(This is directly after _All The Answers_. It’s in my State Stories where the teens are experiments, named after the state they are from. I haven’t written in this world for a bit so just wanted to put this here!)

———

Her anger is red hot. It burns through her body and manifests in a mental storm of emotions and a literal storm in the room.

“Ness, we’re all angry, but we need you to calm down,” Penny shouts.

Why is she shouting?

Then Ness blinks and takes in her surroundings. 

It’s like a hurricane. High winds spinning around her, only beginning two feet above the ground, somehow not disrupting the files on the ground. Rain, hail, and lightning mixes into the wind. It avoids her but not her friends. 

Tex is shielding Landon and Penny. From her powers.

Immediately, she tampers down her emotions, burying the rage, the bitterness, the sadness. Everything. Until it is a dull ache in the back of her skull.

“I’m sorry,” she breathes out.

Thankfully, their barn hideout isn’t too messed up, her abilities only revolving around herself. 

“It’s not your fault. It’s Marken’s fault,” Tex grumbles, wiping water from his face with his shirt. She can recognize a similar anger in his eyes. They always have connected in their negative emotions. 

“I’m still sorry,” she repeats since she feels like it’s the right thing to say. 

Penny gives her a soft, forgiving smile. One that makes you feel like everything might just be ok. Even when that’s not even possible.

They all sit back down, not caring that the ground is wet and seeping into their clothes.

They’ve dealt with worse. 

The experiments were painful, excruciatingly cruel and long. This is just uncomfortable.

They’ll dry.

The scars will not.

When they are focused back on the files which managed to stay dry, Landon asks, “Do you want us to call you Noor?”

Noor Kessel.

That’s Ness’ real name. But yet, it doesn’t feel right. 

Getting a glimpse of herself in a puddle next to her, she just doesn’t look like a Noor. Her hair is wild and her cheeks tear stained. She looks like a mess. 

“Just call me Ness. Just for right now,” Ness answers. 

She’s not sure she’ll ever get used to her real name. It needs to sink her teeth into the information a bit more. Maybe then, she’ll remember and it’ll feel more her.

“Apparently my name is Jonah,” Tex says, his eyes on his file. 

The folder that says _Subject Texas_ is firm in his grip, so much so that his knuckles were turning white with the force. Ness is surprised it doesn’t rip in his grasp. He must be holding back. Since he could rip through metal like it was that paper.

“Doesn’t sound quite right,” Landon comments. “I’m not even sure I want to know mine.”

“What do you mean?” Penny asks.

“Well it seems as though our families that we can’t even remember were dealt with. Do I really want to know about people that are dead? Lose them again?”

“It’s awful,” Ness finds herself whispering. She can picture her mom from her amusement park memory. And now knowing she’s dead sends something through her body. Something that makes her seize up and sting at her eyes. 

“But it is what we did all this for,” Penny points out, looking longingly at her own file. “You can open yours,” Tex snaps. He shuts his own sharply, not saying a word more of his. 

He doesn’t have to for Ness to understand.

Their files aren’t the answer to who they are.

These experiments changed them. For the worse or for the better, Ness will never know. But change nonetheless. 

The question is, what do they do now?