The bag check was done outside the dorms parking lot, but what was even the point? They saw what I put in already; if I'd tried to smuggle in any banned items, they'd have stopped me. 

Either way, I passed the check, and I desperately wished I didn't, because it only made things proceed quicker. I wanted everything to just slow down. I didn't have enough time to process this. I didn't have enough time to say goodbye or register the rushing swirl of feelings in my head.

I didn't have enough time to do anything.

Two black-and-purple trucks sat parked across from the dorms. Before getting on, the female escort pulled out this strange machine from her pocket: a small white block with some small circular metal platform protruding from it. Embedded into the steel circle were thin and glowing blue lines.

"Hover your wrist over it," she ordered, and I did as told.

A reddish-black glow flashed brightly over my wrist, and I briefly squeezed my eyes shut. When I reopened them, I saw a white band tightly strapped to my skin, a steel circle in the center of the band. A small green-tinted glass square sat implemented into the metal. The words "ABILITY RESTRICTION BAND; RECRUIT 01: TALIA MAKO" were imprinted onto the glass.

Restrictors. This was just like what they gave Exelonians, although I guess the only difference was that, while we had bands, ExoBlockers had been implanted in the brain. It wasn't like that made things any more pleasant, though. My stomach twisted at all these similarities. 

"If you even try using your power, it'll send a stabbing pain up both arms, and then throughout your body," said the woman.

"How bad is it?" I blurted out.

Oh, yeah, as if that was a good question to ask right now. Nice one, Talia. 

"The pain's horrible; we've already had people test these out and they were shaking and crying from it. Also, you can't take off the band on your own either, so don't even think about trying that. Now come on, no more questions."

I raised a brow. They already tested these restrictors with other superhumans? How many more had they found?

This was just becoming more and more terrifying…

As my escorts moved me over to the truck in the front, I took a look at the band. My fingers picked and pulled at the cuff, but it wouldn't even move an inch. I sighed. 

Might as well give up. 

Before getting in the car, I managed to glance  over my shoulder. 

Cassian — Melissa's cousin; a guy with messy brown-black hair and blue eyes —  was forced into the second truck, shaking just as much as I was, maybe even more. When my eyes landed on him, an image of Melissa flashed through my mind. Was she getting escorted into a truck right now, too? What if she wasn't even going to see my note? She got discharged today, didn't she? What if she was actually being thrown into a truck too?

I wanted to get up and help Cassian, but my escorts nudged me into the vehicle. My rear end hit the car seat as the door slammed shut.

"Try anything and you'll be shot," said the male escort, his voice a muffled by door between us. He nodded at the corner of the window, and I glanced up.

Three small black screens sat in each vertex of the glass pane, with glowing, menacing red lights.

Swallowing, I sat back and strapped a seatbelt over my body as the escorts turned and walked away. 

My breathing was getting shallower and shallower, with not much else to calm me down. My heart was punching my chest, bolts of adrenaline shooting through my body.

What did I say myself two weeks ago? "Everything will be fine?"

Exhaling shakily, I interlocked my fingers and hung my head low. 

Nothing was fine. Nothing was fine now. 

***

This drive took centuries and centuries and centuries… but when the car arrived, it was still morning. 

I didn't pay attention to where we went or even looked out the window; a stupid idea in retrospect. But after my rear was numb and I was internally begging to get out of the car — even if that meant being closer to PowerGen — the driver stopped and parked across a sidewalk. 

I looked up and out the window. This was a pretty suburban place, most definitely Hendrix City. I only came to Hendrix once or twice when Caster and I visited some ice cream parlor there, but I knew this place, layout and all.

Reluctantly stepping out the car, I lifted my head up and scanned my surroundings.

Ten trucks. Ten trucks were now parked on the sidewalk. Where'd the other eight come from?

The driver escorted me, just like everyone else, to the building across the street. Why park across when you could just park right next to the building itself? You know what, maybe that wasn't the best thing to question right now.

The structure wasn't huge — it was of medium height, with a couple taller buildings behind it (those were probably separate from PowerGen, I guessed.) PowerGen itself was tiled bluish-black, with tall clear glass doors embedded into the front. 

There were no windows. None at all.

I vaguely recalled seeing something like this before — in some magazine picture a long while ago — although the statues weren’t there. Did the government just renovate and rework an already existing building into this?

Either way, this was our prison now. Nobody except for the government knew what the Exelonian jail looked like, but something told me that they'd probably be somewhat similar. 

That was what terrified me. Would we be getting the same treatment as Exelonians, or would it be better?

Our feet pelted against a long, wide cobblestone expanse stretched out across and in front of PowerGen. I glanced left and right to see two large gray statues of manticores (what? Why manticores?) standing on each side. 

For obvious reasons, this place was already radiating awful energy.

I scanned the crowd around me nervously, and the first person my eyes landed on was Melissa. 

I was right. She was here. 

For a moment, that actually made me just a bit safer. 

Cassian stared at the ground while Melissa glared at it — and trust me, I'd never seen so much fury in her eyes before. A girl next to her, her black hair in two low pigtails, had a somber expression on her face. She was Elaine: Melissa's girlfriend. I hadn't seen her in a while, but she looked absolutely dead inside.

On my left were a bunch of people I'd never seen before. The guy closest to me glared at our escorts, looking like he hadn't slept in ten weeks. A young girl about the age of fourteen was next to him, her brows furrowed slightly and her head kept down.

It felt like the others were glaring at me. I tried to get a better look and sure enough, they were.

Or, well, one of them was, and it was the last person I expected to be here.

It was… Adalynne?

She stared me down, not even paying attention to the red-haired guy — Cillian — trying to whisper something to her. 

My gut sank and churned over and over. What did she want from me? All I saw of her was that time she dragged Cillian away from his mother. What business did she have with me?

Then again, she knew me as the one who was part of the superhuman exposure incident. She saw me as the reason we were all here, didn't she? She was blaming me. 

And I couldn't even say she was wrong to do so.

Once we reached the double doors, a PowerGen employee stepped forward and opened them. Again, we proceeded to march silently into the building. 

The first thing we met was a long brown desk at the front of a room that branched off into two hallways. The desk was divided by glass walls, like it was some sort of registration at a hotel.

Footsteps came from my right.

"Welcome to your new home," said a voice.

We all looked up.

A woman with long black hair, sharp eyes dusted in eyeshadow, and a long, silver and purple coat was walking over to us.

"My name is Willow Gael Janson, chancellor of PowerGen. I'm…. pleased to have you all here today."