EOF's Whateley Stories Generation 2
by: Enemyoffun
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Business as Usual
by: Enemyoffun
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Saying it to myself was a lot easier than actually living it. That didn’t stop me from taking a breath before walking up the steps of the overly imposing building in front of me. Which if you’ve ever walked up anything in heels, you’ll know is no easy task. The heels were unfortunately not my idea. My roommate Gracie thought that they’d make a better impression. It didn’t matter that I already got the job. Gracie was all about trying to make a good first impression. She worked for an online fashion zine though so it was kind of her job. The whole outfit I was wearing was her doing as well. She told me I needed to look professional, not “roll out of bed” yuck. The thing is, I didn’t feel professional, I felt uncomfortable.
I was a T-shirt and Jeans type of girl.
That only made Gracie’s job harder.
She was determined though.
The pant suit I was wearing was too tight in places and not tight enough in others. Thankfully I talked her out of putting me in skirt, no matter how good my legs might look. I missed my fatigues. I missed my routine too. Its one of the reasons I decided to take this job. They promised me a piece of what I lost six months ago. They also promised me a new beginning. One where I wouldn’t get stared at or pitied for what happened. It took me some time to accept. I didn’t want to leave the Corp. It was my life. Even if I didn’t make it as far as I would have liked, I still loved everyday of it. Leaving was the hardest thing I ever had to do.
I needed to give this a chance though because I didn’t really have a lot of options left for me now. The accident had robbed most of them from me. I sighed thinking about it, still standing on the steps staring at my future. A future I never would have imagined for myself a couple of years ago. My family was career military. My grandfather was a Marine too, so was my father and older brother, Mark. It was in our blood. I never wanted anything more than to serve. I spent my whole life preparing for it. In high school I was in a junior ROTC program. I grew up practically with a rifle in my hand. I won my first marksman trophy when I was twelve. I followed it up with several more.
It was my calling.
I enlisted right out of high school. After Boot Camp, I was sent to the Middle East. I wanted to be a sniper but women were just being allowed in combat. I was lucky to make it into a combat unit at all. I was the top shot in my class though, top marks. That at least earned me a little bit of respect. It didn’t stop them from putting me in support roles though. I was the only woman in the unit too, they called me “Princess”. It was demeaning and demoralizing. Things changed a month in. There was a mutant terrorist who called himself Suicide Bomber. He was blowing up our humvees for the past week, in the name of his one true God. We found him outside a small village. We thought we had the drop on him but he turned it around quickly. He was supposed to have impenetrable skin. So when push came to shove, I put a bullet into one of his eyes. Killing him gained me a lot of respect. The others stopped calling me “Princess” and started calling me “Raptor”. Suicide Bomber wasn’t the last. We weren’t the only country in the world who used mutants to fight their fights for them.
That’s when the accident happened. The mutant was called Acid Breath. He was a gun for hire. He caught us on a night patrol. He had some kind of active camouflage. We never saw him coming. He got two of us before he turned on me. He took my arm but not before I put a bullet in his head.
My career was over before it started.
Thinking about it, I flexed the fingers on my new left hand.
It felt wrong.
Sure the flesh looked real enough but I still knew it wasn’t. The skin was synthetic, the alloy underneath a mesh of nanoweave fiber and titanium. The best money could buy. Fully paid for by good ole Uncle Sam. My tour ended shortly after. I spent a lot of time reevaluating my life and what I found, I didn’t like. I dreamed about the Marines my whole life and when I finally achieved that dream, it was empty. The accident only made things clearer. I fell off the radar for a while after that. I spent a year bumming around the world, trying to find myself again. That’s when they found me. They said they were a pro-Mutant organization, interested in my skills. I turned them down originally until my little brother Jimmy manifested. It was a big adjustment for our family. Our whole views on the world shifted right then and there.
The thing is, its ultimately Jimmy, now Jenny, that convinced me.
They promised me if I agreed to their offer, they’d put her in a special school. They couldn’t tell me much about it, only that it was back East. They offered her a full four year scholarship. My parents were against it but I knew Jenny wasn’t happy. Some of her old friends were already starting to cause her some problems. It stopped being about me when one of the assholes tried to kill her. She and I talked. One of their agents came and talked to her too. In the end, she got a new school and I agreed to be assigned to a field office in Buffalo. Close enough that I could go to her if needed but not close enough that it seemed like I was spying.
I was trying to be the cool big sis after all.
It took me another month to finally make the move.
Gracie was an old friend of mine from school. She moved to NYC to make it in fashion, failed and made it as far as Syracuse on her way back home to Ohio. I was graciously able to convince her to room with me in Buffalo. I promised an adventure. She promised to help me break away from GI Jane as she called it. Hey its not like I shaved my head or anything like that. I did keep my hair short though. It was around my ears now actually. It wasn’t my only issue though. My eyes were a pale blue now. I was told it was one of the side effects of the acid bath I received. The doctors still weren’t sure how it happened. Gracie loved them though. She told me it gave me even more character. I tried to hide them behind dark shades whenever I could. Back home a lot of people stared. Some of them even called me a mutant. Thankfully I grew up in a pretty welcoming town, no H1ers to foul things up.
“Miss Fairchild?” asked a voice as someone came down the steps toward me.
I perked up. “Yes?”
It was a woman, dressed very similar to me I might add. She had a welcoming smile and bright pink hair. I wasn’t expecting that. Sure I was told that mutants worked here but it just never really sunk in until now. As she got closer, I noticed that her top barely contained her large chest.
“Hi, welcome to Buffalo” she said, holding out a hand. “I’m Courtney Knox but around here they call me Allure.”
Allure?
Understatement of the century.
I shook her hand. “Its nice to meet you.”
She smiled. “Likewise. Everyone here has been dying to meet you. If you’ll follow me, I can help you get processed.”
I smiled and took another deep breath.
Then I started to follow her up the stairs.
As we got closer to the building, my nervousness only grew. This was it, no turning back now. Deep breaths, Clara. Courtney seemed to notice my apprehension because she gently touched my elbow. As soon as she did, I felt so much better. It was as if she had a magic touch. With a name like Allure, I couldn’t help but wonder if she did. She smiled warmly at me again then stopped to open one of the glass doors for me. We stepped inside, through a metal detector and finally into a large foyer that reminded me a lot of an FBI field office I once visited in Toledo on a school trip.
Looking at the floor, I saw the familiar logo emblazoned in the marble.
“Agent Fairchild” she said with an authoritative tone. “Welcome to the DPA”
I gulped.
“Thanks” I said, letting out the breath I’d been holding. “Great to be here.”
“And this is your work space”.
We finished my tour in a large office space. It was filled with rows of cubicles. We were currently at one that looked just like the rest. I smiled and thanked her. She left me alone, wandering back toward the elevator. I’m not going to lie, I watched her walk. It was hard not too. I knew of some mutants who picked codenames that had nothing to do with their powers. Courtney hit her name on the nose. She was by far the most alluring woman I’d ever seen. It wasn’t her breasts either though those were pretty nice. Allure had the whole package and it was very hard to ignore. The whole tour I found myself mesmerized by her. She caught me more than once and giggled, touching my arm, telling me it was “part of her charm”.
Literally apparently.
She had some of kind of pheromone that made her irresistible.
It was just starting to wear off and I could finally think straight again. I still couldn’t stop smiling. She reminded me of a girl I used to date in high school---Tanya---who was bubbly and could dazzle people with her “wits”. She wasn’t the brightest girl but the things she could do with her…
“Hey” said a voice as someone came sauntering up to my desk.
I looked and saw a tall guy, slicked back hair, wearing an award winning smile.
“I’m Martin, Martin Goodman. You’re the new girl, right?”
He was handsome in that smarmy kind of way.
I nodded. “Cor...I mean Clara Fairchild.”
He smiled. His teeth were so white.
I still wasn’t used to referring to myself without my rank attached. You can take the girl out of the Marines but apparently not the Marine out of the girl. I smiled politely at him, hoping he’d take the hint and leave. The last thing I needed was another complicated relationship. I left my last one in Peru. Both of them. Funny thing is, I got an email the other day, they were now dating each other. Strange how the world works these days. They were happy though, that’s all that mattered in the end.
“So rumor has it you’re Corp?”
Go away.
“I was once.”
“I bet there’s a story there” he said, still smiling and now leaning on my cubicle.
“There is.”
“I’d love to hear it sometime, maybe over...”
“GOODMAN” shouted a female voice from somewhere. “Stop rubbing against the new girl’s leg and get back to work!”
There was a lot of laughter from around us.
Goodman’s face flushed the same color of his tie then he quickly disappeared.
I peeked my head up, trying to see who saved my butt but no one rose to meet me.
My Mystery Savior shall remain a mystery for now.
I settled back down, taking a look at my new workplace. I sighed. This was the last thing in the world that I wanted. I stared at my little cubicle, at the computer and tiny desk. This was going to be my home away from home for the foreseeable future. Or until someone in HR realized that they made some kind of mistake. Thankfully I was told not to expect much time here. I didn’t really know a lot of what was going on but the person who recruited me told me the desk was a cover. In fact, my position in the Department of Paranormal Affairs was something that looked good on paper.
That’s all it was meant to be too.
As far as my bosses in this office knew, I was a new rookie straight off a very stressful tour of duty with the Marines. It wasn’t a lie either. One look at my left hand was enough to tell that. After my voluntary discharge and drinking my way through Europe, I’m not sure how I was able to stand on my own two feet. By the time I reached Peru, I was pretty much at rock bottom. Roman and Tia were the only two things that brought me out of it. I met them at a nightclub and at first what was lust turned into something much more substantial. They helped me put my life back together. It was through them that I eventually ended up meeting The Directorate.
I was reluctant to talk to them at first.
I was angry at the world and blamed the government for my accident. I knew it was foolish but at the time I needed someone to blame. They were a persistent group though. They vetted me, had been watching me for weeks and were determined to help me help them. When they told me who they really were and what they really did, I’m not going to lie that I wasn’t surprised. It was long time expected that there were groups like them. Clandestine groups that worked for mutant rights, inserting themselves into various government agencies to make sure their goals would succeed. There was a great deal of precedence for it as well. After all, with the MCO out there causing havoc, mutants needed someone.
I never considered their offer until after Jimmy manifested.
When I was approached in Peru, I figured they were some kind of hippy, “Save the Mutants with Peace and Love” type group. It became very clear to me that they weren’t. I asked around, some of my father’s old buddies had heard some stories. Even Dad knew a few. It was clear that they meant business and that they were sincere in their goals. When they offered Jenny a full ride to Whateley, my father warned us of the dangers that kind of “offer” might entail. Dad was a pretty by the book Marine. He loved his country. I respected him for that, I really did. The problem with said country though was how they let organizations like the MCO and Humanity First to exist in the first place. My father wasn’t a bigot but he wasn’t about to badmouth his Red, White and Blue either.
Jenny and I made the choice ourselves.
The folks still weren’t talking to me.
I could live with that if it meant my sister was some place safe.
Someplace where her so called friends didn’t try to turn her over to the MCO.
Someone knocked on the side of cubicle, breaking me from my thoughts. I turned and found myself staring at a cute blonde. She gave me a warm smile.
“You’re the new girl, Clara, right?”
I nodded. “Fairchild.”
She introduced herself as Kate Shepherd. She was middle aged, wore glasses. She was also apparently my boss. Well the Section Chief. She just wanted to introduce herself and pass along my first bit of work. Work as it turned out would be nothing more than reading threat chatter from the last few months.
Joy.
“Its not very glamorous but then again we’re not really in a glamorous place.”
She left after that, leaving me with a flash drive.
I turned on my computer and after it slowly booted up, I plugged in the drive. A few seconds later, the screen filled with several lines of phone dialogue.
I groaned.
Was this what I gave up bar hopping in South America for?
Blah.
If I saw another spreadsheet or threat assessment, I was going to throw myself into traffic. Ok, not really but I think my eyes were starting to bleed. A week. I’d been working there for a whole week and it was all the boss lady kept putting on my desk. I understood I was the low girl on the totem pole but surely there were other things I could be doing. According to Agent Shepherd, it was all part of the process. Personally I was convinced she was pushing off her job on me. As it turns out, the Buffalo office wasn’t very active. It definitely wasn’t my first choice. From what I could figure, the agency couldn’t figure out where to place me. At least that’s what the official reasoning was.
I had other orders too.
I was on standby.
The Directorate appeared to work on a case by case method. I was here until I was needed. Then they’d move me as they saw fit. At least that’s what they told me a few months ago when I was recruited. I was technically a field operative but I still wasn’t sure why. I didn’t have the experience for this kind of work. In the Marines I was a glorified guard. Those two kills of mine were pure luck. The second one was desperation. I’m not even sure how I pulled it off actually. The only thing it earned me was a pat on the back. There was a lot of talk though. The brass wanted to move me onto other things. I was excited about the prospect but it felt like they were pitying me too. I spent months trying to convince them I was good enough. Not only worthy after I bled for my country.
I wanted to be there on my own merit.
Not because they felt they owed me.
So I left.
It was the beginning of the rift between my father and me.
It had the opposite effect on my relationship with Jenny.
When she was still my brother, I’ll admit we were never close. Not only because of the ten year age difference between us either. Jimmy had declared himself a pacifist. My mother’s parents ran a Buddhist retreat in California and Jimmy had become engrossed with it all. I’m not saying there was anything wrong with it but in our family, it was a little weird. What with three of us in the Corp already, Jimmy was always the odd man out. It only got worse when he declared himself a Buddhist when he was twelve. Dad wasn’t sure what to make of it. I was in the Middle East at the time when Mom told me. To say I was not surprised was an understatement. It was a weird thing for our family but I didn’t hate him for it.
I respected him for being his own person. I just didn’t understand it in the least.
A lot of that changed when Jimmy manifested.
I never really knew how much I wanted a sister until I had one.
I’m not a girly girl. Never had been. I was never one of those girls that dreamed of having a sister who could go shopping and talk boys with either. I was happy with having brothers. I was the daughter my mother wanted and I could wrap my father around my finger if I needed. Its strange really. When Jimmy became Jenny nothing about her changed. She still said she was a Buddhist, she still declared herself a pacifist but there was something different about her too. Not just because she was an Avatar and housed a spirit. It was her whole being. Jimmy used to be pretty outgoing. He liked to roll around in the dirt, throw mud, jump in puddles. As Jenny he was more reserved and downright timid.
Strangely, I liked her a lot better this way.
Not that I didn’t like my brother, I did. For a while I thought for sure that liking Jenny more made me a bad person but something happened. She hugged me one day. It was out of the blue and strange but when it happened, something inside of me just broke. For a while I was convinced that the Spirit was somehow influencing her, making her act this way. I was scared it was possessing her and taking her over completely. There were times when she spoke and it felt like the words coming out of her mouth were not her own. When she hugged me though, I found my brother again. Jimmy was a hugger. Jenny was too reserved to do so. When the hug happened though, I knew everything was going to be all right.
Unfortunately for her, I wasn’t the only one who thought she changed.
Kids can be cruel.
I HATED myself for not being there when it started.
I ended it though.
Then I made sure she was safe.
“Excuse me” said a voice from my left. “Is this seat taken?”
I was sitting at the bar, nursing my mug of beer. I hadn’t taken a sip yet. My mind was too preoccupied from the mush of work. Turning I caught a gorgeous site. I’m not going to lie, my eyes went right to her boobs. They were huge, about to burst out of the tight top she was wearing. The tight jeans were nice too. Her most alluring feature though was the hair: it was blue, it looked like it was glowing too. Of coruse that was probably the light. She sat in the stool next to me, not waiting for the invitation she asked for.
“Just give me what she’s drinking” she said to the bartender before turning to me, holding out a hand. “Hi, I’m Tina.”
“Clara” I said, shaking her hand.
Tina giggled. “I like the Asian ones, so cute.”
I flushed.
I had enough of my mother’s Asian features to be considered exotic. It did get me a lot of drinks. I guess tonight was another one of those nights.
“But only one fourth, right?” she said, still holding my hand. “On your mother’s side. Your father is of English descent.”
I nodded, looking into her eyes.
They were glowing.
I was mesmerized.
A second later, I blinked.
Wait, how did she know that?
She laughed. “Sorry, I needed to be sure” She let go of my hand. “Its why they send me, its my thing.”
I blinked. “They sent you?”
“Our mutual benefactor” she said, bringing forth a bag I didn’t notice before.
She pulled out a large envelope, placing it on the bar top.
I looked at it, staring. Then looked at her, shocked.
“Wait, you’re my contact!”
She smiled. “Allow me to properly introduce myself. My name is Tina Royce, your handler I guess is the proper term. From this day forward, your assignments will come through me.”
She placed a phone on top of the enveloper. “One of our devisors whipped up this baby. Its encrypted, can’t be traced except by us. Has all the bells and whistles as they say.”
I continued to stare at her. Last night, I got a phone call. The person on the other end told me to come to this bar and wait. It was all they would say. I suspected it had something to do with a contact. I was told to expect one. When The Directorate set me up with the DPA, they told me it was more or less a cover. The badge would help me get through the proper doors. My real job was working for them. They didn’t exactly operate in an official capacity. They had their hands all over the place though. They protected mutants. It was their number one goal and in this shifting world, it was a good one to have. Mutants needed all the friends they could get these days. The MCO was getting more dangerous. It was filled with psychopaths and deviants. Humanity First was just as bad. They were winning too. That was the dangerous thing.
The Department of Paranormal Affairs once had a larger foothold but they failed. They were now trying to regroup and rebuild. The Directorate was helping them do that. I found it strange that the DPA didn’t realize it either. The Directorate worked in the shadows and told me they preferred it that way. It made me wonder how long they’d been spying on me? When they recruited me, they told me I was what I was exactly what they were looking for. My year abroad had made me an asset. I bounced around the world, made friends in low places. I was always good at things like that. I was a people person. I liked to talk and I was friendly with everyone. There was something else too, something I didn’t like to share. It was almost as if I knew things. I’m not sure how else to describe it. I used to call it “going with my gut”. I could walk into a situation and know where the trouble was. I either ignored the trouble if I wanted to stay out of shit or walk right into it if I was looking for a fight. Its how I knew Suicide Bomber was going to be where he was the split second before I killed him. Its also how I knew Acid Breath was going to attack before he did. Unfortunately my reaction time was a little slow on that last one. It cost us two lives and me, my left arm. I beat myself up a lot after that. Its why I ran. Its why I came back too.
I got the very same feeling about Jenny.
The Directorate could take all the credit they wanted about dragging me back but it was my sister who saved my life. Then I saved hers.
“So what’s the assignment?” I asked, taking the folder and phone.
“Its all in there” she said, pointing to the envelope.
I frowned, she laughed.
“I’m also an empath, Miss Fairchild, pouting is not going to work”
I stopped. “Not even a tiny hint?”
She sighed. “We need you pick up someone, take her to safety. That’s all that I’m at liberty to say without a proper briefing.”
“What’s my time table?”
“You leave tomorrow morning, 0500 hours.”
Wow, that wasn’t a lot of time. I had worse though.
I checked my watch. I didn’t have a lot of time at all. Grunting, I looked at my beer. Guess I wasn’t drinking that tonight. Shame. I hated letting a good drink go to waste. I left the stool, realized that Tina wasn’t going to follow and sighed again. Here I thought I was going to get lucky, apparently it was all work and no play for her. Another shame. I started for the door, opening the envelope as I did. As I walked, I slid an ID out. I scrutinized it as I walked and grunted.
Rebecca Howe, MCO.
Well this just got very interesting.
I scrutinized myself in the mirror. You can do this, Clara.
I sighed, straightening the front of my shirt. I shouldn’t be nervous but I was. I mean its not every day that one pretends to be an agent of an evil organization out to rid the world of mutants. No pressure right? I gulped. I’d heard a lot of stories about the MCO in my unit and none of them very good. Quite a few of my fellow Marines had mutants in their family. We even had one or two mutants on the squad. The MCO and Humanity’s First were frequent topics around meal time. No one shed good light on them. They were psychopathic bullies with a lot of funding. They pushed their massive weight around and made mutants disappear.
The Boogeymen.
And they wanted me to join them.
Well, not officially.
Thank God.
I managed to get a bit of sleep last night after the bar but only an hour or two. Waking this morning, I took a long look at the information in my folder. Like I discovered last night, it contained my cover identity. One that should hold up under light scrutiny but that’s about it. As far as I knew it was official MCO credentials but my false name wasn’t in any of their databases. It was a surface identity. I was supposed to sell it enough so they wouldn’t second guess me. I practiced it a few times in the mirror after the shower too. I decided that Rebecca Howe was a Becca and NEVER a Becky. She was young, by the book and bigoted enough to pass for a scumbag. I was just hoping it was enough.
A girl’s life was at stake after all.
A girl I recognized.
Her name had come across my computer last week. She was in one of those threat files. Riley Spencer, age fifteen, recently manifested. She was at a Pro-Mutant rally in the city when a group of young H1ers decided to take their “peaceful” protest to the next step. Miss Spencer was one of the fortunate ones. She got away with a few cuts and bruises. According to the report, she actually started to manifest at the rally. Not a full blown burn out but enough to draw the attention of the H1ers. The local authorities were able to stop the violence before it got out of hand. The H1ers were arrested and Riley became a key witness.
The Directorate’s file on her was pretty extensive.
They had her eye witness testimony as well as a thorough background and psych evaluation on the girl. The doctor who spoke to her made some notes, he seemed concerned about Riley’s honesty. According to the report, the girl had a lot of deep seated anger. Her background told me she was the second daughter of superheroes, her father was Carson Spencer aka Tidal Wave, formerly of The Good Neighbors out of Buffalo. He was deceased. Died on duty while assisting the Coast Guard in a hurricane rescue in The Gulf. Her mother, Gloria, was retired. She left active duty when her first daughter, Summer, was born. She was known by the codename Charmcaster. They even had a small write up on Riley’s older sister, Summer. She would be a junior at Whateley Academy in a days time.
That made me smile.
Its the school that The Directorate were sending Jenny to.
It was also the place where Riley was going as well. On her own merit though. That’s where things got a bit complicated though. Riley was meant to go to the airport this morning under DPA escort. She ran away two nights ago. Somewhere in that time, the MCO intercepted her. The Directorate had an agent inside, deep undercover. According to his reports, they planned on moving Riley this morning. He was convinced they had no intention of letting her go to the school. They were arranging an “accident”. The agent didn’t know the details, only that Riley’s life was in danger.
That’s where I came in.
It was my job to insert myself into the extraction team, asses the situation and protect the girl. If necessary, I was authorized to use force. Looking in the mirror still, I couldn’t help but smile at that thought. The Marines had trained me well but I went into the Corp knowing a lot already. Not only did I have the marksmen trophies to back me up since junior high but I had the martial arts training too. Being his only daughter at the time, my father wanted to make sure I could protect myself. I’d been learning how to fight since I was eight. I’d been shooting since ten and for the last few summers of high school I had survival training in the woods all over the country. In other words, I knew how to take care of myself.
I would have no problem protecting this girl if need be.
A gentle knock on the door drew me from my thoughts.
“Clara, your ride is here.”
Gracie.
She didn’t much like being up this early but I’d make it up to her as soon as I got back. I knew this little bistro she loved. Just two friends getting a bit to eat. It might have been something more once but she moved on a long time ago. She was dating some artist. They met at Kane’s Art Gallery, it was love at first sight. At least that’s how Gracie tells it. I was happy for her, she deserved someone better than me. Raya treated her well too. They were already talking about moving in together. Which meant I’d probably have to find a new place soon.
Grunting, I walked out of the bathroom.
Gracie was in her robe, lounging on the couch. Her caramel colored skin and long legs as intoxicating as ever. I’m not going to lie, the girl still made my heart skip a beat.
“Looking tough girl, what’s the occasion.”
I couldn’t tell her the actual truth. As far as Gracie was concerned, I was a desk jockey at the DPA. I hated lying to her but there were only a handful of people who actually knew what I really did for a living.
“Nothing glamorous I’m afraid” I said with a huff. “Early morning inventory and guess who gets stuck doing the heavy lifting.”
Gracie frowned, nursing her cup of coffee.
“You regret it?”
I shrugged.
Honestly I had no idea.
I’m not going to lie. I missed the corp. I could have stayed, I should have stayed. A large part of me felt less than human now. Flexing my fingers, I sighed. The arm was connected cybernetically to my nervous system. There were synthetic nerves firing, signaling my brain that my fingers were wiggling. I could feel it but I knew it wasn’t real. When I took a shower or touched the fake flesh, I could feel that as well. It was all there but it was still an illusion. My real arm was gone. I spent three months with a shrink at the hospital, talking about it. She wanted to make sure I didn’t have some lasting effects from the incident. After I was finally given a clean bill of heath, I checked myself out. I tried going home but all the smothering was too much.
That’s why I left to travel.
I concerned a lot of people, Gracie included.
When I came back, I thought she was going to kick my ass.
I would have let her.
She was determined not to leave my side again. She was the one who suggested we move in together here. I hated that she uprooted her whole life to do it but she told me it was going nowhere fast. She found a job here. It wasn’t as glamorous as New York City but it helped pay her half of the bills. We were making it work, piecing together or lives. Gracie had an easier time at it but we were doing it.
The car beeped downstairs.
“Well I gotta go. I’ll see ya later.”
I waited as the man the agent in front of me finished reading the letter I handed to him. It was fake but it was authentic enough to fool anyone. I also knew if he called it in, one of The Directorate’s people would intercept the call and confirm it. By the time they realized they were fooled, Riley would be on a plane to New York City. That didn’t stop me from being nervous though. There was a lot of dangerous risk here and I’d never done anything like this. Thankfully our intel from the inside was good so far. He phoned in the location as I was driving. The MCO were keeping Riley at a small safe house on the West side of the city. It wasn’t the best part of the city either. It was almost as if they picked it personally because of the high crime rate here.
I couldn’t help but wonder if they planned on killing her here or elsewhere?
The agent grunted, handing me back the letter.
“They never tell me anything” he said, looking at his female partner. “Willows, call it in”.
Just like clockwork.
Thankfully our agent on the inside was embedded enough to know the In’s and Out’s of the operation. He’d been feeding The Directorate useful info for months. Nothing this big or solid though. It was a strange set of circumstances that led Riley to us. There was something else going on too. I hated walking into something blind like this. In the Corp I was a good soldier and followed orders but that didn’t stop me from questioning them. Especially the ones given me. My father would tell me its not my job to ask questions even if something didn’t make sense. The thing is, this wasn’t the Marines anymore. If something didn’t feel right, I was going to be overly cautious about it.
Like now.
It got me thinking.
Why Riley?
Why now?
The only thing I could think of was the timing. A group of teenagers was flying into JFK today. It was a small change over flight for them. From there they would hop a plane to Berlin, New Hampshire. Riley was supposed to be on that flight. At least that was the official plan. The MCO had other ones. They planned to make her disappear somewhere in transit. It was the next part I didn’t like though. Instead of stopping it, The Directorate wanted me to allow it to happen. Not because they wanted harm to come to her but another reason entirely. They wanted to see where she went. A lot of mutants had disappeared in MCO custody over the years and The Directorate was taking a more proactive role in stopping it.
I didn’t like it.
It felt wrong.
I thought the whole point of me being here was to rescue this girl, not let them take her.
“Howe?”
It took me a third time of hearing that name to realize I was being spoken too.
Crap.
“Yes sir” I said to a very annoyed man.
“You check out” he grumbled.
Then starting mumbling about bureaucratic bullshit. I don’t think I was supposed to hear that part.
Regardless, he stepped aside and let me into the little house. The interior was dated, built probably around the turn of last century. Everything had a very cramped and narrow feel. Whereas the living room felt large, the hallway that led off it was thin and foreboding. I stood in the foyer, waiting for them to tell me what to do. In the meantime, I looked around for exits. It was all thanks to my father’s survival training. I’ll admit, I might have been a little paranoid. In this situation though, I had a right to be.
I was also starting to get one of my feelings again.
I suppressed it though. I did not suppress my nervousness though.
Which Agent Willows apparently saw.
“You nervous?” she asked in a polite tone with a raised brow.
I turned to her and nodded. “Sorry, its my first assignment.”
Which technically wasn’t a lie.
She smiled pleasantly but it looked forced. She seemed friendly enough but I had to remember that she and her partner were here to make Riley disappear. There was nothing friendly or truly pleasant about this woman. Looks could be deceiving though. It was clear they sent her for a reason. She was a beautiful woman. She was tall and leggy, a cute red head with a smattering of freckles across her nose. She was easy on the eyes and her top was just a bit tighter than it should be. She couldn’t have been much older than me either. She looked liked someone’s babysitter or older sister. That was the point too. It was clear that Willows was here to reassure Riley and lull her into a false sense of security.
They wanted Riley to be complacent.
Willows was giving me a look.
It was a calculating one. Though she smiled at me, her eyes told me everything. She was angry that I was here. With me here now, she was going to have to try harder to gain Riley’s trust. It made me wonder though. Looking around the house, it was clear that they only just arrived. Probably last night. Was this the pair that picked her up off the street? If they were, why was she trying to get Riley to trust her? Our intel told us they’d only be with her for a few hours more at the most. So why go to all the trouble? Unless of course, the rest of the intel was correct. They were really planning on taking her to some facility somewhere?
I bit my lip.
This was all dangerous.
“Well you don’t have to worry about this one, she’s a sweet girl for a Mutie.”
And there it was.
She both complimented and insulted Riley in one sentence.
Her partner scuffed. “Its a lie. None of them are sweet. You just remember that Rook and don’t turn your back to her. Ever!”
He stomped off down the hall, probably to retrieve this “evil backstabber”.
Agent Willows rolled her eyes. “A mutie killed his brother.”
And typical bigot, he damns them all for the actions of one.
Sounds about right.
I wanted to roll my eyes too.
A moment later, I saw them in the hall. They came out of the third room. The jackass was pushing a slip of a girl in front of him. Riley no doubt. As they got closer, I recognized her face from the picture we had on file. Today her light blue hair was covered with a hood but I knew it was there. She looked scared but was pretending not to be. She was a tough girl, the ring in her lip a clear sign. I was rebellious too. I remember when a couple friends of mine convinced me to pierce my bellybutton. I thought my parents were going to have heart attacks right on the spot. Then I almost died of embarrassment the next day when Dad dragged me into the mall by my arm and into the jewelry store, demanding they remove it. It healed up on its own a few months later but Dad never let me forget it.
“Keep moving” snapped the Jackass as she slowed down.
“I want my guitar, asshole!”
The agent looked like he was about to smack her. I twitched, ready to go for my gun. Undercover or not, there was no way I was letting him hit that kid. Thankfully, Willows shot him a threatening glance. No doubt telling him they needed her alive. Something about his body language felt off to me though.
“Pierce, easy. We’re not supposed to rough her up!”
The Jackass---Pierce---grunted and pushed Riley into the living room.
I wanted to comfort her but I knew how that would look.
She rubbed the back of her neck and her arm. As she was doing so I thought I caught a sight of blue on her wrist?
She glared at me. “What the fuck you looking at?”
Charming girl.
“This is Agent Howe, Riley. She’s here to assist us.”
Riley scoffed. “Whatever.”
“Nice to meet you, Riley. You can call me Becca” I said, holding out my hand.
I could pretend to be an MCO agent but there was no way I was pretending to be an asshole.
Pierce glared. “You actually want to shake its hand?”
I hated the way he said “It” like Riley was a thing and not a person.
“Yes, I was raised with manners.”
My hand was still held out for Riley. Reluctantly she took it and shook.
I made sure I was shaking with my right. I hated not feeling anything. Even though my new left arm was state of the art, it still felt like metal to me. I was told that the new flesh on it could feel things like touch and pain but I didn’t care. It still felt wrong to me. Almost as if it was something foreign and dead attached there. Ever since they put it on, things felt different. It was more than just losing an arm. It was like a part of me was gone. Without that part, something didn’t quite work. It was hard to explain. I tried to do for three months with a base shrink but she didn’t really understand. My parents didn’t understand either. Its one of the reasons I left.
When she let go, I saw her smirk.
While this little exchange was going on, Willows stepped further into the living room. She was on her cell, having some kind of heated conversation. I didn’t like what I was hearing.
I checked my watch, it was a little after nine thirty in the morning now. I cursed. Why did they make me wake up so early again? Thankfully Riley’s flight didn’t leave for another hour. Even though I was pretty certain that was never going to happen.
Willows cursed. “This is utter bullshit!”
“Something wrong?” I asked, trying to be both friendly and helpful.
“There’s some bullshit going on in New York. JFK is being shut down. No flights in and out.”
Pierce groaned.
Riley looked scared.
I watched the two MCO goons. Willows looked pretty pissed but Pierce seemed pretty calm about the whole thing. Too calm. I made a mental note to watch him.
“So what’s the back up then?” I asked, looking from one to the other.
They both gave me looks.
Shit.
“You have no backup?”
Pierce shrugged. “This was supposed to be a simple escort. Pick the girl up and drop her off.”
Riley scoffed.
I knew why she was scoffing. There was nothing simple about kidnapping a girl off the street. With the other two preoccupied with not caring, I gave her a quick once over with my eyes. Besides the bitchy attitude, she looked unharmed. I did notice a of dirt on the knees of her jeans that caused me some alarm. There also looked like dried blood under one of her nails. I noticed a healing scratch on Pierce’s hand earlier. I almost smiled, realizing that this girl didn’t go easily. I’m just glad she didn’t try to use her powers. There was nothing in the DPA file on them sadly. They didn’t have time to do a powers test before she was released. We weren’t able to get a copy of the MCO file on them either. There was a note in the report that The Good Neighbors did their own power testing on her.
There was a codename listed for her though.
Mist.
It intrigued me a lot.
“We have a drop off point, but...” said Willows, still on the phone.
She was looking at me while talking.
I felt it.
Something in the room shifted.
A moment later, she pulled her gun, pointing it right at me. Shit. I guess we didn’t plan for every possible situation ourselves. It was just my luck. I wasn’t really paying attention to the rest of her conversation but it was clear now that she mentioned me to her real superiors. The very same superiors whom Pierce thought he was talking to before. The superiors who told her that I did not exist.
Double shit.
“What the fuck is this?” snapped Pierce, glaring at his partner.
“Guess who was not sent from the home office!” she said, sneering.
Her gun was pointed for my chest.
Center mass, just like she was trained.
“Son of a bitch!” snapped Pierce, quickly pulling his own gun.
I could have reacted then. I should have reacted. Then I looked over at Riley. I could see the fear and the confusion on her face. I cursed. If I had reacted, she might have gotten hurt. This was all so fucked up now. My first mission and I blew it almost right out of the gate. I told them when they recruited me that I wasn’t a field tested and I definitely wasn’t cut out for this covert shit. They disagreed, told me they knew my record and all my accolades growing up. This type of work was exactly what I should have been doing all along. I wanted to laugh at how wrong they were. If I was so suited for this kind of work then why were two guns being pointed at me right now?
“Who the fuck are you!”
Pierce all but shouted at me as he took a step closer.
I watched him, waiting.
I needed to play this cool.
For Riley.
“Rebecca Howe, I showed you my badge. You called it in, remember?”
“Bullshit” snapped Willows, being smart and keeping her distance. “I asked about you, no one sent you. Who do you work for? FBI? CIA?”
If only.
“I work for the same people as you. There’s been a mistake” I said, looking Pierce directly in the eyes. “Call it in again”.
He took a hesitant step forward.
“Pierce, she’s playing you! I’m the senior agent here, let’s bag her with the freak and sort it out later.”
Pierce nodded, taking another step.
It was enough.
I’d had a lot of fight training in my life. Not just because I was the only girl in the family. My mother wanted me to be a ballerina because I was so small and dainty. I stuck with it for a couple of months. At the same time though, my older brother Brian was taking karate. I was mesmerized watching him practice his katas in the backyard. I started begging my parents to let me drop ballet and join Brian’s class. Dad thought it was funny at first but when he saw how serious I was about it, he finally caved. Mom wasn’t happy. She wanted the perfect daughter to do all the girly things with. I wasn’t her. I took to Karate like a duck to water. It wasn’t long before I surpassed even Brian. Dad was so impressed with me that he brought an old Marine buddy of his---Buck--- to the house to give me private lessons.
After a lesson or two, Buck decided I was a natural.
He convinced my parents to let him teach me at his Mixed Martial Arts gym in the city. Of course Mom was against it but Dad was over the moon. Buck kept up with the Karate but started to add other things as the years went on. I was an apt pupil. By the time I graduated high school, I was fairly competent in several forms of martial arts, including Judo, Muay Thai and Tae Kwon Do. Dad often joked that if my career in the Marines didn’t work out, I could always try my hand at vigilantism. Mom didn’t think it was funny. It was strange though. Add to that all the training I received in the Marines, I was like a weapon.
A weapon honed to do one thing.
Tear my opponent apart.
Pierce never saw it coming.
Most didn’t. At the Karate dojo, I was laughed at because I was so small. People who underestimated stopped laughing after the first beat down. I never got much taller than five four. I hated being so short but I used it to my advantage while fighting. Being smaller meant I moved quicker and could get closer to my opponent. I was below most men’s reach too.
