Chapter 4: Welcome to Sinai

A shift in lifestyle is indicated by the arrival of Mount Sinai on the horizon of the young monsters' vision.

Papers fluttered around like a whirlwind in her small hands as she kicked her legs up on the dashboard of the car.

          Abel eyed her jean covered legs with a bit of disappointment. The girl honestly was some sort of monster to be wearing jeans around him while on a mission. “I thought you wore dresses while outside?” he muttered, unable to keep his rising agitation from his voice.

          “I’ll put one on later,” she said off handedly and flipped through a few more pages. “We have enough pills for 2 days each, so tonight we’re going to finish it up.” E.D.E.N. was cutting it pretty close with only 4 pills, but she had a feeling it was a merely a display of dominance from the higher ups. Feelings of mutiny could be contagious among family units, and so to snuff that out, reality needed to be readjusted for the remaining members. Regardless of what Adam had done, Cain didn’t fool herself into thinking that life without pills would be better.

          “And the second day?”

          “Just a safety precaution in case we get held up for some reason. Then we won’t… explode.” Fleeting images of the carnage in Adam's room assaulted her vision, but she quickly blinked them away. She set the files down and held a baggy with 4 pills in it, swinging it from her fingers gently.

          “Eh, alright then," Abel muttered, looking at the pills uneasily.

          The two were driving down a long stretch of highway surrounded by wide expanses of corn fields. The smell of fertilizer hung heavy in the air and made the teens’ noses itch. It was the third long trip they had taken in the span of a week, and their bodies were stiff with fatigue.

          “Directions,” instructed the blond behind the steering wheel. Being the only one of driving age between the two, he had no choice but to take on the responsibility. As the good sociopath he was, he tried to avoid any action that didn’t benefit him directly, but sometimes life didn’t allow such selfishness.

          Cain grabbed the papers, shifting them around until she found a series of notes for directions. “Take the next road to the right. It should still be awhile.” The girl glanced at him through her sunglasses. He was driving, and had in his blue contacts, but he was no Adam. In a strange way though, he had many of the same mannerisms. He turned the wheel like their old commander and occasionally adjusted his rear mirror in the way the way Adam had done. It made sense, she thought, since Abel had never really watched anyone else drive. She sighed and rubbed her temples. Remembering Adam was beginning to become troublesome for the young girl. Death had never been so personal before.

          Abel glanced at her wearily. She had been acting strange ever since the shower incident and the thought occurred to him that maybe she had come down with some sort of illness. Not that he cared about whether she was sick or not. He merely felt a nagging worry for his own safety if something were to happen to her while on a mission. Being the eldest sibling, he knew that the responsibly for her safety was now on his shoulders. Not only was he older, but she was much more valuable to the company than he was. He turned forward and glared at the road before scratching the corner of his eye where the contacts irritated him.

          It took all day, but as the sun was setting, the two has parked the car at a busy super market and moved on foot towards the appropriate stake out place. The air was warm and sticky against the two teens as they walked down a small town street.

          Cain picked at the peach colored cotton dress as she walked. It had been the only dress that she had been able to find with such short notice about their departure, and now as she strolled along, it occurred to her that it may be just slightly too flashy. Her legs were bare under the dress aside from her strapped sandals and neatly painted toe nails. This time, she had made a change to her attire. Under a stiff jean jacket that was only as long as her rib cage she had fastened a shoulder gun holster. She rolled her shoulders, feeling the distributed weight of the two pistols under her arms.

          Abel watched her carefully from his position beside her. Under his smooth leather jacket, he too had a gun. They had both been given XD-9s with their modern sleek design, light weight and 16 round magazines. It was a good gun, he conceded, though he had not had much practice with it. He smoothed back his hair nervously as he eyed the girl. In this type of mission there was no need for technical support. The only type of use he could be to her would be to back her up with fire power. And though they both knew this, he knew that Cain was not planning on using him at all.

          “So,” he started awkwardly. “What exactly is the plan here?”

          She stopped pulling at the sides of her dress, and looked ahead intently. “The place is a lumber manufacturer, so it’ll be easy to get in. They’ve been using it for months as a meeting place, but it’s very discreet so I can’t imagine it’ll be guarded. I’m going to go in alone while you stay outside.”

          He shot her a sideways glance. “And if there are more than a few people in there? Are you just going to blow them all away?”

          She merely nodded her head, putting her hands into the opposite sides of her jacket. Her fingers fiddled with the clasps of her holster thoughtfully. “You don’t want to go in with me, do you?”

          His eyes studied the side walk in front of them carefully. No, he did not want to go with her, but he felt a building pressure to take some sort of action to ensure her safety and therefore his own safety. “It isn’t rational to go in by yourself. I’ll go in with you.”

