Disclaimer: I don't own the X-Men, Marvel does, the only thing in this story I own is the story itself and Centaura.
Note: I'm going to be annoying and wait for five MORE reviews until I post the next chapter . . . SO REVIEW!!
~II~
Centaura curled up on her bed, with the same list of daily annoyances that the Home hadn't even considered before she had actually arrived there. Like chairs. They finally let she sit on a long bench, only she sat on it the 'wrong' way, so it could hold her torso section between her pairs of legs. And beds just aren't designed to hold someone with extra legs, although that was far easier than the chair debate.
As the mutant tossed and turned, her mind returned to the abnormal event that had taken place earlier that day. He really seemed to - to care about my reaction to him, seemed willing to protect me from the other girls . . . no matter that I didn't truly need his protection. Oh, he was probably just intervening because I'm another mutant, but he was an angel compared to what those - those - those . . . I can't. I can't even think of them. Not without . . . Centaura took a few deep breaths, but they weren't helping. Then she gave up. She curled up even tighter, and gave her tears free reign. For more than a year she had kept her feelings hidden. At the beginning, when she had been 'free' of gang life for only four or five months, she was starting to see past the nonchalance that the social workers showed her, and she didn't like what she saw.
Hatred.
Hatred and prejudice against mutants, her kind, a being of which she was intimately a part of - and whose name she had never even known. When, only days after coming to the Home, she was attacked by a group of six girls, she first experienced that very enmity for herself. She did beat them, but they made her remember, remember that she was one where they were many. In her still street-oriented mind, it was like one small gang in the middle of a city, surrounded by large, hostile gangs with no 'agreements' to ease up on casualties.
She had pulled off her masquerade brilliantly until about a month ago. Then, things became too much. For the first five months of her visit there had been another gang-child like herself, who helped Centaura understand the Home and the people. Without her help, the young mutant would never have made it as long as she had.
Now the girl's words began to sting as much as their blows; at least physical pain would slowly vanish. But Centaura had held on by the tip of her tail for too long, and her grip was beginning to slip. For the longest time, her survival mentality had kept her alive, along with the easy comparisons between the Home's politics and gang politics.
The only vast difference was that now, her gang wasn't trying to help her -
But trying to destroy her, whether they knew it or not.
I need a new place. I need a fresh start, some place where they only know what's on the files. Where they don't think I could kill a person without reason. Because hard as I'm trying to fit in this new mold of theirs, it's going to crack if they keep turning up the heat,* Centaura thought wryly. I, who know nothing about molding, or even what to call it, came up with that?! I'm surprising myself. Still, help had better come soon -
Or there'll be no one left to help.
"So you met her?"
"Ja, Amanda. In a rather perilous position, I might add," Kurt's demonic eyes hardened as he remembered how he'd found the orphaned mutant - about to be beaten into a pulp by six of the other girls at the Home.
Amanda raised her eyebrows. "Perilous? Kurt, dear, I think you need a vacation from the X-Men when you start using words like that in an everyday sentence."
"But it wasn't everyday, 'Manda! She was in over her head - I think. Oh, boy, the Prof. is going to love cross-examining this one," Kurt commented. "Remind me about her history again."
Amanda sighed as she forced the dinky little green car up one of Seattle's many steep hills. "She's a gang-born, and her gang, the Dragons, was running cocaine when the police raided their base. All but she and a younger boy, whom she claimed was one of the gang-girl's sons, were killed. Both were put into protective custody, and separated. She's been at the Home for about a year and a half."
"So we don't know anything about her? Did she get examined by a psychiatrist?" Nightcrawler wondered.
"I think she did, when they first brought her in . . ." Amanda flipped through the papers in the file. "Ah-hah! He said she wasn't as hard-core as most gangsters, and were she not a mutant, she would fade into Home life very easily. The psychiatrist suggested that they begin a facility for mutants like her, instead of putting them in the regular Home's, but he was overruled because of, lessee, budget and the fact that it would be treating mutants separately."
"Smart person."
"Pro-mutant, fully human. They went as far as to DNA-examine the poor man so they could assure themselves that he wouldn't have pity on a fellow mutant and let a potential killer out," Amanda snorted in disgust. "What bull*hit."
"Ah, but that's the way the world works, mein liebling. Might makes right," Kurt pointed out bitterly. As the tiny car pulled into the garage, Amanda turned to her lover.
"Kurt . . ."
Kurt brushed a lock of Amanda's springy blond hair out of her face, and kissed her. "I know very well how lucky I am, Miss Jimaine Szardos, and my suggested course of action is -"
BAMF.
