Altered

Nineteen: Accusations

The moon illuminated the land, casting an eerie, silver hue about the small world. The leaves of the trees looked as if they had been frozen under its cold touch. The breeze ran through the meadows, creating wave after wave of silver in the pale moonlight. Beyond that, land gave way to a deep black sea, still and huge in the night. The light of the soft moon danced upon the gentle swells, enjoying the silence of the night, the secrecy of this place.

Matt turned away from the window and took up a glass of brandy in his hand. It surprised him how much his fingers shook. He placed the glass down and ran his hands over his closely cut hair. He gazed at his reflection in the mirror mounted on the wall. His dark eyes were wide, his sallow skin bruised beneath them from lack of sleep. He smiled, trying to see if he kept some resemblance to the man he had once been, before this had all started, before he had had to come to work for his father. His dimples appeared, his eyes crinkling in the corners, but he still looked weary, stretched too thin.

He stepped away from the mirror, shrugging out of his jacket and shirt, staring at his bed and wondered if sleep would evade him again tonight.

It had been a long tiring day and Matt wasn’t even sure if what he had seen had been real at all. His father had tried to explain about these children, and even the opening game had showed him some of their skills but the captain’s game had only left him questioning everything that he thought was true about the world.

Genetically engineered humans – that was what they were, but how far could genetic engineering go if it could create a person who could create fire in his hands, or a girl who could turn invisible, or a person who could tear metal apart with his mind. He had known before he had ever arrived that they were special. That was the only reason he had even allowed himself to come to the island, but he had no idea really. He had seen the strength of Carrick Jones, had been told of a strange mind link between the Blake twins, but a student who could tear apart the tunnel with his mind, a girl who could locate others through their fears – it was unheard of, it was from a comic book, not real life.

Matt threw himself on top of his bed clothes. The humidity on the island was too much for him. The heat was as much a culprit of his sleepless nights, as his thoughts were. He closed his eyes and all he could see was Charlotte Owens’ angry blue eyes staring at him from behind his eyelids. He growled and sat up. The girl had got under his skin and he couldn’t seem to shake her. “Don’t trust them,” he said to himself. “She’s not human anymore – she’s not real”. Yet she seemed more human than Elmhirst, more human than Bennett. She was raw, powerful and beautiful.

Volatile was the word Doctor Beasley had used when Matt had asked about her. “Don’t get me wrong, she is powerful, extremely powerful, but she doesn’t seem to respect our power like she should. I have never seen her use her alteration, though we know it exists and how powerful it can be. She could destroy us all if she wanted to,” he had said, his tone unchanging, flat and monotonous. He was tall and beefy with a thick neck and white-blonde hair atop a red, ruddy face. His mouth was too large for his other features, his blue eyes bulging from his flat face. “Look at it this way Mr Desmarais, she is a ticking bomb waiting to go off. Elmhirst refuses to accept that a product that expensive could be defective”.

“And is she defective?” Matt asked, in his own mind refusing to believe she could be defective.

“I think so. If we cannot make use of her alteration, she is defective. She cannot control it and she understands that, so she refuses to use it and no matter what we do we cannot coerce her into using it”.

“Coerce her?” Matt had grinned, stupidly.

“Well of course sir,” Dr Beasley had laughed. “Creatures like them only respond to one thing. They need to be controlled, kept under our thumb, if not the outcome would be catastrophic”.