6The Way We Fall
"This… this is bad." I muttered. I was currently sitting in first period, and Primo was nowhere to be seen.
If I re-winded, I could remember that Primo hadn't ever missed a single day of school. I mean, he always disappeared in the morning, but he'd always come back in time for the bus. I had assumed that he had just simply miscalculated his time today, and gone directly to school.
And now I was sitting in first period Home Ec, Primo's seat next mine empty.
Frowning, I glanced at the clock. It had been half an hour, and Primo still hadn't showed. Only fifteen minutes were left of class. I had a bad, bad feeling about this.
New York had triggered my suspicions, but the fire had confirmed them. Ever since the accident a week ago, I had tried to find out more information about Primo and Viper, but all my attempts came up with the same frustrating results: nothing.
Caught up in my thoughts, I gave a start when the bell rang, signaling the end of class. Gathering my books, I hurried out of the classroom.
I stared into my locker; should I pack up and go search for Primo? Or should I just stay in school? If it were anyone else, I would assume they were just sick or something. But Primo? Primo was a whole different case. If he was missing…
I slammed my locker shut, swung my backpack over my shoulder, and ran out the school doors.
I headed for Amara's apartment complex; I wasn't about to just look around aimlessly for Primo. With his train of thought, who knew where he would've gone? Besides, I had seen Amara bolting through the hallways earlier. Amara never bolted, especially since she had just recovered from her smoke inhalation. She hated running and moving in general, so the only conclusion I could reach was that something was wrong. Very, very, wrong.
It didn't seem like a big deal. Primo hadn't come to school: so what? It was just one day.
Except for the fact that it was Primo. "If there's trouble around here, he'll find it." I muttered. "Just can't stay away from disasters, can he?"
Out of breath, I got on a bus. As it drove towards the apartment complex, I thought I saw a flash of blue and white billowing past. Frowning, I got off the bus in front of Amara's apartment.
There it was again: an unmistakable drifting of white and blue fabric, blossoming into the sky.
It was a hot-air balloon. And it was rising. And in the blink of an eye, when it had reached a certain height, it disappeared.
Just like five years ago.
Wasting no time, I lunged into the apartment. Jabbing the elevator button, I boarded and impatiently waited as the elevator slowly ascended. Running out and skidding to a halt in front of apartment 902, I found that the door was slightly ajar.
Swallowing, I pushed the door open and stepped in. "Amara?" I whispered. Walking in a bit more, I saw Amara's back facing me. She was looking out at the balcony, watching the gray, cloudy sky.
And watching the hot-air balloons that rose in it.
Her hair fluttered in the slight breeze. The sheer white curtains blew inward, winds flowing around in the room.
"He's gone." She said softly. "Viper's gone."
"Primo, too." I confirmed. Amara turned around, looking deadly serious.
"It seems stupid, Sybil, but… it's them. I can't help but feel like they're up to something, and it's not good." She struggled to explain, gesticulating with her hands. I nodded.
"I get it. If it were anyone else, I wouldn't worry. But since it's them, I know something's wrong. How many days of school has Viper ever missed?" I asked, watching the balloons slowly accumulate in number as they rose. They were coming from all directions, rising from the forest, the city, and beyond.
"None." She whispered, shaking slightly. "I have a bad feeling about this."
I nodded, reaching for her T.V. remote. I turned it on, flipping to the news channel.
"-and it seems that something strange is occurring once again. The Drift Away hot-air balloons have taken to the skies, and suddenly disappearing, as they get higher. We have tried to get a hold of the Drift Away employees, but to no avail." The news reporter stated, voice clear and steady.
"We will now play a clip of the landing of the balloons. It seems that the restaurant wasn't what it claimed to be. What exactly is going on?" The anchor posed the question dramatically, before the scene shifted to a video clip of the day the balloons appeared. The footage was mostly clear, even if it was a bit shaky. The sky was a gray blue-still light but slightly cloudy. Balloons were rushing in from all sides, resembling a blur as they zipped into existence.
One of the balloons was higher than the others. It was also bigger, stripes royal purple instead of cerulean blue. As I watched, holding my breath unconsciously, a shape tumbled from the balloon. It was unmistakably a person.
