CHAPTER 28

I should have brought my gun.

Regret echoed in Jasmine’s mind as she watched four of the six men rush toward her and Agnes. There was no time to think, no time to strategize and think back to what Kaleb had taught her, no time to get into her proper stance—

She narrowly avoided an incoming punch to the nose, but she still felt the force behind it. Jasmine was both lighter and weaker than her enemies. If one of those hit her, she’d be out. Time slowed around her as the metahuman stepped backward, pulling Agnes along with her. There was no way to win unless they managed to isolate all of their foes. Even with all of her training, four on two was simply too much when they were unarmed.

Jasmine and Agnes ran across the store, closely followed by the four men.

“We can’t use our special weapons.” Jasmine screamed at Agnes, hoping she understood what she meant.

“I know, or it’ll get very convoluted.” She quickly hissed. The girls were quickly running out of straight space to run to. “Let’s split up!” Agnes yelled out before pushing her away into one of the many aisles.

Before she could even protest, they were separated. The metahuman quickly took a look around, looking for anything to use, but all she found were condiments. Andrea’s squad also split in half, and two of them followed her into the aisle. Jasmine cracked a nervous smile— one on two was better than two on four. She squared her shoulders and spaced out her feet.

Her enemies didn’t leave her any time to get ready and rushed toward her. Jasmine grabbed a glass bottle containing some kind of sauce and threw it as hard as she could. The man in front flinched, closing his eyes and raising his arms. There it was.

An opening— but she had to be quick.

Jasmine dashed forward right as the bottle hit the male’s arm and ducked. Her shoes were slippery enough to slide on the tiled floor, and slide she did, right in between his legs. Jasmine scrambled to her feet and threw a quick punch at his teammate, uppercutting him straight in the jaw. A strong hit would have knocked him to his feet, but it was weak. The girl felt a heavy blow to her temple—

She grunted in pain and collapsed to the ground, tasting blood in her mouth. Jasmine glanced at the shelf in front of her and saw plastic containers. Would the same trick work twice? There was no time to think about the odds. She grabbed one and threw it backward, hoping for a distraction, and then scrambled to her feet.

The metahuman spat out a mouthful of blood on the ground and took a deep breath.

Then she held her breath and threw herself forward. Jasmine saw the eyes’ of her assailants widen, but she thought nothing of it. She jumped on the closest man’s torso, circled toward his back, and began to choke him, squeezing as tight as she could. He began gasping for air, clawing at his throat attempting to get Jasmine off. She let go of him and quickly climbed off of his back as he stumbled back and fell.

“Sergei, are you ok? What’s going on?!” His second friend asked, yelling out.

“The bitch disappeared. She’s— she’s—” The man on the ground croaked, his hands still on his throat. “Meta—”

Jasmine stomped her foot on his nose over and over again, feeling it break and crack. He began to beg with screaming, but soon it turned into grunts of pain after every impact and then simply silence. Jasmine looked at him coldly and began to breathe again, coming back into view.

She would need to work on that.

The girl heard steps behind her and ducked, dodging an incoming blow without even turning. She stuck her leg out and twisted her entire body clockwise until she reached his legs, tripping him. Jasmine grabbed another glass bottle and broke it off on the shelf, leaving her with a very effective weapon. She should have thought about that before.

Jasmine began to thrust it toward the man’s throat but stopped just short of entering his skin.

“Alrighty! We can either do this the hard way,” Jasmine began, pushing harder against his throat. “Or the easy way, tell me what just happened and who freaking sent you.”

“Please, don’t kill me.”

“Won’t have to kill you if you talk.” She replied with a low growl. “Why did you attack us? Why did Andrea attack us? You have five seconds to start talking.”

“I can’t—”

“One.”

“Please—”

“Twooooooo.”

“It’s Andrea! We all work for her— she’s the one who wanted you dead. Didn’t you hear! She told us to kill you! I have nothing to do with this.”

Jasmine sighed. “Why does she want us dead? I know we’re TIA, but I didn’t think that meant we’d have assassins coming after us. There’s another reason. Tell me.”

“She’ll have me killed.” The man begged.

Jasmine heard a crash on the opposite side of the store— then a man screamed. She smiled, feeling a wave of relief wash over her. Agnes was probably doing fine.

“What’s your name?” She asked.

“Henry…”

“Henry, either you tell me everything you know, you take your chances, and you escape to some other town, or you don’t say anything, and you die now for sure.” Jasmine said, her voice cold and devoid of compassion. She could barely recognize herself.

At this point, she was sure that she saw the man’s expressions go through the five stages of grief. After around twenty seconds of deliberating, he closed his eyes.

“I can’t do this to my family. My kid. Just kill me.”

The metahuman frowned. Andrea had this much power?

“Fine.” She replied before steeling herself.

Jasmine stabbed at his throat with the glass bottle, aiming for his artery. Warm blood pooled onto the pristine white floor and onto her hand. It was a clean cut— she saw the life go out of his eyes in seconds. Henry was dead.

She would have had to kill him regardless of if he had talked or not. He had seen too much. If word got out that she was a metahuman, then the entire mission would be ruined. Jasmine got to her feet and let go of the bloodied weapon. Then, she looked down. Her pants and shoes were soaked in blood, along with her right sleeve. Then it started to sink in. What had she done?

Adrenaline was starting to wear off, and Jasmine realized she could have let him go. He had a family. What would his child say if it could see her? She had just done to that child what Azeris had done to her years prior. She had killed someone before at the National Assembly, but shooting was impersonal. It distanced you from your actions. Stabbing? Feeling your hand having to push against someone’s skin, muscle, and cartilage? Seeing the look of pain flash across their face?

