I slide my key card in the slot, pressing the button that goes to the bottom floor.

Yesterday went exceptionally good, so much so that I was actually surprised. Zero did not make a sound, sitting quietly the rest of the time as I has droned on about my new idea to be a sort of teacher to him, since it seemed the scientists don't teach him anything.

The only noise he made, was when my time was up and I had to leave. He started making a strange noise, similar a whimper, and tried to follow me, but two guards stepped into the doorway, blocking him from me. He snarled, and I saw rage in his features right before the door closed.

He didn't kill me, and seemed to take a sort of liking to me, which is a good sign, a very good sign.

I hold in my hand a book, one of my personal favorites. This book is called Divergent, and it's purpose isn't for him to read it, because there's no way he'd be able to read this right away, but to show him what he could be reading one day. I guess kind of a motivation. If I show him I really like this book, he might just want to try and read it too.

For now though, I managed to ask around and borrowed a book for children about farm animals from a female worker here who is a mom.

I step out of the elevator, scanning the downstairs main room and finding it empty except for Mrs.Clark. She agreed to my idea, and arranged so I now have half an hour of private time with him everyday. Then, following right after this, I'm put with the rest of the team to perform the tests.

The glass does not have the one way veil over it, and I lock eyes with Zero through it, who's again sitting against one of the walls. I nod to Mrs. Clark, showing her the books, before walking to the huge, metal door.

It takes me a second, but soon I'm inside, hearing the click as the door shuts. Just in case, Mrs. Clark has guards on hand in a lounge that connects tot he main room, but I'm more at ease than I was yesterday.

Zero stands to face me, the gold spot in his milky brown hair glittering in the white lights. Now that he's standing I can see how snug the bodysuit fits him,and I feel that if he flexed randomly he'd rip it. More importantly, the damaged glove has been replaced, meaning I don't have to worry about him reaching for me at any moment.

I clear my throat, moving to the cot and sitting down, patting the a spot on the other end for him to sit.

He walks over slowly, eyeing the books with a dangerous glint in his eye. It's almost like he's trying to threaten the books while not communicating. He takes a seat, and I didn't expect the weight as he sits closer than the spot I had patted, and I go sliding into his side, startlingly me.

I move away quickly, reminding myself of the risks, even though it felt soothing for a second, like sliding into a huge teddy bear.

"Books." I say, holding them up. He stares at them with a bored expression, and goes back to looking at me.

I open the children's book, and point to the first animal on the page. "Pig." I say, pointing at it, before looking up to see him staring at me, and I shake my head, pointing down at the page.

Zero glances at it, before looking back up to me, disinterested.

"Ashie." He says, his voice semi-guttural. I nod at my name, and then point back to the pig.

"Pig." I say.

He rolls his eyes, grabbing the pillow Jack had given him yesterday.

He takes me by surprise when he grabs my books and flings them across the room, before putting the pillow down on my lap and resting his head on it.

I immediately stand up, causing him to fall off the bed as I rush towards my book, Divergent, trying gently but firmly smooth out the bent pages.

"You jerk!" I exclaim, whirling to see him still on the floor, a shocked look on his face, like he can't believe I had the audacity to leave him for books.

I stand, staring down at him with my hands on my hips. He also looks annoyed, huffing as he climbs back to his feet and plops back onto the cot, the springs squeaking profusely. He pats the spot to his right like I had done earlier, telling me to go there, but I still stand in my spot, wondering what I should do to get him interested in the books.

An idea pops into my head, and I walk to one of the corners in the room and sit down on the ground.

Opening Divergent to a random page, I start reading, smiling when I find it's my favorite part where Tris stands in front of the target while Four throws knives at her. I hear something like a groan coming from his direction, but continue to ignore him.

The groans turn into snarl and soon his shadow is looming over me, yet through it all, I continue reading, barely paying attention to him. Suddenly, the book is snatched out of my grip.

"Hey!" I yell, acting mad, but secretly smug as he looks over the words, trying to find what interested me. He growls in frustration when he can't understand the strange symbols, and I almost feel pity for him.

If only he would stop acting like a stubborn man child.

I stand up, gently taking the book from him. His eyes meet mine in a pleading manner, begging me to help him understand. I nod, taking the chance I've been waiting for and grabbing his gloved hand before leading him over to the bed. We sit down, and I open up the farm animal book again.

"Pig." I say, pointing at the pig.

"Pei-g," He says, and I feel like smiling. It's just like teaching a toddler....an overgrown toddler who could crush me like a bug. I gulp.