I couldn't tell much about them. The person was wearing a black hoodie, and dark jeans. My heart sped up, and I prayed that it wasn't true. I couldn't really see anything else, except for a few strands of black hair. Gulping as the camera zoomed in on the face, I felt my heart sink.
Because there was no mistaking those mint-green eyes.
On the tape, Primo gave a little flip, landing out of view in the trees. Before my mind had even reacted, I was halfway out the door and running.
"Sybil!" I faintly heard Amara's call behind me, but I ignored it. Somewhere in my mind, I made sense of what I knew.
Primo had fallen from the sky. From the balloon, as least. And five years ago, Viper had fallen from the balloons too. But five years ago, the balloons had disappeared. They hadn't come back until six months ago. And now, if they disappeared again, I wasn't sure if they would ever come back. Viper hadn't, after all, until five years later.
And I didn't want to lose Primo.
I couldn't stand the slow speed of the elevator; I streaked straight down the stairs. Taking the steps two at a time, the only thing I could think of was stopping Primo before he left.
I didn't know what he was. Human, alien, whatever. I really didn't care. The only thing I cared about right now was making sure he didn't leave me. He couldn't.
Running out into the street, I aimed straight for the hot air balloon in the forest, the place we'd had our first lunch together. I stopped in my tracks, though, when I saw a balloon rising from the trees.
I was close to panicking. It seemed kind of irrational, but I had to know what was happening. And I didn't know what it would be like if I lost Primo forever.
Okay. I needed to calm down. Which balloon would Primo get on? I felt my feet beginning to carry me into the city, glorious reflective panels shining on the tall buildings. The city looked brilliantly neat and clean, but I headed straight for the heart of the town, recklessly swerving across the street.
I paid no heed to my burning lungs and aching legs. I could only think about the big hot-air balloon I knew landed in the city, and about if Primo was there or not.
I couldn't quite figure out why I cared so much. Did I love Primo? Maybe. I had never really thought about it. It was different from denial, though. I just never thought our time together would be over.
Maybe it was the fact that Primo was different. It was hard to explain, but when I was with him, the world was just… simple. It was complicated, but who cared? Primo had been something completely otherworldly. There had never been anyone else ever since he showed up. The world was only us and them; us and everyone else.
My feet carried me closer and closer to the shining buildings. I caught a flash of white and royal purple, and my heartbeat quickened. I was close to where the balloon was.
Dashing across several streets and roads in succession, I drew closer to the balloon. My head felt dizzy and feverish, my throat hurting terribly. My legs felt like jelly, and I knew that I had to rest soon. Bracing myself against the wall of a random building, I gasped, greedily gulping air and blinking back tears.
I couldn't stop the train of thought that was chugging relentlessly through my mind. Primo was different. It was something I had always known. And if I looked at the big picture, this was absolutely ridiculous. Primo had just missed first period. Big deal. Except it was a big deal, because Primo was Primo and something was wrong. It was a big deal, because Primo had fallen from the sky and I was the one that caught him.
It was a big deal, because I loved him.
Guess I lost.
I wasn't the kind to fall for people. I rarely even had crushes on people. I was always careful, because I had seen what people were capable of.
Primo had, miraculously, gotten past my shield. He somehow found the keys to my locked heart, and pretty much stole them from right under my nose.
Maybe it was…
Actually, I didn't care. It didn't really matter, did it? All I knew was that I couldn't let him just leave. Not like this. Not without any kind of closure. What a jerk! He couldn't even leave a note? I knew without a doubt that Primo was planning to leave today, on those weird balloons that were zipping out of existence, disappearing as I was standing here right now.
He had never planned on telling me his secret, either. I was stupid to think that I could ever find out unless he wanted me to.
Gritting my teeth as I saw another balloon rise, I rounded a corner and came face to face with the big purple balloon. Deep purple stripes blossomed against clean white, the huge balloon expanding upwards. There were ropes attached to it, tying it down to a small black building next to it, keeping it from floating away.
With no hesitation, I barged through the double doors and into the building. My first observation was that it was fairly well lit, with yellow lights. Red carpets snaked across a marble tiled floor. A grand staircase spiraled upwards, disappearing into a balcony. The staircase also had waves of crimson red carpeting rolling over it, before winding onto the upper floors. The place wasn't overly fancy, but it seemed artistic in a way.
