"Jay!" I exclaim, wanting to stop him, but Kalen just puts a hand on my arm to stop me.

"It's already hard enough for him as it is," he murmurs, and I find that Jayson looks physically sick, skin gaining a green hue to it.

He continues to crush the girl, using his Gift to increase the gravity surrounding her. I can feel the vortex from here, just like the one he used to trap Simon at the smoothie shack, only this time it's ten times stronger. I don't even want to imagine what Jade is feeling right now, her head must be ready to explode. Forget head, her entire body.

I've seen Jayson train, I've gotten to witness what his Gift can do to a person. The crushed practice dummies in the training room are proof of his strength. And yet I never imagined Jayson, our sweet innocent Jayson, would be able to do something like this. What's worse, Christian didn't even have to tell him what he wanted of him for Jayson to know what he had to do. How many times has he lived this exact situation? How many times has he been forced to torture someone this way?

"Okay!" Gargles Jade, face red from the strain. "Okay I'll tell you!"

Jayson stops instantly, heaving out a shuddering breath and walking back to his corner. He sinks down onto the floor, staring at Jade with guilt shining in his blue eyes. I watch as Mara goes over to crouches down next to him, and he hides his face in her shoulder as she murmurs words in his ear. He's shaking his head, and I'm pretty sure I catch his shoulders quivering, but I leave the pair alone. Mara will help him; she is probably the only person who can comfort him right now.

Jade is coughing where she sits, doubling over as she tries to catch her breath. Christian comes up to her and yanks her head up, and I wince at the sudden motion.

"Speak."

Jade takes a quivering breath and starts to talk.

"He said-- He said they would meet Simon at 'the abandoned factory near Brooks' and then the next step to his plan would be complete. That's all he said, I promise, I didn't hear anything else after that."

Christian studies her for a moment longer, but seems to believe her, because he motions to Jordan who drags her back into the cell. Her eyes widen in surprise, and she struggles against her bonds, but she can't escape. The door closes, muffling her cries, and I stare at Christian, horrified.

"We can't leave her here," I say. "She was being used!"

Christian acknowledges me for a fraction of a second before turning around and walking out of the room. I turn to Jordan, who flinches when we make eye contact.

"She's a traitor," he says apologetically. "She let a dangerous man go, she needs to pay for her actions."

With that, he follows Christian, leaving the five of us alone in a room full of criminals banging on their cell doors.

"That was--" starts Cassie.

"Horrible!" I finish, whirling on my teammates. "Did no one else think that what Christian was doing to that girl was way too cruel?"

I hear a stiff intake from Jay, and I realize that, yes, some of us do think it was too cruel.

"Jay," I say, walking over to him. "It's not your fault, Christian made you do it."

A humorless laugh escapes his lips, and he stares back at me with wet eyes.

"Yes, yet did I try to disobey?"

He shakes his head ruefully, his sad smile turning into a grimace.

"You knew what he would do if you didn't. It would have been ten times worse than whatever you did to her," says Kalen, patting his friend on the back.

"You can't blame yourself, if anything blame the girl."

I stare at him in shock, but he ignores me and carries on.

"She could have talked, she could have decided not to let Simon Says go. She deserves to be punished."

Jayson looks at him with sad eyes, but he lets Kalen's words sink in. I mean, in a way she did deserve to be punished. It's just, the way they decided to get the information out of her, it seems wrong to me.

Mara notices my troubled expression.

"Get used to it," she says, voice thick with an emotion I can't quite put my finger on. "This is how things are done around here. You have to learn how to handle it."

She looks down at Jayson, who is still leaning on her shoulder, and he seems to get the message. He nods, wiping his eyes, and straightens up.

"It's part of our job," he says, and I'm surprised that his voice doesn't crack with how shaky it sounds. "It's our duty to keep dangerous people like him away from the public."

That's what Kalen told me when we first met. "It's our job, not yours". And yet, now it's my job too. Which means...

"We have to go after him," I say, new strength finding its way into my body. "We can't let him hurt anyone else."

Jayson takes a deep breath, nodding in agreement. Mara pats him on the back, and Cassie lets a slow smile stretch across her face. Kalen just stares on, but I can tell he agrees with all of us. It is too late to do anything now, we will have to wait till morning. But once day breaks, there isn't a place Simon says can hide where we won't find him.

At least, that's what we told ourselves when we went to bed last night. But now things are looking a bit different.

"I'm sorry," says Alexa, for the fifth time in a row, "but your request has been denied. Again."

"Oh come on!" Cassie exclaims, throwing up her arms in annoyance. "We were the ones that discovered he was missing!"

"But you won't be the ones to bring him back," Alexa turns around, walking back to her desk.

It's the fourth time today that we have had to go to her office and find her. I discovered that she wasn't far from Christians office, his being two doors to the right. This morning, when training started, there had been an announcement. One team was going to get to go on its first mission of the year: catching Simon Says and bringing him back to the compound. We had assumed the team would be us, who else could they assign it too? Which is why we were so surprised when Jack's team got called for the job.

