Taylor stood in front of the mirror studying himself as he got ready.
He opted to go with wearing something he already knew would pass as formal, and was adjusting his blue and red striped tie over his short sleeved yellow shirt. His black jacket hung over the end of the bed, ready to be worn.
He sighed. Not long now.
Isaac, Tad and Zac
Isaac knocked on the door and poked his head in.
"Ready to go?" he asked.
Tad hovered nearby impatiently while Zac just looked bored.
Taylor
Taylor took one last look in the mirror and and grabbed his jacket before putting it on. He made for the door and opened it.
"Ready to go," his eyebrows rose, a little uncertain.
He closed the door behind him, bidding farewell to his fuzzles.
Isaac, Zac and Tad
"Just think Tay," Zac said cheerfully. "This time next month, it'll all be over."
Tad muttered something about court cases always taking too long.
"Yep," Isaac said agreeably. "It's all downhill from here."
Taylor
"You're right," Taylor nodded agreeably as he began to head for the front door, noticing idly that he hadn't eaten.
"And the sooner the better."
Isaac and Zac
"Tony hasn't arrived yet," Zac advised Taylor, seeing where he was headed.
There was a knock on the door.
"Or maybe he has,' Isaac grinned, opening it. "Hey Tony, we were just talking about you."
Taylor
"Fancy that," Taylor heard Tony's voice and stepped through to greet him.
"Hey," he smiled, shaking his hand.
"Hi Tay. Are we all ready? Just you four?"
"Just us four," Taylor nodded, "for today."
Zac and Isaac
They soon arrived at the courthouse, where they were directed to the appropriate personal.
"Wow," Zac said, "they've sure got a ton of security around here."
"Blakesley hurt a lot of people," Isaac said. "I imagine a lot of people want to hurt him."
Taylor
If it was possible, Taylor tensed further as a woman with a clipboard approached them.
"Jordan Hanson?" she inquired.
"Yeah," he nodded, his voice quiet.
"You recently should have recieved a letter outlining what will take place..."
"I did," Taylor nodded.
"Ok. The hearing will take place through that door," she pointed one out, "you can just go in until they're ready to call you to the stand. It will be recorded for future references, both by transcript and video. Today's trial has already started and they'll be expecting to call you in the next half hour."
After getting him to sign some paperwork, the woman began searching out others. Taylor turned back to his brothers and Tad.
"I guess this is it," he shrugged, burying his hands in his pockets.
Isaac and Zac
"Yep," Isaac nodded.
"Well," said Zac. "I don't know about anyone else... but I'm hungry. Think there's a kiosk or something around here?"
"You can think of food at a time like this?"
"Hey, we have half an hour to wait."
Taylor
"Zac's right," Taylor nodded.
"You guys should go and get something. I can wait here for a while."
Isaac, Zac and Tad
"Do you want us to get you something?" Isaac asked.
"We're not extending the offer to you," Zac informed Tad.
Tad just looked at him.
Taylor
"You can go too," Taylor said to Tad.
"If I go anywhere it'll be inside, and Lord knows they'd have enough empaths on staff."
Tad, Zac and Isaac
"I'll stay. For one thing, I had breakfast this morning," and Tad looked pointedly at all three Hanson brothers, "and for another, you're my primary charge."
Zac rolled his eyes.
"Tay?" Isaac asked again. "You want something?"
Taylor
Taylor sighed, frustrated already.
"No," he insisted.
"I don't know what's going to happen. I might not be able to handle food very well."
He couldn't help but chuckle.
Zac and Isaac
"Okay, well, we'll meetchas back here," Zac said.
"Unless Zac takes too long and they've already call you in," Isaac teased.
Zac poked his tongue out at him and the two set off.
Taylor
Taylor went over to a nearby bench and sat down, clasping his hands together and staring off into space.
He knew the next half hour was probably going to be one of the shortest of his life.
He tried to ignore Tad and just watched people going in and out of the surrounding rooms.
Isaac and Zac
Around 10, 20 minutes later Isaac and Zac returned, chocolate muffins and hot drinks in hand.
