(This is like a week late but whatever)
this chapter goes out to my main girl Dixie, as a little birthday present! She's awesome and one of the coolest people I've ever have had the fortune of meeting. She is the queen of DC who holds a knife to my throat whenever I slack off my writing. Cheers to another year of fangirling, feels, and failing to realize Marvel is better than DC! :D
"Mom, where are we going?"
"Away. Though just for a little while, Percy."
Sally Jackson looked away from the road for a split second to look at her little boy. He was her world, her little angel in the darkest of times. She smiled softly as he looked out of the passenger window, his ten year-old mind on probably much better things than what lurked in hers.
Damn! She and Paul had been fools to think they were safe. If only they had sent Percy away like Paul had insisted, then her and her late husband would've been out of the country and her little boy would be safe. But she hadn't had the strength to give up her boy. To give up her beautiful baby to some random family was purely unthinkable to her at the time. But now Paul was dead and her and Percy's lives were timed if she didn't get her boy over the border.
She would die before someone ever got their hands on Percy. He was all she had in the beginning, before their life had turned for the better, before Paul and their wonderful town. But now all that was gone. He was once again all she had. And she will never let him go.
"Mom, I'm hungry." Percy says, pulling her from her thoughts.
Sally bites her lip, debating on stopping or not. Her own stomach growled, causing her to frown. They were a half hour from the Canadian border, a quick pit stop at a gas station wouldn't be too much, would it?
"There should be a gas station not too far ahead, baby." Sally replies finally. "We'll stop there for a minute, just to pick up a snack. I'll get us something real good when we get to where we need to be, okay?"
"Okay." Percy says, pulling out one of his comic books. She smiled as he was quickly absorbed into its colorful pages. They may not have ever of had much, and her dear boy never complained, but she always managed to get him his precious comics. He never begged or whined for anything, but the way his eyes would light up when she surprised him with one was enough for her to realize how much he treasured them.
Anything to see him smile.
"Are you looking forward to Canada, baby?" She asks him, curious how he felt about the whole ordeal. He had know idea what was going on, so she wondered how this whole thing seemed to him.
"I guess." He replied. "I'm just gonna miss home."
"Well, I'm not."
He looked over at her with widened eyes. "What, why? I thought you loved our town."
"It was wonderful, Percy, it truly was. The house was cozy and the people were kind, but it wasn't my home." She looked over at her boy with loving eyes. "Your my home, Percy. Since the very day you were born."
"How so?"
"Well, there was this moment I had. It was the first time I was really able to look at you. The nurse handed you to me, and you were so quiet. Calculating, I always believe. So you just looked up at me, and your eyebrows, what there was of them at least, scrunched up the same way they do now whenever your thinking. But when I looked into your eyes, I knew then that I was gone. That anything and no one would ever matter to me more than you. You were my home. You still are, and you always will be."
A tear leaked down her cheek, and Percy leaned over and wiped it away. He smiled softly at her.
And despite this hellish situation, she smiled back.
Less than two minutes later the two had pulled up to a near abandoned 7-11, the only other customer in the store was a teen in the back looking through the sodas. The cashier, a very bored looking 20 something blonde, gave a half-hearted wave as they entered the small store.
A man in a cheap looking tie, the manager Percy assumed, was yelling at a couple of other teens near the counter, taking various items from their hands.
"Do you want to go to prison one day, boys?" The man scolded. The teens looked bored. "Because that's certainly where your going if you continue down this path! Theft! What if one day an alarm goes off just like this one did, but you didn't care? What if you killed someone to get away? Then your a murderer! Now let me tell you a story about a-"
Percy rolled his eyes, starting to feel bad for the teens.
"Get whatever you like, baby." Percy's mother told him.
"What do you want?" Percy asked.
His mother smiled. "Something blue and sweet." She kisses him on the head before turning to go talk to the cashier about refueling the car. Percy made his way through the store, picking up a soda on his way through. The teen that had been standing there glanced at him with dark, narrowed eyes. For a fraction of a second, the boy's eyes seemed to soften in the tiniest way as he took in the green-eyed child, but he had turned away near instantly the second he glanced over.
Percy found his way over to the sweets, trying to find something for him and his mother. Blue and sweet. The things his mother told him. The boy looked through the sweets, but couldn't find a single thing for his mother that suited her needs.
"Hey,"
Percy turned to see the sullen teenager again, his eyes still narrowed. He looked only a few years older than Percy, maybe fourteen, but his eyes held a sadness that reminded Percy of the Veterans that had lived in his neighborhood. So sad, memories of horrible things that it seemed pitiful to keep going. But they did.
"What on earth are you looking for?" the older boy asks, looking incredibly irritated by Percy's mere presence.
Percy crossed his skinny arms, eyes narrowing as well. "Why do you care? I don't know you. If your here to bully me than go away. I've dealt with kids twice your size and you don't scare me."
