Soleus Muscle

10:43pm

Running as fast as he could he still couldn't shake off the person stalking him. He turned down an alleyway, odd noises ramping his anxiety to a whole new level he didn't even know possible. Then he realized the noises were coming from him. The gasps of air. The odd hiccups. He tripped over a trashcan he missed in the darkness and sprawled head first onto the ground. Starting to push himself to his feet, he felt himself go slack involuntarily as he heard the footsteps close in behind him. He turned around to see the one pursuing him, quailing inwardly. The taller figure paused, staring down at him.

"You done running?"

Unable to speak he bobbed his head frantically, hoping he wouldn't get his ass kicked or fried. There were stories, not bad stories-but stories about this one.

The figure hunched down so they were eye-level with him. Their golden irises glowed against the streetlights over the wall behind him. The wall that was too high for him to hope to clear and get away from this person. He'd catch me anyway.

Silence, then.

"Good."

…

Colliculus High School

7:26am

Lindi kicked her skateboard up into her hand while racing to the front doors of her school. She vaguely heard Mrs. Gingiva yell after her to slow down and stop running but she ignored it as she kept up her speed down the hall and up the stairs. The final bell rang just as she dropped into her seat. Her history teacher smacked his lips unimpressed, not missing her near-late entrance.

"Miss Estrogen, happy you could join us."

Winded from her vigorous morning exercise, she managed to gasp, "happy to be here Sir." Next to her Maddie, her best friend stifled a giggle behind her notebook as he growled unintelligibly and returned to his paperwork.

….

"So there's a party Friday." Maddie's look of innocence didn't fool Lindi for a moment.

"Mad give it up. I'm not going out.."

"Why not?" One would have thought the she-cell's world had been annihilated.

Lindi rolled her eyes and put her board down, jumping on it.

"This isn't about you not being interested in going out at all, is it?" Maddie had to jog to keep up. "He won't let you go."

Lindi braked. "So what."

"Face it Lindi, he keeps you on a tight leash."

"Your point? He's not a controlling asshole about it. He's the way he is because he cares." She looked down at her boots. "Besides he's my dad." She didn't miss the slight eyebrow raise from her friend. "Don't start."

"He's …different."

"You say it like it's a bad thing." She kept her eyes straight ahead as she pushed the board forward with her other foot. "He's been there for me since day one."

Maddie didn't reply as they reached Lindi's destination, the bus stop.

"See you tomorrow?"

Maddie made a face as the bus appeared over the hill and came to a stop in front of them. "When else?"

Lindi had just sat in her seat when she heard Maddie yelling from the outside.

"Friday at 8!"

….

Cerebellum Hospital

"Bernie, back again I see." Grace shouldered the patient's door open as she gripped her laptop to her chest. One more drop and smash of a computer and Marcia Cystic was going to make her go back to paper and pen.

"Hi Grace. I've been having this awful pain right here." The old cell pointed at his stomach.

"Well we're going to take care of you, okay? Just sit back and relax."

…..

Grace felt she needed a shower; she always did after she dealt with Bernie's bowel issues. He needed to eat more protein and gnaw on some fiber, it would clean him out naturally instead of her watching Dave stick his hand up the old fart's ass every week. She guessed Bernie made up for it with his charming personality. He was still trying to get a dinner date out of her inspite of the massive age difference. The last time she had politely rebuffed him, he had mentioned he'd settle for the cafeteria.

She had just reached the main desk in the ER when she heard, 'hi mom.' Lindi appeared next to her.

Grace shook her head and smiled. "Lindi, another five minutes and you would have missed your ride home."

The teenager 'tsked'. "No I wouldn't have. You would have tried to drive away but you'd feel the raw pain of missing my presence so much, you would have waited."

Andromeda nicknamed Annie, Grace's colleague and friend, laughed on her way by. "She got you."

Grace rolled her eyes. "Okay drama-queen. Let's go." She pushed Lindi by the desk.

"How was school?" She asked once the two had made it outside and she was unlocking the car door.

"Eh."

"Just eh?"

"It's school. Drama, drama and uh-more drama."

