The Transfixed

chapter eleven

"You killed my parents?" Bridget tried to yell, but it came out as more of a shocked, disgusted whisper.

Several different emotions swam around in Sam's eyes before settling on carelessness laced with lighthearted remorse. "It was less of a killing and more of a... suction of soul? I don't know how it's technically phrased, but yes, essentially, my father and I killed your parents. I was only eight, after all."

Bridget's face paled and she could feel the last meal that she barely remembered eating rising up in her throat. "B-But if we were all friends, why would you-"

"Listen, Bridget," Sam said snappily, "Why don't you save all your questions for my dad? He'll either answer or kill you. I still don't know exactly what he plans to do with you, but hey, you won't know if it hurts to ask until you try." His attempt at advice severely lacked confidence.

Her heart was throbbing with revitalized grief. The idea that her parents had the same powers as her was a shock in itself, but the concept of their murder being due to that power was positively astounding. She had always considered her powers to stare, escape, and return to be a unique gift, but now they felt more like a coveted curse. Centering her eyes back on a contemplative Sam, she said hollowly, "If we were supposedly all friends, and you remember that day in the fifth grade, then why don't I remember you and your father?"

"I erased myself from existence in your life. It was the middle of sixth grade when my dad told me that we had to move away. It had been three years since we had become Transfixed by your parents, and I was abusing my powers, being the obnoxious, unstoppable brat that I was. I blame it on poor parenting skills, I mean, come on- I had a mother who left my father because she got tired of seeing darts stabbed in heads of prime minister portraits, and a father who taught me how to wield a knife before I even left the hospital after birth. 

"Anyway, the point is, being able to escape reality and go anywhere anytime was the best and worse thing for me. My dad apparently thought it was more of the latter, so he tore me from my home of Bedford and we drove for miles and miles. We ended up living in a remote shack in the middle of a stretch of tall grass in the center of Nowhereland, USA. For the next eight years, I was almost constantly locked in an empty room with four plain, metal walls, and a thin, rectangular outline of a door. While inside, my father would give me photographs, newspapers, and yearbooks from every possible documented moment and memory that I'd spent with you throughout our entire childhood. He would make me stare at them until I went back to every single second that I was with you. He told me to make you forget. 

"So I did. I went back in time to every joke we'd shared, every tree we'd climbed, every cookie we'd stolen, and every conversation we had." Sam blinked, sounding almost sentimental, but then replacing the soft expression with a hard stare, "I picked an unsuspecting loner kid named Darren Redding. I managed to insert him into the picture as your best friend, effectively shutting myself out so much that I eventually ceased to exist. I was literally wiped away from documented history, and wiped away from any possible memory you may have had of me. The only person who knew who I was was, was me."

Bridget's eyes were cast downward as she took in the information. "So... you spent eight years of your life rewriting history?"

"I spent eight years making sure you never knew I existed." He clarified, deep-rooted irritation clear in his eyes.

She swallowed. "Why?"

"My dad needed me to be focused. We were, at least, we thought we were, the only Transfixed in the world. And because of that, he expected me to straighten out the way that I used my powers. After I had erased myself from your life, I started to spend most of my time training, testing, and maneuvering through time and space. My dad's plan has always been to create an army of Transfixed humans, but he wanted them to be ready for anything that their powers had to offer. Being Transfixed is complicated, as you obviously know, so my father knew we needed to achieve every piece of information we could about the power."

"Did you?"

"Did I what?"

Bridget raised an eyebrow. "Did you find every piece of information you could?"

Sam inched forward. "No. We've experimented and risked a great deal to uncover the details of our limitations, but we still need the rules. My father says that with great power comes hefty fine-print, and I don't particularly want to find out the hard way all the ways a Transfixed can die."

"Is there like, a rule book somewhere or something?" 

"I don't know, is there?" Sam returned, narrowing his eyes.

"It seems like there should be. An instruction manual would have made this whole thing a heck of a lot easier." She answered, letting out a long sigh.

Harriet stumbled down the aisle of the plane just then, and set two white, porcelain plates with a bagel on each onto the table between Bridget and Sam. "Sorry it took so long, sir. Our chef is a little drunk, I think." She added two sweating glasses of water beside the plates.

Sam gazed up at Harriet with a disbelieving expression. "You need a chef to put two un-sliced, un-toasted, butter-less bagels onto plates, and fill two glasses with water?" Then he blinked and waved a hand, "Nevermind. Just bring me out whatever he's having."

Harriet nodded a little, and then started moving down the aisle to the kitchen.

Bridget offered a quick eye roll, but didn't say anything.

"So like I was saying, this whole Transfixed army thing is really my dad's end game. The only issue at this point is figuring out how to extract your power, contain it, and then infuse others, entire cities even, with the ability to Transfix."

Bridget had started to take a sip of her water, but immediately started coughing. She slammed the glass back onto the table and glared at Sam. "Finally we get to the real reason why you kidnapped me." She shuttered inside but didn't allow her fear to become visible in her eyes. "You want to do to me what you did to my parents- except slower and with more people. You plan to remove all of my powers and implant them into brainwashed war hawks, which we both know, based on my parent's experience, will kill me."

Sam stopped chewing on his bagel, and leaned forward in his seat. After a long, tantalizing silence, he said just above a whisper, "I never said I was on my dad's side."

"Well, what the hell does that mean?" Bridget bit out, her voice rising slightly.

"It means," He pulled out a small leather notebook that had been tucked into his suit jacket pocket, "that I've got a plan of my own."