Dinner just sits there stewing.

So do I.

Elena has gone to the restroom and I'm just left at the table and I still ain't touched the chicken but I already got a real bad taste in my mouth.

I think she's wrong. It's one thing for her to believe a bunch of military guys who are "just following orders, sir" could maybe, for some reason, kill a baby. And Elena could lump the Storm Guard in with the military, 'cause really, that's what we became. A branch of the army. With those details -- and only those details -- I can see how her mind might have come to some frightening conclusions.

But she didn't know the Pitt twins. I did. They wouldn't have taken candy from a baby, much less put a bullet in its head. And if Susie knew about any of that stuff she'd have damn near lost her mind.

Ah.

Shit.

No, she didn't lose her mind. She was just... Aloof, when I saw her. Her marriage had been more on the rocks than how I have my whiskey, so she was obviously going to be feeling it.

Ahhh. Shit.

Elena had told me what she believed had happened to the twins as we sat staring at our meals. They weren't lured. You saw the pictures from the camera! They looked at it, Sam, before they walked into the mist. Directly at it. They were saying goodbye.

Jesus. What if it was suicide? What if it was worse than that -- what if they knew it was a Storm Born causing the mist, and they knew what was going to happen to it when found? Maybe it wasn't just that they couldn't take another murder, but they were trying to get to the baby first.

Surely they weren't that stupid. They must have known they were going to die if they went in.

Yeah, they knew. But they went anyway. Like some attempt at atonement that they knew wouldn't work out so good, and that was okay, 'cause they died trying to do something right.

Maybe they just wanted to die like that.

Surely someone would have leaked something to the media.

There have been deaths, Sam.

Two other Storms had died in similar fashion before I'd been sent in. Maybe they were after a slice of forgiveness, too. Or maybe the mist was just a good way to kill people off and keep it from looking too suspect.

You're talking insane, Sammy.

What about Ethan? Aneurysm. Flapping around all fish-like on his bathroom floor. That's a lot of dead Storms in a very small space of time.

How many are left? Six, I think. Including me.

Are we all going to be hunted down?

Except, I don't know anything about it all -- I quit early -- so I'm safe. They don't care about me 'cause I don't know nothin'. Well, nothing except for the baby.

But what about Susie... What about her kid? What if they're next on this hitlist?

No. They're safe. Everyone is safe because there is no conspiracy. Don't get reeled in. Elena is just going through some shit right now -- a breakdown, maybe.

Speak of the devil.

Elena's walking across the restaurant, her heels clicking and clacking on the marble veins before she slips back into her chair opposite me.

For a while we're silent. I think she's watching me, trying to work out what I'm thinking. Good luck, Elena, 'cause I don't even know.

"Want dessert?"

She laughs, but it's short and sounds resigned. "No. Thank you."

"I want to see the files you've got. The islands that were used for testing."

I call the waiter over and pay.

The lift is bright and we're the only two in it. The walls are mirrors and Elena's yellow dress is like a sun surrounding me. My eyes wander down the mirror behind her, following a flower stem down to her ass.

"I'm scared, Sam."

My eyes find her face again. In the spotlights, the mole beneath her eyes looks something like a tear. "Storms are dying, too."

"I didn't mean for me."

The view from her window is black. Can't find the moon through the clouds, let alone the lake. The rains taps against the window in gusty waves of fingertips. I pull the nylon curtains across and lockout the night -- don't need any more darkness in here with us.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

Elena's sitting on the bed with a file she took out of her suitcase. I watch her thumb through a wad of paper and hear it clip against her nail. Her perfume fills the air here better than it did in the restaurant. It's something like honey and I'm suddenly hungry looking at her.

She takes four print-outs from the folder and lays them across the double bed. On the rumpled blue linen, the two satellite images of the islands look like they're in situ. The other two images, however, just blend in.

"There," she says. Not triumphantly, just factually. She points to the two on the left, the islands. "Two islands -- part of the Marshall Islands. Four years ago." She points to the images on the right. The satellite images of the ocean.

I look at the coordinates listed and even though the paper is blank, I'm ahead of her. "Same islands, right?"

A nod. "Six months ago. It would have taken hundreds of hydrogen bombs to do this. Or..."

Her voice trails off but I know she means "or something bigger."

These images aren't enough to go to the media. Not even combined with my story about the baby I found. At best I'll get my name smeared as some fame-hungry conspiracy nut. At worst, maybe I'll get myself killed.

"Where did you get these pictures from?" I ask.

"One of the Storm Search teams -- Beta -- was sent out to the Marshall Islands some time ago. Came back empty-handed, but I heard enough from a colleague in Beta about what was happening there. Heard enough to make me want to learn more. He got me these."

"And that colleague is..."

"Dead. Heart attack three months ago."

I'd only been after a name. Jesus. "Of course he is."

