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His eyes dart back and forth, his arms tightening around Six. He looks ready to flee.
Six straightens up onto her knees, taking his face in her palms.
“He's dead, Bennet. Your father is dead.”
His eyes widen, and blinking, he looks around at all of us.
“How?”
No one speaks up, but I suppose this is my part, so I take responsibility. “I killed him,” I reply, lifting my chin and gazing into his eyes. “Right after Six beat the ever living shit out of him.”
I stare at him like he could see into my memories and watch from my perspective as Adley's neck snapped and his body went limp. Like he, too, could see the life fade from that evil man’s eyes.
Bennet nods slowly. “Tell me everything.”
“We will,” says Micah. “But first, you've got to let me check you out. You, uh…you died, man.”
Bennet's eyebrows furrow, disbelieving.
“He's serious, bro. You just woke up from the dead, like some kind of zombie or something, except all casually, like you were just having a short nap.” Only Jackson could make this into a joke.
“I suppose that would explain why I feel like shit.”
“You look…normal,” says Six, running her gaze and hands over his body, as if to check that he's real. “Too skinny, but we can work on that.” Her lips quirk up on one side.
Micah approaches slowly, but as he listens to his heart and lungs and checks his pulse, he relaxes. “Part of me wants to hook you up to some of these machines and get some readings, but I'm not going to lie, I don't particularly want to see you hooked up to them ever again.”
“I'm just worried that this isn't real and the readings will show this is some kind of fluke,” Lukas speaks up for the first time since waking up to find Bennet sitting up and talking. “I'm not really processing this well. It doesn't make any sense.”
Jackson gestures to his leg and then to my hand. “It had to have been the plasma.”
“But he was dead. For hours.” Lukas reiterates.
“It's almost enough to make me rethink religion,” I say, squeezing my perfectly healed hand.
Bennet clears his throat, demanding our attention. The very sound that used to make me want to beat him upside the head with his briefcase now sounds like music to my ears.
“Would anyone like to catch me up on what I've missed?”
As Micah hooks him up to the EKG and EEG machines to get readings on his heart and brain activity, and Lukas locates a cold protein shake at Six's request, I run him through the basics of the last few days. I tell him about the cabin and Tony setting us up with access to the lab security cameras, hacking into the files, and the plan we made to sneak him out quietly. He tenses when I tell him about how many things went wrong, and some of the things we saw and did. Everyone pitches in here and there to tell their perspectives of the various events.
When we get to the part where Jackson was shot, literally running towards gunfire to cover us all, Bennet reaches over to squeeze his arm. I don't go into specifics about the tense helicopter ride, but he's shocked when we tell him about Dr. Franks waiting for us at the trauma center in D.C.
“Remind me to give Tony a raise. And a really large bonus.”
“Dr. Franks said you died on the table, but every time one system or another failed, your body kept healing itself.”
“It's because of you,” he says to Six. “My fa—Adley told me they were using your DNA to make people genetically superior. That's what the 'vaccine' was. It was your DNA in my system that was keeping me alive.”
Six's eyes are overflowing with love, relief, and more tears. I think she might need an IV before we're through with this.
“Dr. Franks figured it out. Well, sort of. He figured out that you and Jackson were ‘different’ like she is, but on a smaller level. We ended up telling him about the 'vaccine,' and it helped us come up with using Six's plasma to see if it would increase healing,” Micah explains. “We tested it on Jackson first. A bullet had fractured his femur. He was in a ton of pain and had a nasty incision after surgery. We gave him one injection of the plasma and the next morning he was like new.”
“There isn't even a scar anymore,” Jackson confirms. For a moment I'm worried he's going to pull his pants down and show us, but there's so much more to say that the conversation moves past the moment and we're all spared.
“How did you cover that up with the hospital?” Bennet asks, impressed.
“Dr. Franks helped us mastermind an excuse to get out of there and Tony booked another med flight. Those two seriously were integral parts of keeping all of us alive,” Micah answers.
