You Could Have Given Me a Warning

(4) Target #0062

The next morning, we woke up and prepared for our mission. Once we were ready to go, we went to Damien's sleeping quarter's to go get him. We knocked on the door and our boss opened the door.

"Oh, hi! We're here to get Damien for the mission. He's helping us today and we've got to drive far," Gemma said.

"Of course. He's very excited; he's been talking about it a lot," she said and let us inside. Their sleeping section was so much nicer than ours; they had so much more space, and they even a couch and television. I can't even remember ever watching TV. We took a seat on the couch and waited for Damien and watched our boss go into her kitchen. Yes, she got a kitchen.

"Where is he?" I asked myself. I felt uncomfortable waiting for him on our boss's couch. I fiddled with my fingers nervously. I noticed that my shoe was untied to decided to tie it while we waited. That was when I heard Damien entered the room.

"What are you wearing?" I heard Gemma ask and looked up. He was wearing a pair of rainbow overalls over his outfit, which was a black turtleneck.

"Do I look the part?" he asked, attempting to pose.

"Ew, take those off. Actually, change into something completely different." I said.

"Why? It's pride month, this isn't weird," he said, gesturing at his overalls. Gemma snorted.  

"Fine..." I said and stood up. I was relieved that our boss didn't see us when we left, but we did all yell goodbye to her. Then, we headed to the car. Damien drove and we embarked on our drive.

"So, Damien," I began.

"Yeah?" he asked.

"Have you ever seen one of the experiments?" I asked.

"Nope," he said.

"Oh..." I said. I wanted Damien to know what his mom actually did to people, but I just didn't feel comfortable being the one to tell him. I knew that we would probably have to tell him during this, and that made my stomach turn.

When we arrived at the Starbucks, Damien got out of the car and waited in a seat outside of the establishment. He took my phone so he could read the texting conversation Gemma and the target had so he could get into character. We took a car with three rows of seats, so Gemma and I moved to the back row to get into position.

When the target arrived, I started to feel a little nervous. I also felt really bad for our target because he just came to find a date and we're kidnapping him to do God knows what with his body. I decided to bring this up to Gemma and she said she didn't feel good about it either. We watched Damien flirt with him, and he looked really into it.

"Gemma, do you think Damien actually likes him?" I asked. She shushed me and we watched silently. Then, they went inside the Starbucks to order drinks.

"What is he doing?" Gemma whisper-yelled.

"Why are you whispering? They can't hear us," I asked. She rolled her eyes.

"Text my phone," I suggested. Gemma took out her phone and texted my phone, and I watched Damien look at it and type something and then put it back in his pocket. His message said:

Hold on I'm being realistic.

Gemma showed this to me with no emotion on her face, but I could tell she was upset and anxious. She typed something back and then put her phone down.

Finally, they both came out and were heading to the car with their drinks. Damien got some pink drink and the target had an iced coffee, which looked really good. Gemma and I ducked just as Damien sat in the driver's seat and the target sat in the passenger's seat.

"I'm having a really good time," Damien said.

"Me too, so where are we going?" the target replied. Then, they started to have a conversation about some mall or something as Gemma crawled very quietly to the second row. She was now right behind the target and got a chloroform wipe ready to knock out the target. She then put it over his face and Damien gasped for some reason, probably to make it look like it wasn't his fault. The target was knocked out and Damien stared at us, looking a little sad.

"That hurt my heart, I really like this guy," he said and put a hand to his heart. Gemma put the wipe down somewhere and I climbed out of the back and next to Gemma on the left.

"You're gay?" I asked.

"Bi, I think," he said and started the car. He pulled out of the spot and started driving back.

"Well, sometimes you've got to do hard things for this job," Gemma said and fastened her seatbelt.

"Yeah but I get really lonely... plus who knows what's going to happen to him when we get there?" Damien asked. Gemma and I stared at each other, I don't think either of us understood what he was referring to.

"Damien, can I have my phone back?" I asked and he handed it to me at the red light. Immediately, I texted Gemma:

Do we tell him?

She felt her phone vibrate and responded with:

Idk, probably...

To which I replied with:

K, you do it.

She looked at me and rolled her eyes. She sighed and I mentally prepared myself for his reaction.

"Damien?" Gemma asked.

"Yeah?" he replied.

"Do you know exactly what the experiments are?" she asked. I started cringing early to brace myself.

"I mean like I know she does superpower ones. I was in Interrogation with you guys, remember?" he said.

"Okay, let me rephrase. Do you know what experiment this guy's doing?"

"Isn't he replacing that one guy? Because he escaped or something?" he asked, making eye contact with me through the rearview mirror. This made me uncomfortable because I was saying nothing, so I looked away.

"Actually, the experiment didn't go well and he uh... he burned from the inside and didn't make it..." Gemma said, not really softening the blow at all. I didn't like how she did that, but she probably didn't realize it was something she did

"Wait, he died?" Damien said loudly.

"Yeah, and this guy's replacing him..." Gemma said.

"I don't want Sean to die," he said.

"I know, but who knows what your mom will do if we don't bring him," I blurted.

"He might not die! Plus this could turn into like a cute love story, right?" Damien said trying too hard to be optimistic. he then went into a really long story about some TV show he saw where something similar happened, but I wasn't listening.

"You think kidnapping a dude and then somehow still end up dating is a cute love story?" I said monotone, interrupting his story. Gemma started laughing and this made me start laughing, too. Her laugh is very contagious for me.

"I guess when you put it that way..." Damien said as he pulled into the garage of our headquarters and parked the car. The ride went by quicker than I had thought it would.

"Well, what do you want to do, Damien?" I asked.

"We have to give him up, don't we?" he asked.

"It's your choice," Gemma said. Damien unbuckled his seatbelt and sighed.

"I'd rather not have a murderous mom who hates me, soo..." he trailed off and got out of the car. we got out as well and helped him get the target into headquarters.