Hello again! Here is part 4 of chapter 3. PM, review and all that fun stuff. Enjoy!
The Next Morning 4 Years before Z day Phil's Condo Philadelphia 10AM
The young girl with the black hair awoke with a start, having nightmares about her past again. But she almost immediately realized that she probably that most comfortable she had ever been waking up. Observing her surrounding, she realized she had been sleeping on a coach and had been wrapped in blankets. She then looked over and saw the young man he met the night before preparing something in the kitchen. Without showing signs of being awake, Maris silently observed Phil, realizing all of the things he was doing for her. Will his family mind me being here, or better yet where is his family? Why is he being so nice to me? No one has ever treated me this well before. Why did he and his friends save me? These and many more thoughts raced through Maris' head as she got up, feeling great after likely the best night of sleep of her life.
Phil noticed the girl about his age getting up. "Good morning sleepy head. I'm making a special breakfast for us. Do you like omelets?" he asked looking over at the girl.
Maris stood there confused for a moment. "What's an omelet?" she asked curiously.
Phil almost dropped the frying pan he was holding in shock, but then he realized that she seemed to not know about a lot of things, which meant he should be patient with her. "It's a really good breakfast dish, so I'm sure you'll like it".
Phil finished the two omelets and the two sat down to eat. For a few moments Maris just sat there tentatively picking at the food as if it was ingrained in her that she wasn't supposed to eat good food. "Go ahead, eat up while it's warm" Phil said, noticing Maris' behavior. Phil reached over putting a gentle hand on her shoulder. "Just trust me, ok" Phil said with that grin that always seemed to make Maris feel better.
"Ok… I'll try some" Maris said a little unconfidently. She slowly took a bite of her food and once she got a taste her eyes lit up with excitement. "This is so good!" she exclaimed, relentlessly attacking the dish now. "I didn't know food could be this good. Can you make more food like this later?"
Phil smiled at seeing Maris happy. "Sure, I can definitely make meals like that" he said, starting to clear the dirty dishes. "Over on the table there are some new clothes for you. You can throw those rags your wearing away". That morning Phil went and bought Maris some better clothes. He tried to pick clothes on the plainer side because he didn't know what fashions she liked, if any.
After breakfast was finished and Maris got changed, the two sat down on the coach next to each other. "I know this may be difficult for you to talk about, but it would help me understand you better if you told me a little of your backstory" Phil said, trying to balance the urge to get information with care of Maris' feelings.
"Um… ok, if you really want to know" she said shyly. "I was born to two really mean parents. They didn't let me have friends, go outside the house or go to school like all the other kids. Instead they would have me do all of these chores for them and they would beat me even if was doing them right. On some days I would sneak out to try to learn about the outside world, but everyone would always alienate me because they knew who my parents were or I was a stranger to them. Almost everything I learned was through books I read in secret. One day my parents found out that I was reading and came after me with knives. I don't know what came over me then, but I killed them both before they could hurt me. When the police came they found out I was had no birth certificate or name. One of the policemen named Cooper, kidnapped me and started doing experiments on me. Every day they were either sticking needles into me, making me drink stuff or hooking me up to painful machines in the name of finding some 'ultimate virus'. All this time, my only wish is to be a normal girl like everyone else".
Phil put his hands on her shoulders and looked into her red eyes. "I can't promise you that you'll ever be able to be 100% normal. Cooper will probably send his goons out searching for you. Therefore I will need to teach you how to fight. However, I will teach you about sorts of other more fun things too that help you fit in. I promise you I'll do everything I can for you. Sound good?"
"Yea… sounds good" she said, hugging him.
Phil and Maris shared a daughter-father style relationship, living together for the next year. Phil taught Maris many things about life and normal living that she had never know. Maris became a competent fighter, eventually becoming strong enough to fight alongside Phil and his friends as they went about destroying gangs that were still a problem in the city and monitoring 781's actions. But the biggest thing that Phil gave Maris was the belief that there are good people in the world, which was something she didn't believe before meeting him. Eventually Maris followed in Phil's footstep and found work as a police contractor. From time to time they were put on missions together, but they don't see each other often anymore ever since Lane came into Phil's life and Maris' work got busier.
End Flashback
3 years before z day Abandoned Warehouse 3:40 PM
Casper stared blankly at the photo, not believing what he saw. If the wanderer and this girl were that close, why is she helping me and not killing me? Casper thought. "Wait, how do you know him? You know he was the one who did this to me right?" Casper asked, confused.
Maris walked up and snatched the picture away from Casper. "He was the closest thing I had to a father. I know he was the one who did this to you because I watched him do it. And just like me, deep down, I think he hopes that you can change yourself for the better".
Casper hadn't thought of the wanderer as anything more than the person who injured him. However now he sees that he could have easily killed him in multiple instances, yet decided to let him live. As a result Casper had a newfound respect for the wanderer (Phil, but Casper doesn't know him as that).
The black haired girl turned around to leave and stopped for one moment. "If you want to see me again, meet me in alley behind the Center city tavern at 8pm on Friday" she said, hiding her face which was slightly blushed again as she walked out of the room leaving Casper alone.
When Casper left the warehouse he saw an old motorcycle, the keys to which were in the pocket of the pants the girl had given him. He rode the motorcycle home as quickly as he could, only to have his mom tell him that his father had died the day before in drug dealing related violence. Casper was very upset about the loss of his father. The girl's words "what will all the money and cheap fix highs get you when someone important to you dies and you regret not spending more time with them?" kept echoing through his head. That night, as Casper lay awake and stared out of his window, he made a silent vow to himself to never join another gang again and to kick his drug addiction. His new obsession would be to find out more about that mysterious girl.
