Right My Wrongs

"I hate you," I hissed angrily at Rice. "You escaped this cursed place, you escaped tyrannical Pleayus. You and Gabriella both. But you didn't take me."

     "You already were pretty much free, and your loyalties were all over the place," Rice argued.

     "I hate you!" I screamed.

     Rice's face turned to stone. "I'm very sorry to hear that." And then he walked away, leaving me standing there alone, just as confused as ever.

I jerked awake from where'd I'd been sleeping on the couch in Abigail's small apartment that she used when she wasn't on missions and wanted to get away from her younger brother Logan.

     "Arlin? You okay?" Abigail asked from the kitchen, where she was...eating?! At one o'clock in the morning?!

     "Hey, don't you dare judge me," she warned. "I got hungry. I eat odd hours when on missions, and it takes a day for my body to adjust!"

     "I don't know how you manage to not gain ten pounds a week," I kidded, keeping my mind off of my past.

     Abigail set her glass of water down on the counter and planted her elbows firmly beside the cup, letting her head rest in her palms. "Arlin...do you want to talk about it?"

     "What?" I ask innocently, brushing my long blonde hair out of my eyes.

     "Your past," she responded. "I already know some of it, but...If you don't want to, that's okay, but you are living with me. I'd like to know what's going on and why you're having nightmares."

     "Oh, and you haven't had any nightmares?" I snapped.

     Abigail blinked and sighed. "I've had a lot. And for hours afterward, my eyes are always blue. I still haven't figured that one out, but Reaper thinks it's just my biokinesis and my subconscious kicking in because the figure looks exactly like me, my brain thinks it is me and that I should have blue eyes." She narrowed her eyes. "Now, speak."

     "I'm a girl. You know we don't tell our secrets."

     "That's not working on me," Abigail responded calmly.

      I looked down at my hands for a moment. "I'm sure Rice told you that he and I and Gabriella all worked for Pleayus at one time. Espionage, black market deals, assassinations...and then Rice planned to escape, he, Gabriella and I. Now, I'm pretty sure you've figured out that I've worked for dozens of people who are all enemies of each other. Get information from one, sell it to another, get paid, move on to another organization... It was working fine. But then Rice and Gabriella left without me. I can't tell you how mad that made me. And then Khan hired me to keep an eye on you guys, the Shadow Elite, and I complied. I saw Gabriella there, but not Rice. Gabriella had never met me, so she didn't know who I was or what I was doing, which was great. And then...things just went downhill from there. I was so confused, so sad, and I was looking for answers that I couldn't find. I hurt a lot of people, Abigail, and every time I shut my eyes, I see people dying."

      Abigail was silent for a moment, lost in thought, probably think about all the things she and the Team had had to do, too. Finally, she spoke. "Well, have you changed?"

     I blinked back a tear. "I-I think so. I hope so."

     "I think you have, too," Abigail nodded. "But you still have to pay the consequences for what you've done."

     I nodded mutely.

     "That means that all the people you've harmed or wronged...you're going to have to make it right," she warned.

     I nodded again. "Then that's what I'll do."