"Yeah. More blood on my hands."

"Why did you get these? Why keep them?"

She shrugs. "I wanted to know what side I was on."

"You make it sound simple."

"Isn't it? If I'd become a lawyer like Mom wanted, it would have been to help those who needed help. I just figured I could help more people at once, if I worked for the Storm Bureau."

"That why you quit? You finally figured out which side you were working for?"

"I'm still not sure which side I was on. That's why I'm here."

"I don't think anything is ever as simple as good guys and bad guys, Elena."

She raises her hands. "Oh, now you like nuanced discussions about right and wrong?"

"When did I say I didn't?" I'm almost indignant.

"You--" She pauses. "You just never struck me as that kind of guy. That's all."

"A guy with morals? Or a guy with a brain?

She flushes red and it suits her dress. She's like a big rose blooming on the top of it.

"Sorry," she says. "I'm just tired."

"We need to know for certain, Elena. I need to know. If they really are killing Storm Borns, then God fucking help them. And if they killed that little baby that I rescued... Not even God'll want to get in my way."

She shuffles the papers back into their folder. "So. What do you want to do?"

I consider again -- but I'd already made up my mind when we were watching our food go cold. "We got two options, the way I see it. One is that I visit Sue for a tete a tete. She was our leader, at least back when I was a Guard, and if anyone knew what was happening to Storm Borns, besides her father, it'll be her. And unlike her father, I think she'll speak to me." I don't really know if she'll speak to me at all, but the line sounded good out loud.

"I didn't think the Guard had leaders in their own ranks. You're all equal but special -- wasn't that the image crafted?"

"Yeah, we were equal, officially. Ranking-wise. But we all knew different. See, we all respected Sue like we didn't all respect each other, and we all listened to her. She was kind and smart. The kind of smart you are and I'm not."

"I think you're smart, Sam. And I'm... I'm sorry for suggesting anything otherwise. But I really think you're smarter than you let on."

I think the drink and the fumes from car exhausts have probably whittled away what smarts I ever had, but I don't say so.

She asks, "Do you know where Sue is?"

Good time to let out a sigh. "I know where she's meant to be, but I've tried to call her home a few times and there's been no reply. That's why I'm going with option two."

"Which is?"

"The Citadel."

"Oh."

I always hated that name. The Citadel. The big concrete gravestone I'd seen on the news the other day. The place the general had said would be pecked apart by vultures.

A thought crossed my mind, "You used to work there, right?"

"On occasion. Most of my work was out on the field though. Really, I only came in for briefings."

"You know about the basement floors?"

She frowns. Her lifts only went up. Only had buttons to go up.

"I didn't know it had a basement."

"Six floors underground. Two of them are where I used to live. Where all young Storms did. Guess you might have called it our home, but that would be a kindness to it."

"And the other floors? What was on those?"

I shrug. "Restricted." My mind flashes back to the thick steel door with the big wheel in the center that made it look like the entrance to a safe -- but it was just a staircase beyond. We'd made it through once -- bored young superheroes that needed something to do to kill the time. But we hadn't got far before we were caught. Hadn't looked in any of the filing cabinets. How boring they'd seemed back then.

Sue got the worst of it from her father -- we didn't see her again for more than a week. But we didn't get away easy either. Got an official warning. Even the Storms that hadn't tried getting down there got the warning. And a second warning meant getting kicked off the team, so we'd let the mysteries below us rest peaceful.

Until now.

"If it hasn't already all been burned or transported, I'll find out what's down there, Elena. That fails, then I guess I hunt down Sue and get her to talk."

She nods. "Okay. Sounds like we have a plan. When are we leaving?"

My turn to laugh. "No offense, but it'll just be me leaving. You don't have much to offer beyond a brain -- and I can access that over a phone. Besides, and you might have figured this out already, but I never worked well as part of a team."

"When are we leaving?"

"You're persistent."

"You don't know the half of it."

I guess I do like her mole. It's decent company. "I don't know. I got that phone number I need tracing first -- the answering machine. And then... I don't know. Tomorrow afternoon. Day after, otherwise."

She nods. "You got a hotel room of your own?"

"No. I don't live too far out."

She takes a slow step close to me and that honey scent is sweet on my tongue.

"I think you'll drown if you step out into this weather," she says.

She wants me to stay and I know it. And I don't think just 'cause she's nervous. But I'm not in the mood for fucking, not after what I've heard.

My eyes wander the stems of her dress again, down to her breasts this time, and suddenly I'm a little less not in the mood. "Yeah," I croon in reply. "That's true. And I ain't a great swimmer."

"Perfect," she replies. Elena nods to the corner of the room and then turns around walking towards the wardrobe. "There's a decent enough sofa there for you to stay on -- I'll just grab you a blanket. This way, we can get a nice early start."