Jayden

A hand yanked the back of Jayden’s chest plate as he was led by one of Holken’s assistants to the meeting room. Can people just stop dragging me everywhere and treat me like an actual person?

“Mr. Hudson. Funny to have another one of them here,” a woman laughed in an odd accent. Jayden furrowed his brows, not quite understanding. His father had died years ago.

“Ms. Ma-Mashima,” he stammered. “What’s wrong?” he asked nervously. She glared at the assistant letting him hurry away.

“Well, I just thought that before you met Holken, I would like to introduce you to someone,” Ms. Mashima smiled devilishly. “Someone you’ve met before,” she whispered. She took Jayden’s arm in a strong grip and pulled him along the corridor. Her tall white heels clinked with every step. He decided not to say anything to avoid getting slapped in the face, but Jayden noticed red specks on the cuffs of her golden blazer and blinked in surprise. Blood. What happened?

Finally, Ms. Mashima pushed open a set of double doors to reveal a covered body strapped to a metal cart. The face was almost mutilated to be unrecognizable, with eyes bulging out of their sockets, so it took Jayden more than a few seconds to realize it was Kolvan. Blood was splattered everywhere. He retched in disgust into the nearest trash can and was hit with a second wave of nausea when nothing came up. Zac’s expression was contorted into a creepy smirk.

“What did you do to him?” Jayden asked, shocked.

“It was a surgical procedure.” Mashima smiled innocently. “From the 19th century.” Jayden cringed.

“What’s the point of this?” Jayden said softly, turning his body to face a different direction.

“Because either you’re going to be here like him or Holken is going to decide to keep you alive. There’s something that you know that no one else does and the only thing that we can do now is erase what we think you know,” she said.

“Alto? I swear, I don’t even know who the dude is!” he yelled, clutching the trash can. He’d seen deaths. Death by virus, death by hyperthermia, and death by heat waves. He’d never seen the aftermath of a murder.

“Oh, you do. You know him very well. I'm just preparing you for what is going to happen. It's likely that Holken will be throwing you in the gutter as well,” she said as Jayden stormed out the room and came face to face with a man not that much older than himself.

“Right this way,” the man said and gestured for Jayden to follow. Grudgingly, Jayden murmured something incomprehensible and dragged his feet along the tile. If I’m going to be here I might as well let everyone believe that I’m important even when I’m not. Following the order he gave to himself, Jayden immediately straightened his back and walked behind the assistant as if he was the chairman of ULTRASONIC himself.