"Miss Szardos, I'll be frank. Centaura seems to fit in well with the girls here, but she is a fighter. She's reckless, and usually fights a group of girls by herself. Why, if she didn't vent her energy playing soccer, I don't know what kinds of hullabaloo she's be causing!" she shook her head. "I don't wish to frighten you, but she may cause trouble. Some of our staff . . . wish to keep her within our boundaries," the woman sitting before Amanda was wearing a navy blue business suit, had her hair up in an excessively traditional manner, and was one of the stuffiest people the gypsy-born had ever met.
"Mrs. Hoffman, I assure you that Centaura will be well within the boundaries set by this Home, as well as others Xavier's School for Higher Learning will set. She will not come to harm, and she will be disciplined should she disobey," Amanda told the woman. "The School is very small, and the students very close-knit and usually accepting. Should there be any problems, you have the School's agreement to contact your agency. I assume that everything is in order for her departure?"
The woman sighed, seemingly resigned. Xavier's School had fought hard over the young mutant, although none on the staff could see why, considering her past. However, Miss Szardos had remained adamant that this place was a place of second - or in Centaura's case, third - chances. And the file on the school was remarkable. Although it seemed to get destroyed a lot, there were no reports of bombings, shootings, drug usage, or any of the other crimes that most schools had to fight nowadays. It was one of the top private schools in the country, with the only downside that, unlike most schools, they came to the students and asked if they should like to go there, not the other way around.
"Miss Moscella will be ready to leave by 8:00 tomorrow morning, Miss Szardos. When will you and Mr. Wagner be picking her up?"
"Around 8:30, then, if that's admissible," Amanda suggested.
"I will inform Miss Moscella, and escort you and Mr. Wagner to the door," Mrs. Hoffman gestured, and Amanda left the office for the last time. Good thing too - I'm due to leave back to New York day after tomorrow. Had this taken any longer . . . Amanda sighed.
Nightcrawler stood as the two woman approached. "May ve accompany you to tell Centaura of her new arrangements?" Kurt asked, his German accent sticking out more than usual.
Mrs. Hoffman ground her teeth, but answered "Yes, of course, Mr. Wagner." The couple followed the woman through the hallways. When they got to a dorm room, they found the same six girls who's 'playtime' Nightcrawler had interrupted when he first met Centaura, and Centaura herself. Bruises were slowly forming on all of them, and Centaura was sporting a brand-new black eye. "Centaura Moscella! What have you been doing?"
The mutant shrugged. "Defending myself."
"From who, these girls? They probably couldn't put one bruise on you, let alone attack you!"
"Mrs. Hoffman, Centaura started it! She came in swinging, and Emily and I accidently knocked her head into one of the headboards! Honest! We didn't mean to hurt her - but these things sure do!" Kurt recognized the voice of the girl who was so adamantly protesting. It was the girl who'd lead the six before.
"'Manda, these are the same girls as before," he whispered.
"Fore sure?" 'Crawler nodded. Amanda and Kurt waited for Centaura to come to her own defense.
However, much to their surprise, and contrary to both what Kurt had witnessed and Amanda had read, Centaura just shrugged. Mrs. Hoffman turned to the pair, sputtering hapless excuses while Centaura's eye got worse instead of better.
Finally, Kurt couldn't stand there, listening to the woman who obviously didn't care about the kids, just the politics, and sent Amanda a Look that meant he was going to do something stupid. "Mrs. Hoffman, where is the Home's refrigerator?" he asked, his fangs glinting a little as he ground his teeth in annoyance.
Mrs. Hoffman stammered out the answer to his unexpected question, and continued apologizing to Amanda. Amanda didn't try to stop her; she knew what her lover was doing. A minute later, Kurt walked into the room with a bag of ice, and pulled back his hood so he could get a better look at her eye. Mrs. Hoffman, with her back to him, didn't even notice. The girls did, though, and drew away in speechless terror.
"One of them did quite a job on you, Centaura," Kurt murmured. The mutant girl smiled wryly at him.
"Are you sure I didn't hit my head on the headboard?"
Kurt grinned back at his willing patient. "Yes. Here, put this on. And when the swelling's gone down, start packing. You're coming with us tomorrow."
Centaura gasped, both at the ice and at his statement. "Really? I'm really leaving?!"
Kurt laughed. "Pack," he ordered mockingly, tapping her nose with one blue-furred finger. Getting up, Nightcrawler pulled the hood back over his head, and joined Amanda, who was (finally) working to get the woman calmed down. "Mrs. Hoffman, we'll be back promptly 8:30 tomorrow morning. Keep a close eye on Centaura until then - after all, we don't want her entirely black and blue, do we?"
With a mischievous glint in her eye, Centaura looked right at Kurt. "Why not?" she questioned almost mockingly.
Amanda and Kurt were having trouble restraining their laughter.
My suit case is downstairs . . . My bed is almost bare, even of my secret things . . . And for once, I know that hope will outshine the darkness. Can this really be happening to me? Am I truly being liberated from the tenth level of hell?
