“Don’t be ridiculous. You’re my daughter.”
“Oh, so it is okay for your daughter to kill someone in self-defense, but anyone else in the same situation is a murderer? How is that fair?” I slapped my hands on his desk. “You judge him without knowing the facts. He can’t help the abilities he was given any more than I can.”
“The fact is, young lady, I am your father. And furthermore, I am the director of the Institute. My word is law.” He closed his eyes briefly, taking a deep breath. I could see in his face that I was draining his patience. “The world might be a foreign place, but there are some things that have not changed. Do you think there are good and evil people in the Heights?”
I gnawed on my lower lip before I answered, knowing this was a trick question. “Yes.”
“Do you know what caused the world to go into a state of emergency over a hundred years ago?” he asked.
“The mist.”
“The mist didn’t just suddenly appear. Humans created weapons of mass destruction—nuclear weapons.”
“So you’re saying it was a terrorist attack?”
“I’m saying it was evil. The government had safeguards in place, like the holding houses all across the States in case of an attack on our country. I’d been part of a team that had been working on a medical breakthrough, a cryogenics drug that would put the body in a prolonged state of sleep, preserving a person’s life, cells, organs, and body. They wouldn’t age, not until the drug completed its cycle and the person woke up. It was supposed to be enough time to let Earth stabilize.”
I gasped. “You created Ceraspan?”
He nodded. “Yes, but it was only in the testing stages at the time of the mist. We were positive with a few more years we’d have perfected the serum, but we never had the chance. The nuclear attack releasing the mist changed everything, and our drug is why only a small section of the world had been saved. As far as we know, there is no other life beyond the Heights.”
This was a lot to take in. I sank back into my chair, uncertain how I felt about this development.
“The toxic mist hadn’t been a foreign enemy. It was a citizen of our own country, a madman who activated a weapon that destroyed the world and almost wiped out mankind,” he said.
Epic facepalm.
“Why would someone do that?” I asked.
“Evil comes in all shapes and forms. There are reasons the Institute is so selective, allowing only those with abilities to serve on the Night’s Guard. Our tests have a purpose. It is up to us to weed out the evil, so that Earth as we know it can endure. Human life is in a fragile state. Killing each other is not the answer, but we must do what we can to preserve the land, preserve our future, and preserve the human race,” he justified. “Have you asked yourself why he didn’t bother to search for you? Why he ran off into the dark without so much as a goodbye? Dash Darhk cares for no one but himself. It would be wise if you remembered that.”
I had no misconceptions about Dash’s past, but he wasn’t as terrible as his reputation made him sound. That I knew for a fact. I wanted to tell my father he didn’t know Dash as well as I did, but in reality, he had been at the Institute longer than with me. Maybe I wasn’t the one who was being deceived. “I should probably get back to my room. It has been a long day.” I put my hands on the chair, ready to leave.
“Charlotte, another minute if you don’t mind and then you can go.”
I relaxed back into the chair and waited to see what else he had to say.
He placed both his hands on the desk. “I understand there has been a development in your abilities.”
I lifted a brow. “There has?”
“Yes. It seems your eyes taken on a solid color when you use your gift. I find that interesting. Do you think it is interesting?” He asked the question in a way that made it seem as if I’d been withholding this information from him.
Truth be told, I had been, but that was beside the point. I shrugged. “Considering the things I’ve seen since I woke up, nothing seems abnormal anymore.”
His finger ran over the chart on his desk. “You’re able to summon and command lightning.”
“Seems so.” I couldn’t help the attitude.
His hand rested under his clean-shaven chin. “What about other abilities?”
“What other abilities?” I would play the dumb card for as long as possible.
“Have you noticed anything that might suggest you have more than one? Scientifically, if one ability changes your irises, then the other colors could indicate they stand for other skills.”
“Great. Now I’m a science experiment. My lifelong dream.”
“That is not true, but if you do have four abilities, it would make you special. We’ve never seen a human with that kind of power.” Excitement laced with his voice. He was very interested in what I wasn’t admitting.
My cheeks flamed. “I’m not sure I could handle that kind of power.”
A glass of water sat at the edge of his desk. He picked it up and glanced at me over the rim. “You’d be surprised what one could handle given the right motivation, like protecting those we love.”
That I could agree with. I had come here under the delusion of love for my family, only to find that they were strangers to me. And yet, I found that I would still do everything in my power to keep them safe, even exposing the full extent of my abilities. That fierce loyalty also extended to Dash, whether my father liked it or not. I wouldn’t abandon him.
Walking down the long hallway of the seventh floor, I meandered to my room. Defeated and feeling isolated, I stared out the massive floor-to-ceiling windows, which gave me an uninterrupted view of the courtyard.
I got a far-off look in my eyes, unable to stop my thoughts from drifting to Dash. I had thought I could reason with my father by letting him know how important it was to me to let Dash live his life, to find his family without being hunted. Was it too much for him to grant me this one small favor?
Apparently so.
Disappointment couldn’t come close to what I currently felt. I was numb inside.
Something happened today, a turning point.
Since I’d woken up, my life had been on hiatus, always waiting for the next disaster. My only hope had been family, and my heart should be filled with joy now, not slowly cracking. Today, I wasn’t my father’s little muffin anymore. I held no sway over him, and this dream I’d been holding onto of being reunited with my family since I woke was just that: a dream.
I knew when Dash and I had parted that I would miss him, but it was so much more than that. There was no rationalizing it. With barely any effort, I could conjure his face from memory. His broad cheekbones, his lips that were almost always laughing at me, and those eyes—those magnetic eyes that would sparkle like starlight or turn as hard as stone.