《Shadows {Book one in the Coriana Johnson series}》Disasters
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I sighed as I walked out of the extremely boring, bland, in desperate need of color white room. I was happy to be leaving it, but nervous at the same time. I was desperately hoping I wouldn't hurt anyone.
I had changed my clothes and grabbed a bag. I walked over to where I was supposed to meet Lincoln. He wasn't there yet, so I started pacing.
"Do you pace like that all the time?" I jumped as a deep voice spoke. I turned around. And saw a big, burly, black man standing behind me. He was grinning, as if he was pleased with himself for startling me.
"Only when I'm bored or impatient,"I replied, "which is most of the time, so yeah."
"You must be Coriana," he said and held out a hand. I nodded. "I'm Mack." I shook it.
"It's nice to meet you," I said. He smiled and leaned up against the wall.
"So, I hear your power is like shadow or something?"
"Well actually it's dark energy. But basically."
"Hmm. Shadows...Aha! I got it." I looked at him warily.
"Got what...?" I said uncertainly.
"Your nickname," He replied, grinning more. I groaned.
"A nickname? Lincoln warned me about that. "Ok, what is it?" I couldn't help but smile, even though I was dreading my nickname. I couldn't help but like him.
"Shady." I rolled my eyes.
"Shady? Shady?" I said incredulously. "I just told you my power isn't even shadow!"
"You said it was close enough," he pointed out.
"But seriously, Shady? That is soooooo original." He shrugged.
"I like it." I sighed.
"Of course you do. You made it up." He laughed.
"Whatever, Shady."
I grinned. I had only known him for a few minutes, and he was already teasing me. Like I was his friend. I hadn't had many friends in my life, and when I did, it never ended well.
We stood in silence for a bit, then Mack finally spoke. "So," He began. "You're Daisy's sister." I nodded. "It's kind of weird, thinking that she had a sister and didn't even know it." I shrugged.
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"I guess," I said.
Finally, Lincoln joined us, followed by Coulson.
"You ready to go?" Coulson asked us. We all nodded. They led me to their "garage", and I saw a sort of plane-thing.
"That's a quinjet, Lincoln explained. I nodded an we all got on it. I told them were to go, and the quinjet took off.
"What is this place we are going to?" Coulson asked.
"I- I lived here once. Actually not too long ago. There- there was a group of teenagers who lived on the streets. They invited me to join them, and I did. I lost the hard drive there," I explained. Coulson nodded.
"Are they still there?" Mack asked. I looked down.
"No," I said quietly. "No one lives there right now."
"What happened to them?" Lincoln asked hesitantly. I bit my lip. I knew they just wanted to know more about me but- I hated talking about this. And I wasn't a very open person either.
"They- they died." I held back tears. It was hard to talk about this. "If you want to know why, I'll tell you later," I continued and looked up, my voice growing hard. I could tell they were taken aback by the hostility in my tone. An awkward silence lay in the room, until finally, it was broken by Lincoln.
"Sir? What do you know about what happened to Daisy?" He asked Coulson.
"We don't know for sure if she was taken by Hydra, or if she was kidnapped by someone else. We do know that whoever took her is interested in Inumans," Coulson replied.
"We're landing now!" the pilot told us. I nodded. We landed, and walked down the ramp. I led them through dirty alleyways and run down streets that I knew like the back of my hand.
"This is a very appealing place," Mack commented sarcastically. Finally, we reached the building.
"This is it," I informed them. Coulson nodded and we entered the run-down building. "It's on the third floor," I said as we climbed up the steps.
We reached the right door and entered. Coulson froze when he saw the mayhem in there.
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Furniture was broken and strewn everywhere, glass riddled the floor, and- blood. There was blood. I forced myself to enter. No words could describe the emotion I was feeling. Sadness, guilt, anger- and plenty of it.
Lincoln asked the obvious question.
"What happened here?"
"A disaster," I whispered. And it was true. Destruction. Chaos. Death. All of those could describe what had happened. I shakily walked across the room.
"In here," I said and led them into a smaller room. Mack sayed out in the main room to keep watch. Part of the wall had collapsed into this room. It had been my room.
I walked carefully across the rubble and got down on my hands and knees. I pushed some stuff off of a spot on the floor. I felt along the floorboards and found the gap. I pulled up the floor board and spotted the hard drive. I picked it up.
"I found it!" I called to the others. I handed it to Coulson.
"Good work," he told me. I smiled and stood up to leave, then suddenly Mack rushed into the room.
"They're here!" he told Coulson. My eyes grew wide.
"The people who were after me and took Daisy?" I asked. He nodded.
"How did they find us?" I exclaimed.
"I don't know," Coulson said. "But we need to go now."
"Too late!" Lincoln yelled as they burst through the door. "We'll have to fight our way out."
I groaned inwardly. I didn't feel ready for a fight. I still didn't know if I could keep my power under control.
Lincoln stepped in front of me, obviously trying to protect me. He held his hand out and zapped a gunman, while the Coulson and Mack started shooting.
Lincoln grabbed my arm and pushed me behind a piece of furniture.
"Stay here!" he told me and rushed back to continue fighting. I peeked out from behind it.
That's a lot of people, I thought as I watched them. They're outnumbered.
The gunmen were advancing on Mack, Lincoln, and Coulson. The three of them retreated further into the room.
I could tell they were getting overrun. I waited until they were back far enough, than I stood up quickly and sent a wave of dark energy towards the gunmen, knocking them unconscious. Mack turned to me and grinned.
"Thanks," He said. I smiled.
"No problem," I replied.
"We need to get out of here fast," Lincoln said. "I'm not sure we can hold them much longer."
"Yeah," Coulson agreed. "They could be sending reinforcements right now."
"Is there any other way out other than the main door?" Mack asked me. I nodded.
"There is a back exit, but it's blocked off," I told him. "We'll have to go through the main room."
Coulson nodded. "We can make it. Just show us where it is and we'll clear the way."
I showed them the direction it was in. Coulson nodded and motioned for the others to stand up. They took out some guards and then motioned for me to follow. We ran to where the exit was.
Lincoln and I started to take down the plywood covering the door while Mack and Coulson covered us. We finally were able to get to the door, but it was locked.
"It's locked!" I yelled to Coulson. He tossed me a small device.
"Put it on the door and stand back!" He told me. I did as he ordered, and the device blew the door open, revealing a set of stairs.
"Go! I'll cover you!" Lincoln yelled."I'll be right behind you. Mack and Coulson nodded, and retreated onto the staircase, with me following. We reached the bottom, and I turned, expecting Lincoln to follow. Instead, I saw him fall backwards, his shoulder bleeding. He had been shot.
"LINCOLN!" I yelled. I tried to go up the stairs to grab him, but I felt a firm hand grab my arm. "Let me go!" I growled at Mack.
"There's too many," He said firmly. I looked up. Gunmen were already closing around Lincoln. We couldn't get to him.
Reluctantly, I tuned away and we started running. Finally, we reached the quinjet.
The three of us sat in silence. We could only hope that the hard drive had what we needed on it, for both Lincoln and Daisy's sake.
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