I spotted a small, petite girl that was probably only a bit taller than Amara. She had long (and when I say long, I mean really long) perfectly straight blond hair cascading down her back, tumbling over her shoulders. She looked like a really short cheerleader.
"Um… hey!" I called out, waving my arm when she turned around. Her eyes were a beautiful golden brown, large and expressive. Her outfit consisted of a beautiful, dark dress, gothic black lace clinging slightly to her petite frame.
I jogged closer awkwardly, wondering if Primo was here. "Do you know-" I started, though the girl holding a handgun to my throat abruptly cut me off.
A gun.
It was sleek and shiny, black. She held it sideways, and she had to point upward because I was taller. But, still! It's a gun, for God's sake! Where did she even get one?
"We don't give directions." She stated, voice clear. Her voice was high-pitched and melodious, almost somewhat like Amara's in tone and pitch. Amara would never pull a gun on me, though. Which brings me back to my original point. She's pointing a gun at me!
"Would you mind leaving? We don't accept visitors." She sounded almost bored. I resisted the urge to run away, like she wanted.
I had to work hard to swallow my fear and open my mouth. "Uh… do you know where Primo is?" I asked, glad to hear my voice was steady.
Her eyebrows shot up immediately, and I heard the gun click out of safety. Her finger moved towards the trigger.
Shit.
But to my immense relief, she lowered the handgun before turning around and waving her hand dismissively. "He wouldn't want you dead. If you can find him."
It took me a moment to recover and form a word. "What?" I was confused. She was letting me go, but she hadn't answered my question. She cocked her gun towards the stairs, swinging it around slightly.
"Go," she drawled. "Before I change my mind."
Obviously, I needed no other encouragement. Besides, time was still running out. I had to find Primo before he got on the balloon.
Taking the steps two at a time, I vaulted up the stairs before bounding into the dim hallway. Seeing no rooms, I swerved around a corner and continued running. I pushed into one room: empty. The few other rooms on the hallway were the same. Rounding another corner, I saw a person, but with no time to react, I crashed into them.
"Ow." The person muttered. I blinked and saw a glimpse of black hair and fair skin, or so I thought. The next moment, I was stunned to discover that my eyes had betrayed me. The person was, in fact, a chestnut-haired boy, with tan skin and a slim frame. He glared at me.
"Watch it." He scowled. I gave a nervous laugh and stood up slowly, edging further down the hall. "Sorry." I prayed that he wouldn't slow me down, but just as I turned around to run down the hallway, he stopped me.
"Wait." Ugh.
"Who are you?" He asked, suspicion coloring his tone. I turned around slowly, smiling innocently.
"I'm looking for Primo. Do you know where he is?" I posed the question with earnest, hoping that these words would let me off the hook like it had with the other girl. His eyes widened, and he started to laugh.
"Good luck with that, then." He waved his hand lazily, turning around and sauntering back where he came from. I frowned. Why didn't any of these people know where Primo was? And how did they know him anyways?
Whatever. I had to find him now, and that was all that mattered at the moment. Racing down the corridor, I passed a room that was darker than all the others. Slowing down, I approached the room cautiously. It didn't seem right to just barge into this one.
Peeking in, I saw metal bars slashing across the walls, crisscrossing the room. There was a dark shadow hunched in the middle of the bars, in the only clear area that wasn't completely weaved by bars. The form raised its head, and stared right at me.
A glinting red eye was all I could see.
I stumbled backwards, backing quickly out of the room. The person in there, if it even was a person, was clearly a prisoner. (Or just enjoyed locking himself in rooms that he couldn't get out of.) I continued down the hallway, eager to get away from that sinister room.
My thoughts pounded as fast and hard as my feet. What kind of place was this? Guns and prisoners, and these people all knew Primo. What exactly was he involved in?
Skidding to a halt as I stared at a dead end, I turned to the last room on the hallway. This one was fairly well lit, yellow lamps brightening the dim area. A wide window large enough to fit a person if opened overlooked the sidewalk.
He wasn't in here.
