Arabella Read online

  Table of Contents

  Arabella

  Part One: | Weaving a Web

  The Unraveling

  Project X

  Bitter Pill

  Tangled Web

  Bitter Pill, Part Two

  Part Two: | Origins

  The Truth of Project X

  Convenience

  Poor Choices, Deadly Consequences

  Monster

  Good Intentions

  More Than a Weapon

  Part Three: | Rude Awakening

  Recovery

  Seconds

  Revelations

  Self Identity

  Note from the Author:

  Also By Nicole Sobon

  Arabella

  By

  Nicole Sobon

  Copyright © 2014 Nicole Sobon

  Arabella First Edition: September 2014

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each reader. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  The author acknowledges the copyrighted or trademark status and trademark owners of the following wordmarks mentioned in this work of fiction: Avenger, Netflix, Deadpool, Pog, and Big Brother.

  Cover designed by Christa of Paper & Sage Design

  http://www.paperandsage.com

  For more information, please visit: http://www.NicoleSobon.blogspot.com

  To my grandparents, Fran & Stan Sobon, for always pushing me to try harder.

  Never give fear the power to break you.

  Part One:

  Weaving a Web

  The Unraveling

  The rain beat down upon me as I stood on the edge of the building, peering down over the city below me. It was your choice that led to this, Arabella, remember that. My father’s words replayed in my thoughts, a nagging reminder of the mistakes that I’d made.

  But that was the funny thing about choices, we never could really be sure of their outcomes until it was already too late. And it was beyond too late.

  Gwen was gone, and nothing would change that.

  “I thought I would find you up here,” Cole’s voice sounded from behind me as he made his way through the roof entrance.

  “What do you want, Cole?” I leapt down off of the edge and turned to face him, forcing myself to rein in my annoyance.

  “Your father sent me to check on you.”

  “Of course,” I muttered. “Well, I’m fine. You’re more than welcome to leave now.”

  “Bullshit,” he said. “I know you better than that, Bell.”

  “Can we just drop this, please? I’m not in the mood.”

  I lowered myself onto the ground and leaned back against the rough edge of the building, running my fingers through the loose gravel that surrounded me. The only thing that I wanted was to drown out the regret that had dug its way inside of my veins.

  I’d fucked up. There was no way around that.

  I made the wrong choice, and Gwen had paid the price for it.

  “I’m not going to allow you to wallow in misery by yourself, love. Sorry, but it doesn’t work that way.” He took a seat next to me, careful to maintain some distance between us.

  “Do you know what your biggest problem is?” he asked.

  “Other than you? No, please enlighten me.”

  “Your biggest problem is that you feel as though you need to protect everyone. You’re so eager to go out there and save the world, to hurt yourself in order to ensure the safety of others, and it’s like you forget that you’re still human underneath it all.”

  Cole leaned over and gently grabbed a hold of my chin, forcing me to look up at him. “You can’t allow this thing to consume you. It’s not all that you are, Bell. It’s only a part of who you are, you need to remember that.”

  “Easier said than done.”

  “Do you think that you’re the only one of us to make a mistake that ended up costing them someone they loved? We’ve all screwed up at some point. The only thing you can do is force yourself to keep going, and to remind yourself that mistakes are a part of life.”

  Project X

  Four months later...

  “This is your idea of mission uniform?” Cole asked, eyeing my burgundy leather ensemble.

  I arched a brow at him as I shoved my cell phone inside of my back pant pocket. “What? Do you have a problem with it?”

  “Well, last I checked, we were supposed to get in and take care of the mission without drawing any attention to ourselves.”

  “And we will,” I assured him. “Just remember to keep your eyes on the target as opposed to on me, and we’ll be fine.”

  A smirk tugged at his lips. “Sometimes I feel as though you aim to drive me nuts.”

  “Only sometimes?”

  The sound of heels slapping against the tile floor forced us to look up as Mara entered the room, her clipboard pressed tightly against her chest, almost as though she feared she would lose it if she loosened her grip any.

  Mara was a petite older woman with dark skin, gray hair, honey brown eyes and a smile that could lure just about anyone in. She was a sweet lady, assuming you did what she asked of you.

  Her top priority had always been her loyalty to my father, which was why, when she entered the room, she made sure to command the attention of every person within the room.

  “Arabella, Cole,” she said, placing her clipboard down on the table in front of her. “I presume that you have been informed as to what tonight’s mission entails?” I tried to ignore the stern glance she shot my way as she spoke.

  “We’re to retrieve the hard-drive without harming any civilians,” Cole answered. “Same shit, different day.”

  “Seriously, why do we need to do this anyway? What kind of information are you trying to protect from getting out there? Shouldn’t we at least know what it is that we’re fighting to protect?”

