Extraordinary Mistakes

“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.

“One that I would’ve come with you. Join the terrorists too.”

“You couldn’t!” Ánh’s voice breaks.

“Why?!” Abigail looks away.

“Abigail, you’re incapable of going against your parents. You wouldn’t leave them. You told me for years that as soon as you ended your education, you’d leave. Like Veronica and Zach left. Your parents let them live their lives, but not you. No! You’ll stay with them forever. You’ll never make your own choice in life, they keep making it for you, and they always will.”

Abigail bites her inner cheek and looks back at Ánh.

“Fair enough. This is goodbye then. Don’t worry, Ánh. I’ll find a mind controller to wipe these memories clean.”

“No! Memory wiping is too dangerous. You’d put yourself through that for nothing, who knows who saw or heard us on the hallway? It’s time for me to deal with my choices, Abigail. Even if I disappoint my parents in the process. And, hey, there’s no need for you to keep mourning,” Ánh smiles.

“No need to keep mourning...” she holds back her tears. “You’re out of my life. The only difference is that I know that you’re alive and well, less unhappy, but I’ll keep mourning your absence.”

Ánh breathes deeply and looks away.

“You really need to leave now, Ánh, and I have to let you go.”

“Abigail... I really wish things were different. Thanks, and I mean it, for everything, not just today.”

Abigail hugs Ánh tight and pushes her to force her to leave.

Alex and Megan signal Rachel that there’s nothing of use in the assassins’ pockets and that it’s better to head out before the security corps arrive. Using Alex’s mental control, Rachel puts everyone but Emily, Alex, and Megan to sleep.

“Emily Roberts.”

Devil. Emily tries to open her eyes wider, but everything hurts.

“Save your energy, we have little time left. Help is on its way, I mean if you trust them, I wouldn’t. Do you recognize me, Emily?”

“Devil.”

“That’s one way to put it, but think a bit harder, please.”

Emily looks at her face and scoffs.

“Rachel, we have to go,” Alex taps his wrist pretending to wear a watch.

She uses Alex’s ability to search through Emily’s memories and shows the girl what she means. The moments in Emily’s childhood and adolescence in which she experienced someone else’s feelings other than her own.

Dear other, I wish I could share part of your pain, or even make it all go away.

Rachel stops when she stumbles on that memory. How young Emily wanted her to stop being in pain, how she’d now be more than happy to cause it.

“You.” Emily’s eyes widen.

“Yes, me. A higher entity, or evolution, or whatever else you want to call it, brought us together. We shouldn’t be on different sides. This attack is the work of your government. They are testing on us, developing weapons like these that specifically target us. Be careful, Emily. Your status won’t protect you anymore. I wish you’d join us,” Rachel says in Emily’s head.

“What does she mean with you, Rachel?” Alex asks.

“Nothing.”

Nothing... right...Alex taps his wrist again.

Megan looks at Emily and Rachel, analyzing every detail.

“Until we meet again, Emily Roberts. Stay safe,” Rachel gets up, meets Megan and Alex and they teleport back home.

“Where’s Ánh?” Alex asks Diego.

“She isn’t with you?!” Diego shouts.

“I’ll call her,” Please.... Be okay....“Ánh, where are you? Okay...” Rachel hangs up, “Alex, go get her. Diego, we need to have a little chat.”

“Why are you here?” Ánh sees Alex waiting for her.

“Rachel asked to come get you. Let’s go.”

“I don’t need your help.”

“Of course not, you never do. Earlier, you only asked my help because you were desperate to get to the Institute as fast as we could.”

“And that whyyou did it, wasn’t it? You loved seeing me like that, or to make Diego angry.One of the two. It wasn’t because you cared, because you are incapable ofcaring, Alex.”

“Ánh, I told you what happened to Amy. How she died. No one deserves to be in a situation where they are helpless. That’s why I went with you.”

“I thought that was just a story you made up. One of many, just another lie, like everything else.”

“Not everything was a lie. Today was too much, going to the Institute, seeing Abigail. If you need to-”

“Don’t you dare finish that sentence. You don’t get to ask me if I need anything. That’s a privilege that you don’t have anymore.”

They walked back to their home in silence.

On the evening news, children cry, and their parents denounce the horror faced. When will the pain stop? Haven’t the likes of the Moore’s done enough already? Set back the country years. Pretending to represent the entire deviant kind when they are nothing but a loud, violent minority.

Several theories fill up the news channels, specialists are invited to comment on the upscale of violence from this new group of terrorists.

A massacre in an institute had never happened worldwide. What does it mean for the country?

“My children,” a woman being interviewed says, “are dutiful deviants. They respect the rules of society. Because of Rachel Moore, of the Angel of Death, of deviants that don’t want peace, they could be dead now.”

“Thankfully, the security corps saved the day,” an instructor says, “if they hadn’t arrived, what would’ve happened?”

The government accused an unnamed group. The connection to their liberation movement was yet to be determined, but it was a possibility that shouldn’t be ruled out.

On everyone’s mind there was no need for a confirmation: they were one and the same.