Disclaimer: I do not own Mutant X or Brennan, however Kassidy is mine.
A/N: Hey guys! I was gonna wait to finish this fic before I posted it, but I got a tad bit excited. I've worked hard on this particular story so any feedback would be helpful. Also, Kassidy is not a Mary-Sue (at least I hope she doesn't come off that way). I started this fic a long time ago and actually named my account after her. Please let me know if I need to tone her down to make it more realistic. Um, ok I'm rambling now. Enjoy!
L.K.
Don't say I'm out of touch
With this rampant chaos - your reality
I know well what lays beyond my sleeping refuge
The nightmare I built my own world to escape
Evanescence "Imaginary"
Kassidy Mulwray silently gazed up through the bars of the jungle gym. A few rogue stars pierced through the smog and city lights to shine defiantly in the night sky. Kassidy had always loved the stars. She liked them even better when she was admiring them from the cool grass of a field, far away from the city. When she was little, her mommy and daddy took her on picnics in the countryside. They stayed there late into the night, lying on their backs, eating ice cream, and making up new constellations. As she got older things changed and they didn't go on picnics anymore. So Kassie had to settle for star gazing in the small park that lay a few blocks from her apartment. A few stars managed to shine through the night despite the city's best attempts to drown them out.
Kassidy felt Brennan's hands rubbing her arms gently in order to keep her warm. A small smile lifted her lips. He was always trying to protect her from everything. She was just as protective of him, of course, but that was different. She was his big sister so she was supposed to look out for him. She was older and wiser, so it was her responsibility. It was almost second nature to her now. The first thing she did when she woke up was to check on her brother. Perhaps that was a bit paranoid, but horrible things happened in the night. Newscasters spoke dispassionately of murders and rapes that occurred during the night. People in Kassie's own neighborhood never left the house after nightfall for fear of city gangs. Things weren't much better at home, though. Even in her family's apartment, the nighttime could bring terrible things with it. Sometimes she dreaded the night. She had always thought that the only good thing about the night was seeing the stars. The stars, however, were not visible from her bedroom so they did nothing to alleviate her fears.
At first, she had tried to stay awake to keep watch over herself and Brennan. After a week of keeping her terrified vigil, Kassidy was defeated by exhaustion. She surrendered and began, once again, to sleep fitfully through the horrifying night. She prayed that the nighttime terrors would never pass through her bedroom door. Brennan, who shared the bedroom with Kassidy, did not seem to fear the night. In fact he relished in the darkness that allowed him to escape into a world of fabulous dreams. He found comfort in the dream world. He did not have nightmares every night like his older sister. Kassie tried to understand how he could be so welcoming to the all-encompassing darkness. She simply could not see the beauty and safety it brought to him. Kassie knew that safety did not exist. They would never be safe. They could never let their guard down, not even for a minute. That was why the darkness frightened her. If she fell asleep she could not prepare herself for the attacks. She couldn't protect Brennan from the drunken rages and filthy, groping hands that so often arrived long before dawn.
Yet, when he was only four years old, Brennan told his sister that he would protect her during the night. She watched him during the day, so he would watch her during the night. She knew that this was impossible for him to do. How could he watch her if he was asleep? When she expressed her doubts to him he merely shook his head and stubbornly replied that he would take care of her. Oddly enough, despite her doubts, his words soothed Kassidy's fears. So, she never discouraged him. Even big sisters need protecting once in awhile.
Tonight, though, the only thing on her mind had been Brennan. With massive amounts of adrenaline pumping through her, she brought her younger brother to the relative safety of the park. Now, however, she had been abandoned by that adrenaline rush and was left drained. The events of that night were finally sinking in. The emotional and physical pain was unbelievable. She wasn't sure how much longer she would last like this. She was tired of the fighting, the screaming, and the pain. She just wanted to escape it all. The darkness, the alluring sleep was calling her and Kassie was finding it harder and harder to fight it. Not even the comforting beauty of the stars was enough to distract her troubled mind.
Kassidy sighed and tried to relax into the cool grass beneath her. The movement caused intense pain to course throughout her body. It was so unbearable, Kassidy felt as though she was on fire. Her gasp of pain was met with a concerned voice and gentle caress against her arm. Kassie murmured a reply to assure Brennan that she was fine and simply focused on the way his tiny hands ghosting over her arms. The repetitive motion was comforting. The dewy grass cushioned her body, and she welcomed the chilly breeze that calmed her fiery pain. She let her head fall back against Brennan's lap and felt his small body tense. She knew that he, also, was injured and was probably very skittish. She had to do something to reassure him or this night might break him. She would not let that happen. She sighed softly in frustration. They were too young for this. Kassidy knew that she had experienced more pain and tragedy than most people ever would and she was only fourteen-years-old. No matter how hard she tried to protect him, Brennan had been hurt just as much as she was. It wasn't fair for him to experience this at the age of ten. The two of them should be spending their childhood playing with friends, eating ice cream, and complaining about homework. Instead they were abused, neglected, and bullied at school. And on top of everything else they had to hide Brennan's secret. Kassie knew that they couldn't tell anyone about how special Brennan was. They wouldn't understand. They wouldn't understand that it was his unique personality, his soul, and not his gift that made him so special. Only Kassie understood and she refused to let others treat her brother like some sort of freak.
She slid her half lidded eyes upward to study Brennan's face. His skin was abnormally pale and covered in bruises and blood. The majority of his hair was sticking out at odd angles, yet a patch near the front was plastered to his head and thick with blood. His eyes were what really caught her attention. Brennan's beautiful mocha brown eyes had always been so expressive. He had already learned to keep himself closed off. He knew how to school his body language so that his attacker couldn't tell what he was feeling. Showing his emotions would give them power. They would merely use his reactions against him to scare him or provoke him into a fight. Yet, no matter how hard he tried, his eyes always betrayed him. If a person really took the time to look, she could easily read his true feelings in those wonderful eyes. At the moment they held an intense mixture of fear, pain, and exhaustion that broke Kassidy's heart.
Once again, the red-hot pain ripped through her body as she shifted her arm and gently took hold of her younger brother's hand. As she caressed it with her thumb, Kassidy allowed herself to look back on the events that brought the two siblings to that moment. She decided if she was to truly understand what had gone wrong she would have to go back to the beginning. She'd have to recall the day that the dominoes began to fall. Oddly enough, that was one of the happiest days of her life.