Chapter Three; Being the New Kid

                “Good luck Penelope!”  Lady Manson called to her from the front door.  She waved to them without out looking back.

                “Where are we going exactly?”  Penelope asked as she and Logan caught up with Ryan.

                “To the Nursery.”  Ryan said, not explaining further.  She turned toward Logan for further explanation.  He sighed.

                “The Nursery is the headquarters.  It’s where they all meet.”

                “All who?”  I urged him to continue.  But he just shrugged.

                “I don’t know exactly who.  Only members know, but I guess we’ll know soon enough.”  He gave her a side glance.  “Unless you’ve come to your senses and you want to go home.”

                “Give it a rest Logan.  You can go home whenever you want, just leave Penelope out of it.”  Ryan said not looking back at them as he charged down the street.  His eyes swept from side to side, like he was looking for something.  It was hard for her to keep up with the brothers, they walked so fast, but Logan pulled her by her hand through the street.

                  Logan began to turn into an ally, but Ryan stopped him.  “Not that way.”  Logan gave him a confused look.  Ryan started walking again.  “Dylan led them right to the old Nursery.  They got to him less than a yard from the front door.”  She would have frozen if Logan wasn’t hauling her behind him.  He had been running?  He had died trying to get to “the old Nursery”?  At that moment Penelope knew that no matter how dangerous, no matter how upset Logan was, no matter what happened to her, no matter what this “cause” was, she would join Ryan.  Penelope would kill the b*****d that had killed her best friend.  She would give him vengeance.  Melodramatic or not, she would.

Ryan turned onto an abandoned street.  We walked to the house in the middle.  It looked old and rundown, but it could have been gorgeous in its day.  It was brown with a porch coming off the front, and looked to be about three stories tall.  The windows were smashed in and the paint was peeling, but there was a small light on in the back of the house, barely visible in the front window.

“This is the Nursery?”  She asked incredulously.  Ryan gave a small smile.

“Home sweet home, wait until you see the inside.  You’ll be much more impressed.”  Penelope started to walk towards the house, but Ryan stopped her.  He gave her a side glance.  “Before you go in there, I need your promise that you’ll never tell anyone about it: where it is, what it looks like, and especially who’s in there.”  His gaze bored into hers.  “Can you promise me that Penelope?”

“Yes…”  She whispered.  He gave a tiny cocky smile. 

“Good, cause if you do, we’ll have to kill you.”  He beckoned her toward the old house.  As he continued forward Penelope turned to Logan.

“He was joking… right?”

“I don’t think so…”  He smiled at her.  “Have I won already?”  She rolled her eyes.

“Shut up.  He’s getting ahead.”  She pulled him toward the house, and ran towards Ryan, who was waiting at the door.

“Hold out your hand.”  Ryan demanded as they approached him.  “Both of you.”

“Why?”  Logan asked.

“Just do it!  Palm up.”  The both offered him their hand, as he pulled something out of a flower pot that had looked empty.  It was a needle, a huge one.

“How did you do that?  It was empty!”   She gasped.  He grabbed her hand.

“This’ll hurt like a mother…”  He said as he slowly placed the needle on her palm.  As it broke the skin, a sharp, electric pain shot through her whole body, seeming to travel through her veins, but before she could even say ouch, it was gone.  “You okay?”  Ryan asked, watching her carefully.

“Yeah… It wasn’t that bad.”  She lied.  He gave her an approving look, and then turned to Logan.  As the needle broke his skin, he let out a loud yelp.  Ryan removed the needle and smacked him upside the head.

“Shut up you idiot!  They’ll hear you!”  Logan wasn’t listening, he was too busy examining his hand.

“Who’ll hear him?”  Penelope asked, not willing to wait for anyone else to explain.

“All in good time Penelope.”  He turned on his brother.  “Why are you such a wimp?  Penelope didn’t even whimper, and you can’t take it.”

“Well excuse me for not having a high tolerance for pain!  What the hell was that anyway?”

“You guys weren’t clear to enter, now you are.  We did it to you once, but when you decided not to join, the memory was washed form your head, that’s how it works.  It’s so that no one can get in without us knowing.”  Ryan said putting the needle back into the pot, were it disappeared.  Okay, we’ll come back to that later, thought Penelope.

“You can wipe memories?  Where did you get that kind of technology?”  She hesitated, “You didn’t steal it, did you?”

“It’s not technology Penelope…”  He said, looking through a broken window instead of looking at her.  “As I said, all in good time.  If you wanna play, you’ll play by my time and my rules.”  He placed his hand on the door and closed his eyes.  He took a deep breath, and then froze, just standing there like a statue.  She started to wonder if this was all just a sick joke.

“Logan,” She asked not taking her eyes off Ryan.  “Is your brother okay?”  She tapped her head, “In here?”  Logan gave a small smile.

“Sometimes I wonder…”  He put on the same cocky smile Ryan had had a few seconds ago.  “But, when it comes to this, yeah, I’d say he’s in his right mind, kinda…”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”  Ryan frowned as he turned towards them.    “Now are we going in or would you rather just yap on the porch, and get streaked?”

“Streaked?”  She asked.  Ryan just looked at her.  “All in good time?”  She asked with tight lips.

“Atta girl.”  He smiled as he pushed the door open.  He disappeared into the huge house.  Penelope took a breath and then followed him in, Logan at her heals.  It was pitch black, so dark that she couldn’t see two inches in front of her face, except for a tiny light that seemed light-years away.  She walked towards it, being careful not to trip over herself.  Sooner than she thought, the light was right up on her, but it wasn’t coming from a door, the light was something in itself.  All around her, the blackness still stood an impenetrable wall.  Only when you got right up on it, did the light give any relief to the dark. 

