Bad Days Chapter 2

Jonah Day

Cassandra bundled up as she walked to the Annex. As she opened her front door she noticed a Christmas card laying in her mail box. She wasn't surprised, with 14 days till Christmas it wasn't unusual to receive them however once she read the name she stopped. It was from her family. Her mother being the one always to keep up appearances for years sent out card depicting their happy family portraits. Which was peculiar because Cassandra hadn't been home in 8 Years. Cassandra opened the envelope and of course got a paper cut. She could almost hear her mother's condescending voice in her head telling her that's why there were letter openers. She turned over the card there were her parent's faces smiling at her from atop the Eiffel Tower, on a beautiful summer after noon. Next to that was a picture of her brother and her sister- in- law and their two children. No pictures of her. Why even send it to her if she wouldn't be included as Cillian. The inscription said Health to Your family from ours love the Cillian's. She felt her anger rise.

Cassandra walked out the door and down the street to the annex. She had stuffed the card in her pocket. The annex was only three blocks from her town house. In those three blocks she slipped and twisted her ankle on the ice, got splashed by an oncoming car and spilled her peppermint tea down her cardigan. When she walked through the Library's back door she was fuming. As she walked into the annex hoping to avoid people and wallow in her misery from her parents in some dark corner of the library. Her wishful thinking was shattered when she saw that everyone including Flynn was researching in the annex today. Her heart sank and put on a smile. However everyone seemed engrossed in their work so maybe she could sneak by. Jenkins however saw her.

"Good Morning Miss Cillian can I ask you to look at this equation please" Jenkins asked politely.

"Oh course Mr. Jenkins, please let me go and hang up my coat and I'll be right with you" Cassandra answered.

Cassandra walked over to the coat rack and put her coat on the last remain hook. As she walked back to the group she turned and was suddenly aware of that every set of eyes were on her.

"What's wrong?" She asked.

"You tell us" Ezekiel responded.

"What are you talking about?" countered Cassandra.

"Cassie you're limping." Jacob supplied.

"Not to mention that you look ready to strangle someone" Eve responded.

"Plus you the last person to arrive" Flynn added.

"And you don't have your usual tea in your hand" Jenkins offered.

"And you didn't jump at the opportunity to do math?" Ezekiel jumped in.

"I'm just having a Jonah day. I got a Christmas card from my family, slipped on the ice and everything else kind of snowballed. I'm going to research in the back of the library today." Cassandra responded

Everybody seemed fine with that answer and watched as she hobbled into the back corner.

Everyone except Flynn turned to Eve.

"We follow her lead, if she doesn't want to be social then that's okay. We can check on her in a few hours.

"Cassandra enjoys being by herself, she should be fine" Flynn interjected.

"But that's not what a team does." Eve scolded Flynn.

Jake went back to his map he was examining.

A while later large crash happened and then an alarm sounded. Everyone in the common area looked at Jenkins who shrugged. They then turned to Ezekiel, who responded by

"That's the artifact alarm. In case someone takes it from the artifact from its case. I installed it after we found Prospero staff. So we could keep track of it. It's not a good alarm."

Jake ran to where Cassandra had went quickly followed by the others. When they found Cassandra books were flying around her and in her hand was the Apple of Discord. Her eyes blazed bright blue. She also hadn't noticed them.

"Are the flying books new?" Flynn asked as they tried to figure out how to get the apple away from Cassandra.

"I've never seen her do this before?" Eve exclaimed.

"Why are her eyes glowing?" Ezekiel asked.

"Has she ever been exposed to magic?" Flynn questioned.

"Stupid question Librarian" Eve argued back.

"No I mean has she ever possessed by a magical being?" Flynn countered.

"Last year when during the storybook fiasco the little girl said she was Merlin." Ezekiel resounded.

"Maybe she did actually get possessed by Merlin and this is some of his residue magic" Flynn explained.

At that moment Cassandra aim a couple of books toward them and they are ducked.

"How could they? How could they abandon me when I need to them most?" Cassandra cried "Why did they do that? How could they abandon me? Then send me a Christmas cards. Claiming to forget. I'm a Cillian"

"Math girl is doing her loopy loop. With more anger." Ezekiel responded.

At the term math girl Cassandra turned a glared at the group. She conjured up a blue blazing fireball.

"Let's not antagonize her" Eve called. As a fireball screamed right by her head and left a scorch mark on the wall behind them.

"This isn't all the apple of discord, this is more Cassandra. " Jake commented on.

"Ah yes the apple of discord is feeding on this anger and creating magic causing Cassandra to be like this." Flynn analyzed.

"So what's the plan?" Jake asked

"Stone you distract her, talk to her try to figure out what is the issue. Jones figure out how to steal the apple away from her. I distract the fireballs. If worse comes to worst we can knock her out." Baird explained.

They scattered just as a few book flew past where they standing. Ezekiel crept around the back of Cassandra. Stone ducked under the book trying to get close to her. Baird grabbed a large heavy book to use incase they need to knock out Cassandra. Flynn grabbed a fire extinguisher to put out the blue flames.

"Cassandra!" Jacob called as he tried to get close to snap her out of her trance.

Cassandra heard someone calling her name but it sounded so much like the critical tone her father used to use when she didn't place in Stem Fair.

