April 2013,

12-year-old, blonde-haired, underdeveloped Alexander Williams just finished breakfast. His parents are sitting by his side, having their coffee, in their shabby, two-bedroom apartment, on the seventh floor of an old building in downtown. The television is on, keeping them company, when the news breaks in. An attack on the Ariston community. Everyone is dead.

They get up and rush Alex to finish breakfast. He changes to some jeans and gray shirt, grabs a coat and they enter their car, driving off to meet the others.

When they arrive at the Moore’s house, Amy Anderson is already there. The Williams ask Alex to meet Rachel upstairs. Both he and Rachel pretend to be in her room and instead eavesdrop.

“The president has already blamed us,” Matthew says.

“Let’s make an announcement denouncing it,” Amy looks to Amanda.

“What good would that do, my dearest?”

The Williams exchange a look and stay silent. Amanda nods whenever Matthew speaks.

"Are you willing to bear responsibility for the massacre of our own people?"

“Xiutzchatl was gonna give himself in. They betrayed us! Made a pact with the president! I told him what would happen. I warned him. He didn’t listen. Surprise, surprise!” Matthew shouts and Rachel and Alex take a few steps back. Realizing he isn’t coming their way, they go nearer again.

“They betrayed us,” Stephanie Williams repeats.

“They aren’t our people!” Matthew shouts again.

“Not being your people, Matthew, isn’t the same as not being our people,” Amy scoffs.

Matthew’s eyes open wide and he takes a step closer to Amy.

“Careful now, dear. No need for more bloodshed,” he laughs.

“I agree, especially since you’d be the one bleeding,” she shows him a pocketknife she carries, “which one of us would be faster at activating our power?”

Matthew laughs and takes several steps back.

“They are deviants… they were massacred… the government blamed us. If what you are saying is truth, they did it. Why do you want to leave it that way?” Amy shakes her head.

“Oh, no, my dearest. I don’t want to remain silent. I want to admit it. I want to say to the entire world that Rachel is… what is it called… the Angel of Death? Yes.”

Alex looks at Rachel. They had seen the video, seen the power the Angel of Death had.

“I want every single deviant in this country to understand who we are, what we are capable of. I want them to fear us, like they should,” he smiles, the Williams smile back and Amanda’s eyes glow.

“Fear can only do so much,” Amy rotates her knife on her fingers.

“I want them to understand that if they aren’t in favor of us, they are against us and that we have the power to end them if we want to. They should beg for our mercy. I want every single human in this country to know that one day we’ll be coming for them.”

“Do you honestly believe that any deviant will support you after this? And I mean you, Matthew. There’s no us here. This isn’t a decision of the Five.”

“Let’s vote, then, Amy. Majority rules like a good old democracy, dear,” he smiles. “All in favor?”

Matthew, Amanda, and the Williams raise their hands. Amy rolls her eyes and leaves the house. Noticing her niece and Alex hiding, she tells them with her head to go to the room.

“Thank you, friends. Your support has been crucial throughout this mess,” Matthew hands his hand to the Williams.

Shortly after, they drive off back home.

“You have the contact with the military, right?” Alex’s mother asks.

“Yes,” his father replies.

A few days later, they sit Alex down after dinner.

“Alex, unfortunately, we have lost. We had lost already before the attack on the Ariston community, but now, we really lost,” his father begins. Their gray eyes meet.

“We need to think about us, baby. Our family,” his mother continues, she caresses Alex’s curls.

“I don’t understand,” Alex babbles.

“We were offered a way out. Out of all this mess,” she continues.

“What…”

“Son, we’ll start new. Somewhere else, away from all this. You won’t be Alexander Williams anymore, you’ll have a new name. A new opportunity. We’ll change names, me and mother will change our face too.”

“What about… Rachel? Amy?”

“Rachel is the Angel of Death, son,” his mother says. “Amy has the highest body count of us Five.”

“It breaks our heart to leave them too. Amanda, Matthew, they deserve hell. They deserve each other. But Rachel, especially Rachel,” his voice breaks.

“Dad, I don’t understand. We are betraying our family.”

