November 2028

Rachel parks the car outside the house and Ánh rushes to help her get in.

“We spoke on the phone, Rach,” Ánh puts her hand on Rachel’s waist and slowly walks toward the front door.

Abigail and Emily show up in front of her and behind them stand Amanda, Matthew, and Amy.

“Why are they here?!” Rachel gently pushes Ánh away. She focuses on Abigail and Emily.

“Rach, you erased your memories. They are on our side,” Ánh grabs her arm and once again Rachel calmy takes her hand off her.

“What happened?” Abigail asks.

Rachel focuses on Ánh’s face and she senses a calmness inside her. Ánh’s presence isn’t a threat to her. The opposite. I can trust you. Her heartbeat accelerates when she notices Abigail properly. For Emily, sadness overcomes Rachel, loneliness even.

“Where are the others, Rach?” Ánh asks and this time Rachel doesn’t take off her hand.

“They-” Rachel collapses on the floor, coughing and shivering.

“Help!” Ánh shouts and Emily and Abigail rush to hold Rachel.

They drag her to the couch and put several blankets on top of her. It takes over 30 minutes for her to stop shivering. When Rachel opens her eyes, instead of Abigail, Ánh, and Emily, it’s Amanda, Matthew, and Amy that stand above her, watching her.

“You have ruined our kind,” Matthew scoffs.

“Rachel, you are the weakest of us…” Amanda shakes her head.

“I thought you understood what we stand for, Rachel. Sacrifice for the greater good.” Amy looks away and disappears.

Rachel gets up and faces them. Abigail, Emily, and Áhn are taken aback.

“You are the disgrace of our kind. Not me! Even if you hadn’t died, you would’ve never been half of your father!” She shouts while pointing her finger in the direction of Matthew.

“Tell yourself that, my dearest. We know this is the day our kind ends. All because of your incapacity to make the hard decisions!” Matthew shouts back.

“If our kind didn’t end when you accepted the death of hundreds as yours, it won’t end today!” Rachel coughs.

“Who is she talking to, Ánh?” Abigail whispers.

Ánh doesn’t answer and slowly approaches Rachel instead.

“Your life is less than worthless, Rachel. I should’ve killed you. This is our end,” Matthew laughs.

Rachel forms a fireball with her right hand and is about to shoot when Ánh hugs her.

“They’re not real, Rach. Please,” she hugs her tighter and helps her sit down on the couch. “Where’s Megan? Where are Alex and Diego?” Her voice cracks when mentioning him.

“Is Megan…?” Abigail says and Ánh shakes her head.

“She’s not dead.” Rachel struggles to breathe properly.

“If she’s not dead,” Emily sighs, “then what are you doing here are where is she? Where are the others? The ones you went to save, remember?”

Rachel faces her and smirks. “Megan will take care of it. They’ll come home soon.”

“Her memory is truly gone…” Emily laughs, “Rachel Moore, you are an element controller and an absorber. The Angel-”

“Emily.” Abigail says.

“Right. Megan.” Emily tries not to laugh. “Megan can’t… sorry,” she laughs now, “won’t use the ability of death. She only uses life. How will she take care of it, Rachel?”

“Did she use death, Rach?” I’ve never seen her use it. Ánh focuses on Rachel’s face.

Rachel takes a few longer inhales and gets up. A few seconds pass as she paces around the room. Everyone’s eyes on her. Waiting. She asks for Ánh’s phone and searches for the photo of the day of the massacre in the Ariston community. The photo of the white field.

“Why are you showing us that?” Abigail asks.

“Because that white light,” Rachel points to it, “that’s Megan’s third power. Death. Life. That.”

“That light was one of the Aristons…” Emily shakes her head and looks at Ánh and Abigail.

“That light is Megan. On that day was her. Today is her. You said it yourself, I’m an absorber. I saw her powers.” Rachel looks at Ánh.

“When you identify the powers, Rachel,” Ánh’s foot starts tapping, “you see them all. Before choosing which to absorb. You…” she points at her, “you see them. That’s how your power works…” Ánh takes a few steps away from Rachel.

“Ánh…” Rachel moves toward her.

“Ánh, what’s wrong?” Abigail asks and Emily stops her from going in Ánh’s direction.

“What’s wrong…?” Ánh shakes her head.

“Ánh, I can’t explain why I never said anything. I have no memories.” Rachel stops in front of her.