  “You’re fighting to protect your existence,” Mara replied without the slightest bit of emotion. “The information on those drives cannot be made public, for if it did, the world as we know it would cease to exist.”

  At that, I rolled my eyes. The problem with working for my father was that he was never entirely up front about anything, and since Mara staked her loyalty with my father, she wasn’t much better than him. Every time we asked why we were being sent on a mission, it was the same song and dance.

  “You must secure the hard drive without harming the innocents,” they would tell us. And when we asked why, they’d respond with, “It’s to protect your existence.”

  As though that was a real answer.

  Sure, I got it. The world couldn’t know what Cole and I were – what we were capable of doing. But what the hell was on those hard drives that concerned us? That was the one thing that I wanted to know and the one thing they would never tell me.

  “We are nothing more than the result of an experiment on my father’s behalf,” I said, growing annoyed. “What is it that you’re so afraid of getting out?”

  “You know the rules, Arabella. You are
not to ask questions; you are simply to complete the mission given to you.”

  “Easy to say when you’re not the one risking your life.”

  I could feel her eyes on me as I made my way out of the room, but I didn’t bother to turn around. What would have been the point? For me to give her the go ahead to ramble on about the mission statement, and how they had only sought to keep us safe? Yeah, I wasn’t buying that bullshit.

  “One of these days, you’re going to cause her to snap, you know.” Cole moved in quietly behind me and threw his arm over my shoulders. “I don’t see why you have to be so hard on her. She’s only doing her job, Bell.”

  “And is treating us like property part of that job?”

  “Who said anything about us being property?”

  I rolled my eyes at that one. That was the main difference between Cole and I. He actually allowed himself to believe my father was trying to do good in the world. He was far too gullible when it came to my father. I wasn’t.

  When you spent your entire life inside of a lab, undergoing tests every week to ensure your “powers” weren't waning and that you were still capable of doing your job, you came to realize that you were viewed as nothing more than property; a tool used by those too chickenshit to do their own betting.

  After twenty-something years of the same thing? I had grown tired of it.

  I’d spent far too long living underneath my father’s thumb, forced to remain in the shadows. All I wanted was to be a part of the world I that I had been told I was only meant to protect – a world that I was never supposed to exist in.

  “You’re not thinking of running off again, are you?” Cole asked, forcing me out of my internal rambling.

  “After what happened last time? I’m not that stupid,” I responded, which had partially been the truth. Every single time I thought about leaving again, I found myself thinking of Gwen. She had gone after me that night after I insisted she stay at the lab. I should’ve expected that she wouldn’t have listened; after all, she’d always been rather stubborn – even more so than me – but I figured that Cole would be able to keep her from coming after me.

  Unfortunately, I had overestimated his ability to oversee my sister.

  That night, I knew the chances of the Horde coming after me were great – a subject of my father’s Project X program all alone would be an opportunity they couldn’t afford to pass up – which was why I had demanded Cole keep watch over Gwen.

  I adored my sister, though I had never been the greatest at showing it. In my defense, showcasing emotions, admittedly, had never been my strong suit. Which was why I had sought other methods of showcasing that I cared: such as, by doing what I could to ensure Gwen wouldn’t die at the hands of a bunch of psychotic murderers.

  Like Cole and I, she had powers, but she was still developing them – still struggling to control them. She was exactly the type of Super that the Horde needed to get their hands on; she was my father’s research personified. Everything they needed was within her blood. The key to creating their own brand of Supers lay within her bloodstream, the very thing we were taught to protect from early on.

  Against the Horde, Gwen didn’t stand a chance.

  Everyone knew that.

  Except for her.

  She ran head-first into their trap, completely oblivious to the terrible fate that awaited her. I always believed that Gwen had been too naïve, too innocent for the world we’d lived in. That night I was, unfortunately, proven to be right.

  See, while my father and his pet, Mara, liked to believe that their research was succeeding in helping to shape the world, I’d seen beneath the veil. I knew that, trying to cleanse the world of discord and corruption, only led to furthering its demise.

  They wanted us to protect the world from those eager to destroy it.

  But the fact of the matter was, we were still vulnerable, we were no better than the people we were meant to protect. They allowed themselves to ignore the fact that the very monsters they’d created to save them were nothing more than humans with altered genetics – monsters they had created to defeat their own demons, to protect their horrifying secrets from being revealed.

  In them, I had witnessed just how mad desperation could drive someone.

  We were disposable. They had plenty of Supers ready to take over for us when we could no longer protect them. They’d placed their hope in not us – but their machines. It was quite ridiculous, honestly.

  After all, machines were known to malfunction from time-to-time.