          Her florescent pink eyes looked his way for a suspicious moment, and then back to the front. “If that’s what you want.” A satchel to her side swung with each step she took and she casually reached in, bringing out a 5x4 picture of a man with rust colored hair.

          Abel took the picture carefully and committed the man to memory once again. Him, a man named James, had been the first and only man to survive an attempt on his life by Cain. His face told of a man that had lived a tough life, worked for every cent he had, and each cigarette he had smoked, which was a lot by the looks of him. He had shadows under his eyes, wrinkles around the corners of his lips, and a slightly ashen color that suggested ill health.

          “I’m going to kill him this time.”

          The blond boy shrugged. “You better. I’m not taking the fall for you like Adam did.” Adam had been an idiot, a stupid self-sacrificing lamb, and none of those adjectives described the blond.

          Her steps faltered for a moment, and then she was back to normal again and looked up at a street sign. “It’s this way,” she almost sighed and turned left down another street.

          Her sibling paused, watching her for a moment and then jogged to catch up to his blank faced sister. “You’ve been acting strange, Cain…” he stated, letting the sentence do much of the talking that he wasn’t able to do.

          She didn’t stop to answer him and kept walking on in silence for a time in which they finally stopped in the alley way beside the lumber yard. “I’m just confused. That’s all. I’ll take care of business like usual.”

          He huffed, irritated by the long awkward wait. “Are you ready to go in?” he asked, looking her over. She was a pedestrian as any girl could be, and assuming these people didn’t know who she worked for, they would be caught off guard by the innocently robed girl-child.

          She nodded, taking out a single gun from her left and cradling it firmly in her right hand. Her free hand pulled up the edge of her dress to the top of her hip and exposed a series of loaded magazines.

          Abel made no move to conceal his eyes as he ran them along the length of her leg.

          The click of the magazine being loaded into the gun frame pulled his mind away from her sickeningly silky skin. “Ready?”

          She nodded, carefully sneaking down the alley and towards a metal door. Her small hand pulled at the door, which came open quietly, and she disappeared smoothly into the waiting darkness.

          Abel growled low as he quickly went in after her, his own hand gun drawn and pointed down. The handle of the gun was awkward in his inexperienced hand, but he gripped it tightly. It wasn’t that he’d never shot a gun, but only that he didn’t ever use one out in the field. His place was behind his electronic feeds, listening to the police scanner, not backing up the monster of a girl.

          Once inside, the two listened carefully, picking up the impatient shuffling of feet and the urgent whispering throughout the large warehouse type building. The ceilings were high, doming up in a subtle arch over the second floor cat walks. They were made of steel mesh, and were only slightly unstable.

          Cain knelt down behind a high stack of wooden boards and signaled for him to do the same.

          He knelt close to her, the smell of tropical fruit wafting up at him. “What?”

          “Stay in the first floor, I’m going to the second. Use your silencer if you find anyone. We need to keep our cover at the very least.” It was simple, concise and completely calm. She had done this a million times, though admittedly, it had been Adam beside her and he had been giving the orders.

          Abel swallowed and nodded. He actually had never shot more than one person in a single night, preferring to be behind the scenes, but at that moment he knew that was not an option.

          Without waiting any more, the girl slouched and disappeared into the dim light. Her sandaled feet only made noise for a few steps and then, as he lost sight of her, all traces of her vanished into the sawdust filled floors.

          He leaned up against the wooden planks and took a few deep breathes, trying desperately to calm his heart rate. Damn, Cain, running off like some independent blood thirsty beast. They had worked as a team since their very first mission. He wondered specifically if that was how it had been with her and Adam.

          Standing, he put it out of his mind and peaked around both sides of the stack of lumber. Though he couldn’t see anyone, he could easily pick up their voices a few dozen meters away. He took a tube out of his pocket and screwed it onto the tip of his gun. With the muzzle pointing up and in front, he took careful steps between the stacks and towards the rumbling voices.

          Sitting at a small circular table were 3 men with florescent yellow vests on. As they talked privately among themselves, the blond boy took aim at the one closest to him. It took him a moment to line up the sites, and methodically aim for the critical spot in the chest cavity. He took a deep breath and pulled the trigger. The man grunted, falling forward and out of his chair.

          “Mark!” both of the remaining men yelled.

          One ran around, grabbing the man’s vest while the other flipped the table and began loading his own gun.

          “Idiot,” muttered Abel as he pumped a bullet into the vulnerable man, who howled and fell over limply.

          An unmuffled shot whizzed by his head, nicking the boards to his right and showering him with splinters of wood. Cursing, he turned and took refuge a few paces away from the edge of the stack.

