The boy smiles, and the next second Dominic takes the claw away from Kalen's head. The boy must have told him somehow, spoken to him in his head, because Dominic looks back at the camera and smiles, nodding one last time before leaving the room. Kalen sags against his restraints, head lolling to the side. I choke back a sob at the agony written on his face.

Two men come into the room and unstrap him from the table, covering his hands in some special gloves that I suppose they use to avoid another fire incident. They learn quickly, these people, I'll give them that.

"I knew you would come around!" He flaps his arms, opening and closing his hands excitedly. He hurries to turn off the screens and hurries back over to me.

"What am I helping you with?" I whisper, defeated, not wanting to look at him in the eye.

The idea of siding with these criminals makes me nauseous, but if it means keeping my friends safe, I will do anything.

"It's a simple task really," he says in such a way that it sounds like he is trying to cheer me up.

Why is this kid so keen on me being happy?

"And if I refuse?" I ask, already expecting the answer.

The boy shrugs, as if he had expected the question as well.

"Then we will have to do what you just saw to all of your friends, every day. Until it gets to be so bad that they will be begging for death to take them."

I shiver, the image of my friend's lifeless eyes staring at me forming in my head. Once again, I'm not sure if it has appeared on its own accord or if the boy has somehow forced it into my mind.

"So, what am I helping you with?" I inject every ounce of resentment and loathing into my voice at what he's asking of me.

But the boy doesn't seem to catch on, clapping his hands together, coming back to sit cross-legged in front of me. The light from the screen falls on his face, and I realize now that his hair is the same fiery red as my own.

"We need to find someone, and we need your help to find them."

"And if I help, nothing will happen to them?" I jerk my head towards the screen.

"Even better," says the boy. "They will be set free."

My eyes widen in disbelief.

"They would never leave without me," I say, knowing that I would never leave without one of them, but the boy seems to know what I'm thinking, because he assures me that they will be, if--

"If they think you are dead, they will have no choice but to leave. Their desire to avenge your death will take them right back to your precious compound."

My heart stops, sweat running down my temple.

"And how would you convince them that I was dead?" I whisper, and the boy smiles.

"With a decoy of course. We needed to punish Jade somehow, she did get caught after all, and she didn't expect it to be real anyways. She did her job perfectly! And now your friends get to live because of it. Dominic already has the video ready and everything. He knows you, Brianna, he knows you won't let the people you love get hurt because of you. He will show your friends and then let them go."

Now what am I supposed to do? Let my friends think I'm dead, and work for these maniacs, or refuse? But if I refuse, then they will die. Dominic is right, I can't let anything happen to them. I know the choice I must make, and I hang my head in defeat.

"Okay, tell Dominic he has my word, I will do whatever I can to find this person."

The boy giggles, clapping again, turning on the screen once more.

I watch as a similar screen pops up in my friend's cells, even in the one Kalen's been relocated to. He has been thrown unceremoniously on the floor, the men that brought him in didn't bother to restrain him. He is going to be escaping soon anyways. I watch as a video of fake me runs down the hallway, searching. But just as my decoy makes it to Kalen's cell, it suddenly bursts into flames. She takes a step back when Dominic appears out of nowhere, backing her into the wall.

If this video was made before we were captured, how did Dominic know Kalen would try to escape? And that he would set fire to his cell?

I glance at the boy, at his deranged little smile as he stares at the screen, and I remember that his Gift is similar to mine. He must have foreseen this, and figured out the perfect way to fake my death. Made sure every small detail was accounted for, to make it as believable as possible.

On-screen, my doppelgänger tries to fight back, but it's no use, she doesn't have my gloves or my mission pack, and is no match for Dominic without them. There is no sound, but I can tell Jade is screaming, because her mouth, my mouth, opens before going slack as he places his bare hand on her face. I watch, transfixed as my veins turn black before my skin loses its color, and my eyes stare up at nothing. My body crumples to the floor, and Dominic kneels to observe it before two men wearing white lab coats appear from behind him, picking it up and carrying it off to gods know where.

But I caught something before they took the body away.

Jade's Gift stopped working once she was dead, and she had started to morph back to her original form, eyes going from light hazel to dark brown. But they take her away too quickly for me to see the rest of the change, and so I only have to hope that my friends spotted the difference. But as I look at the screens that show me their cells, I know they haven't seen it. It was too subtle, and they are too upset to notice anything other than the body. Jade's body. My body.

My friends are shouting, and Kalen is kneeling in front of the screen with disbelief written all over his face. If he didn't have his gloves on his hands would already be enveloped in flames. He pounds at the glass, tears streaming down his face, screaming words that I can't hear. Without warning, the electronic door opens, and Kalen stares at it with disbelief written all over his features. He pushes himself off the floor, stumbling out into the hallway on shaking legs.

I choke back a sob as I watch the rest of my friend's cells open, cuffs and restraints falling away. They jump, looking around the room for any signs of an attacker. Once they realize they are still alone their gazes snap back to the screens, not wanting to believe what they just saw. Cassie looks like she is weeping, falling to the ground with her broken doll clutched between her fingers. Kalen appears on her screen, scooping her into his arms and helping her to her feet. Jayson and Mara are next, and they all start talking at once. I catch the way Mara's mouth forms the word "trap" but she seems hesitant, tears shining in her eyes.

"Just go," I whisper through clenched teeth.