  “You enjoy making it difficult for me to read your thoughts, don’t you?” Cole moved in front of me, managing to maintain a perfect pace with me as I made my way down the hall. Not that I expected much less from him. He was my father’s prize, his best result from Project X to date. He was a telepath, and he also had the ability to absorb powers from other supers, and he did everything he could to take full advantage of it.

  It became incredibly annoying during combat training, given that he could mirror my every move. I was what my father liked to refer to as a “well trained Super” – although, assassin would’ve done just fine, really. I had been trained to fight, to watch my enemy’s every move, to strike before they had a chance to do so. I’d also been lucky enough to have super strength and speed. Which really helped with the whole assassin thing.

  Expect for when it came to Cole.

  Freaking Cole.

  “Only when I’m sure you’re going to run back to my father,” I managed to muster, trying my best to move around him.

  “Seriously? How many different ways are you going to think of to call me an ass?”

  I shrugged my shoulders. “Eh, I’m positive I can think up a few more.”

  He arched his brow as he fought off a grin. “Don’t think I forgot what we were originally talking about, Bell. You can curse me all you’d like in your thoughts, but I’m not going to let you head off on your own again.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry. I wasn’t aware you had stepped into the role of my father,” I groaned. “I’m an adult, Cole. I’m more than capable of making my own decisions. I suggest you learn to do the same. Staying here is only going to get you killed.”

  Bitter Pill

  Two days later...

  I sat perched atop the building, crouched as I glanced over the brightly lit streets. The warm night air beat down upon me, instantly making me regret my choice to wear a leather ensemble.

  Gwen and I used to always sneak out to the Keers building after training to getaway from my father’s watchful eye. Not that it ever made much of a difference, given the fact that the Keers building was only a block away from Bilson Corporations.

  But it at least offered a false sense of freedom – just for a little while.

  Now? The Keers building offered me a chance to relive those memories.

  I rose to my feet with my arms spread at my sides, and closed my eyes.

  Part of me wanted to jump, to experience the rush it would bring.

  But I knew better than to draw attention to myself.

  A person couldn’t disappear if they left behind a trail, I reminded myself.

  My phone sounded from my pocket again. I didn’t have to look to know that it was Cole. I had to give it to him, he always managed to find a way to be incredibly annoying. Maybe that was another power of his?

  I moved towards the back of the building, careful to make sure that no one was around before I leapt from the edge and landed soundlessly on my heels. As much I dreaded serving my father’s nonsense company, I couldn’t deny that I appreciated the benefits of having superpowers.

  “One of these days you’ll surprise me and actually answer your phone.” Cole pushed off of the wall across from me and nudged me in my shoulder. “You do realize we were supposed to be back about twenty minutes ago, right?”

  “Our mark isn’t going anywhere; Mara can wait.”

  “You’re going to cause that woman to explode one day.”

  I smiled at t
hat as I reached inside of my pockets and pulled out my gloves. Apparently the cops weren’t much fonder of what my father had us doing than I was, so we had to be sure not to leave any evidence behind, which was why I always made it a point to pin my long hair up in a tight bun and hide as much of my face behind a cowl as possible. Also? I kind of enjoyed getting to play dress up every night.

  “Probably, but wouldn’t that be quite the sight to see?” I tossed a wink back at Cole as I moved through the dark alleyway.

  A bright flash moved in front of me as Cole caught up. “You have way too much fun with my powers,” I mumbled.

  “Well, I have to take advantage of them while I can,” he said, shrugging his shoulders.

  “Sure, make it seem like you don’t follow me around all day, Cole.”

  “Oh, but whatever will I do with myself if I can’t be with you twenty-four-seven?” he teased. Cole’s personality had definitely been one of his more tolerable traits. It made it easier to deal with the fact that he was basically my watcher.

  Seriously, I was in my twenties, and I had still been deemed incapable of making decisions of my own free will. The whole “for your own safety” crap never helped to make matters much better, either.

  The fact of the matter was that, if someone genuinely wanted to attempt to create their own version of us Supers, what was there to stop them? What had been there to stop my father and Mara from creating Project X? Why was it that we were allowed to exist – people forced into being Supers – but no one else could? What the hell made us so special?

  Those were all questions I’d tried asking both my father and Mara, but when it came to questioning their methods and their programs, they had a tendency to tune me out. Apparently, I seemed to be the only Super that wanted more out of their life.

  And that was just pathetic. It was almost as though they forgot that, underneath everything, they were still people; which, honestly, would not have been that difficult to do – considering we were treated as lab pets.

  We stopped at the end of the alleyway, right before a tall brick building, hidden underneath the night sky. I went to reach for the handle but stopped once I took note of a small sticker beneath the handle – at the blood coated cyborg head with a large H covering the face. There were few things that ignited such hatred in me as that symbol.