Chapter 13

Zephyr crawled up to the man and tugged onto his pants. "Please?" He begged.

The man made an irritated face and kicked Zephyr right in the stomach and pointed the gun towards him instead, ignoring Castiel and Ethan who was glaring at him.

"Whose lost child might you be?" The man asked cockily, stepping forward and putting pressure on Zephyr. He looked as if he was having fun tormenting children who were supposedly lost.

Castiel quickly regained his stance while the person was distracted, trying to come up with something to get them out of this situation. He looked outside the forest and realised that the other guards hadn't spotted them yet. It was most likely that the guard in front of them had left his post without notifying the others.

When Ethan saw what Castiel was looking at, he nodded and acknowledged that the situation currently was in their favour as the guard was outnumbered but he was armed with a gun that could end them in a spilt second if he were to get serious and use it.

Ethan glanced at Zephyr who was slowly backing off while still crying, they both made eye contact, despite the tears rolling down Zephyr's cheeks, he seemed oddly calm. He mouthed the words 'I'll deal with this' to Ethan before turning his attention back to the guard who was starting to beat him up.

"What?" Ethan whispered in shock. He couldn't imagine leaving Zephyr behind, if he did, it'll almost be like betrayal. There was no way that Zephyr was able to fend off such a huge intimidating guard while he was still in a fragile condition like Anesthesia had mentioned. Right?

If Ethan were to cause an explosion, the sound it'll create will be too loud, attracting the guards attention and making the situation worse than it already was.

Castiel was still exhausted from exerting his power yesterday. And he had no information on the guard whatsoever. If the guard were to see an illusion and manage to break out of it, the feedback of the shock will be sent back to Castiel and he'll suffer the consequences.

There was really no easy way out. If only they had been more aware of their surroundings. It was meant to be a simple trip and problems they met along the way were meant to be easily solved, just like what Damien had hinted.

Making his decision, Ethan bit his lips and turned to Castiel and grabbed his arm and ran towards the direction that they were going to head to. He held onto his necklace and clicked the small button twice while praying for the best outcome with no casualty.

Zephyr noticed the two running off and felt a sense of relief while he got serious, wiping the blood and tears off his face. His eyes slowly glowing a creepy green.

"I wish the act had worked. But this will do." Zephyr said to himself while he blocked the incoming punch of the guard. And returning a punch right at the guard's throat as hard as he could manage.

The guard groaned in pain and quickly reach for his gun which he had dropped earlier when Zephyr returned his punch. He started panicking when he couldn't feel the gun by his waist. He looked at the kid and started feeling a weird chill down his spine, he wanted to scream for help but he couldn't. The impact of the punch had damaged his vocal cords and the aura that was seeping out of the kid was terrifying.

"Say, what were you doing to those people?" Zephyr asked, kicking the guard knees that forced him to fall onto the ground with a thud. Zephyr bended down to reach the eye level of the guard.

"Why must I tel-l you, fucki-ng brat." The guard scoffed, not backing down even though he was at a disadvantage. He struggled to get words out of his mouth, it sounded extremely raspy and chopped up.

Stubborn, Zephyr thought. "I heard getting information out of stubborn people requires for them to be in pain. I'd love to do it here, but.." He said, looking around and taking a knife out from his pocket that Damien had forced him to keep, he stared at the knife for a minute and placed it back to where it belonged.

"It was useless to send them away if I wasn't going to kill you now." Zephyr said, sounding more irritated than ever. He wanted to send those two away so he could kill the man and not let them come into harm due to his ability, but he decided that the guard had to live for now.

"Sleep." Zephyr said, grabbing the guard by the collar and dragging him in the direction his acquaintances ran. It was rather easy for him to drag the guard due to his overwhelming strength. It only felt like he was dragging a single brick. That was how strong mutates were, even without their special abilities.

Ethan and Castiel waited nervously outside the forest and near a sidewalk, wondering whether Zephyr was going to make it out alive. Ethan was nervously fidgeting around with the necklace, wondering if the others had arrived in time to save him.

