Phoenix Fire (Book 2 in the Winter's Series)

Chapter Fifteen: The Demon Within

"We will give Jesse the time it takes you to flush whatever is in your system out. After that, whatever information he gets we will use to our advantage. The plan is the same, we kidnap an agent and get them to talk." He says, sure of himself.

"You make it sound like it's going to be easy. It's not, there are so many factors to include. How are we going to find one now? We were counting on the tracker to bring them to us and we take one and get away. What are we going to do now?" I ask as our original plan is now trashed.

"You're going to track one down."

"Me? how the hell do you expect me to just track one down?"

"How did you find me?"

"The agent with smelly perfume. I tracked her...to you... ah I see."

"We will take her to some abandoned area and interrogate her by any means."

"You better figure out that abandoned area before we start all of this."

"I already have a place."

"Of course you do. What then? After we gather information?"

"We come up with another plan based on what we find out."

"Can I ask you something?"

"You just did."

"Oh come on, besides that."

"Okay sure, what's your question?"

"What happened... in there?"

"When they ambushed me, they injected me with a sedative, they disabled my arm and chained me to a chair. They questioned me for hours, about you."

"What did they want to know?"

"Where you were, what happened on August 14th 2010, how to trigger you. Things like that."

"Why do they want to know about 2010?"

"I don't know, I didn't ask. I was kind of busy being interrogated at the time." He says facetiously. Something out of the corner of my eye catches me attention. A flicker of a lab coat. It's just a hallucination. I tell myself over and over trying to keep from chasing the rabbit down a hole I can't follow. "Hey what's wrong?" Bucky asks me, sensing my discomfort.

"It's a hallucination." I say shortly to him.

"Tell me about it."

"It's a lab coat just passing by my field of vision. I don't want to look at it."

"What's the harm?"

"I don't want to see where it goes, I know that lab coat."

"Okay well then just focus on something else."

"It's getting closer."

"Then close your eyes." And I do, I shut them tightly. But in doing so, I'm jerked down the rabbit hole. I stand alone in a dark room. The sound of shoes hitting the ground as someone walks, echoes off of the walls. A spotlight clicks on and I see myself against a wall. My young teenage hands are chained loosely in the air. I can see her legs trembling from exhaustion and her feet are bloody from the rough, jagged stone floor. I know this room. I recognize the smell of iron and sweat. I want to run and free my younger self but I'm frozen in place.

"Truaighe." Desolation. A deep booming voice barks out in Gaelic. Dr. Chaos, I knew that lab coat belonged to him. I watch as my chained body fights against his words, screaming out in defiance.

"Aithreachas." Rue. He says, slowly inching forward with each word. She pulls against the tirelessly as she yells at him to stop.

"Naoi fichead 's a còig" Ninety-five. He walks closer holding his book out in front of him so he can see the words clearly.