(Ian POV)

The barrel was pointing at me until he disappeared with Hayley in the corner. My two teammates let out a sigh of relief.

“Who was that”?.

“She is Hayley Ryan an ex-classmate, and the other was Spencer Davies …her boyfriend I suppose?”.

“The girl was really weird thank god he took her with him”.

“What do you mean weird?”.

I raised an eyebrow at that comment, Hayley? weird?

“She was scary, you didn’t notice? I bet that she was the reason why Tyler and Alejandro ran away. Why did you want so much for her to come with us?”.

“If I’m not wrong her father came to us a couple of days ago, I think that she should be with her family”.

“Well, to be honest, I don’t want that girl anywhere near me, the guy fighting abilities were amazing though, it would be great having him in one of our teams, he took care of the alligator by himself”.

I didn’t get what they were talking about.

Hayley scary and weird? And why she is not with her father? For a second I thought that maybe Spencer was controlling her, but it didn’t seem like that, there was something more but I couldn’t figure it out what it was.

The other guys were looking at me.

“You want to go after them?”.

I could see their reluctance to follow Hayley.

“No, she should be safe with Spencer, we need Tyler and Alejandro back to carry this thing back to the base”.

“I’ll go I want to change my pants”.

I haven’t noticed that Gabriel pants were wet… did he piss himself? I had to wait with Leon for a while until Tyler and Alex were back, they looked around nervously. My mind was a mess, why I didn’t notice something?

“The girl left, you don’t have nothing to worry, Where is Gabriel?” Leon said when noticed their behavior.

I didn’t like the way he said it, but a fight wasn’t the best at this moment.

“He went to change clothes, but he is a wimp anyway we can carry this us four” Now that he knew that Hayley wasn’t here, Ale went all alpha again.

We tied the alligator and pulled it back to the blockade. We gave it to a person in charge of supplies, after that all the team went to rest.

Leon and I went to see Dr. Harting to report what happened.

We went into what used to be the principal’s office in this school.

“Dr. we are here to report about a fight with an evolved alligator”.

Dr. Harting raised his eyebrows in surprise at the mention of the alligator.

“An alligator? Are everyone on the team ok?”.

“Yes, we didn’t have any problem, actually it wasn’t us who defeated it”.

“It was another beast?”

Dr. Harting showed curiosity, so we recalled the events. How we heard shots and went out to investigate, the alligator that was charging at us, our strategies and the appearance of a couple we knew. The effect that caused Hayley’s appearance was described by Leon and I finished describing the rest of the fight and how Spencer killed it, I didn’t mention the event after the fight.

“You said his name was Spencer Davies?”.

“Yes, you know him?”.

“He used to be my student, brilliant boy. And that girl Hayley, if I’m not wrong she should be Aaron daughter”

I knew that Hayley’s father was named Aaron we met the day he came to the base. He was the one that was able to make Gabriel’s railfle work.

“Yes, she is. I was surprised to see her there and not with Mr. Ryan”

“There are reasons to that. Poor girl I know her case, he told me everything about it when he came”.

He seemed deep in thought, and I was curious about it. Her father knew that she was with Spencer?

“What do you mean her case? Did something happen to her?”.

“Yeah an unfortunate power, it’s good that she didn’t come here, it would have been chaotic. The place where she is right now is the best for her”.

This was the first time that Dr. Harting talked about rejecting a potential refugee, what can be so bad for him to reject someone? But I was surprised by his next words.

“I would like to talk with them anyway, now I understand why Aaron knew so much, probably Spencer figured some of that on his own”.

He was deep in thought.

‘What did Spencer discover? And what kind of power does Hayley have that make her that even his father has to abandon her?’.

“When is time to go I’ll call you, in case I’m not immune to her power I need someone who can stay calm, go rest”.

We left the office and went back to sleep. Images of my team reactions to Hayley and the words of Dr. Harting didn’t let me sleep until late at night.

______________________________________________

(Spencer POV)

It was still dark when I woke up. It took me a second to remember all that happened yesterday, Hayley was sleeping on the other side of the bed breathing peacefully. I left the bed and went into the living room.

I looked through the window, the sun was going to rise soon but what called my attention was a few clouds. I think it’s going to rain during the afternoon, or tonight maybe. We could use this time to get water, to clean ourselves and our clothes.

The sun was raising, I checked my leg to see the place were the alligator hit me yesterday. It didn’t hurt anymore but there was an ugly purple bruise if I had to guess it should be around 10 cm diameter. Most of the minor bruises and scratches were healing faster than normal so I think in just a day or two they will be gone. My ear was hurting a little probably because of all the move in yesterday’s fight.

While I was checking my wounds, Hayley came to the living room. With the sunlight, she also saw the ugly bruise.

“Is your thigh going to be ok?”

“It looks worse than it feels, no need to worry”

She still seemed worried, so I explained my stats and the skills for her to calm. After explaining she was more relaxed. We ate and left that place.

Luckily there were no more alligators on our way back. We found a bunny jumping around, but it had some kind of agi enhancement I couldn’t catch it, I’m sick of the food so I thought of cooking it, learning to hunt could be a good idea.

When we were about half an hour away from the apartment an excited childish voice sounded in my head.

‘You’re right~!~!~!??’

‘Yes, we had a little setback in the way back and when we solved it was too late to come back, tell everyone that I’m ok’.

‘Ok~ none of them slept last night’

“I’m talking to Dante”

“Did his distance increase again!?”

“It seems like it did, I wonder how is that cat so good at controlling his power”.

“I wish I could improve as fast as him”

Even moving faster than before we had to be careful, it took us about 20 minutes to arrive. My sister and my friends were all on the first floor waiting for us.

Rose jumped at me the moment she saw me.

“I was so worried”.

She cried, I patted her back to comfort her. Meanwhile, Hayley had controlled her powers so the others don’t get scared.

“I’m ok we have a little mishap when we were coming back and moving on the night was dangerous”

“I thought so many horrible things…that you were wound… that a giant cow ate you… that your date went too well and you got back together you spend some time alone”.

Not like it would happen but really me back together with Hayley is comparable to me being eaten by a cow? Hayley explained the motive of our delay.

“An alligator attacked us when we were on our way back, at the time Spence deal with it was already late”.

“An alligator?!?! That’s worse than a giant cow!” This time was Hope time to be worried

Where did the idea of a giant cow even came from?

“Let’s go to the apartments, I’ll explain everything”