Chapter 4

   This is bad. I need to get the heck out of here fast. Ray smiled at the waitress when she came back with his credit card and customer receipt. As calmly as possible, he made a dash for the door outside. The men on the other side of the bar chuckled and stood up. As soon as he closed the bar door he ran down the sidewalk like he'd never run before. Why me?!

   As soon as he found an alleyway he collapsed onto the ground. He'd just run 10 blocks from where he was and hoped they wouldn't find him. A dumpster stood in the farthest corner of the alleyway, so, in pain from his chest down, Ray stood back up and stumbled behind it quickly.

   I don't want those people to be part of the experiment team. he thought, calming his breathing and letting his shoulders relax. Almost instantly he could feel his heart rate slowing to normal. If they are, I’m definitely screwed sitting behind a…dumpster. He smacked himself in the face and stood back up carefully. WHAT AM I THINKING?!

   He’d thought this out far too late though. As soon as he looked out from the side one of them was standing in front of him with a sickly grin on his face.

   Yup, I’m screwed. He jumped as far into the air as he could and managed to bounce off his attacker’s head higher up to the roof of one of the neighboring buildings.

  “You’re not getting away that easily, boy,” another one of them practically flew into the sky and landed right next to him. “You’re going with us whether you like it or not.”

   “Like hell!” he yelled and jumped back off the building in a different direction. The fall down was worse than he imagined and he made the mistake of landing on his feet. Even with super-human abilities he still felt the horrible pain of landing too hard on his feet shoot up his calves and his teeth banging on each other. He groaned and ran to avoid the pain lingering any longer than it had to.

   Two of them were right behind him before he could think of the next thing to do. Both grabbed each of his arms and he nearly felt his arms come out of their sockets.

   Ok, I’m not very good at this. How much more screwed am I going to get? Ray thought, about to panic. Then the other two huge men descended in front of him, identical to his two other captors. Well, I guess I walked right into that one. He panicked.

   “Now you either follow us like we all know you would like better,” the one on his right said. “Or you get dragged unconscious with us.”

   He spat at the ground on which they stood. He could tell even in this dark alley that they were not amused.

   “You’d better beat the crap out of me,” he said, already regretting it but figuring it was the only chance he’d have at any form of escape. “I’m not going to be an experiment! Not like you freaks!”

   He had noticed at least one thing earlier when he was in the bar: all four of them looked the same except for their hair color and type. The one on his left had brown curly hair; the one on his right had black straight hair that jutted upward in a frightening buzz cut; one in front of him had wavy blonde hair that fell onto his shoulders and the other had dark red hair that flayed everywhere.

   “Are you so sure?” the one with long wavy blonde hair asked. “Our master has been nice recently and wants to let the experiment candidates choose if they want to come or not. I honestly don’t think you want to disappoint him.”

   “Why should I give a�"“ the men on his arms tightened their grip and he gasped in pain. His hands felt like the blood circulation was starting to decline. “Get off of me!”