The Guadeloupe Squadeloupe

Chapter XXIX: Perry

"I am large, I contain multitudes." ~Walt Whitman

At first, I thought I was seeing things when none other than Finn Ashton appeared in the doorway. He strode across the small length of the hotel room and sat across from me on the floor. Guad looked as confused as I felt, with Ashton now sitting on his right.

"Oh, please do come in," Alice says nearly a minute after he has already been in the room. His presence clearly threw her off as well.

Everyone else gathers around the room, all eyes on Ashton. I decide that whatever happens next can't be that important, and proceed to smash my face in a pillow.

"Thanks for letting me stay here," Ashton mutters, then coughs. "I need to let all of this blow over."

"Excuse me, but I don't remember anyone saying you could stay," Janis says with more attitude than I would have ever suspected from her.

"You will not recall, but you owe me."

"If anything, you should owe us," Diana adds. "You only ditched us when we needed you most, bugged our car-"

Staying awake is becoming progressively harder. My brain feels like mush, all of my injuries having finally registered. My eye feels like it's under lock and key with how tightly it's swollen shut. Every noise is as loud as thunder to my headache.

"There is no normal way to share news that is not normal," Ashton begins. Something about the slow and steady manner in which he speaks comforts me, like a child is comforted by their blanket during a storm. I inch my eyes above my pillow and stare at the ceiling. "Your father, Wallace Bradshaw, and I worked together before his...accident."

Alice gives him a vicious glare, making it obvious that this is not a topic she wants to discuss.

"I worked as his intern at PHIE, also known as the Preservation of the Human Individual Embodiment, the organization in which he not only formed but dedicated his life's work to. It was created for the sole purpose to bring down HEXA, or Human Experimentation and Alterations, which I understand Bob here has spent quite a bit of time with."

I watch as Bob shifts uncomfortably on the floor. He pulls his legs up so that his arms are around them and his chin rests atop his knees.

"After his death, you two were shipped off in different directions, correct? If my proposal had been approved, there is a large chance that would not have happened."

As similar as the twins can seem at times, their reactions to Ashton's words are worlds apart. Janis leans forward, looking rather interested, given the circumstances. Alice simply begins to pace nervously, clenching her fists tight enough to turn her knuckles white.

"I actually tried to adopt you both, but I was so young at the time, barely 19, and your aunt didn't think it was a wise move-"

"Excuse me, but can we backtrack for a second?" The fierce tone in Alice's voice is enough to make me want to get up from my chair and hide behind it. "Are you telling me that my father was in fact not a college professor but some sort of mad scientist that formed an organization to go against human experimentation? What else is a lie; did my mom not actually leave because having twins scared her but instead died when her African safari jeep crashed just hours after having an affair with a Mozambican man?"

Ashton's expression is cold. "You're right on the money, kid. About it being a lie," he pauses, and I hear Alice's nervous pacing stop behind my chair. Her eyes momentarily meet mine as she grips the chair back like it's the only thing she can hold on to in this world. "She left just weeks after PHIE was formed. Raising family and running a secret organization were two things she couldn't see happening at the same time. When given the choice, your father chose PHIE over her."

Alice moves quietly from the safety of the chair to her twin's side on the floor, and I watch as Janis embraces her in a hug. The silence is painfully depressing, and by the looks on everyone's faces, no one is quite sure of how to respond.

"I say he leaves," Guad whispers, getting the conversation back on track. "You have not done any good for me or my friends, so why should we do something good for you?"

"Did no one ever teach you to do to others what you want them to do to you, Guad?" Diana asks, then shoots Ashton a reassuring look. "We should treat Ashton the way we would want him to treat us if we were in his shoes. I say he can stay."

I've always known Diana to be the nicer of us siblings. If she wronged me, which was almost never, our parents always assumed I was lying if I informed them of trouble she had caused. So her kindness and forgiving ways don't surprise me.

"Earth to Perry! Come in, Perry! Do you copy?" My sister yells a little harshly. You know you're in pain and exhausted when you can't remember zoning out.

I cough, and sit up a little more in my chair so I can actually see the people I'm to talk to. Diana motions for me to answer, but that is a challenging task when one does not know what the question was.

Diana sighs before repeating herself. "Do you think he should stay?"

It's a strange sensation, being able to hear the words and understand them, but being incapable of responding. I feel like someone disconnected my tongue from my brain, for I can form the thoughts, but can't speak them.

"You're hopeless," my sister says, but not before rolling her eyes. "Bob, what do you think?"

"Since you work against Delgato, whom I also am against, I am fine with you staying," Bob whispers. I can tell he too is not fully paying attention to the conversation, for he keeps glancing at the twins.

"What if I can trade you?" Ashton says. It's ironic that in the midst of this conversation about Ashton I forgot he was still here. He points at me, "You remember those rings you all fashioned that left those tattoo-like marks on your hands?"

I look down at the intricate series of black swirls that cover my ring finger. Until Ashton brought it up, I had almost forgotten it was even there.

"Well, it's a tracking device," he mutters blandly. Good job easing into that alarming information, I think sarcastically. "Someone working for HEXA gave you those rings, and they have been watching you since."

"Do you have any more good news you'd like to share?" My sarcasm is no match for Alice's.

"I know how to remove the tracking device, ans the tattoo will fade with time after the removal. So here is my proposal: let me stay, and you will be off the map in HEXA."

I can't decide what a greater shock is: that our exact location has been noted by the organization that wants to kidnap Bob, or that Ashton can help us with something rather than harm us.

Alice looks up for the first time since Janis embraced her. "He needs to take these trackers out, despite how much I agree with Guad that he should leave."

No one thinks of a real reason for him to leave, at least from what little I see before burying my head in my pillow. Sleep washes over me before I know what is happening.
• • •
I'm awoken by a sharp pain in my hand. I try to rub my eyes, but I can't move my arms.

Looking up, Guad, Bob, and Ashton are all leaning over me: Guad and Ashton on my arms, and Bob n my stomach. I now know why my chest hurts from breathing. Ashton holds a laser, and I can vaguely see him tracing it on my finger, removing the tracking device.

"This will help with the pain," Alice whispers. I can't see her, but I think she is right by my face.

She lifts my head up to help me take a shot of medicine, and before my head can hit the floor, I am asleep.