"I hated school when I was your age. Leah was the straight A student."

"I'm straight A's…almost."

Grace smiled at her. "And that is why you will do amazing as oppose to eh."

Lindi fell quiet and then took a breath. "Maddi wants me to go to a party on Friday with her."

Grace kept her eyes on the road. "A house party."

"Yup."

"And you know the answer, right?"

"Yup."

Grace didn't continue the conversation, knowing she didn't need to. Raising Lindi had been easy in her opinion compared to the horror stories her coworkers spoke of. There were no disagreements between her and Thrax when it came to what was best for her. While there had been a few sleepless nights where she wondered how she was going to be able to give her everything the girl's biological mother would have given her, Thrax said she didn't have to worry. And he was right. The only thing he was still strict about was her curfew and who she spent time with before she was due home. That and no house parties. A typical dad reaction. Probably will call her at her apartment when she moves out to see what time she got in.

…..

Upon entering the apartment Lindi thanked god that she was fast enough to catch Luka who knocked something off the couch before jumping off the back of it, yipping. She stumbled and hoisted the dog up so she had a better grip on her as she rounded the couch.

"Did she step on you?"

Thrax was blindly reaching for the TV remote that had fallen in Luka's mad rush to greet Lindi, his eyes still shut from napping. "Almost. Two years and that mutt still doesn't have any manners."

Lindi drifted back to the kitchen with Luka slurping her face happily. "You're just misunderstood aren't you girl?"

"Misunderstood my ass." Thrax sat up, earning a laugh from Grace on her way by.

He didn't move to stand even after there was a knock on the front door. "Hi Ozzy." He heard Lindi say.

"Who are you?" The white blood cell asked.

Thrax groaned from being stiff as he got up and pulled his coat on.

"You know who I am. You asked me this last night and all the nights before that."

"I got short-term memory loss girl, I'm old."

"You are not."

"Am too."

"Okay children." Thrax returned from saying goodbye to Grace who followed him. "Jones, get a move on before I get old."

The cell put his sunglasses on in a dramatic huff. "Fine."

He and Thrax were half way down the hall when running feet made them pause. "Is this your last night of night work?" Lindi came to a stop.

Jones glanced at his partner. "Suppose we better catch the dirt bag tonight."

"I guess so." Thrax agreed quietly and reached out to her, brushing his knuckles against her cheek. He wound up in a tight hug as the elevator dinged behind him.

"I'll be back kid."

She watched him go, disappointed yet another night would be spent without him. Grace leaned against the doorway.

"Dinner's ready." She called. She gave her daughter a reassuring smile as Lindi came back, one the she-cell returned.

…..

The next day

Colliculus High School

Lunch

Buried, unfortunately in her opinion, in a book about boring arithmetic Lindi cursed when a piece of her food landed on one of the pages.

"I think Mr. White hates us, don't you?" Maddie sat down with her tray, heaping in food. "The guy has no life I'm sure of it and he's jealous we all do, so he loads us with homework."

"How'd you get more than me?"

A mischievous smile lit up her friend's face. "I'm worshipped…"

Lindi caught sight of Ty Buds on the lunch line, spooning out food to the students. Maybe I should pursue a job here…make some money for once. She liked the idea of the program, it had been installed by Cerebellum Hall in all the high schools in the body; students could get jobs working in the cafeteria, library or any where else deemed fit to gain experience. Damn. I'm not old enough. She still had another couple of months. Four months to be exact before she was considered sixteen.

"What did you do for him?"

"Nothing!"

"What did you promise?"

"Lindi, would I ever?"

She didn't answer, earning a protein flake being thrown at her. Laughing she batted it away before it hit her. She was shutting her book and getting ready to finish her own lunch when she noticed Maddie had stopped eating and was staring over her shoulder.

"Another worshipper?" She turned.

Three students had entered the cafeteria, their presence making the noise level drop significantly for a few seconds. Then people went back to their conversations and food.

"My dad is pissed." Maddie murmured, still watching them as they passed by. "He says Cerebellum Hall should stop trying to unite us. Keep the germs where they were."