          “Come out, you b*****d!” the man yelled, firing off another shot that lodged itself into the mass of wood. “You’re with EDEN aren’t y" .” His voice was cut short by a grunt and the distinct sound of a heavy body hitting the ground.

          Quick, panicked foot falls raced down metal steps. “Abel? Abel!”

          He braced his hand against the wood, pulling himself up and launching himself towards the voice. The tennis shoes on his feet pounded the ground as he emerged quickly into the clearing. “Cain,” he breathed. He had never been so glad to see the girl, her guns up and ready to blow away any threat. Screw protocol. Screw subtle ambushes. The only thing he wanted to do was shoot that dumb red head and get the hell out of Dodge.

          She stood towards the back of the room, one hand on the stair banister and the other holding fast to the gun. Her eyes, an unearthly pink, were wide, but as they landed on him, they softened and she took a deep breath. As if about to come to him, she took a step away from the stair well and past a few piles of wood, stacked high to the steel mesh ceiling.

          From the darkness in between the columns of wood, a hand reached out, wrapping quickly around her thin neck.

          Her expression changed to shock as she pulled the gun up to shoot her adversary behind her, but a large hand quickly swatted it from her grasp. She gasped for air, and reached up to claw at the fingers that dug angrily into the soft flesh of her throat.

          Slowly, the owner of the limb emerged, his dark eyes glinting dangerously as he wrapped his other hand around her front, pulling her spare gun from its holster and tossing it to the side casually.

          Cain gasped desperately, her cheek bones flushing with a ruddy mauve color.

          Abel stood in shock for a moment and felt terror rising in his chest as the man hauled the thin girl up with an arm around her ribs. The blond boy flung his gun upwards, taking aim at the man with dark red hair, but for the life of him, he couldn’t find a safe place to shoot without the possibility of injuring his partner.

          Cain’s fingers fumbled uselessly at her neck and then at her waist. Her hands slowed as her lips became lapse and her eyes fluttered shut.

          “F**k! Stop!” Abel grabbed the gun with both hands to stop himself from shaking as he aimed at a small piece of the man’s face that peaked out from behind Cain.

          The man looked from the girl he was strangling and to the teenage boy. “Why? You’re a sociopath, boy. Just shoot through her.”

          Abel felt his mouth forming into a grimace of disgust. “You’re James, aren’t you?” It was much more a statement than a question for the red headed man with his dark eyes.

          James shrugged, causing the girl’s limp arms to swing slightly.

          Abel knew that the acquisition of his target was the ultimate goal, and anything could rationally be sacrificed, but it was not as simple as that. Cain was too useful, of that he was sure. Also, the 4 remaining pills were stashed in the breast pocket of her jacket. He could shoot through her and kill the man, or he could think of something, anything, else. His mouth formed a hard line as he looked over the sights at Cain’s delicate shoulders and where, behind them, lied the man’s beating heart. The thought occurred to him that Cain most likely wouldn’t have flinched at having to put a bullet through him to kill the target.

          He steadied the gun at the man and his comrade, putting his finger onto the trigger.

          “Enough, James.”

          Another man, much taller than James, stepped from the shadow. The hood of his jacket was up, and he faced away, putting himself in between the barrel of the gun and the man. “Give her to me.”

          There seemed to be a tense moment, but then the girl was exchanged into the hands of the hooded man, who cradled her bridal style, swinging her gently from side to side.

          Able quickly began running the events in his mind, willing the mystery man to step just one step to the side and open the target up to his bullet. He didn’t care who it was, or what they wanted. The mystery man would be dealt with just as soon as James was laying with at least 6 bullets in his guts.

          Instead, the man, slowly turned in his place, coming to face Abel with Cain wrapped gently in his arms.

          “Adam?...” Abel’s eyes widened as his mouth failed to form any sort of coherent sentence.

          The pink eyed boy with his dark straight hair stared him down. “Hello, Abel. Please lower your weapon.”

          Abel stared at him without any sense of the time passing. Had it been a lie that he had died? Who had decided to lie about that, and why? Adam couldn’t be alive. Cain had seen what had happened to him, his insides blown against the walls and ceiling of his room. His mind was floundering, unable to come to any decent conclusion, and so continuing to cycle around his disorganized brain.

          “Lower your weapon.” Adam ordered, eyes narrowing at the blond.

          The command sounded just as it did every time they had ever been on missions or training together. Without thinking, the boy lowered his gun to his side.

          Adam looked down at the pale, unconscious girl in his arms. It wasn’t often that he was able to see her so still, quiet, and helpless. It gave him quite a thrill, if he were to be honest with himself. Shifting the girl in his arms, he looked at the boy.  “Abel, allow me to welcome you to Sinai.”

 

Author's Note

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