“Alex, we are our family,” his mom grabs his face, “do you understand that we have no other choice? It’s this or death!”

“But… the fight…”

“The fight is over, son. We lost,” Alex’s father faces him, “you need to pack your bag. Put inside everything that you need, the most important things. We’ll leave tomorrow. Once we are safe, I’ll hand the others to the government.”

Alex goes to his room and packs his bag. Everything that it’s important to you, his father told him. But the important to him were Amy and Rachel, the only people in his life that actually cared for him, and he couldn’t bring them. More than that, deep down, he feared that they’d get hurt. What would the government do to them if they massacred an entire community like it was nothing?

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

It's three in the morning and Alex hasn’t fallen asleep. He keeps twisting and turning in bed. He finally gets up and goes to his parents’ room. They are fast asleep.

Their room has a balcony, one that accesses the back of the building.

I’m not going anywhere.

He takes a deep breath and slowly goes nearer to his father. Tip-toeing across the room. He puts his fingers on his father’s forehead and watches his eyes closely. His father is fast asleep. Alex draws another deep breath and activates his ability. Slowly, he enters his father’s mind. Million of memories race through and he sees them all. He takes another deep breath and begins shuffling them.

If you don’t know who you are, you can’t tell them anything.

The memories inside his father’s mind are completely disorganized.

I’m not going anywhere unless I want to. At that moment, Alex receives his new ability.

Alex becomes completely numb. No pain, not even empathy for Amy and Rachel anymore. He’ll do the same to his mother, but only because it will benefit him. His mother would know what he did, she would connect the dots and know. That’s a risk he’s not willing to take.

He tip-toes again across the bed, places his fingers on his mother. She doesn’t wake up and he repeats the process. Alex smiles and returns to his room peacefully. It takes two more hours for the side effects to wear off and Alex’s remorse kicks in.

I can fix this.

He gets up instantly and heads to his parents’ bedroom. The balcony door is open wide and neither of them lies in bed.

No…

His eyes fixate on the balcony and he runs back to his room. Shaking. He grabs his phone and calls Amy.

It only took ten minutes for Amy and Matthew to show up there. Amy holds Alex in his room. Matthew goes to the balcony and sees the bodies of them lying on the floor. He takes another look around the bedroom and notices the packed bags.

“Amy,” he calls her back to the room, “looks like they were going somewhere.”

“Everyone needs a vacation now and then. You should try it, Matthew,” Amy crosses her arms.

“Drop the sarcasm, dear,” Matthew whispers.

“No one is interested in following you into hell, Matthew.”

Laughing, he takes a quick glance around.

“I’ll take the boy,” he starts to move in the direction of Alex’s room.

“No,” she puts herself in front of him and grabs her pocketknife, “Alex will stay with me.”

“Is this your biological clock ticking?” Matthew laughs in her face. “You have no maternal instinct and want to care for an orphan? He’ll stay with us. Rachel really wants a brother, Amy,” he smirks.

“I remember when we met the Williams,” Amy faces him.

“Feeling nostalgic, my dearest?”

“How they idolized you, Matthew. Same with my sister. Man, you really had everyone convinced of your nonsense.”

“Never forced you to be with us. To be the third. Our killing machine. The responsible for our death toll. Your power elevated our fight. I’ll give you that. The Aristons had powerful amplifiers, but your power is unmatched.”

“No, you never forced me. I’ll give you that,” she laughs and pushes her silver hair back, “never. First there were two. Then three… then five. Now back at three again… how long until it’s only two remaining. And which one of us will that be?”

“Your math is flawed, dear,” he smiles widely, “with Alex and Rachel, we are still five. Also, as long as I stand, there’s Five.”

“I’ve seen,” she pauses and bites her lower lip, “what you do to Rachel.”

“Making her stronger. If Rachel is the future, she needs to withhold pain. You know pain, Amy. I know it too. We have that in common, even if you don’t want to admit it.”

“We have nothing in common, man. Nothing. I’ll pop a bottle in the day you die.”

She turns around and starts walking toward the door.

“I won’t, Amy. When you die. I won’t pop any bottle. I’ll deeply mourn the loss of an important asset.”