Shoulder sagging with defeat, I was about to turn around when I heard a sharp whistling noise. Instinctively, I ducked down. A knife was embedded in the area right where my head had been a second ago. Turning around quickly and whipping out my staff, I glimpsed a figure leaning against the doorway.
"A staff? Not very flashy, huh?" It was a girl. Her voice was clear and sounded very familiar, but scathing. She sounded a lot like the girl downstairs, but something in her tone had changed.
More projectiles zoomed towards me. I knocked several aside with a sweep of my staff and moved to dodge the rest. "No." I answered. "But useful."
I stood up straighter, squinting at the girl in the shadows. A closer look revealed the first girl, the one downstairs with the gun. Wait, no. This girl had blue eyes, not golden brown. Her hair was also wavy, like she had done that thing where you braid it when it's wet. Her features, height, and hair color were exactly the same, though. Twins.
She had a different attitude, though. While the first girl had seemed dangerous but not necessarily hostile, this girl seemed to emit a deadly aura, in a bitter, angry way.
I ducked as she sent another few knives flying through the air. The last one scraped my cheek, and I winced as blood dripped from the cut.
"Who are you?" I demanded. (Meaning, why the heck are there knife throwing, gun wielding, and prisoner keeping people here?) She snarled, leaping into the room and launching another volley of sharp, deadly weapons. I managed to ward most of them off, but one caught the side of my arm.
Gritting my teeth, I backed up against the window. The girl stalked closer, eyes brimming with malice.
"Where's Primo? What did you do to him?" She snapped, pointing a knife threateningly. I stared at her, jaw hanging.
"Me? I'm the one looking for him!"
Thud. Two knives bounced harmlessly off the window, two centimeters from either side of my face. I gulped. If those things hit me, I was pretty sure they wouldn't just bounce off.
She walked closer, probably thinking the same thing I was. I held my staff in front of me, almost touching her. She hesitated. If she lunged forward with her knife, I would stab her with my staff. The question was, who was faster?
The girl evidently decided that she was, and she was probably right. I watched in horror as the knife left her hand, feeling paralyzed.
Then, the window behind me seemingly opened and someone pushed my head down, the knife whizzing harmlessly past into the air. I saw her eyes widen as the person behind me pulled me closer, and a very familiar voice whispered,
"You're an idiot."
And Primo pulled me out the window.
Did you understand that? Because he pulled me out a window. Into the air! As if we could fly!
The landing was anti-climatic. We just, you know, did a flip in the air and Primo landed on the pavement. I mention only Primo's name, because he was the only one landing, since he was carrying me. Bridal-style too, as he hit the ground and kept going, running down the street.
I heard an angry shriek of protest and a thud. I peeked over Primo's shoulder and saw the blonde girl landing on the street, hair falling in a glossy sheet.
"Whoa, jealous girlfriend?" I managed as we bounded through the streets.
He winced. "More like overprotective little sister."
We ran through a couple more streets, occasionally zigzagging through backyards. Then we burst out onto a busy road.
The girl followed close behind, never hesitating when Primo tried to throw her off.
"She looks dangerous," I noted.
"She is," Primo grunted. "And quite annoying at times."
"And temperamental," I inserted, honestly beyond freaking out at this point. I was basically just waiting for everything to slow down so I could go hyperventilate in a corner.
Primo sighed. "Is it that obvious?"
We reached a small canal that was somewhere in the middle of the city. It had a small bridge leading into the forest behind it, and sometimes people would go there to sketch or take pictures. No one was there right now, however.
Primo set me down and stood directly behind me. He was taller, so if the girl came up behind, she wouldn't be able to see me.
She arrived only a short while later. I counted the number of footsteps that I heard, estimating that she was probably some ten feet behind us.
"What's your problem?" The girl spat at Primo. "Disappearing for six months all day and only visiting for like five minutes every morning?"
Primo didn't answer her question. "Go back to the base, Alice."
I could almost feel Alice smoldering. "I don't take orders from you."
"Oh, really?" Primo asked casually. "Whom do you take them from?"
"I'm usually the one giving them, nowadays! Viper stepped in as a leader after you left to go play with your little girlfriend, but then, gasp, a plot twist! Viper disappeared, too. Ever since then, I've had to run the HQ!" Alice shouted, sounding furious.