"Muffiny goodness," Zac said. "Omm yum yum yum."
"And half your muffin is crumbling onto the floor. Waste of good muffin," Isaac pointed out.
Zac poked out a muffin covered tongue at Isaac.
"Juvinile."
Taylor
Taylor gulped as he glanced at his watch. They had about ten minutes to spare.
"I guess we'd better start making our way in," he said, standing up awkwardly.
"They'll expect me to be there, ready and waiting. You guys don't have to come in yet if you want."
Isaac, Zac and Tad
"We should probably finish our food off first," Isaac said.
"But fear not Tay-me-brother!" Zac declared. "We shall soon join you for all your moral support needs."
Tad rolled his eyes.
Taylor
Taylor nodded and took a deep breath before turning to walk away.
He quickly turned back.
"For the record, if either of you need to leave the room at any time throughout, don't think I'll think less of you," he insisted.
Isaac, Zac and Tad
"Never fear," Zac declared. "We shall be with you to the bitter end!"
"Unless Zac is lured away with chocolate muffins," Isaac joked.
"Omm yum yum."
"See you inside," Isaac smiled. "We won't be long."
Tad stood at the door, ready to enter.
Taylor
Taylor just nodded, before glancing at Tad.
He made his way over to the door and carefully opened it. There was another witness on the stand, and it hardly took a moment for Taylor to realise he was one of the agents who had helped rescue him and many others the first time.
Knowing Tad was following him, he left the door open a little. He found a seat toward the back and sat down near the aisle to watch and listen.
Tad, Isaac and Zac
Tad followed Taylor in and closed the door behind him. He took a seat near Taylor.
"Aww, chocky muffin all gone."
"You'd have more if it to eat if you didn't let the crumbs fall on the floor," Isaac responded to Zac's wistful complaint.
The two soon finished off their food and then quietly slipped inside. Zac spotted Taylor almost immediately and they sought seats near him.
Taylor
Taylor couldn't help but smile when his brothers joined him. He noticed with regret that they were finishing up with the current witness, then gulped as he was told to step down.
Isaac and Zac
Zac gave his brother a thumbs up. Two even.
"Don't worry," Isaac whispered. "You'll be fine."
Taylor
Taylor just nodded, and smiled a thankyou before getting ready to stand up.
"The people call Mr. Jordan Taylor Hanson to the stand. Mr. Hanson, would you step up please?" the African/American woman called from the front.
Taylor cautiously made his way up the front, half expecting Blakesley to just walk through the doors at any given moment. The security guard opened the small door to the stand for him and he carefully stepped up and took his seat. He swore on the Bible to tell the truth, and then his hearing began.
"In your written statement you specified making contact with the defendant on nine separate occasions," the woman began, looking at a clipboard.
"Yes Ma'am," Taylor said into microphone carefully.
"And you've been briefed as to which encounters shall be assessed at which hearings?"
"Yes."
"Then you understand that today we will be detailing the confrontations taking place between the 20th of July and the 15th of September, 2003."
"Yes Ma'am."
"Good. Now Mr. Hanson, I'd like you to explain to the court in detail what happened in the time frame between the 20th and the 27th of July, 2003. In relation to the defendant, Dr. Kaleb Blakesley."
"Starting, from... before?" Taylor asked carefully.
"Well... in your statement you said you were welcoming your girlfriend home."
"Yeah," Taylor nodded.
"Go on."
Taylor took a deep breath, and closed his eyes trying to remember. It wasn't hard.
"As said, I was welcoming Jane home..."
"Jane Hall. Your girlfriend."
"Yeah," Taylor agreed, "she'd been... taken earlier. I didn't know what had happened to her. She didn't really relate it. Anyway we were standing in the yard, just glad to see each other again. I heard a sort of zipping sound, and then... I felt this sting in my neck."
He indicated where.
"And what was it?"
"It was a tranquiliser dart," Taylor gulped, "I told Jane to run and then... I collapsed."
"Where were you when you woke up?"
"In a white room," Taylor's voice became softer.
"Describe it."
