CHAPTER EIGHT

The Magic of Chocolate

“Lucky you, you’re getting out.” Number Five plopped his head back on his pillow. “While I’m stuck here for another week…”

I sat by his bedside, which was just three beds away from where I’d been recuperating last night. Seriously, I must have been in so much pain that I hadn’t even noticed Number Five was in the same room until he called out to me earlier.

“Yeah, well, it’s not all roses and rainbows,” I chuckled, and then wish I hadn’t as a sharp stab of pain pierced my side.

No, I wasn’t a hundred percent yet either, but Captain Wolf thought that as long as I could sit and stand and talk, then I might as well begin training. I needed to learn to control my newfound power before another episode. Yeah, episode, that’s what he called it, although I thought this sounded way too tame for what I’d done to Lieutenant Weber.

I took a second to catch my breath before asking, “Are you going to be okay?”

Number Five didn’t look as beat up as I felt, but the bruises on his brow told the story of a concussion, and his ribs had been smashed enough that he needed an operation to fix them.

“I’ll be fine,” he said, and then immediately winced afterward.

Yep, we were pretty much in the same boat. Two kids, battered and bruised, but still hanging in there.

“Think Wolf will want to teach me too?” he asked, sounding hopeful.

“I don’t think it works like that.” I shrugged. “But I can ask if you want?”

He shook his head, and even just that took some effort, “I think you’re going to need all of his attention.”

I frowned. He grinned. And then I grinned too because I realized he was making light of my Exorcist moment to make me feel better.

“Well, with Wolf teaching me, I’ll be a couple of levels above you by the time you get out of here,” I joked.

He frowned, and it was a genuine kind of jealous frown too. “Yeah, yeah… Go ahead and enjoy it, I’ll win in the end—”

Number Five had seen something behind me. And when I glanced over my shoulder, I also noticed that Number Three and Number Four were idling by the door to our room, and neither of them seemed eager to come in. Well, that’s what I thought at first.

But a single “You girls look like ugly statues,” from Number Five, and Number Three was charging into the infirmary with fire alight in her eyes and a wide, silly grin plastered on her face.

“You’re the ugly one, bruise-face,” she snapped just before her gaze fell on me. “Right, One?”

“Um,” the memory of her stepping back from me after I’d dominated Lieutenant Weber flashed across my mind, but my dark imagining was quickly obliterated by Number Three’s warm, welcoming smile. “Nothing wrong with being ugly.”

Yes, I was aware calling her ugly meant incurring her wrath. I didn’t mind it though. The feeling of having my face splashed by a baseball-sized ‘Water Ball’ was pretty refreshing, and it brought a bit of normalcy back into my life.

But maybe she could conjure a warm one next time… that last one was way too cold.

Well, almost normal. The actual normal would have been Number Four striding into the nursery and reprimanding Number Three for causing her usual brand of mayhem. But the girl with the pale blonde hair and pointed features remained half-hidden outside the open door. She wore an anxious face and kept her gaze glued to her feet.

“Four’s being stupid,” Number Three announced after she’d noticed where I was looking. “She thinks you hate her now, Five.”

Number Four looked indignant. “I don’t—”

But she clammed right back up as soon as all our gazes turned on her. And she wouldn’t look up from the floor again until Number Five let out a pretty dramatic sigh.

“I’m hungry,” he said in as loud a voice as he could manage. “I could go for chocolate.”

Number Three raised her hand excitedly. “Four’s got chocolate!”

“She does?” I raised an eyebrow. “You do?”

As the little girl still couldn’t find her words, I shifted my gaze toward Number Five.

“The wrapper’s sticking out of her pocket,” Number Five whispered so that only I could hear him.

So that’s how he knew what to say… this kid’s pretty observant.

Number Four didn’t bite the bait though, which is why Number Three had to drag her friend into the room.

“Go on,” Number Three pulled Number Four right next to Number Five’s bed, “give them the chocolate already.”

But Number Four just stood there like a statue. Honestly, she was way too depressed for her own good. Luckily, Number Five didn’t hesitate to sit up and pluck the chocolate from Number Four’s pocket.

“You got this from my guard?” Number Five began tearing up the black wrapper. “This is his favorite.”

“We traded him my veggie soup for it,” Number Three reported proudly.

The glee in Number Three’s voice made Number Four finally look up. “You should eat your vegetables, Number Three.”

Then, realizing what she’d just done, a wide-eyed Number Four was quick to turn her gaze downward again, but Number Five was quicker. He’d broken off a piece of chocolate from the bar and moved it over right underneath her chin. And even I could tell it was a ‘piece’ offering — get it?

Jokes aside, his move finally cracked through the armor of Number Four’s melancholy. She gazed at him with weepy, doe eyes that were as blue as the sky outside our window.

“I’m… I’m sorry I hurt you,” she said.

“It’s okay.” Number Five shoved the chunk of chocolate into her mouth. “Now eat and get over it. We’ve got competition coming.”

