Fear surged through Max as she was examined by the doctors once more. She would end up with at least a black eye, but she had more concerning issues. She thought about how the general had appeared earlier. He hadn't seemed to be aware of what she is, but he could be good at hiding his intentions. She began to get paranoid when she thought about what she did earlier. If Emily told him about what I'm able to do, I'm screwed. She thought about running, but she knew she was in no shape for it. She hated the fact her fate hanged on the word of someone else.
Several of the nurses and technicians thought she was in shock due to how little she responded to them. She heard them gossiping about the attack of some mutant rats on her school. They arn't covering it up? Too many people must have seen it happen. Max couldn't think of any other reason for it. She just prayed that no one would link her to the Sadist Rats appearance and that Emily wouldn't talk.
It was way past dinner time when she was finally free of the doctors and was allowed to go home. She ate a simple meal with her mother, whom hadn't said a word for hours. Max was somewhat worried, but resolved that it shouldn't be a problem. Her mother had never been violent.
Max went to bed sometime later. She had calmed down considerably when she hadn't woken up in an interogation room. Her day went rather simply when he mother went to work. Later that day she went to see a therapist which had been recommended by the doctor the day before. It was a chore to try and act like a traumatized teen, but she had somehow managed.
That night, she cultivated as normal while directing some of her essence to her black eye and arm. She went to bed around 9 pm. It had felt like she just fell to sleep when she woke up with a cold splash of water to her face. Her brain felt like it was in a fog as she looked around wildly. Max's arms and legs were manicled to a steel chair. A table was infront of her with a single overhead lamp illuminating a small circle. Someone was sitting just other side of the table. It was General McKenzy. Shit! Max was terrified and completely awake now. Her only consolation was that they waited a day to grab her.
"Good evening, monster," he greeted, "You are quite the piece of work. I had almost thought you were the peaceful variety of your kind. Hell, I was ready to leave you be after I saw show of you being hit by your father. But that was BEFORE I got a report from one of my operatives. It states that you were eminating alot of power right before those 'things' appeared. It is obvious that you summoned them intentionally or not, but baed on your injuries you weren't able to control them like you wanted." Max knew there was no way he could know that unless someone was literately in the cafeteria with an essence radar in hand. Unless he had an essence cultivator that would give up one of their own. Her blood ran cold at that thought.
"I didn't...," Max couldn't even speak in her defense before she was interrupted. "SILENCE! I WILL NOT HEAR YOUR LIES!" He examined with barely contained disgust Max for a moment before placing a metallic collar on the table. "Do you know what this is?" Max got a good look at the device as she started panting and trembling in fear. "You have good instincts. This device is meant to, if possible control you, or in all likelihood kill you, " he paused for a moment before continueing, "Now I will give you one chance to convince me not to put this around your throat. It better be good." She knew that she could break free by cutting her restraints with essence, but to this kind of person that was the same as admission of guilt.
"You are so determined that I am a monster you are after that no matter what I say you won't believe it," Max said as helpless tears flooded down her face.
"Indeed," General McKenzy said as he stood up and grabbed the collar. He had spread it apart as he approached her. Max struggled uselessly against her restraints. She tried to lean away from it as it slowly got closer to her neck. NOOO!!! She wanted to do something, anything, to avoid this fate. In desperation she quickly formed a essence dart in her left hand, but froze as a flash of Emily's face giving her an accusing glare appeared in her mind. That moment of hesitation allowed for the remaining distance to be closed. The device was around her neck. However the expected click didn't occur. Instead, Max heard a relieved sigh, but it wasn't in the general's voice. It was that of a young woman. The general backed up as blue particles started to breakapart off of his frame forming a mist. When the mist cleared a young woman with ruby red hair in her 20s holding the collar at her side. Max couldn't help but notice she didn't have a collar around her neck, but had an ugly dull grey bangle on her wrist. "Sorry about that, sis. It was the only way," she said as she turned to the left, "Are you satisfied now?" What?
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"Very," the real General McKenzy said as he walked out of the shadows, "Lights." The room filled with light. Max nearly pissed herself when she saw twenty-five soldiers in full body armor. Twenty were holding assault rifles while another five had a what looked like high-powered dart rifles. All of which were aimed at her. If she had used her spiritual sense even once, she would have realized that they were there. It terrified her her how close to death she had been. She realized alittle late that her essence dart was still at her fingertips and retracted it in haste. She didn't want to give them an excuse to shoot.
"Can we please put away the guns and the restraints? She has already been proven innocent. Right?," the redheaded woman says.
"Very well, Amanda," the general acquiesced, "Release Ms. Levings and return to your stations."
"What. the. fuck," Max said while not really expecting an answer as one of the soldiers started to undo her restraints.
Amanda was the one to explain everything to Max. They had to put her through a test. Their reasoning was that regardless of whether she was good person or a psychopath she would be aware if she caused the rat swarm. If Max was a psychopath, she would have attacked without hesitation and tried to escape. She would have been shot with tranquilizer darts before being collared. If the tranquilizers hadn't worked, they would switch to live rounds. If Max had been a good person, she would have commited suicide or admitted to her misdeeds as soon as she had woken up. However, Max had behaved outside of their predictions based on the evidence they had and deemed her innocent enough to go free.
It was unfortunate that they wouldn't just let her go. She was forced to wear a brangle that would monitor her GPS location and energy signature fluxuations. It was a required for those that they found, who were peaceful and able to control their abilities, to be within five feet of it at all times.
Max knew that she wasn't completely in the clear yet. The bangle served another purpose that they weren't mentioning. If something like that happened again when her power surged, they would have to be stupid not to realize it was her. Max had voiced one complaint about the bangle though. She called it the most unattractive thing she had ever seen and that it would be ill suited for a young girl, which had ellicited laughter from Amanda.
While on the drive back home, Max had asked Amanda why they were looking for people like them in the first place. Amanda's answer was very upsetting. A lunatic that could command fire had been killing people and was seen on camera using his powers. Shortly after that a division was made to hunt for people like that man and to monitor the ones who were peaceful. Unfortunately that villian had caught wind of it. Resulting in McKenzy's entire family being slaughtered, except for his infant grand daughter. They found her untouched under the crisp remains of her parents. The bastard had self-destructed killing several soldiers when he had been cornered.
As soon as Max got home, she was so sleepy that she could barely stand, but still went to go check on her mother. She was sleeping very deeply and was unharmed aside from the small red mark on her neck. They had told her that the sleeping agent used on her would give her have a splitting headache in the morning. Max went back to her bed happy that she wasn't going to be enslaved like she had feared. She looked at the ugly bangle on her right wrist before she fell asleep.