When Pierce reached for me with his free hand, I grabbed his wrist, twisting his arm and quickly snapping it upward. There was a crack as I broke his radius. He screamed in pain before I pushed into his chest and utilizing my Judo, tossed him over my shoulder like he weighed nothing. I didn’t let go of his arm though and as soon as he was on the ground, I drove my knee into his throat. It was over in less than a minute. I was back on my feet with his gun before Willows even had a chance to blink.
“Drop it!” I snapped, pointing at her head.
An easy shot for me.
She smirked. “My back up is already on the way. You’re in over your head.”
She wasn’t lying.
They weren’t here yet though.
“Your gun. On the ground. Now!”
She smirked but she knew she was fucked at the moment. I wasn’t going to budge. Slowly, she undid her holster strap, removed her pistol and tossed it on the floor. I watched it drop out of the corner of my eye and she lunged. She was fast. She went right for the gun I was holding. She grabbed my wrist and tried to wrestle it away. It probably would have worked if I wasn’t holding it in my left arm. She tried disarming me too. She slammed her elbow into my forearm, hoping to break it and force me to let go. She screamed out in pain, her elbow shattering against the titanium. She stumbled backward, allowing me to clip her in the head with my right fist.
I dropped lowered, sweeping her legs out from underneath her with a quick kick.
She was down but not out.
She scrambled across the floor, trying to make it to her gun.
I shot at the floor in front of her.
“Don’t try it!”
She stopped moving.
“Holy shit” gasped the startled teenager.
I almost forgot Riley was here. Almost. She’s been hiding behind the couch the whole time. She was now on her feet, standing and staring. Both MCO agents were out of commission for the moment. I didn’t lower my gun though, keeping it trained on Willows.
“Riley can you do me a favor and get her cuffs.”
Riley didn’t hesitate.
She ran over to Willow’s bag on the coffee table. It was a little black duffel, the agent must have brought it with her. Instead of cuffs, Riley produced some zip ties. Without me even asking, she went over to Willows and with no concern for the woman whatsoever, pulled her arms behind her back and ziptied them there. Willows screamed out in pain. That arm probably hurt like hell.
Willows rolled over, struggling but finally getting herself into a seated position.
“They’re still on their way. You’re fucked!”
I ignored her. She wasn’t wrong. Riley and I needed to get out of here and fast.
“Riley, secure him too.”
She didn’t have to be told twice.
She was a brave kid. Most kids in her position would have fallen to pieces by now. It made me wonder what kind of life she’d led up to this point?
With Willows secure, I turned and watched Riley ziptie Pierce as well. Thankfully, he was still unconscious. I bent down next to him, pulling the keys from his pocket. I noticed their black SUV outside. At this point, we didn’t have a lot of options anymore. My plan was already blown wide open. I was burned. The enemy was on the way. I would be outnumbered and outgunned soon. The only viable option we had left was to run.
“You’re not with them, are you?”
“What do you think?”
“If I had to guess, I’d say you’re here for me?”
I smiled. “Well someone was supposed to go to Whateley. Then she ran away from home. Does that ring any bells?”
She sighed. “I never wanted...”
I stopped her. “We can talk later. Right now we need to leave.”
I felt it again.
There was something coming.
Something bad.
I turned and looked toward the door.
“Get your stuff. We really need to go.”
She nodded and jumped to her feet, running off down the hall.
“They’ll send a tactical team. They’ll be wearing power armor too. You think you can stand up to that?” Willows was trying to scare me.
I didn’t scare easily.
Once again, she wasn’t wrong.
“You’re going to what, run off in our SUV? They’ll track it. Then what?”
She was really starting to annoy me.
“I could put a bullet in your head, that might stop my current irritation.”
She scoffed. “All of this for one fucking mutie. Its pointless. Especially...”
She stopped herself.
She slipped up. She was about to say something important. Something she wasn’t supposed to say.
“Especially, what?”
She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. Kill me now. I’m a dead woman anyway. We all are.”
Riley came back into the room, carrying a backpack and a guitar case. She looked from me to Willows and back again. I smiled at her then walked over to where Willows has thrown her gun. I picked it up and walked over to Riley, biting my lip at what I was about to do.
“I need you to watch her. I hate giving you...”
Riley rolled her eyes and took Willows’ gun from my hand, pointing it at our captive.
“I got this.”
Like I said, tough kid.
Smiling, I walked over and slowly pulled Pierce to his feet. Grabbing him under his shoulders, I dragged him down the hall to the bathroom. I threw him in the tub and made sure I locked the door afterward. I quickly returned back to the living room, Riley still holding her newly required weapon on our new hostage. The girl was playing tough but I could she was scared too. Her hands were shaking. Taking the que, I slowly took the gun from her hand, ejected the clip and tossed the gun across the room.
“What the hell?” snapped the teenager.
I ignored her and instead went over and pulled Willows to her feet.
“This is your plan?” she grunted out a laugh. “You going to put me in the bathroom too?”
“No, you’re coming with us.”
She laughed. “You think they’re going to let us walk out of here? You have no idea what you’ve bumbled into here. This is way above the MCO, way above anything you can possibly think of. These people, they’re going to kill me then you then they’re going to take the girl. We can’t win.”
“Then start talking. Who are we dealing with?”
She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. Don’t you see, you’re not going to live to tell anyone!”
As soon as she said it, sirens starting ringing in the distant.
She laughed. “We are so fucking screwed.”
I started pushing Willows toward the door, using her as a shield. I gestured Riley behind me. My captive was still laughing. I’m not sure why she thought any of this was amusing. If we were going to die like she claimed then I was pretty sure she was losing it. What she said made me wonder though. If this wasn’t an MCO operation like she claimed then what the hell did I walk into? How much shit was I in?
“Tell me” I said, before I opened the door.
She stopped laughing. “They’re everywhere. They have their hands everywhere. I tell you, they’ll just kill you. Hell, you’re a Dead Woman Walking anyway. We both are. They don’t stop, nowhere is safe. Even if you somehow manage to get out of here, they’ll find you and kill you!”
“Who?”
She snorted. “The...”
POP.
It happened so fast. Whatever she was about to say was cut off in mid-sentence. The bullet went right through the little window on the front of the door and clean through her skull. Willows was dead in an instant. A moment later, another bullet went through the door, but it was wild and missed me. Riley screamed. I dropped Willows’ and went to the floor, pulling Riley with me.
The sirens were getting closer.
They weren’t the threat though.
There was a sniper out there.
There was more too.
I heard a vehicle pull up. Grabbing Riley, I dragged her out of the room and down the hall.
“What the fuck, what the fuck!”
I ignored her panic.
I needed to think.
I needed to get us out of here.
“Are there any other doors in this place?”
It took her a moment. “The kitchen maybe?”
I pulled her down the hall, ignoring her protest that I was hurting her arm.
We got to the kitchen. Sure enough there was a door there. Sighing, I made the distance pretty quick. I was almost to do the door when it was slammed open on its own. Riley screamed as a man in black tactical gear charged in, machine gun at the ready. I moved on pure adrenaline. I smashed my left palm into the faceplate of his helmet, shattering it. He staggered backwards, allowing me to put my pistol to his chest and shoot several rounds into his armor there, in the same spot. I was confident one of my bullets went through as he dropped to the ground.
Still holding her wrist, I pulled Riley into the backyard.
Another assailant was there.
They were well armored but not their feet.
I shot him in the foot. When he dropped to his knee, I grabbed his head and smashed into the concrete of the patio. There was a muffled scream as I rushed on. Two more came around the side of the house. When they saw us, they reacted quickly, blind firing in our direction. I felt a rubber bullet sting my shoulder. It hurt like hell. It told me something important though. These people wanted us alive. Staggering, I dropped to the ground. I switched my gun from my right to my left, catching it by the barrel as I did so. Coming back up, I slammed it handle first into the nearest one’s face. His helmet caught the impact. I used his own weight against him, grabbing the front of his suit and spinning him into his friend.
While the two man slammed into one another, I spun my gun around and put a round into the back of their necks, just below the base of their helmets.
They might be trying to take us alive but I wasn’t going to let them harm Riley.
I was tired of playing with them.
My right shoulder stung like hell but it could have been a lot worse.
Keeping the gun in my left hand, I motioned Riley to follow me as we slank slowly along the side of the house toward the front.
“You killed them” she gasped.
I stopped and turned toward her, talking in a low tone. “Listen to me very closely. These people are using nonlethal rounds. They don’t intend to kill us like Willows. They want us alive. I’m not going to let them take you. We’re going to walk out there, I’m going to stop as many as I can then you and I are getting in that SUV and getting the hell out of here.”
“I can help!” she said, raising her hand but I pushed it down.
“I can’t let you do that.”
She frowned but nodded.
We started moving again when she pointed something out.
“The sirens have stopped.”
I stopped a second and listened. She was right. I couldn’t hear the police sirens anymore.
I’m not sure I liked that.
I couldn’t let it distract me though. I needed to stay on target.
Right now, that was getting Riley out of here.
“Stay behind me” I said softly as I moved forward again, gun raised.
When I got to the edge of the house, I noticed two guards standing guard near their vehicle. Had I really taken out the whole squad or were their others waiting? No one was rushing us but I could feel that we weren’t in the clear yet. Taking a deep breath, I stepped around the side of the house. I snapped off two shots. One hit the closest guard, just below the right arm, a gap in his armor. The other bullet hit the second guard in the same spot I executed his friends in the backyard. They dropped to the ground. One dead, the other wounded. The wounded man tried to raise his gun but I shot his hand. I heard a muffled scream before shooting him in the neck too.
“Get in the MCO SUV” I said, tossing Riley the keys I took from Pierce.
She caught them in one hand and ran for the vehicle, keeping her head down.
I checked the clip of Pierce’s gun.
How many rounds had I fired?
I quietly counted.
Nine.
I had six left.
Reloading the clip, I walked toward the house. I could have just left it alone. After all, we could get in the SUV and drive. The thing was, I knew they’d come after us. They weren’t MCO either. I knew that the moment they started shooting at us. Those bastards would have never used rubber bullets. They also would have come at us in full power armor. These guys were something new and something just as equally dangerous. If I had to guess, I’d say private contractors. Maybe some kind of security detail that worked for a larger company. They were skilled, heavily armored and packing MP-5s.
They were also ill-informed.
They all seemed pretty surprised to see me and hesitated before firing outright. Which meant they probably thought I was MCO.
It told me that they were either working with either Pierce or Willows or they had orders not to harm the MCO agents.
They wanted Riley.
That much was for certain.
I wasn’t going to let that happen.
I moved slowly back into the house through the front door. Willows’ dead body still where I left it. Stepping over it, I kept low. There had to be one or two of these guys left now. They came in one vehicle after all. My biggest concern was that sniper. He meant to kill Willows, that much was obvious. He didn’t take a shot at either me or Riley though. It told me that Willows was always collateral damage. I needed to watch my back regardless though. I also needed to make this fast. Leaving Riley out there like that was stupid. It was only a matter of time before more came.
I searched the lower floor, checking all the rooms.
I even checked on Pierce. The door was open. They found him first. There was a bullet hole in his head.
These guys apparently weren’t taking any chances anymore.
I looked into the kitchen briefly before making my way back into the living room and up the stairs.
I found the first one at the end of the hall, his back to me.
Stupid.
I shot him in the back of the knee. There was another muffled scream before I put another round into the base of his skull like the rest.
The gunfire drew the last guy.
He came out of the next room, shooting. I dropped to the ground, rolling as I did so. A bullet grazed my left leg. They weren’t using their rubber rounds anymore. It stung like hell. Gasping, I barely managed to get away. Taking cover behind the wall, I dropped low and blind fired. I heard my bullet hit his armor, there was a distinctive thud sound. I snapped around the corner after that first shot. The shooter was staggered so I took the advantage and charged him, sliding across the carpeted hall. I slammed into his legs below the knees. He fell on top of me as we slid to a stop. I grabbed the front of his chestplate, rolled over so I was on top and stuck the barrel of my gun under his chin.
BAM.
I dropped his dead body, panting heavily from the exhaustion.
Done.
Staggering to my feet, I winced from the stinging pain in my leg. I hobbled my way down the stairs and slowly out the door. I caught sight of Riley in the front of the SUV and sighed. We weren’t out of the woods yet though. I kept my head low, trying to stay behind cover. I dropped low enough that my head wasn’t a target. I’m not sure what this guy was doing though. He had ample time to kill me. Was he toying with me or was he letting me escape? If it was the latter then why?
Trying not to think about it, I managed to make it to the vehicle.
Riley had the door open for me. I climbed inside, wincing a bit.
“You’re bleeding” she said, looking at my leg then, “Oh my god, you’ve been shot!”
“Grazed. I’ll be fine. We need to get out of here.”
I wasn’t fine though. It hurt like hell. So did my shoulder.
I had priorities now though.
Safety first, pain later.
Gritting my teeth, I started the truck. I pulled out the driveway, waiting for the bullet to come.
It never did though.
I had no idea why.
“Tina, we have a problem.”
There was a grunt on the other end of the line. “That’s an understatement. What part of covert did you not understand?”
I winced. I had her on speaker.
“Covert” gasped Riley from the backseat. “Like in spy, you’re a spy! That’s AWESOME!”
I heard Tina suck in a breath. “You put this conversation on speaker!”
“I’m driving!”
My handler groaned. I bet she was rubbing her temples too. I shot Riley a look though, she gave me an apologetic one in response. Well I guess the cat was out of the bag now. There was no point hiding it. So I quickly filled Tina in on everything that happened. Riley even helped a bit. When we got to the end of the story, Tina said nothing. At first I thought she actually hung up on me. After thirty seconds of silence, she responded with another sigh.
“This is really, really bad timing” she said, clearly exhausted. “There was an incident in Central Park a little while ago. Everyone is scrambling like chickens. All flights out of the city are grounded. The school has made other arrangements but not until tomorrow. You think you can get to Boston before then?”
I checked my watch. It was nearing noon now. We’d been driving in the MCO SUV for a couple of hours now. The city was long behind us now. We were on a secluded country road, heading East. I told her as much.
“Ok, we’ve triangulated the GPS on your phone. There’s a town about ten miles up the road. Ditch the SUV there. I’ll make arrangements for another vehicle.”
I nodded. Then looking to see if Riley was paying attention anymore, I picked up the phone and clicked it off speaker. “How bad is it?” I asked, realizing Riley was preoccupied with her own phone.
“They have an APB out for your arrest. The MCO has spun it that you’re a rogue agent who killed two of their own and kidnapped Riley.”
I smirked. Of course they did.
“And the others?”
“Gone.”
Wow, they cleaned up fast.
Whoever they are.
“Who are they?”
She didn’t respond for a bit but when she did, she sighed. “We’re not really sure. They could be a private firm, contracted by the MCO but...”
The MCO had their own men to do the dirty work.
They definitely weren’t MCO.
If I had to wager a guess, I’d say ex-military. If they’d been MCO, they would have made a big spectacle out of it. They would have gone in guns blazing and they would have been wearing those power armored suits. These guys were trying to remain low key, they were a small team. Very fast and very efficient. At least they probably would have been. I’m not sure they were counting on me being there. It was clear whoever sent them was not fully informed. So I had the advantage in that fight. I knew it wasn’t going to happen again. It was going to happen again though. I looked into the overhead mirror at Riley.
They wanted her.
At first I thought it was because they were trying to kill her but I’m not so sure anymore.
“You need to find out the truth from our young friend” said Tina in a soft whisper just in case Riley could hear. “There’s something not right here, something she isn’t telling us?”
“My thoughts exactly.”
“Good. Call again when you’ve swapped vehicles. I’ll try to do some damage control on this end, maybe get the cops off your ass.”
I clicked off and saw Riley staring.
Those pale blue eyes of her were pretty intense.
“So where to now, boss?”
“Boston” I said, turning onto a side road that would take us back toward the main highway. “Then you’re going to school.”
She groaned.
I watched her for a few seconds, wondering what kind of secrets she might be hiding?
“We’re staying here?”
I ignored the groaning teenager in the passenger seat. Instead, I pulled the little gray sedan up in front of the office at the motel. It wasn’t my first choice either but it was off the beaten path and far enough away from whatever city we were currently driving through. If we were lucky, we’d go unnoticed for the night. It would give me some time to think too. Driving through New York the last few hours hadn’t been easy. Sure we switched cars the next town over just like Tina had arranged but their were roadblocks every few miles. Tina had made the calls like she promised but that didn’t stop the MCO from looking. Thankfully, none of them had a picture of either of us.
I suppose it made sense.
After all, they really did kidnap her and I didn’t exist.
Not technically anyway.
That didn’t save my nerves though. I might have had a lot of training to be a bad ass soldier but that didn’t stop me from getting nervous. I thought for sure one of the cops would flag on my fake credentials and I’d have to shoot my way out. It never happened thankfully. It came close at the border to Massachusetts though. Thankfully Tina came through again. Along with the car, there was another ID waiting for me. I’m not sure how she arranged it but Becca Howe was now in the wind. I was currently Dinah Grant and Riley was my sister, Caroline. The Directorate truly was an impressive outfit. They had everything waiting with the car, including new clothes.
I was more than happy to ditch the pant suit.
Riley grumbled as we got out of the car.
“Can I lose the wig yet?”
I ignored her again. Gone was the girl who thought I was “awesome”. I think the excitement from earlier had finally warn off and she realized where we truly were going. She made her feelings known for about an hour after I hung up with Tina. Apparently the whole point of her running away was because she didn’t want to go to some stuffy boarding school. She bitched about it for a while before I tuned her out. The irony was not lost on me either. I used to be like that. Before the ROTC and the Corp. I used to whine like a typical teenager and it used to drive my mother nuts. Jimmy used to whine too. I say used too because well, Jenny was a different type of person. I’d like to say it was for the better but there was something disturbing about it too. She was so demure and polite now, it scared me. It was better than the alternative but…
“What’s that smell?”
I groaned. “Are you going to do this the whole time now?”
She gave me a look. “Do what?”
“Complain!”
She huffed. “I’m tired. People are trying to kill me. You’re taking me someplace...”
I rolled my eyes as I pushed my way into the office, grabbing her arm and dragging her along as I did so.
The woman behind the counter barely looked at us. If she had, she would have been able to tell that Riley was definitely not related to me. Then again, this day and age, anything was possible. Its one of the reasons why I used my mother’s maiden name growing up. No one ever believed that I was half white. It was just easier to say my name was Clara Wu and be done with it. Jimmy and Brian never had those problems though. They both looked enough like Dad, plus no one cared if a boy was half asian or not. People always expected more from me because I was half Chinese. Thankfully, the Corp didn’t care. Its why I started to use my real last name. It helped that Dad was a Colonel and their direct superiors too.
“You girls on a holiday?” asked the woman, taking the time to look up from her magazine.
I smiled. “My sister and I are heading to Boston tomorrow. Getting in a bit of sightseeing before school starts.”
The woman smiled.
We small talked while I got us a room, making sure it was on the ground floor just in case. She gave us the key, I gave her another fake smile then we left.
“Now can I take off this fucking wig!”
I didn’t say anything. Instead, I headed back to the car. I went to the trunk, got our “bags” and carried them to our room. Riley followed close behind but didn’t actually pull the wig off until we got into the room. As soon as she did, she sighed in relief. That is until she saw the state of the room. Then she made a face. I’m not going to lie, I made one too. The place was a dump and it did smell. I tried my hardest not to gag as I tossed the empty suitcases on the bed closest to the window. All part of the illusion. Riley dropped her backpack on the other bed then gently put the guitar on the dresser next to it. I tried asking her about her music during the ride but she was still mad at me.
I was only cool so long as she thought we were running away still.
Now I was a the “bad guy” too.
I sighed.
This wasn’t going to make things any easier.
Riley was laying on her bed, fiddling with her phone still.
“Hey” I said, sitting on the edge of my bed now. “We need to talk.”
She looked up from her phone and sighed. “I’m sorry about being a bitch earlier. My Mom keeps telling me I need to be nicer.”
“Its not about your attitude. I’m not your parent, I don’t care how you treat people” I said and meant it.
“Ok….”
“We need to talk about what happened.”
She shrugged. “Crazy people tried to kill me.”
This time I sighed.
“We both know there’s more to it than that. Now, get off your damn phone and tell me the truth!”
She let out a long, teenager wail before tossing her phone on the bed. “Happy?”
I wasn’t good at being a hard ass, even when Jimmy was being rebellious. I’d like to say that I didn’t act like that as well but I’d be lying. I think it was in the teenager genome. Mom and I still weren’t on good terms after the way I spoke to her back then. Now she was trying to make up for it with Jenny. I’m not going to lie, a small part of me was a tad bit jealous. She wanted me to do what she wanted and never could accept me for who I really was. It wasn’t just the whole military thing either. She never liked my friends or my music or how I dressed. Let’s not even get started on who I dated.
I shook my head. This wasn’t about me right now.
I needed to focus. Taking out my own cell, I set it on the bed in front of me, hitting a recording app.
“Tell me about it?”
She gave me a shrug. “About what?”
“The people who tried to kill you but didn’t.”
She stared at me a long time then bit her lip. She reached for her phone again and before I could protest, she typed away a few seconds before turning it to face me. On the screen was a blog of some kind: MUT-A’INTS. The blogger was anonymous but their message was pretty clear, they wanted mutants to well to put it politely, “disappear”. They weren’t really polite about it though. It was written in mostly journal format, each entry about a the blogger and a person she referred to as a “The Stain”. It was clear The Stain was a mutant, the blogger was not and they HATED this Stain with a passion. Scrolling through, I noticed it went back about a year or so. There were a lot of vague details but obviously no names.
“This girl sounds like...”
Riley sighed. “She’s me. I wrote those.”
That surprised me a bit. Especially because, the girl who wrote the blog was clearly a baseline and hated mutants. That’s when I remembered something about Riley’s file. “You manifested late...”
She grunted. “A few months ago actually. Do you have any idea what its like to be surrounded by special people and just be ordinary?”
I laughed. “I was a marine. My father is a marine, my older brother too. Women aren’t allowed to be actively involved in combat roles in the MAN’s Marines, so yeah, I get it...”
She stared for a few seconds, a look of surprise.
Then there was a smile but only for a moment.
“Well I come from a superhero family. A family who’s members all manifested when they were young. My parents. My aunts and uncles. My cousins and my EVER perfect sister...”
Oh, “The Stain”.
I think I was starting to get some of her anger.
“I started writing the blog in anger and it helped. I know it was stupid but I was angry. There wa a group of kids at school though, they were like me. Well not exactly like me but they hated mutants just as much.”
“H1ers?”
She sighed. “I didn’t know it at the time. They never called themselves that. They just liked to hang out after school, at the mall and things. I thought they were cool at first. We’d smoke, do a bit of tagging but mostly bitch and play music. It was fun at first...”
“What changed?”
She scoffed. “A couple of days before I manifested, my boyfriend Brody---the de-facto group leader---came to us and told us that there was a guy who wanted us to do something for him. He never told us the guy’s name but said he was offering a lot of money to go to some rally and get this girl for them.”
Now, we were getting somewhere.
“What can you tell me about her?”
Riley shrugged. “Not much. Brody just said she’d be at the rally. So we went. There were a lot of protesters but it was actually pretty tame. They do rallies like it every few months. My sister liked to attend them all the time. My cousin Abbie too when she could. I’d been to one or two with my Mom as a kid but that was years ago, when I thought it mattered.” She laughed. “Ironic, huh?”
“You didn’t know...”
She snorted. “I should have! Doesn’t matter anyway, I was apart of it.”
“What happened?”
“We found the girl. I thought they were going to talk to her. If I knew the guys were going to grab her and drag her off, I would have NEVER agreed to be involved. Suddenly it was like all that pent up mutant hating anger of theirs burst forth because they threw her on the ground and started to kick her. As their anger intensified, my anger toward the girl vanished. I snapped too but on them. I’m not sure when it happened but halfway through trying to stop them from hurting her, I manifested. Its not every day that you go from throwing fists to...”
She stopped for a moment and looked around before raising a fist.
For a second, nothing happened.
Then I started to see tiny blue particles in the air slowly start to form around her first, almost as if she was making them into a glove. The more and more particles that started to gather there, the more I realized that they weren’t “particles” of light like I thought but actually…
“Water” I said softly as the water glove fully formed around her first.
She smirked. “I can it pull from the air….”
“That’s really cool!”
She shrugged. “Not so cool when it happens without you knowing it. Brody and the others stopped wailing on her pretty quickly and directed their anger toward me. It goes to show who your true friends are. Thankfully they didn’t get very far in their beating before the cops showed up. There was a lot of confusion after that. We were all arrested. Except the girl of course, they took her away in an ambulance...”
I nodded. I remembered reading something about her in Riley’s file. “She’s ok by the way. You’ll be happy to know that you stepping in probably saved her life.”
Riley was tearing up. “I know. I tried visiting her at the hospital but her parents...”
I understood. I’d been fighting back the urge to hug her before but now I couldn’t. Leaning forward, I grabbed ahold of her in a tight embrace. She cried on my shoulder for a bit, sobbing about how stupid she was and how she ruined her life. I did my best to reassure her. Sure, she did something stupid but her life was far from ruined. In the end, she did the right thing too. She tried to help the girl and that’s all that really mattered. I held her until the tears finally stopped. She pulled away when they did, wiping her eyes.
“You ready to continue?” I asked, she nodded. “So you were arrested too, that doesn’t sound too fair to me?”
“I was apart of it. I was just as guilty as the others...”
“The authorities didn’t see it that way, Riley.”
She scoffed. “Only because of my uncle…”
That wasn’t in the file but I knew why it wasn’t.
Supers protected their own.
I needed to steer her away from the anger and the tears. “That wasn’t the end of it, though, was it?”
She shook her head. “Mom grounded me for a week. Told me it would be ample time for me to get a handle on my new gift. Brody and the others were officially charged. I got a slap on the wrist, some community service because in the end I tried to do the right thing. Everything was good for a bit. I stopped writing the blog, I formerly apologized to my family. That’s when Mom decided to punish me even further by deciding to get rid of me...”
There was bitterness in her tone again.
“Whateley?”
She scoffed. “Its how my mother deals with her problems. Instead of facing them, she pushes them on someone else. After grounding me, she wouldn’t even look at me for a week. I shamed her that much...So I ran away?”
I laughed. “I’ve heard those words before...”
I lived them too. For a year.
“It might sound cool but trust me, running isn’t the answer. Been there, done that, have the sun burn and scars to prove it.”
She raised an eyebrow, probably hoping I’d share but when I didn’t, she continued her own tale. “That’s when they found me. Look I’m many things but I’m not an idiot. I know the MCO when I see them and I know to get as far away from them as you can. They caught me off guard. Told me they were here to help me but we both know that was bullshit...”
I nodded. “We have a man on the inside of the MCO”
“Who’s we?” she asked, another raised eyebrow.
I smiled. “The people who saved you.”
She sighed. “Fair enough.”
I spent the next hour asking her questions, mainly about the people who asked her to “grab” the girl for them. She knew nothing about them because she never actually met them. She could have been lying but there was something about the way she talked that told me she was telling the truth. Whoever they were, they didn’t want to be known. If I had to guess, they probably pretended to be someone else with her friend, Brody. Our conversation wasn’t a complete loss though. I did know some things about them that I didn’t know before. They were well funded, able to hide in the shadows and they wanted mutants. They also never worked in the open, recruiting others to do their dirty work for them, like Riley and her friends. They didn’t much care who they hired either. If I had to guess, it was them who silenced both Pierce and Willows.
No loose ends.
Yet, they let both Riley and I live?
I didn’t like it.
“Becca, you ok?” asked my young companion.
Oh, right.
“Its Clara actually” I said with a sheepish smile and a laugh.
“I suppose that makes sense” she said, laughing too.
About as much sense as anything else.
I didn’t say that though.
I wanted to ask her a few more questions but I saw her yawn. I looked at the little clock on the wall, it was only four in the afternoon. Then again, after the day we’ve had, I could see where she was exhausted. I was a bit tired myself. I didn’t like the idea of laying low in this place until morning but I had my orders. Whereas the local authorities wouldn’t hound us anymore, that wasn’t going to stop the MCO. They still had warrants out for our arrests. I was labeled a “Rogue” agent and Riley was a “dangerous” mutant. It was all pretty crazy. Then again, these people didn’t like to be humiliated. I tried to tell Tina it was all the more reason why I should just drive her straight to New Hampshire but I was overruled.
There were too many things that could go wrong.
Putting her on that train in Boston was my best bet.
So we’re waiting.
“Hey, why don’t you take the first shower, I need to make a couple of calls.”
Riley gave another trademark weird look of hers but didn’t question me. I waited until she was in the bathroom, before finally shutting off my recording app. AS soon as I heard the water running, I made my call. Tina picked up on the second ring.
“I’ve got something for you” I said.
I sent her the file.
It only took a few seconds. “I’ll have someone take a look. So what do you think, honest opinion?”
“I think she’s a kid who got in over her head. She caved to anger and peer pressure and someone out there took advantage of it.”
“You think she was targeted then?”
I shrugged even though I knew Tina couldn’t see it. “These people seem to like to have ties to important things. Riley was an ideal choice. She comes from a family of superheroes. She probably hears and sees things that most people don’t. Its clear they have people in the MCO too.”
“They’re also not afraid to execute their operatives too...” reminded Tina.
I shook my head. “They could have killed us several times. They’re after something else with her.”
“Then why the strike team?”
“Theatrics maybe?”
I still didn’t have all the answers. All I knew is that they recruited Riley and her friends to get them a mutant and the kids failed. Then they sent two of their hired stooges to acquire Riley after she manifested. They would have succeeded if I hadn’t stuck my nose into things. It was clear they were after mutants. They wanted them alive too. It told me that whoever these people were, they had an agenda. They weren’t afraid to kill either. The thing that I didn’t understand though was why they were letting us get away now?
“You think they deliberately let Riley go?”
No clue.
“I think these people have a plan and I think they’re going to use Riley to achieve said plan.”
Tina sighed. “All the more reason to get her to the school.”
Maybe that was the plan all along?
Of course I didn’t express that concern.
I didn’t want to scare anyone.
“So speaking of plans, is ours still a go?”
“We informed the school about Riley’s delay, they know the full situation. They wanted to send some of their security personnel as an added escort but I told them you could handle things.”
I couldn’t help but smile at that.
Besides, the last thing I needed was a group of rent-a-cops getting in my way.
We discussed a few more specifics but were interrupted by the arrival of Riley. She stepped out of the bathroom, a towel wrapped around her body. I gasped. Not only was she extremely pale but she had blue intricate tattoos wrapped around her arms. They were made all the cooler by the fact that they were glowing. She seemed to notice I was staring because she blushed.
I turned away quickly.
What the hell was I doing, she’s a minor?
I quickly hung up with Tina.
“Sorry” I said, making sure she didn’t see my blush.
I need to get a girlfriend and fast.
“Its ok, everyone always stares at them...”
When I turned back around, she had a shirt and a pair of bed shorts on. I could still see the tats on her arms but they weren’t glowing anymore.
“They’re really cool tats...” I said, trying to make this less awkward.
“They’re not tats actually” she said, sitting on the edge of her bed. “They’re runes.”
Runes?
She smiled at my puzzled expression. “How much do you know about magic?”
I shook my head. “Not a lot I’m afraid. I’m still pretty new to all of this...stuff...”
She nodded. “Well, these are runes. My mother placed them on my arms to...well...let’ just say that when I manifested things got complicated...”
I was still staring at her like an idiot, so she took a deep breath and closed her eyes. For a second, I thought she was about to do that annoyed teen thing and ignore the adult. That’s when I started to see those blue particles again. They start to float around her, only a few at first but more and more started to form. They were like little blue fireflies but they weren’t the weirdest thing about this situation. I looked at Riley’s arms and saw they were glowing. The particles floated all around her. More and more appeared until the room started to fill with a heavy fog. I jumped back, snapping around toward the window. It was shut and yet more and more fog started to appear.
“Before” she said, eyes still closed. “I couldn’t concentrate. “Mom thinks my powers are based on my mood. After manifesting, everything was erratic and lots of things got ruined”
I could barely see her through all the fog.
“So the runes...”
“Its a spell” said her disembodied voice from the thick fog. “One to help calm my mind and focus. My mother comes from a long line of Users, my grandmother was Spellweaver, her mother was as well. The ability to craft spells has been passed down from generations.”
“Do you….”
She sighed. “It skipped my sister and I. Mom thinks its because of Dad. Summer and I seemed to have inherited his side of things but my cousin Rachel----Mom’s sister’s daughter---can use magic, so can her older sister, Beth.”
I guess that made sense.
It was still pretty freaky.
So was all this fog.
“Hey you think you can...”
She laughed and just as quickly as the fog appeared, it slowly started to vanish. I saw the blue particles again, this time they started to disappear. I watched as the fog was seemingly pulled back inside of Riley, almost as if it was coming from her. A few seconds later, the room was just like before. It was as if there was no fog. Though I couldn’t help but notice that everything---including myself---was covered in a layer of condensation.
Riley sighed. “Sorry about that.”
I shook my head. “I needed a shower anyway.”
She smirked. “Its an unfortunate side effect. I’m trying to find ways to control it but no such luck so far”
“Its still pretty cool” I said, smiling. “So is the fog your chief thing?”
“Well fog is after all, water.”
“And you manipulate it?”
She shook her head. “I’m manipulating the water vapor, the particles of water in the air around us. If I concentrate enough, I can pull enough of it together to form solid water constructs.
Oh, the tiny blue dots.
“So that’s why you called yourself Mist?”
She grunted. “Didn’t have a lot of choice. My family has a lot of water users. Coming up with a cool name is pretty hard.”
I shrugged. “You could have called yourself Vapor?”
She stared at me for a few seconds then cursed.
I laughed.
I guess it never occurred to her.
While I watched as she sat and silently moped, I decided it was time for my own shower. A real one this time. I left her sitting there. I almost thought about handcuffing her to the bed in case she decided to run on me. It was a stray thought though. I trusted her, I just hoped she didn’t take advantage of said trust. I shook off the thought, confident that she wouldn’t let me down.
Walking into the bathroom, I sighed at the sight of it.
Riley was apparently a slob.
Her clothes were strewn all over the place.
I pitied any future roommate she might have.
Speaking of which, I cursed.
Quickly pulling out my phone, I sent a quick text to Gracie.
I needed to let her know I was Ok.
That done, I started to pick up Riley’s mess. As I picked up her bra, I grunted. Even a fifteen year old had bigger boobs than me. Life was very cruel sometimes. Stripping off my shirt and staring at my sports bra, I wanted to cry. Ok, not really but I hated how life turned out sometimes. The other day I was doing laundry at home and found one of Jenny’s new bras. How is that a fourteen year old was already a C cup? It wasn’t fair. Especially because she was more asian than me now. Asian girls were supposed to be small. I couldn’t help but smirk at the irony of it all though. Growing up, little Jimmy used to tease me about wearing bras. There was a lot of strap snapping. I smirked. It was one of the first things I did to her when I caught her without a shirt on.
I stripped off the rest of my clothes, standing nude.
I looked at my left shoulder.
I know the “arm” was supposed to be as real as it could be but it was hard to see that. Especially when I could see the small seam where prosthetic met flesh. I flexed the fingers on my left hand. Then I ran my fingers along the back of my neck, to the base of my skull where the little neutral implant was placed. It was there to help my brain interface with the arm. It was a small little thing I wasn’t supposed to notice. Like an itch you can never fully stop scratching though, I knew it was there. Just like I knew my real arm was never coming back.
Sighing, I turned on the water and stepped into the shower, hoping to use the time to wash away the events of the last twenty four hours.
Sadly there wasn’t enough showers in the world for that.
I tried though.
Twenty minutes later, fully refreshed, I was wrapping myself in a towel.
Maybe some time lounging in front of the TV could help me forget things.
Wait, that’s…
Shit.
Rushing into the room, I stopped dead. There were three of them, two were sitting on a bed with Riley between them. They were large, one holding a gun with the barrel pressed against her thigh. The third man was sitting in the recliner. Tall and thin, dressed in an expensive gray suit. He smiled at me as I entered but it wasn’t a leering one I might get from a perv waiting for a woman outside her shower.
“Ah, Miss Howe, how nice of you to join us” he said, his tone polite and casual. “Or is it, Miss Grant now?”
Shit.
I looked around the room. I left my gun by the door. There was no way I’d be able to get to it fast enough. I had no options here. I could try to make a run for it but they’d kill me before I got the chance. Or worse they’d kill Riley. I silently cursed.
They had us.
“What the fuck is this?” I asked, trying to play the fool. “We don’t have any money, just leave my sister alone before I call the cops!”
The man smirked. “We both know she’s not your sister. We also both know that your phone in over there, along with your weapon.”
“Well you have me at a disadvantage then. You seemingly knowing all there is to know about me.”
He smirked. “You can call me, Mr. Graves. I think you’re associated with my clients as well”
Clients?
“You’re a lawyer?”
He smiled. “Something like that.”
I wasn’t expecting that.