"I tried Papa" but as she said that a fireball was launched. It screamed toward Jake and scorched his shoulder narrowly missing his head. Jake cursed. But he continued walking toward Cassandra, vaguely aware how the vortex around Cassandra was now stronger. Jake dodged another heavy volume. Now he was close enough to touch her.

"Cassandra" Jake growled at her.

Cassandra could sense someone near. Jake was standing right in front of her when all the sudden she reached out and punched him. Hard. Hard enough to bust his lip. Jake cursed again.

"Cassie!" Jake shouted.

" Jacob?" Cassandra asked in a distant voice. It was almost like she was fighting demon in her head.

"Cassie? Can you hear me? I need you to come back. I need to you to focus on my voice, just like every time before when you are doing math. I need you to let go of the Apple and focus on my voice. Focus on summer, and oranges"

"I like oranges, they are like summer. Apples and grapes are evil. I hate grapes" Cassandra said in a weak voice.

Then the blaze evaporated out of the red head's eyes. And she dropped the apple, her blue eyes connected with Stone's. Suddenly the weight was gone. The anger gone. She saw blackness crowding in and felt her knees give out before she succumbed to darkness. Stone caught her before she hit her head on the cold stone floor.

A few hours later:

Cassandra awoke to a cold compress on her forehead and throbbing headache. She groaned and open her eyes to a dutiful Jenkins checking her pulse.

"Welcome back to land of the living Miss Cillian" Jenkins said quietly.

Cassandra sat up from the cot she was on. She was in the middle of the common room in the Annex.

"Jenkins, how long?" She Whispered.

"About 2 hours." Jenkins responded and handed her a cup of lemon tea.

"Did I hurt anybody?" Cassandra asked worriedly.

"Well besides destroying the science fiction section of the library, no one got hurt" Jenkins covered smoothly.

Cassandra was about to ask the others, when they all crowded into the common room. She watched as all of them enter. It seemed that nobody was hurt.

"Okay Cassandra, you want to tell us what happened" Eve sat down in front of Cassandra and sounded like a mother very upset with her child but trying to give them the benefit of doubt.

"I got a Christmas card today" Cassandra responded.

"Oy we saw, one from your Family. But that doesn't mean you can go all Cassandra Nova on us" Ezekiel exclaimed "Cassandra Nova!"

"Jones what are you talking about?" Stone asked.

"X-men comics. Don't you read anything other than old books Mate? Xavier's twin dead sister who basically destroyed the Xavier Manor?" Ezekiel explained.

"Jones." Eve interrupted the thief's rant watching Cassandra's eyes filled up with tears. The last thing she needed was another episode with emotional Cassandra.

"I got upset, every Christmas, they send me this Christmas card as if to rub in my face that they are the ones who walked away. I'm the one who bends over backwards and I was the one abandoned. I got angry. Plus I was having such a Jonah morning. So I was researching, and well I put a slammed a book too hard. The apple fell and I didn't even realize what it was until I caught it. Then all the sudden my anger was amplified. I don't know what else happened.

"Magical Fireballs and swirling book" Flynn supplied.

"And almost taking off Stone's head with a fireball." Ezekiel interjected.

Cassandra connected with Jake's deep blue eye. He avoided her eyes.

"It's what we call a Magical seizure, Miss Cillian, very powerful. Very Dangerous." Jenkins diverted her attention back to what happened. "We will need to run some tests."

Cassandra nodded as her heart sank. Tests. Nothing good ever came from tests.

Tears pricked her eyes. Cassandra ran past everyone as she started to cry. Jake followed close behind her.

Ezekiel sighed "Here we go again"

Eve stood up and said "Okay everyone, let's just tackle this tomorrow. We still have a lot to clean up. Let's give Cassandra some time."

They left the common room.

Cassandra had sequestered herself into the farthest, dreariest corner of the library. She clutched a throw pillow to her chest as she sat on the floor. She let the tears fall freely. This is how Jake found her as he turned the corner.

"Hey, Cassie it's okay." He whispered as he crouched down next to her.

"Don't touch me Jacob. I don't want to hurt you again." Cassie said as she scooted further away from the cowboy. She didn't have much space in the aisle she found to hide in.

"Okay I won't touch you. But you know I've had worst scrapes than a singed shoulder. " Jacob said as if he was trying to calm a scared horse. "Cassie, you won't hurt anyone."

"I hurt you, I shouldn't even be here. That's my family abandoned me. They knew I would cause them pain. Just like the librarians." Cassandra responded.

"They were cowards. They didn't want to deal with your illness. You know what happens when the disaster, there are two types of people, the ones who run away and the ones who run toward it." Jake said softly, Cassie looked up at him with tears still present.

"When you seized, we all ran toward you. We are not going to abandon you." Jake said as he smiled.

"I'm scared Jake" Cassandra admitted.

"Oh Darlin' it's okay to be scared." Jake responded.

Cassandra launched herself at Jake. More tears spilled from her eyes.

"I'm getting your sleeve all wet" Cassandra whispered. As she clung to the cowboy.

"It's okay Darlin' there are worst things. Everything will be okay. I promise." Jake promised.

"How do you know?" Cassandra asked.

"Because we are running toward you. We will always run toward you. I will always run toward you." Jake promised.

Cassandra breathed a sigh of relief and believed for at least this moment that everything will be work out for the best.

"My ankle doesn't hurt anymore." Cassandra said after moment.

"That's good." Jake said as he laughed and Cassandra joined in the laughter. Yes this moment everything would be fine.