Then, I tap on the pink square next to the pig. "Pink."

"P-eink," he says. I nod and he smiles. He's doing fine so far, his pronunciation is a little off, but it's progress. Now, I have to teach him the words.

I point to the word pig. "Pig."

He nods, studying the word. "Peig." I clap, because he said it all in one word, even if the word's a little off.

He beams at me, blowing me away for a second with his pearly whites. Someone brushes his teeth every night. I clear my throat and turn back to the book, burying the jealousy I feel at how white his teeth look.

"Pink," I say, pointing back at the word. Then, I say it slower, my hand slowly moving across the word when I pronounce a certain letter.

"Peink." He says, nodding.

Movement catches my eye, and I look up towards the glass wall to see Mrs. Clark waving at me, gesturing to a clock sitting on a table in the main room that says my time with the one-on-one lesso and feeling k is almost up.

I flip to the back of the page, thinking to finish the session with the alphabet.

"A, B, C, D," I start singing, pointing to each letter as I say them and feeling like I'm back in kindergarten. His fingers follow my hand, until we get to the last letter. Then, I sing it again.

After that I hand the book over to him, wanting him to try and repeat it.

"A," He says, pointing to the A, and I smile, nodding. "Z," he says, pointing at the Z. I wait for more, but am a little irritated when I find he only learned two letters.

I stand up, collecting my Divergent book. I'm about to grab the children's book, but I see he's engrossed with it, and decide to leave it with him. It's something to distract him while in this room with nothing to do but sleep and go to the bathroom.

"Bye, Zero." I say, waving. He releases a displeased grumble, but tries to imitate my wave back.

"Ashie!" He suddenly calls, and I turn around to see him less than a foot away. I step back, startled, and he thrusts the book out towards me, signaling he wants me to take it. I hold my hands up, shaking my head.

"No, Zero. You can have it." I say, pushing the book back towards him. His lips slowly turn upwards into a smile, and I turn to leave, but his hand suddenly catches onto my arm, pulling me to him as he connects our foreheads.

I cry out, attempting to push him away, but when our skin meets each other, I freeze. My eyes closed, I wonder if I'm dead yet, and if I am, why can I still hear my heart pounding in my ears.

I hear a noise as the door is thrown open a second after Zero connected our foreheads and I'm pulled away from him. Zero growls and tries to push past the guards to get to me as I'm being dragged away, but there are too many.

"Ashie!" He yells, struggling for me, his eyes frantic. The door shuts, locking him in there, and I take a deep breath. Mrs. Clark pulls the curtain over the glass wall so Zero can't see, but I can hear pounding on the wall.

Mrs. Clark rushes to me, checking to see if I'm alright. I manage to stay on two feet, feeling particularly drained, but it's probably only because I thought I was going to die for a second.

How is this possible? How am I not dead? Does this mean Zero really doesn't have deadly skin? Maybe the guard had a stroke at the exact same time he touched Zero.

The pounding on the glass grows louder, and I turn to Mrs. Clark, panicked.

"Mrs. Clark, let me go to the glass. He could break down the wall."

"He can't. It's once of the strongest materials in the world. It would take years for a hammer to break through it." I don't say anything, because I know Zero is a thousand times stronger than any hammer.

Finally, I think I've had enough of permission, and I rush to the curtain. I don't pull the curtain down, because I don't want Zero to be alert of anything else but me, and instead I slide between it and the wall.

Zero is immediately in front of me, and I can barely hear strained whimpers coming from him. I smile gently at him, putting my hands against the glass to show him I'm okay. He puts both his hands against the glass, right where my hands are, and I study the difference. His hands are much larger than mine, and could probably swallow mine whole.

I wave at him, before slowly moving away, his whimpers grow louder, and the second I step out from the curtain, the pounding starts. I step back in, and he stands there, innocently staring at me. I step out, only to quickly slide back in and see his raised fists. "Ha!" I shout, pointing at his fists. He raises an eyebrow, before slowly lowering his hand. I glare at him, shaking my head.

"Behave. " I say sternly, before leaving. To my surpris he listens and I don't hear any more pounding. When I come out from behind the curtain, Mrs. Clark is there with a shocked look over her face.

"How did you do that?"She asks.

I shrug, feeling a little put on the spot. "I just told him to behave."

She chuckles, shaking her head. I notice then that the rest of the team has arrived. Jack waves at me, Shy smiles a little, and Sylvia huffs, glaring down at me.