“So is this where you tell me you’re taking the two of us downtown for some quality time?”
He chuckled. “No, this is where you and I have a conversation while my friends make sure your little charge over there keeps her hands to herself.”
I looked over at Riley. She was pretending to be calm but I could tell she was scared. I could also tell she was itching for a fight. One of the blue marks on her arm was already starting to glow. I locked eyes with her and gave my head a slight shake. The last thing we needed was her trying to be a hero. She was young and untrained. Plus, no amount of fog could stop a bullet. She might be able to accomplish one thing before a round tore through her kneecap.
“What’s there to talk about?”
Graves made a move toward a small attache case sitting to his left. He placed it on his lap but made no move to open it. “After this morning’s incident, my clients are willing to negotiate a deal with you.”
I scoffed. “A deal? For what?”
He inclined his head toward Riley. “Well, Miss Spencer of course.”
He can’t be serious!
“She’s a human being, not a prized mare!”
He laughed. “You mistake the offer. We have no intention of buying Miss Spencer. We merely wish to form a working relationship with her so we can come to some kind of mutual agreement over the issue.”
“Issue? What issue is that?”
He smiled. “Miss Spencer broke a contract with us.”
I looked at her, she was just as surprised as me.
“Bullshit.”
He sighed, finally opening the case. He removed two sheets of paper, he held one out for me. I reluctantly leaned forward and took it. It looked like a letter of some kind, I ignored the block of text but I looked at the signatures at the bottom of it. I realized then it wasn’t a letter but in fact a contract of some sort. I didn’t recognize any of the names, except one of course. Riley’s. So she did sign something after all? I moved back up to read what the block of text said but he pulled it away too fast.
“As you can clearly see, Miss Spencer signed...”
“I didn’t sign anything!”
He ignored her. “You understand the delicate situation I am in. The girl breached a contract with my clients and they do not take a thing like this very lightly. The way I see things, as it stands right now, there are two options. The first being monetary compensation but I assure you, you can’t afford that.”
Damn.
I wanted to punch him in his smug face.
I would have too if not for the gun pressed against Riley’s thigh.
“And let me guess” I said, weighing my options in my head. “The second one requires you to take the girl?”
He smiled. “Very astute, Miss Grant.”
They weren’t going to let me walk out of here. I saw it in his smile. They weren’t going to let Riley walk out of here either. Well, not unless she was in their custody. There were only three of them. I might be able to get the two holding her before they got a shot off but it was risky. They positioned themselves far enough away from me that they knew it would take me longer than a few seconds to reach them. I didn’t have a lot of choice here, unless…
“Well, what say you?”
I looked at Riley. She was still trying to be the tough girl.
She was a good kid. Life kept punching her in the gut. I couldn’t keep letting someone do that to her.
“I’m afraid I’m going to have to decline.”
Besides, I already formed my plan.
Mr. Graves sighed. “I was afraid you might say that.” He put the papers back in his case and stood up. “Clean this mess up. I will call the front office and tell them not to expect any new guests.”
He straightened the front of his shirt before looking at me with contempt. “You should have accepted their offer. Now you both lose.”
Then he turned and walked out of the room.
As soon as the door closed, the goon holding the gun turned toward me. He raised it toward my chest, preparing to fight. That’s when I dropped the towel. Ok, so it wasn’t the greatest plan but it was all I had. I was hoping that it was enough of a distraction too….and yep, he was looking at my tits. Typical man. He stared at them, stunned for long enough for me to strike. I quickly closed the distance, ignoring the embarrassment of fighting completely naked. I grabbed his wrist holding the gun, making sure I did it with my left hand. A simple squeeze and I heard several bones in his wrist break. He screamed out in pain. Then I smashed my knee into his face. More pain, more screams. I grabbed his gun and shot him twice in the chest, silencing it all. I hadn’t planned on killing him but given the circumstances.
His partner fumbled to get his own gun out but he was too slow.
Another shot to the forehead and he was down for the count.
I grunted.
Riley stared in stunned awe.
“You...you….killed them….”
I sighed, lowering the gun. “They would have killed us. Are you all right?”
She nodded, tears running down her face. Before I could say anything else, she was on her feet and wrapping her arms around me.
We held the awkward embrace only for a few seconds though because well...yeah..
She blushed as she pulled away quickly, realizing her mistake.
“Sorry” she blurted out quickly.
“Get your things. We have to go and fast!”
She scrambled over to where her bag and guitar were.
While she was getting that sorted, I rushed back to the bathroom where I left my discarded clothes. I’ve dressed in a hurry before but never when my life depended on it. I’m pretty certain my shirt was on backwards but I didn’t care. I was putting on my boots when I heard several cars pull up outside. I cursed. With both boots on, I rushed to the window. Three SUVs and a large black van. The men piling out were wearing tactical gear. They weren’t LEOs either. A moment or so later, the back of the van opened up and two men in power suits stepped out.
“Shit, MCO”.
“What?” asked Riley, rushing to the window to take a look.
She cursed too.
Rushing over to one of the dead bodies, I noticed a tiny camera pin on his lapel. Whoever was on the other end of that feed must have called in the jackasses when they realized their men failed. I’ll have to give it to them, their response time was pretty impressive.
I pulled the pin off the jacket and stared into it. “You’ll have to do better than that!” I warned before crushing it.
I walked back over to the window. They were taking up position around the front of the motel, a crowd of onlookers was already starting to form. Too many onlookers. There was someone trying to coax the people back into their rooms but no one seemed to be budging. I cursed. This wasn’t good. There was no way I could shoot my way out now, not with all those people around. Riley was standing next to me.
“This is the MCO. Throw down your weapons and turn the mutant over to us!”
“Like hell” said my young companion before pushing her bag and guitar into my hands. “Hold these for a second!”
I fumbled with her things before she raised her hands and closed her eyes. For a second, I had no idea what she was doing until I saw the little particles start to form again. Then a second later, the room started to fill with fog. I wasn’t sure what she was hoping to accomplish until I started to see it creep under the door. Then it dawned on me and I smiled. Outside, the fog moved faster than I expected. The men closest to the stairs were enveloped first. I saw them stagger before they disappeared into the inky gray mass. More men staggered before being consumed. It wasn’t before long and the whole parking lot was covered in fog.
The SUVs, the van, all the men.
All gone.
Riley sighed heavily as she finally opened her eyes.
“Did that work?” she asked, panting.
“You ok?” I asked, concerned.
“Its exhausting.”
I squeezed her shoulder. “It worked, kiddo”.
I gave her a few seconds before handing back her stuff. Then I slowly opened the door. I expected to be ambushed but we weren’t. They were probably blundering about, trying to find which way was up. Which was a hindrance to them but to us as well. I managed to find the wall, pressing against it, keeping the gun in front of me and Riley behind. It was a good thing I got the room on the first floor. I would not have wanted to do this while trying to find the stairs too. I just wish I could see a bit more.
A moment later, I felt a bit of a tingle in the back of my head.
Not unlike the ones I get when I have my gut feelings.
A second later, the fog didn’t seem so bad.
Maybe I was just overthinking it in all my panic.
We came upon our first MCO agent but he wasn’t doing nearly as good as we were. I dropped him with the butt of the gun. There was no need for any unnecessary killing here. I did the same to two more. Then we managed to make it to our sedan. By that time, Riley could barely stand. She was starting to go pale and could barely stay conscious. For a moment, I thought she was going to pass out. I was about to ask her what was wrong but I noticed the fog was starting to thin. It didn’t take a genius to figure it out. Because she was controlling the fog, it was starting to sap her energy. The longer the fog was out, the less energy she had. As cool as it was, it relied heavily on her and vice versa. If she kept this up any longer, she was going to pass out. Then when she did, the fog was going to go with her.
“Just a few more minutes” I told her as I started to unlock the car. I managed to get one of the back doors unlocked before I heard the distinctive thump of power armor.
A second later, the wearer appeared at our side. Like a medieval knight in plate mail but only black, he struck a menacing figure. I took a step back, raising my gun. I manged to squeeze off a shot before he smacked it from my hand. The bullet did nothing, ricocheting harmlessly off his chest. He didn’t even flinch. Instead, he slammed one of his heavy fists as hard as he could into the hood of the car. There was a groan of metal on metal and when he pulled his hand away, it was clear the car wasn’t going anywhere. Cursing, I took a swing with my left. My blow glanced off the side of his head, he only staggered slightly.
Shit.
He smirked. “Mutant loving bitch!”
I managed to put my arm to block the punch he threw my way. Just barely. In that armor he was faster, faster than I expected. It was clear the MCO had made some upgrades to their equipment. As it was, the blow knocked me back several feet. It left Riley wide open and she was in no position to fight back. Of course, that didn’t stop her from trying. She staggered to a standing position, mustering whatever strength she could into her fists. I saw the water start to form around them then she struck. The first punch staggered him, the second brought him to one knee. I had to give it to her. Those punches of hers were pretty impressive but they still weren’t enough to stop him.
I cursed.
I knew what I had to do and I didn’t want to do it.
“Mutant bitch!”
She tried to block his punch and was only half successful. The blow brought her back to the ground. She cried out in pain.
That settled it for me.
Pushing my palm, a six inch blade grew from my wrist. It was a last resort weapon that the military tech built into the arm. Consisting of the same nanoweave material, I could use it in a pinch. Without a gun, it was my best option. I also knew exactly where to hit the MCO agent. With him distracted, I charged in, dropped to the ground and aimed for one of his knees. In power armor one might think they’re indestructible but it was an illusion. No armor was truly damage proof. Like most human beings, joints were always the weak spots. It was no different here.
I jabbed the blade into his knee bend, slipping it between the armor there.
He let out a hollowing scream.
He wasn’t finished though.
I was so distracted by landing some kind of victory that I never saw his fist as it went for my head. HE caught me off guard, sending me flying. The room spun several times before I hit the pavement. I gasped in pain. Those things really packed a punch. I turning, hoping to see her running. Instead, I saw Riley trying her best to stop him. She was landing punch after punch but none of them seem to do much. Sure she was pushing him back but she just didn’t have enough force to put him down again. She was tiring herself out too, each punch slower than the one before it. Grunting from my own pain, I pushed myself to my feet. Just as I managed to do so, someone grabbed me from behind. I tried twisting to throw him off but I was still dazed from the punch. There was a sharp pain in my side too. I continued to struggle though until I felt the pain again. I realized that it was a taser. Screaming out, I watched as Riley finally dropped. The fog around us disappeared in an instant.
We were done.
Shit.
There were several MCO agents staggered about still, lost for a moment before they realized the fog was gone. One of the ones closest to me recovered a bit faster than the others.
“Get the girl, I’m done with this” he barked before turning to me. “Kill this bitch!”
I felt a gun pressed against my temple, heard the click as the hammer was pulled back and closed my eyes.
Game over.
There was a whoosh of air and I felt the men holding me sharply pulled away.
The air was so strong it brought me to my knees.
Opening my eyes, I gasped.
There was a girl here. She was dressed in a silver crop top and skin tight pants. Two of the agents raised their weapons to fire. She smirked, snapped up her arms and sent a blast of air at them, sending them flying into the nearest vehicle. Another managed to open fire but the bullets harmlessly bounced off some kind of forcefield surrounding her body. She rushed them, faster than humanly possible. I watched her feet, they were actually floating off the ground. She slammed into them, sending them flying. Turning, she sent another blast of air at another group.
They went flying too.
At this point, the agent in the power armor charged her.
She turned, bracing for the impact of his charge.
He slammed into her but she barely moved. The blow she delivered to his head knocked him to the ground. The kick she hit him with, sent him flying. He smashed into an SUV and didn’t get back up.
“Amateurs” she said, looking around her.
It was at this point that I noticed there was a swirl of wind all around her.
Almost as if she was using it as some kind of protection.
I got back to my feet again, using a nearby car to steady me. Looking around, I realized no one else was standing. She took them all out in a matter of seconds. If I wasn’t in so much pain, I think I would have asked her for her number. She was amazing. She was also drop dead gorgeous too. That sun kissed skin, that long flowing black hair. She was fit too. She was everything I looked for and wanted.
“You ok?” she asked, giving me a look of concern.
I scoffed. “Been through worse.”
She smiled. “You’re just lucky I checked my texts.”
She turned toward Riley and frowned.
Without saying a word, she walked over to the girl and scooped her up in her arms. Riley stirred and wake a few seconds later. When she did, her eyes opened wide.
“Abbie!” she said, throwing her arms around the girl’s neck.
Abbie? Wait, they knew one another?
The girl frowned. “Its Gale Force when we’re in public, cuz”
Cuz?
Riley looked sheepish but nodded.
Gale Force set the girl down. Riley staggered but managed to stand. She turned toward me as I came walking over, confused as ever. Riley threw her arms around me in a tight hug.
“You were awesome, Clara” she whispered into my ear.
“You too, kiddo.”
The sound of sirens interrupted our moment.
Gale Force sighed. “Look we need to go now. My apartment is not too far. We can talk there.”
“Your place, so soon?” I joked.
She laughed. “All the cute ones get there eventually, some before the date.”
I blushed.
Riley rolled her eyes.
“C’mon, my car is this way”.
It was the last thing I expected a superhero to say but who was I to argue with the girl who just mopped the floor with an entire MCO tactical team in less than a few minutes.
The train station was crowded. I didn’t like it, there were too many unknown factors. I kept looking over my shoulder, waiting for the MCO or Graves’ people to come out of the woodwork. It was nerve wrecking. It didn’t help that I had a very unenthusiastic teenager to deal with too. After leaving the motel last night, she spent the better part of an hour trying to convince me to let her run again. It took me and her cousin Abbie most of that hour trying to convince her it was for the best. Contrary to what Riley might think, this Whateley place was the safest place for her. The MCO had no jurisdiction there and I was hoping if Graves tried anything again, he’d get a face full of the school’s legal team.
There was something else worrying me though.
I had one of my feelings.
It was this nagging foreboding that kept me on edge. I couldn’t shake it either. It wasn’t just the crowd. That I could handle. It was something else, something distant. I was very fond of the term, “until the other shoe drops”, that’s what this felt like. The other shoe was floating above my head and I was waiting for it to fall. I didn’t like this feeling. I wanted to reach out and smack it in the face but without a true direction for it, I was lost. I hated that. I hated not being able to handle something without force. I hated…
Abbie gently grabbed my hand.
It broke me from my paranoid jumpiness.
It surprised me too.
“You ok?”
I sighed and took a moment to answer. “There’s too many people here, too many faces I don’t know or can’t read...”
Abbie stared at the ground with me, still holding my hand.
“Well that guy is definitely suspect” she said with a giggle.
I looked to where she was clearly indicating.
The man in question was at the newspaper stand.
I elbowed her in the ribs.
She giggled.
Abbie was fantastic.
After leaving the motel and going to her brownstone across town, we spent the whole night talking. She was a junior at Boston university, pre-Med. Her parents wanted her to go to Harvard but she turned it down. She felt it was too high profile. In her line of work, she said it was important to go unnoticed. She only talked briefly about her career as “Gale Force” though. She---like the rest of her family---picked up the superhero thing after she graduated from Whateley. Unlike her over enthusiastic twin brother, Brian, she didn’t want to make a career out of it though. She had fun with it for a bit but mostly she was doing it to make some extra money. The Good Neighbors had a lucrative deal with a New York City modeling agency. Abbie and a few of the other girls modeled in costume, did the PR and poster thing.
It helped pay for the team’s expenses.
As soon as she graduated from college though, she planned to transfer to Med school. She had no qualms about leaving the whole superhero thing behind her. The team and the agency were happy for her. They were already grooming her cousin Summer---Riley’s older sister---as a replacement. Abbie was happy to pass on the job. Apparently not only was she absolutely gorgeous, she was also really shy too. She was done with all the limelight.
I didn’t blame her.
I think that’s why I loved all this covert stuff so much.
I’m not sure what I’d do if I was a mutant like her, with all the obligations from her family.
It wasn’t all bad though.
After all, it led her to me.
I’m not going to lie. I was attracted to her. She was amazingly gorgeous. I wasn’t one hundred percent certain she was interested but there were hints. Like her holding my hand. A hand I was happy to see she was still holding. Looking at her now, I could see her blush. I was certain I was blushing too.
Riley groaned from the other side of me.
“Get a room, you two,”
I forced a laugh then slowly, we pulled apart.
Damn kid.
“Hey don’t be rude” snapped Abbie, “or I’m calling Aunt Gloria again!”
The color drained from Riley’s face at the mention of her mother.
The teenager got a chewing out last night. As soon as we got to the apartment, the first thing Abbie did was call Riley’s mother. Mother and daughter spent the better part of an hour on the phone together. At first, I heard the yelling. Then there was some crying. It was happy and apologetic at the same time I think. Her mother almost jumped on a plane but they were still grounded from yesterday. Just as well. By the time she got here, her daughter would have already been on the train.
Speaking of which…
“Now boarding...”
Riley groaned.
She snapped around to me, trying one last time. “There’s still time” she said, desperation in her voice.
I smirked. “You’re going to be fine. This place is good for you. My sister is going there too, in fact...”
I excused myself from the cousins, Abbie was taking my place trying to convince Riley that everything was going to be ok. I smiled as I walked off, pulling out my cell. I needed to check in with Jenny. I felt like such a bad sister. Then again, I was pretty busy. I’d been a bit worried about her though. What with the whole thing in New York and those people trying to grab Riley, it made me worry about Jenny’s problems. She ran into her own mess over the summer after manifesting. Luckily The Directorate was there to help her but I felt guilty that I wasn’t there more. I’d been so self absorbed in my own problems, I almost failed to help her with hers.
She answered on the second ring.
“Jie jie?”.
For a moment, I almost forgot who I was talking too.
It sounded so weird to be referred to in Chinese.
Especially coming from my former brother. A boy who made it very clear on numerous occasions that he WANTED nothing to do with our Chinese heritage. Of course all of that changed after he manifested and became an Avatar host to a Chinese “god”. Her whole outlook changed. She went from this brash, arrogant teen boy to this demure, respectful and somewhat traditional teen girl. A girl who embraced her heritage fully, so much so that “Jenny” was actually a nickname for Jiaying. She even stopped using Dad’s last name, doing a complete reversal of my own situation.
I was still trying to get used to it all.
Especially the fluent Mandarin that she now frequently spoke in.
“Jen, you ok?"
“You’re checking up on me. You promised you wouldn’t do that...”
I sighed.
After what happened to her, I was being a bit overprotective.
Hey it’s my right.
“Humor me, I’ve had a shitty day or so. I helped someone like you. There was a lot of bullshit involved...”
She cursed in chinese. “Is she ok?”
“She will be” I said, looking over to where Riley and Abbie were still talking. “Its actually the reason I’m calling. Well one of them. I was hoping you might seek her out at school but don’t make it obvious. Just accidentally run into her or something...”
Jenny groaned. “I can make my own friends...”
“I’m not trying to tell you who to be friends with. I’m just trying to help two people who might have had similar circumstances...”
Jenny paused. “Wait, she wasn’t a boy too, was she?”
No.
Well, I don’t think so.
Her file said nothing about that.
“No, she’s just been through a lot. I’m not going to betray her trust, I just need to make sure she’s safe...”
Jenny was a bit of a bad ass. Even before she manifested, Jimmy went to the same Mixed Martial Arts classes I did. Mom wasn’t happy about that either. Once again, Dad overruled her. Besides, it was supposed to be good for him. It helped for a while. Then he started playing soccer and got a big head. After she manifested though, things changed for the better. Suddenly, she was gifted with years of combat experience, ancient martial arts from centuries of Chinese knowledge. Plus there was that whole being able to turn her body into metal. If anyone tried shit with her again, they’d never know what hit them. I needed that around Riley. I couldn’t protect her at school but maybe Jenny could. At least until the school provided Riley with a means of protecting herself.
“So you want me to be her bodyguard?”
I sighed. “There might be bad people out to get her...”
“Say no more, sis, I’ve got this!”
Wow, that almost sounded like Jimmy.
The old one I mean.
I smiled. “Thanks, Mei mei.”
Hey, I was fluent in Mandarin as well.
We shared some pleasantries. She told me a bit about her DPA escort and about something that happened in NYC. Something about some girls beating up some squid people. She was raving about a video, told me I should watch it. I promised I would but it wasn’t really my thing. There were more important things in the world then spending my time glued to some amateur video on the internet.
I hung up with her only for my phone to ring again.
“Status report” said Tina, sounding all formal.
“All in the green, boss. We’re at the train station, Riley is about to board now.”
I could hear Tina sighing on the other end. “That’s good, real good.”
“You want me to board the train with her...”
“No, we’ve got people in position. They’ll ride with her in secret until they reach Berlin. The school has arranged some buses. We’ve got someone at the school too, in security. He’ll keep an eye on Riley from there on out. You did a good job, Clara. You should be proud of yourself.”
“Thank you, ma’am”
I was proud but that nagging feeling was still there.
“Something wrong?”
I sighed. “They’re still out there.”
She scoffed. “We’re looking into them now. The most we’ve been able to get is that they’re some kind of Think Tank, call themselves the Epsilon Group."
Epsilon Group.
There was no way those people were a Think Tank?
“How many Think Tanks have hired mercenaries?”
“Like I said, we’re looking into it.”
Well I guess that was something.
I was happy to know that at least I was able to save Riley from them. At least for now. I knew they’d try again though. A group like them, they were bound to not give up so easily. Which meant this was far from over. Who would have thought I would find a purpose doing this job and only after my first assignment?
“When you find something out” I said, determined. “I want in.”
“I wouldn’t give it to anyone else but you. Right now though, take a few days off. The office isn’t expecting you until Monday. Have some fun, see the sights, take that cute girl out for coffee...”
I blushed.
I looked around, could she see us?
She chuckled. “The Directorate is everywhere, Clara.”
With that she hung up, I sighed.
I took a moment before wandering back over to Riley and Abbie. There were several people boarding the train now, lots of teenagers I couldn’t help but notice. I spotted one group and squinted. I’m pretty certain one of those girls had blue skin? There was another one that was as white as a sheet too. I blinked. They had to be going to this Whateley place too. I smiled, glad to know that both Riley and my sister would be in good hands. Who knows, they both might even enjoy themselves?
I was so lost in thought that I was ambushed by Riley’s hug.
“Thanks for everything, Clara. You saved my life.”
I choked back tears.
“All in a day’s work!”
She smiled. “I’m sorry I was a bitch...”
She then turned and walked to the train, blending into the group of others as they boarded. I watched and waited until she was on. I continued to watch until the train left the station. As soon as it was gone, I finally let go of my tension. I let out the breath I’d been holding too. I did it. I successfully got the girl to where she needed to go. Mission accomplished, job well done.
Business as usual as one might say.
Well, starting from today I think.
Abbie nudged me. “You ok?”
I nodded, smiling. “All good!”
“So...” she said, looping her arm through mine. “What does a super secret agent do after she finishes her job?”
I sighed heavily. “Takes a nap.”
Abbie laughed. “Would you settle for some coffee, instead?”
I smiled.
“I think I can manage that.”
CLARA WILL RETURN...
Author’s note: As I’m sure all of you know, comments are life blood to an author. I’m not begging or demanding, but I certainly would appreciate anything you have to say (or ask). It doesn’t have to be long and involved, just give me your reaction to the story. Thanks in advance...EOF
Rain On A Sunny Day
by: Enemyoffun
|
Rain On A Sunny Day Part One
by: Enemyoffun
|
He was staring.
Why was he staring and why wouldn’t he stop?
I was doing my best to ignore while I plugged away at some inane game on my phone. I’m not even sure what it was called, it was just something to bide my time. Trains were always boring. My mother used to make us ride one whenever we went to visit my Dad’s parents in Mystic Falls. The difference between then and now though was that I actually enjoyed the ride. It was something wonderful for a little kid like me to sit at the window and stare out as the landscape went zooming past. I used to love it. Taking a quick glance toward the green zipping past the outside of the train, I grunted. No one ever said I was a smart kid. Thankfully I grew out of it a few years later. Trains---like most other mundane things---were boring.
Boring things were disappointing things.
Like life.
Life sucked.
It was like that stupid little song all children like to sing, “Rain, Rain, Go Away...”. Except in the song and in real life, rain often went away. Life kept going. The boring kept going. I’m not saying I wanted to die, far from it actually. Its just that day in and day out, life was the same. Nothing new happened, nothing changed. My mother and the rest of the adults in my life thought I ran away because I didn’t want to go to Whateley. Maybe they were part right. Mostly though, I ran away because I was bored. That’s the real reason I started that stupid blog too. Sure I was angry but I was mostly bored. I thought maybe if I said some hurtful things, that something cool or interesting would happen.
Then I got my wish.
I should have been more careful but I let my guard down. That’s how those MCO thugs got me. At the time I had no idea they were even looking for me but they had my picture. When they took me into custody and started questioning me, it was clear they didn’t really care who I was. Someone tipped them off to my presence and they came after me. At first I thought it was that scumbag Brody. He seemed the type. Before he screamed he wanted nothing more to do with a “freak like me”, he promised to make my life sorry. I thought for sure he called them in or something.
Then those others showed up.
Clara said they were called Epsilon.
She also said they were some kind of Think Tank.
I’m pretty certain that’s not how that worked.
I wish I remembered more though.
After escaping the motel, the next thing I remembered was waking up in Abbie’s apartment. The only thing I knew for sure was that we were safe. That I was safe. Clara promised me that and I trusted her. Hey, I had to trust someone. I lost faith in Mom a long time ago. Don’t even get me started on Summer. I’m not sure if I was ever going to trust her. My cousins were cool though. Even if Abbie did show up to drag me to that stupid school of theirs. I’d like to say it wasn’t all bad though.
Well except for one thing.
Taking a moment to look up from my phone, I locked eyes with him. He was handsome I suppose, if you liked that whole corn-fed farm boy type. I’m not going to lie though, he had great eyes. Piercing blue with those little dimples at the corners. His freckles went well with that sandy blonde hair too. Ok, he was a lot handsome. Like a young Brad Pitt. Very young, way pre-Aniston days. The thing was, as much as I might be attracted to him, I wasn’t interested. I had too much on my plate already. I’d almost been incarcerated, killed and kidnapped. All within a day or so. I had some crazy “Think Tank” chomping at my heels and now I was on a train going to “Mutant High”. I didn’t need to add a boy into the mix.
If only, he’d get the memo.
Crap, he saw me looking...
Crap, he’s getting up…
Crap, he’s coming over….
“Hey” he said, standing near my seat. “I’m Cody.”
Damn.
He even had one of those farm accents.
I decided grunting was the best possible response. I was hoping it was enough to tell him I wasn’t really interested but apparently grunting meant something else where he came from. He dropped lazily into the seat across from me, completely oblivious to the fact that I wanted to be left alone. I was tempted to tell him to fuck off but my therapist wouldn’t have approved. Yes I had a therapist, not my idea. Well not initially. When Mom forced me to go to Dr. Chambers, I HATED every bit of it. I spent the first few sessions saying nothing and glaring. Hey, it was my dime, I could do whatever the hell I wanted. Slowly I started to open up though and she started to coach me on how to be more sociable. Apparently, grunting and sassing people was not the polite thing to do.
I sighed, clicking out of my game.
“I’m not interested.”
He smirked. “Great name, sounds foreign. I like foreign girls.”
He had a playful twinkle in his eye.
Cute.
I rolled my eyes. “Look, I’m sure that that charm works in whatever podunk town you’re from but it doesn’t work on me.”
“Danesville, Nebraska actually.”
“Yeah, great. Don’t care.”
I picked up my phone, hoping he finally got the clue.
He didn’t.
“You’re rude, you know that?”
I gave him the “Yeah Duh” look.
Now maybe he’d finally leave me alone.
Instead of going away though, he shifted his body, positioning himself so he was closer to me. I couldn’t help but notice that he smelled really good. It was a musky, masculine odor. There was something else, a burnt smell that should have made me crinkle my nose but it didn’t. I found myself looking at his face again, getting lost in those eyes. For a moment I didn’t have a care in the world. I could stare in those eyes all day long, they were mesmerizing…
“You ok?” he finally asked, breaking the trance.
I shook my head.
Shit.
“I’m fine, just deep in thought...”
He smiled. “Thinking about giving me that name of yours?”
I toughened up. “Not likely.”
“You know if you don’t give it to me, I might just have to give you a nickname?”
I shrugged. “Suit yourself.”
I went back to my phone again, hoping he’d get the clue finally. He didn’t. He started spitting out stupid names for me but I stopped listening. It irritated the hell out of me that he wasn’t getting the clue. It also irritated the hell out of me that I liked it so much. I’m not going to lie, I liked the attention. Before manifesting, I used to have to dye my hair to get boys to look. Even then most of them were only ever interested in me to get close to Summer. I used to hate all the attention she used to get. When she started going to Whateley, I thought I might finally get a chance but boys still asked me about her. Hell, even the adults wanted to know about picture perfect Summer. It was enough to make a girl sick.
It wasn’t all bad though.
I didn’t always hate my sister.
Before she manifested and became everyone’s Pretty Princess, she used to be cool. We used to do everything together. She used to be this mousy shy thing with red hair, who spent all her time with her nose stuck in a book. That was five years ago. When Summer turned eleven, she manifested. No one in the family was surprised but me. Especially when my quiet, bookworm sister was replaced by a gorgeous blonde bombshell. The day Summer manifested was the day my problems began. It didn’t take long for my family to all but ignore me, so of course I started acting out. I started to resent everything but especially her. That’s when I started my blog too. It was just meant to be my own personal outlet, I never thought it would catch on like it did.
Then Brody came.
Looking back on it, I’m not really sure what I saw in him. I knew him most of my life, he was the kid who lived on the farm down the road from us. His family wasn’t all that dissimilar from our own actually. Except they were mutant haters. I always found it ironic in a way. They only lived a couple miles away from a family of superheroes and never knew it. When Brody started to show interest in me though, I was flattered. I was beyond flattered actually. He didn’t care at all about Summer. He thought she was superficial and ditzy. He liked me and loved every bit of it. I got caught up in it. I was so happy that someone finally noticed me, I did pretty much anything he asked or told me to do.
I let it go too far.
Everyone tried to tell me he was bad news but I didn’t listen.
He talked me into a group at school called, “Liberation”. I’m not going to lie, I knew what kind of group it was from the start but I lied to myself about it. I thought if I pretended it wasn’t a mutant hating group that I could have a clear conscience about it all. Things of course came to a head a couple of months ago. That’s when the group took that “job”. I still didn’t know the specifics of it. Mark only told me that we were going to find this mutant girl at some kind of rally and talk to her. He never said anything about attacking her. He talked me into luring her away from the crowd and they jumped her.
I watched too.
I’m not proud of it.
That’s when I manifested.
I lost control as they continued to pound on her and I rushed in to stop them. In the midst of trying to pull an enraged Mark free, it happened.
I happened.
“Hey you ok?”
Cody waved a hand in front of my face, breaking my thoughts.
I jumped.
I lost myself there for a second.
“Huh?”
“You’re spacing. You ok?”
He actually sounded concerned.
I shrugged. “Just thinking about something.”
“It looked intense. Bad or good?”
“None of your business actually” I snapped, annoyed.
He threw up his hands in a “I surrender” gesture. I sighed. I thought about my therapist again and how we were still working through the anger.
“Sorry” I said, a bit more calmly. “I was thinking about someone...”
He raised an eyebrow. “Boyfriend?”
I shook my head. “Not anymore.”
He smiled. “Then I still got a chance.”
I rolled my eyes. “You’re incorrigible.”
He smirked. “You say the nicest things to me, Blue.”
Blue?
I sighed. I suppose it was better than most. I hid my smirk, remembering back to the time and annoyance of dyeing my hair before I manifested. I used this over the counter crap that lasted a few months but easily washed out. As soon as one color faded, I’d replace it with another. It used to drive my Mom nuts. The more she told me to take more responsibility in my appearance, the more I rebelled against her. That’s where the piercings came from too. Sadly those were gone now. Manifestation was both of blessing and curse to me. Sure I no longer had to dye my hair and I got cool powers out of the deal but I had a very low level regen which kept me from replacing the piercings that said ability healed in the first place.
Mutations were weird like that.
A few months ago, I convinced myself it was NEVER going to happen to me. Then it did. I’m not going to lie, at the time I was thrilled. I was also absolutely terrified too. A long time ago, I came to peace with the fact that I wasn’t going to be a mutant like the rest of my family. After all, my sister manifested when she was eleven. My mother told me she did the same. Even my cousins manifested at a young age. I had a lot to live up too. It got worse when I thought about where I came from. Mom’s parents were baseline but her aunt wasn’t. When Mom manifested as a child, her parents were never sure what to do with her. Her father bailed shortly thereafter but for different reasons.
Not sure what to do with a mutant kid, her mother sent her to live with her aunt.
It was from there that Mom eventually went to Whateley and met Dad.
Dad’s family weren’t so open to the idea at first, what with Mom not coming from a rich superhero background like them. Dad won them over though. It was not an easy road though. My grandfather was a bit of a big deal. He was the third Grand Zephyr, a very powerful wind using superhero that a lot of the mutant world knew and either respected or feared. His father was the Grand Zephyr too and his father before him. It was an inherited title though. My grandfather used to say the power was gifted to his father by a God but most assumed he made it up. Regardless of its origins though, it passed from the eldest son to his child when the previous name owner died. Dad was expected to take up the mantle too.
Fate had other plans though.
Now no one was sure what was going to happen after my grandfather decided to give it up. Would it pass to my uncle Thomas, perhaps his son, Brian or would The Grand Zephyr finally hang up his cape for good?
“Have you seen this!”
I groaned.
Why couldn’t I get one moment…
Looking up from my phone again, I saw Cody on his. He was overly excited about something. Before I could tell him I wasn’t interested, he spun his device around so I could see. What I saw was a blurry video of a group fighting in the streets. It was pretty low quality but I could make out several figures, they looked to be about our age. The video was from one of those online news sites that Summer liked to gush about. The reporter was going on about a group of amateur superheroes saving the day in New York City yesterday. From the murmur around us, I could see that a few others had picked up on it as well.
I shrugged. “Looks like some people don’t know when to mind their own business.”
I wasn’t impressed.
Especially when amateurs tried to do something that should be left to professionals.
“You don’t think that’s awesome?”
I shrugged. “There’s a reason we have professionals to do those things”.
He wasn’t convinced. “You mean to tell me if you had a chance to run out there and save the day, you wouldn’t do it?”
I sighed. “With the proper training and guidance, sure.”
I thought about launching into a whole speech about being deputized by the local police and all that nonsense but I’m not sure he really cared. He was like most people. More than likely, like most of us on this train. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that the lot of us kids in this car were on our way to Whateley. Most of them were off in their own little cliques. All I had been hoping to do was find a quiet, secluded place by a window and watch the world as it zipped by. Now I had an annoyance I couldn’t seem to shake. Sure it was a cute one but I was already starting to regret engaging him in conversation.
“I would love to be a hero!”
I smirked. “I’m sure you’d look great in spandex.”
He smiled big.
Shit.
That wasn’t supposed to be a compliment.
Damn my snark.
And damn it, why am I blushing now?
Cody got a renewed sense of purpose after my accidental slip up. I think he thought it meant I wanted him around. I cursed. In the future, I was going to have to learn when to keep my mouth shut and my bitchiness in check. Though to be fair, Cody didn’t realize I was trying to be an ass. My faux pas screwed me over for the rest of the trip. After he thought I was complimenting and possibly flirting with him, Cody stepped up his game as they say. He tried his hardest to keep my attention, first trying to talk about superheroes but when he saw I wasn’t really interested, he switched tactics. He started to tell me about his home life, growing up on a cow farm in Nebraska. He told me about his parents and his six siblings. That was the only part I faltered at. I couldn’t imagine having Summer times six. One of her was enough.
The more he talked, the more I found myself relating to him.
I grew up on a farm too. Unlike him though, we had no animals there. It was an apple farm that my mother took over from her uncle. He retired before I was born, he and his wife lived in Florida now. Mom and Dad took to farm life well when they weren’t saving the world. mom’s her days didn’t last long though, she hung up her cape after Summer was born. She once told me she preferred the simpler life. She said it was a lot better than most. That was mostly on the account of her father. Whereas her mother was a hero too, her father---my grandfather---was a criminal. He died when I was little but I never met him. He lived in New York City, ran a pawn shop but did a little petty thievery on the side. Mom said he was the most despicable person she knew but it wasn’t all bad.
It led Gretchen to us.
She was like a real big sister to me.
Like Summer used to be.
“You ok?” asked Cody, stopping his current word diarrhea.
I’m not even sure what he was talking about because I was lost in my own thoughts.
I sighed. “Thinking about my sister...”
“You two close?”
I laughed. “Not anymore”
I left it at that and thankfully for his own sake, he didn’t ask. The last thing I needed was to push my problems onto a complete stranger. It was bad enough that my mother forced me to go to a therapist. The thing is and I’d never admit it to her, therapy was actually helping. If I told Mom that though she’d probably gloat about how she was right and I was wrong and it would just lead to another fight. One that would inevitably lead her back to comparing me to my perfect sister. Because at the end of the day, it really was ALL about Summer. It was a vicious cycle for me. I needed therapy because of Summer and whenever Mom would ask me about my sessions it would lead to a fight which all went back to Summer again.