“Diego lived for years without knowing anything else about that day, Rachel, and you knew!” Ánh shoves her.

Even without any memories, Rachel’s heart breaks into a million pieces.

“Ánh!” Abigail shouts.

“Stay away from it!” Emily faces her. “Ánh is right to be upset.”

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

“You knew about a third power. You knew and deliberately withheld that from Diego and me. Does Alex know?” Ánh shoves her again. “What else have you been hiding from us?”

“I…” Rachel bites her lower lip and looks away. “I don’t know.”

“Why didn’t you stay? Why did you leave?” Abigail asks.

“Megan told me only one of us had to die today. Told me to leave.”

“Alex and Diego might not be saved. Megan might die. Is that all?” Ánh shakes her head.

“No. They had cameras, drones… if they captured Megan using that power, they’ll show it. Everyone will know there’s a possibility for three powers.”

“No one has three abilities!” Emily shouts and they all face her. “No one!”

“If they show the world that footage…” Abigail says. “What do we do now?”

“Wait,” Ánh runs the odds and takes a few deep breaths. “Wait for them to return. Wait for whoever is in charge of that place to act or not. All we can do is wait.” She walks past Rachel.

“Ánh…” Rachel goes after her.

“Rachel, if they don’t come back, I’ll never forgive you.”

***

At the perfume factory, Marianne, Edward, Laurence, Thomas and the advisors are still recovering from the first hit when they see Megan surrounded by the white light, slowly approaching the building.

“I have to find Aminu!” Padma holds Marianne, helping her regain her senses, “You can’t be here, Marianne… if she sees you.”

“Find the boy. I’ll find a way out. Meet me later.” Marianne says with a neutral tone.

They both leave the room. Marianne slowly walks downstairs and Padma runs upstairs. When she gets to the floor that Aminu is supposedly on, only Aymee is still there. Lying on the floor in tears.

“Aymee, what are you doing here? The Angel of Death is coming, we have to go!” She runs to meet her.

“She won’t spare my life, Padma, and I can’t outrun her. She’ll know it’s me who found her friends. Who accessed Rachel Moore’s head. She’ll kill me. What can I do?!” Aymee wails.

“Run!” Padma grabs her and forces her to get up. She slaps her three times to try to take her out of her shock. “Where’s Aminu?”

“Gone. Where’s Marianne?”

“Gone.”

Padma and Aymee go down the stairs. Another shock goes through the entire building. The light hits the walls, and it makes them trip. They fall several steps. Padma gets up with multiple bruises on her arms and legs. Aymee slowly gets up. Two more floors and they'll reach the parking in the back of the building.

“Come on, Aymee, we have to make it there!” Padma sees that Aymee cut her leg.

***

Aminu finds himself on the levels below the ground. With the power outage all the doors are accessible. He entered one floor he’s never been before. There, he sees Alex, Diego, and several other deviants imprisoned.

Each in their room. He could see them from his side, but they couldn’t from theirs. Even with the power outage the doors remain shut and Aminu looks around the room trying to understand how to break it in. He gives up and grabs the emergency axe instead and starts pounding against it. Uselessly. It doesn’t break. Aminu begins snapping his fingers and looking around, trying to come up with a solution.

He brings the extinguisher and fires it against the opening of the door. After hitting it with it, it breaks, and the door opens. Alex is there and looks up to meet his eyes. He gets up instantly and falls to the bed again, too weak to stay up.

“Save your energy. I won’t hurt you. I’m not your enemy,” Aminu tells him.

“You’re not my friend either,” Alex’s gray eyes open wide and face him.

“I’m not. I’m the amplifier that helped to catch you,” Aminu looks everywhere but his eyes.

An amplifier. Not as powerful as you.

“You are free to go. Your friend is here.”

“Friend?” Alex scoffs.

“The Angel of Death.”

Alex laughs loudly now, “you don’t know what they did to us here. Right?” You are Ánh’s friend from the Institute. I recognize you.

Aminu refuses to meet his eyes and starts snapping his fingers.

Aminu turns his back and does the same to all the other doors. He’s taken aback when he sees that most are children. With Diego and Alex, there are 12 people there. Some were as young as four.

“Thank you for not leaving me.” Diego hugs Alex tight.

“Never.” Alex smiles.

They turn around and see the children shivering and crying.

Aminu uses the extinguisher to break everyone’s bracelets. Alex takes a deep breath, puts his hand on his head and brings back all the memories he had hid before. He does the same thing to Diego.

