Daughter of fire

Explanations

"What?!"

Now it's Liana's turn to slam a chair. 

"What's up with you all? Can none of you get up normally?"

"Forget the dumb chairs! What do you mean, you want to come with us?" Liana screams.

"Simple: I'll come with you. Oh, and I almost forgot, I'm not alone, Gabi is coming with us, too... "

"Who the f**k is Gabi?" 

"Watch your mouth, Miss ! Or I will start to like you. And I doubt you'd want that." She gives Liana a bright smile. Her face perfectly masking the threatening undertone she just used.

The door opens, and the blonde Brother enters, the one who was on duty to guard me today. He looms in the doorway and looks at us for a few seconds. He seems uncertain whether he should stay here or run away, but finally, he sighs and shuts the door behind him... 

"This is Gabi." 

It's my turn to get up all confused now, but unlike the rest, I'm being careful with my chair. Daniel and Liana are way too shocked to talk, so I must at least try to make this mess a bit clearer before I get dizzy. In summary: This is Gabi who, together with Miri, wants to help us escape and come with us. Easy peasy lemon squeezy so far. But can we trust them? And more importantly: what other choice do we have in this situation?"

"Miri, why should we believe you?"

"Quite simple: What other choice do you have?"

I already knew that…

"Well! We really don't have no other good choice. But if you don't start giving us explanations sooner, I'll burn this place to the ground. Because that is always an option for me." I think about it for a second and then I smile at her.  Make her taste her own medicine.

It doesn't look as convincing, my face being half worried, half relieved.

-Thank you, Iris, I…"

There goes my calm...

"Don't call me by that name!"

This time, the chair doesn't get slammed. It burns, like the rest of the furniture in the room. As Miri rises to her feet and retreats into a corner, Gabi remains frozen, unable to do anything but look at me with horror written all over his eyes.

"Calm down!"

Daniel and Liana both hold me by my hands, trying to make me calm down. But I only manage to do so after a few minutes, when almost half of the furniture has turned to ash.

"What the hell?!"

Miri trembles, while looking at her, besides some pity, and guilt, I feel satisfaction washing over me. Just because I got to see that arrogant smile fade from her face for a few seconds. If they treat us like dangerous animals, then we'll be dangerous animals. What do I have to lose? My life? It's not worth fighting for it anyway.

"Miri, this is madness. We have to report them immediately and we can forget about it."

"And then what?! Stay stuck here for the rest of our lives, Gabi? Think once in a while..."

"They could have killed us!"

"Yeah, but they didn't."

He looks furiously at her for a few seconds, but then Gabi gives in, turning his eyes. I start to like her a little - determined and confident enough to win an argument with a glance.

"Do it your way, crazy."

Miri iturns to us with a victorious smile on his face. It surprises me how quickly the incident passed. The arrogant smile is back to business.

"Explanation?"

Daniel answers for me:

"These are not our real names, they are names given by you. It's not so pleasant not knowing who you really are. It's not very pleasant to be reminded that your whole existence is invented by the people you hate either ."

Miri gives us a blank stare for a second and then she sighs out loud. It was not exactly the way she wanted things to end up, perhaps, but she should be grateful for what she got.

"I could check in the books. There is a written name, age, date of birth, and something about the past for each of you."

"Can you do that?"

"Yes, but we must discuss about the escape first because in this state we are going to be caught by the time we get out that door. We're all under a lot of tension. How about we play a trust game, wouldn't that solve things between us?"

This time even Gabi looks at her like he wanted to put a gag in her mouth.

"Seesh... no sense of humor here. Too bad then. Well, I will start with the beginning, assuming you know nothing."

We all nodded at her, and she started to speak, walking around the room like a teacher."You are aware that you have certain special skills. Outside this building, those who possess this kind of power are called Juliana's heirs. Juliana is believed to have been a strong queen of the past. She managed to bring the whole world under her control, using her powers. And yet it didn't matter how strong she was, she fell in love with the wrong man. And she thought he loved her too, but she was wrong. That man was the prince of some country under Juliana's control, wanting revenge for his fiance killed in the war. Even if he wanted to kill her at first, when he saw her before his eyes he was too scared and realized he would never be able to beat her, so he planned something much worse. That man was patient until Juliana offered him a child, a child blessed with the same gifts as his mother. A child Juliana adored. But all this didn't matter to him. He waited for Juliana to be out of sight and tried to smother the child. It was just then that the baby's powers, feeling the danger, activated and his father died burning in flames. Juliana was so devastated that she cursed her child and his offspring to suffer for eternity, before she died out of grief. Years later, the people close to the queen created an organization called The Lance of Juliana, which aims to eradicate any descendant of Juliana's son. Or so the legend says, but who the hell still believes in stories like that. In any case, even if we don't know how everything started, we know that the organization, like you, exists, and here we are now in one of its bases. Of that I am certain."She remains quiet for a second and then continues."And there's something else. They test drugs and weapons of war on you. A drug called living nightmare is being tested here, I suppose it is not necessary to tell you what its effects are. You have more resistant bodies than human beings and the same biological structure, but you are not considered people, so you have no rights. We, Brothers and Sisters, are considered people with reduced rights because we were born in a family with no power. In conclusion, you are not humans and you have no rights, and we are humans and we still have no rights. Nice, right? This is all I know from this organization and whatever is true or not we will find out once we get out."Get out... The echo of those words is music to my ears.