He cast a jealous glance my way before revealing to the other two that I was about to get some specialized training from none other than our favorite Captain Wolf. It was a reveal that earned me a smack on the shoulder from Number Three’s tiny fist.

“I want to be his apprentice too!” she declared.

To which I replied, “Go run wild outside and cause enough chaos… maybe the brass will allow it then.”

I regretted those words as soon as I said them because Number Three looked like she was seriously thinking of doing just that. Luckily, I wasn’t alone in keeping her enthusiasm contained. Number Four was finally back to her regular self — or at least as regular as she could get given her recent trauma — and was already warning her friend off.

“Don’t you cause problems for us too, understand?” she warned Number Three.

Although both girls’ gazes drifted toward me immediately afterward, and they both looked mortified, almost like they’d said something they shouldn’t have.

So… my episode caused them trouble… but what sort of trouble?

It took a while, but with the help of Number Five, I eventually got the girls to spill their beans. Now that I’d shown I could wield the power of enchantment, the others in our nursery were expected to follow suit. As Major Heinrich told my crib mates the day after my episode, “If Number One can achieve it, then surely you, his compatriots, can do it too.”

Number Four recounted how he’d given each of them an expectant look, one that had been happily mirrored by his goons.

“After all, you, the future champions of the state, must all be perfect together,” he’d said.

So, while I recuperated in the infirmary, my crib mates also had to suffer through a battery of medical exams like blood and stress tests. Their stats were also tested against mine, but the institute’s researchers found zero changes in our bodies that might determine why I achieved the impossible while they couldn’t.

“They took our blood,” Number Three complained while she bit on the chunk of chocolate Number Five gave her. “Then they hooked us up to those funny blinking boxes again.”

I assumed that she meant the big, refrigerator-sized, first-generation computers.

“What was that supposed to do?” I asked.

“Take readings,” Number Three answered, although it was clear from her expression that she had no clue what that meant.

“They were looking for,” Number Four’s face turned contemplative as she searched for the right word in her six-year-old vocabulary, “biological markers…” she said it again until the words felt right to her mouth. “Biological markers that’s different in you and might be in some of us.”

“And… did they find out anything?” I asked.

Could it be possible that there was something inside of me that would reveal my origins? God, I hoped not as that would have been pretty difficult to explain.

Number Four shook her head. “They didn’t find anything.”

“Just the adults being stupid again,” Number Five sighed.

“Uhuh,” Number Three giggled. “Adults are stupid.”

“Wolf’s not stupid though,” Number Five corrected.

“Except for Wolf,” Number Three agreed.

Still, it was interesting to know that the researchers couldn’t quite crack the conundrum of my existence. How would they, when even I, the whiz-kid of the institute who held the knowledge of a world beyond this one, couldn’t explain it? No one could. Well, maybe Captain Wolf had an inkling, and I could only trust in his instincts to guide me.

“They won’t—”

Geez, I nearly said something that might scare the other kids.

See, it was simple. If Major Heinrich and his goons couldn’t find answers through these tests, then he might resort to external stimuli — and he might subject my crib mates to the same harsh beating that awakened my power.

Pain as a catalyst… Fuck, I hope not. I wouldn’t want Wolf to hit me just so I can master enchantment…

It was a pretty dark thought, but one that might be a likely possibility. I could only hope Captain Wolf would argue against this kind of child abuse from happening. Not that it would do much good now that I knew the truth of the institute’s existence.

“You were born to be an eldar’s bane.” Those were Captain Wolf’s words.

The phantom pain of my numerous injuries caused me to grimace. It was followed quickly by a flash of memory — the repeated hits that caused this dark power to rise out of me, turning a man I once thought might have been a decent guy into a bloody mess that I could still see so vividly even though I was awake.

Not again… please stop haunting me!

Remembering Lieutenant Weber’s face sent a shiver up my back, one I could barely suppress. But then the scent of chocolate wafted up to my nose as if to ward away the bad juju.

“You look like you’re about to poop.” Number Five held a chunk of chocolate close to my face. “Eat this and feel better.”

I let him shove the chocolate into my mouth, and I really did start feeling better while I munched on it.

Number One,” Number Three had her hand out to me, “give me more.”

“You had your share, Number Three,” Number Four chided.

“I want more,” Number Three countered.

The two girls started their roughhousing again, and I couldn’t help but giggle at the sight of them, and then immediately regret it afterward as pain spiked across my side.

“Girls… silly,” Number Five sighed.

And that earned him his own baseball-sized ‘Water Ball’ which he took happily into his mouth, although most of it splashed across his face.

Number Three laughed out loud, and Number Five was quick to join her after he’d wiped away the water from his cheeks. Number Four was too prim and proper to laugh, but I could see the corners of her mouth twitched like she was trying hard not to smile.

As for me, well, I laughed too, although it still hurt my insides. But I didn’t mind it. Because, for the first time in a long while, as the four of us shared my chunk of chocolate between us, it felt like we were just kids having a fun time. And it would be a long time before I’d ever feel that way again.