"I'm sorry." His voice was sincere. "I was preoccupied."
"You were selfish, that's what." She sounded close to tears from frustration.
Primo paused before responding. "Yeah, I guess I was. I just wanted to be normal for a little while. I'm really sorry, and I promise I'm stepping back in as leader. Please go back to the base. I'll be there shortly."
She didn't respond. Then, finally, I heard footsteps pounding on the wood, and fading eventually. Primo looked down at me and turned me to face him.
There were about a million things I could've said just then, but I figured that actions spoke louder than words.
So I slapped him.
"One!" I shouted in his face. "Never, ever, leave without saying anything!"
"Two! You owe me an explanation, and I want it right now." I glared.
He sighed. "Trust me, I don't even know where to start, and you don't even want to know."
"That's for me to decide." I said coldly. "Spill."
He ran his fingers through his hair. "Well, what do you want to know?"
"I want to know why you're leaving. And why you didn't tell me." I responded immediately. He stepped closer and looked directly into my eyes.
"It's a long story."
"I've got time."
He blinked, and I saw him give up a little. I pressed forward. "I want to know, Primo. And I have a right. Who's house have you been living in for the past half year?"
"Yours."
"And how much do I really know about you?"
"Nothing." He admitted grudgingly. "I'll tell you. But you have to promise me two things. One, which is that you'll believe whatever I say. And two, that you'll never repeat it."
I nodded. "Deal."
"I have to leave because the government has found me. They want me because I'm special. And technically, I'm theirs."
"My mother, Crown, was a scientist. She believed that humans could evolve further, given time, but she wanted to speed up the process. She tried to give me superpowers."
"I don't know what she did. All I know is that it was extremely painful, and when she was done, I was different. I could do strange things. My memory was near perfect. Things levitated themselves if I wanted them to. And perhaps scariest of all, whenever I got mad, I would black out and wake up later, amidst terrible destruction, completely unscathed."
He gazed into the distance. "That used to happen a lot when I was younger, but not anymore. I've learned to control my powers better. But back then; my activities weren't going unnoticed by the government. I mean, could they really, if entire grass fields were demolished randomly and a little boy ripped trees apart?"
I swallowed, completely engrossed by his impossible tale.
"And so eventually, they took me away. They made my mother do the same awful things she did to me, but on other children. They forced her to teach them what she did."
"But each child turned out different. They had different powers, influenced by what they had been good at as humans. I was the first of my kind, and I don't remember what my real name was. But I was called Primo, as Prototype Number #1. You were right. Primo stands for the first in Italian. Evidently, the government thought they were cool." His voice was bitter.
"Viper is my cousin. He was the second test subject, and his power is something you may have witnessed before. He can literally rearrange molecules and zip in and out of existence at the speed of light. It's pretty complicated and I don't understand it much myself, but we believe that he can move so fast that he inserts himself into different planes and dimensions and then comes back out in a different place. He also has a strange control over time. He can also use his power on various things, but only with their consent."
"We escaped about five years ago. That was the first time you ever saw the hot air balloons, right? We used those as our main transportation. Viper used his power to move us all around the country."
"At that time, Crown was still working in the same place as your mother. I don't think you've ever met her, though. Then, over the course of a year, the government found us and took us away, and Viper and I escaped with one person."
"Who he is isn't important right now. But he was unstable from the experiments, and it took all of our power to keep him in check. We decided to try and rescue some more people in order to restrain him.
I wanted to contradict him about meeting Crown, but decided to wait until he was finished. I had a strange suspicion in the back of my mind about something.
"That's when we rescued the twins, Alice and Lila. Over the years, we've stolen many more people from the government. That's everyone in the current Headquarters."
"And so now we're running. We can't ever afford to let the government catch us. When we went back to the government testing areas recently, we learned that Crown died. Whatever materials she worked with killed her." His voice held no sadness, only a cold matter of fact tone. I realized that he must've hated Crown for what she did to him.
"We're the strongest. We're also the most unique. When Crown died, the government lost an extremely important tool. They wish to develop our powers for widespread and military use, and currently use innocent children as test subjects. It's despicable, and definitely illegal. The people in the group we have are the only ones that Crown personally operated on. The others are weak imitations that the government attempted to change."