"It was tiled," Taylor went on, looking the woman in the eyes for a moment, "plaster, I think, on the walls. The furniture was stainless steel. The door was thick glass. There were fluorescent lights above us and it made the white almost blinding..."
"Us?"
"Jane and I. We were both there. We were both on tables about waist height, and there were straps around our chests, wrists and ankles. They were something like three inches thick. Leather, I guess."
"What happened then?"
"Jane woke up. She became hysterical, and I was trying to calm her down. Of course I was rather unnerved myself and it didn't really work. And then... he came in."
"'He' referring to Dr. Blakesley?"
"Yes. I wanted to know where we were, and he told me 'a place you'll never leave'. Then he started checking Jane over because she was pregnant with..."
"Sorry. Can we keep the focus on your particular confrontations with the defendant?"
"Oh, of course," Taylor mentally berated himself, "well... he was enthused to know what I was. A full Dathrian. Because he hadn't had access to one before."
"Access for what purpose?"
"Experimentation," Taylor frowned, leaning forward slightly, his eyes to the courtroom floor and not moving.
"Go on."
"Well both Jane and I have experiences with animals. She was empathic with them, and I of course understand them. So he... Dr. Blakesley brought in a small puppy. He wanted to see what the effect would be on us if he... hurt it. Jane became hysterical again, and I knew she knew French so I began asking her to loosen her straps to get free. For some reason she couldn't, but she loosened mine. I was able to break free."
"And what did you do?"
"I grabbed a tray of something. I'm not sure what it was. I hit the doctor with it, just on his back, sort of up toward his head. He collapsed so I went to free the puppy and Jane. We never saw the dog again and Jane and I fled the room to try and find a way out."
"What did you find?"
"Well I stopped, because I realised we had no idea where we were. We could have been heading to a dead end for all I knew. I convinced Jane to use her atom manipulation to pass through the walls and head straight for the outside. We separated."
"I'd like to remind the court that Mr. Hanson, until further notice, had no use of his power of atom manipulation."
Taylor just nodded.
"I continued the way we were going. A soldier came out of nowhere and put one arm around my neck, and with the other hand he held a mask to my face. It was a sort of oxygen mask but it must have had sleeping gas in it because I was knocked out."
"Where were you when you woke up."
"In a different room altogether. This time I was in a chair, and... my wrists were strapped to the arms. My ankles were tied underneath."
"And what happened in this room?"
"Blakesley came in after a while. He took a blood sample from my right arm and left again soon after. The next time I saw him he had..." Taylor visibly flinched at the memory, "he was holding a chain. A leash. At the end was Natalia."
"Again I remind the court that the girl he speaks of is Natalia Rayner, currently a missing person."
Taylor cringed at that.
"Go one."
"She was crawling on her hands and knees. She was very submissive. She was gagged and she... she was naked. Blakesley said something about her being a lesson to me and left her in the room with me for a while. She ended up sitting on my lap because she was that happy just to have someone to talk to. And then a soldier came in sometime later and insisted that she hadn't been aloud to make physical contact with me and... he whipped her."
"In front of you?"
"In front of me," Taylor nodded, "and I yelled at the soldier to stop. He only added more to the count. When it was done blood was practically pooling around her feet but she didn't move. Then another doctor came in..."
"Reminding the court that this doctor is unidentified, going under the name of 'Allan'."
"He saw to her. Bandaged her up and such. Then on his way he came past me and whispered that if I had a chance to get her out of there to take her."
"He seemed to care for her then?"
"Definitely," Taylor nodded, "and later we did decipher that he'd wanted nothing to do with anything that was happening. We just... don't know if he made it out of there alive, is all."
"Go on."
"Well nothing much else happened that day. Blakesley returned and fetched her from the room. Then he came back. He spoke to me about her. I basically yelled at him for being so sick. Then... he left. And I was left there for the night."
"Strapped to a chair?"
"Tied to the chair, yes."
"Tell the court what happened the following day. This would be the 21st of July, 2003."
"I was fed and such. By Allan. And then gagged with some kind of metal bar and leather. Then Allan saw the state of my wrists because I'd been pulling on the straps so hard and had to bandage them. After that a soldier took me into another room and I was... chained to a wall by the wrists," he demonstrated carefully, "and my ankles were put in shackles. Then they brought Natalia in again and took the gag off, and we spent more time alone."