Centaura's thoughts swirled, cutting through the predawn gray in the dorm room. She had not yet been able to sleep, to busy with thinking and with dreaming. Then a draft blew in from the window, open a fraction to let in the cool, end-of-spring air. All of a sudden, Centaura's street-wise instincts picked up on a still-familiar warning of danger.
She was careful to keep her breathing slow and steady, and fought to keep her eyes closed. If she was in trouble, whoever was after her would have a harder time of things if they didn't expect her to fight back right away.
"Is she finally asleep?" came the whisper of an all-too-familiar voice. Emily, Katerina's chief flunky. At least, that's how Centaura thought of her. Centaura forced her all-too-willing muscles into place, and prayed that they would believe her act. The Home's workers couldn't be everywhere, especially at night.
So Centaura fought, but she knew she had lost this fight the moment the first blow struck her cheek.
Nightcrawler loaded the last of Centaura's two bags into the dinky car's trunk, and walked back inside, hoping that Centaura had at last appeared. It's funny, he thought, that Mrs. Hoffman was so adamant about her being on time, and now she's ten minutes late. I hope there's nothing wrong.
However, no X-Man has ever been known for their luck in that particular area, and Centaura was no different. When Centaura emerged into the foggy day, she was wearing her first 'civilian' clothes in the years and a half she'd been in the Home, a loose shirt and baggy jeans that fit much better than the skirt she'd worn in the Home. However, there was a hand-shaped red mark on her face, and even her tail, swinging gingerly behind her, was bruised. In shock, Kurt bit his lip, cursing softly as he tasted his own blood, and Amanda place her hand gently on Centaura's shoulder, noting the way the girl flinched, before storming into the Home.
The new cut on his lip still bleeding, Kurt crouched before Centaura. It's difficult to talk to someone so much shorter than you - shorter than Wolvie! He took her hands in one of his, and asked, "Little Centaur, what happened?"
The girl shrugged. "They caught me very early this morning. So early it wasn't light yet, and managed a good pounding before Mrs. Hoffman came and got them off me. It's really nothing."
Kurt shook his head as Amanda stalked out of the Home. "You're as black and blue as I am, Centaura - that's something. Why, though? Why torture you so?"
Centaura shrugged again, though this time she winced. "I'm a mutant and I got out before they did. That's reason enough for them."
"Come on, Centaur-filly. We'd better get to home," Amanda gestured to the back seat of the car.
Centaura eyed it dubiously. The car, in and of itself, was small. The back seat looked like to would barely fit one person, let alone allow room for another half-a-person. "Will I fit?"
Amanda's only reply was "I hope so."
With much squeezing and contortions of Centaura's small body, she did manage to fit into the back seat of the car. "Well, one thing's for sure, with all this, no one's going to notice you're a mutant!" Amanda joked.
"Yeah," she snorted. "They will notice one very squished teenage girl in the back of a car so small . . . Where did the car come from, anyway? Who in their right mind would make something so obnoxiously small?!"
Nightcrawler laughed as he curled into the passengers seat. "We're all crushed into this thing, liebchen. It's rather . . ."
"We've used every adjective to describe abhorrently small that we could possibly think of, Kurt dear, give up," Amanda rested a hand on Kurt's shoulder as she raised her eyebrows, a look that clearly agreed with her comment. Then she smashed herself into the driver seat, and turned the key.
Centaura sat on the rock-like hotel bed, frazzled. The day had passed so quickly that she had barely had time to think one event over before she was flung into another. Centaura had finally gotten the courage to excuse herself and tell Kurt and Amanda that she'd order room service for dinner. The remains of her meal, unlike anything the Home had ever served, sat unmoving on the silver tray on the other side of the single-bed room. She slowly got up and walked to the window, looking out over the people who walked so easily on Seattle's steep streets.
They have no idea how easy their life is . . . Compared to one who must live forever in hiding, Centaura's strong gaze followed the path her mind took, from contemptuous one moment, to depressed, to despair. I knew freedom once . . . knew it as well as any true human. And their hatred left that path too overgrown to follow.
Centaura wrenched the curtains shut, turning away from the city.
Even in the life that they offer me - and, for the fist time, it really is an offer, something I can refuse. I might even enjoy these 'X-Men', but I cannot be free. Kip used to compare me to a wild horse. Even when others of our gang were lost to the evil drug we sold, I refused, because I knew I would no longer have even what choices were left to me. Maybe I really am a centaur . . .
A small light peeked through a crack in the curtains, a ray of hope in the shadowy hotel room. With a twitch of her tail, the curtains closed.
-Now, don't worry, it's not going to be this depressing the whole time . . . It will get better (the whole question is, will it get worse first?) So, since I don't even know if people like this, scroll down. See the little box? Write in the little box. Gooooood reader!
