Saving Her Billionaire Vigilante

Twelve: Piper Powell

Twelve:

Piper Powell

    When I woke up, I was surrounded by complete darkness. I had no idea where I was. Was I still in the storage shed? “Oliver!” I called out. “Oliver!” Oliver didn’t respond, and my heart dropped. Oliver was nowhere to be seen. But I was definitely not in the storage shed anymore. The cage wasn’t there, for one thing. I remembered what had been in the cage too. A girl with wings. It seemed so impossible. But I was from a family of scientists. When I was younger, my Mom used to tell me, “Nothing is impossible, it just hasn’t been discovered yet.”

    My parents had worked on creating technology for Tanager Inc. Tanager Inc. specialized in creating things like cars that ran off of vegetable oil, glasses that could see through solid objects, and a cell phone that could be activated by your mind. But there were other, darker things going on at Tanager. Tanager also happened to be a contractor for the military, creating things to keep the troops safe. The trouble was, it wasn’t just “troops” that wanted the technology.

    Before my parents died, I remember there had been an issue with some top-secret experiment of theirs being stolen from the lab. My Mom had spent six weeks in Russia, trying to get the experiment back. I never knew what it was. They only referred to it as “the machine” and they never told me what it did.

    For the most part, aside from bringing me to work a lot, I couldn’t have told you what my parents work entailed. I was never interested in science. My parents would have loved it if I had been. They always tried to encourage me to. But it never spoke to me the way that it spoke to them.

    Nothing really had when I was growing up. I was so little when they died, just starting to find myself. Then, as a teenager, I became obsessed with finding out the truth about things. I kept on looking into the Tanager explosion. Reading every, single, crazy theory. Including one that Byron Bastian had orchestrated the whole thing as a way to punish Tanager for taking away some technology he’d invented.

    As if New York’s favorite Billionaire son would be that petty.

    The Tanager explosion had never felt right to me, and now that I had seen the girl with the wings, I understood. It was no surprise that someone would want to get rid of the place that my parents worked. My parents were good parents. But they were truly, terrifying people.

    “Hello?” I called out. “Is anyone there?”

    “Hello, Pipsqueak,” a smoky, female voice said, “I’ve so been dying to meet you. I’ve heard all about you.”

    “Funny, I haven’t heard a single thing about you. Who are you? Why don’t you step out of the shadows and show yourself?” I had no idea where this sudden burst of bravery had come from, but I really wished it would stop. Because I would more than likely get killed and that was something I really wanted to avoid, if I could help it.

    The winged girl stepped out of the shadows. She had a flashlight with her. She had jet black hair, reddish brown skin, and brown eyes that seemed to swirl with hatred. Knowing what had been done to her, and by who, I wouldn’t have blamed her if she tore me apart piece by piece. But I was trembling with fear, and I hoped that she wouldn’t.

    “Tayen,” she said, “or at least, that was my name. Before they made me into this.”

    “How long have you been there, Tayen?” I asked.

    “Six months.”

    I stared at her. “Six months?”

    She nodded. “I was kidnapped on a school trip. We were coming to look at colleges, and then some stranger grabbed me in an alley. When I woke up, I had these things attached to my back.”

    “Do….do you know who?”

    “Of course, I do,” said Tayen, “hard to forget a woman with red hair, and green eyes. Exactly like you. She called herself Lydia Powell.”

    “You’re lying!” I said.

    “I know the woman who tortured me,” said Tayen, “I would have known her anywhere. I also know what her daughter looks like, because she kept pictures of you everywhere. The same red hair, and green eyes, and I vowed that if I ever got out of that f*****g cage I would tear her apart, limb by limb.”

    “My mother is dead!” I shouted.

    “Your mother is the monster that made me!” Tayen shouted. “And I intend to have my revenge!”

    “Like hell!” a deep, male voice shouted.

    Glass shattered somewhere, and sunlight poured in. Tayen winced in pain, long enough for a blur of a figure to kick her to the ground, knocking her out. There was a tall, broad shouldered man standing there. He wore a suit of orange and black that covered everything except for his eyes, and mouth.

    “Piper Powell!” he growled out. His voice was deep, too deep, like he was trying to alter it. “Are you alright?”

    He walked over to me, so close I could smell sweat pouring off him. He must have run to get there.

    “I…I’m fine, I think,” I answered. “Who the hell are you?”

        “Bombtastic,” he answered.

    I squinted. “Like the Britney Spears song?”

    He let out a low chuckle. “No, not like the Britney Spears song. It’s my alias. Are you alright? Are you hurt anywhere?”

    “I’m fine, I think. Bruised but fine. I-----”

    That was when I noticed something in his hands. It was a needle, filled with a glowing liquid, one that was being brought down in my direction. And that was the very, last thing that I remembered before I blacked out for what was the second time that day. I’d found out my parents were monsters. Been kidnapped and held hostage. And now knocked out.

    What a f*****g day.