Ryan stood on the other side of the orb of light.  He watched Penelope as she looked at it in wonder.  “What is it?”  She asked, as Logan stumbled out of the darkness.  Even though she never took her eyes off the light, she could hear the proud look on Ryan’s face, in his voice.

“It’s the Nursery.”  And then, without another word, he stepped into the light and disappeared.  Logan waited and when Penelope didn’t follow, he spoke.

“What’s wrong?”  He took her hand.  Penelope let a tear slip down her cheek.

“It’s so beautiful… But what is it?  How could Ryan take that needle out of an empty jar?  How can something so bright, not give off enough glow to shatter the dark?  How is any of this happening?”  She never looked at him, only at the orb.  “My whole world is going to change… isn’t it?”  Logan gave her a sad little smile.

“Absolutely.”  He wiped the tear from her cheek.  “We’ll go together.  Ready?”  She nodded.  “Okay, on three.  One… Two… Three!”  They jumped into the beautiful light that defied reason.

Ryan had been right.  Penelope was more impressed by the inside.  After a second of walking through what felt like the strongest essence of home, her foot hit the floor.  She gasped quietly as the feeling left her.  “What took you so long?”  Ryan asked, already in the middle of the room, and then Penelope took in the room, the amazing room.  It looked like something from a syfy movie.  It was filled with huge machines that Penelope didn’t even recognize!  And it was all so shiny!  The room looked like an arena, with all edges of the room having stairs and platforms that all sloped into the lowest point of the room, a circle about twenty feet across.  People were scattered across the room, beautiful, scary looking people.

Penelope didn’t notice her mouth hanging open until Logan tapped her jaw.  “Hey!”  Ryan called loudly into the room.  Everyone stopped what they were doing, and looked up.  They’re eyes only rested on him for a second, then, all eyes were on her.  “We need to circle up!”  Ryan said, quietly this time.  All of the people, around five, migrated towards the circle, dragging chairs with them.  Ryan and Logan went to join them, while dragging her behind.  As we walked down the stairs, Logan grabbed two chairs from a table and handed one to me.  Once every one was circled up Ryan went to stand in the center.    “I need reports.”

“We got a signal from downtown, and we chased one almost out of the state, but then it joined its group.  We couldn’t get it.”  Frowned a girl with blood red hair that framed her face.  Ryan’s jaw clenched.

“Did anyone get injured?”

“No…”  The girl didn’t meet his gaze.

“Then… it’ll be okay.  Next.”  Ryan called.  The girl looked at him with fondness.  Next, a man with black hair that fell barely over his eyes spoke up.  He was, for lack of a better word, HOT! 

“Donna found a cluster, she’s going on visual.  She should be back in an hour or so, they were only about ten miles away.”  He said not taking his yellow amber eyes off Penelope.  A frown creased Ryan’s forehead.

“They’re getting closer.  It’s okay when it’s just one or two scouts, but if it’s a cluster, then they might be levitating towards us for a reason.  What did Donna take with her?”

“A splicer and a couple of shells, why?”

“They could be expecting her.   It seems like something that they would do.”

“She’s just doing a visual.  She’ll be careful, and this isn’t the first time that she’s done this, don’t forget.”  A different girl said.  She had long black hair that was bleached honey blond around her face, soft pink skin, and a noise ring coming off her button nose.

“We should still send backup Diana, or would you rather just let her get taken if anything goes wrong?”  Diana rolled her eyes and stuck her tongue out at him.  He sighed.  “Okay, Day and Lil, you’ll go out and back up Donna.”  The amber eyed boy and a blond short haired girl with way too many piercings nodded.  “The rest of us will keep up surveillance here.  Dismissed!”  He started to walk away.

“Hold up!”  Damian growled at him.  He looked back at me.  “What about her?”  Ryan smiled at him.

“Can’t you tell a new recruit when you see one?  Diana, show her the ropes.”  And with that, he walked out of the circle and entered a door at the other side of the room.  The room was still for a second and it seemed that all eyes were on me, but then the room started moving again.  The girl with the black and blonde hair approached me.

"Sorry about that.  I guess it’s pretty obvious that we don’t really get a lot of fresh blood.”  She smiled, holding out her hand.  "I'm Diana and I'll be your Yoda this evening."

Penelope aloud herself a little smile.  "Penelope, nice to meet you."  Diana smiled back.

"Okay..." she started.  "I guess it’s my job to show how things'll work if you decide to stay..."

Penelope interrupted her.  "I'm staying."  she said flatly.  Diana looked taken aback.

"Well, let’s not be too hasty.  You might not be so sure once you understand what we do."

"I don’t care if you steal baby puppies from their mothers and skin them for cloths and then eat their flesh raw... I'm staying."  Penelope's words brought a frown to Diana's face.

"That's disgusting."  She said with a grimace.  Her head shook slowly.  "That’s just wrong.  How did you come up with that?"

Penelope shrugged.  "It was the first thing that popped into my head."  Diana let out a low chuckle.

"You might just fit in yet."  She took Penelope by the hand and started pulling her toward one of the doors.  "No, we don't torture puppies.  We do something that some would think was far worse."  She said as she pushed open the door to reveal what looked like an office break room, complete with vending machines.

"...Babies?"  Penelope whispered as she took a seat in a big red couch.  Diana laughed as she sat in the yellow chair across from her.

"No... no not babies."

"Then what?"  Penelope asked, afraid of the answer.  Diana gave a wicked smile as the whites of her eyes slid over the rest, like Ryan's had during dinner.  Penelope felt herself freeze and the color drain from her face.  Diana smiled wider at her reaction and said the one word that Penelope would have never have expected to hear.

                  "Angels."