Hindered Hope

Chapter 1

Zane ground his teeth.

He adjusted the Forthrite uniform he wasn't really allowed to wear and cast a nervous glance around the bay of the jet. He caught sly gazes on him that were averted as soon as he raised his head. The other soldiers shuffled their knees, trying to keep up a lively conversation between themselves, but Zane Morrison was the elephant in the room. Or plane. He turned away.

He knew the soldiers knew he wasn't supposed to be there. He knew they knew of his awful superhuman ability to completely dissolve the physical structure of anything. Either they were scared of him because he had single-handedly obliterated a squadron of New Vancouver soldiers and they didn't want to confront him, or Dmitri had ordered them to say nothing when he snuck on reconnaissance missions. He wasn't sure he wanted to know which reason it was. Being feared was not as exhilarating as Wawrzynski played it.

He twisted the sleeve of the uniform and deduced that he would have to have a talk with Dmitri when he got back to Headquarters. He didn't want everybody's pity. Joseph may be gone, but that didn't give them reason to coddle him like a puppy.

Zane's vision flashed red as he remembered the last time he had seen Joseph. The other boy had been immobilized, which had been Wawrzynski's doing, and had put his whole trust in Zane.

He shouldn't have.

It had been three months, and Zane had yet to catch any stray information on any of these unauthorized tag-alongs as to where Joseph was being kept. Dmitri left him to his own devices, but it was only a matter of time before he started irritating the Forthrite leader and his own friends.

But he couldn't bear to see them happy.

It was like twisting the knife.

When Zane had first heard of Forthrite, during the monumental battle that took Joseph from him, he was excited at the prospect of having a relative who had fought for years to free him from New Vancouver. However, when Dmitri had taken Zane and his friends to the Forthrite Headquarters, there had been nobody.

Mallory had found her street partner from Rio.

Marcus had found his parents from Australia.

Daisy and Anastasia had already found each other and their big brother, and then were reunited with their father.

And Jonas had been scarred enough by being Wawrzynski's foster son that he was glad there was nobody to welcome him.

But Zane wanted there to be someone.

But there was nobody.

Only Joseph.

And he was gone.

I'll always be here, Joseph.

I'll always be here to help you.

A tear rolled down Zane's cheek and he rushed to wipe it away. Once again the soldiers' gazes had fallen upon him. He rolled his eyes angrily and crossed his arms over his chest.

To ward away the reminiscence that threatened to overwhelm him, he reminded himself of his hatred of the man who had started it all. Lucas Wawrzynski. The man who had imprisoned them like rats in a laboratory maze, experimented on them, forced them to follow his bidding inside a horrible facility, chased them halfway across the world to kill them, and then stole the only person that truly mattered to Zane. Zane's body shook and his jaw trembled furiously. His hands clenched into fists and his fingernails dug into his palms.

He knew he had to find Joseph.

Joseph was the only person who was able to save him from a horrible descent back into a New Vancouver citizen. Daisy had promised him she would never let it happen, but they had seen marginally less of each other. Daisy had her family back, and Zane had nobody. But she tried to stay true to her promise and had been helping him discover hobbies and interests and aspects of his personality that had been hidden his entire life.