Cold to the Touch

Chapter Thirty-Seven

(Dawn's POV)

"Dr. Ambres is dead and Orlin is missing, taken by this second Cicada." Dad said, crossing his arms over his chest.

"Cicada II." Uncle Cisco piped up. Dad shrugged, clearly not worried about naming our second villain.

I felt my stomach twisting while I listened to the team debriefing after what happened. We were unprepared because I forgot that Cicada II was a threat. I had all the files and at some point, Nora and I had just skipped over the fact that Grace Gibbons became Cicada in the future.

"He was too strong for us-" I cut dad off, wringing my shaking hands together.

"She." I said softly. I felt when all of the eyes in the room turned to me. Nora was in a similar position as me. She was writing in her journal, looking close to tears.

"What?" Uncle Cisco was the first to speak up. I took a deep breath.

"She. Cicada II is a girl." I said, gathering all of my courage. "It's my fault that we weren't prepared."

"You knew about her?" Dad asked, his face blank of emotion. I could tell he was upset.

"Yes." I nodded. "The files mentioned her. I- we were so stuck on Orlin being the real threat, trying to do everything we could to help stop him that I.. just brushed over her."

"You just brushed over her." Dad repeated, nodding his head. I felt worse than I had before I started talking. I ran from the room at super speed, grabbing every file I had on Orlin and Grace before running back to the lab.

"This is everything I have on Orlin and Grace." I said, holding them out to dad, trying to keep the tears out of my eyes. "Grace only became Cicada II because-"

"Excuse me? It's Grace?" Uncle Cisco gasped out, looking at me with wide eyes.

"Uh, yeah." I nodded. "The dark matter from the satellite shard in her head is how she could control all of us without the dagger."

"Do we stop her?" Mom asked softly. She at least looked empathetic. Dad still had a blank look on his face. I couldn't tell if he was disappointed or angry. Maybe he was both.

"We can." I nodded, pulling the files back from where I was still holding them out to dad. He hadn't taken them. I brought them over to mom and Uncle Cisco. "We can still get her to take the cure before future Grace tries to wipe out all of the metas in the city."

"She tries that?" Uncle Cisco asks, taking the files. He and mom leaned in to read them together.

"Yes." I nodded. "We can convince Grace to take the cure though. I know we can. We just have to fix the mental activity dampeners. Nora and I can go in and try again."

"Not you two." Dad said, catching everyone's attention.