Rediscover

Part 4

At Erik's meaningful look Eve allowed herself to fall back and walk beside her sister.

"You gonna be okay?" She prompted, brushing a stray strand of hair impatiently back behind her ear. Jane's face looked almost hollow without the constant rush of discovery of the past two days.

"Of course, why wouldn't I be?" Jane gripped her journal tightly in her hands, the reply's meaning was clear, she did not want to talk about it. Eve stuffed her hands in her jean pockets as a gust of wind blew over the group.

"Okay, good, because you owe me like fifty bucks for his breakfast." Jane cracked a grin, allowing Eve to finally relax. They continued down the winding streets of town, silent as everyone was lost in their own thoughts. A honk of the horn caused Eve to glance up from the store front window she had been eyeing, just in time to see a large black pickup truck halting abruptly before their corner as a pedestrian crossed ahead of them.

"Hey!" Jane's eyes widened as she recognized the tools and instruments piled in the back of the vehicle. "That's my stuff!" Eve was shocked to realize that Jane was correct as she watched the truck drive off with no explanation.

"You don't think..." Eve pondered allowed looking between Erik and Jane. There was a moments hesitation, then a panicked looked overcame Jane and the two girls took off running the rest of the way to the lab. As they turned the corner on their street Eve's heart stuttered in shock. The usually vacant parking lot was filled with a multitude of black vehicles. Inside the windows shadows of strangers could be seen marching in and out of the wide doors with their possessions in hand.

"What the heck is going on here?" Jane demanded as she lead the group through the propped open doors to where a crowd of people in black suites didn't even save them a glance.

"Ms. Foster, I'm Agent Coulson with S.H.I.E.L.D." A man wearing the same black suite as all the others detached himself from the group and came to talk to them. At the name of the agency Eve saw Erik blanche, though she had no time to ask him about it as she attempted to snag anything, a paper or two, away from these intruders. She dashed to where just yesterday morning Jane had displayed her new discovery on the wall, now all was bare, with just the slightest outline of tape residue exhibiting that anything had been there in the first place.

"Is that supposed to mean something to me? You can't do this!" The man named Coulson turned to her, his face kind and understanding as if he wasn't the one making these horrors occur.

"Jane," Erik raced to where the astrophysicist was scrambling to grab some of her possessions before they were taken from her. "This is a lot more serious than we realized, let it go." He sent a nervous glance over his shoulder to where the agent stood with a polite smile that infuriated Eve.

"Let it go? This is my life." She sped around Erik and towards the back garage door that had been opened to revealed a van that was nearly filled with their precious possessions.

"We're investigating a security threat," Agent Coulson explained as he matched Jane's strides. "We need to appropriate all your records and atmospheric data." Eve let out an affronted cry as the few scraps she had managed to grasp her plucked from her hands and carried away.

"By appropriate do you mean steal?" Jane spat, now at the van she attempted at looking at what had been stolen from her but another agent in all black reached out an arm to halt her. Eve raced to be by her side but Erik stilled her with a desperate glance.

"Here, this should more than compensate for your trouble." Eve sent Coulson a fuming glare that Jane mimicked, snatching the check he held out to her furiously and crumpling it up in her hands.