“You want to talk about it?”
I laughed. “Not really.”
So he continued to tell me more about his family.
I tried to pay more attention.
It was a lot easier this time around.
And hey, it did kill the time so that was a plus.
The train pulled into a tiny little station in Dunwich, New Hampshire.
Looking out the window, I couldn’t help but smile. The town was one of those idyllic New England towns you saw in the movies and on post cards. Everything was red brick and only a few stories tall. It strangely reminded me of home, well the city outside the farm. This place was different though. What I saw looked warm and almost welcoming, home was suffocating. Grabbing my bag and my guitar---both of which I refused to be allowed to be stowed---I started following the press of people moving toward the exit. Cody was trying to stay close, somehow deciding he needed to protect me. Standing next to him, I never realized how tall he was. Or maybe I was just short.
Stepping onto the platform, I was shocked by how warm it was.
Back home, there’d been a slight chill in the air.
Here, I was almost sweating.
Well would if I could I suppose.
Ever since manifesting, I couldn’t. Its somehow connected to what I can do---pulling the water out of the air like that but I have my mother stumped. I have her mutant friends stumped too. My family has always had a strange and unusual power base to begin with. Most mutants don’t inherit powers the way we do. My uncle once told me he thinks it has something to do with that pact his great grandfather made all those years ago. Somehow the wind spirit has blessed the Spencer clan with an unusual power base. Then add my mother’s magic into the mix and things get interesting. Strangely enough, neither myself or Summer inherited any of Mom’s magical talent. Which kind of sucks to be honest because as cool as it is to make fog and throw around water balls, I would really like to weave spells like she does.
Like my cousins.
Alas, the world, she is a cruel mistress.
“Wow, its warmer than I thought” said my giant.
I grunted. “I thought it was warm where you come from?”
“It is. I just wasn’t expecting it to warm here.”
I shrugged. “Weather is strange in the north.”
Especially back home where it wasn’t strange to get all four seasons in one week.
It was clear he was about to say something in response but we were interrupted by a woman trying to wave us over. Dressed in a sharp suit and looking pretty flustered, she looked like she was trying to “corral cats” as Cody put it affectionately a few seconds later. There was a mass of teenagers around her and it was clear she was trying to get us to join. Behind her was a bus, most likely the final bit of transportation to the school. I sighed. This was my last chance. With her easily distracted, I could slip away without anyone noticing. I might even be able to get away with Cody tagging along. He was annoying but I wouldn’t be bored either. Who knows, maybe he’d shut up long enough for me to admire those dimples.
“That must be the Whateley woman, Ms...”
“You go on ahead, I have to use the toilet” I said, interrupting him.
Thinking about it, Cody didn’t strike me as a rule breaker.
He’d probably slow me down too.
Shame.
Cody nodded but was reluctant to leave my side. It was almost as if he felt obligated. Annoyed, I gave him a shove and he finally got the hint. He wandered over to the group, watching me for a few seconds until he finally turned his back on me. Finally. I didn’t waste any time and made my way down the platform in the opposite direction. I still had a little bit of my cash from before, hopefully it would be enough money to buy a ticket out of this dump. Hey I told Abbie and Clara I’d get on the train, I never said anything about going to the actual school. I hated lying to Clara though. She was a good person. There was just NO way I was going to spend the rest of my school existence at that stuffy boarding school.
Especially NOT a school that my sister attended.
Satisfied, I got away unnoticed, I made a beeline for the station. I was almost to the door when someone stepped out from behind the pillar in front of me. I almost ran into him. He was tall, wearing a charcoal gray suit. At first I thought maybe he was just a clumsy business man until I felt someone else step behind me. Shit. I turned to the second person, a woman. Whereas the man was bald and probably in his late thirties, she was youthful and blonde. She was short too, barely taller than me.
“Going somewhere, Riley?”
Shit, they knew my name.
“Bathroom?” I said, hoping it was enough to fool them.
The man scoffed. “What did I tell you Kayla, Agent Price was right...”
The woman chuckled.
Tony.
Shit.
I sighed, defeated. “You’re with the DPA?”
The man smiled, reached into his jacket and flipped me a badge. “Special Agent Carter and that’s Agent Grace”.
The woman didn’t show me her credentials but I’d take his word for it.
Shit.
They couldn’t be all bad though if Tony sent them.
Special Agent Anthony Price. My family had dealings with him in the past. He wasn’t a special agent back then but he was still one of the good guys. He helped Gretchen years ago when she was in trouble. He also helped me after the rally incident. Now that I thought about it, I wondered if he sent Clara to protect me as well? He was the overprotective sort after all. He checked in on us every once in a while, even sent presents for our birthdays and Christmas. He was the kind of man who you wanted to be on your side.
Right now though, I hated him.
I huffed. “Tony doesn’t trust me?”
Carter smirked. “What do you think?”
I sighed. “He knows I’m not cut out for this Whateley shit...”
“Its not his call and its not yours either.”
No it was Mom’s. She was still convinced that Whateley was the perfect place for me. She was hoping it would help me better understand my powers. More than that though, she was hoping someone there would help curve my rebellious streak. My therapist had already made arrangements for me to meet with the shrink there and Mom made sure I was enrolled in their martial arts class or whatever. Its not every day that a mother says she wants someone “break her daughter down and build her up” again. It was cruel and months ago, I would have rebelled even more against it. Dr. Chambers was convinced I was making some progress on that front. I still wasn’t ready to forgive my mother for all the shit over the years but it was a “step in the right direction”.
I looked past Carter, wondering if I could still get around him.
My options were limited now that the two of them had me pinned in.
There was going to the terminal and buying a ticket out of here so that option was out. I suppose I could cause some kind of commotion, maybe even a distraction but I was pretty sure they were trained for that. I bit my lip. Could I generate a “smoke screen” in here? That’s what I started to call my fog ability, saying I generated fog just sounded lame. Calling it a smoke screen made me sound like some kind of badass. Let’s face facts here, the fog was pretty stupid. Especially considering all the awesome things I’ve seen other heroes do. Not that I wanted to be a superhero but I at least wanted to possess some kind of OP talent. Alas, the only time I was useful was at parties. Maybe I should have called myself Rave Girl or something.
I scoffed.
Mist wasn’t really my idea either.
I wonder if there was still time to change it?
When The Good Neighbors power tested me shortly after I manifested, they gave me a list of group appropriate hero names. Apparently, they owned the trademark on a lot of water and wind based name variants. It was efficient and contract binding. There really weren’t a lot of names on their that suited me though. Once it was discovered that I could generate that fog though, my mother chose for me. I tried to argue but she waved it off, telling me if I didn’t like it, I could change it later. After that, the team’s seamstress started working on color schemes, she and Mom started bouncing off ideas. Their PR market got involved too and Project Mist began. It was so stupid and I didn’t have a say in the least. In my family, it was like you weren’t a person anymore as soon as you manifested.
I now had no say in my own future.
Its the chief reason why I ran away.
No one ever asked me what I wanted.
Then again, NO ONE EVER asks the teenager what they want.
Defeated, I raised my arms in front of me. “So, this where you cuff me, officer?”
I retreated to Smart Ass mode.
Its how I tended to cope 90% of the time anyway.
A few walkerbys saw me and raised their eyebrows. One even looked like they were going to step in and make sure I was ok. Gotta love little old ladies. Agent Carter looked nervous and started to fidget. His partner was on her toes though and quickly pushed my arms down.
“We’re not here to arrest you, we’re here to take you in for a debrief.”
A debrief? Was this a spy flick?
The name is Spencer, Riley Spencer.
Doo doo doo.
Snerk.
Agent Grace raised an eyebrow, almost as if she could read my mind.
“Of course I can’t” she deadpanned.
Holy shit.
She smirked and gave me a wink.
I guess I was going to have to watch myself around her.
“Kayla, stop scaring the girl” Her partner sounded annoyed. “We’re not here to hurt you, Riley. We just have a few follow up questions that Agent Fairchild failed to ask you.”
Agent Grace must have sensed my apprehension because she put a reassuring hand on my shoulder. “Its going to be ok. Clara figured you might be a little nervous so she asked us to do it.”
“What makes you so special?”
“Us? Nothing. But if you’d follow us to our car, we can explain further.”
I looked past them. The bus was already gone. There were still a lot of people at the terminal but I’m not sure they’d help even if I were to scream out. I could try running again but I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t get very far. Agent Grace gave my shoulder another squeeze and flashed me a smile. I sighed. This was one of the things that Dr. Chambers and I talked about at some length. I needed to learn how to trust people more. I knew these two meant me no harm but all things considered, I was still pretty cautious. The last time two “agents” approached me, they didn’t take no for an answer and I ended up in MCO custody. Before that, the DPA wanted to hold me accountable for what happened to that girl at the rally.
So trust didn’t come easy.
Especially with people flashing badges.
Right now though, I didn’t have a choice.
I sighed. “You betray me, I’ll make you regret it.”
It was a bluff but it was one I’d do everything I can to make possible.
Agent Grace stared at me for a moment, probably trying to read my thoughts. A second or so later, she gave me a small smile.
Good.
The three of us stared each other down for a few more seconds before we walked away from the front of the building. They led me around the side to a small parking lot where the only distinctive looking car was their black Chevy Impala. I was surprised because I thought for certain that federal agents usually drove cars that didn’t stand out. It was probably the most badass looking car in the whole lot. It didn’t help that the windows were tinted black. As we got closer, I noticed that there were no plates either. That surprised me. I was half expecting there would be something that said it was a government issued car. The lack of plates told me one very important thing.
This was an unofficial visit.
I started to feel a little apprehensive.
“We’re flying under the radar today. You’ll see in a moment.”
Grace said nothing else as she reached the car first and opened the left passenger side door for me. I took a step forward when I noticed that there was someone in the car. I wasn’t expecting that. I tried to look at their face but they were wearing a hoodie and had their head turned away from me. Looking beyond that, I saw skinny jeans and designer boots. I smirked but tried to keep it to myself as I climbed into the car. Agent Grace shut the door behind me as soon as I was safely inside. As soon as the door clicked shut, the person turned their head and I saw the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen.
I had no interest in girls in the least but for her, I’d almost make an exception. It didn’t help that she was Asian. I’d always been drawn to Asian girls. Her beauty wasn’t her most striking feature though, it was her eyes.
They were gold.
I gasped.
It was hard not too.
She smiled. “You must be the famous Riley Spencer I’ve heard so much about.”
I was dumbstruck.
How did this girl know my name?
“Uhh, hey.”
What else was I supposed to say?
She laughed. “I’m Jenny, its nice to finally meet you, Riley”
Huh.
The car ride was quiet.
After our brief introduction, Jenny didn’t say much. Apparently she was on her way to Whateley as well but her trip got diverted to pick me up. Like me, she had run into a bit of trouble not that long ago and the DPA was being extra cautious. Like me, this DPA escort was arranged and she wasn’t too happy about it either. After that initial conversation though, she fell quiet again and stared out the window. It had started to rain a bit as we drove and I found myself staring at the raindrops as they hit the glass. Before I never really paid attention to the rain but ever since manifesting, water and I had a close relationship.
If I concentrated hard enough, I could count each droplet.
After a few hundred though, it got boring fast.
Thankfully the little shower didn’t last long and by the time we got to our destination, it had stopped.
Looking out the window, I saw a rather ordinary looking brick building. It was in the middle of the town, nestled between two identical buildings. If I had to guess, I’d say it was an duplex of some kind. Not exactly the most discreet place but I wasn’t going to complain. In the last few weeks or so, I’d seen my fair share of “safe houses”. The MCO moved me to at least three before my fateful meeting with Clara. If I had to guess, I’d say this was one was probably going to be no different.
Our escorts got out of the car first.
“Don’t bother” said my previously quiet companion as I reached for my own door. “Its locked from the outside.”
I tried the handle anyway, she was right.
Looking out the window, I saw the two agents walk slowly up to the building and disappear into it seconds later.
I scoffed. “They expect us to run away?”
“You think you could get far if you tried?”
I shrugged. “I ran from them before.”
Back before I was picked up by the MCO, I was technically in DPA custody. Things had gone pretty smooth after the rally incident for a while. The whole lot of us involved were questioned by the police but my “friends” kept their stories straight. The strange thing was, none of them mentioned I was a mutant too. I think the little H1ers were embarrassed that they allowed a mutant into their ranks. Just as well. I ended up keeping my manifestation secret for weeks after. After all, besides losing the piercings, my appearance didn’t change all that much. It was ultimately Summer who ratted me out. She caught me trying to get a grasp on my powers in the barn one day. She freaked and ran to Mom.
Mom was pissed I kept it a secret from her.
That’s when my uncle got involved. I was brought to The Good Neighbors’ base of operations, given a battery of tests along the way. The DPA arrived shortly thereafter and wanted to know more about what happened at the rally. I told only half truths though, just what they wanted to hear. They bought it for the most part but kept an agent nearby the farm just in case. The whole thing just made Mom stricter. She made me start seeing Dr. Chambers on a more regular basis and wouldn’t let me out of her sight. The adults decided the best thing for me was to go to Whateley. I tried to protest but they wouldn’t listen. Especially seeing as I didn’t have any true control over my powers. A few days before I ran away, Mom drew the runes all over my arms. She called them channeling runes and told me they’d help center my mind and make it easier to focus. They were temporary, meant to disappear when I had more control. I would have complained but they were kind of cool looking, not that I told her that of course.
I ran away right after.
I was tired of people trying to control my life.
I could only imagine how foolish the DPA looked when it happened.
Thinking back on it now, I couldn’t help but smile.
“Something funny?”
I shrugged. “Old joke.”
A minute or so later, Agent Grace finally decided to let us out of the car. She unlocked Jenny’s door first. I grunted, annoyed that she was getting preferential treatment. As soon as Jenny was free from our temporary “prison”, Agent Grace let me out too. The whole time her partner was looking around on a hair trigger, ready to strike at moment’s notice. I tried to follow where he was looking but all I saw were buildings. It was clear he thought someone might try to ambush us at any moment. Was he worried about the people after me? Turning back around, I noticed that Agent Grace was standing awfully close to Jenny.
Was someone after her too?
“Let’s move, we’re too exposed here”.
Agent Carter was definitely jumpy about something.
Not wanting to argue with the man, I followed Grace and Jenny as they made their way up the tiny front steps and into the building proper. I heard Carter sigh behind me. I gave him a strange look but he didn’t seem the sharing type. Instead, I took a look around the tiny little entrance hall. We were there for only a few seconds before we were rushed down a little hall to a modest sized living area. As soon as we stepped inside, I noticed we weren’t alone. I wanted to squeal but I contained myself.
Tina Royce.
“Hey kiddo” she said, smiling big.
I met Tina ten years ago. She was with Gretchen when they arrived on our farm. Some really bad people were hunting them and they needed a place to lie low for a while. I was really young back then, four I think. I don’t really remember much about that first visit but it wasn’t the last. Tina---much like Gretchen---became a staple in our lives. But whereas Gretchen lived at the farm when not at Whateley, Tina only visited from time to time. The last time I saw her was a couple of years ago. She came to personally escort Summer to Whateley. I remembered being a bit jealous at the time.
The Tina sitting before me hadn’t changed a bit.
Except she looked tired.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, trying and failing to keep the excitement from my voice.
She smiled. “You and I need to have a bit of a chat.”
Oh, shit.
“Agent Royce, we’ll be upstairs if you need us.”
Agents Carter and Grace led Jenny out of the room, my new acquaintence gave me a reassuring smile before she left.
As soon as they were gone, Tina sighed.
“You’re a pain in the butt, you know that.”
I sighed, dropping onto the couch as she pointed at it. “Its not like I asked for any of this...”
She smirked. “We both know that’s a lie.”
I grunted. “How much do you know?”
“Only what you told Clara but I’m sure there’s more.”
Clara?
Oh wait…
“You were on the phone, you’re a spy!”
This time I didn’t hide my excitement. It all made sense. I thought I recognized that voice yesterday. So Tina was Clara’s boss. Things were adding up. No wonder Tina stop coming around as much after she graduated college. She was off being some super secret spy girl. It would have been a lot cooler if I suddenly didn’t start to fill in some other blanks. Clara seemed to know more than she was letting on and now it was clear that Tina knew a lot more too. If I had to guess, she probably knew everything.
“I can’t tell you who I work for but rest assured we’re not your enemy and we do have your best interests at heart. We know the basics of your situation but in order to truly help you, we need to know everything about Epsilon and the deal you made with them.”
I grunted, crossing my arms. “There was no deal. Seriously. Brody came to us one day, told us some guy wanted us to scare this girl for him. That’s it. Ask Brody, he’ll tell you.”
Tina sighed, rubbing the bridge of her nose. “We would but Brody Phelps is dead.”
Wait, what?
Dead.
I fell sick to my stomach. I used to love him once. Before we became more, we were friends. Brody used to be the only true friend I had, outside of Summer. After she manifested, he was there for me. He comforted me and kept telling me that Summer wasn’t so special. I should have seen the signs back then but I was too blinded by my own rage and jealousy to really notice. I was happy to do what he wanted me to do but all of that changed at the rally. When I saw what those idiots were going to do to that girl, I couldn’t let them. Sure I was jealous of mutants and hated them but I didn’t want to harm them. When I manifested trying to help that poor girl, I saw the true Brody.
Then I HATED him with the passion of a thousand suns.
I didn’t want him to die though.
I started to tear up. “How...how...”
I couldn’t even bring myself to ask.
Tina leaned forward, handing me a tissue from the nearby box. She waited a few seconds before answering, “He hung himself in his cell. At least that’s what we were led to believe.”
Suicide?
“You think he was murdered?”
She nodded. “There were telltale signs of a struggle. The timeline fits too. It happened minutes after that Epsilon lawyer left the two of you in that motel room.”
Epsilon. So those scumbags killed Brody.
“Shouldn’t they be in jail then?” I sniffled.
She sighed. “In theory yes but we can’t prove it. We can’t even prove they were involved with the incidents in Buffalo. They cleaned up that mess at the MCO safe house and the incident at the motel is being reported as MCO incompetence.”
She reached to a small shopping bag sitting at the side of the chair.
“You’re still a fugitive at large, when you’re not in school, you’re going to need to wear that...”
I looked at the bag and groaned.
I could just see the outline of a wig in there.
Great.
“Isn’t there anything the DPA can do about it?” I asked, not touching that bag.
She scoffed. “Unfortunately, the MCO has more political clout at the moment. They’ve labeled you as a dangerous mutant and if it wasn’t for your cousin intervening, things could have been a lot worse. There is no actual proof that you did anything wrong, other than make a lot of fog. They are trying to use the incident to get your cousin suspended from active duty but they have no pull there. Legally, Abigail perceived you to be in danger and acted accordingly. The MCO will blow some smoke for a while but they don’t really have a leg to stand on.”
There was something she wasn’t saying but her smirk said all I needed.
I was safe for now.
There was still Epsilon. They were still out there. As far as I know, they still wanted me.
“What about Epsilon?”
She shrugged. “On paper, they’re a small entity. They have a government contract. Officially they help mutants understand and make sense of their gifts.”
Why does that sound like bullshit?
“And unofficially?”
“I think you already know the answer to that.”
Shit.
So these people used the mask of the government to what, kidnap young mutants?
Or something worse.
They did try to kill me after all.
At least I think they did?
“What do they want with mutants anyway?”
“We don’t know. We were hoping you might have some insight into that.”
Then she started her questions. She wanted to know everything I could tell her about the “contract” I supposedly signed with them. The thing was, I signed nothing. The best I could figure, Brody forged my signature. Not that those people cared. My name was on that stupid contract of theirs and that’s all that mattered. I told Tina that. I also apologized for lying. Not just to the initial team who interviewed me after the rally incident but to Clara as well. When she was asking me questions last night, I told her a version of events that I wanted to be true. I didn’t even give her the proper names of my cousins. Like I said, I had trust issues. The thing is, Tina knew all of that already. She had too. She’s known me since I was a small child. It was just as well though because Tina seemed to know I’d been lying all the time. I also knew I couldn’t get away with lying to her now. It was her gift. That vibrant blue hair of hers was glowing as I talked so I know she was reading my feelings.
It was impossible to lie to someone like her.
It took about an hour for her to stop asking her questions.
“So what happens now?”
She smiled with a look of satisfaction. “Now you go to school.”
Wait, what?
“What about Epsilon?”
“You let us deal with them. You’re still a kid, Riley, its not your fight.”
She was right but why was I so worked about it then? Its not like I wanted to pick a fight with these people but I hated the idea that I couldn’t be involved either. I wanted to do something, anything. I was starting to get angry about it and Tina sensing that anger, leaned forward and put her hand on my mine. As soon as she did, I felt a soothing warmth spread throughout my body. The anger instantly dissipated and I felt like I was riding on a cloud. It was nice. Unfortunately that fluffy feeling didn’t last long but as soon as it was gone, I didn’t feel angry anymore.
She smirked at me. “I thought you didn’t want to be a hero?”
“I want to do something though!”
She laughed. “Weren’t your exact words, ‘ There’s a reason we have professionals to do those things’?”
Wait, how the hell did she know that?
My mouth hung open.
She winked then stood up. “Keep your head down, stay out of trouble and enjoy your time at Whateley. It was one of the best experiences I ever had.”
I sighed then she pulled me into a hug.
“Also, forgive your sister, she was just trying to help...”
Yeah right!
`
Tina left the safe house after our conversation. Following her out of the main room, I found my two agent escorts waiting. Tina gave me another hug, told me to be good then left. I watched her leave, wondering the next time our paths might cross. Tina liked to come and go like she pleased. Now that I knew it was partially because of her job, I knew not to expect her much. It did make me wonder what Gretchen’s excuse was? Thinking about her just made me tear up, so I wiped my eyes and made sure my “handlers” didn’t notice. Turning around, Agent Grace was the only one of the two that had a sympathetic smile.
Carter grunted. “I need to check the perimeter.”
He pushed past me toward the door and was out it before I could say a thing.
“What’s his problem?”
Grace sighed. “We got new orders. They want us to sit still for the rest of the day.”
Wait, what?
“What about the school? They’re expecting me?”
Grace sighed. “Orders are orders.”
Well no skin off my back as they say.
Grace---ever the mind reader---smirked.
“C’mon, there was some food in the fridge, Jenny’s in the kitchen waiting.”
She led me down the narrow hall this time and off to the left which opened to a modest sized kitchen. It was bright and sunny with a yellow décor, marble counter tops, oak cabinets and even a sliding glass door with a patio. It surprised me. Everything about this place felt cramped and confined. Whoever owned this place beforehand spent most of their time in the kitchen because it looked one hundred times better than the rest of the place. It reminded me so much of home that my heart ached. Though I would never admit that to Mom. The last thing I wanted her to know was how much I missed the farm. I wouldn’t give her the satisfaction. Nor would I give her the satisfaction of saying I’d rather be anywhere but there. It was a conundrum boiling inside of me. I missed home but I didn’t want to be there either.
“Nice right?” said Jenny, who was sitting at a little table.
I didn’t say anything but dropped into a chair across from her. After realizing how much I missed home, I was in a foul mood. I HATED the idea of missing anytihng about that place.
“Why are you so grumpy all the time?” she asked, delicately picking up one half of a peanut butter sandwich.
“Grumpy? Who the fuck says I’m grumpy?”
“Your aura”.
She said it like it was the most obvious thing in the world.
Then she took a small, dainty bit of her sandwich.
I scoffed then made a quick grab for the other half on her plate. I almost had it when one of her hands lashed out and grabbed my wrist.
Shit, she’s fast.
She held my wrist for a few seconds before letting it go.
“What was that about my aura?”
Man, that hurt?
She blinked, giving me confused look. “Your aura?”
I sighed. So she was pretty but as dense as my fog.
“You said I had a grumpy aura?”
She sighed. “Mǎo, what did I say about talking through me!”
Mau, who was Mau?
“Sorry, Gōngzhǔ” she said again.
There was something slightly different about her that time though. Her voice sounded off, softer and more refined. Now that I thought about it, her voice sounded like that for the last minute or so. It was almost as if another person was talking.
She sighed. “I’m sorry” she said, sounding like she did back in the car. “Its my spirit. She thinks she can use me when she wants.”
Spirit?
It dawned on me a second later.
“You’re an Avatar?”
She lowered her head slightly and nodded.
She took another bite of her sandwich before continuing.
“Allow me to properly introduce myself” she said, after swallowing. “I am Jiaying Wu, Avatar of the Great Mǎo Bái Hǔ.”
Bai Hu?
“What’s that?”
Jenny smiled but when she spoke, it was with that different voice:
“I am the Great Tiger of the West.”
She bowed her head in respect.
I was still really confused. I’d heard about Avatars but I never thought I’d actually get to meet one in person. To say I was shocked and surprised was a bit of an understatement.
I did have a few questions but there was still one that bothered me.
“Did your Spirit tell you my name?”
She gave me a long look and sighed. She cursed, I think it was in Chinese because I had no idea what it meant. “My sister. I swear to the Gods” she blew air between her teeth in frustration. “Wu is my mother’s maiden name, my real last name is Fairchild.”
Fairchild?
She still stared at me blankly.
“You know, Clara’s sister?”
A light bulb finally went off in my head.
Clara had mentioned a sister. I think she mentioned something about her going to Whateley too.
“Right, Clara said something about that...”
The girl sighed.
She started rambling off in Chinese again, I smiled and nodded.
A minute or so later, Agent Grace finally brought me my own sandwich.
The rest of the meal we ate in silence.
Just as well.
Jenny might be as cute as hell but she freaked me out too.
I’m not sure who was scarier though, her or that spirit of hers?
Sept. 7th 2016 4am
Ok I didn’t plan on running again.
At the same time though, I knew I couldn’t stay either. Everyone in my life was convinced they knew what was best for me but no one ever asked me. My mother would often tell me that my sister needed more attention because she “couldn’t get dressed without falling down” and I need a therapist because I couldn’t control my anger. I needed the runes on my arms because I couldn’t control my powers. I needed to go to Whateley because I would be safe there. It was all a load of shit. I learned a long time ago to take care of myself. I knew the risks too. Besides, its not like I didn’t know what to do. Gretchen used to tell me what it was like on the streets and I’m pretty sure I could handle it.
I knew where to go too.
It was the same place I was heading when the MCO nabbed me that first time.
Smiling, I reached into my pocket and pulled out the old letter.
It was from Gretchen. She sent it to me about a year ago. The letter told me she was all right and not to worry about her. She left me a number to call her too. The letter had no return address, just a PO box in New York City. The number was a dead end too. I had a computer hacker associate try to trace it for me. Apparently it was a burner phone. My friend was able to trace where it was purchased though. Gretchen was in New York. It wasn’t a lot to go on but it was better than anything. Out of everyone in my life, she was the one who understood me the most. Besides, she was the strongest mutant I’d ever seen. If anyone could protect me, it was her.
Epsilon, the MCO, they didn’t stand a chance against her.
I returned the letter to my back pocket and slowly made my way to the door.
It was four in the morning, hopefully the two agents were sound asleep.
Before making sure we went to bed at ten last night, I overheard the two of them talking. We were supposed to be leaving here in a couple of hours. They’d drive us to the school, make sure we got registered then leave the rest up to Whateley. As soon as I was safely in their walls, no one could touch me. Safety was overrated. Besides, as soon as I found Gretchen, I wouldn’t need Whateley to protect me.
I was almost to do the door when I heard someone moving.
I cursed.
Jenny and I were sharing one of the two rooms. I had to wait a full hour to make sure she was sleeping before. Apparently I hadn’t waited long enough.
Turning slowly, I saw her sitting up in bed, those weird gold eyes of hers glowing in the dark.
“I’m thirsty” I said, hoping it was enough to convince her.
It wasn’t.
“I’ve never seen anyone put on their boots and carry all their things to get a glass of water before?”
Crap.
That Voice.
It wasn’t Jenny.
“You’re the Tiger right?”
“You can call me Mao” It said, slowly getting out of bed.
“Right, Mao, look, I’m not...”
It sighed. “Running from your problems never solves anything. I should know, I have done my fair share of running. No matter how far you run, you will eventually be caught.”
I sighed.
Great, I was getting sage wisdom from a talking cat.
Jenny cocked her head. Well not Jenny.
Bah, this was confusing.
“You are a warrior, are you not?”
I scoffed. “Not likely.”
“Jiaying told me what you and her sister did at that inn, how you helped her stop those evil men trying to hurt you.”
How did Jenny know about that?
“Clara did all the work, I was just there to provide cover.”
She smiled. “There are many kinds of warriors in this world. Some wield swords, other words. Some are strong and some have a different kind of strength.”
“I’m not strong...”
“You’re wrong” she said, walking slowly toward me.
Mao was graceful. Jenny didn’t walk with quite the same kind of elegance. It was weird but the two of them really did act like two different people. It was almost as if there were two of them in the same body. Well, I guess there really was. I’d read about Avatars though and their spirits. I never heard of one who could take over their host at will and control them like that. I thought they just lent their Host the power they possessed? Earlier today, I tried to get Jenny to open up a bit more but she was pretty closed off. Like me, something most have happened to her. Something bad. All throughout the day, I noticed every once in a while that Jenny would drift off and Mao would take over.
After spending a few hours with them, it was easy to see which was in control.
Like I said, Mao was a lot more graceful.
More confident too.
There was this presence as well, it was hard to describe.
Before I knew it, she was standing in front of me. Apparently, Jenny liked to sleep in a t-shirt and panties. I was used to seeing another girl practically naked, I did share a room with my sister back at home. Yet, there was something about Jenny that made me blush. It was a bit off putting because I liked boys. I couldn’t stop myself from staring at her bare legs though, they were so white.
There was something else too.
Mao put her hands on my shoulders and when she did, I thought I saw faint black stripes all over her arms. Squinting, I was pretty sure it was just a trick of the light. There was a tiny bit of moonlight coming through the window after all.
“You remind me of another young woman, one who felt the best way to deal with her problems was to run from them. She was a Princess. I met her on the road many years ago and tried to help her on her journey. She was lost and confused and thought her life to be over. When I encountered her she was scared and alone but she was nice enough to share her food with me. In return, I sheltered her from the storm that raged around us. I shared wisdom with her too.”
“What kind of wisdom?”
“I told her that no matter how hard you think the world is, there’s always a light at the end of your path, sometimes that light leads you where you want to go and sometimes it leads you back to where you came from.”
“So you’re saying that Whateley is my path?”
“That is not for me to say. This is your path. All I can do is give you wisdom on your journey.”
I laughed. “Sounds like Buddha stuff”
She smiled. “He was my prized pupil.”
My mouth dropped open slightly.
Mao put me on the spot. She got me thinking too. I didn’t want to go to Whateley but I was fooling myself if I thought I could find Gretchen too. No one had actually seen her in a couple of years. I tried calling that number she gave me numerous times but she never answered. I was upset that she would do something like that to me. I was also convinced that if I just found her, she could explain to me why she left in the first place. I think ultimately though, my biggest fear was that she was abandoning us for good and she wasn’t coming back. That fear has been driving my thoughts for years. She was the only one I thought truly cared about me and she left me alone.
I started to cry.
Mao pulled me into a gentle hug. She started to sing softly but it was in Chinese so I didn’t know the words. Whatever the song was though, it was nice and soothing. It made me feel like I was floating on clouds. Much like Tina’s gentle touch from earlier. Unlike Tina’s touch though, Mao’s embrace seemed to last forever. Sadly, nothing can last forever and after what felt like an eternity but was only probably a minute or two, the hug ended. The happy feeling lingered for a bit though.
“You are still very young, you have the rest of your life to live. Don’t try to live it all in one moment, savor time like a friend. The path before you is long and though I do not know where it leads, I can tell you that the journey is worth the wait.”
I sighed. “So I should stay here then?”
She shrugged. “That is not for me to say.”
“Did your friend stay on her path?”
Mao gave me a sad smile. “She did for a time”
“What happened to her?”
She sighed heavily. “What happens to all mortals in the end....”
She didn’t finish, she didn’t have to.
She perked up a moment later. “It all works out in the end though.”
“What does?”
“Fate”.
She didn’t elaborate anymore. I wasn’t even going to try asking.
“So its my Fate to go to Whateley?”
“That is Fate’s business, not mine.”
Why did I know she was going to say that?
I sighed, I was about to ask her something else when she blinked and looked around.
“What am I doing out of bed?” she asked and I realized Jenny was back.
This girl was a mess.
How could I leave that?
I smirked. “You were sleepwalking. I woke up and found you blundering about.”
“I don’t sleep walk...”
“Must be new” I said, patting her on the shoulder.
As soon as she realized she was standing there half dressed, she made a weird sound and rushed back over to her bed. She was under the covers a second later. I was amazed at how different she and Mao really were. It was almost as if Jenny wasn’t used to her body yet. When Mao was in full control, they were like Yin and Yang. It was amazing to watch. It was hilarious too. Jenny was truly helpless though. She was hopeless too. I’m not going to say that I was going to stay for her but someone had to watch out for her. At least until she got a handle on everything. I knew it was going to be harder breaking out of Whateley but I welcomed the challenge.
Who know’s maybe it was all apart of my path too?
I sighed. “You owe me one Mao” I said softly.
“What was that?”
“Was just saying I really need that drink now”.
“You guys want some breakfast?”
I grunted. “More PB and J, I’ll pass”
The four of us were in the kitchen, Carter was still in a miserable mood. I didn’t blame him. We were supposed to be at the school yesterday. It was clear that he wasn’t really keen on “babysitting” duty, as he called it last night when he thought I couldn’t hear him. He had a point though. He was a highly trained federal agent and he was being reduced to watching us kids. I would have been pissed too. I thought about trying to convince him that we were a waste of his time and maybe ask him to look the other way while I slipped off. Then I realized he had a gun. I didn’t really want to piss him off anymore than he already was.
“Why don’t we just skip the breakfast and drop them off” he snapped.
I kept my mouth shut.
Jenny did not.
“We both appreciate you doing this for us. We know how important and valuable your time is, Agent Carter.”
He opened his mouth to say something snide but one look at her shut him up.
For a second, I thought I saw a twinge of fear cross his face.
Was he scared of her?
No, not her.
Mao.
It made me wonder what happened before I joined them?
“Sir” said Agent Grace, trying to take control of the situation. “We have orders. You might not like them but they stand. In a couple of hours time, the girls will be safe and we can get on with active duty.”
I smirked.
Did she always cuddle him like that?
She turned and shot me a nasty look.
Stop reading my mind, bitch.
She glared but let it go.
Victory for me.
As it was, Agent Grace set about making a real breakfast. Apparently there was some bacon and eggs in the fridge. While the food cooked, I started to weigh my options. I should have run last night. I know I was like a broken record, constantly skipping back to this point but maybe it was my path after all. I knew exactly where a life at Whateley would lead me. I didn’t want to be a hero. I know it was my family’s legacy and all that but I never wanted anything to do with it. Besides, they didn’t need me. They had Summer. They were already putting her face on all those Good Neighbor promo posters. Just as well. She was born for that kind of thing. Me, I’m not sure what I was born for. Maybe I’d just take my guitar and disappear into the punk world. I’m not sure if I wanted a career in music either but anything was better than posing and primping like a moron for some photographer.
There was something else too.
Jenny.
I’d only known the girl for a little while but I think she needed me. I could see she was struggling with something. I’m not sure Mao was the right person to help her either. The Spirit clearly had its own agenda and was using her to accomplish it. I didn’t really know a lot about Avatars but I knew enough to know that a lot of the spirits didn’t just pop up like that whenever they wanted. I made a mental note to Google the White Tiger as soon as possible. There was something about this that didn’t make any sense to me. I think I owed it to Jenny’s sister too. Clara helped me and now I wanted to return the favor and help her sister.
My thoughts were interrupted by bacon.
More importantly, bacon and scrambled eggs.
Looking around though, I noticed she served the others first.
Touche.
She was a good cook though. I wasn’t expecting that, especially after yesterday’s lunch. Dinner wasn’t much either, some Chinese takeout from some place down the street.
We ate in silence, there wasn’t much to talk about.
After breakfast, the agents were all business.
“There’s only just this one road from here to the school?” asked Carter, looking at a map.
“Unfortunately yes. It was just a dirt thing when I went to school there but one of the school’s trustees paid to have it paved recently. It passes by some camp grounds and a bridge...”
I tuned out the conversation.
Carter was griping about the road being too exposed or something.
It was all pretty boring stuff.
Instead, I followed Jenny as she wandered out of the kitchen. She made her way back to the room that the two of us shared last night. When I finally caught up with her, she was sorting out some things in one of her suitcases. Jenny had three, I thought it was a bit much. Everything I owned and wanted was stuffed in my backpack. I always traveled pretty light. Then again, I wasn’t planning on going to the school. I only had another change of clothes. I’d been wearing my current outfit for a few days now and it was starting to smell pretty rank. I planned on buying something more when I got situated but now I felt like an idiot. I wandered over to my “own” bed where my pack and guitar were currently laying.