"That's not going to help Frank stay healthy." Lindi had heard it all before and it annoyed her. She was considered by some to be apart of that "germ statistic" because of the man who had raised her. Contaminated.

Maddie gave a half shrug. When she didn't appear like she was resuming the conversation Lindi turned to look at the trio, they were standing in line at the counter. She looked back at her food.

"Damn. I forgot a slime shake." She shot the rapidly growing line a glare, weighing how much she really wanted one.

"Want to share?"

"Ew, gross." She stood. "That's how germs are spread."

"HA-HA" Maddie faked a laugh. "That's funny."

"I thought it was." Lindi grinned and then left, resigning herself to the fact that she was going to be wasting most of her lunchtime in line, again.

It appeared most kids decided it wasn't worth the wait and had left the line so she found herself separated from the three germ students by one cell. She pulled her phone out to pass the time.

Kill me.

It took a few seconds but then a reply came back.

When and where?

She hadn't expected that response and made a face.

You're funny.

"Hello. Can you move?"

She looked up to see the line had shifted without her noticing. "You got a hot date with one of the lunch ladies? Chillax." Satisfied she had officially annoyed the kid she closed the distance.

She was just working out her next text to Thrax when there was a disturbance in front of her. Ronnie, the school's golden boy, had appeared with some of his cronies and was confronting the three microbial students.

"We got a right to go anywhere we want." Ronnie was saying.

The slightly taller and more muscular germ of the three scoffed. "You would think that wouldn't you? I might have been inclined to agree except we were here first."

"Actually, we were here first because you three were just reassigned to this school a month ago."

The germ watched Ronnie for several seconds, silent. Then he smirked. "Max, how many times do you think Ronnie here, failed kindergarten?"

Lindi barely concealed a snort, as did a few others also listening in on the conversation.

The friend, Max, heaved a dramatic sigh and crossed his arms. "I don't know." He replied gravely. "It would depend how smart he is. Though that bruiser from Chorda Tympani High did wipe him out last Tuesday on the playing field. Knocked him right out, that's bound to make anyone lose a few nucleus cells."

"Well." The original germ Ronnie had confronted pulled three trays off the stack, handing two of them to his friends. "I suppose I'll give you a pass then for apparently losing the knowledge that civil cells wait their turn."

Ronnie's membrane turned a darker red. Then he shoved the germ. "You think you're so slick huh?"

The germ lost his amusement with the situation and went to retaliate.

"Hey!" Lindi was already annoyed with the long line and her minutes of free time slipping away; she didn't need a doofus making her wait longer. "Ronnie piss off."

"Stay out of this Estrogen." He didn't even glance her way as he stared dominantly at the germ.

Her temper flaring, she got out of line not caring if she got her spot back and marched up to the pair. She got in Ronnie's face as close as she could, considering he towered over her. "You don't tell me what to do. Perhaps you did fail kindergarten because they teach you social skills and manners which you obviously lack."

The jock 'tsked' "wouldn't expect any less, you crusading for trash seeing as you live with one."

She didn't remember hitting the kid in the head with the lunch tray, but as she lost the sight of red, she was relieved no adults had seen her. Correction: she had been seen.

"Miss Estrogen." Her history teacher, Mr. Filiform appeared from seemingly thin air. "Come with me now."

…..

She heard the door of the principal's office open and low murmurs before footsteps almost in sync with each other, came towards her. She kept her attention to the floor as an uncomfortable silence filled the front office. She could see the two receptionists share looks and then return to their work. Then a buzzing from an incoming call made Grace leave the office. Damnit.

….

Thrax watched Lindi for a moment trying to get together in his head what he was going to say; but all of it sounded hypocritical to him not that she'd know that. He had done worse her age when he got in fights the few times he went to school. A small piece of him, though he knew he should feel guilt, was proud she didn't take shit off guys. If he could say what he wanted to, he'd tell her to be more discreet next time but that wasn't what a parent said to their kid after they were informed of bad behavior. He took the seat next to her.

"He called you trash."

