The day drew on, becoming darker thanks to thick dark clouds looming overhead. The murky gray of the sea matched the sky, making all of the surrounding sea and the nearby coast seem as if it were all covered in a giant tea stain.


    Xandra and I had stopped talking altogether and were sitting at opposite sides of the top of the fort. We had both taken to using the nearby low walls to shield ourselves from the occasional splashes hurled by the crashing waves which, though not particularly volatile, were far closer and commanding in their size and strength for me to feel comfortable sitting atop the fort.


    I had given up trying to get any semblance of a conversation out of Xandra. She had answered most of my questions throughout the morning with one word answers, and my own increasingly foul mood wasn''t helping matters.


    It had been a long time since I felt so utterly miserable in my thinking. A headache pounded inside my head and my body ached from stress and an ever increasing frustration. I sighed and sniffed and tried to find a comfortable position on the wet fort floor, but it was hopeless. Though I was far off from starving, I wanted both to eat and drink something nice. This wasn''t going to happen any time soon given the tide was still in and there were still several hours of daylight left to wait out. Even then, Xandra and I weren''t likely to attempt to head back to the nearby shore until it was very late at night to avoid crossing the paths of any civilians as possible.


    Before I was really aware that I was doing so, I bulbed up my hands to provide myself with warmth. The relief from this was immense, given how bleakly wet and chilly everything was so far out to sea.


    Don''t get addicted to using this power, I thought, but I didn''t have it in me to care. I kept the heat steady and enjoyed its warmth for several minutes before deciding, whatever, I''ll use it even more.


    I bulbed up the entirety of my body but at a very low heat, to the point that there was only the faintest glow emanating from my skin. It was like having an electric blanket under my clothes, and all at once the terrible weather and the cold brought about from being splattered with salty sea water was no longer a bother.


    This is a bad idea, I thought, grimly, remembering how Daniel had looked when he lost his mind and had bulbed up his entire body to become a burning entity made of light. As far as I could guess Daniel had been murdered from the gas Officer Freeman had pumped into the third floor of the Wedder Gorge Facility. If not the gas, then maybe from the were-cat revolutionaries that had attempted to pile on top of him.


    I shook my head like an etch-e-sketch to rid myself of remembering the Wedder Gorge facility. It wasn''t working because the more I tried to think about anything else, the more I thought about all the things I had seen.


    Tears stung my eyes as I remembered seeing the dead bodies of several teenagers that had been gunned down by the Pied Piper officers shortly after Christopher and Reece had started their failed revolution.


    I remembered seeing George''s face which had been half blown-apart by a Pied Piper bullet.


    The more I thought about all the horrors I had seen, the more I tried to think of anything that wasn''t horrifying about the Wedder Gorge facility.


    Tiffany had been there; but she had decided to join up with the PUNCH program. So had Mikayla and Blain. Abigail, who had seemed as if she might have been looking out for me from the start had actually just been making a series of false promises in order to manipulate me into joining her father''s program. She had been incredibly convincing, feigning her concern for me. So had Tiffany.


    For a while there I even thought Sophie and Walter might have stuck around. But then I had to have a lapse in sanity and help those bastard Pied Piper officers that had tried to murder us, that likely had murdered teenagers shortly before coming down to the underground complex.


    Yes, I had made it out of the Wedder Gorge facility, which I had been stupid enough to allow myself to go to in the first place. And I had found a nice old couple, Donald and Sienna, who had shown me far more kindness than I could ever have expected from strangers. And how had I repaid them? Because of my weakness they had their front door broken in and were wrestled to the ground at gunpoint. For all I knew they were likely being interrogated and charged with the crime of helping a wanted fugitive on the run.


    Steam rose from my skin and clothes thanks to the increasing heat across my body. I could feel water droplets against my skin sizzle and evaporate, only to be replaced by fresh droplets chucked over the fort wall by the sea. Rather than irritate me, I found the sizzling amusing and welcomed more of it. Each droplet brought to the point of evaporation served as a tiny distraction from my thoughts.


    There''s no escape, I thought, no return to normalcy. No going home. Not for a very long time.


    One day, if the PUNCH program proved successful, then public opinion would be influenced by the media to become positive of powered individuals, particularly those who were approved by the government.


    How long would that turn about take? One year? Two? Or three?


    Two years, I thought, If not sooner.


    Why did I think this? I had thought a good deal about why the Pied Piper Operation and Robert Hoffman''s PUNCH program search were done the way they had been.


    They knew powered teenagers existed, I thought, and then, because Chellam, the secret controllers of society and the world at large saw powered teenagers as a threat to their monopoly on things, they decided to kill the majority, and handpick the rest to make them their pawns for future schemes.


    For some reason thinking this through stopped the worst of the migraine from attacking my brain like an icepick. So I kept going, chasing the rabbit into its hole. If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.


    But, I thought, there''s no way Chellam was prepared for how fast and by how much us powered teenagers were going to grow into our powers.


    Maybe, I thought, The Pied Piper Operation and the containment of powered teenagers was something that was supposed to be carried out over several years. When I had first arrived at the Wedder Gorge facility the best I could manage with my power was to run for hours on a treadmill. And yet, by the end of around a month, the things I could do, and what the other teenagers could do with our powers had grown massively.