Jenny followed me with her eyes. “Is that really all you brought?”
I shrugged. “I was running away...”
“We should ask the agents to take you shopping somewhere?”
Oh god no, anything but that.
Summer lived and breathed shopping. Every chance she got, she tried to drag me to some mall back home. Then she’d spend hours going from shop to shop. She kept insisting that I buy this and that and if I protested, she’d buy it for me anyway. I had a whole closet back home full of crap I didn’t want but she bought me anyway. I think it really bothered her that I wasn’t a girly girl like her. The thing is, I didn’t really hate the mall or shopping in generally, I just REALLY HATED doing it with her. In fact, most of the time I’d manage to slip away from her and hide in Hot Topic. She always found me though and dragged me back to some stupid teen clothing boutique I had no business being in.
“I think I’ll pass...”
“Oh thank God” she groaned, almost sounding relieved. “I detest shopping.”
I was confused.
“What about all your…?”
“My mother” she interrupted with another groan. “She insisted. Truthfully, I have no idea what half this shit even is.”
She was holding up two different bottles, I think one was body wash.
I laughed.
I think I completely underestimated her.
Again.
Jenny looked like she belonged on the cover of every fashion magazine imaginable. Even now she was wearing a designer top, some really skin tight jeans and some very expensive boots. I thought for sure she was one of those trendy girls I detested back home. Now though, she looked about as disgusted as I was. There was something else too. She looked almost awkward as she went through some things. This was definitely NOT the type of girl who knew what she was doing.
She bit her lip. “You know, if you want, you can have some of these clothes?”
I snorted. “Anything in black?”
She rifled through her suitcase and second later held up a pair of panties.
We both laughed.
“I think I’ll pass.”
“That’s all you’re bringing?” asked Agent Carter as I walked down the stairs with my pack and guitar.
“Its all I have” I said, annoyed.
He grunted but didn’t say anything else.
“We can take you shopping, I think we have time...”
“No” snapped the senior agent, getting a glare from his younger partner. “We’re already behind as it is”
I think I finally decided that I HATED Agent Carter. Before I tried to give the man the benefit of the doubt. After all, this situation was not ideal for any of us. Hell, I still didn’t know what was going on. I should have been at that damn school yesterday. Neither one was really forthcoming as to why we waited a full day. I’m guessing it was an MCO or Epsilon related issue but I couldn’t be certain. Now that we were finally on our way, this man was being an ass. If I had to guess, I’d say being an ass was just his nature. Especially with his lack of sharing. Sure we were kids and we didn’t need to know everything but at least something our way.
Adults were dicks sometimes.
Agent Grace shot me a look.
I was really getting sick of that bitch reading my mind too.
She was still glaring.
I quickly thought up an image of a naked, hairy fat dude then watched her shudder.
Serves her right.
“Enough of that” she said, sounding cross but smiling just the same.
Agent Carter ignored the exchange, instead he went to appear manly by helping Jenny with her bags. He only half succeeded though. I watched in amusement as she easily carried all three suitcases as if they weighed nothing. I didn’t know a thing about her powers, other than the spirit. It was clear she had a little strength going on though. Agent Carter grumbled something about getting the car ready before huffing down the stairs and out the door ahead of us. I followed close on his heels. My uncle was a bit of a gearhead and I liked to linger about the garage while he tinkered away. I might have picked up a thing or two.
Stepping outside, I shuddered at the chill in the air.
It was weird.
Back at the train station, it had been fairly warm.
Here it was freezing.
“This is town is unsettling” said Mao, speaking through Jenny once again.
“What do you mean?” asked her host as the girl stepped up next to me.
“This weather is unnatural and there is something here, something that does not belong.”
“They say its Eldritch in origin” said Agent Grace with a chuckle as she stepped past us.
“Demons” growled the Tiger spirit.
Demons? Really?
Jenny rolled her eyes and let out a sigh. “Ignore her.”
“It is not to be ignored. I told you why I wanted to come to this place, I have...”
Jenny managed to cover her mouth with a hand before making her way over to the car. It was weird and comically at the same time. It made me wonder though. If there were such things like spirits and the like, surely something like a demon must exist too? I once overheard Gretchen and her old Whateley roommate talking about a girl they knew who might be a demon. They stopped talking the moment they realized I was eavesdropping for fear that they might scare me or something. As a kid, I didn’t scare easily though. Unless of course I did something stupid and got my mother angry. That woman could get really scary if she wanted, even without her magic.
I followed the Chinese girl, keeping my head down.
I struggled a bit with my hoodie, trying to use as much of it as I could to shield me from the chill. I had to admit though, there was something off with the air. I’m not sure if it was demons but there was definitely something different here. I’d heard some pretty strange things about Dunwich, most of which I chalked up to stories and superstition. Standing in the town now though, I could see why a lot of people thought this place was strange. The sky was overcast, the air tasted stale. There appeared to be no breeze yet it was definitely colder. What’s more, I knew it rained earlier and yet there were no puddles on the ground. Then there was the air. It took me a second or two to realize what was wrong.
There was no moisture.
It rained, the air should still be heavy with it, especially with those clouds.
Yet, nothing at all.
It was unnatural.
I shivered, rubbing my arms.
“Something wrong?” asked Agent Grace, casting a weary glance at a distant line of pine trees.
“The air is weird here” I said with a shudder.
“I don’t sense anything unnatural” she said but the way she emphasized unnatural made me wonder if she had in the past?
There was a story there, I was sure of it.
She turned and gave my shoulder a squeeze.
“C’mon, Whateley awaits.”
Oh, joy.
The drive out of town was quiet.
There was meandering road that lead from it and into a wooded area. According to Agent Grace, the road had once been nothing more than a dirt path but paved recently by one of the school’s wealthy benefactors. I saw the camp grounds they mentioned in that conversation I overheard earlier too. The atmosphere outside didn’t change. Staring out the window, something shifted again. Whereas before things had been gloomy and gray, now the sky was a a dull blue and the weather shifted again. There was moisture in the air again but there was something else too. I wasn’t the only one who noticed either as Jenny seemed to be less tense now. Or rather Mao seemed less tense.
We came across a small stream and a covered bridge shortly passing the camp grounds.
The sound of flowing water set my mind at ease.
But only for a moment.
As soon as we crossed the bridge, I felt nervous again.
A moment later, Jenny was holding my hand.
“You’re going to be fine” she reassured me.
“I’m not sure I can do this?”
“Why not?”
I sighed. “All my life I’ve only ever wanted to be a mutant and when it didn’t happen, I got angry and really jealous. I did and said some stupid things. Hurt some people because of it.”
She scoffed. “No one’s perfect. Before all this” she said, waving at her body. “I was a bit of an asshole too. I was arrogant and thought the world revolved around me. I did and said some pretty stupid things. Some very wise people helped me put things into perspective. Its not easy and it will take time but I’ll help if you want it?”
I blinked.
I could never imagine her being a horrible person.
Maybe Mao but never Jenny. She was so sweet and nice. Maybe a little bit of a doofus but not this asshole she claimed to be. Jenny had been nothing but helpful to me. We talked a lot the last day or so. Even though she was still pretty secretive, she didn’t seem the type of person who would want to hurt someone. Mao definitely but Jenny looked like she couldn’t hurt a fly. I knew from experience to never underestimate any mutant you meet but if I had to guess, her powers were probably Esper something. I definitely didn’t want to racial stereotype her and think, “Hey she’s Asian, she must know martial arts”, I wasn’t that kind of person.
I trusted Jenny though.
Mao was a different story.
That Thing was hiding something too.
Call it a gut feeling but I didn’t trust It.
The drive over the bridge had been a short one. As soon as it was behind us, we ended back on a proper road. More trees on either side followed by a long stretch toward my inevitable doom. A few minutes after leaving the bridge, the school slowly came into view. I’m not sure what I was expecting, I thought for sure it might look like a prison. It did have a wallbut it wasn’t one of those scary tall ones.
Jenny held my hand the whole time.
After a few minutes, we came upon the main gate.
This is it.
My future.
No chance to run now.
I took a deep breath.
“Guys, welcome to Whateley” said Agent Grace, turning back to us with a smile.
No turning back.
I sighed.
Here goes nothing.
Author’s note: As I’m sure all of you know, comments are life blood to an author. I’m not begging or demanding, but I certainly would appreciate anything you have to say (or ask). It doesn’t have to be long and involved, just give me your reaction to the story. Thanks in advance...EOF
Rain On A Sunny Day Part Two
by: Enemyoffun
|
Huh.
I wasn’t sure what I expected all these years when my parents talked about Whateley. When I was kid, I thought it was the most amazing place in the world. I couldn’t wait until I manifested and I’d be able to go there. As I got older and my manifestation didn’t come the same time as Summer, I got discouraged. Then watched as my uncle helped her with her bags and drove off to New Hampshire with her. I watched it happen for a couple of years, each year getting more and more bitter. By the time I finally did manifest, any excitement for the place was long gone. Now it represented everything I HATED about being a mutant.
I despised it.
Sitting in this car as we pulled into a vacant lot, I wasn’t about to change my mind.
Though I was surprised when I looked out the window.
This place was my Disney Land once.
Then it became my Dread.
I was expecting some moldy old institution.
Sure the buildings had that old New England look, it wasn’t nearly as bad as I was expecting. The lawns and trees were well manicured, the pathways were clean and dirt free. Even the old brick buildings looked brand new and welcoming. All in all it didn’t remind me at all of the sterile, repressive place I had in my mind the last three years. Of course I’d never admit that openly. This was after all still the place my mother was sending me to as punishment. My own personal hell and the more I looked at this idyllic setting, the more I dreaded getting out of this vehicle.
"You actually send your youth here?”
I turned and wanted to kiss Mao, though that would have been a little awkward.
"What’s wrong with it?” asked Agent Grace from the passenger seat in front of us. “I went here. This is a good school. It helped me control my powers and become a well respected member of society.”
I scoffed. “That’s the biggest BS line I’ve ever heard.”
She ignored me but her partner scoffed too.
At least someone knew where the bullshit was.
"So what happens now?” asked Jenny, cutting the building tension.
"We wait” was all the response we got.
Thankfully we didn’t have to wait long.
Looking out the window I saw two people walking across the parking lot. A man and a woman, the one in the gray fatigues was clearly some kind of security. He had an arrogance about him that screamed cop but he also had a soldier’s haircut. I planned on giving these people hell but seeing him, I might have to second guess my plans. I’m not sure I’d be able to get away with as much as I used to back at home. The security at my old school was a bit of a joke. They had a single Rent-a-cop who thought he was menacing because he spent some time in a Gym but the man couldn’t be everywhere at once, making it hard to police a whole high school. I had a feeling that security here was going to be a little different. They needed it if they expected to police an entire of school of freaks like me.
Good.
I liked a challenge.
Carter scoffed. “You’re going to have your work cut out for you now, Spencer.”
I smirked. “Challenge accepted.”
Looking from the guard, I turned my attention to the woman.
There wasn’t much guessing about her. Early thirties, sandy blonde hair and crisp suit. She was a Fed, no doubt about it. If I had to guess, I’d say another DPA knucklehead. It made sense. If I was them, I wouldn’t let a full school of mutant teenagers loose on the world without some oversight. Though I couldn’t help but wonder how much she was actually there for me over them? After all, these people seemed pretty adamant that I get to the school and stay here. I still couldn’t figure out why I was important though. Why were they going to all this trouble? Was it just the whole Epsilon thing? Or was there something else? If there was something else then why weren’t they telling me about it?
That last bit kinda pissed me off.
Call me a paranoid bitch all you want but there was definitely something going on here.
The woman reached the car first but the man wasn’t too far behind.
I noticed neither of our escorts bothered to get out but both of them straightened a bit at her approach. Carter also rolled down his window, giving the guard a long look before turning his attention to her.
"Agent Marcus” he said, his smart ass tone from before long gone.
"Special Agent Carter, Agent Grace, welcome to Whateley Academy.”
"Thank you ma’am”.
They both said it in unison.
It was weird seeing Carter act so obedient toward someone.
She turned her attention to me for a moment, her eyes sweeping over me rather quickly before settling on Jenny. She stared at the girl for a few moments and I thought I saw her stony disposition falter for a moment. Was there something about Jenny that scared her? I looked at the girl myself, she didn’t look any different than before. She was wearing a short sleeved shirt today. I know I noticed it last night but I thought it was a Mao Takeover thing. Apparently the black tiger stripes were a Jenny thing. It must have gone with those catlike eyes of hers. I’d seen various cases of GSD before. My hair and my eyes were labeled as such too. As far as it went, I think she and I got off lucky.
That didn’t stop her from flinching and fidgeting under this woman’s stare.
So I decided to glare right back at the insensitive bitch.
Agent Marcus finally fully turned her attention to me. She was frowning at me too. It wasn’t the glare that she was giving Jenny though, the look on her face now was one I was well familiar with: disappointment. My mother had been giving me that very same look for months now. I thought about returning the look with one of my own but I gave her the finger instead. The woman tapped on my window and Agent Grace lowered it.
"You must be the infamous Riley Spencer.”
I scoffed. “I’m impressed, I didn’t think I was famous already.”
I was being a smart ass.
"Don’t be impressed, its never a good thing to already be known at this school.”
I shrugged. “Easier to get expelled I guess.”
She snorted. “Better people than you have tried, including your friend, Miss Pope I might add.”
Gretchen tried to get expelled? How come she never said anything to me?
Agent Marcus smirked. “Now that we’ve gotten the introductions out of the way, allow me to introduce Officer Daniels, he’ll be your escort for the morning.”
I turned my attention back to the “Rent-a-cop”, I didn’t realize how young he looked before. I’d say early twenties. He was smiling too, which told me he was happy to be here. That was a shame. He was on the cute side but there’s no way I could be attracted to someone who was happy to work in a “prison”. Then again, the same could be said for liking any of the boys here either. I promised myself that there would be NOTHING here that I was going to enjoy, hooking up with someone included. From this point forward, I now had one goal and one goal only: Get myself thrown out.
Sorry, Jenny, I can’t help you after all.
Agent Marcus gave me a challenge.
A challenge that even Gretchen failed.
Agent Marcus was quick to get things moving. She gave Officer Daniels orders to retrieve our luggage. Agent Carter got out of the car to assist him. Our doors were finally unlocked too. I wasted no time exiting the vehicle. I never was a fan of being cooped up in a car for too long. The feeling had gotten worse since manifesting. Being outside, with the air on my face, I felt much better. It was the same back home. I found just being inside for a few hours made me antsy. I think it had something to do with my connection to the air. I tried testing it once, forcing myself to stay inside all day. After five hours, I got real sick. Mom was really pissed at for doing it.
Thinking about making Mom angry made me smile.
"You ok?” asked Jenny, coming up behind me.
"Fine, why?”
"You’re smiling” she giggled. “I thought maybe you were coming down with something.”
"Ha ha.”
Jenny nudged my shoulder. “Always so serious, Miss Spencer. You know I hear that angry people have shorter life spans.”
"Anything to get me out of this school faster.”
"You know, give it a chance, you might like it here” said Agent Grace, butting her head into our conversation.
"Not likely” I said, annoyed.
"Methinks the lady doth protest too much” snarked Carter, probably thinking he was smart.
I snorted. “You know, that doesn’t actually mean what most people think it means.”
His smug look evaporated. “Whatever” he grumbled before dropping Jenny’s bags at my feet.
Dick.
Officer Daniels watched the exchange quietly before making his way to pick up Jenny’s bags but my companion was faster. She was amazingly strong too. She scooped up all three pieces of luggage in one arm like they weighed nothing. Even Officer Daniels was a little dumbstruck. He recovered quickly. He looked a little bent out of shape though so I sighed and shoved my pack into his chest. Realizing her perceived error, Jenny flushed in embarrassment and set two of the bags down. Daniels smiled and picked them but not before handing me back my bag.
So that’s how it is around here.
The pretty ones get the better treatment.
Pigs.
After that the agents said their good-byes, Jenny got a hug from Agent Grace. Even Agent Carter patted her on the head. I got scolded. I wasn’t surprised in the least. Especially the attention they showed her. From what I understood, they’d been together for a few days before I showed up. It was only natural that they formed some kind of connection. I wasn’t looking for anything like that anyway. In fact, I was happy to get rid of them. We wasted no time in the endeavor either, we left them in the parking lot with Agent Marcus while Officer Daniels led us up a path that wound through the buildings on either side of us.
Daniels did his best to name the buildings as we went. “That circular one is Kirby, that one over there Dunn, oh and up ahead is the library...”
At that point, I blanked him out.
I didn’t really care.
The further down the path, the more my attention was drawn to the large brick building looming ahead of us. It was absolutely huge and looked really old. It was pretty impressive, I’m not going to lie. Most of the buildings here were actually pretty impressive. Whoever built this place really went out of their way to make it warm and welcoming. It was depressingly happy. It made me wonder what kind of secrets were they hiding? Ok, so now I was being paranoid but in my experience, when something looked too good to be true, it usually was. This place had a warm and welcoming New England feel, nothing at all like that little town from before.
The contrast bothered me.
"That’s Schuster Hall up ahead and behind it, you can see Crystal Hall...”
Crystal Hall.
I’d heard Mom mention the name more than once. Summer and Abby talked about it fondly too. I’m not sure what was so amazing about a cafeteria but they seemed to think it was the greatest thing in the world. As we got closer though, I definitely could see the appeal. It was a massive glass dome, I’d never seen anything like it. I was a bit awestruck to be honest, though I’d never openly admit it. I tried my best to keep my expressions neutral but I swore I saw Jenny smirking at me. That smirk made her look real cute, not that I swung that way or anything. Its just one girl can respect when another was cute. Jenny was a very beautiful girl, though I’m not sure if she knew it.
She noticed me looking and seemed flustered.
Damn, it was cute.
"Is there something on my face?” she asked, trying to make sure she was blemish free.
"Nope” I said with my own smirk this time.
She gave me a strange look but said nothing else.
Just as well because I think we were supposed to be paying attention. Our security guide was continuing the impromptu tour as we continued on. The path wound by more buildings but I pretty much ignored what he was saying. I was never much for these things. Eventually we reached our destination at the before mentioned Schuster Hall, so it wasn’t much of a tour after all. Officer Daniels was explaining how it was administration but once again it was boring so I didn’t really care. He opened the front door for us and let us go in first. I smirked, I couldn’t remember the last time someone did that for me. Mostly people saw me and avoided me like the plague, like my punkiness was going to rub off on them or something.
"Generally we take new students directly to their assigned dormitories” Officer Daniels was saying as he ushered us safely inside. “But I have orders to bring you two to the Headmaster first.”
"The Headmaster? Is that unusual?”
Jenny was on the ball. She asked what I was thinking too.
Gretchen told me you didn’t go to Administration unless you did something stupid.
She was there a lot.
I felt honored in a way.
I almost felt like pulling up my old blog and telling the world. I stopped myself though, remembering where and who I was. Besides, I’d given up all that months ago. Doctor’s orders. She felt it was only destructive and no good ever came from it. Obviously. I’m not one of those dumb kids who’s unwilling to admit when they screwed up. That blog was a mistake. I just wish I’d seen that months ago. It might have saved me a lot of heartache if I had. Things might have turned out differently too. Would I have still manifested if I went off with those guys? Would I even be here now? Would I be even more miserable?
Yep, this is me being happy.
Shocking.
"Miss Spencer?”
I realized I wasn’t paying attention again.
Snapping to attention, I realized Daniels and Jenny were waiting. He looked impatient, she looked amused. His annoyance I could deal with. Adults had two expressions with me: angered and annoyed. Well, all adults except Clara. She was different. It was easy to see how she and Jenny were sisters. The two of them were genuinely decent people. I wasn’t used to that. Most people around me seemed like A.) They either wanted something from me because of my family or B.) Were keeping their distance because I scared them. I could handle B.) a lot easier. A.) just really PISSED me off. Its not like my family had ever done anything to benefit me, though I liked to use it to make B a lot scarier.
Hey, I’m an equal opportunist Malcontent after all.
Smirking, I walked over to where Jenny was still smiling.
"Find something amusing?” I asked her.
She shrugged. “Day’s not over yet.”
Daniels looked annoyed. “You might want to hold onto to that sense of humor because where you’re about to go, its not very common.”
"Where’s that?” asked my interested Chinese compatriot.
Daniels grunted. “No place fun.”
We went across a huge fancy entrance hall, then down a corridor or two but eventually we went through a pair of glass doors with etched letters reading "Administration". A bored receptionist looked up at us, recognized Officer Daniels, and without a word gestured down yet another small hallway on her left. That led to a door that read, “Headmaster”. It was strange though because I could swear that everyone told me that Whateley had a Headmistress. Did they finally get rid of the old lady or did she die? It was kind of sad to think she was dead though. Hey I’m not a monster. People dying is sad, especially someone like her. I heard really good things about her. I just didn’t want to be at her school. Well, his school I suppose now. I did have a lot of trepidation standing in front of this door though. I’m not sure what I was so nervous about though.
Authority didn’t scare me.
If anything, I was looking forward to this conversation. I NEEDED to convince this man that I DID NOT belong at his school. Yet, as I stand here, I’m finding it hard to concentrate to make coherent thoughts. I wonder if he was spelling the hallway somehow? My mother used to do something similar when she knew we were guilty. She used to place runes hidden under the carpet at choice places around the house. Especially during Christmas time. She would always keep the presents in the hall closet. My sister and I both knew they were in there but because of Mom’s spell, we were too ashamed to open the door. Over the years though, it got easier to resist them. Eventually my cousins even helped me learn how to disspell. Not that I actually could do any magic but they showed me how to draw a simple rune that seemed to do the trick.
I found myself tracing the rune with my finger on the palm of my hand. I did it over and over as I stood here. At first, I didn’t feel any different. But slowly, I started to feel a little more at ease. Eventually, whatever fear and guilt I felt, faded away completely. I smirked. He was going to have to do a lot better than that to get me. I turned toward Jenny and noticed she was smirking too. So she discovered it or rather Mao did. There was a twinkle in her eye.
Officer Daniels must have been feeling the same because he left out a labored breath before knocking on the door. There was a muffled voice from the other side which I thought sounded like, “enter” and then he opened the door. The first glimpse of the room didn’t surprise me in the least. Its about what I expected. It had this Old World feel to it, like the office of a professor. Wood paneling, out dated carpet, it even had all those book shelves. The focal point of the room was the large oak desk in the center. Behind said desk was a large leather chair that seemed to dwarf the man sitting in it.
The Headmaster.
He was old but not frail. His hair was silver white, combed back and neat. He had a trimmed beard and a scar on his neck. He wore a gray three piece suit and resting just next to the desk was a black cane with a silver hawk head. He looked more like a supervillain than a principal, though both tended to go hand-in-hand. Yet, there was something about him, something I couldn’t place. He seemed awfully familiar to me, like a face just on the corner of your memory. I tried to picture him in my mind---perhaps he was a friend of my grandfather’s---but something about him told me otherwise. Grandfather didn’t have many friends left anymore and the ones he did have were too old to visit the main house. No, there was something else about this man.
Something loathing.
When he gave us an attempt at a smile, that’s when I remembered.
"No shit, you’re...”
"Long since retired, I assure you, Miss Spencer” he interrupted with a chuckle but the cold stare that went with it told me enough.
He was trying to intimidate me.
Again.
First his spell and now this, the man truly was something else.
"He’s simply Headmaster Mazarin now” said Officer Daniels with a cold edge to his voice.
There was nothing “simple” about this man before us.
I suppressed my fight or flight reflex. What the hell was the school doing hiring a former supervillain to run it. Not just a supervillain either, one of THE supervillains. This was insane. My cousins and I used to spend countless hours following my grandfather’s old exploits, actively following and even play acting some of his greater encounters. Many of those fights were between his old super group---The Glorious Aces---and their chief rival---The Syndicate. There was one villain in particular that was always a thorn in grandfather’s side. The very same one that was currently sitting in the chair across from me.
At my sides, my hands clenched into fists.
I felt that telltale tingle in my fingers.
This man tried to kill my grandfather on more than one occasion.
Grandfather tried to for years to bring down The Syndicate. Every time they slipped through his fingers because of red tape. It wasn’t until years later, at the end of his career, that he found out how truly dangerous they were. Like an octopus with arms everywhere and corruption around every corner. One man was responsible for all of it too.The only satisfaction he ever received was the one and only time the two of them ever encountered one another. Mazarin had been the man behind the curtain type but forced into a fight he couldn’t escape---as my grandfather tells it---and Mazarin lost. The scar on his neck was a constant reminder of it.
The Headmaster finally broke the silence that had started to fill the room.
"You’re dismissed Officer, I’ll take it from here”.
At first Daniels just stood there for a moment, he looked at me then Jenny but finally nodded and left the room. I watched him leave for a second before my eyes were back on the Monster.
"Now then, I believe the three of us can get down to business” he said, slowly getting to his feet. He gave us what I think was supposed to be a warm smile but was actually pretty creepy and said, “Let me be the first to welcome you ladies to Whateley Academy.”
"Thank you sir” said Jenny, giving him a slight head bow. “Its a pleasure to be here.”
I scoffed. “That makes one of us.”
He gave me another smile as he sat back down, this one not as warm but not menacing either.
"Generally I do not require new students to visit me at the beginning of the year but given the circumstances here, I asked to see the two of you.”
Now, that was a surprise.
I was wondering why we were here.
"My circumstances or Riley’s?”
Jenny’s circumstances? I turned to my new friend, wondering what could have happened to her. Now that I thought about it, I never did ask why she was with those DPA guys. Wow, did that make me some kind of selfish bitch then? I mean I know I’m a bitch, that wasn’t open for debate. I was just so self absorbed in my own shit that I never bothered to care about her shit as well.
"One thing at a time, Miss Wu” he said, trying to sound sincere.
He didn’t.
I’m not going to lie, I don’t think I’d ever be able to trust this man.
"I thought the DPA were handling my shit.”
He nodded. “They are but that’s outside the boundaries of this establishment. While on Whateley grounds, its our job to make sure you’re safe.”
I wanted to scoff but I held it in.
This man saying he was going to keep me safe made me feel like I was being dragged into the pits of Hell.
"And the DPA liason we met when we arrived?” asked Jenny, curious.
I was curious too but I decided it might be best to let her ask most of the questions. There was something about her that screamed authority to me. Maybe it was because she looked older but maybe it was because of Mao too. The spirit had this regal nature to it. When It spoke to me last night, I couldn’t help but feel a bit awed by it. There was something about it that made me want to bow and respect it one hundred percent. At the same time, that feeling also made me overly suspicious of it too. I didn’t know a lot about spirits and Avatars but what I did hear was iffy at best. The spirits supposedly had the best interests of their hosts but at the same time, they were liars too.
My earlier assessment of Mao still stood.
She was dangerous.
"Agent Marcus is here purely on a case to case basis. Her presence when you arrived was purely coincidental.”
The way he said it though, I could tell he was liar.
There was something else there, something he wasn’t telling us. I could see it in his eyes. I might have lived a fairly sheltered life on our farm but I wasn’t a complete shut in. I spent a lot of time in the city. I met all kinds of people. Many of them were liars. Most of them were bad ones. Whenever Gretchen was home, I used to follow her around like a little lost kitten. At first I think she saw me as a nuisance but over time, she started to teach me things. She used to tell me how the world worked, the real one, not the one they wanted me to see. One of her lessons was about lying and how to do it well. Her biggest lesson was to only lie when it benefited you. She used to say, “anyone can bullshit. Its the truly masterful bullshitters you need to watch out for.”
Mazarin was a Master Bullshitter.
I could see it in his eyes, like I said before. It was in his posture too. It was also in the way he talked. He was dignified but he chose his words carefully. I’m not sure what kind of lie he was telling but whatever it was, it had a purpose. It wasn’t just that though. We were kids. I’m pretty sure he suspected we were idiots. Not literal ones of course. Ego aside, I was pretty fucking smart. He was however like most adults. He underestimated us, that much was clear.
"Does it have anything to do with the Cult?”
Cult? What Cult?
I gave Jenny a look.
What the hell was she involved in?
Mazarin leaned forward a bit. “I’m not at liberty to discuss her reasons for being here. Rest assured, the matter is well in hand. You are quite safe here, we have excellent security.”
This time I did scoff but he ignored it.
"I will be the judge of that”.
That was not Jenny.
If Mazarin was scared by this interruption, he didn’t show it. I did see him visibly pale for a second though, so I suppose that was a win for us.
It did take him a moment to recover, he even straightened his tie. “I assure you, she is quite safe here.”
Repeating statements?
So he was a bit scared after all.
"Yes” said Not Jenny “For I will be the One to make sure of that.”
All Mazarin could do was nod.
A second later, Jenny blinked and looked confused.
It took a few moments for recovery before Mazarin spoke again. “Now that we’ve gotten that taken care of, I’d like to discuss your dorm assignments with you”.
He shuffled some papers on his desk. I noticed two file folders underneath, one remarkably thicker than the other. I didn’t have to be a genius to know who that belonged too. I was pretty certain I knew what it said about me in there too. I’m sure the words, “anti-social” and “difficult” were used more than once. According to my shrink I was a “misanthrope with severe anti-social behavior anxieties and problems with authorities”. Misanthrope was a great word but honestly I preferred “malcontent”, it had an edge to it that fit me well. In fact, before all this manifestation crap, I actually had it tattooed on my left shoulder blade. Not that my mother ever knew about it of course.
"Why are you giving us the dorm assignments? Isn’t something like this relegated to someone with well less authority…?”
He chuckled. “Sure but seeing as the two of you were going to be here anyway, I thought I could kill two birds with one stone.”
Yes, here, for a reason he was still keeping to himself.
And what’s with this sudden shift in personality?
He opened my folder and took a sheet off the top. For a moment he squinted, grunted and put on a pair of reading glasses he took from his inside jacket pocket. A moment later, he was squinting again.
"Ah yes, Dickinson, nice place or so I’m told.”
The blood ran cold in my veins.
"No” I said, shaking my head.
"Beg your pardon?”
"That’s Summer’s dorm”.
"Yes, I am well aware, its the reason we thought you might be...”
"Let me interrupt you right there” I said, getting a look from him. “I’m not going into Summer’s dorm. I don’t want to be ANYWHERE near my sister, is that clear?”
I’m not sure I had any true say in this but I didn’t give a fuck. I lived with Summer for years, the last few of those have been a living hell. Running from Whateley was my attempt to get away from her once and for all. Well one of the reasons. I knew what they were planning too. I overheard my mother talking on the phone about it a few days before I left. She and the shrink were convinced it would do me some good. Both of them were fucking idiots. Because nothing bad would ever come from putting me in the same living space as the person I want to bash in the face with a baseball bat. Yes, I had anger issues but that’s what the shrink was for. Ok, so not just those but you get the point.
Mazarin said nothing. Instead he let out a sigh, mumbled to himself and picked up the receiver of the phone off to his left. He pushed a button and spoke to someone in a hushed tone. Clearly neither Jenny nor I were meant to hear. The conversation only lasted for about three minutes. When it was over, he replaced the receiver and gave me another one of those fake, warm smiles.
"I just got off the phone with campus housing. Whereas this is most irregular, we have managed to rearrange things. There are a few spare rooms in the freshman wing of Whitman. You might have a room to yourself for few days, if that’s convenient to you.”
"She won’t” said Jenny quickly. “I’ll be joining her.”
Wait, what?
I gave her a look and she only gave me a big smile in return.
Mazarin sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. He didn’t say anything more but was back on the phone again. Another few minutes later and Jenny was now my roommate.
"Are we satisfied now?”
"Very” said my new roommate.
I’m not really sure what just happened but I wasn’t going to question it. I was going to be away from Summer and that’s all that really mattered.
That’s a win for me.
Things were pretty smooth from there. Mazarin continued to talk to us about the school. He handed us our class schedules, nothing jumped out at me. I was annoyed about Basic Martial Arts though. I wasn’t going to complain though, I liked hitting things from time to time. My shrink suggested I find an outlet for my aggression too. The rest were fairly basic. Gretchen told me about Powers Theory once. She said it was fun. I was hoping she didn’t steer me wrong all those years ago.
Then he handed each of us a notebook of some kind.
"This is the campus rules and regulations.”
I skimmed through the thin booklet. When I got to the part about the Dress Code, I groaned. Did they actually expect us to wear this crap?
A minute or so later, there was a gentle knock on the door. It opened right after and two security officers stepped inside. Neither one was Daniels.
"Miss Wu, these gentlemen have asked that you accompany them to the security office, your package has arrived.”
Package? What package?
Jenny smiled, stood and bowed her head quickly. “Thank you very much sir.”
He bowed in return.
Jenny gave me a wink before she followed the two men out of the room. I watched her fleeting back until the door was shut then I turned my attention back to the Headmaster. We were alone, finally. I managed to take up residence in one of the large comfy chairs in front of his desk. The whole time we’d been talking, my fists were clenched. I know I couldn’t strike this man without being instant expelled. A small part of me wanted to and take the chance. After all, its what I wanted. I noticed that he seemed to be watching me, his eyes directed to my hands hidden on my lap.
Did he know?
He smiled. “You don’t like me very much, do you?”
I scoffed. “Are you surprised?”
He chuckled. “If I was in your position, I wouldn’t like me very well either. To be fair though, Henry wasn’t a saint during it all either.”
Henry? How did he know grandpa’s name.
He chuckled again. “We’re friends, well not enemies anymore. After we fought and it ended, life took its course. I eventually retired and went legit. Henry helped me do that. We used to keep in touch but...”
He didn’t know. Well, very few people did. My family wanted to keep it a secret. My grandfather was always a very prideful man. It was one of his many flaws actually. When he started to get sick a few years ago, he did everything he could to hide it. As far as the rest of the world knew, The Grand Zephyr had happily retired and was living out the rest of his days in quiet seclusion somewhere. Its the way the world worked. He was lucky that he was able to get that much. A lot of superheroes don’t get to retire. My grandfather liked to call it an “occupational hazard”. I wonder if that’s what he called it when Dad died.
"He’s..” I started but wasn’t sure what to say.
Mazarin seemed to have the right words. “How much time does he have?”
I sighed. “More than a few but way less than a lot.”
Mazarin sighed heavily and nodded. “He was a good man. I shall mourn his passing.”
That sounded almost sincere.
The room fell into silence again. I was expecting to be dismissed any moment but when it didn’t happen, I got a bit annoyed.
"Why am I still here?”
Blunt but to the point.
He laughed. “They told me you were a No Nonsense type of girl, its an admirable quality to have if you know where to use it properly.”
I grunted. “Spare me the shit. What’s going on?”
"The Shit as you say should not be taken so lightly. We have reason to believe that Eclipse might make a play for you here at the school.”
So that’s it after all.
I shook my head. “What the fuck is with these people? Clara and I kicked their asses and they still want more?”
"If I were to guess, I’d say you have something they want. I’ve dealt with the like in my time. Mind you, its easier when your enemy makes their intentions known, but its not hard to counteract the crafty ones either.”
"You should know” I scoffed and he smirked.
He coughed and cleared his throat, becoming the professional educator again. “We’re taking every precaution. Security has been alerted to the situation and we’ll ask you to report anything out of the ordinary. Anything, Miss Spencer, do you understand.”
I waved it off. “I get it. I’ll watch my back.”
He smiled and stood, straightening the front of his jacket.
"Well then” he said as I stood as well. “Let me officially say, Welcome to Whateley Academy.”
I smirked.
This was going to be fun…
NOT.
Officer Daniels was waiting for me in the hall when I stepped out of the room. He was on the phone but as soon as he saw me, he ended his conversation. He gave me smile, which I’m not sure was forced or not. Most people pretended not to want me around. In the past it was because of the way I looked. Not too many people tolerated bright colorful hair and piercings. People were a cruel judge of character, basing a person solely on the way they looked. So I embraced the stereotype. The problem was, somewhere along the way I forgot it was an act. Now the attitude was real and it was refreshing.
Most of the time anyway.
A lot of the time it was exhausting too.
Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t mind being a bitch to people, it was just hard making friends that way. And yes, I wanted friends. Anyone who says otherwise, is a fucking liar.
Speaking of which,…
"Where’s Jenny?” I asked, looking about.
I was hoping whatever special thing she had to do would be done by now.
"Still at the security office, her...package...has raised some questions.”
Ok, now I REALLY WANTED to know what it was.
He didn’t elaborate any further and I didn’t bother to ask. I figured Jenny would tell me all about it later. Well, I was hoping she would. I didn’t know her very much after all. Being her roommate now, there was plenty of time for us to get to know one another. I definitely had questions, especially because she knew a lot about me. It made me wonder just how powerful Mao truly was. It also made me wonder what kind of powers was Jenny hiding behind that pretty face of hers?
I tried not to let my thoughts distract me as Daniels and I made our silent march out of Schuster and back onto that main “road” as before. This time he didn’t narrate as we walked. We followed the very same path though, this time in reverse. I found myself staring at the very same buildings from earlier but nothing had changed. There was something weird about all of it I noticed. Looking around, I realized we were the only two people walking around.
"I thought this place was a school?” I said, trying to be a smartass.