He looked at me sadly. "You probably think I'm crazy now, don't you?"
I opened my mouth, and then closed it, at a loss for words.
It wasn't because I didn't believe him. It was because I did. Everything he said somehow made perfect sense to me, and I couldn't say anything because anything I said after his story would be insignificant and whiny-sounding.
"I guess I know why you didn't tell me about all of this. But you should've at least told me that you were leaving, so I could've said goodbye," I finally managed.
He glared. "I did it to keep you safe, S. The more you know, the more likely to be targeted you are. I've already said way too much. If the government ever found out you knew any of this, they'd kill you. Or worse, experiment on you."
I knew that I was going to sound spoiled, but I couldn't help it. "This isn't about the government, Primo. This is about us. This isn't about anything that might put me in danger or anything supernatural." I stepped closer and stared defiantly into his mint green eyes. "It's about us."
He sucked in a breath. "There isn't an us."
I barreled on. "You think you're protecting me? You think I'm just going to quietly lay down and let you go? Not a chance in hell, Primo. Never."
I glared. "I am not weak. And I'm definitely not stupid. If you try to leave and spin it as some pathetic excuse of keeping me safe, I will kick your ass to Mars and back."
He looked stunned. And then, unexpectedly, he laughed.
"That was so familiar." His voice was nostalgic and wistful. "Your sarcastic attitude and empty threats. Why did I let myself get close to you?"
"Why, is there something wrong with that?" I challenged.
He shook his head. "Yeah, everything's wrong with it."
"Take me with you, Primo," I said softly. "I know everything now, and I want to."
He raised an eyebrow. "No, you don't. Do you know how hard it is, being on the run and hoping that crazy scientists don't catch you so they can cut you open and examine your brain? And what about your family, and Amara? School?"
I crossed my arms. "Do you really think any of that is important right now? After the story you just told me?"
He deliberated for what seemed like an eternity. Finally, he sighed.
"You have two choices."
"You can forget what I told you. You should be satisfied, right? I answered your questions. You can go back to your life and forget me, forget Viper, forget whatever you remembered. Just be a normal person."
"Or you can be dragged into my world and live like a fugitive, and deal with strange powers that people around you possess. You can be ripped away from everything you've ever known only to be a runaway with a group of unnatural freaks."
"Which will it be?"
I was about to respond that I would go with him, no matter what I had to go through when a realization hit me like a shockwave.
"I feel bad that I'm doing this to you guys." The pretty woman looked slightly hesitant, mint green eyes showing doubt. Then her eyes hardened and she swept her hands across my face, closing my eyelids.
"It's for the good of mankind."
Then excruciating pain overwhelmed me, and I blacked out.
I woke up a short while later, Amara next to me. She was still out cold. I shook her awake and looked around the room. Crown was nowhere to be seen.
Nicole peeked her head through the door. "Sybil? Amara? Are you there?"
I answered groggily. "Yeah, we're here."
She beamed, stepping into the room. "Why don't we go play outside? My mom says that we can go look for birds at the edge of the forest."
We stepped outside and walked towards the forest. Amara and I were confused as to what had just happened, but as little kids, we shook it off quickly.
We had just spotted a pretty little sparrow when Amara turned around, eyes wide. "What's that?"
We all looked back to see a huge, dark, shadow zooming towards us.
And then we ran.
I gasped for breath as the entire memory surfaced. "Primo, there isn't a choice. I don't have a choice."
He looked confused. "What do you mean?"
"Five years ago, I happened to be with my mom at work. And I met Crown. She seemed to have a great deal of interest in me, and when my mother went to eat lunch, she led me into a room and did something to me. I woke up later and she was gone."
I looked down at my hands. "She did something strange to me. I'm not the same as I was, and I believe she also put a memory-erasing drug into me. It's why I didn't remember Viper, or this incident, or any possible powers I might have, until something triggered it."
I slowly looked up to meet Primo's horrified stare. "I can't believe I'm saying this, but I think I'm one of you."
Primo closed his eyes.
"Well, that changes things."
This chapter is hella long and answers like everything you're welcome
-Sea