Jasmine bit her lip. She felt sick to her stomach. She looked back at the man she had knocked out first— Sergei. His face was an unrecognizable bloody swollen lump, and his nose was almost bent ninety degrees to the left. Jasmine placed her hand on his throat to feel for a pulse, but there was none. He was also dead.

She swallowed and made her way toward Agnes, keeping her eyes toward the ceiling to avoid looking at what she had done. Jasmine sprinted toward the opposite end of the store, and her eyes widened at the scene before her. There were three of Andrea’s gang, two of them knocked down and breathing heavily. The third

Jasmine took a wary step back and frowned before noticing the torn and stretched suit that he was wearing. “Agnes?”

The man turned, and his mouth opened agape. “By the Allfather! Jasmine, what— are you ok?”

“I’m fine.” Jasmine said, breathing a sigh of relief. “Can you go back to normal?”

“You’re not mad at me for using my power?”

“I did as well, so we both screwed up. I was at too much of a disadvantage.” She answered with a low tone.

Agnes’ skin bubbled, and she shrunk back to her original form. She was getting better and better at doing it silently, only letting out a few groans that were barely audible.

“We should go find Andrea. I have a lot of questions for her.” Agnes said with anger seeping out of her voice.

“She’s probably gone. How about we question these guys then?” The metahuman leaned down and inspected Agnes’ victims. “This guy’s not out— hey, hey, don’t act like you’re sleeping!”

Her friend snorted, and she continued. “We need to know why this crap went down, you understand? I’m very pissed off.”

“She so is. I’ve almost never seen her like this.” Agnes cut in.

“So I recommend you start speaking unless you want to end up like your friends a few aisles back.” Jasmine said before turning to Agnes. “They’re… dead.”

Agnes’ eyes widened, and then she whistled. The girl felt a lump form in her throat, but she had to appear strong— at least to get answers. Allfather this had all gone so wrong so fast.

“I’m not talking.” The man said with a raspy voice.

Jasmine slapped him as strongly as she could, keeping her hand on his cheek and slathering his friend’s blood on it.

“You feel this? This is Henry’s blood— I slashed his throat with a glass bottle, which is what awaits you if you don’t tell us everything you freaking know.” She growled.

“You could be lying. He could have run—”

“Agnes, go get me anything made of glass so I can make this guy understand what situation he’s in. In fact, grab a second one in case the other one wakes up.” Jasmine turned to her and asked.

“You got it, boss!”

“Wait! I’ll tell you, I’ll tell you. Andrea ordered us—” He shuddered.

“I know that already, I want to know why.”

“You’re with the TIA, and she hates you southerners.”

“Enough to make you kill us? Let’s speak about that, actually. Why are you listening to her? Henry seemed to fear for his life when I asked him to spill. He said he feared for his family too.” She pondered.

“She has more power than you think. Andrea practically runs this place.”

“Halselt?”

“No, Andrea runs the entire north. She doesn’t even live here, she was just visiting and making sure everything was in order for—”

A few seconds passed; silence weighing heavily on them. Jasmine stared straight into his eyes, only hearing the light tapping of the rain and the occasional clap of thunder.

“For what?” Jasmine said, gripping his shirt. He didn’t speak, so she kept going. “You’re in too deep at this point. Tell me what the heck is going on.”

“Andrea wants independence for the north, and she’s getting the MSA to help her do it. That’s why she was so mad when she heard you were looking into them.”

Agnes gasped, covering her mouth in surprise. “Okay, excuse me what the actual fu—”

---

Jasmine’s mind was racing— and it had done so the entire time she was walking back to the motel. This whole situation had spiraled out of control, and it was getting way too big for the both of them. Even Agnes wasn’t her usual joking self and displayed visible signs of anxiety. Andrea had left with her two bodyguards, and all Jasmine could hope for is that she wasn’t going to come after them again today, or that she hadn’t seen that they were metahumans. That would destroy their only current advantage, the element of surprise.

“We need to ask for backup. Allfather, that was the last thing I ever expected. Why would the MSA work with racist bumpkins? It makes no sense—” Jasmine said, quickening her pace. They were almost back.

“The MSA just wants to do anything to destabilize the country. Not that I care, and I don’t think you should either. The more pressing matter is that we’re in the middle of enemy territory, and they could send someone to kill us at any time. Is the motel even safe? Is Finn in on it, you think?” Agnes said.

“There’s no way to know. Let’s just call Oppenheimer, he’ll know what to do… hopefully.”

“How come the TIA still hadn’t figured this shit out? Why are two kids that just joined finding out about this?”

“You know they’re overextended. Not enough agents to throw around.”

“Ok? Still fucked.” Agnes said before shaking her head in disapproval. “Holy shit… this is so fucked.”

The teenagers sneakily entered their motel room and rushed to grab one of their phones. Agnes dialed Oppenheimer’s number and put it on speaker. Unlike yesterday, it took quite a while for him to answer. After a long series of rings, the Director of the TIA picked up.

“Agent Mertz, agent Zimmerman? I don’t believe we are due for a report until tonight.”

“It’s an emergency, Oppenheimer—” Agnes started.

“That will be Director, or sir, agent.” He interjected.

Jasmine took over. “Director, we’ve uncovered a huge… a huge plot here, we need reinforcements effective immediately.”

She heard his keyboard stop and then a long sigh.

“Start from the beginning. What is going on?”