"Its still early, most are either settling in or sleeping” said Daniels, which explained a lot.
It made me smile. That meant I could wander about and not be bothered. According to the schedule I got earlier, classes didn’t start until next week. So that meant I had time to myself. It would hopefully give enough time to figure this place out, maybe even plan out how to get expelled. Of course I was going to keep that little tidbit to myself. I’d play along with these people as long as I could then at the most opportune time, I’d make my escape. I know I made a promise to myself to stay around and make sure Jenny was alright but there was something about this place that bothered me. Everyone here had my best interests at heart and it freaked me out.
As we walked, I did my best to pay attention to my surroundings.
Regardless of what I thought about this place, it really was gorgeous. There was a lot of green and unlike that glum town we started in, the air here was crisp and welcoming. Feeling it against my skin made me feel a lot better. The moisture in it felt better too. It was a weird feeling. I remember the first time I started to realize I could “sense” it. It was shortly after I manifested. It was raining that day and I remember feeling overwhelmed by it all. I could feel every drop of water, including the ones that hadn’t fallen yet. It was so powerful, it made me sick at first. Eventually Mom had to call Aunt Becky, who arrived to give me a checkup. We didn’t have all the specifics at the time but it turns out, I’m connected to the weather somehow. We still don’t know the full extent of my powers but I seem to have more control when it rains.
So a move to Seattle might be in my future.
Daniels must have sensed something was off though.
"You ok?” he asked, giving me a strange look.
For a second, I couldn’t figure out why until I realized I was smiling.
Shit.
"I’m fine” I said, scowling at him.
We walked in silence for a few seconds before he breached it.
"You know I was like you once...”
I scoffed. “You were a fifteen year old girl, my how you’ve changed.”
I knew what he meant but I liked pushing peoples’ buttons.
He laughed a bit. “What I meant is that I was a rebellious ass, caused a bit of problems. Did drugs, got arrested...”
"You think I’m a druggie?”
"No, but I think you’re on a dangerous downward spiral”
Hmmm. Daniels looked like he wanted to say more but decided against it because of my sass. Just as well, I wasn’t in the mood to talk to him anymore.
"Hey can I use that?” I asked, getting a raised eyebrow. “Downward Spiral I mean, it sounds like a cool name for a band!”
It did too.
He gave me another look. I think he debated about saying something but instead, shrugged it off and continued walking. It was the story of my life. Most people either reacted to me or ignored me. I was happy with either. I’ve been told on more than one occasion that I’m an acquired taste. I’ve never really understood that phrase to be honest. Did it mean that someone was going to try licking me?
Instead, he continued to lead me back toward the parking lot. Right before we reached it though, we took a branching path. It wound its way through two buildings on either side, according to signs one was Dunn and the other Kane. He tried to tell me about them but I didn’t really pay attention and frankly, I didn’t care. I didn’t want a tour, I just wanted to get to my damn dorm so I could get away from him. Walking about this place with a security guard hadn’t gone unnoticed. Of the few people we passed, all of them stopped to look. Not that I had problems with people looking at me, I wasn’t the self conscious type. I just didn’t want to be labeled as the troublemaker girl on Day one.
As soon as we got some distance away from those two buildings I didn’t care about, another one came into view. We were walking up an incline that quickly turned into a hill and quite a hike. On top of which was a red brick building, shaped like an H.It was large, with two stories and looked like a dorm building. No, I’m not sure what a dormitory is supposed to look like. I’m just going by what I’ve seen in TV shows. This one looked like that.
"And that’s Dickinson”.
The name sent a chill down my spine.
Summer was in there.
Right now.
This close.
"Walk faster” I said, picking up pace.
Daniels quickly matched my stride. He looked like he wanted to say something but changed his mind at the last minute. I think the man was finally starting to understand me.
At the bottom of the hill, not far from the place that forever shall be called, “No Riley Land”, another building came into view.
It was nearly identical to NRL.
"Not very imaginative are they?” I snorted.
"And that” he said with a relieved sigh. “Is Whitman”.
Finally.
Walking down the hill’s brick path, I got a better look at my new “home” for the next four years. Though, I doubted I’d be here that long. It was made out of red brick too and covered in ivy. It looked very New England in its design, which given where we were, that was appropriate. The architects of this place must have had some kind of basic floor plan to work with when designing these dorms. I suppose it was just easier to make them all look alike. Though I was glad to see that this place seemed to be nestled in its own little valley, away from everywhere else. The courtyards looked peaceful and I couldn’t help but wonder how many people had foolishly thrown coins into that fountain.
"This way” said her escort, leading me across a large, circular drive and up a set of stone stairs to two large oak doors.
Daniels opened the doors for me.
I scoffed.
The proper gentleman.
I’m not sure what I was expecting but I definitely didn’t expect to be walking into Hogwarts.
The place was large.
The floors were hardwood, recently polished. Light streamed in from the large windows and heat radiated from the two huge fireplaces. It had a warm, cozy feel. There were lots of comfy looking chairs and colorful rugs, even tapestries on the walls. What the hell was this place? I almost found myself smiling but I quickly hid it. I couldn’t let on that I actually liked this place. I’m not going to lie though, I really did. It reminded me a lot of my grandfather’s home. It too was large and had a distinctively warm feeling. As much as the man was stern and often very cold toward visitors, his place was always very welcoming. It helped that it was so big too and had many places to go if you didn’t want to be disturbed.
That was always my favorite part about Grandpa’s.
If you didn’t want to be bothered, it was easy to hide.
I didn’t see that happening here.
Standing in this large common area, with the large staircase in front of me, it was clear this was a place with people.
People who I couldn’t avoid.
Speaking of which…
"Ah, you must be Miss Spencer.”
I snapped around and found a woman just stepping off an elevator. Yes, this place had elevators. How cool was that?
She smiled at me as she approached. I was a bit surprised to say the least. She was young, probably mid-twenties but she dressed like a grandmother. Her strawberry blonde hair was done up in a messy bun, her large black rimmed glasses were far too big for her face and her frumpy, wrinkled dress looked out of place on her body, where she was clearly hiding some nice curves. The woman screamed fashion disaster. I wasn’t one to talk much myself but I’d spent enough time around my sister for some of it to sadly wear off. Summer would have been appalled at the sight of this poor creature.
"I’m Alina Everette, Assistant House Mother” she said, holding out a hand.
She was a House Mother?
"Riley” I said, giving it an awkward shake.
"Yes, quite the surprise. We weren’t expecting you or Miss Wu for that matter. Had to do some scrambling and rearranging of things” She giggled at her own words.
"Well I guess that’s sorted then” said my escort, nodding to the dorm mother. “I’ll be on my way then. Riley, I hope we don’t meet again.”
I smirked.
I don’t think he meant to be rude but he got his point across.
I didn’t bother wasting anymore time on him.
Ms Everette watched him go, frowning. “Well that wasn’t very nice.”
I shrugged. “I’m used to it.”
"Well, they would have never talked to students that way when I was here” she huffed, crossing her arms.
"You were a student here?”
She nodded. “Oh almost twenty years ago I guess, in this very cottage actually.”
She waved me to follow her as she made the short walk back to the elevator. She started to tell me her life story in the elevator. The only thing I really heard was that the old assistant house mother retired last year and she was her replacement. The rest of her story went in one ear and out the other. I tended to do that with most adults. Well, maybe not Clara. She was cool and my friend. Plus, she kinda saved my life so she got a pass. I don’t think I was ever going to give this woman a pass.
Thankfully for me though, the elevator ride was very short.
"Here we are” she said as the door opened. “You’re lucky we had some empty rooms. Most of the girls arrived a couple of days ago...”
She trailed off again as we headed down the hall.
We didn’t go very far before she stopped again in front of a door.
"Here it is, room 215” she said with a happy smile. “This is Wing number 1, Janette is your RA”.
She leaned forward and gently knocked on the door. I’m not sure what she was expecting but when no one obviously answered, she smiled again and taking out a key, she unlocked the door.
"Can never be too careful around here” she giggled before unlocking the door and pushing it open.
She stepped into the room, took a look around then gestured for me to follow.
I’m not sure what I was expecting. I did not however expect it to be so big. I also didn’t expect it to be empty. Ms. Everette was standing in the middle of the room with a frown. A moment later, she pulled out an old flip phone and stepped away from me as she made a call. I took that moment to look around a bit more. It was clear that the room was designed for two people, there was plenty of room for it. Absently, I found myself wandering over to window, taking a look at the courtyard beyond. It was sunny again, which made me feel dismal. It also weirded me out a bit. This morning I was sure it was going to pour back in the town and now, there wasn’t a storm cloud in sight.
Cloudless skies always made me uneasy.
I started to turn away from the window when my fingers ran along something etched into the windowsil. Looking down, I realized it was something carved in there, old and warn with age: MISCHIEF WAS HERE. I smirked at it, wondering what kind of girl would willingly leave her mark?
"Well then” said Ms. Everette, her phone conversation over. “It would appear that the furniture for this room was in storage. This room wasn’t meant to be used for a while. No matter, its being brought up and it should all be straightened out in no time.”
Great, what the hell was I supposed to do until then?
Ms. Everette had a quick answer for my thoughts.
"How about I get one of the girls to show you around the cottage then a quick tour of the campus?”
She didn’t wait for me to respond, before leaving the room.
With her gone, I wandered about the room a bit more. It was a good size, plenty of space for both Jenny and I. Speaking of which, she was gone a long time. I half expected to find her here, waiting for me. I’m not saying I was mad that she wasn’t but it was worrisome. I couldn’t help but let my mind wander to where she might be. Most of it had to do with Mao of course. I still didn’t trust that Thing. There was something about a sentient spirit that could take over at any time that worried me. I only knew a bit about Avatars and things but I was pretty certain that things like that weren’t supposed to happen. The scariest part of it all was that Jenny didn’t seem to notice most of the time. It was like a switch being flicked and suddenly Jenny was riding shotgun in her own body.
How much control did my new friend even have?
My thoughts were interrupted by a gentle knock on the door.
Wow, that was fast.
I left my pack and guitar in the corner of the room and wandered over to answer it. Opening it up, I expected to see Ms. Everette again. I was surprised to find a girl there. One who looked terribly nervous. She was fidgeting and trying very hard not to look at me. I was surprised to see someone so young here or maybe she was just a girl who looked young? You never could tell with mutants.
"I’m Firefly….umm...Linette...Firefly...”
I thought about saying something nasty but I just couldn’t.
She was too cute.
"Riley” I said instead, for lack of anything else to say.
She smiled and sighed. “Ms. Everette asked me to give you a tour”.
I did my best to smile.
See, Doc, I’m being a people person.
This girl was a nervous wreck. Did they warn her about me in advance or was she always this scared? I was even doing my best to be as nice as I could. Trust me, it was hard. But I had a soft spot for kids. She reminded me a bit of my young cousins too. They were both twelve, probably about this girl age but that was where the similarities stopped. Izzy and Claire were wild things, always causing some kind of mischief. This girl looked like a mouse could bully her. It didn’t help that her near white blonde hair was done up in two braided pigtails making her look a lot younger than she probably was. Someone once probably told her it made her look cute but all it really did was make her look innocent and more child-like.
Sadly it wasn’t my place to set her straight.
Besides, most people didn’t take my kind of criticism well.
So instead, I kept my mouth shut and let her lead me on this “tour”. She did the best she could. First, showing me around the dorm. They called it a cottage and I could see why. It was like a self contained community here. According to Linette, there were well over one hundred girls in this building alone, which was absolutely crazy. They were scattered about three floors and some attic rooms too. The freshmen were all on the second layer, split into wings, each with an RA. My wing was the northwest one, the RA was named Janette. She and the other girls were at lunch right now. Something I’m guessing Linette was on her way too before she got shanghaied into this mess with me.
"This is the ground floor” said my guide as we stepped off the elevator.
The large area was empty like before.
No, wait, not empty…
"Is that a cat?” I asked, pointing to the feline sleeping on the back of chair.
Linette giggled. “More or less.” She waved. “Morning Shisa”
The cat raised its head, turned to look at us for a long moment then settled back to sleep with a yawn. There was something about the way it looked at me. It was almost as if there was a human intelligence in its stare. I shook off the thought though. It was a cat. Cats were smart creatures but they were still dumb animals. We had quite a few that lived in our barn and most of them hated me. Especially Summer’s cat, Diamond, the little bastard tried to claw me every chance it got.
"What idiot brought a cat to school?” I grumbled.
Linette giggled again. “Shisa is not a pet...”
I blinked.
Holy shit.
My guide smiled and waved me on, saying something about wanting to show me “something cool”. This said cool thing was down a small flight of stairs to a basement level. Down here there were a couple of libraries, some kind of large gaming room and a couple of workout rooms. I think she was trying to show off and she succeeded, especially with the spa rooms. I was not expecting those. Was this place a dorm or a fancy resort? Back upstairs, we went outside. She showed me the courtyards then started to led me up the path back toward the rest of the campus. She did her best to give me a history lesson of the place but I wasn’t really paying attention. Winding up that hill again, I couldn’t help but glare over at Dickinson.
Summer was too close.
I don’t think I was ever going to get over the idea of having to be at a school with her again. I remember what it was like after she manifested. It happened over the summer, right before she was to start her last year at middle school. Most of the kids chalked it up to a summer time makeover. My sister basked in the immediate attention her new look granted her. Thankfully for me, I didn’t have to suffer it long. A year later, she was off to Whateley. I no longer had to deal with her on a daily basis, making my life a living hell every chance she got. Not that it was any easier without her, what with Mom constantly comparing me to my “perfect” sister. After I manifested and they told me their plans, I knew I had to get away. I couldn’t live in another place knowing she’d be around all the time, casting me in that ginormous shadow of hers.
"You ok?” asked my guide.
"Fine” I grumbled, still glaring at the building.
"Umm, you’re smoking...”
I looked at my arms and sure enough, there was a lot of fog billowing around me, clinging to my body like a shadowy cloak.
Shit.
When I got angry, I lost concentration.
"Its not smoke...” I grumbled then seeing her fear, I sighed. “Its fog.”
I closed my eyes and took a few seconds to calm down, when I opened them again, it was gone.
"Its harmless” I explained. “It just happens when I get really angry or nervous...”
She gave a slight nod. “I...ummm...glow when I’m nervous...”.
She said it in such a soft low voice, I could tell she was embarrassed about it.
I wanted to give her a hug but that wasn’t me. Instead, I closed my eyes and sucked in a deep breath. When I let it out, I blew a dense fog from my mouth. “Its not all bad, see”. She did and laughed. I rubbed the top of her head, glad to see I could do my tiny part. Though if anyone saw me being nice to the kid, I’d make their life a living hell for it. Looking around quickly, I was glad to see we were alone.
"So where too now, Oh Great and Powerful Tour Guide” I asked with a flourish, hoping to get her to smile.
It worked. “How about Crystal Hall, we can get something to eat.”
"Sounds good, lead the way.”
There was a spring in her step as we passed by Dickinson. I was glad to see I made her happy and a little less nervous. Meeting new people wasn’t easy, especially on the first day of school. I used to have smiliar problems when I was a kid. Mostly because I was so small and shy. It probably would have continued like that for years to come if not for Gretchen. She taught me how to be confident and face my fears. She was also the one who taught me not to take shit from anyone. Mom didn’t really like that part but she couldn’t deny how happy she was to see me finally come out of my shell. I was such a scared, nervous kid and thanks to my “big sis” as I called her, I became a different person. It wasn’t easy though and it took a long time. It sadly didn’t last long either.
Six years after coming into our lives, Gretchen disappeared.
I was ten at the time and cried for days. Then I thought about what Gretchen might think of all my crying and toughened up. I hardened myself pretty quick after that. Her disappearance was both a blessing and a curse to me. I learned to stop relying on others but at the same time, I started to shut people out too. My relationship with both Mom and Summer declined quickly after. Things were shit for a while, leading to my mutant hating blog and my short tenure as an H1 dickhead. Then I met Clara. I’m not going to lie, she saved my life in more ways than one. I know I only spent that one day with her but she was the first person to care about me---truly care about me---in a long time.
Walking closer to the main part of the campus, I started to notice a lot more people than earlier. I also started to notice Linette get a little nervous again. It didn’t take a genius to figure out this girl had a problem with people, sorta like me. It took a long time for me to get over and I had Gretchen to help. Normally I wouldn’t have given a fuck but there was something about little Firefly, something that reminded me of myself.
I needed to distract her.
"Hey, tell me more about the others at Whitman?”
Her face lit up. “Well there’s Darcy my roommate and Shisa, you met her...”
Talking about the other girls was the distraction she needed.
She told me all about everyone she’d met so far. From what little I was able to make out of her rapid fire chatter, Whitman was a dorm for the more severe GSD cases. Many of those girls had arrived at the school a couple of days ago. Now that she mentioned it, I thought I remembered Gretchen talking about a place like that. I couldn’t remember the name but it was obviously Whitman. Gretchen liked to talk about Whateley a lot when she could. She even told me things that she wasn’t supposed to tell other people. Gretchen never once hid the fact that she used to be a boy from me. She said it wasn’t right to keep secrets. She told me everything about her, especially about her life before when she lived with my grandfather. In fact, she was the only one who told me about him.
"Where’s Poe?” I asked, interrupting her.
Linette gave me a strange look but turned and pointed. “That way.”
I followed her finger as I turned in the direction.
I saw the building.
So that’s the place, huh.
The school’s secret.
The one I wasn’t supposed to know about.
"Do you know someone in there?” she asked, getting nervous again.
I shook my head. “Not anymore. The girl I called my big sister for a time stayed there. She told me all about it.”
Linette lowered her voice. “Is it really full of crazies?”
I sighed. That was the cover story.
I wasn’t about to spill I knew the truth though.
"Its filled with students just like every other place here” I said and left it at that.
Linette stared at me for a while but slowly nodded her head. We stood staring in the direction of Poe for a few seconds longer before she decided to move on. Walking on, I couldn’t but remember the time Gretchen told me she used to be a boy. It was right after she graduated from Whateley and I couldn’t figure out why my mother was so weird. I didn’t know it at the time because I was still pretty young but Mom knew about Poe too. She had a friend in there she went to school with and they confessed the secret to her years later. Mom had always been a little cold and standoffish toward Gretchen but she was nice enough to let the girl call the farm her “home”. After Gretchen’s graduation though, I saw Mom hugging her and crying. Being only eight at time, I asked why everyone was crying and that’s when Gretchen told me.
The thing was, I didn’t judge.
Say what you will about my mother, she taught us to be tolerant of others.
I didn’t really understand most of it until Tina explained things after Gretchen left. By that time though, all I saw Gretchen as was the girl I loved and admired as an older sister. I promised myself I’d protect her secret for as long as she wanted and if I ever saw anyone bad mouthing someone like her, I’d make them pay for it. Looking at Linette now, I knew she didn’t mean what she said. I knew the school was just trying to protect the students of Poe from persecution. I just hoped some day all of that crap would end up in the past with the rest of the prejudices and the world could finally move on.
"You coming?” asked my anxious guide.
I nodded and started to follow her up the path to the famous Crystal Hall.
Seeing the large glass dome on the outside didn’t even come close to compare from seeing it on the inside. It truly was enormous. There were two other floors up there and so many students milling about, I was getting a bit nervous myself. Back home, I generally avoided places like this. A lot of people and me never went well. I usually just tried to slip into a quiet corner somewhere, keep my head down and hope that no one noticed me. Thankfully Linette didn’t make a big deal out of showing off. She told me about the cafeteria, gave me some quick story lesson I’m sure someone gave her then asked if she could be excused. Like I had some kind of power over that. I did let her go though. She seemed pretty anxious to go sit over at a table where a girl about her age was waving.
That left me alone.
Again.
Just how I liked it.
I took a look around, making sure that Linette was at the table with her friend before I decided to make my escape. I couldn’t deal with this right now. My room was a quiet, nice place. The people here were already sitting together, already starting to form little cliques. That was never me. I was a loner. Even when before Brody dragged me off to his little group. Even then, his “friends” weren’t really my friends. I was there because I was his girlfriend, whatever that meant. Thinking back on that relationship now, I realized it wasn’t much of one. We never dated, we never kissed, we barely did anything more than hold hands. The only reason I was ever with him in the first place because he didn’t seem to give one damn about Summer. Of course now I knew it was because she was a mutant.
I keep telling myself if I knew Brody was a Mutant Hater in the way he was, I wouldn’t have been with him. Well, keep trying to fool myself with that thought anyway. I liked Brody because he HATED mutants. It had nothing to do with a prejudice and everything to do with my anger toward my perfect sister. I’m not exactly sure when those thoughts changed though. I’d like to say it was the moment we lured poor Samantha Ridley into that alley. It wasn’t. No, I didn’t change until I realized what they planned to do to her. I was an idiot to think they just wanted to “talk” to her like they told me. I told the authorities I was oblivious to that but I wasn’t. I figured out pretty quickly what it was really about. I only stepped in stop the beating when she looked at me. I saw the fear in her eyes. It was at that moment I realized that that could very well be me. That’s when it happened too. I don’t remember much of it, I blacked out shortly thereafter. I was told it sometimes happens when someone manifests. When I came too, I was in the hospital, the others were under arrest and the only reason I avoided jail time was because of my family. I learned later of the cover up, how I wasn’t there. They spun it in their favor, even paid Samantha’s family off.
They were ashamed of me after that.
They had a right to be.
I almost stood by and let them do horrible things to that poor girl.
Almost was what the Doc focused on though. She kept telling me “almost” was not the same as actually letting it happen. The thing was, it didn’t really excuse what I did. I could have stopped it long before it happened but I didn’t. I was going to have to live with that for the rest of my life. Of course I tried apologizing but I wasn’t allowed to see Samantha. Not in the hospital and not at her house. Then she was just gone. I spiraled from there, got worse. But now I was bad and with powers.
I’m not sure why it was all flooding back to me now.
Maybe it was this place.
Maybe it was all these people.
All these mutants.
They could all easily know what I tried to do.
The thought of it made me start to shake. I wanted to scream, to lash out. I could feel it boiling over inside of me. The skin on my arms started to tingle and my fingers started to twitch. This was bad. I’d felt this before. I lost control once. It was shortly after I got home from the hospital and Mom tried talking to me. She was using that condescending tone of hers though so she sounded like a bitch. I lost it. Somehow she got lifted off the ground and thrown against the wall. Then she started to choke...wait, why did she start to choke? I don’t remember her choking? Why did I suddenly remember her choking? It made no sense, it…
"Riley”.
That voice.
I felt calm.
A second later, a hand was on my shoulder. Turning, I found Jenny there. I snapped my head away quickly, wiping the tears.
I was crying?
"You ok?” she asked, concerned.
Shit.
"I’m fine” I said, snapping even though I didn’t want too. I took a deep breath. “Sorry, yeah, I’m good. Its just...a lot of people.”
Jenny still hand her hand on my shoulder.
"I know what you mean, this place is crazy...”
I was happy to see her again.
"Where have you been all this time?”
She rolled her eyes. “Security. I got a package and they were concerned about it. They grilled me for a long time but I have no idea where it came from. They’re scared it might...” She stopped herself, almost as if she said something she shouldn’t have. Then she sighed. “Well, let’s just say they’ll be holding onto it for a bit.”
Cryptic but ok.
"So you get the whole tour and things?”
She nodded. “Just came from the cottage, they’ve got furniture in our room now. Ms. Everette told me I’d find you here.”
Well that’s a relief. Now I could spend the rest of my time hiding in there.
"Good, lets head back then.”
"You’re not hungry?”
I saw the way she was looking at the lunch line and groaned. She was one of those kind of mutants? The ones that had to constantly eat? I HATED her even more. She looked like that and probably ate constantly. I bet she never gained a pound either.
"You’re an Energizer?”
She shook her head. “Manifestor I think”
She thinks?
I was about to ask her more when I stopped and spotted something. No, not something, someone. I froze and started to tremble.
"What is it?”
"I sense something, something that I have not sensed...”
Ok, it was a Star Wars reference but it fit well.
Except it wasn’t Obi Wan coming toward me.
It was Darth Vader.
"RILEY!”
Shit.
She was coming toward me, all smiles and golden hair. I wanted to die. I tried to run but Jenny seemed to have some kind of vice like grip on me. I tried to pull away but couldn’t. I tried pushing against her but it was like she was rooted in place. I snapped around and saw the vile creature getting closer. I could see her blue eyes, her shiny lips. The wind seemed to blow her hair about her face and swish that tiny skirt of hers. It wasn’t doing that on its own either. She was doing that, it was her subtle way of making herself more alluring. It worked too. I watched all the guys eyes follow her as she glided across the room toward us.
Damn it, Jenny.
Why won’t you let me go!
"There you are!” said the Monster then she leaned forward and pulled me into a crushing hug.
She smelled like some horrid spring garden.
"Umm, Riley who is...”
The Beast let me go and smiled at Jenny, sticking out her hand. “Are you Riley’s friend? Its great that she has one and so quick, its so nice to meet you...”
"Sure” said Jenny shaking hands with the Demon.
"Riley, aren’t you going to introduce me to your new friend.”
I grit my teeth. “This is Jenny, this Disgusting Thing is my sister, Summer.”
Gag.
"Your sister?”
I saw her look from me to Summer and back again. Yep, it was the same reaction we ALWAYS got. Summer was tall, beautiful and absolutely gorgeous. When she walked into a room, she seemed to glow so bright that everyone else was dull in comparison. She was Breeze, the face of our family. They were already starting a new add campaign for her. My cousin was out and Breeze was in. As soon as Summer graduated Whateley next year, they were going to slap her into a tight, revealing outfit and put her in front of every camera they could. It helped that she had such a bubbly, magnetic personality to go with it.
She was EVERYTHING my mother EVER wanted in the PERFECT daughter.
She was also EVERYTHING I HATED.
I pulled her away from Jenny. “You can go away now” I snapped, glaring up at her.
Summer frowned. “Now that’s just plain rude, sis. We haven’t seen each other in days and when I found out you were here, I just had to find you.”
"And who pray tell told you I was here?”
"Abbie of course”
I’m gonna kill her.
I knew it was only a matter of time before Summer figured out I was here but I was hoping to have a few days of peace. I knew Abbie was somewhere, probably laughing at me right now. This was all some kind of demented game to my cousin. She knew how much Summer drove me nuts. Now that Summer knew I was here, she wasn’t going to leave me alone. No matter how much I HATED the vapid twit, she NEVER got the hint. She just kept coming back for more and more.
"You have no idea how happy I am now. I’ve been telling my friends all about you” she said, turning and waving to a group of girls up at a table on the second floor. “They’re dying to meet you. They want you to bring your friend too, said she’s totes gorgeous.”
She reached over and pulled me into a half hug, this time I managed to push her away.
"Pass”
She frowned. “We’re not going to start this again, are we? Mom told me I’m to look out for you and make sure you adjust to being here.”
Mom just moved up on my To Kill List.
Jenny finally sensed something. Maybe she saw it or maybe she just wanted to gag at Summer’s presence too because she finally came to my rescue.
"Well actually, we were going to head back to Whitman together...”
"Whitman?” asked Summer, giving me a confused look. “But Mom said you were going to be in Dickinson.”
"Change of plans” I said with a wicked grin.
"Mom’s not going to like that” she said, the bubbliness fading from her voice. “Does she know?”
I shrugged. “She will eventually because I’m sure you’re going to call her as soon as I walk away. Do me a favor and tell her not to call me, I don’t want to hear her voice.”
Before Summer could respond, I took her momentary stunned stupor to make my escape. I noticed Jenny was quickly on my heel as I stomped out of there. As soon as I exited the building, I felt much better. I finally let out the breath I was holding, puffing fog into the hall.
"That was intense...”
"And now you know WHY I didn’t want to come here.”
The dorm was quiet when Jenny and I got back.
Thank the Gods for that.
The two of us made our way through the little lobby area, up the stairs and to our room without much incident. Opening the door, I’m not sure what I expected to find. The room was no longer empty though. It was filled with duplicate sets of furniture now---two beds, two desks, two dressers. My pack and guitar had been placed on one of the beds and what was clearly Jenny’s luggage was on another. She had three suitcases so it was clear she was prepared for the long haul. There was also a strange long wooden box on her bed too. As we entered, her eyes went to the box.
"I put my stuff there but if you want that bed...”
I shook my head. “Its fine.”
It was too. I wasn’t one of those weird, I want a window facing bed type of people.
I trudged into the room, utterly spent after my encounter with the Sister From Hell. I flopped face first into one of the pillows and screamed. I stayed like that for what seemed like an eternity but was probably only a few seconds. When I finally came up for air, Jenny was sitting on the edge of her bed, giving me a sympathetic stare.
"Sorry about that” I said sheepishly.
She shook her head. “Hey, I get it it. I have a sister too.”
I scoffed. “But yours is awesome!”
She laughed. “Not always. I’m the youngest by quite a few years. Clara and Brian had this connection when I showed up. I always kinda felt like the outsider looking in. Then I tried to be like them, doing what they do. Its not easy living in their shadow, especially Clara.”
I rolled my eyes. “Trust me I know what its like living in my sister’s shadow. Always striving to be like her, to get your parents to notice you too. Did they give you her hand-me-downs too.”
She made a face. It wasn’t one I was expecting her to make either.
There was a story there.
One that I wasn’t going to pry for.
When she was ready, I’d let her tell me.
Just as well though, the room fell into that weird awkwardness. Finally, Jenny stretched. The movement was graceful and almost cat-like. In the mid-afternoon light, it gave me a good shot of her bare arms. When the light hit them just right, I saw her stripes. It was weird that I only noticed them early this morning. It was even weirder that that was just this morning. It was amazing how much had happened today already. First trying to run away again then leaving that motel to come here. The meeting with the Headmaster, the impromptu tour by Officer Daniels, meeting Ms. Everette and Linette. Then of course that unfortunate run in with the Demon. It wasn’t even three in the afternoon yet.
What else did this day have in store for me?
"Hey. I heard some of the girls play some card games in the common room. I thought about going to check it out. You want to come along?”
"And deliberately seek out other people to socialize with...I think I’ll pass.”
Jenny rolled her eyes. “Suit yourself. I’ll be back in a bit then.”
She stretched again then left.
I rolled over onto my back and stared up at the ceiling. So this was it, huh? This was my new life. I grunted. Here only a few hours and I already hated it.
I had a feeling it was only going to get worse from here.
There was a knock on the door.
Seriously.
Getting up, I slowly trudged over to the bed. When I opened the door, I wasn’t sure what to expect. What I saw, made my blood run cold.
"Hey” said the girl with the pink pixie cut. “Hey, I’m your new neighbor, I just...”
As soon as the girl looked at me, she stopped mid-sentence. We stared at each other. I’m not sure what she was thinking but I saw her lip start to tremble.
Was the universe really that cruel?
"Samantha?”
She started to shake and before I could get a word in edgewise, she bolted down the hall.
Welcome to Whateley, Riley.
Just fucking great.
TO BE CONTINUED
Author’s note: As I’m sure all of you know, comments are life blood to an author. I’m not begging or demanding, but I certainly would appreciate anything you have to say (or ask). It doesn’t have to be long and involved, just give me your reaction to the story. Thanks in advance...EOF
Rain On A Sunny Day Part Three
by: Enemyoffun
|
It was the loudest, shrillest noise I’d ever heard. At first, I thought someone was putting an air horn to my head. I swatted with closed eyes, trying to knock it away. Unfortunately, no effort from me made the noise go away. Rolling to my side, I peeled the pillow from around my ears and took a peek. Was she freaking kidding? There was Jenny, sitting on her bed, putting on her sneakers. Opening my eyes further, I noticed she was dressed for a run. Her clothes were skin-tight and once again, she was wearing long sleeves. Her hair was pulled back in a high ponytail and even though it was this early, she was still as gorgeous as ever.
I groaned.
"What time is it?”
"Did I wake you?”
I sat up, rubbing the sleep out of my eyes. I looked past her to her alarm clock. The numbers on the digital screen were big enough for me to see, I groaned again.
"You’re kidding, right?”
She smirked. “Sorry, old habits die hard.”
"You’re one of THOSE people.”
She laughed. “I was a soccer player before...well, this...”
Her voice trailed off, almost as if she were about to say something else. She paused, looked sad for a moment then plastered on a fake smile. There was definitely a story there but I wasn’t going to pry. If and when she wanted to tell me said story, I’d be here to listen. Hey, I might play the bitch but I’m a human being too. We all have our shit to deal with. We all have our secrets too. I couldn’t help but let my eyes drift over to her box. She still hadn’t opened it and I’m not going to lie, I was dying to know what was inside.
"You want to come?”
She was standing now, stretching those incredibly long legs of hers.
If I was into girls, I’d be in real trouble right now.
I grunted. “Do I look like a running person?”
She shrugged. “You look like someone who takes care of themselves. I saw those abs last night. You might look a bit...ummm...round up top...”
Round.
Sure, I guess that was one to describe the basketballs on my chest.
I think most girls my age would be happy to be so “stacked” as they say but they were nothing but a nuisance. Last night, just after coming back from the shower, Jenny got a surprise look at them. Hey, we’re both girls and I have nothing to hide. Well, not from her. We’re going to be roommates after all. I think I shocked her more than anything. Up to this point, I’d been wearing strategic bras and tops to make my chest look smaller. It was a choice. Before manifesting, they were fairly normal-sized. After though, they grew “at least three times that day”. Ok, so not three but it felt like it.
I was now sporting a small C cup and I HATED every bit of it.
I flushed from embarrassment at the mention of them, instinctively trying to cover them with my hands. Jenny was blushing too, so embarrassment all around.
"Sorry, ummm, running, yes...come want?”
She was repeating herself and fumbling over her words.
Again, very cute if I was into that stuff.
"I don’t exactly have the clothes for something like that” I said, sweeping my arm toward the single backpack I brought.
Hey, I wasn’t planning on coming here after all.
I packed enough to run away with.
Best laid plans.
She frowned but it only lasted for a few seconds. “I hear there’s some kind of store. Maybe after my run, we can check it out. Get you something for next time.”
She was persistent, I’ll give her that.
"Sure, maybe.”
It’s not that I didn’t want to spend time with her, it’s just that I wasn’t sure how much fun I’d have running. I was no stranger to strenuous exercise. I lived on a farm. Mom couldn’t afford to pay any help so Summer and I did a lot of the work for a while. Sure, it was a lot easier when Gretchen was around to help but Mom saw an end to that. Things changed a couple of years ago when my cousin, Brent moved in. Whereas his sister, Abbie, went off to college, Brent decided to pursue the superhero gig full time. His father was making him work for it though. When Brent started living with us, most of the chores around the place fell to him. He had Exemplar strength to go with his hydrokinesis so it was easy for him to take over.
Summer and Mom readily accepted the help.
For me, it just made me feel more useless.
To add insult to injury, she gave Brent the barn loft that Gretchen used to live in.
"Hey Earth to Riley, you still with me?”
I spaced again.
Shit.
"I’m here, sorry, what did you say?”
Jenny gave me a sympathetic look. “I said my run will take about an hour, I want to check out the surrounding area. Afterward, I was wondering if you’d like to get some breakfast with me?”
I nodded. “Sure, sounds good.”
She left after that, leaving me alone for the first time since last night.
Sigh, last night…
After Jenny went to socialize with our new Housemates, I had a bit of a social surprise of my own.
Samantha.
The girl whom my former friends almost beat to a bloody pulp. The very same girl I saved and manifested to do so. One small part of me was thrilled to meet her because she helped make me special. The rest of me, felt horrible. I’m not going to lie, as much as I “hated” mutants for a time, most of my hatred was centered on the fact that I wasn’t one. It’s something that Dr. Chambers has been trying to help me through. I had a lot of anger about it and I need to let go of that anger. I’m still trying, even now that I’ve manifested. The rest of my anger, it had nothing to do with mutants.
Life sucks.
Look at what it’s done for Samantha.
She probably thought she was going to be safe here at Whateley. She probably thought she was going to leave all that horrible stuff from back home behind her. What does she get instead, me living next door to her. The girl who was there when those horrible assholes were trying to beat the hell out of her and possibly kidnap her. If I was in her shoes, I would have run away last night in tears too. I deserved every bit of fear and hate that girl had toward me too. After she ran off, I seriously considered bailing. It was only a matter of time before my part in her incident was exposed. I was an H1 sympathizer in a school of mutants.
Blood in the water here.
I expected the angry mob to come banging down my door any minute.
It never came.
When Jenny came back to coax me into going to cottage movie night, she found me sitting in the dark instead. She eventually managed to get me to tell her what happened and when I did, she hugged me. It was a bit awkward because it was clear she didn’t know what to do. I’m not going to lie, the hug helped. Eventually, she managed to drag me out of the room to the gathering. They were showing one of those 80s teen rom coms, the kind that Summer used to like to show at her slumber parties. I spent most of my time scanning the gathered group, looking for Samantha. When I finally found her, I was met with a glare. Not from her but from a rather tall and menacing Hispanic girl sitting next to her. Like me, the girl spent most of the movie not paying attention to it.
I eventually got up and left halfway through.