"Did anything take place during this time?"
"Nothing major. She kept asking about life outside. I was trying to give her some sort of hope, and she was trying to convince me that there really wasn't any. It really wasn't all that long before Blakesley came storming in..."
"He was angry?"
"Very," Taylor insisted emphatically, "he attacked Natalia, obviously taking it out on her. Then he insisted that Natalia would from now on pay the price for whatever Jane and I did wrong."
"He was blackmailing you."
"Well... yeah. She was chained to the opposite wall and the soldier that had whipped her before came back. Blakesley started... asking me questions. About my family," he spared his brothers a glance, "and about their powers and my own."
"He was interrogating you, using Natalia as leverage?"
"Exactly," Taylor nodded, "but I couldn't tell him what my power was. I couldn't. Because if he found out he'd also find out that it was rare and... he might have put up security or something and I knew I needed to get us out of there."
He hesitated, trying to stop himself becoming emotional so early on.
"So she was whipped again. And then he had her hanging from her wrists by chains and started putting these... alligator clip things all over her body. With God as my witness I was begging him to stop, even to take it out on me. But he said that she was... She was expendable whereas he needed me."
"Then what happened?"
"I got a headache," Taylor blurted, starting to fiddle with his Hanson ring, "I was having problems with telepathic headaches and recieving treatments from Tanya. I'd missed the last one, so... the headaches came back. And because they were on such a scale Blakesley couldn't ignore this. My wrists were unchained and rechained to the floor, where I was left. Natalia told me she hated me. Then Jane was brought into the room and she tried to calm me down with her empathy."
"Why was Jane brought in with you, when the defendant had obviously separated you for a reason?"
"I don't know," Taylor shrugged, "perhaps she'd told him she could help. But they soon took her away again.
He swallowed a lump in his throat.
"They injected me with truth serum. In an effort to find out my power."
"Truth serum, in effect, does not work on Dathrians."
"No one knew that," Taylor said, looking up, "and for a moment I thought it was over. But it definitely did something because I started answering back and giving bogus answers. He hit me across the face, and then... left when he realised it was no use. I was left on the floor for the night."
"In your statement you claim that nothing now happened for three days."
"True," Taylor nodded, "during that time I was restrained to the chair again in the other room."
"The next encounter with the defendant took place on the 24th of July, 2003. Can you explain what happened that day?"
"I didn't know what was happening," Taylor insisted, "because I hadn't heard from him for days. It was just like I was waiting, and waiting, and waiting. And then that afternoon he came barging in..."
"Angry again?"
"No," Taylor shook his head carefully, "just very... pleased with himself. He grabbed me by the hair and pulled my head back and held a knife to my throat. He asked me if he could find out how my power worked by cutting open my voicebox."
"What was your reaction?"
"I was petrified," Taylor almost scorned, "I thought I'd done my best to not let him find out. It was then I realised that what Natalia had been through had been worthless, because he found out anyway. He'd been... watching videos. Everything that happened was recorded. He heard me talk French to Jane. I was speaking in Spanish to a cleaner that came in a couple of nights. I probably spoke in something else, I don't know. But he said I'd used too many languages and that's how he worked it out. And... my reaction had proved him right."
"So what happened then?"
"I started yelling at him. He knew that it was rare, he knew everything. And then he told me what he had planned for Natalia..."
"Which was?"
"He was..." Taylor stopped to take a deep breath and close his eyes, "he was going to impregnate her with a clone of me. He was sure after she miscarried a few times it'd eventually work. He said he needed to do it because I refused to give in and just comply with their needs. Then we got into another argument because I insisted he didn't have the patience to wait until the child was old enough. He of course had the upper hand, as usual."
"After the fight, what happened?"
"He left the room. And he took it out on Jane. I didn't see him again that day."
"The following day was the 25th July, 2003. Explain what happened on this day."
Taylor took another deep breath.
