Trapped

"what's the plan?"

Tara walked over to me and grabbed my arm, pulling me towards the couch. We sat down together side by side away from greyson and blayke. Zane took a couple of steps forward to where he was standing a few feet in front of me, trying to maintain a comfortable distance. "This is Alethia, everyone." Danny said, starting off the conversation. "Hi Alethia, I'm sure you figured out who is who by now, but I'm Zane, the two similar looking guys on the couch there are Blayke on the right and Greyson on the left, but some of us just call them B and grey, I know they look like twins but they're actually 11 months apart, next to you is Tara, the blonde guy over there is Tara's boyfriend Ty, the big guy who left is Eli, Danny is the one with the glasses who you're of course already familiar with, and last but not least, the only one who you won't meet today, is Noah. Since he will probably be in the hospital for a while." he explained as he pointed to everyone he was talking about. His voice was noticeably deeper than Danny's by the comparison of them talking one after another. I wouldn't have noticed otherwise. Everyone happily said hi to me and didn't expect a reply as the conversation continued. "Okay, so the real question is where do we even start?" Blayke asked rhetorically. "For starters, we don't think it was your fault that Noah got hurt. We usually use a small machine that essentially cloaks us so that no one can see or hear us while we fight. Noah was carrying it in his pocket and we think that a previous hit from the Gorien may have done some damage to it and caused it to malfunction, which would explain why you could see and hear us. That's why we probably all looked really surprised to see you." Zane explained and then paused to let me absorb some of the information. "The Gorien?" I asked, confused. "Yes, that's what we call that creature you seen us fighting. Their entire species are called gorien's. They are one of many that we hunt down and either capture or kill." Zane explained nonchalantly. A look of shock and worry appeared on my face. "Wait, hold on a second. One of many that you all kill? There's more than one of those creepy things? Also, why do Noah and Eli blame me for Noah getting hurt when I had nothing to do with it?" I rattled off questions before I could even take a second breath. A smirk crept onto Zanes' face, and soon enough, it turned into a bit of a smile. Zane turned back to look at Danny and said, "You were right, I do like her." And Danny just raised his eyebrows and nodded yes as if to say I knew you would. Zane looked back to me again, "Sorry, it's just refreshing to talk to someone who isn't just completely numb to the way our world works. Someone with a completely different perspective and isn't afraid to ask questions." He paused with another smile and then continued, "First of all, yes. We work with the government to hunt down all kinds of different monsters and creatures. Some we're paid to capture, and some we're paid to just kill out right. All of our families have been doing this job every generation for over 500 years. Our families are all located in different areas we call hot zones, and each generation has been trained specifically to do these jobs from the time we could walk. Not every child ends up going into the fighting side, like Blayke and Tara handle some other important aspects, like doing all the paper work, making sure our machines are up to date, and a lot more of the behind the scenes stuff. The creatures we kill are usually highly dangerous and the government has called us to hunt them down and kill them before they can get into the public and be seen or hurt any more people than they've maybe already hurt. The ones we capture usually aren't harmful, but they could cause a panic and need to be studied further. So yes, there are many species out there. Most hide in places like national parks, mountains, forests, caves, underground, any where that they can stay hidden from humans, so we mostly leave them alone, but its when they venture into towns and cities or hurt people that have come acrossed them that they become a problem and we have to find them. Some are extremely dangerous, and some are the kindest, most gentle creatures you'd ever come across in your life, and sometimes you would never know which one is which. That is why we are specifically trained from the time we can walk to do this job." He paused for a moment again to catch his breath some and give me a momentary break before continuing to answer my last question. "And for your last question, to try to put it simply, you're the first person to catch anyone in our families in one hundred years. Not only does that bring a certain level of shame on all of us for being found out by a civilian, and gets our pay cut if the board finds out but there's some much more serious things to consider than those two things. Aside from that though, Eli blames you because if you hadn't shown up then he believes he could've stopped the Gorien from slashing Noah with its talons since he would have been able to stay there with us all instead of going after you, and Noah believes that you some how found a way to get around the cloaking machine and that if you weren't there to distract him then he would have been able to dodge the hit or strike him back before its talons could fully reach him. The truth of the matter though, is that we all had gotten a little too comfortable and had forgotten that the cloaking machine isnt fail proof and we stopped taking extra precautions to stay hidden, and the Gorien had it out for Noah from the start. Which is why we believe the cloaking machine was most likely damaged and malfunctioned because Noah was already hit earlier in the fight." I looked at them all like this had to be some kind of sick and insane joke. "Monsters? Cloaking machine? A group that passes down a monster hunting job for generations that works with the government in secret? None of this can be real. Did something actually