I don’t remember Jenny coming in that night.
The next thing I could clearly remember was her alarm.
The dreaded thing.
Sighing, I realized sitting here in more self-pity wasn’t going to solve anything. Besides, it was still pretty early. I might be able to get to the shower before the other girls. Deciding I needed to borrow one of Jenny’s towels because I didn’t have one of my own, I managed to sneak out into the hall without much noise. The floor was apparently dead quiet this time of the morning, save for my over-eager athletic roommate. Trying to be as quiet as I could, I made my way to the floor’s communal shower room that Linette pointed out to me yesterday. Just as I suspected, it was empty.
I found a stall toward the back corner, as far away from the door as I could. It’s not that I was shy or anything but I preferred my privacy. It was all a part of what Dr. Chambers called my “disorder”. I always thought it was a bit of a rude and broad diagnosis but she was generally a blunt woman. She kept trying to get me to open up more, to try new things. Her main goal was to try and keep me from hiding. The thing is, it never really worked. I could make great progress, only to crawl back into my “shell” as she called it. She likened me to a turtle a lot. She seemed to think we were making great progress until my mother decided it wasn’t fast enough. That’s how Whateley got involved. Mom was convinced a change of environment might be beneficial to me, especially after manifestation.
Dr. Chambers disagreed.
Neither of them asked me what I wanted.
Mom got her way though. Well she did initially anyway. That’s when I ran away. I knew the only person who would understand me was Gretchen. She never judged me. She always told me to be myself because I was unique and there was nothing wrong with that. She also taught me to be strong and not let others push me around. Mom never liked that bit, mostly because I kept “pushing” back at her. Mom kept telling me it was for my own good but the only good I ever saw was for herself. She had one “perfect” child in my sister and then there was me, the one she only told people about if she had to.
I was never good enough for Mom.
Anything I did was never enough.
It was…
I felt like screaming sometimes.
Realizing where I was, I stripped quickly. There were little cubby holes inserted into the wall, each one had a basket. I placed my clothes in one and padded over to my stall. I made the water as hot as I could and stepped in, closing my eyes. I let it wash over me, not feeling a thing. I knew it was hot but my body didn’t register it. According to the Good Neighbor power tester, Dr. Echo, it had something to do with my mutations natural defense against water. That’s what he called it. If I wanted, I could make it so not a single bit of water ever touched my skin. Combine that with my ability to generate fog and pull water from the air, it was easy to see how I was labeled a TK.
It felt wrong though.
I knew in theory what I was doing to the water, how I was controlling and even changing it but it wasn’t like Brent. I saw how he manipulated the water, how he could pull it from a bucket and wind it around the air like a snake. It wasn’t like Dad either. I saw some of his old videos, the ones Mom wouldn’t let me see. As a kid I used to sneak off into town and go to the library. I would use one of their computers and google my father. There were a lot of videos of him being a hero. I used to sit and watch for hours, marveling over how cool he was. In a lot of those videos, it showed him manipulating waves. It was his specialty, its why he was called Tidal Wave. He could actually stop the waves and in one of the videos, it was shown he actually slowed a large wave from a tsunami long enough for the people in its path to get to safety.
It was cruel that life never gave me a chance with him.
In many ways, it was cruel that I was robbed a chance with my mother too.
Aunt Jessica once told me that Mom was different after Dad was gone. Now she didn’t imply that Mom resented either me or Summer but I could see it sometimes. I think we reminded her of him. In a way, we were a piece of him. Now a sane person would cherish that but I think it pained my mother to look at us. Me, more so than Summer. More than once, I was told how much I resembled Dad. Sure Summer got his blonde hair but I had his eyes. At least I did before they turned their current color. According to Uncle Will, Dad’s brother, I got his stubbornness too. That little bit made me proud.
To Mom, it was another pain.
That woman, she angered me so much.
"BITCH!”
Yeah, I screamed.
No one was around and it felt good. The water muffled most of it.
A second later, I felt a shift in the water.
I shivered.
What was once hot was now ice cold.
Shit.
For some reason, I could feel cold. They’re not sure why.
I stepped out of the water, thankfully I got a proper shower. The cold helped wake me up a bit more too. I started to reach for my towel, thought better of it and concentrated. A second later, every droplet of water was pulled from my body. It dropped harmlessly to the tiled floor and down the drain. Even my hair was dry now. I smiled, proud of that little trick.
"Holy shit” said a voice from behind me.
I froze.
I wasn’t alone.
Turning slowly, I saw a girl with a towel wrapped around her, staring. Her body was drenched, her shoulder length purple hair plastered to her head. I would have just brushed past her but there was something familiar about her. It was strange because besides Jenny and Sam, I knew no one at this school. Well maybe Summer but she didn’t count because I wished I didn’t know her. But this girl, she looked vaguely familiar. There was something about her, something, no someone I met before.
It clicked.
There was a Bar B Que party some years ago that my family threw. It was a get together with a bunch of my uncle’s friends. All of them were in the “business” as he liked to call it. Most of them were adults or kids too old for me to want to hang out with. I was seven at the time and bored out of my mind. Summer found a couple of girls her age. I was behind the barn, throwing rocks at the chickens when this girl appeared. She was my age and she looked about as bored as I did. We talked for a bit then I brought her to my room and we listened to some music. The thing was, the girl in front of now only looked like her and oddly enough, looked more like a teenager version of her mother. It was possible given the nature of mutations but what were the odds?
What was her name again?
"Tanya?”
The girl gave me a strange look. “Yes?”
Wow, so it was her.
After all this time.
After that party, I kept asking my mother if she could come over and play again. Mom told me that Tanya’s family lived in another state and they were just visiting. I remembered being sad for a while. I asked every once in a while afterward. Then something horrible happened. When I was nine, Mom told me Tanya’s mother passed away. After that I stopped asking. From time to time, I always did wonder what happened to her.
For a second, the girl stared at me. She squinted for a few more seconds until her eyes seemed to pop.
"Oh my God, Riley!”
I smiled. “Hey”.
"Hey yourself” she said, smiling too. “Long time no see!”
She made a move to give me a hug but stopped when she realized that we were both in fact only wearing a towel. We shared a laugh. It was strange how the world worked sometimes. I never actually thought I’d see her again but now that I thought about it, things made sense. She was the daughter of a superhero, so it was only natural that I would run into her here. Well, the odds were pretty good anyway. Not every “super brat” like us turned out to be like their parents. I knew a few who were normal. Most of them resented it--- as I used too---but quite a few accepted their fate.
"So Whitman, huh?”
I shrugged. “Apparently I’m a mutant”.
We both laughed.
It was strange because I couldn’t remember the last time I laughed this much. Stranger still was how much I felt at ease with her. We had only spent a few hours together years ago but she was honestly the closest thing to a real friend I had. Due to the secretive nature of my family, I wasn’t allowed to have many friends growing up. I only connected with Brody because he lived down the way and we went to school together. I only ended up dating him because he was really the only boy I knew. It also pissed off my mother. At the time, I just thought she didn’t like him. Afterward, I found out she knew all about his leanings.
We fell into silence for a few seconds before she was smiling again.
"That was really cool by the way? The thing with the water I mean!”
I smirked. “We Spencers are notorious show offs.”
She looked around quickly then asked in a lowered voice. “Could you, you know, me?”
I knew what she was asking and had to sigh. “Doesn’t work that way. I can’t actually control water, I sorta pushed it off of me.”
She frowned. “Shame. You could make so many friends that way.”
"Yes, my goal in life, stand at the shower and dry people off.”
Shit, I didn’t mean that to come off as bitchy.
She gave me a look then laughed again.
We stopped laughing and she sighed. “Could be worse, a lot worse”.
There was a story there but I wasn’t going to press it, instead we started getting dressed. We talked while we changed. Tanya did her best to fill in her life for me. After her mother’s passing, she went to live with her godmother. Most of her life was about as interesting as mine though. Oddly familiar too. Much like me, she wasn’t really allowed to have too many friends. Being a Super Brat sucked sometimes. Unlike me though, she seemed happy to be here. I did my best to fill in my life too, leaving out the crucial bits. The incident with Sam wasn’t fully my story to tell. Perhaps one day, if Sam was willing, we could share it together.
"So have you had power testing, yet?”
I shook my head. “I think today, maybe tomorrow?”
We started out the door, side by side. Passing through the threshold, I felt something brush against my shoulder. Turning for a second, I thought I saw green and a glimmer of silver. As soon as it was by...what, was I thinking about again? I shook my head, noticing a slight frown on Tanya’s face but only for a moment. Did I say or do something wrong? I was about to ask her about it but she was smiling again, if only slightly now. Maybe it was first day jitters? Well second or third day now I suppose. Actual classes themselves didn’t start until Monday, so she had plenty of time to get those jitters out.
"I’m this way” she said, pointing in the opposite direction from me. “Room 229.”
"215” I said, pointing where she wasn’t.
We laughed again.
"Its great knowing I won’t be alone here, Riley” she said, before turning with a wave and walking toward her room.
And that was that.
It was cool to see her again after all these years.
Perhaps there was a new friendship with her waiting in the future. Perhaps not. I shrugged.
Time would tell.
7am-ish---Crystal Hall
I’m not sure what I was expecting when I stepped in the line with my tray. How fancy the building looked on the outside, I was expecting this place to be a lot swankier on the inside. How disappointed was I to discover that Crystal Hall was nothing more than a cafeteria. It had the same cafeteria things with a lunch line, lots of tables and lots of people. I suppose the only true thing it had going for itself was the three floors. Yesterday during her tour, Lin mentioned how the elite or the elite liked to eat up on the third floor. The second floor was generally for teams, those students who had formed training groups. Those tables up there were grabbed on reserve. It still all sounded pretty “elite” to me.
Grunting, I pushed through the line.
There was a surprisingly lavish breakfast laid out for the taking. Everything from bagels, toast and cereal to things like eggs benedict it would seem. I grabbed some toast, some bacon and a couple of pancakes. Thankful that I wasn’t one of those Energizers who had to pack on the food. I wasn’t the least bit ashamed of my weight, though Mom thought I could be a little thinner. Hey not everyone could be a size two like my perfect sister but there was nothing wrong with being a four either. Especially being five-seven like I was, I had a healthy body weight and image. Mom thought differently and tried to shame me whenever possible. I usually just told her to “fuck off and mind her own damn business”.
Hey, she was the one with the body image issues, not me.
I zipped my card at the register, doing my best to ignore the uninterested look the woman there gave me. I took my tray and scanned faces, hoping to find Jenny. She said she’d meet me here after her run, that was nearly an hour ago. I tried dragging my feet getting here but I was in a lot better shape than I thought. Standing here now, I noticed how many vacant tables there were this early in the morning. Shrugging, I made sure to find one in the far corner. I was hoping it was far enough away that no one noticed. Just as well, when I walked by, only a handful of people even looked up from their food.
Dropping my tray in front of a chair, I was just about to sit when my cell rang.
I groaned.
Why hadn’t I tossed it into the Erie when I had the chance?
Looking at the Caller ID, I really wished I’d chucked it.
How many times was this now?
I suppose I could keep on ignoring her but what would that accomplish?
"What the hell do you think you’re doing?” said a voice on the other end as soon as I answered.
I sighed. “Well seeing as its morning, I’m getting breakfast like normal people.”
"Don’t get smart with me young lady!”
I rolled my eyes. “What do you want, Mother?”
"Now you’re just being rude.”
The nerve of this woman.
"Says the person that won’t stop hounding her daughter at all hours of the night, you know in some states, repeatedly calling someone on the phone over and over again is called harassment.”
"And in all states, daughters don’t ignore their mother’s phone calls.”
Was she really going to start this? This fucking early in the morning?
"Again, I ask, what do you want, Mother?”
"You changed our plans.”
So that’s what this was about.
"No mother, I changed YOUR plans. What makes you think I WANTED to be in that cottage with HER.”
"Well do you know how embarrassed I was to get a call from the school telling me that I sent your things to the wrong room? Then to have your sister call, not you, to tell me that you’ve decided to change our plans and move into another cottage.”
Of course she was going to make this all about her.
Its what she ALWAYS did.
Heaven forbid, the Great Gloria Spencer look bad in front of other people.
"There’s that Our word again. They were your plans, not mine. If you remember, I didn’t even WANT to come to this fucking school in the first place.”
I said that last bit in a hiss, though there wasn’t anyone around to hear me.
At least no one in close proximity.
"Be that as it may, you’re now stuck in Whitman apparently. I called this morning and they’ve already given your room away and there’s no more vacancies. See what you’ve done now.”
"You mean make a decision for myself? Perish the thought!”
"Well it ends now, I’ve made...”
I hung up. I was done with that conversation. A few seconds later, the phone started ringing again. Instead of answering though, I shut it off. I felt the anger start to boil. My arms started to tingle. Cursing, I flipped the phone around, pried the back off with a butter knife and pulled the SIM card. I snapped it in half easily enough. Then dropped the useless phone on the floor where I proceeded to crush it with my chair leg, stomping down on it a few times until I knew it was good and smashed. Satisfied, I picked it up and looking around, I spotted a girl carrying her tray toward the trashcans. Without a second thought, I dropped the dead phone on her tray. She gave me a look, I glared back and she rushed on her way.
Smiling, I returned to my seat.
"Wow, that was...intense” said a voice as Jenny suddenly appeared and sat across from me.
Her tray was piled with food.
"She pissed me off” I grabbed, digging into my pancakes.
"The phone?”
I scoffed. “The bitch on the other end.”
"Dare I ask?”
I dodged the question and instead focused on her. She must have gone back to our room after her run because she was dressed in jeans and another long sleeved shirt. Her hair was damp too, pulled back into a sloppy ponytail. She must have hit the shower before coming here too. Well, at least she had some kind of reason for being late. Not that I was complaining, I was used to eating alone.
"You and your mother fight often then?”
So she guessed it.
I shrugged. “She’s got this thing where she has to control every aspect of everyone’s lives, like she thinks its her responsibility to do so. Do you know that before coming here, she never once asked me what I wanted. She decided I was going to go to Whateley, that I was going to stay at Dickinson because its where she stayed when she was here.”
"Sounds rough” said Jenny, spearing some scrambled egg. “But I didn’t really have a choice about coming here either.”
"Really?”
That surprised me.
She sighed. “Clara made the decision for me. Said I’d be safer here then at home. I’d like to say she was wrong but...”
I nodded. I remembered something the Headmaster said yesterday. There was some kind of cult after her? I didn’t really press it because it wasn’t my business. Hell, it still wasn’t but if she was willing to share, I was willing to listen.
"Someone is after you, right?”
She scoffed. “Sorta. They’re really after Mao. Let’s just say she’s a very important spirit and leave it at that.”
I was waiting for said spirit to chime in but when she didn’t, I realized neither one of them really wanted to talk about. Just as well, I had my own problems too. Ones that I didn’t really want to drag Jenny into. Thinking about them and what they tried to get away with just made me angry again. I felt the tingle in my arms again, this time it burned. I winced, which seemed to draw some concern from Jenny.
"Your arms...”
I didn’t have to look because I knew what she was seeing. The intricate swirling designs on my forearms were indeed glowing. Just like they were supposed to do.
"A gift from my mother” I said, holding up my arm. “They’re runes, one of her specialty spells. According to her, they’re for my protection. The thing is, I didn’t exactly ask for them. She put them there when I was sleeping, said I had an incident during the night.”
Jenny gave me a sympathetic look. “Do they hurt?”
I nodded. “Only when I get angry.”
Which was a lot but I’m sure she knew that already.
"Can you take them off?”
I shrugged. “Tried. After I ran away, I went to this witch woman I found on the Internet, paid her to take a look. Apparently, they’re a lot more involved than Mom was letting on. To attempt to forcibly remove them would take weeks because Mom layered several different runes on top of one another. Each one has to be removed individually. She wasn’t really happy when I told her it was done without my permission but as much as I hate my mother, I refused to give up who did it. I don’t want the MCO breathing down my mother’s neck after all. There is some good news though, they’re not permanent. Apparently they’ll come off when I don’t need them anymore.”
"When is that?”
I shrugged. “Probably when I stop being angry.”
"So basically, they’re on for life.”
Jenny wasn’t trying to be a smart ass but it didn’t stop us both from laughing.
We’d only know each other for a few days but she already understood me.
Our laughing fit continued until I noticed someone else start to approach the table. I turned, not sure what I was expecting. What I found was a girl about Summer’s age, one with blue hair, not unlike my own actually. She was wearing a smile and accompanied by a couple of other girls her own age, one was a really tall redhead.
"Ah good, Jenny” said the blue haired girl. “This saves me the trouble of finding you later.”
"Hey, Jan” said my roommate, clearly familiar with this girl.
Jan smiled at her then turned to me. “And you must be the elusive Riley, I’m Janette, your RA.”
She held out her hand for me to shake and not really given a choice, I took it. It was cold, so cold that I actually shivered. The act was not lost on her, she raised a questioning eyebrow but didn’t say anything about it.
"I’ve been going around telling the other girls we’re having a Wing meeting tonight. If you see any of them, let them know.”
"Will do.”
Jan gave us a smile then she and her friends made their way toward the stairs to the second floor.
I watched them go for a few seconds before turning back to Jenny.
"You’re one of those people persons aren’t you?”
She laughed. “Hardly. Jan was at the card game yesterday. She was also at movie night, she introduced herself to most of us there. You would have met her too if you hadn’t bailed.”
"It was boring” I lied.
"It of course had nothing to do with the two young ladies you were staring at?"
The Thing speaks.
"Who asked you” I snapped, annoyed that it was keeping tabs on me.
Jenny cocked her head, it was clear Mao was still in control.
"Have I upset you?”
"When you spend more time with humans, you’ll quickly learn the phrase, ‘None of your damn business’ and you’ll also quickly learn it means keep your prying eyes to yourself.”
"I have upset you then. I fail to see why it is such a big deal. The taller of the two clearly meant you ill will. Had you not left, she planned on confronting you.”
"How do you know that?”
"Body language.”
"You can get intent out of body language?”
"She was agitated and was perspiring heavily as well. Given the way she stared in your general direction, having no prior contact with Jiaying, I assumed she meant you harm. Given how well you interact with others, I drew the conclusion that you must have insulted her and she wished retribution from said insult."
Well look at that, I think she made a joke.
"So because she was twitchy and she smelled, she wants to kick my ass?”
"You tell me?”
Well, Mao wasn’t wrong about that. That girl definitely had a bug up her ass. Somehow she was directing whatever it was at me. If I was to guess, I’d say she was connected to Sam somehow, possibly her roommate. It made sense, given that the two of them were sitting together. It just seemed weird that this girl would be so overprotective of Sam after just meeting her. Then again, Jenny and I were starting to become fast friends. Its possible that Sam found someone willing to stick up for her. A small part of that made me happy, that girl needed the help. The rest of me was a bit pissed that most of this bitch’s hostility was clearly directed at me.
I realized Mao was waiting for my answer.
"I’ve never met her” I finally admitted.
"Met who?” Jenny asked, confused.
I groaned. “You two have to STOP doing that!”
She blinked, still confused. I decided to drop it. There were so many questions I had but I was willing to wait for her to answer them. In the meantime, I decided to shift the conversation. The last thing I wanted to think about was Sam and her new friend. Just as well that Jenny didn’t seem to remember anything Mao talked about or did, she was keen to talk about our upcoming day. We talked a little about it last night, so she knew I had a meeting with my advisor in an hour and power testing shortly after that. The latter of which I wasn’t really looking forward too.
I’m not going to lie, I was thrilled I finally manifested.
I couldn’t imagine what kind of mess I’d be in if I hadn’t.
No, that’s wrong. I could imagine and that person disgusted me.
The real problem with power testing is what I know it was going to say. Shortly after waking up in the hospital after the Sam incident, Mom and Uncle Will took me to a facility that the Good Neighbors used for power testing. It was a bit on the down low and more importantly, it was MCO free. Uncle Will never said but I think the DPA had their hand in it. Regardless of who ran it, they did their tests. Sadly they didn’t tell me anything spectacular. Most kids grow up dreaming of being PK Superman, flying around, lifting cars. That wasn’t me. I didn’t get Exemplar powers, I didn’t have a severe GSD or BIT. Sure my hair was permanently blue now and my boobs were bigger but overall I was still the same me. Still five foot seven, still weighed just short of one twenty. My eyes were still usually blue though they tended to gray when I activated my fog. The thing is, nothing overly amazing happened. Besides the fog generation and the very hard ability to pull water from the air, I didn’t have much else going for me. Sure I had that whole heat resistance thing and the tiny healing ability, which was more of a nuisance than anything.
I fingered my lip ring thinking about it.
I can’t remember how many times in the last month or so, I’ve had to redo it. I almost stopped doing it but it was so part of me now that I just couldn’t.
It was honestly the most unique thing about me.
Well, save Mom’s “gift”.
"Hey you ok?”
"What?”
"No offense but you’re looking a little blue.”
I groaned. Really, she went there?
"Pale” she corrected herself quickly. “You look pale.”
I scoffed. “More so than usual?”
So I couldn’t tan at all, I blamed my father’s English genes.
Mom had this sexy half Italian thing going for her, it gave her skin a nice tan. Summer actually picked it up after she manifested. It literally looked like my sister had a sun tan one hundred percent of the time. I hated her for it. Though with the blonde hair, it also made her look like a beach bimbo. I suppose the only thing she didn’t have were the boobs. Some cruel twist of fate gave those to me.
I grunted, having only eaten about half of breakfast. I think it was nerves. Some of that anxiety that Dr. Chambers kept talking about was rearing its ugly head.
"I think I’m gonna head to the bathroom then back to our room for a while.”
"You want me to go with you?”
I raised an eyebrow. “To the bathroom?”
She nodded. “Isn’t that what girls are supposed to do? Go to the bathroom together?”
I shrugged. “No clue.”
The truth is, I never had any true girl friends to do something like that with.
We fell into an awkward silence which I broke by grabbing my tray and taking it to the trash. Most of my breakfast half eaten thanks to my mother. That woman really knew how to ruin someone’s appetite. No wonder Summer was thin all the time. Not that Mom would ever get on her nerves. She wouldn’t even dare to chide her “perfect” daughter. Argh, just thinking about…
My arms burned.
Shit.
It was getting worse.
Wincing in pain, I made my way to the bathroom. I was quick about it, never really dawdling that much to pee. I did my business, flushed and made my way over to the wall of sinks. I groaned at the sight of me in the mirror. Apparently I neglected what Summer would often call my “war paint” this morning, which in normal people terms was my eyeliner. I never went all out with the makeup, just a bit of an emo splash here and there. Some dark eye shadow and liner, enough to piss my mother off. Pair that with my piercings and the griping lasted every time I walked out of the bathroom in the morning.
I grunted at my plain face in the mirror. I couldn’t remember the last time I was without it.
I didn’t have any on me either.
Usually I kept some in my bag, which usually never left my side.
New school, new rules I suppose.
Deciding that I was done being vain, I turned on the water and cupping it in my hands, splashed it into my face. I shivered from how cold it was. Back home, the “experts” still couldn’t figure out why the hot water didn’t effect me. They were at it for about an hour, running their various tests. In the end, they concluded that the testing facilities at the school had better “experts”. I still couldn’t figure out why I was gifted was such a lame power. After all my whining I should have been happy but I just couldn’t accept that my cousin could fly and use the wind to crush her enemies. Me, I was a glorified fog machine who could at times make herself waterproof.
Yay me.
Grunting, I shut off the water and started for the door. As I was going out, someone came in. I tried to sidestep them but they deliberately stepped in my way. I walked right into someone’s chest. Taken aback, I stumbled slightly. Looking up and I had to, I saw a familiar and unwanted face. It was that girl, the one with Sam last night. She was tall, really tall. I’m five seven and my head was just below her breasts. I don’t think I’d ever seen a girl this tall before.
"Sorry” I said, trying to avoid a confrontation.
I attempted to move around her again but she wasn’t having it.
She moved with me.
Now, I was getting pissed.
"What’s your problem?” I snapped.
"You” she sneered, giving me a shove.
I scoffed. “How very Mean Girls of you. Now fuck off and get out of my way!”
I was done being nice.
I tried to push past her but she was strong. I couldn’t move her, she was standing right in front of the door. She was at least a foot taller than me and while she didn’t look like much, I knew that could be misleading. My cousin didn’t look like much either and the man could lift a truck. I learned long ago not to underestimate mutants. Unfortunately, I didn’t learn it wasn’t a smart idea to piss them off. This mountain of a girl wasn’t about to move any time soon. Running my mouth at her was probably going to lead to problems.
Looking around, I realized this was probably an ideal place to fight and not get caught.
No cameras.
No security getting in the way.
Just my luck.
I tried once again to maneuver around the Girl Mountain but she was impassable.
I sighed. “We’re really doing this?”
She gave my shoulder a shove in response. So, we were really doing this. I prepared myself for the beating that was about to come. I wasn’t much of a fighter. Sure, Gretchen had done her part to teach me some basic stuff. I just didn’t have the aptitude for it though, not like Summer. She took to fighting like a duck to water. Another thing to hate about her. The thing was, I wasn’t a slouch. I could throw a punch if I needed to. I could also take one. Gretchen was a boxer, she taught us that much. It was all about how you moved. Move toward the blow, turn toward it not away, that kind of thing.
I braced myself but the punch never came. Instead, she tensed up. She looked like she wanted to hit me but something was holding her back. Everything about her body language screamed she was going to pound me---her body was tense, she was all about frothing at the mouth. Something was holding her back though. Maybe she didn’t want to get into trouble?
"So we’re not doing this then?”
I was confused.
"She doesn’t need this shit, you know. Not after what you and your friends did to her. She had a rough time you know. She was almost better then you showed up. She was opening up again, she was smiling again. Then she saw you and you...”
She was getting angrier with every word.
That’s when the fist came.
It happened so fast that I didn’t have time to react.
There was a rush of air behind me and suddenly, Jenny was there.
What the?
She caught the Mountain’s fist. It was inches from impacting with my nose and Jenny caught it. I looked at her hand, closer to my face than the foreign intruder. It wasn’t normal, it was, well it looked almost metal. There was something about her too, she looked different. She seemed a bit taller and I could swear she had cat ears now. Her skin had a metallic tint to it as well and I think there were more stripes?
"That’s enough of that"
"Where the hell did you...”
"We followed you"
Mao.
The girl’s eyes all but popped. “You? How did you?”
Jenny or Mao squeezed the girl’s fist, causing her to cry out in pain.
"I can break it, you know” said Jenny, taking over.
There was a cold edge to her voice. Not unlike the one that Mao often talked with. For a split second, I thought she was in control again.
The Mountain was starting to shake and tear up. She tried to pull her hand from Jenny’s grip but it wasn’t budging. I could see this girl, she wasn’t just tall. There was some ferocity and strength there. She was the kind of girl that could probably throw boulders if motivated enough. Here she was now, all but cowering to this thin, supermodel of a Chinese girl. Whoever or whatever Jenny was, it was on a whole new level. What’s more, it was clear that people underestimated her. I couldn’t help but think of the look on Mazarin’s face yesterday and now I knew why. Whatever was going on with Jenny, he knew.
"Let go please!”
The girl desperately tried to pull her hand away.
"Say you’re sorry, first”
"Please!”
Jenny let out a low, guttural growl.
"Apology”
She turned to me with tears in her eyes. “I’m sorry”
I’m not sure if she actually meant it or not but I could see how scared she was.
Jenny finally let go of her hand and pushed her back. The girl stumbled and cradled her arm as she recovered. There were tears in her eyes but she was glaring as well. For a second I thought she might come back for more, there was something about that glare of hers. Did she really want this? I knew angry mutants. You heard about them all the time. Gretchen told me about a few run ins back in her school days. My cousins had some stories too. Most of the time it led to secret fist fights. I just never in a million years thought I’d be in someone’s cross hairs, well at least not this quickly. It was only my second day here after all.
The girl recovered. “Puta” she hissed, spitting in our direction.
Well that wasn’t very nice.
Before Jenny could react, the girl was gone.
You could cut the tension in the room with a knife. I let out the breath I didn’t even know I was holding. I saw Jenny visibly relax. The metallic sheen to her skin and the cat eyes vanished. She still looked pretty tense for a few more seconds before finally letting out a sigh.
"Are you ok?” she asked, turning toward me.
I put on fake airs. “I just have that way with people.”
Inside, I’m not going to lie, I was a bit shook.
Neither of us said another for a whole minute or so.
Then it occurred to me we were still standing in the restroom. I still needed to finish washing my hands too. Which was well ewww.
After washing, the two of us made our way out the door.
"How did you get in the bathroom anyway?” I asked, still a bit confused about her presence.
"I followed you” she said again as if it was the most obviously thing in the world. “Girls are supposed to go to the bathroom in pairs, duh”.
I rolled my eyes.
Never a dull moment here at Whateley.
9:32am---Schuster Hall/The Quad
I rushed down the hall. I’m not going to lie, I got a bit lost. This place could get really confusing if you didn’t know where you were going. It took me a little bit of pathfinding to figure out where I was supposed to go. In the end though, someone was able to point me in the right direction. Unfortunately for me, my meeting with my advisor was supposed to start at nine-thirty, which meant I was two minutes late.
Pushing my way into the tiny office, the hawk-nosed man at the desk looked up at me.
He didn’t look amused.
"Miss Spencer, I assume?”
I was still trying to catch my breath.
"Yes, sorry...”
He cut me off. “You’re late.”
I looked at the large clock on his wall. Two minutes. This guy was really going to chastise me for two minutes? I waited for him to say something else but when I realized he wasn’t, I decided to plant my butt in the large, rather uncomfortable looking chair in front of me. The man followed me with his eyes. They were already judging me. I took a moment to look anywhere but at him. I tried to find something in the room to keep my attention but besides the desk and the chair I was sitting in, there was nothing else. Well nothing of interest anyway. It was the most utilitarian office I’d ever seen. It fit the bald, beady-eyed man to a tee.
"Now then” he continued, looking back at his computer and typing. “It would appear you arrived a day late.”
"Unforeseen circumstances, I was...”
He interrupted me again. “Your tardiness appears to be a habit I see.”
Who the fuck did this guy think he was?
"Like I said, it was beyond my control...”
"Problem with authority as well.”
If this dude interrupts me one more time.
I crossed my arms. “Well at least I’m not rude.”
He looked up from his screen, glaring. It was clear he wanted to say something but stopped himself and continued. “From this schedule you submitted over the summer, its clear you just picked what you thought were the hardest classes available. How creative of you. I’ve taken the liberty of correcting some of your mistakes’.
Schedule? What schedule?
"I didn’t submit...” I stopped myself because I realized who did.
Mom.
I grunted.
"Trigonometry, really?”
"Yeah. I’m smart. I did most of that remedial shit in middle school.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Well that’s my class, surely...” He started typing and paused. “Well this can’t be right, that’s a Junior course...”
I couldn’t help but give him a smug smile.
He started typing more, probably bringing up my transcripts.
I’d always been a bit of an overachiever. It was one of the things that I had and Summer didn’t. She wasn’t an idiot but she wasn’t as smart as me either. When I started school, Mom immediately tried to drive a wedge between the two of us. Once again, she favored my sister. She tried to push the two of us against one another academically. So that only pushed me harder. I wasn’t a super genius by any means but I wasn’t an idiot like the other kids around me. It wasn’t all subjects either, mainly Math and reading. Mom tried to ignore it, the school didn’t. I was in advanced Math classes starting in about fifth grade or so. So yes, I really was taking trigonometry as a freshman.
Screw him.
"I really should phone this in” he said, still clearly annoyed. “But seeing as you were late and we’re short on time, I’ll move on.”
Again by only two minutes.
This guy needed to remove the stick.
He continued typing, the sound was already starting to annoy me. As he typed he read off my other classes, most of them I had to correct in some way. My mother had really done a piece of work on my schedule. They were clearly classes she thought I should be taking. He was only on the second or third one when there was a knock on the door.
Saved by the Interrupt.
He looked at me, annoyed again.
Somehow he must have thought it was my doing.
The door opened before he could say anything. A head poked in. It was a woman, she wore dark eyeliner and dark lipstick, the strand of nearly white blonde hair I saw fell in front of her face. That wasn’t her most striking feature though, it was her eyes, they had a strange purple shine to them. The woman looked about the room then those eyes locked on me. For a second, I thought she was looking into my soul. I thought for sure she might somehow suck me in. Instead, she smiled.
"There you are, girl!”
She pushed her way into the room.
She was dressed like a wet dream, some male fantasy of a secretary, short black skirt, white blouse with the top button undone. I could see a red lacy bra underneath. The fishnets were pretty cool though and those boots, they were killer. Knee high and black, with at least a four inch stiletto. This girl was a ball breaker and I liked her instantly.
"Miss...” stammered the man behind the desk.
"DuBois, Olivia DuBois”.
"Miss DuBois, this is highly irregular, I’m in the middle...”
"Of my job yes” she said, interrupting him.
I don’t think he liked being interrupted in the least.
"I beg your pardon?”
"Riley’s mine now” she said, waving a manilla folder she was holding.
"Excuse me?”
"You’re excused” she said with a wave of her hand. “I’ll take it from here.”
The man looked at a loss for words.
Me, my grin was getting bigger.
Who was this woman? Hell, how could I be This woman!
She walked further into the room, her heels clicking loudly. The fairly empty room made them echo nicely. She leaned on the corner of his desk, making sure he got a full view of what she was offering. I saw him turn a few different shades of red. She finally handed him the folder, explaining that she was officially assigned to be my Advisor for the rest of the term. He only peeked at the folder once, rather quickly, before his eyes went back to well...someplace else.
"Expect everything is in order then?”
"Ye..s..ss.sss” he stammered.
"Good, you can leave now.”
"But this is my office.”
"I’m just borrowing it sweetie” she said, giving his cheek a gentle tap.
He seemed to melt at her touch. He also wasted no time vacating the room. She let out a sigh as soon as he was gone.
"Ugh” she said with a shiver before dropping into his chair. She looked right at me. “Don’t try that at home, kiddo.”
I finally found my voice after all that. “Umm, what’s going on?”
"I’m Liv, your Advisor, nice to finally meet you, the Famous Riley Spencer!”
Famous? What?
"How do you know me?”
"I read your file” she said, waving that folder again.
I was confused. There was no way that was my file, it was too thin.
"Hey, you mind if I kill the lights in here, I’m a bit photosensitive?”
Before I could say anything, she snapped her fingers and suddenly the lights were off. I blinked. What the hell just happened. I looked around then at her, those amazing eyes of hers were actually glowing.
Her face was also framed in the glow from the computer screen.
"Not great but better” she said with a sigh. She took a moment before looking at the screen. “So, I’ve seen your transcript, pretty impressive, Little Miss Smarty. I’ve seen the schedule your mother made up for you too.”
She made another “ugh” sound before she started typing. She mumbled something about “that ingrate” which I’m assuming meant the guy in here before. It didn’t take her very long before she was swirling the monitor around so I could take a look at the screen.
"I was able to rearrange some things. It seems your mother consulted with Mr. Ding Dong and tried to work your schedule around your sister’s. We both know you don’t want that.”
Wait, how did she know that?
Who was this woman?
She wasn’t wrong though. “My mother is a pain in the ass.”
She frowned “Cherish her, you only get one.”
I raised an eyebrow. “And my sister?”
"Well as much as you’d probably like to kill her---trust me on that one---there are fates worst than death.”
It almost sounded like she was speaking from experience.
I was about to pry when the mood suddenly shifted. “Well then” she said, in a cheerier tone. “Now that we’ve got the boring shit out of the way, let’s take a walk.”
I heard the printer roar to life behind her. She swiveled in the chair and snatched something from the tray. She spun back around and out of the chair before handing said paper to me. It was my class schedule. I started to look at it but she was already grabbing my arm and pushing me out of the room. In a rush, I folded it in half and shoved it into my pocket. Maybe later I guess.
Liv was a burst of energy. She was the type of person that took charge and barreled on without giving something a second thought. It was weird but she reminded me a lot of Gretchen in that way.
"So, how’s school been so far?”
I shrugged, shoving my hands into my hoodie pockets. “I’ve only been here a couple of days, so the jury is still out.”
"Your roommate?”
"She’s cool. Not what I expected.”
Understatement of the century.
"They never are” chuckled my companion as the two of us headed for the stairs. “My roomie and I were like oil and water at first. We had a bit of a rocky start but she’s my best friend now. We did everything in school together.”
"Are you two still close?”
She smiled. “We talk pretty much everyday. We formed this unbreakable bond here. There isn’t anything I wouldn’t do for her, you know?”
I didn’t. I never really had a friend like that. Well, friends in general. Before dating, I only sorta called Brody a friend. It was too early to say how things with Jenny and I might work out. Sure we were ok now but I’ve only known her for a few days now. Who’s to say how much of that might change in a day or a week or hell, even a month. As it stands right now, I’m not sure I could really be that way with anyone.
"You have a lot of friends back home?” she asked as we reached the bottom of the stairs.
I didn’t answer right away.
