off; the noise in my head was loud enough.

Dragging a hand through my short hair, I let my head lean back until it hit the wall with a thud. Not knowing what else to do, I simply waited there and memorized the beating pattern of my racing heart.

Once the roaring in my ears settled to a lower volume, I stood on my shaky legs. I was always left feeling slightly drained after an anxiety attack and this one was no different.

I was still afraid, terrified, but now it was time to do something about the problem at hand. We needed a plan or at least some idea of what we were going to do. We couldn't just sit here and wait for Imperium to come to us.

After taking a deep breath, I exited my room. I had been planning on venturing downstairs and speaking with all the others, but then my eye caught on Delphinium, who was standing before the floor-to-ceiling windows with crossed arms.

Not wanting to invade what was clearly a troublesome time for her, I took a few hesitant steps forward. When she heard my footsteps on the marble floor, she turned to face me. When I looked into her ocean-colored eyes, I saw a weight there so heavy that even she couldn't hide it.

"Are you alright?" I asked her carefully.

"I'm okay."

I wasn't sure what her to believe her or not. She was clearly very strong and had withstood trauma for years. But the look in her eyes made me question her words.

"Do you mind if I tell you a story?" I questioned, turning my head so that I could see the view out the window.

"A story?" she questioned, obviously confused by my abrupt subject change. I felt her eyes on me.

"My story," I clarified quickly.

She nodded. "Sure." I could tell that she was still suspicious, though I guessed that was just in her nature.

"To make my point, I guess I should start from when I was a child," I said, feeling slightly awkward. I'd never told anyone on our team about my past before.

"To put it bluntly, my birth parents didn't want me." It came out more flatly than I meant it, though it was a realization I'd held in my heart for a long time. "I was, of course, born with superhuman abilities that no one could understand. They wanted nothing to do with me."

"So I was put into the foster care system, bouncing from one family to the next, never really fitting in any of them. Then, I finally found a home with a couple who genuinely loved and cared for me. However, tragedy struck a year ago and my foster father died, meaning that I had to go back into the system until Mr. Hunt eventually approached me about forming this team."

Delphinium watched me with sympathy. I knew that she felt bad for me, but that wasn't why I'd offered to tell her.

"I'm not alone anymore. I found friends, family, in the members of our team. We might not be very alike, but we've been banded together through our differences from the rest of the world."

"The point is, you don't have to be alone either. You have us. No matter how hard things will get for us, you won't have to face them by yourself."

It almost felt odd to be teaching her something, for once. The time we'd spent together had mostly consisted of her giving me lessons in training or assuaging my doubts about our mission.

"Thank you," Delphinium said, sounding sincere. "And I mean that."

She seemed gracious enough, but I wondered if she would take my words to heart. I hoped so.

"I'm going to go to my room," she told me after a moment of comfortable silence, giving me a small smile. "Good night."

I murmured a farewell to her as she retreated down the wall. I had no idea if I'd even really gotten through to her; she was difficult to read. But I hoped that she'd realize that she didn't have to bear such a burden alone, even if the others didn't realize how hard she was struggling. I had done the same for almost eighteen years of my life and it had nearly swallowed me whole. I didn't want her to suffer as I did.