happen at the store, and this is Michael playing some kind of twisted joke on me to teach me another one of his many terrible lessons? Or did I hit my head, or maybe this is all a dream after all or something?" I thought to myself in disbelief. "Okay, so if all of this is real, which by the way I'm having a hard time believing that any of it is, why'd you all kidnap me, and exactly what happened to the other people who caught your families doing the job? Were they taken too or what?." I asked with a slight bit more attitude in my tone than I had intended. "The reason we took you is because of what they've done to the people who have caught our families in the past." Greyson chimed in with a very serious tone to his voice. "What do you mean?" I asked, again feeling confused and now a little worried to find out the answer. "They... did such awful things to them, Alethia." Tara quietly stated. I looked at her, unable to hide how worried that sentence just made me feel. "Alethia... the board would take the civilians who caught our families or even when people are caught alive with any of the creatures, and they will make them endure all kinds of tests. Locking them in a room with the most dangerous creatures to see what they would do to them and to see how a human would react to the creature. They had to endure many psychological and physical tests so that the scientists could study the different creatures and study how the normal human population would react to them, and if they weren't ripped apart or killed some other way by one of the creatures during the testing, then the scientists would kill them because the secrets of what we do. What they're hiding and doing, so none of it could get out. They couldn't take the chance of that person telling anyone, and there's no technology that can erase their memory. They tried to create a device that could wipe their memory, but one of two things would happen every single time. Either the person's head would... Basically, explode... or they would get amnesia, and then within the next 6 months, the memories would always come back. So they'd end up taking them and killing them anyways and whoever they told." Zane answered my question in detail. I sat there stunned as all the new information that now rushed through my brain and was trying to process. "So... I'm going to be taken, be forced to take part in all kinds of awful experiments, and then i'm going to be killed?" I asked as the knot in my throat started forming, causing my voice to crack as I spoke. Tara sat up more to match my sitting position and placed her hand gently on my back. "No, we're not going to let that happen. We can't. None of us are okay with them doing that to anyone anymore, especially when it was our fault you caught us in the first place. We didn't take enough precautions, and Noah should have checked the cloaking machine to make sure it was still working properly. We can't let them do that for something that was our fault. That's why we had to take you. We had to make sure you couldn't tell our secret and end up getting killed." Danny spoke up as he took a few steps closer. "What about Noah and Eli? They don't seem happy about me being here at all. Won't they just tell the board, or whoever it is, and get me taken?" I asked. Still trying to hold back tears that are trying to force themselves out. "Eli is definitely a lot of things, and he has made his opinions very clear here, but none of us believe he would go behind our backs like that. Were like a family of our own here, we all grew up spending over half of our time together on trips to each other hot zone to learn their specialty lessons and fighting tactics and study all the books that our families kept over the years. So even if Eli doesn't agree with us, we don't think he will go against us. He would rather let whatever fate has in store for us just play out, and if it plays out like he thinks it will then, like he said, he will just say I told you so. Noah, on the other hand, he might not listen to us, but he will listen to Eli, and Eli has told him not to say anything. Noah also has always had a crush, Tara, so we don't think he would go against her knowing that she would hate him if he ever did that." Zane explained. I could see that he felt bad for me. When I started to get upset, it seemed to really bother him. "So all of this is about keeping a bunch of secrets?" I asked. "Not entirely, but you could say that." Blayke answered. "So what if I promised I would keep your secrets, all of them, and that I wouldn't tell a soul?" I asked. To be honest, I'm not sure if I can make that promise. I mean, it would be better to be stuck on the streets with no where to go, some where far away from Michael, but if he ever found me again, which is highly likely, then I would have no choice but to explain what happened. If I didn't explain then Michael would kill me, and I'm too scared of him to try to lie, but if I tell him then I would be found out and then taken, forced into experiments, and killed afterwards or just flat out killed from the start. "We can't just trust that you won't tell anyone. I mean, we do want you to be able to get back to your friends and family, of course, but how exactly would you even explain where you've been?" Zane asked. I started to open my mouth to reply but quickly shut it back and stayed quiet. "I can't tell them that I don't have anyone or anywhere to go back to anyways besides my abusive husband or that I wouldn't be missed by anyone besides him. Would they change their minds about saving me? Would they know him and just hand me over? Would they think I'm not worth saving and helping? I have to keep it all a secret. First things first, these bruises need to fade quickly, and I need to hide them as much as possible so that none of them see them and start asking questions. They probably won't go away for another week or two, though." I thought to myself. "Okay, fine. If you're really trying to help keep me alive and save me, then what's the plan?" I asked.