"Well I was being brought back from a bathroom break. They were about to restrain me in the chair again. I was so sick of it. I was fighting back and I didn't realise that Blakesley was even in the room. I accidentally hit him in the face. He demanded they restrain me to the wall, so they did. Then they started whipping me."
His voice was gradually getting quieter, as if he was only remembering - not relating.
"Eventually it just became too much. I finally found the guts to use my other power," he started fiddling with his ring again absently, "I dusted the restraints, and I formed a hand pistol from the wall. I held it on Blakesley and the soldier, and they stood back. I restrained them by making the tiled floor form up and around their ankles. Then I fled the room in search of Jane. When I found her, she..."
He hesitated, again getting himself together. He realised his voice was starting to crack.
"She was naked. And restrained with things I don't even know the name of. I changed them into clothes for her and we went looking for Natalia. We found her and somehow found our way to the reception area. I held the gun on the lady there and had her open the main doors for us. When we got outside we found we were in the middle of a desert somewhere."
He shook his head.
"We didn't know what to do. So I started to make a dirtbike out of the sand. I made Jane and Natalia get on it, but by then I was too weak to follow them."
"By the use of your second power and ill practise?"
"Precisely. I collapsed as they rode away, and by then the soldiers had made it out and... they took me back inside."
"I'd like to advise the court that due to what is portrayed in Mr. Hanson's written statement..." the woman held up a few sheets of paper, "the following description of what took place inside the laboratories where Mr. Hanson was held will be rather graphic. We advise that should anyone feel it neccessary that they leave the courtroom now."
Taylor simply hid his face as they waited for a few people to depart the room. People were coming and going for the majority of the duration of the trial.
"Mr. Hanson?"
Taylor looked up.
"Please go on. Starting from when you were taken back into the laboratories."
Taylor gulped slightly.
"Blakesley was very, very pissed off," he shrugged, "and I was the perfect person to take it out on. Because it was my fault that... his prized subjects were now missing. I was taken back to that same chair and restrained again. They kept me awake so that I couldn't replenish my power and use it again. He told them not to gag me because, in his words, he wanted... 'to hear the screams'."
"What happened?"
"Well... they began with my feet," Taylor gulped a little, "they slit the webbing between my toes, and then literally skinned the soles of my feet."
There was silence in the courtroom for a moment, as if people were trying to comprehend it.
"Then," Taylor went on, unphased, "he sprayed them with mace and salt water. Then he got a small roller with spikes. He rolled that up my legs and stopped every now and then to mace that. Then he got a knife a heated it so the blade was basically white and touched it my ankle, burning it. He did this all the way around so it was basically an anklet. Then he got a couple of needles and poked them through this nipple."
Taylor indicated his right.
"Clips were attached to one of those needles from a generator and I was electrocuted. He cut deep around my other nipple," he indicated his left, "and then splashed salt water over them. Then he heated a dagger, like what he did with the knife and my ankle, and this time put it against the side of my neck."
He indicated where it lay.
"After that he put a posture collar on me. Which sort of held my head up so I couldn't move it. Then he cut lines into my arm and put alcohol over the wounds. Then he dripped liquid nitrogen onto my stomach and the soles of my feet were whipped."
He waited a moment. Noticing the courtroom was still in silence, he went on.
"Then I was hung from the ceiling," he added, taking another deep breath, "by the wrists. He took a knife and cut me all the way down the side. Then he had more more needles and stuck them through the skin on my side. Maybe fifteen of them, all the way down. Somewhere here he threatened to let soldiers rape me. I was still being argumentative. He heated the needles he'd inserted in my side with a lighter, and then froze them with some kind of spray. A lot of them broke. Then they put me back in the chair and kept me awake all night. That was it for that day."
He hesitated again, trying to remember the date.
"I'm guessing the next day was the 26th?" he stopped himself chuckling at the woman's inability to continue, "Blakesley started interrogating me about my power again in the morning. When I answered some of his questions he let me sleep. Not for long though. He woke me up again not long after and was asking about my power again. After that he began saying that he wasn't sure I'd fully paid the price for helping Jane and Natalia escape. I did something I shouldn't have done... and that was dust the posture collar they'd put on me. Realising I had that power back, Blakesley blindfolded me."
