freak ࿂ suicide squad

19 ࿂ death wish

Rick Flag sat at the kitchen table of his apartment, his leg bouncing steadily against the ground. In front of him laid dozens of case files— all meta-humans that he was tasked with catching. Some were criminals, others were innocent human beings that had done nothing wrong except being born different.

After the incident with Zolita, Amanda didn't want to take any chances. She wanted every meta-human to be evaluated and controlled before they could even cause a fraction of the damage that Zolita had.

Rick didn't know how to yell at Amanda, how to tell her that this was just like when the Germans hated the Jews or the Tutsis hated the Hutus. Amanda was afraid but masked that fear as anger.

The anger was directed towards those with abilities.

Rick flipped through the folders. Skyla Kutcher, 34, mother of two, able to control fire. Jeanine Restrepo, 15, able to shape shift. Carl Carver, 42, geologist, able to control the weather. Each case was uniquely different.

Rick nearly cackled when he got to a file in the middle of the stack. It was fat, and papers were protruding out. On the top right corner was a picture of Zolita, smiling widely, as if she knew something that he didn't. Maybe she did.

He opened the file, flipping through hundreds of reports filed against the meta-human. Amanda presumably printed these all before deleting all evidence that Zolita even existed. It was the smart thing to do. They could pretend Zolita never existed all they wanted, but at the end of the day, she did exist. And she was dangerous. She didn't have sharp teeth or fangs, but she was capable of eradicating every human being on this planet.

     The soldier knew that Zolita didn't want to do that. The girl he met, the one married to his brother, smiled a lot. She would always watch the kids of the family, and she would help his mother with dinner. When Rick would return home from being stationed, she'd make him baskets full of essentials to welcome him home. He never learned her job, or where his brother met her, but he knew she was kind.

     He never questioned the bruises that would litter her neck, or that time her eye was blood red. He never questioned it when she was hospitalized from a "robbery" that she never filed a police report for.

     Shaking his head to snap out of his thoughts, Rick leaned back in his chair. Rick knew that if he found Zolita, Amanda would calm down on the mission of tracking down everyone with abilities.

Rick stood up and walked over to the cabinet. He opened it, then pulled out a false bottom. Hidden, next to a handgun, was a flip phone. The soldier picked up the phone and opened it, staring at the sole contact that was stored in the phone.

"Take this," whispered Zolita among the chaos. Half of her face was torn off. Rick was barely listening. He wanted to find June.

"Wha..."

"You'll know when you need to use it," Zolita mumbled, pressing the small phone into the man's palm. Blood poured down her neck. "Goodbye, Rick Flag."

Rick flipped the phone back and forth in his palm. He was disorientated when gifted the phone, and disorientated now. Maybe that was just the impact that Zolita had on people: a permanent feeling of dizziness. The soldier pressed call before he could second guess his decision.

It ringed for several seconds. Then—

"Rick?"

࿂

The two sat in Rick's Nissan, both of their elbows bumping together on the center console. Rick sat in the driver's seat, Zolita in the passenger's side.