He chose his words carefully. "It'd be nice to tell you something else but you're gonna have to ignore them kid."

"Why?" Her tone was harsh. "It insults me and it insults you. I'm supposed to just take it?" She noticed something past him and snapped, "what?"

He turned in time to see the secretaries shoot looks of distain at each other and then go back to their work. It took a lot of willpower to not show amusement.

"C'mon."

She reached for her bag slowly and pulled it up to her shoulder. "Am I suspended?" She briefly wished he'd show emotion when she asked questions like that, but he always remained stoic. It's infuriating I can't read him, Mom can. Maybe he does it on purpose.

He kept the door open for her as she followed him. "Well considering you have better grades than most of your 425 student class and you've never assaulted someone before with a lunch tray of all things, no you are not suspended."

"Detention?"

A slight grin appeared. "You lucked out." The expression vanished as soon as they were through the front doors and Grace was standing there waiting.

"So. Is this going to happen again?"

"No."

Grace didn't seem to buy it. "Are you just telling me that?"

Lindi thought for a moment. "I can't say it won't happen again with the guy I hit. He deserved it and I'm not sorry."

Her statement took Grace back a little, but only a little. She's too much like me…that can be bad.

"You better hope it doesn't. Your once good image saved you. The principal is chalking it up to you being on your cycle."

"My cycle..." She echoed. "Yeah that's it." She had spotted the germ from the lunchroom with his two friends walking on the other side of the parking lot. He randomly glanced in her direction and saw she was watching him. He held her gaze for two seconds and then looked away.

….

Cerebellum Hall

Leah opened her boss's door quietly only to have it thrust open by Luka barging through. "Luka." She hissed.

Grace was lucky Tom liked the dog otherwise the pup's ass would have been remanded to her sister's apartment a long time ago. Lucky for Luka everyone on the floor: down the hall, across the hall, loved her.

She didn't miss Tom's body language that pointed to something not being quite right, though he quickly hid it as Luka half jumped in his lap, her rump wiggling faster and faster.

"I'm sorry." She came further into the office and started to reached down to get Luka off her employer before she left patches of slime on his pants.

"Nah. It's okay." He absently stroked the dog's head.

"Are you sure?"

He nodded.

She waited a moment and then asked. "Are you feeling well?"

He gave a waned smile. "I'm just tired. You'd think with Frank being on the right track for the past two years, I'd have less of a workload." He shot the tower of files on his desk a look.

"Take the afternoon and evening off. Cripe Tom, I've been in this office for what seems like centuries, I know how to close it."

"Protocol." He replied, though she could tell from his tone, he was teasing her now.

"Screw the protocol, go. Get out. I'll pack your bag in a minute."

"Fine. Fine." He shut the computer down and then to Luka's disappointment, stood. Leah held the strap of his bag out for him to take. "There hasn't been any more complaints right?"

She paused in grabbing her paperwork. "About what-? Thrax?" He gave a half nod. "No. He's never gotten complaints from the cells that have been the victims in his and Ozzy's cases. It's the germs who bitch."

"Good. Just like to keep on top of things."

She followed him out of the office and down the hall to the elevator. "Oh, one more thing-" He tried to turn around as it dinged and the doors slid open.

"No. Tomorrow. Out. Percy, make sure he gets in his car."

The elevator assistant bobbed his head. "Yes ma'am."

She heard Tom mutter something about how he and Leah should marry with the amount of work time they had together, plus her knowing everything about him down to his underwear. She rolled her eyes and smiled.

She returned to the office where Mandy, the junior secretary was sitting. "Oh Miss Estrogen."

Leah paused at the desk. "Mandy, it's Leah. We aren't strict on formalities here." The young assistant blushed.

"I'm sorry."

"No need to apologize. What do you have?"

"Uh-well-" The she-cell started digging frantically around on her desk. "Here it is. Colliculus High School called earlier about one of their students who's in the desegregation program."

Great. Leah had had about enough of the high schools calling to put in their grievances about dealing with the new students, who happen to be microbial. About 98% of the calls were simply the principals bitching about the germs associating with the cells due to the parents bitching. Pure he had called them. Pure cells…what ever that means.