"Okay team, we have a new objective today." Mrs. Clark says. "We want Zero to know more about us, so that we can know more about him. Come up with a creative way to teach him something, and in doing this, hopefully he'll learn how to teach us back."

Mrs. Clark is called away by a scientist, and I look around, wondering where my dad is. The elevator dings, answering my question as my dad steps out, furiously scribbling on a notepad. I walk over to him as Jack enters the room with Zero, the curtain now pulled open to show Zero sulking in a corner. I feel bad for the poor guy. If I had a say in anything, he wouldn't be locked up the whole time.

"Hey, dad, could it be possible that Zero's touch isn't deadly?" I ask. He looks up from his notepad.

"Well.....actually yes. We haven't run that many tests over the subject, and no one else has dared tot ouch him since the incident with the guard. What brought this up?"

"Zero may have touched our bare foreheads together." I say sheepishly, and my father stares at me, his eyes widening until I think they're going to pop out of his head.

"He touched you!?!"

"I'm not dead," I respond, following him as he storms to Mrs. Clark.

"How could you let this happen?" He says lowly to Mrs. Clark, who turns to him with a calm look on her face.

"If you mean letting Zero touch her, I had no idea he was going to until it was too late. Besides, the results have come in from the tests we ran on him last night, and we discovered he has the ability to decide when he skin is deadly and when it's not. Basically he has an on and off switch for it."

"Are you taking about the tests that I did not authorize." My dad asks, and Mrs. Clark's expressions grows sharp.

"Yes, but it has yielded vital information, so there shouldn't be a problem, should there?"

My attention isn't on their conversation anymore though, and is instead back on the glass wall, where Shy has now entered the room and attempted to communicate with Zero via hand signals.

So he can turn his deadly skin on and off. I guess I should be extremely grateful that he decided to turn it off before touching me, or else I would be dead by now.

"I can't deal with this right now," My dad groans, rubbing his forehead and bringing my attention back to him. "Dr. Jackson wants to start the physical study today. They've already paved the track, and are going through safety measures."

"Track? Who's Dr. Jackson?" I ask, confused.

"He's the head researcher of the physical development. We needed somewhere to test his physical capabilities, so I agreed to building an outside track area so Zero can to do the activities planned for him there."

Before I can ask any more questions, Mrs. Clark drags him away, and I'm left alone. I walk up to the glass wall, hiding behind the opened curtain as I watch how Sylvia interacts with Zero. She's decided to use the farm book, the book I gave Zero, and it makes me irritated.

Out of curiosity, I take a pair of headphones off a table that Mrs. Clark said are able to allow us to listen in on what's going on in the room. First, there's a second of static, but then I hear their voices clearly in my ear.

"Good, Zero. I know that's a pig. How about we try something else?" Sylvia says, then she points to herself. "Sylvia." I shake in anger. She's using my method to get him to learn her name, the little copy cat. I sigh when I realize I called her such a childish name in my head.

Guess Zero isn't the only man child today.

I watch as Zero stares at her blankly, back to being bored. Sylvia repeats her name again and again, but Zero never tries to say it.

I smile smugly, and watch as Zero looks down at the pig. A soft smile coats his features as he traces the little animal, which makes my smile grow even more.

Suddenly, Zero points at the pig.

"Sylvia," he says perfectly, keeping his finger on the pig.

I can't help it. I burst out laughing.

When I look back up, he's watching me, a small smile on his face.

Sylvia hisses in anger and grabs the book, about to leave with it, but Zero is in front of her in a second, snatching it from her and holding it to his chest.

"Give it back, you brat!" Sylvia says, ignoring the warnings we've been given and rushing up to him, trying to take the book back. Zero growls, shaking his head as he clutches the book tighter to him.

"No," He says, and I find I'm proud to see he's picked up another word.

Suddenly, Sylvia pulls out a tiny metal device from her pocket and I gasp, running up to the glass and pressing a hand against it.

"I'm not saying this again. Give it. Now." She hisses.

The metal device is a taser and I calm down, thinking that a tiny taser like that won't be able to effect someone of Zero's size that much....that is until I see the label on the taser and recognize it as a taser that can incapacitate a bear with only one shock.

"Mrs. Clark!" I shout, frantic for someone to get in there and stop the crazy girl......but it's too late.

Sylvia thrusts her arm out and I hear the click of a button as Zero crumbles to the floor.







Hope you liked this especially long chapter. I can't promise they're always going to be like this, but I'll try. Vote, comment, and buy a taser, cause while they're not meant for taking down Zero's, they can be used to protect you when you run into a Sylvia on the street. Lots of Love,

Dangeroustoken