Consuming Fire

Chapter 18

"Where is home exactly?" asked Jenny as she took a sandwich herself and sat down. Eli suddenly felt very important, as though he were in some kind of military plane about to embark on a high-priority mission or something. It seemed he wasn't the only one getting jittery. Zac himself was inspecting the straps on his seat and pulling things he probably shouldn't, muttering to himself about how much Marcus would be jealous of this.

"Let me start from — Hey, Zac don't touch that!"

Zac froze with his fingers clasped around a strap that was probably attached to a parachute. Slowly, he pulled his hand away. "Sorry," he muttered. Eli smiled.

"Alright," said Chevie. "I owe you an explanation. First of all, maybe a little history about yours truly?"

The three of them stared.

"Great enthusiasm guys." Chevie pulled up a crate and sat down in front of them.

"I know your history," said Zac smugly. "You were imprisoned at ICE."

"He was?" asked Jenny.

"Yep. Chevie Pulicover was a legend. Tried to escape a record total of eight times. How far did you get Chev?"

"The sewers," he said in a nonchalant manner, but Eli could tell he was proud of his efforts. "I also broke the record for longest time spent in Solitary."

"Uh-uh," Zac smiled. "I crushed your record. I spent nineteen days in Solitary."

Chevie's eyebrows shot up. "How'd you ever make it out?"

"Well you see, I enjoy being by myself. I ended up getting pretty weird and imagining a bunch of carrots—"

"Can we please get back to the topic?" Jenny interrupted. Eli snickered at the look of disappointment on Zac's face.

"My dad helped me escape ICE," Chevie replied. It was the first time Eli had seen him look somber, the memory both wonderful and horrible. "He worked at ICE as a guard, but he was different from the others."

"Who was he?"

"Alistair."

Zac nodded. "Yeah, I remember him. He was nice. They said he got fired for something, but we never found out what."

"When I was imprisoned," said Chevie, "he didn't know it was me at first until he saw the tests. It had been like nine years since my mother and I saw him. I didn't care at first — he abandoned us and I couldn't really call him a father. Then ... he changed. He knew he had to get me out, to start acting responsible for me. He risked his life to help me escape and ..."

"He died?" asked Zac.

Jenny scowled. "Show some sensitivity, Zac."

"It's okay," Chevie smiled, paying especially close attention to Jenny. Eli wondered what Joshua would do if he saw the way they were looking at each other. Chevie was much better looking than Joshua, and less creepy, and charming and friendly and ... altogether a great person. Jenny could fall for him easily.

"When I was free I sort of went about living my life. I was selfish, trying to live back the years I'd lost. But in the back of my mind I remembered my dad, and I remembered every other poor soul trapped in ICE. I decided I needed to do something about it. That's when I formed the SSS."

"The what?"

"The Secret Society of Superheroes," he said proudly.

Eli felt like laughing. Zac actually did.

"What a lame name, you couldn't have been more inventive?"

"What would you suggest?" Chevie snapped.

"Uh ..." Zac's face turned pink with how hard he was trying to think. "Justice for ... uh ..."

"Keep going," Jenny said to Chevie.

"It's not as lame as you think, Zackie. The society has been standing for almost five years now. Those who joined the cause are mostly normal people who have seen extraordinary things or are devoted to finding individuals who do extraordinary things themselves. People like us with abilities. It's a mix of both."

"What does this society do?" asked Jenny.

"We protect each other. The normal people help hide us, and we practice using our powers to find more people so they don't tell the world and so that people like Dr. Wolfe and his Agents don't find them."

"But why don't you do something about ICE?" Eli crossed his arms and sniffed. "I find it hard to believe that such an organization could completely ignore the torture going on for so long, especially when you know exactly what they were doing to the kids."

Chevie's face fell and he glanced at his clasped hands between his legs. Eli couldn't help but notice that a head was peering up over the chair and he locked eyes with the girl in the pilot seat. She quickly slipped back down, out of sight.

"Same reason anyone who escaped never went back. I was scared," he said simply. "Sure, I had the motivation, but I lacked the courage. It wasn't until a few weeks ago when I was almost taken by the Agents again that I realized it was time to stop living in fear and start fighting. I summoned our top representatives and we formulated a plan to rescue you and take down ICE."

"How did you know where we'd be?"

"We got wind of you through the FBI. We have an insider source that told us a man named Joshua Harrison was speaking out about people with powers. Now I realize that he wasn't exactly shouting it to the world, but he might as well have. I went in to investigate and discovered that the FBI was also trying to hunt down ICE. I had to get you out of there to find out what was going on."

"You hijacked an FBI plane to ask us some questions?" Eli gaped.

"Would you rather still be on that plane about to be locked in the Pentagon while they test Zac?"

Zac's face went white. "They were going to test me?" He shot a glare at Eli and Jenny. "Did you know about this?"

"Of course not," Jenny lied.

"As I said," continued Chevie, "the SSS is a safe zone for people with abilities and people who believe in them. We're not an army and we're not heroes ourselves. Just a family who protect each other."

They sat in appreciative silence until Chevie looked at them and winked.

"You three have a lot to learn. I suggest you buckle up, we should be landing soon. Unless you have any more questions?"

Eli wanted to open his mouth, but Zac beat him to it.

"If an African elephant moves to America, does it become an African-American elephant?" he asked with his hand raised.

Chevie, Jenny and Eli looked at him, dumbfounded.

"Uh, any important questions?" asked Chevie again.

They shook their heads and settled into silence. As they grew closer to landing, Eli held on to his seatbelt and gazed out at the wide expanse of sky where he could just see the top of a dark, dusty mountain.