“Burn in hell…” she looks back and laughs, “savior.”

***

Alex’s new room is next to Amy’s. There isn’t much there other than a bed, but she promises he can do with it what he wants.

On the next day, she has breakfast ready for him, a much more nutritious one than the one he had for years with his parents.

“We can talk about yesterday, if you want…” Amy drinks a coffee and reads on her tablet.

“I don’t know what happened,” Alex eats his cereals.

“Alex…” she sighs, “when I activate my power. It’s like a mirror into another person’s soul.”

She sips on her coffee, puts it down and faces him. The boy looks away immediately.

“Before amplifying, I identify which powers they have. The day before yesterday, you didn’t have a fatal flaw.”

Alex gets up and she orders him to sit down. He obeys.

“Now you do. I want you to tell me how.”

He takes several deep breaths and avoids looking at her.

“They… were going to give you all up. We were going to move away. I… I didn’t kill them, Amy. But… I messed up their memories, their heads. Maybe that’s what killed them.”

“This will be our secret. Eventually, I’ll let Matthew know that you were playing outside and killed an animal. Because you already have a fatal flaw, Matthew will leave you alone. Alex,” she goes nearer him and meets his gaze, “honesty from now on is the rule on this house.”

***

February 2018

It’s a lovely winter day. Alex is sitting in his room reading, his blonde roots are showing. Amy calls him to the bathroom, and they paint both their hairs. Laughing throughout the process.

“This is for you,” Amy shows him a silver necklace with a silver A, “this way, we’ll match.”

She puts the necklace on him and the boy smiles, his gray eyes light up.

“Just one more episode and off to bed,” Amy says while they watch their favorite anime together.

The episode ends, Alex goes to bed and Amy sits in her bedroom. She connects the safety system of the house to her ribs and falls asleep. Thirty minutes later, the system activates and sends shocks that wake her up. In her tablet, she sees that people have breached the entry and are coming in.

There’s too many for her to handle with her guns and she knows that whoever they are, they have planned this. If she left now through the roof, she’d probably make it alive out of there.

But what about Alex?

She gets up, grabs the homemade bomb she has, her phone, and goes to Alex’s room, closes the door behind her, wakes him up, takes him to the closet.

“What’s happening?” Alex asks and she covers his mouth.

“I’m setting this bomb to explode after we leave. We have to go now, Alex. I’ll amplify your teleportation. Focus on the Moore’s house. Focus on Rachel’s room. We can do this.”

She looks at him and sees it, feels it, the mental control and the teleport. Her heartbeat grows faster and she can sense how much stronger the ability is. Her hand shakes. In all these years, she has never taken it so far.

Alex smiles, hugs her, but a million of thoughts race through his mind and nothing happens.

“I’m sorry…” Alex babbles.

“It’s okay,” sweat drips begin to form on Amy’s head, “just take a deep breath and focus on Rachel’s room.”

Alex closes his eyes, focuses on Rachel’s room, but when he touches Amy, his focus is on the present room instead and they don’t leave.

Amy hears the front door opening. She hugs Alex.

“You are going there and I’ll meet you.”

“No… no…”

“Alex, your fatal flaw is like mine… flawed. Even with amplification, you can’t take us both. Go there, ask Matthew and Amanda to come, and in the meantime, I’ll show these people hell. They came to the wrong place.”

“They’ll hurt you Amy,” Alex cries.

“Hurt me? Me? I’m the only person Matthew Moore fears. And you know who fears him? Everyone. I’ll be fine, I’ll deal with this. You get Matthew and Amanda. When they get here, I probably already killed everyone. You go, I’ll go right after you, in a bit. I promise.”

He closes his eyes and tries to focus on Rachel’s room, instead teleports to his old room, back in his parents’ apartment. He teleports again to a park nearby that Amy used to take him, and again to the remains of the Ariston community. He’s confused, doesn’t know where he is anymore, and now, without Amy’s amplification, how could he teleport to the Moore’s house?

Focus, Alex. Why are you so weak? Why are you so useless?

He takes several deep breaths and finally teleports, farther than he ever had, to the Moore’s house. Making it there too late to save Amy.