"Which student?"

"Shaine Flavum."

Of course… This wasn't the first time Leah had heard his name.

"A teacher, Mr. Seely Filiform saw him taunting another student and then shoved him-the other student."

Leah sighed. One of the rules for the desegregation program was the microbial only got three strikes, and then they were pulled from the school and sent to a charter school in the left knee. That was a last resort as Tom had put it. He said multiple times he'd rather work with the student then isolate him or her. It hadn't been Tom's idea or vote. Brad Stoma had never been much for helping the people, he rather get the problematic ones out of the public eye. He was half the reason for the segregation in the first place and unfortunately he was very good at persuasion.

"He's on his way I assume?"

Mandy nodded quickly. "Yes ma'am. His parole officer is driving him here."

"Okay. Send him in when he gets here.

She had no sooner got to her office, brewed some filtered tea from Frank's stomach that her door opened and a teen germ with his foreboding parole officer appeared.

"Miss Estrogen." Donnie Nape greeted as he steered Shaine into the seat in front of her.

"Donnie. Would you like to sit?

"I'm actually going to wait outside. Give you two some privacy. I'll be waiting outside Shaine." The T-cell shut the door behind him.

Silence ensued as Leah attempted to get her thoughts together and Shaine looked around the office, pulling off the bored expression really well but Leah knew better. She cleared her throat when his attention landed on a picture of her and Jones.

"Do you know why you are here?"

His abnormally bright green eyes glanced at her before he picked a spot somewhere over her head to concentrate on. "No ma'am." He finally said quietly.

Your school called to inform us that you violated a rule of the desegregation program today." She paused, staring at the blank report she was supposed to write up. Then she shoved it under a stack of files. "Do you want to tell me what happened?"

"If the school called, then you know what happened."

"I want to hear your story." She emphasized.

He sat, watching her again like he was trying to figure out if she was for real or not. Then he shrugged. "Nothing happened today except for a minor thing at lunch but I didn't even touch the guy. I wanted to."

Already a contradiction in Filiform's story. She wasn't surprised. He was one of the bigger pains in the ass that Tom had to deal with when it came to the germ students, often exaggerating his claims.

"What happened?" She pressed as she got up and filled a cup of water from the cooler. She returned to her seat and slid the cup towards him. He wanted to take it, she could tell but he kept his hands glued to his hoodie pocket.

"Some school idiot who thinks he runs the place told me he had a right to cut in front of us. But that means he's cutting in front of everyone else behind us too. He tried to be smart I told him how it was he didn't like it-" He paused

"-He didn't like it…" Leah prompted. When he didn't continue she sighed. "I'm only being nosy because I have to have all the details. Otherwise you could get into trouble you don't deserve."

Shaine shifted in his chair and refused to meet her gaze. "Then some girl behind us got out of line and told him to piss off. He didn't like that and said something about how it wasn't surprising she was crusading for us since she lives with someone like us."

Leah stopped drinking her tea. Lindi.

"She slapped him with a lunch tray in the face. Then Filiform ran over and took her to the principal's office." His eyes wandered again when she didn't immediately speak up. Then he stiffened, his gaze stuck squarely on something behind her. She didn't have to turn around to know what he was looking at.

"Is she your kid or something?"

"No, she's my niece." Leah flipped some folders closed. "And it's obvious that you had nothing to do with the situation so this visit won't be documented other than you coming in. Stay out of trouble."

He gave a jerked nod before slipping out her door. Once Donnie Nape had her sign a paper saying his parolee had been there and then the two left she spun her chair around to face the picture of Lindi. Slapped some guy in the face with a lunch tray. She knew just by knowing Lindi, she should be appalled, but she wasn't. After everything the girl had been through in her short life, if hitting some idiot in the head with a lunch tray was the worst thing she did, she was doing pretty well. Grace rubbed off a little too much.

….