Instead the two of us made our way the short distance to the nearest exit. We were back in that large atrium area between the main buildings. I’m not sure what they called it, I still wasn’t used to this place. I don’t think I ever would. As we walked a bit, Liv pointed to a bench, indicating that we should sit. I didn’t argue, technically I was still on her time. When we sat, I finally decided to answer the question.
I shrugged. “We live on a farm in the middle of nowhere, there’s not too many people around.”
"What about school back home?”
I shook my head. “There were a few but they turned out to be dicks.’
She nodded understanding. “The incident.’
So she knew. Well of course, she did, she did have my file.
"You want to talk about it?”
I really did, especially after my run in with Sam and her giant friend. Except, I was never really good at opening up with strangers. Plus, there was something about the way she asked the question. All the questions in fact. They were less like a concerned person and more clinical. It was almost as if…
Shit.
"What did you say you teach again?”
She smiled coyly. “I didn’t. I’m not a teacher, I’m a Grad student.”
Son of a bitch.
How could I have been so stupid and not seen it? All the signs were there but I was just too caught up in the moment. She tricked me. She played the “cool” card and I fell for it. She was good, really good. There was no mistake now though. Taking a good look at her, it was clear who and what she really was. I quickly got to my feet. Damn it. I didn’t waste any time trying to get away from her. A fucking shrink. I stormed off, increasing my speed. I was glad to hear she wasn’t following. The last thing I needed was more of her brand of “ambush therapy”.
I got maybe twenty feet from her, was passing by the shade of some trees when suddenly I couldn’t move. It wasn’t like I had a cramp or pain either. I literally couldn’t take another step. I tried, it was as if my legs were glued to the ground. I struggled and pulled but nothing. Snapping around, I saw her walking slowly toward me. She wore a smile and look of triumph. She, she was doing this somehow. As she got closer, I noticed those eyes of hers were glowing again. Then it clicked. The light, she shut it off with a wave of her hand. Looking around, I noticed one of my feet was touching the shadow.
So that’s how it was.
Tricky bitch.
When she got closer, I hissed at her. “Let me go!”
I still struggled but there was no use.
"We’re not done. I still have five minutes.”
I crossed my arms, pissed. “Dick move.”
"Hey we were just talking, its not my fault you freaked and bailed like usual” she said, finally getting close enough.
She waved her hand and let me go.
I thought about bailing again but I knew she would probably just snag me again. Defeated, I glared at her. “I could report you, you know.”
"You won’t. You’re too damn stubborn for that.”
Shit.
"Plus, you have that whole, ‘I hate authority’ thing going, which is cute but pointless.”
"You think you know me because you read my file?”
She smirked, held up the folder and opened it up. All the papers went flying out. At first, I was about to freak because well it was my file. That is until I realized that a bunch of blank papers dropped everywhere. What the fuck? This woman, she was crazy.
"To be fair though, I did read your file but I didn’t really need to. You’re an open book, Riley. Parental issues, authority issues, sister issues. Angry, stubborn, Me against the world. Classic misanthrope, blah, blah, fucking blah. I get it, trust me, I lived it. You think the world is against you, you think EVERYONE hates you! More blah and blah and blah.” She paused for dramatic effect. “ I’m not going to tell you you’re wrong because what kind of advice would that be. I am going to tell you one thing though” Another pause, this time with a breath. “Grow up and stop whining.”
Wait, what?
What the hell kind of shrink was she?
"You can’t...”
She cut me off. “No, I can’t but I will because you need to hear it. Yes, your mother is probably a bitch. She probably does favor your sister more. Trust me, been there, done that. Yes, you’re a loner and you hate everyone around you. You’re horrible to them, blah and blah and shit. Tough break, the world isn’t perfect. We can’t change that. We can however learn to deal with that shit. If you let me, I think I might be able to help you. If you’re interested?”
Who the hell was this woman?
She was the most insufferable, most annoying, the biggest bitch…
Damn it.
She wasn’t wrong though.
"Why should I trust you?”
She smiled. She opened her mouth to say something but stopped when she saw her watch. “Well, that’s time. Next week, 9am, I’ll send you the directions.”
What the fuck?
She then turned and started to walk away.
"Wait...”
She back hand waved to me, leaving me standing there stunned and really confused.
What the ever loving fuck just happened?
I stood stunned for what felt like an eternity but was only probably a few seconds. I watched as she walked away. The Quad was all but deserted this morning so it was easy to see her until she vanished from sight. Even then, I still stared in her direction. She was the most insufferable woman I’d ever met, I HATED people like that. Yet, there was something about her that I just couldn’t quite place. Something almost familiar. Sure I’d never met her before but there was still something.
Thinking about it made me smile.
I’m not sure why.
It took me another more or so to process and I looked at my own watch.
I cursed.
10:01.
Late again.
10am-ish---K Lab
Shit, I was so late. Why was this place so hard to navigate? There was no one around either. Trying to focus on the little map I managed to acquire, I was trying and failing to find my way through all these meandering tunnels. I took a quick glance up ahead, maybe it was around this corner..
BAM.
Of course I wasn’t looking where I was going.
I hit someone and hard from the looks of them currently on their butt in front of me. I cursed.
"Shit, sorry about that!”
I bent and helped her up. AS I was doing so, I noticed she was wearing a hoodie like me. Unlike me though, her’s was zipped up and the hood pulled as far down as possible. For a slight moment there I thought I saw something that looked like...nah.
As soon as the girl got up she gave me a weird look. “Laura?”
It was slightly dark in the tunnel and hard to see. Probably the big reason we ran into one another.
"What?’
"Oh sorry, blue hair. Thought you were my friend. No, blue skin though...”
"Nope, just Riley” I said, in an awkward intro.
She laughed. “Tia.”
"Nice to meet you.”
There was a bit of more awkwardness but mostly silence. She started to explain about her friend but she kept rambling off, so I decided to change the subject. Seeing as she was clearly coming from where I was going, I asked for directions. Turns out I really was lost but she was able to set me on the right course. I thanked her, apologized again for running into her, and started off on my way again.
Nice girl but a bit shy and were those bunny ears?
I shook my head.
Whateley.
I pressed on, making up for lost time until I finally found my location.
"You’re...”
"I know, late” I said, rushing into the large room.
The woman in the white lab coat looked at me down her long nose. It was clear she wanted to say something but kept her mouth shut. Just as well, I was getting sick and tired of these people constantly harping on me for not knowing how to navigate campus. This school was huge and it was clearly easy to get lost. Add to that all these underground tunnels and labs and this place was a damn maze. It didn’t help that no one told me how to find K Lab.
"Right then, follow me please”
The woman wasted no time as she turned and started walking toward what I could only assume was some kind of exam room. I followed close on her heels, not wanting to get lost again. Not that I could, this place was a large room without any halls or corridors. I couldn’t help but look around in awe. There was some kind of shooting range over there and some kind of lab area over there, lots of tables and computers. This place made the facility back at home look like a hole in the wall. Then again, this was Whateley. I’d only been here a few days and I was already beginning to realize how wrong I was about this place. It was strange really. The more I was here, the more I was starting to feel like I knew shit.
"In here” said the woman, pointing to a small room off to the side of the lab area.
I looked inside, there was an exam table and not much else.
There were three walls too, all of them made of glass.
I guess privacy wasn’t a thing around here.
I stepped inside, the room was stark white.
"Put on the jumpsuit and meet me outside when you’re done.”
She turned and left, closing the door behind her. As soon as it shut, I noticed the glass frost over.
Wow, personality much?
Now alone, I walked over and looked at the table. There was some kind of strange suit folded on the bed. Picking up, the first thing I noticed was the lycra. She was kidding right?
"This is a joke, right?” I said out loud, hoping she could hear me.
No response.
Grunting, I looked around and started to strip. There was no place for my clothes so as each layer came off, I just left them on the floor. I was down to my underwear in mere seconds but realized I might have to strip that off too in order to make this thing fit properly. Thankfully I wasn’t one of those shy girls. Growing up, Summer wasn’t a prude. She often walked around in her underwear and wasn’t the least bit worried if anyone saw her. It only got worse after she manifested and she became a “super babe” as some of my male classmates often called her. It also didn’t help that her roommate was a bit of exhibitionist in her own right. Summer brought her home over Spring Break last year, that girl had no modesty whatsoever. There were other things wrong with her too, thinking about it made me shudder.
A gentle knock on the glass interrupted my thoughts. “Are you ready, yet?”
Just about.
"You’re kidding about this, right?” I grunted as I finished pulling up the suit.
I was right, I should have taken off my underwear.
Too late for that now.
Taking a look down, I didn’t like how this thing accentuated my breasts, among other things as well. I did a really good job of trying not to draw attention to my body. I didn’t dress all frumpy but I didn’t like tight clothes either. I’m not going to lie, it was a lot easier to dress myself before I manifested. Now I was finding it harder and harder to hide the watermelons on my chest. Ok, so they weren’t that big but they should felt it. I know most girls my age would be happy to have them but I wasn’t most girls. I HATED the attention they drew. It’s one of the reasons I did everything imaginable to hide them.
I finally opened the door to find the woman waiting.
She gave me a curt nod before turning and walking off again. I guess that was my queue to follow.
What followed is something I’ll never forget. She introduced me to a couple more lab coats, names don’t really matter at this point. What matters is that these “tyrants” ran me through my paces. The power testing that I had with The Good Neighbors was intense but the one these people subjected me too was on a whole new level. Besides being poked and prodded repeatedly, I went through a gauntlet of strenuous physical tests, some of which I didn’t know could be performed on a human. An hour later, two important things were apparent to me. One, the old woman had been right about those runes.
They weren’t coming off without me making them do so.
Nothing new there.
The other thing was Earth Shattering.
"It’s not hydrokinesis.”
Wait, what?
"I don’t understand...”
The woman who spoke, smiled. “It was very hard to see at first but the more tests we ran, the more we came to the conclusion that you are not in fact controlling the water. The way you described it to us before, you’re pulling the water from the air. Does that sound like a correct assessment?”
I nodded. “Back home they said it was a rare form of hydrokinetics...”
The doctor was still nodding. “I can see where they were confused.”
They aren’t the only ones.
She asked me to follow her because there was another lab that was more adept at testing her theory. At this point, I had no reason to doubt her. Unlike the first woman, this one was a lot friendlier. It was a shame I wasn’t paying attention when she said her name. I followed close at her heels, hoping this wasn’t going to lead to another hour-long poke and prod session. She led me out of the lab, down a short corridor and into another large room, I’m guessing another lab. This one felt bigger but more than likely because it was a large circular room. The walls were smooth metal and whereas the last room had several lab tables and computers, this one only had one small station off in the corner. I noticed it didn’t have any of those side rooms like the previous one either. Whatever went on here, it seemed solely centered on that one station.
"Riley, welcome to Lab W.”
Lab W?
A tall thin man standing over at the lab table raised an eyebrow as we approached, it was clear he wasn’t expecting us.
"Dr. Martin, this is a surprise” he said, still looking at us in a very confused manner.
So that was her name.
"Riley, I’d like you to meet Dr. Phelps”.
The man smiled and nodded but turned immediately to my escort. “I wasn’t aware we’d be having any tests today?”
"Riley here has spent the last hour in the Kinetics lab based on an earlier power assessment but I started to notice something that seemed out of place. She was easily labeled a hydrokinetic back home due to her family’s power history.”
The man looked at me intently. “Your family has a history of water based powers?”
I nodded. “And air.”
He raised an eyebrow. “That’s highly unusual, especially for an entire family to manifest the same kind of power base.”
"Not for Riley, Henry, she’s a Spencer.”
The man blinked but it was as if a light bulb popped up over his head.
Scientists all over the world have been trying to figure out my family for years. It wasn’t unheard of for families to have multiple mutants but for them to all manifest the same powers, over and over again. Things like that didn’t happen. As far back as my great-great grandfather, people have been trying to figure out why and how it was possible. There were many theories, most seemed to think that one of my ancestors made a pact with a powerful spirit but of course that was a bunch of crap if you ask me. Personally I think we were just lucky.
"Has she exhibited aerokinesis as well?”
"Riley, can you give us a demonstration?”
I nodded, so she started to attach those sensor things to my suit again. She asked me to step ten feet away, far into the room in case something happened but not far enough away that I couldn’t hear them. It was a big room after all and empty, every step I took echoed. I got to where I felt was “safe” and closed my eyes. I concentrated, feeling that telltale tingle I was all too familiar with. Unlike the earlier tests of my powers, I was asked to hold back a little. This time I was given no instruction, so I decided to put as much as I could into it. After only a few seconds though, I started to feel the burn. I ignored it and pushed through it. The pain in my arms increased but I bit my lip and pushed harder. The more I pushed, the more pain I felt.
Eventually though, I got to my break point.
I was on my knees, panting.
I opened my eyes and the fog was slowly starting to dissipate. I saw Dr. Martin fumble about, trying to find me.
"Give it a moment” I said, out of breath.
After a minute or so, enough of the fog had cleared itself for her to find me.
She handed me a bottle of water.
"That was amazing, I’ve never seen anyone create fog like that before. It was so thick, I couldn’t even two inches in front of my face.”
I huffed. “That’s me, Riley Spencer, Subpar Party Favor.”
She chuckled. “Nothing about you is subpar, far from it in fact.”
She helped me to my feet, I was still a little woozy from it all. At least this time I didn’t pass out like before. I leaned on her as she helped me over to the lab station. Dr. Phelps was as giddy as a schoolboy.
"These readings are incredible,” he said enthusiastically. “Whatever fool said you were a hydrokinetic needs to have his credentials revoked.”
I smirked at that one.
"So what am I then?”
He shook his head. “We need more tests to make an accurate assessment.”
Of course they did.
They asked me to generate the fog, this time not as intense. I ended up doing it a few times for them. The breaks between getting shorter and shorter. It turns out the more I use my power, the more tolerance I built up to the debilitating after-effects. After three or four times of the fog alone, they started adding different factors to the environment. Making it hotter or colder for instance. That apparently changed the density of the fog. Working in the heat was a lot easier for me too. When it got colder, I found it harder to control things. When they added water into the mix, things took a different turn. Not only did I start to feel less pain but I was able to control the water around me as it fell. Much like what I could do with the water from the shower.
There were other tests too but I didn’t notice if they changed anything or not.
Finally they declared the tests over.
The small clock on Dr. Phelps monitor screen told me it was almost noon.
Great, another hour.
"I have seen some truly remarkable things in this lab over the years but nothing quite like that.”
"So I was right then?”
He nodded excitedly, finally looking up from his screen. “You Miss Spencer are not a hydrokinetic, you’re a Warper.”
Wait, what?
"I don’t understand...”
He was smiling. “Its simple really. You’re not controlling the water, you’re changing it. The fog is just the start. With practice and training, no doubt you will be able to change the very density of the air itself. It’s incredible. What’s more, right at the beginning, the sensors picked up hydrostatic pressure fluctuations.”
"That’s not possible!”
"As impossible as it is, it was there. No mistake about it.”
"What’s hydrostatic pressure?”
I was so confused.
"Its the pressure exerted onto an object underwater” explained Dr. Martin “the further you go down, the more pressure you feel. It’s what happens when you swim and pop your eardrums.”
"This type of pressure should not be experienced outside of the water” explained Dr. Phelps “Yet, somehow, you’re able to generate it in the air.”
"What about the atmospheric pressure?”
"She was controlling that too...”
"My God...”
I was really confused right now. What exactly were they saying? I looked from one to the other, both scientists were still staring at the monitor. It took a few minutes for them to realize I was still there then they quickly apologized and regained some of their composure. As soon as they did, they explained that my control of pressure apparently did not exist outside of the fog I created. The stronger my fog, the more pressure I was able to control and even change. They spent the next twenty minutes explaining all the details to me before they decided my testing was officially over.
"We’ll get your new MID” said Dr. Martin, leading me out of the lab.
As we started walking, something occurred to me.
"My codename can be changed?”
She gave me a strange look.
"My mother picked it out for me before, based on the earlier assessment but it doesn’t fit anymore.”
"Well school hasn’t started and if you have one that is available, I don’t see why not.”
I smiled.
I had the perfect name now.
12:45pm---The Quad/Crystal Hall
Hydrostatic.
The name came to me as soon as Dr. Martin asked about hydrostatic pressure. I’m not sure what it was but it suddenly just clicked for me. That was my codename. Dr. Martin accompanied me to Schuster where I went through the process of having a new MID printed. They didn’t give me too much trouble when I told them I wanted to change my codename. I filled out some paperwork and I was able to get the whole thing sorted in a few minutes. After all, the school year hadn’t officially started yet. I was told that I wouldn’t be allowed to change it again until after I graduated. That was fine by me because anything was better than Mist. That name made me sound like a fucking air purifier.
Grunting, I looked at the photo on the front of the card.
I smirked. At least I was smiling in this one.
I still looked weird without my makeup and as soon as possible, I was going to pierce my lip again. I looked a bit doe-eyed in the photo though, a deer caught in the headlights too frightened to move. I wonder if they’d allowed me to retake it? I thought about it for about two more seconds and grunted. Fat chance. Flipping the card over, I took a look at my new “stats”. My new codename was on top, I smiled at that. I can only imagine how much Mom was going to be pissed off about that. I was still pretty angry about her forcing me into the last one. Sighing, I let it go. The most important thing was, I finally beat her for once. That made me smile. What’s more, I had a whole new power classification to go along with the name.
Warper 4, TK 2.
I was still floored.
I was a Warper. Even trying to wrap my head around it was hard to process. I’d heard a lot about Warpers over the years. They weren’t a common power type and more than that, they were extremely powerful. Gretchen would often tell me about Mistress Zodiac, the Warper she had some trouble with before coming to Whateley. The very same one who also killed Mom’s Dad. Mom always detested them after that, even if she tried to hide it. There used to be a Warper in The Good Neighbors, called Motormouth, he could talk so fast that he actually gave people headaches. Summer and I used to love it but Mom hated it. Eventually, he retired from the bizz. He lives in Florida now, living the easy life. Uncle Jeff---his civilian ID---still sends us cards and presents every year for Christmas and Birthdays.
He always used to say I was something special.
I wonder if he had some kind of Sixth Sense too?
I smirked.
I took a second to collect myself before scanning the rest of the card. I didn’t really care about the rest of it though. I was still a bit bummed about the regen bit. Apparently, it wasn’t actually one of my powers but an after effect of the runes that were used to heal me. After manifesting I was unconscious for a couple of hours and was covered in cuts and bruises. Mom broke some rules when she used runes to heal me. A small part of me was glad to see the Regen gone too. It now meant I could return my tats and piercings, maybe even let my hair grow a bit and cut it the way I wanted. My current below the ear chop job was Mom’s doing. I generally wore it a bit longer and liked it in my face a lot more.
Just one more freedom now I suppose.
Sticking the card in my back pocket, I finally got up from the bench. I had found the most secluded one in The Quad, hoping to stay out of the way of the foot traffic. Lunch was coming up and there were already tons of people filing their way back toward Schuster. There was another reason for this bench too. While I was getting my new MID, I saw Sam and her tall friend in the hallway. For a split second, Sam and I locked eyes. This time she didn’t cry. Instead, she looked like she wanted to talk to me. One glare from her friend though and I knew that wasn’t happening anytime soon. Whatever that girl’s problem was, she needed to pull it out of her ass. Sam bit her lip and I just shook my head. I wasn’t in the mood for another fight.
That’s when I found this nice quiet bench crammed in the corner of a walkway.
Nice and out of the way.
"Blue!”
Or so I thought.
My heart thumped in my chest. Oh God.
Brad Pitt Jr.
"Hey Blue!” he shouted louder.
I finally turned around. He was coming this way but he wasn’t alone. There was another boy with him, shorter, dark hair and olive-skinned. I quickly looked around in a panic, wondering if there was still time to bolt. I realized it was too late because he definitely saw me. He was waving and smiling. Damn, he had such a great smile. No, Riley, Bad Riley. I shook off the thought and did the only thing I could do now, I gave him a lopsided wave back. Yeah I know, lame.
"There you are, finally” he said, stopping in front of me with a big smile. “I’ve been looking all over the campus for you.”
His friend snorted. “The way he wouldn’t shut up about you, I thought you were a figment of his imagination.”
Cody elbowed him. “Can it Parker!” He smiled at me. “Ignore him, he’s been huffing what he’s been making.”
I raised an eyebrow. “You’re a Devisor?”
Cody smiled even bigger. Was that possible?
"See I told you she was smart, Park.”
His friend ignored him. “I’m Parker Danes, Cody’s roommate, you can call me Crowd Control.”
HE held out his hand but I didn’t shake it.
Cody laughed. “I told you that too.”
I sighed. “Riley.”
"You know for a while there, I was starting to believe what Parker was telling me and you wasn’t real. I’d all but given up hope of finding you again.”
He was looking for me?
My heart fluttered.
No, stop that!
"Well here I am” I tried to sound cool but I bet I sounded like a fucking idiot.
I shook it off. Why did I care? Its not like I wanted to date this guy. Sure he was tall and gorgeous and had these cute dimples when he smiled and…
Oh God.
"So where did you vanish too, after the train I mean?”
I shrugged.
What should I tell him? The truth?
Well maybe not the whole thing…
"Got nabbed by the DPA. There was some kind of situation back home I don’t really want to talk about. Suffice to say, they wanted to ask me some questions.”
We were walking by this point. I’m not even sure how that happened. One minute, we were standing in my spot and the next the three of us were making a grand exodus toward lunch. Just as well, I was kind of hungry. I’m not sure how I managed to acquire the two of them in the process though. Walking with them was nice though, especially Cody. When I was dating Brody, he never walked next to me because he was shorter than me. He said it made him feel inferior. I was glad to see that my head was just barely above Cody’s shoulder. I wasn’t short for a girl my age but I wasn’t the tallest by any means, especially at this place. Hell, Sam’s bitch friend made Cody look like a shrimp.
"Well that was some bathroom break...” he said with a chuckle.
Bathroom break?
Oh right, after getting off the train. I told him I was going to the bathroom?
Oops.
Well in my defense, I never expected to see him again. Or any of this for that matter. Hmm, amazing how things change.
"Yeah sorry about that. To be honest, I was going to run.”
"Wait like away?” asked his friend, whom I totally forgot was walking with us.
I nodded. “Coming here wasn’t my idea.”
Neither of them said anything for a few seconds.
When we reached the front door of Schuster, Cody opened it for me and waited until I went in first. I blushed and turned quickly as I rushed inside. He followed, allowing the door to all but wack his friend in the face. I smirked, his friend rolled his eyes as he pushed his way in. We didn’t say much as we got into the growing line, moving along with the rest of the herd as we were given our “slop”. Ok, it wasn’t actually slop but it fit the cow analogy. As soon as we were out of line a few minutes later, Parker managed to score us a table. All the while, he kept looking at the second floor.
"Must be cool to be up there?”
I looked, I hadn’t noticed this morning.
There were a lot of people up there too.
I shrugged. “What’s so cool about it?”
He gaped at me. “You’re kidding, right?” I shrugged again. “That’s where the teams sit!”
Teams?
Oh right, I vaguely remember Gretchen mentioning something about that.
"Training teams, right?” I asked with disinterest.
I wasn’t exactly a team player after all.
He nodded his head vigorously. “We should totally try to start one of those!”
I scoffed. “I vote not.”
"Classes haven’t even started yet, Park.”
"Oh c’mon, it could be fun!”
"What could?”
Jenny.
She dropped into the seat next to me, without a care in the world. It was such a graceful, fluid motion that it left Parker with his mouth hanging open. It hung that way for a few seconds too before Cody pushed it shut. That didn’t stop him from staring though. I’m not going to lie, Jenny was something to stare at. If I wasn’t careful, I might go gay for her. Well, bi at the very least. I wonder if I would be able to juggle both her and Cody at the same…
No, BAD brain!
"Umm, hi” said Parker in a soft voice, keeping his eyes directly on Jenny. “I’m...Pa..r..r..r..ke..r..r”
Wow.
Jenny blinked. “Jiaying but everyone just calls me Jenny.”
I then went and introduced her to Cody, explaining a bit about how we met. Parker got over his shyness pretty quickly and started exclusively talking to her, much to my roommate’s discomfort. It was weird because she acted almost like she never got this kind of attention before. Especially from a boy. How was that possible? She was gorgeous, unless she wasn’t always so. It made sense I suppose. Some of her behavior didn’t quite fit. She had a great body but she always covered it, every inch of skin. She was shy and demure around everyone but me too? Almost as if she wasn’t comfortable in her own skin? Parker wasn’t helping either. Every time he spoke, he moved a bit closer to her and she moved a bit back. Parker didn’t notice. Jenny’s body language was enough to tell me that she didn’t like it one bit.
She gave me a look a minute or so in, I knew it well.
It was “Rescue Me<"/p>
"So, Parker, why call yourself Crowd Control?”
Cody rolled his eyes. “Here we go.”
Parker finally paying attention to Jenny and turned to me with a smile. “I...Make bombs!”
Wait, what?
Cody sighed heavily. “Its not as exciting as he makes it sound. He makes non-lethal grenades.”
Parker grunted. “Well when you put it that way...”
He crossed his arms and actually looked like he was sulking.
"Well I think it’s neat” said a voice from the other side of me.
I jumped.
I think we all did.
I snapped around and sitting next to me was Sam.
Where in the hell did she come from?
"Sam! Where did you…?”
She giggled. “I’ve been here for a while now actually, you four were so engrossed in talking that I just thought I’d wait for an opening.”
Suddenly I felt really nervous. I started looking around, wondering where her friend was.
Sam seemed to catch on to what I was doing and shook her head. “Amaya’s in power testing right now. She’s real sorry by the way, even if she’ll never admit it. She got it into her thick head that I hated you but...”
"You don’t?”
She shook her head. “You saved me.”
Jenny raised an eyebrow but didn’t question me further.
"You were crying earlier?”
"Not because I was scared...just happy to see you and angry at what my parents tried to do...”
The others were looking at us now, probably wondering what was going on. Sam realized it too because she made an “eep” sound and I think her face turned the same shade of pink as her hair. She didn’t say anything more about it. Instead, she took a deep breath and introduced herself.
"I’m Samantha Ridley, people call me Sam, you can call me Void if you want.”
"Void?” asked Parker, even the curious one.
"I can’t show you because we’re not supposed to use our powers that way...”
She said it like it was the most obvious thing in the world.
"Well I guess that leaves me then” said Cody, smiling. “I’m Cody Jenkins but you folks can call me Cattle Prod”.
He held up his hand to demonstrate, small sparks jumping off his fingertips.
I gave him a mischievous smile. “So does that mean you’re a Cow Poke?”
"Ha, ha” he said with a smile of his own.
We went back and forth with the good natured teasing for a bit. The whole time, I noticed Jenny was watching us. She smiled a couple of times before eventually avoiding Parker by engaging Sam in a conversation of their own. They started talking about classes and things like that. That soon got us involved as well. We swapped our schedules. Strangely enough, Jenny was in most of mine. Cody and I shared two, Parker and I four. Lucky me. I was only in one of Sam’s sadly. She did announce that I was in at least five classes with Amaya though. Apparently she’d seen her roommate’s schedule. Fate must hate me.
Our conversation was cut short by the arrival of Polar Vortex.
"Oh good, three of you here” she said, stopping at the table. “Saves me from tracking more of you down.”
"What’s up, Jan?” asked Jenny.
Of course she was friendly with the RA already.
"Wing meeting after lunch.”
This day just keeps getting better.
linebreak shadow
1:05pm---Whitman
There was a small community room on our floor between the “wings”. It was across the hall and the right in the middle of where the two wings met. Each RA room was on the opposite wall corners, if that makes sense. The room itself was a good size with a large cherry wood table in the center, surrounded by armchairs and a large couch in the far corner. On either wall opposite the table, were flatscreens. There was also a whiteboard that someone took the liberty of writing, “Welcome Froshies!” on. I grunted at it as Jenny and I were one of the first to arrive.
I pointed to a pair of chairs near the window. “There is fine.”
She didn’t argue.
Just as we were taking our seats, a loud noise came from the doorway, followed by two girls. Most of the noise was coming from the short girl with the curly brown hair and glasses. Despite her size, she had a presence that was overwhelming to say the least. It didn’t help that her shirt literally said, CARPE SCROTUM. I smirked at that one. Her friend on the other hand, though taller, somehow managed to hide behind her. She had greenish blue hair and it almost looked like webbed fingers. The two of them stopped mid-stride as soon as they saw us. The short girl sized us up for a moment before her attention went directly toward Jenny.
"You’re that runner, right?” she asked, stomping her way over. “I’m Rachel but everyone calls me Ratel.”
She held out her hand but Jenny made no attempt to shake it.
"You smell like vermin.”
Gotta love Mao.
The girl still didn’t pull her hand away, she just shrugged it off. “This is Water Lily, my roommate. We’re in 213”
The shy girl gave a tiny wave. “Bonnie, hi” she said in a very soft voice.
Jenny blinked. “I’m sorry about her” she said, realizing that Mao had been rude again. “I’m Jenny, this is Riley. 215.”
She shook Ratel’s hand this time. The smaller girl kept ahold of it longer than usual, I noticed. She had an intense look on her face then smiled.
"Strong, good. We’ll talk later.”
She and Bonnie went off to another pair of chairs.
More girls started filing into the room slowly over the next few minutes. My attention was drawn to a girl with wings. That was surprising. Her friend was pretty striking too, I’d never seen hair that red before and she was barefoot. I’m sure there was a story there. The next girls that entered looked fairly normal until I noticed that the Asian girl’s skin kept changing colors. They were followed by a girl with what looked like black scales all over her body, her friend was even shorter than Ratel and her hair, it was three different colors. She looked at us staring, smirked and her eyes sparked with some kind of electricity. The pair that followed her seemed fairly normal but they definitely screamed Queen Bitches. The one with the white blonde hair went to the table and sat at the head of it, looking with contempt at the rest of the room. I took an instant dislike of her and that stupid sliver streak in her hair. The last two that entered caught some attention, all the girls in the room were staring. Mostly because of the Native American boy? Girl? Person? It was really hard to tell.
"I’m a girl!”.
She took a seat at the table too, snooty bitch glared daggers at her.
Yeah definitely didn’t like her.
The other girl sat next to her, she long dark hair in a ponytail, a bit on the chubby side but not fat. She had striking blue eyes though.
Just when I thought everyone was here, Sam and The Mountain came into the room. Everyone stared at the tall girl because well she was huge. In fact, she looked taller than before. Sam squeaked at all the eyes on them and what did Sam call her, oh yeah, Amaya, huffed.
"Oh good, you’re all here”.
Jan came into the room, carrying a clipboard and a smile.
"Now I thought we’d quickly go around the room and introduce ourselves. I’ll start. I’m Janette McDonald, Polar Vortex. You can call me Jan, you can call me Polar, you can even call me Idiot if you want. I’m here to help you girls adjust to life here at Whateley. Think of Whitman as your home away from home and me as your Surrogate big sis.”
The introductions started in earnest after that.
Starting at the table.
The Queen Bee didn’t wait. “I’m Silvertongue, Jessica Roth, I’m a Siren and I’m happy to be here!”
Her enthusiasm was forced.
I rolled my eyes.
Her friend was Goldrose, Alexis Wallace.
The other two girls at the table were Agateno (the Cherokee girl who didn’t give a name) and Nyx, aka Claire Marshall.
I already knew Ratel and Water Lily. The winged girl was Russet, her barefooted friend was Firestep. The girls on the couch were Jamie and Flicka. Flicka said her first name, I think it was Melissa but Jamie interrupted her. She had more to say about herself but I ignored it. The really short girl was Pullaparte, call me “Barb”, the girl next to her with the black scales was Hexplate. The room shifted to Sam and Amaya. Sam introduced herself as Void, giving a few quizzical looks before Amaya spoke up. Who the hell calls themselves Stellar?
Then all the attention was on Jenny and me.
Jenny took the lead. “I’m Jiaying Wu, you can call me Jenny. I’m also called Onyx”.
"And I’m Mao".
Everyone blinked.
Of course She had to make her presence known too.
"Wait, there’s two of you?” asked Firestep.
Jenny looked confused as usual. “Its...I’m an Avatar.”
"Wait, spirits can talk like that?”
There were some rumblings but they died down quickly.
When attention shifted to me, I huffed. “I’m Riley.”
They waited for more but I wasn’t in the sharing mood. I just wanted this stupid thing to be over with. I hated things like this.
"And?” asked Silvertongue.
"And nothing. Get used to it” I snapped.
She glared but said nothing.
A silence fell over the room before Jan took control of it.
She quickly started to outline the rest of her plans. At the mention of sleepovers and scavenger hunts, I tuned her out. I wasn’t into that kind of shit. I looked around the room, only half of the girls present were keen on her ideas. The other half were like me either bored, disinterested or pissed. Turning to Jenny, I saw a nervous look on her face? Curious. I made a mental note to ask her about it later. Twenty minutes later, the meeting finally ended. Jan excused herself first because apparently she had an RA meeting right after. She was out of the room before any of us, leaving us alone again.
Silvertongue was quick. She turned on me.
"What the hell is your problem?”
Her fake sugar-sweet demeanor from before all but gone, replaced by the true girl I knew was lurking inside.
I shrugged. “Today or in general?”
There were some snickers.
She looked pissed. “You think you’re bad ass, all emo and angsty?”
I shrugged again. “I think I’m a girl who just wants to get the fuck out of this room”
I stood up and as she started toward, I quickly pushed past her.
She looked like she was about to say something when a hand landed on her shoulder.
"Back the fuck off, Barbie!”
Amaya.
I was not expecting that.
"How dare you touch me, you Immigrant.”
Amaya was hispanic but she was at least six foot four and by the look on her face, that was probably the wrong thing to say. Suddenly she was getting taller, a lot taller. Her head almost touched the ceiling. The muscles in her bare arms started to bulge too.
"You wanna say that again, puta?”
Silvertongue took a step back, a visible look of fear on her face.
"Wait, no one fights without me!”
Ratel was right there, immediately in the middle of it.
Silvertongue looked over at Goldrose, who just shook her head.
"Whatever!” she huffed, turned and stormed out of the room.
Goldrose rolled her eyes and quickly followed.
Some of the other girls that were still around to witness the altercation stared, but mostly at her. A few seconds later, Amaya “shrunk” down to her normal size. I blinked. I’m not going to lie, that was fucking cool.
"Thanks” I said, even though I knew how to handle bitches like that.
She shrugged. “Consider it an apology from before.”
"You ok?” asked Sam, touching her roommate on the arm.
"All good here. Let’s go, I still have some unpacking to do.”
Sam gave me a smile before following Amaya out of the room. Ratel was quickly on their heels, all but shouting that she wanted to fight.
What the hell was with that girl?
"Well” said Jenny as she sauntered up to me. “That was interesting.”
"There’s a girl like that in every place.”
We didn’t stay around much after that. Back at our room, I noticed that there was a duffle and a suitcase sitting on my bed. Mine. So they must have finally sent my “stuff” from Dickinson over to my current dorm. I bet that would make Mom happy. Not that I care for most of the crap in those bags. It was all stuff that Mom bought me a few weeks before and all but forced me to pack. In the end, she ended up being the one to pack it. None of it was of any great interest to me.
"Your stuff?” asked Jenny.
"Apparently.”
"Well no time like the present, they delivered some of mine too it would seem.”
There were a couple of suitcases on her bed as well.
Jenny started to open one, pulling out a pair of yoga pants. She smiled. She started talking to me about how important yoga was to my chi, as if I knew what that was. I tuned her out because as I’m sure it was interesting, I wasn’t a yoga girl. While she was droning on, I noticed something not mine sitting on the bed between my bags. Walking close, I saw it was a black motorcycle jacket. It wasn’t new either, it was scuffed up and worn.
"I think they put your jacket on my bed?”
Jenny looked over her shoulder. “Not mine, cool though.”
Confused, I walked over to it. I started to reach for it when I noticed a very familiar patch on the sleeve, just above the cuff. A pink flower. I knew that patch. I was the one who gave it to…
I started to shake.
It can’t be…
How…
Picking up the jacket, I pressed it to my chest and sniffed it. It had her smell.
Gretchen.
"You ok?”
I shook my head. “This is her...”
I started to tear up. Numb, I dropped onto the corner of my bed. It wasn’t possible. How could this be here? The last time I saw it, Gretchen was wearing it. I hadn’t seen it in forever and suddenly it was here, on my bed. That meant she was here. Somehow, she was in this room and she did it without seeing me. The tears started to flow. How could she do this to me? She was here and she didn’t even stop to say hello. Rage started to swell up inside of me, my arms started to burn. I cursed and almost threw the jacket across the room. The only reason I stopped was because a folded piece of paper fell out of one of the pockets onto my lap.
A note?
I picked it up slowly and opened it.
It was her handwriting.
A warning that sent chills up my spine:
BE CAREFUL LITTLE BUG, THEY’RE WATCHING YOU.
----G
End of This Story, Riley Will Return
Author’s note: As I’m sure all of you know, comments are life blood to an author. I’m not begging or demanding, but I certainly would appreciate anything you have to say (or ask). It doesn’t have to be long and involved, just give me your reaction to the story. Thanks in advance...EOF