    What if Chellam hadn''t planned for that level of exponential growth? But then, what was it that caused us all to grow so much in our powers in such a limited span of time? Most of us had gone our whole lives without even realising we had powers; and those who did had struggled to prove it. And yet, within the time I was at the Wedder Gorge facility, all of that changed.


    Was it as simple as it being the consequence of bringing all of us powered teenagers together, or was there more to it than that?


    At the very least one thing was for certain: Chellam didn''t know everything and they clearly couldn''t control all of us mice either. Which meant they didn''t have as much of a stranglehold on the future as it currently felt me.


    I lifted my head up, having found the sliver of the thing I had desperately sought: hope.


    I hadn''t realised Xandra had been staring at me, which was startling given how large her eyes were and how her pale face seemed at odds with the brownish-gray surrounding her.


    She wasn''t shivering and instead sat stock-still as if all the wind and the wet weren''t a bother at all.


    She''s matched her body temperature to her surroundings, I thought, seeing no reason to think that wasn''t the case.


    I looked at a tuft of grass which somehow managed to claw out an existence atop the fort, and thought more about Chellam and their schemes.


    When Donald had returned from his trip into town to buy me a cheap phone and a sim card, he had then decided to sit with me for an hour to explain some of the things he had learned about Chellam.


    "The thing you need to understand about Chellam," Donald had explained whilst leafing through the huge folder he and Sienna had filled with information they had gathered on Chellam over the years, "Is that Chellam first and foremost is a religion."


    Donald had turned a page to show a picture of a painting of a familiar looking figure. Painted in exquisite artistic detail, the painting depicted a giant man made of stone, or clay. This man had a domed head, and shining yellow stone eyes. This entity was a statue, and at the entity''s ankles stood its creators; craftsmen with long beards wearing dark blue aprons.


    "This," Donald had said, "Is what the Chellam Brotherhood calls ''The Protector''. This painting depicts the brotherhood having created a statue made to worship The Protector, who is a man given immense power who, so Chellam believes, will rule the entire world; and will usher in a new age of freedom and prosperity, but only for those who swear obedience and complete loyalty to The Protector."


    "I saw a statue really similar to that down in the underground complex. It was made of metal," I said, "It''s almost exactly the same."


    Donald had nodded sadly, "Well," he said, "Their cult has been awaiting The Protector for well over two thousand years."


    "But my Dad," I had said, "He''s a Chellam member. He goes to lodge meetings four times a year, you know, just to meet up with the other members."


    "I wouldn''t worry about your father being involved in this," Donald has said reassuringly, "Chellam likes to keep a large majority of their real work hidden; men like your father are the – if you''ll excuse me saying so – useful idiots who give Chellam a harmless public appearance."


    "So Chellam wants The Protector to come and be their leader?" I had said.


    "Yes," Donald had said, "And, if you ask me, it seems they believe that somewhere among all of you powered teenagers The Protector is emerging."


    Donald had seen how lost in thought I was.


    "Robert Hoffman," I had said, "He kept this little blue book with him. When I told him I didn''t want to be a part of the PUNCH program he actually seemed excited. He kept saying something like ''He will reject the call! He will reject the call!''"


    Donald''s heavy brow had creased with concern.


    "From my limited understanding of how Chellam is run," Donald had said, "There are those that believe The Protector will one day rise and rule the world. And then there are the rest who simply use the body of the Chellam religion and all involved to have a means of increasing their own power and influence in the world."


    Donald put a firm hand on my shoulder then.


    "It''s all nonsense, Burgess," he had said with utmost seriousness, "Chellam exists in rejection to the truth. A Savior did come over two thousand years ago and He is all the protection mankind will ever need. This nonsense about The Protector is made because evil men refuse to believe in all that is good and true. You did well to reject any involvement with such poison."


    The worst of the dour mood lifted. Thanks to the bulbing across my body even the wind felt nice against my hot skin. I glanced up just in time to spot Xandra walking across the top of the fort; she sat down beside me, bringing her sweater over her knees like she had done before.


    "What are you thinking about?" she said.


    "Ruff Rover," I lied, not wanting to get into all of the heavy Chellam stuff with Xandra.


    Xandra''s face lit up with sudden enthusiasm.


    "You like Ruff Rover?" She said, "I love Ruff Rover!"


    I felt my own enthusiasm start to pick up, but then the memory of sharing my love for Ruff Rover with George sprang to mind.


    "Yeah, it''s cool, I guess," I muttered.


    Xandra saw my sudden lack of enthusiasm and seemed at a loss for what to say next. Her whole vibe had changed from closed off to open at the simple naming of my favourite hero hound, Ruff Rover.


    Silence built between us and I started to feel bad for acting closed off around Xandra, especially off the back of me trying hard earlier in the day to get a conversation going with her.


    "So you like cartoons?" I said.


    Xandra''s eyes widened even more, which didn''t seem possible until they did.


    "Yeah!" she said, "I mean I love western animation and anime."


    And, just like that, Xandra began to talk my ear off about cartoons for the next several hours.