“You didn’t erase them?” Diego smiles.

“No. Just hid them.” Alex smiles back and turns to Aminu, “Aminu Ikubor, the amplifier! Please, help us get out of here.”

“You are a mental controller, yes?” Aminu looks at the children and Alex softly says yes. “After we are done, o, you remove the memories of everything that I saw here from my head. Deal?”

“You can’t keep your head in the sand forever, Aminu Ikubor. I’ll erase your memories. But, deep down, you’ll know. When you see the others, you’ll know there’s something wrong. You have to choose which side you are on.”

“Who’s behind this?” Diego asks him.

“The president of the Institute, Madeleine Clark. Saif Ahktar, head of the laboratory of the Institute. Aymee Ortiz. And the one in charge, someone called Hall. I’ve seen other faces, but I don’t know who they are.”

“What about Marianne Olsen, she’s in her 60s, tall, blonde hair, blue eyes?” Diego asks.

Aminu looks away, remembering that Padma is the one who introduced him to Marianne, “I’ve never seen her”.

Diego meets the children and Alex smiles at Aminu, he slowly goes through his memories, seeing Padma, hearing Aminu saying her name, and seeing Marianne. Why aren’t you naming them?

They start to leave slowly and make sure not to make any noise. Alex suggests they leave through the fire staircase instead of the main doors, where probably everyone else is trying to escape. They open the door to the outside and see all the destruction, the bodies of the unconscious soldiers lying outside the front door, the windows without any glass in it, the structure of the building filled with cracks and the fends on the ground.

“Did she use it?” Diego asks Alex.

“The white light did this,” Aminu replies.

White light. Diego stops immediately. The white light that destroyed his community.

“Diego, let’s go.” Alex grabs his arm and the boy flinches.

“The white light. You said,” he points to Aminu, “the white light did this.”

“Yes, the Angel of Death did this with a white light.” Aminu keeps walking forward. “There’s a garage over there. We can find a car to leave.”

“We have to wait for Megan,” Diego tells Alex.

“She’ll make it home. We have to get out of here before backup comes. Look at the children, Diego.” Alex whispers.

“I need to know what happened on that day.”

Change your appearance and mine to two older white men. Get in that car, follow me.

Diego changes his and Alex’s appearance. They enter two SUV and start the cars. They drive off and Alex parks one block away from the dormitory. Alex steps outside and asks Aminu to come out. He’s about to grab Aminu’s head when Aminu takes several steps back.

“You wanted this,” Alex says.

“Yes… are they okay? Abigail and Emily… despite the torturing,” Aminu asks.

“There’s no torturing. The videos are fake. Done by the government. They are okay,” Alex erases his memories and replaces it instead with him going out of the factory, catching a bus, getting out on this bus stop and going to the dormitory.

***

“Two SUVs are parked outside, Rachel.” Ánh sees it on the screen.

Rachel focuses on the cars. Waiting for the doors to open. For the armed people to come out and try to come at them. For a mental controller to show up. She’s ready to show them hell. Her fists are curled and her entire body is stiff. They won’t go easily. Not without a fight.

Two men open the driver’s door and step outside. One faces the camera and smiles.

Alex. Rachel smiles back, and he teleports next to them.

“My dearest, we’re home. We brought some guests.” Alex points to the screens and they see the children coming out of the SUVs.

Ánh sighs in relief and runs outside to hug Diego, now back to his normal self. Alex sees it all play out on the screen and Rachel notices his smile slowly disappear.

“Come here, sis,” Alex grabs her head and reverses all the erasing she did.

“I thought it’d be gone forever,” she laughs and tears form in her eyes.

“My dear, sorry to say, but you aren’t as talented as me,” he winks at her and laughs.

“Where’s Megan?”

“We didn’t see her. Diego wanted to wait…” he looks away, “but it was too dangerous. I was afraid we’d get caught again. Rachel,” he lowers his voice, “Megan doesn’t have side-effects, but we both know she can’t use the power of death since that day. Which means that even her has her limitations.”

“You don’t think she’ll make it.” Her voice cracks and he puts his hand on her shoulder.

“I think destroying her mother is more important to her than coming back. She made no effort to look for us.”

“You don’t know that! In the middle of everything that was going on, maybe she tried to find you and couldn’t.”

“Here’s hoping I’m wrong, my dearest,” Alex teleports next to the others and helps the children settling in.