"But Daniel!" Kalen had started, visibly offended, and outraged at the idea of Jack going instead of us "Shouldn't we--"

Our mentor just silenced him with a glance, but one that said "I don't like this any more than you do" so he must have been confused by the decision as well.

We had been training for this exact reason. Teamwork had started last Monday, and we got to see how well we fit into our new groups, adapting to working with other people. I'll admit, we had a pretty bumpy start, with my inner voice still out of whack and Jayson nearly crushing Kalen when Cassie took control of him. But other than that, we were doing pretty well. We worked together like a well-oiled machine. Well. Ok, well, maybe that was a bit of a stretch, but we managed to stay in one piece! And no one had to go to the med bay. But it seems like even though we worked hard, we still didn't do well enough to get chosen. Which is why we are back at Alexa's office, asking her to please reconsider, and to give us a chance.

"Jacks team doesn't know what they're dealing with!" Adds Jayson, probably the most annoyed out of all of us at the fact that his brother got the mission.

"We've had to deal with him before, they haven't."

"The decision has been made," says Alexa, still calm as ever.

I've never heard that woman raise her voice to anyone, and its part of the reason she is so intimidating. Christian could be shouting at her, but she never lost her cool.

"Jack and his team will take care of it. Meanwhile, I suggest the five of you keep working on your team. I heard about your progress, should I be worried about how slow it's going?"

Harsh. But not entirely unfair. We do have a lot more work before we can work together perfectly. Heck, I still need a lot of work individually.

"Maybe she's right," I say, trying not to flinch when four pairs of eyes whip over to me. If looks could kill, I'd be pulverized.

"We do have a lot of work to do. We can use this as motivation, next time, we will be chosen for the mission."

I can see the shift in their faces, they know I'm right; that doesn't mean they all accept it though. Kalen is the last one to look away, a frustrated sound leaving his mouth before storming out of Alexa's office, slamming the door shut behind him as he leaves.

"Well," Alexa coughs, pushing her glasses up on her nose "I guess that's settled then. You've got class with Daniel in a few minutes, I suggest you get going."

We leave her office and head to the training rooms were Kalen is already slamming into one of the practice dummies. He is using a particular model that was made specifically for him, designed by the one and only Jordan. They found out the hard way that when Kalen gets heated up, it usually means literally, and having burned through a couple of the dummies they decided to make one special for him. The black fabric is resistant to his flames and can withstand temperatures above eight hundred degrees Celsius. Which is why even know, hands engulfed in red flames, the manikin manages to stay intact.

I would try to calm him down but well, I value my life, and though my hair is as red as his flames, I don't want it to turn in to them. So, whenever Kalen is having one of his 'fits' I usually keep my distance.

Daniel is working with one of the other teams at the moment, so the four of us head to the warmup area with Kalen.

"Don't worry about it man," says Jayson, stepping up to his friend and giving him a brotherly punch on the shoulder. He disguises it well, but I still catch the way he massages his fist afterward, a small trail of smoke rising from his skin. He told me long ago that Kalen was sensitive about his Gift, but like Mara, he said it wasn't his tale to tell. He just warned me to be careful around him, he was easily upset if he saw that he unintentionally hurt any of his friends or the people closest to him.

I got to witness first-hand how that went when he accidentally burned Mara during one of our sessions. He had just finished sparring with me and was still a little riled up after our fight. He must have not had complete control over his Gift at the moment, because as soon as Maras hand found his in a high five, she snatched it back with a hiss, not fast enough to hide the large welt already forming on her palm. The look on Kalen's face after it happened, I never knew someone could look so apologetic and so resentful. His eyes widened almost comically, and he apologized over and over before fleeing the room with the excuse that he had left his TekPad on back at the room. We ignored the fact that it was sitting in his bag when he hoisted it over his shoulder and ran out. But he was not resentful towards Mara. He was mad at himself, even though he couldn't control what happened. He had unintentionally hurt her, and in his eyes, that was almost worse than if he had tried.

So we learned to be careful with him, to approach him gently whenever something like that happens, to be wary whenever we dueled. Even after, we give him time to cool down.

So now I watch as Jayson quickly rubs at his hand, putting it behind his back before Kalen notices.

"I'm sorry," he says, and at first, I think he's talking to Jayson, but then I realize he didn't see what happened. "It just makes me so mad! But your right Bri."

I jump at my name coming from his lips and meet his gaze as it turns my way.

"This is just fuel to motivate us further. We will be the best team on that board," he says, pointing at the glass slab.

We managed to get a bit higher in the past week, but we are nowhere near the top yet.

"And we will complete whatever mission they send us on."

His eyes bore into my own, and it's almost like a fire burns behind the stormy gray orbs. His confidence is infectious, and soon, all of us are breathing hard as we attack out practice dummies.

We will get to the top.

We will be the best.