They soon spotted a thin stature in the far distance, dragging a large tall body by it's side. The silhouette looked exactly like Zephyr's but a strange intimidating aura was emitting from it, slightly freaking Castiel and Ethan out.

"If that isn't Zephyr, I'll attack first." Ethan offered, getting ready with his hands on his knees. Knowing that he could use his ability freely now as there was no one around that could hear the explosions and possibly attack him. If they could, he knew that Castiel would be there to protect him.

Zephyr spotted his acquaintances and loosening up a little. Putting up his hand and waving at them to indicate that it was indeed him. He felt a sudden piercing pain in his head but he continue to trudged forward while the others walked towards him warily, still uncertain.

"You took the guard with you?!" Castiel asked, alarmed. He was unsure of what Zephyr was trying to achieve. It was difficult to understand what the younger was attempting to pull off.

"I just need some stuff from him." Zephyr replied, letting go of the unconscious body. "Find his ID for me."

"For what..? Food?" Castiel asked, more confused than ever. If they were to use a guard's ID to collect food, it would've been far too suspicious.

"Something else.. this guard seems to work for the government with such good equipment. " Zephyr paused and thought about whether he should elaborate on what he had meant but the others didn't seem to mind while they helped him find the ID.

"Damien ordered you to do this, I'm guessing." Ethan said with confidence in his voice. He had assumed that Damien had given orders to Zephyr beforehand, as he felt like Zephyr had no use for such a card and would leave immediately after he had finished off what he had intended to do. To add on, the aura Zephyr radiated earlier, gave Ethan the impression that he was indeed annoyed by something, and that was possibly having the need to follow Damien orders.

Zephyr looked up and smiled awkwardly before nodding. He didn't feel the need to lie. "He told me if along the way, there's guards suited in a black uniform and holds a gun with such a logo." He showed the side of the gun handle which had an imprint of two stars overlapping each other. "I needed to gain some information from them. If they're deemed useless, kill them."

Ethan suddenly felt a large amount of bloodlust and immediately looked back up at Zephyr who showed no human expressions at all while he wiped off the blood on his cheeks.

Castiel felt his whole body froze for a moment, fear enclosing in on him. Enough to make him choke but the feeling stopped all of a sudden, he slowly looked up at Zephyr and Ethan, confused by what had just happened.

"What was that?" Castiel asked while he offered Zephyr a cloth to clean his face.

"Sorry." Zephyr apologised. He found the card and inspected it. "This is it, keep it Castiel." He said, passing the card. Knowing that it would be best to leave it someone who seemed prepared with the bag he brought along.

"What will we do with the body now..?" Castiel asked, recalling what Zephyr had mentioned about killing. "You aren't going to really kill him, are you?"

"If we don't he'll run off and tell his squad about us." Zephyr said, trying to convince Castiel even though there was no need, he had already decided. He took out the knife.

Ethan slowly stood up and didn't say a word, knowing that the guard very well deserved it for confining humans and keeping them as hostages. Whenever he remembered that disgusting scene, he too, wanted to kill the guard with his own bare hands. But he figured it would be best to leave it to Zephyr who seemed fine with dirtying his hands.

"Wake up." Zephyr whispered with a weird voice like he had done earlier. The guard immediately woke up by the command, looking around for a clue of where he might be.

"What do you think you'r-" the guard felt a sudden sharp excruciating pain. He then figured it would be best to stay silent when he realised that the kid wasn't joking at all. He looked down on the floor while he shivered in fear of what his fate would be.

"The necklace." Zephyr said to Ethan, putting out his hand.

Ethan was confused but he took it off and handed it over. He then looked on the ground near the man hands and realised that the man index finger had been chopped off, it was a revolting sight to see. He walked away and stationed himself on a tree, leaning on it. Waiting for Zephyr to be done.

Zephyr held the necklace and looked at it closely, remembering Damien's instructions about it being a recorder. He then realised that the supposedly emergency button was indeed a recording button, he let out a small chuckle of disbelief and found it ridiculous how the 'leader' tricked them into thinking they were safe with such a lie. Untrustworthy.

