TFS: Burnt Earth
CONNOR 22: STRIKE THREE

Connor – 15 years ago

“Where’s my lens?” Molly’s annoyed because the routine was working and she’s not sure why Phelan wants to change something functional.

“Not this time,” is all he says.

“What’s our mission?” I clip excitedly. I’m still running on the high of getting through to Brad.

“Oliver Knight. Water Solathair. Strike Three,” he replies somberly.

“Oh,” Molly and I murmur in unison. Way to kill my buzz, Ballchin.

Strike Three is the last straw. Chances all used up. Final broken rule. It’s the end, my friend. I figure out too soon why he opted for detail omission. Come to find out Strike Three guy isn’t hurting anyone. He isn’t making zombie juice boxes like KrazyPants Kristoph, he isn’t leaving a pile of bodies in his wake like Blink Boy, and he isn’t compelled by an overpowering urge to showboat his newfound abilities like Busker Brad. He’s just a guy in love with a girl. They have a BABY. A tiny human. His mistake is keeping his happy human family. It makes absolutely no sense they shouldn’t be able to go on living their life so long as time allows it. I mean, time will naturally sort that shit out anyway. He doesn’t age. They do. How the fuck is letting them carry on hurting anyone? The only mistake I’m seeing is our interference.

I snuff. “This is ridiculous.”

“Orders are orders,” Phelan reminds me.

Level two grimace engaged. “Yes, Sir.”

We’re invited into their apartment after a brief rainbow light parade that for once makes me sick to my stomach. It’s like the guy expected us. Of course he did. He knows the rules, and he knows he broke them.

“Have you ever been in love?” He’s looking right at Molly, but she opts out of answering.

“No,” Phelan remarks.

“You?” He’s still looking at her. Bad call on his part, assuming the girl will be his potential reprieve.

“No,” I echo.

“How about you?” Fucking persistent, I’ll give him that.

She can’t continue to ignore him since she’s the only one left. “Yes.”

Huh. Did not expect that.

“What if I demanded you give it up?”

She stares blanks. “You did.”

He lifts an inquisitive brow.

“Your very existence demands constant supervision,” she claims. “My brother got brought in. I got brought in for my brother. Now we’re both here to have a Strike Three conversation with you. I reckon it’s your fault I’m here, and it’s your fault I don’t have that love you’re so desperately holding onto.”

Fuck me. No wonder she hates them so damn much. Not that I’m not pleased as a licked dick to be on the receiving end of her love, be it such a rarity in general, but that admission is basically the ball tweak of the century. How can she readily forgive me and not them?

Oliver realizes petitioning won’t get him anywhere, so he switches right to plea bargaining, “I’ll go with you. I won’t fight. Just, please, leave my family alone.”

Phelan sighs, while I’m confused. What does Oliver think we’re doing with his family? Then it hits my heart like a bucket of bricks. Collateral. They’re collateral damage to his rule breaking. They’ll be exterminated too.

“They made it clear to you what would happen,” Phelan relays dismissively.

“I won’t go!” he shouts. “I’ll fight! I’ll fight for them with everything in me.”

The man isn’t a fighter. His ability is hydroponics offered by the water element. He’s a damn gardener for fuck’s sake. That shit is sprouting all over his apartment. Though I know fighting for one’s family can invoke strength unnatural for a man, and presumably even more strength for one beyond humanity, it still won’t be enough.

Oliver’s shouting doesn’t last long. Phelan clamps a strange device on his wrist. When the inner needles touch his skin, they begin working instantly. Like a syringe extracting blood, the device starts sucking his energy into the holding tube. He’s shrinking, and he’s crying. His last words are heartbreaking pleas for his family, then he’s gone, trapped inside the tiny cylinder that Molly catches before it drops to the floor. It’s the most tragic thing I’ve ever seen.

Molly curls the cylinder tighter in her hand, challenging Phelan when he holds his out, palm open. His face is cold as stone, while I have fresh tears on my cheeks. “I’m drinking it,” she announces.

She won’t drink it. She isn’t that dumb. Consuming the wrong element could kill her. At the very least, it’ll make her wish she was dead. Doesn’t stop her from fucking with Phelan though.

“You are not drinking it,” Phelan informs her.

“Oh, I’m drinking the fuck out of it.”

“I’m ordering you not to drink it,” Phelan warns her.

“Him,” I correct quietly.

“What?” Phelan and Molly ask at the same time.

“Him,” I repeat. “You’re not drinking him.”

“Solathair shots,” she muses.

“Just give me the cylinder.” Phelan’s patience is growing thin.

“I want on a new team,” she complains. “This one’s lame.”

Phelan’s chest rumbles a warning roar. “You’re stuck with the one you have.”

“No,” she volleys. “You’re stuck.”

“We’re all stuck as fuck,” I grumble. “Let’s try to make the most of it.” Sᴇaʀ*ᴄh the Find ɴøᴠel.nᴇt website on Gøøglᴇ to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.

She scoffs. “The fuck you think I’m doing?”

“I think you’re trying to get Phelan to blow a gasket,” I point out.

She crosses her arms over her chest. “You said I should make the most of it.”

“Not what I meant.”

“Where’s the wife?” Phelan demands, his voice still arctic.

“With the baby,” Molly reports numbly. “Nursery closet.”

“Do we have to?” I plead quietly.

Phelan rolls his shoulders. “Yes.”

“Can we leave the baby?” I negotiate. “The baby knows nothing.”

“The baby is good as dead if we fuck off and leave it here anyway,” Molly reasons.

“We can drop it somewhere.”

“Like on its head,” she mutters.

“It might make the wife go more quietly if we let it live,” I offer. “I’m assuming we have to bring her back with us?”

“They’ll need to interrogate her to find out if she told anyone else,” Phelan confirms.

Molly surprises me with a head tilt. “Interrogate her?”

Phelan grunts.

She marches into the nursery, ripping open the closet door. Guess she’s had enough. “Give me the baby,” she directs the terrified woman.

“No,” the woman refuses.

“Give me the baby or I’m taking it and ripping its tiny little head off its tiny little body in front of you,” she adds.

The woman warily hands the baby over to me. Apparently, I look less intimidating than Molly. Probably something to do with the upgraded level three grimace perma-plastered on my face. I place it in the crib, where it wails like a proper banshee. When I turn back toward the mother, she’s crying rivers.

“Did you tell anyone about Oliver’s abilities?” Molly whispers.

“No,” she assures her. “Not a soul.”

Phelan’s beside me staring at the baby like it might jump out of the crib to bite him or something. He’s paying no attention to Molly and the wife.

“Do you swear on your baby’s life?”

“I swear.”

With that Molly reaches down, takes hold of the wife’s head on either side, and turns her neck fast enough to break it. Dead wife slumps to the floor like a cooked noodle. “It’s done,” Molly declares.

Phelan. Is. Pissed. I can practically see the steam coming out his ears. His eye is twitching all to fuck, yet he says nothing.

I know that kill is circling somewhere in the empty void of Molly’s conscience, but for the first time, murder was not a violent impulse. It was a mercy. She saved the wife from unimaginable torture masquerading as an interrogation. Is she redeemable?

I wrap the baby in a blanket, put it inside a laundry basket, and carry it from the apartment to a rando neighbour’s door down the hall. It stops crying. I don’t. Not for days.

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