"That must have been even worse," the woman finally found her voice.
"Well... that was the idea. He got me on the shoulder and back with some kind of small whip. My back started bleeding again, so he heated some kind of metal thing and burnt my back to basically heal it. Then he made me stand up..."
"On your skinned feet?"
"Yeah. I'm trying to get this over with as quick as I can, I'm sure you understand," Taylor faked a smile, and the woman held her tongue.
"At first they only just got me to stand. Blakesley threatened that if I couldn't stand on my own he'd make me, so I tried as hard as I could. But then he whipped me across the stomach and I couldn't hold it. The soldier took me to the wall and my wrists were chained again. I hung from my wrists until they made me stand up again and put knives under my arm pits so I didn't fall. Then he started taking the needles out that he'd put in the day before, and trying to get the broken pieces out. Then he got a call..."
He hesitated, his face suddenly going blank.
"It was apparently an operative. Reporting that Jane had been found dead."
"But she hadn't?"
"I didn't know that," Taylor shook his head, "he convinced me she was dead. The only reason he took the blindfold off was to see the tears in my eyes. But then they let me down. He started blaming me. Telling me that if I hadn't have helped her out she'd have still been alive."
He grit his teeth.
"And I believed him, so I broke down. At one point he was leaning against the wall, and... I made the wall swallow his hand. I dusted the restraints. I dusted everything in that room. And then they shot me with another tranquiliser dart."
"Where were you when you woke up?"
"Hanging from the ceiling in a different room, much the same as the last," Taylor shrugged, "I was hit with a cane. He cut the webbing betwen my thumb and pointer finger here... He aimed to whip my hands but the whip was too heavy and he ended up laying a welt across my cheek."
He drew the line with his finger.
Then he... carved his initials into my back and filled them with ink. Like a tattoo. He kept going on about how this was art. And how I should carry his signature like any piece of art carried the signature of its artist. This was where I was really starting to get freaked. And I got my first death threat. Because I was continually saying I needed to get out of there and he told me the only way I'd be leaving was as ashes on the wind and no good to anybody."
He started absently biting his nails.
"So I began to doubt my own optimism. He literally stabbed me in the back and left the dagger there as he melted black wax and flicked it at me. Then he poured it down my back and ripped it off when it set. After that..." he shrugged, "he began asking about Dathrians again. And I gave him the information he wanted. Because I answered his questions, he left me alone. And he soon left for good. They pulled me down and put me in the chair again and kept me awake all night again."
"That was it for that day?"
Taylor nodded, "yes."
"The next day was the 27th of July, 2003. Explain what happened."
Taylor couldn't help but smile.
"I was taken off what they call the 'doctor's only' list. The soldiers on watch were about to have their way with me sometime that night. They took me out of the chair and handcuffed my hands behind my back. Before they could do anything, Tanya showed up."
He scratched his head.
"And Jane was there. And a healer. i thought I was hallucinating, but obviously I wasn't. I don't think I'd be here today if I was. I was healed and we began to head out of there. Ricardo showed up..."
"This is cleaner who spoke Spanish to you."
"Yes," Taylor nodded, "he didn't understand what was happening and I didn't get a chance to explain. He was trying to protect me and he got shot. He died in my arms."
He ran his fingers through his hair awkwardly.
"I just had to get out of there. So we got out. We went to wait at the vans and when Tanya got there i asked her to erase my memories."
"Why did you do that?"
"Because my younger sister in telepathic. I couldn't let her see any of that. That was my main concern. Jane kept her memories, but Tanya blocked mine. And then... we went home."
"Your next encounter with the defendant occured on the 31st of August, 2003. Can you relate that story to the court?"
"It was a concert," Taylor brushed over quickly, "I met a guy before the show and felt a slight prick as I shook hands with him. I figured it was an insect bite, because that was what it felt like. Natalia - who was with us - insisted she'd seen Blakesley and we assured her he couldn't be there. Toward the end of the set I started feeling sick and after the encore, when I left the stage, I passed out. When I woke up a healer was there and he told us I'd been poisoned. He pointed out the wound on my hand. And then Natalia showed up and told us Blakesley had told her to tell me he enjoyed speaking with me."