Esoph-Landing Apartments

2:30am

Thrax jerked awake unsure of where he was until the snores coming from Luka at the end of the bed reminded him he was safe. Grace stretched a little in REM and turned over. Taking a breath to steady the racing feeling in his chest, he slid into a sitting position carefully so he wouldn't wake her and got out of bed. The bathroom light seemed abnormally bright as he turned it on so he shut it off and settled for the shower light before leaning over the sink. The dream had felt so real, like all the others. The first few times he thought nothing of it and kept it to himself. Grace got involved when she had to futilely restrain him from setting fire to the bed while he experienced a night terror. The only way she got through to him was doing what they always said not to do, slapping him.

The dreams were of a distant past, his former teacher-his role model Vinícius was in every one of them. Every night different as he died multiple ways, feeling the emotions and pain over and over, the worst part was he wasn't able to fight back. He glanced at his hands, his left horribly scarred from the day Thrax managed to kill Vinícius. Mindlessly he flexed it. Enough of his range of motion came back to not cause significant problems but looking at it wasn't pretty so he'd wear fingerless gloves to hide the back of his hand. He would still catch Grace staring at it before she'd redden in embarrassment and turn away.

"You okay?"

He straightened abruptly; surprised he didn't hear Grace get up. She watched him concerned.

"Yeah…just-" He trailed off unable to find a good enough lie that she'd accept; from her expression she knew it.

"Come." She reached out and towed him back to the bed. Luka had rolled onto her back, her tongue hanging out of her mouth as her lips jiggled with each snore.

"Attractive," he muttered.

Grace snorted. "She's good entertainment."

"Yeah. That she is." He waited until she fell asleep, her head on his shoulder before he reached into the drawer next to him, pulling out a small bottle of melatonin. He had been prescribed the pills almost a year ago but never took them, too stubborn to think he seriously needed them. Might as well. It better work, shit's expensive.

….

Colliculus High School

Science

10:20am

As hard as they tried, Lindi and Maddie were separated at the start of the new quarter and put into two different classes. Lindi got Anatomy, which she didn't mind. Maddie got Atoms & Chemicals.

"Can you shoot me?"

Lindi grinned as she started down the science wing. "Sorry. Have fun!"

"You-" Maddie didn't get to finish as Lindi's teacher pulled the door shut behind her. Looking at the class Lindi realized she should have gotten there sooner. There were no seats left.

"Damn." She breathed to herself. And then she realized there was one seat left, next to the microbial from the lunchroom who had been shoved by Ronnie. Well this is embarrassing.

"You can take the seat over there." The teacher pointed without looking up from his notes. Her mouth getting drier with each step, Lindi drifted towards the last seat, feeling like she was in a dream. The student didn't look at her as she sat down tentatively and pulled her book out.

"I'm passing out a worksheet, I want you to turn to your neighbor and interview each other. I expect you all to get along and work well together. There will be no wallflowers in my classroom, understand?" The teacher didn't wait for an answer as he dropped two sheets on every table.

Getting her sheet, Lindi wasn't impressed as she scanned it. "Where's the color of your underwear question?" She asked out loud. The girl and boy next to her looked at her blankly. "What? Every other personal question is on here."

She turned back to her page.

"Guess we better get this over with. Hi I'm Lindi."

Her tablemate shot her a sideways glance. "Shaine."

His lackadaisical attitude told her she was going to have to be the motivator but he surprised her by asking the next question, though his tone was unenthusiastic.

"How long have you attended Colliculus High or did you attend a different school?"

"Too long."

"Me too." He absently stood his pen on its point.

Screw the questions. He was talking. She felt if she continued with the worksheet the progress, what ever progress there was, would die.

"A month is too long?" She asked it lighthearted, jokingly.

He nodded mutely as silence fell between them. She didn't know how to get the conversation going again.

"You know about the other day in the lunchroom. I hope I didn't piss you off or anything. I'm sure me getting in the middle of that shit-storm was awkward."

He didn't respond right away. "Probably better you did. I might have made him one with the floor." He looked at her. "That doesn't make us buddies."

His sudden switch in attitude caught her off guard. "Okay…"

She didn't know what else to say and so remained quiet even after the teacher started class. Shaine didn't look at her again.