The teen's eyebrows nearly disappeared into the shaggy hair hanging over his forehead. He was obviously taken by surprise by the small boy. But he redeemed himself instantly, eye's darkening dangerously. "I don't necessarily care, but your causing quite the commotion back here. It's annoying."
"Blue and sweet," Percy sneers, surprising the other boy. A child having this much fire was near unheard of. "That's what I'm looking for. Now why don't you just leave me alone so you don't have to be annoyed, or would you like to help me look?" The last part was sarcastic, but Percy was surprised when the boy turned over a pulled three blueberry muffins, hidden somewhere in the self where he had not seen them earlier.
"Like this?" The strange teen asks, tossing him two of the pastries. "It's technically blue, in a way. Sweet, most defiantly." He raised a brow at the green-eyed boy. "Don't you agree?"
Perry's narrowed eyes lost a bit of their edge, being slightly confused by the bizarre boy in front of him. "Yeah. Thanks-"
"Nico."
Percy cocked his head slightly as the teen, Nico, offered his hand. The boy shrugged before taking it into his much smaller own and shook.
"Percy."
The moment Percy touched Nico's hand, the older boy's eyes dilated, the brown being completely swept away under pools of black. It looked . . . unnatural. Nico's expression turned to one of shock, and then immediately back to indifference, the same moment the brown pooled back into his eyes. He dropped Percy's hand, a slight smile on his face. One Percy knew was fake. Forced.
"Well Percy," Nico says in a light tone that surprised the younger boy. "Have a good time in Canada. A really beautiful place, I would say . . ."
With that the teen turned and walked right out of the store, unpaid items still in hand.
Strangely, the none of the employees noticed.
It was only later, when he and his mother were pulling out of the station, that he had never said where he was going to Nico. Though he didn't have much time to dwell on it for a sleek, black Denali slammed into their car, throwing the unsuspecting mother and son off the road.
And then there was nothing.
"LET ME GO!"
"Shut up, bitch."
A loud slap. Men chuckling.
His mother's whimper of pain.
"Mom . . ."
Everything hurts. I want it to go away. Why won't it go away?!
"Mom . . ."
The pain . . .
Then there's nothingness once more.
Percy opened his eyes, feeling like gravity was working tenfold on him. His body felt like lead, and all he wanted to do was to just sneak into the dirt below him. Anything to make the pain stop. But his mother.
There was dirt under him. Corn stalks and stars above him. He stumbled up, his head pounding so painfully it was hard to focus on anything but the pain. But he managed to stand. The car was nowhere to be seen. Either was his mother.
Percy felt a sudden sharp pain in his stomach when he tried to take a step forward. He felt the area and hissed when his fingers lightly brushed over something cold and sharp. Glass shards, embedded into his stomach. Had he flown out the windshield?
A distant scream pierced the air.
Percy spun towards the sound, ignoring the immense pang it brought on. There was just stalks all around him, but he chanced it and dove in, towards the sound of his mother's cries. He was running as fast as he could, the pain so intense it nearly crippled him, but he wouldn't stop.
He broke out into a clearing, a barn a few dozen yards away. Random farming supplies littered the area, a stripped tractor with all its parts circling it a couple feet away. He made a step towards the barn when someone grabbed him from behind and threw him.
The world did a three-sixty, white hot pain blistering all over the child's body.
"Finally found you, brat." His attacker laughed from above him before grabbing Percy by his shoulders and lifting him up to his level.
"They sent me out to find you," the man whispered into Percy's ear, his arm banding around the boys waist while his hand painfully dug itself into his wild raven mane, pulling at it hard enough to mark Percy hiss in pain as he pitifully struggled against him. The man chuckled.
"Its been hours, and I've had to miss whatever fun things their doing to your mommy. But I guess I can manage. From the pictures the other guys have shown me, your pretty enough . . ."
Before the man could do anything more, a horrible scream sounded from the barn, making Percy's mind tunnel on only one thing; his mother.
His attacker snorted."Ah, sounds like their having a blast-"
He was unexpectedly cut off when Percy viciously flung his head back, slamming the man right in the forehead. He dropped instantly, dumping Percy as well. The boy, after recovering from massive head rush, pulled him back into the cover of the stalks, hiding him for the moment. He hears voices and peeks out to see three men exiting the barn, all bloody and grinning.
"Mikey!" one called out. The other two made their way towards the back of the rickety building. "Come on man, we gotta bounce before the feds get here! Any second now some old, farming shithead will find the bitches car and they'll be all over the place."
The two other men reappeared in a big black Denali, the three calling out for another five minutes before shrugging at each other, one setting off a match and sticking at the barn, and driving off, plowing their own way threw the field.
What great friends you got there Mikey, Percy thought as he looked smugly down at the unconscious man.
The boy then ran towards the now flaming barn, bursting through the door to have his whole world pulled from right under his feet.
His mother was sprawled on the dirt floor, her blood staining any dirt within five feet of her. She was naked, bloody and just broken. Percy stumbled to her, dropping down beside her as he tore off his jacket to cover what he could. Smoke was filling the room fast but he barley noticed it, his eyes only on the broken woman in front of him.