"Was that poison deadly?"
"I don't think so," Taylor shook his head, "but I definitely couldn't be sure."
"Your next encounter took place on the 15th of September, 2003. Correct?"
Taylor nodded.
"Would you relate that story?"
"There's not much to tell with this one," Taylor shrugged, "he came to see us at our hotel. When they said someone was there to see Jane, Natalia and I, I had a bad feeling about it so I went alone. He approached me in the lobby and we spoke. Mainly about Jane's pregnancy I think... He threatened us of course. I soon realised his arms were in casts and turned to face him, and he was surprised about how I'd been healed. He pointed out a few things he'd done, like whipping me on the face."
Taylor shook himself a little, as if waking himself up.
"I basically told him that he wasn't in a position of power and walked away."
"Do you have anything to add about these three encounters with the defendant?"
Taylor just shook his head.
"Very well," she sighed to herself and turned to look between the judge and the video camera, "tomorrow we will be covering encounters taken place on the 21st of September 2003, 15th of December 2003, 21st of December 2003, 26th of March 2004 and the 15th of April 2004. Thankyou Mr. Hanson, you may step down."
Taylor looked around for a moment, before standing from his seat. The security guard opened the door and Taylor stepped through, quickening his pace as he made his way back his brothers and the next witness was called.
"Let's get out of here," he insisted in a whisper, so as not to disturb the next candidate.
Isaac, Zac and Tad
Isaac, Zac and Tad silently rose and followed Taylor out of the courtroom.
"You okay?" Isaac asked as soon as they were clear.
Taylor
Taylor just nodded, feeling very awkward all of a sudden knowing what his brothers - and Tad - now knew.
"Maybe now is a good time for food," he attempted to lighten the mood.
Zac, Isaac and Tad
"Yay!" said Zac cheerfully. "More chocolate muffins!"
"Well," Isaac said ruefully. "It's closer to lunch. Maybe something a bit more susbstancial?"
"But... but... chocolate muffins!"
"Zac, you're acting like one of your children."
"Who do you think they got it from?"
Tad rolled his eyes.
Taylor
Taylor just nodded before loosening his tie.
"Let's just grab something and get out of here," he insisted.
Zac and Isaac
"Okay," said Zac. "This way."
Zac lead the group, honing in on the kiosk where he and Isaac and previously bought food.
"I don't know what you guys want," Zac said, "but I'm getting more chocy muffinses."
He promptly lined up. Isaac shook his head and lined up for some more food too.
Taylor
"Just get me something hot, ok?" Taylor asked - mainly to Ike.
"I'll wait outside."
He glanced at Tad, then began to head out.
Isaac, Zac and Tad
"Okay, cool," Isaac replied.
Tad followed Taylor out.
Once again, Zac and Isaac loaded themselves up with foodstuff and soon went after Taylor.
"Chocy muffin goodness!" were Zac's greeting words.
Isaac shook his head and gave Taylor a hot paper bag.
Taylor
"Where's Tony?" Taylor asked, looking around as he took the bag.
"I really, really need to get out of here. Anyone know where he went?"
Isaac and Zac
"Nope, no idea," Zac replied. "Does he have a mobile?"
"Given that he's a teleporter both by power and trade, he probably does," Isaac said.
Taylor
"Fine."
Taylor quickly pulled out his cell and messaged Tony. Possibly the fastest he'd ever done it.
It wasn't long before he showed up.
"Ready to go?" he asked with a smile.
"Dying to go," Taylor insisted.
Zac and Isaac
"Not literally, I hope," Zac grinned. "Cause y'know... dead Taylor... not something I want to deal with just now."
"Zac?"
"Yes Ike?"
"Put one of those chocolate muffins in your mouth right now. Seriously."
"Is that your way of telling me to shut up?"
"Yes."
Taylor
"Yes, yes, please do," Taylor insisted as Tony cleared his throat.
"Ready?"
"Ready and waiting."
They were soon teleported.