"Zephyr?" Castiel worriedly asked when he saw the younger laughing to himself, it seemed like he was going insane.

"Not an emergency button but a recorder. We've been fooled." Zephyr replied, looking like he was still talking to himself. He gripped the knife tighter to relief his anger and almost broke the handle. He let out a deep breath and clicked the button of the necklace.

Zephyr raised the knife and pointed it towards another one of the guard's finger. "Who do you work for?" he asked bluntly.

The guard look extremely perplexed by the question but he kept his mouth zipped and ignored Zephyr.

This made Zephyr more angrier than before, if he couldn't control his frustration right at that moment, he felt like he could accidentally kill the guard in a heartbeat. He stabbed the blade right into the back of the guard's hand.

The guard let out a howl of anguish while he instinctively attempted to pull back his hand but it was being pinned into the dirty ground by the knife.

"You'll tell me. Who you work for." Zephyr said with a threatening tone, making it sound like an order that had to be complied to.

"I'll tell you what. If you tell me who you work for, I'll let you run off to your squad. I wouldn't even mind if you tell them about us." Zephyr convinced, his hands started to shake with anger. He was running out of patience.

"Hah, trying to bait me? You can torture me all you want but that guilt..will paralyse you." The guard replied cunningly even though he was visibly shaken.

Castiel nervously walked near Zephyr with the intention to calm him down as the actions of the younger was strange. However, Castiel stopped when he realised that this was a situation that he shouldn't interfere with. If he did, it would almost be like messing with fire.

Zephyr stayed quiet and rooted to his spot, dropping his blade. It fell to the ground with a soft clank, that was the only sound that could be heard right at that moment. The heavy breathing and fast heartbeat were silenced.

Zephyr hands turned into fists but he held back and activated his ability instead even though he knew that he shouldn't. If his mental state wasn't stable enough, his ability could go out of control. "Who do you work for?" this time, the sound was wretched. It sounded like the ground was being broken into and torn apart

"General Aaron Enger." The guard immediately said, the words were being forcibly pushed out of his mouth, tearing apart his organs along with it.

Even though the hostility was clearly directed at the guard, Castiel and Ethan were struggling to breathe properly. They choked out incomprehensible sentences. Zephyr had made sure that the ability was used on the guard only with the help of skin contact. But it didn't seem to be working well.

"What were you doing to those hostages?" Zephyr continued asking without consideration about his acquaintances who were struggling behind him. He could feel someone grasping his hand but his mind blocked it out. It didn't feel important enough to stop.

"Sending them outside the borders." The guard replied, this time along with a pool of blood mixed along with some questionable debris.

"Why?"

"Suspicion of mutation batch. Debts not paid." The guard murmured in pain, holding onto his neck as he felt like it could be blown off at any moment.

Zephyr released his ability and took the blade from the floor and stabbed it right into the man's chest with minimal effort, making sure that it was fully impaled into the right spot before walking away and clicking the necklace. He looked at his two friends who stared at him with their leg barely supporting their body.

"Let's go." Zephyr said, passing Ethan the necklace before walking in front. When he realised that the two weren't following him or even making any sound at all, he looked back and saw them frozen on the spot.

"Guys?" Zephyr asked, worried. Rushing back swiftly, his hair blowing in the wind.

Castiel gulped and let out a small nervous laugh and tried to ease his palpitating heartbeat when he realised that Zephyr was back to normal with his tender voice and humane expressions. He walked over and ruffled Zephyr's soft black hair gently.

Ethan wasn't scared as he had felt something similar to this happened before, however it was far more scarier than he had imagined it to be. He reached out his hands and held onto Zephyr's trembling arms. "You did well." He reassured the best he can, trying not to give him a scolding.

Zephyr felt real sincere tears of relief rolling down his cheeks. He had never been comforted like this before, if he had ever lashed out back then at the lab, he would've been restrained and kept in a dark room for his punishment.

"We're..friends now right?" Zephyr asked.

"We weren't?" The other two replied.

The trio made their way down the road and continued their journey as if nothing strange had happened beforehand. They were overwhelmed by their surroundings and let themselves be immersed in the new world.