He carefully pulled her head over to face him and it rolled lifelessly, him gasping in horror at what he saw.
Her eyes, always loving and alive and smiling, looked up at him lifelessly. Blood leaked from her mouth, dripping into the dirt to create a sick, thick red puddle.
"M-mom," Percy whispered. When she wouldn't answer he only spoke louder. "Mom!"
"You can't do this, Mom! You can't! What about blue pancakes? Who's going to make blue pancakes for me? No one can make them except you! How about wanting to see the next episode of that show you love? Um, ! Don't you wanna figure out what happens? How about seeing me graduate, or getting married or even grandkids! What about all that?"
He started to angrily pound his fists into the dirt, his nostrils filling with smoke and shot as tears poured down his face. His cheeks grew red with the heat and his own rage.
"What about home?" He hissed. "You can't leave your home. You can't leave me. Did you ever think what I thought about that? Maybe the first time I saw your eyes, that I was put into your arms I realized I was gone. The way you'd smile when I was irritated because you thought it was adorable. Or when I'd have a nightmare you'd carry me into your room and you'd give me blue cookies and sing to me as I fell back asleep. You are my mom! You are my mom! You-"
The sobs and smoke were to overwhelming and Percy turned over quickly and puked, the bile speckled in blood.
He looked back at her, those dead eyes hitting him right in the core.
"YOU ARE MY HOME!" he screamed, his own body screaming at him but e didn't stop. He couldn't. "YOU HAVE ALWAYS BEEN MY HOME! DO YOU JUST EXPECT ME TO FIND A NEW ONE? NO! YOU WILL ALWAYS, ALWAYS, BE MY HOME. MY MOM."
The smoke, pain and screaming finally took its toll as Percy collapsed, his last sight being his mother's dead eyes and two pairs of legs standing behind her.
And Percy hoped that this nothingness would lead him to death. To his mother.
To home.
Percy dreamed of grey eyes and fire. A sadistic grin and people screaming. It felt . . . right.
"Wake up, Jackson."
The boy slowly opened his eyes to see someone standing over him.
Nico.
The teen's face was ashen and his eyes looked upon Percy with such deep knowing sadness that the entire night came rushing back to him. He quickly stood up and looked over to see the ashen remains of the barn.
His mother was gone.
"Percy," Nico says, obviously trying to pull the boy from his grief. "I'm here to help you. You just have to listen."
"Listen?" Percy turned to him, eyes flashing. With nothing else to vent his grief out, it quickly turned to anger. Which was directed to Nico. "Why should I listen to you? I wanted to die in there! Wasn't that much obvious? Why did you pull me out of there? Why are you even here? How on earth did you find me? Why did you find me? I don't even-
"Percy, if you just let me explain-"
Nick was cut off by the fist connecting with his jaw. The boy may have been small but he sure was mighty. The older boy stumbled, taken completely by surprise. He looked up at the enraged little boy and honestly felt fear. His green eyes were flashing dangerously, blood soaked into his clothing hair, the raven locks a wild tangled mess while his face was caked with blood and soot. He looked so wild and vicious it scared Nico.
"I WANTED TO DIE WITH HER, GOD DAMNIT." Percy snapped. "I have nothing now. Nothing! I had a chance to just leave and be with her forever. No pain, no suffering, nothing! Why would you take that chance from me?"
"Because, you can accomplish so much more, boy."
A man stepped into the clearing and Percy literally felt the temperature drop. It was enough to give him chills. The man wore a fine black silk suit, with slicked black hair and a square jaw. He wore slick sunglasses and a easy smile, one that made Percy wary immediately.
"Who are you?" He asks.
"I'm simply a very important man," he says simply. "I heard about your incident from one of my workers, Nico, and just had to stop by to see for myself."
"Incident?"
"Look, boy," the man continued as if Percy had not spoken. "I have an important business to run. And I'm in need of boys like you. See, Nico is nice and all, but he's simply too soft. I need a certain someone for a certain job. That looks like you."
"Why should I? I don't know you, or this 'job'." Percy hissed. The man simply smiled.
"Now, what if I were to say I could give you unlimited life and the power to kill those who wronged you? Such as this scrum."
Nico pulled a tied up man, Mikey, in front of Percy and dropping him. The man was starting to wake up.
Percy's vision turned red the moment the man opened his eyes. He grabbed to nearest thing, a big heavy gear sitting out from the broken tractor and slammed the metal against the man's jaw. Then his eyes. Over and over again.
Percy saw his mother, smiling and loving.
Then he sees her cold and dead.
Because he couldn't save her. Because he was weak. Because of Mikey and his little friends. He will kill them all, one by one. For her. His home. His mother. Over and over again. Over and over. Over and over. Over and over . . .
While in his rage, the man grinned at the little psychotic boy.
"He's perfect."
Nico watched on with sad eyes as Percy beat the man over and over again. The boy was gone. He would never be a little boy again.
Over and over, over and over, over and over.
Until there's nothing left.