As if they heard me, they all surge forward, and the cameras shift to show the halls outside the cells. They are empty, and I watch with a heavy heart as my friends run together, making it to the exit and disappearing through the doors. Leaving me behind.

I hang my head and let the tears I had been holding back run down my cheeks, squeezing my eyes shut.

The boy keeps talking like he didn't just convince my friends I am dead. "I told him you would help. Family never lets each other down. I actually didn't know if that was true, but now..."

He goes on animatedly, but I make an effort to block him out and focus on the word that snagged my thoughts like a barbed hook.

"We are not family," I spit at him.

He studies me, frowning. His eyes, which I've never looked at so closely, don't look like they should belong on a child's face. Those are the eyes of someone who had seen stuff that haunted you, that scarred you for life. He blinks, cocking his head to the side.

"Of course we are," he says. "Why else do you think we share the same Gift?"

I shake my head again, muscles in my arms tightening as I clench my hands into fists.

"Our Gift is not the same," I state plainly, trying to ignore his words, but he keeps going, persistent.

"No, not exactly the same, but that's because I got my Gift before Dad died."

I don't miss the way he says Dad and not "my dad"

"He didn't love my mother you see, he left her, and she abandoned me when I was but three. I guess my Gift manifested early because my body knew I needed some way to survive, seeing as both our dad and my mom didn't want me."

And there it was. "Our dad" as if this child and I shared the same father. Who does he think he is, implying something so unthinkable? Does he really think I would believe that my father had a child with another woman? My father, who loved my mother more than anyone else in this world?

"My dad loved my mother. He did not have an affair with another woman!" I yell at him, making him jump.

He nods, red hair bouncing on his head.

"He did love your mom," he says. "That's why he regretted meeting my mother. And yet it happened, we can't change the past. He could have loved me." He whispers, looking at the floor. "But he abandoned me," he stays quiet then, thinking, before one of his twisted smiles appears on his face again.

"That's when Dominic found me. He loved me and treated me like the father I never had. We were both unwanted by our families, and he promised me he would take care of you, too."

I shake my head, screwing my eyes shut. This can't be happening. My father was a good man, an honest man, a loving husband, and father. He couldn't have had an affair. When? How? With whom?

If I could, I would bury my head in my hands, but I just settle for leaning it against my knees. The boy has to be lying, it just wasn't possible. My father did not have a son, he had a daughter. An only daughter. And that only child is me.

"You're lying," I say to the boy, looking at him with determination. Yet, as I look at him more closely, I can't help but see the resemblance. The hair, the eyes, the nose. He's like a mini replica of my father.

I screw my eyes shut, willing myself to see reason. If I did have a sibling, they would have never ended up with a lunatic like Dominic. But I don't have any siblings. The boy has to be lying. He just has to be!

"Why won't you believe me?" He asks, and it's the first time the kid sounds almost normal, sadness lacing his words.

"Because if my father did have a son, he wouldn't have abandoned him," I say, realizing that that was what was bothering me most about this whole situation.

The fact that my father could have abandoned a baby, left its mother, and come back to us like nothing had happened. How could he do such a thing? That wasn't the man I knew, the man that read comic books to me in bed and watched my mother with the eyes of a man who was deeply in love. That man, that man would never abandon a child, especially not if it was his own. And yet, here we are, and the voice inside me is telling me that the boy has no reason to lie to me. I don't want to listen to the voice, but in the end its whispers manage to sneak into my head, wiggle in past the cracks in my walls, and my entire world seems to break before me.

My father cheated on my mother, he had a son with the woman he had an affair with, and then he abandoned them both. My mother and I never knew about it. We just went on with our normal lives, and when dad died, we mourned. We mourned the loss of one of the best men in the world. But I guess even the best men have their bad sides to them, and I feel frustration and anger claw up my chest from the deepest darkest place in my heart.

I can practically see him apologizing, his ghost begging for forgiveness, and yet I don't know if I can give it to him.

"Who are you?" I ask the boy, almost scared of the answer.

My heart stops at his reply, and I wish my hands weren't cuffed to the wall so that I could wipe away the tear that manages to fall down my cheek. I wish my friends hadn't left; I wish they had come into my cell to make sure I wasn't dead. The way Kalen looked when he ran out of the door...he looked... broken. And that is exactly how I feel right now.

"My name is David Acero," he says, smiling at me, and for the first time I see a little boy. A little boy surrounded by darkness and violence, who has had to learn how to live in a world of darkness and violence to survive.

"My name is David Acero, and I am your little brother."

My cuffs fall away, and I rub at my wrists, still looking at the boy in shock, who opens his arms wide. I spot two figures standing in the doorway, but I pay them no attention, knowing perfectly well who they are.

"Welcome to your new home," says David, and I hang my head.

But I don't do it out of fear, or defeat.

I do it so he doesn't see the resolve burning behind my eyes.

Because I'm going to get out of here, even if I have to do everything they ask of me. I will somehow manage to escape and make it back to my friends, show them that I'm okay, make my team whole again.

One thing is certain in my mind, and I keep repeating it to myself like a mantra.

This isn't the end.

The end! Wow, I can't believe it's over. Now I have to start thinking about the second book. Oh yes, it will be coming eventually folks, don't you worry. I hope you liked this story, and thank you for taking this journey with me! Thanks, guys! Os quiero!!!