A/N: Howdy y'all! We're getting mighty closes to the end of this part of Kara's story, only two more chapters after this! (And then two more books after that but bear with me). Notes about that big ol' absence I took are at the bottom. I hope y'all like this chapter.

Warning: Use of the f-word (spooky I know)

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

I sat out in the living room, staring at the wall and fiddling with a throw pillow. I had thought that because I didn't see her last night I would be fine. That they wouldn't do anything to her. I didn't think I'd have to see her crying and screaming and calling out for help. Calling out for me. She said my name. She begged me to help her, to make it stop, and I couldn't do anything but watch. I shuddered. If I didn't stop thinking about it I was going to dig myself a hole I couldn't get out of.

Pushing the pillow away from me, I stood up and walked slowly to the kitchen. Everything felt surreal, the pale gray light flooding in from the window was making the room feel like an entirely different world. I stumbled over to the coffee pot and started it. The breakfast table looked inviting, and soon enough I was sitting there, staring out the window.

"Kara?" asked a soft voice from behind me. I turned to see my mother, still in her robe, dark red hair falling out of its ponytail and framing her face. She looked tired.

I didn't respond to her, but she understood and came and sat down next to me. We sat there for a long time, just thinking. Then, I did something I didn't think I would do.

"Mom I think that they're looking for me," I whispered loud enough to hear. Her face contorted into a look of shock and she pulled me into a hug. As she pet my hair and held me close, I could feel the small drops of water hitting my scalp. She was crying. I think I was too. My vision was blurry and nothing felt real anymore.

I'm not sure how long my mom and I stayed liked that, but eventually, we pulled apart and she looked me in the eyes, holding my face in her hands. "Kara Danvers, I promise that nothing is going to happen to you. We'll sort this all out after school. You're father and I will tell you everything. Okay?'

I nodded, sniffling as I placed my hands over hers, squeezing them as assurance that it was okay. I wasn't sure if I was telling it to her or to myself. She slipped away, bringing herself back up to a full stand, wiping the tears from her eyes. My mother hated crying. After the events of the past few weeks, I was starting to hate crying too.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

I climbed the stairs to the second floor of Midvale High School, ignoring the stares I was getting from everyone I passed. I looked pretty disheveled, scuffed up converse, the jeans I wore yesterday and an old red hoodie that had seen better days. Not to mention my unruly hair and the bags that were under my eyes. Everyone was looking at me with pity. It was pity that I didn't want.

Pushing through the halls, I finally found my locker and put in the familiar combination 27-32-15. "Regularity is good," my mom had told me on the drive to school. "If you don't go to school now you might never end up going back."

She was right. Since Hadley went missing, I hadn't wanted to do anything but find her, a task that was officially off-limits thanks to my parents' rules. There would be too many questions. Where did you find her? How did you find her? Were you able to find her because you took her in the first place? I had never hated having superpowers more than I did right now. I felt utterly useless.

I trudged silently into Kwan's classroom for history. We were falling behind in the curriculum after all of our days off, we had started the month with the Gilded Age and we had barely got halfway through it. I had never been happier that I hadn't decided to join the AP US History class.

As I pulled out my notebook and nestled my phone next to it, my eyes trailed to the empty seat that used to belong to Thea. I smiled, remembering how she had told me Dr. Kane was super hot on my first day back from break. We had been friends but we had never really been close. She had had her group of good friends and I had had mine.

While on the thought of my friends, I subconsciously turned to Gavin's seat, expecting to find it empty. To my surprise, Gavin Matthews was at school after his sister's disappearance and he was staring right at me. His features were pulled into a look I had seen in the mirror a lot recently. Desperation. Before I had too much time to dwell on Gavin, the class bell rang and Kwan started lecturing.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

After class, I moved quickly through the hallways. Gavin had been staring me down the whole class period and I just knew he was going to ask me about Hadley. Ask if I dreamed about her last night. I couldn't bear to tell him. Getting to class before he could corner me in the hallway was my best option. The world seemed to be playing against me because soon enough I felt a hand on my shoulder.

"Look Gav-" I cut myself off as I saw who had stopped me. AJ Samuels stood there facing me. His dark hair was tousled and the bags under his eyes mirrored mine.

"Why?" His voice was a hoarse whisper. He'd been crying. "Why did you tell them."

"AJ-"

"You promised that you wouldn't." His brown eyes seemed to darken with every word. "Do you know how fast word spreads in this town? How many people know? The stares I've been getting all day?"

"AJ I swear I wouldn't have told them, but Hadley was gone and-"

"And you thought betraying my trust would help find her?" AJ wasn't yelling but it was loud. Loud enough to start to draw a crowd to watch us.

"Sorry that I wasn't scared to help to police find my best friend," I bit back. His jaw hardened. I'd gone too far. He threw himself at me, bringing us both to the floor. His fist flew towards my face. I threw up my arm in defense. A sickening crack echoed through the small hallway.

For a moment, nothing happened. I took the opportunity to scramble backward and assess the situation. AJ sat on his knees, cradling his fist with his body. My peers were staring at me with wide eyes. I had broken AJ's wrist without even trying. Oh god. This was not good. I needed to move. Before I could, someone else did.

Gavin broke through the crowd and quickly looked between AJ and I. We met eyes. I tried to send a message with my look please help me.

"Alright everyone!" he called, addressing the crowd. "Show's over! Dean, take AJ to the nurse."

People started to move again, grumbling about the fight not being very exciting and Gavin being a goody-two-shoes. I got looks from my classmates as they walked by. Disapproval. Astonishment. Encouragement. Fear.

"Are you okay?" asked Gavin, lightly touching my elbow. I nodded. "Let's get out of here."

Gavin lead me by my elbow. I didn't pay attention to where we were going. All I could think of was the sound of AJ's wrist snapping. The silence that followed. The fear in their eyes of the students who walked past me. I could lie to myself and say they were scared of my fighting skills, but I hadn't done anything. They were just scared of me. My parents would have never guessed one punch would be what revealed my secret to my classmates.

Oh god, my parents were going to kill me.

"Kara!" Gavin called, ripping me from my thoughts. We were outside now, cold wind whipping my hair around in its haphazard ponytail. I looked at Gavin, red eyes, cracked lips, and pale complexion. Then it hit me.

"I'm so sorry, Gavin," I mumbled, pulling him into a tight embrace. Here I'd been worrying about people discovering my secret when Gavin had lost his twin sister. "I've been so selfish," I said, pulling back, "I just- I haven't been thinking of what you've been going through at all and-"

"Kara." He cut me off. I inspected his expression. I knew what was coming next.

"Gavin-"

"Have you seen her?" He asked. He'd clearly been waiting to ask me until no one else would hear it. Now was the perfect time to interrogate me about Hadley's safety.

"Have you seen her?" He repeated. I looked at the ground. I couldn't possibly tell him what I'd dreamed of last night. The screaming. The tears. The pain. "Kara answer me."

I looked up and met his eyes. Tears were starting to form. He grabbed my shoulders and shook me, silently pleading with me to answer him. I looked away, unable to look him in the eye, unable to speak. Gavin let go of my shoulders.

"No," he whispered softly as he dropping to the ground. His shoulders shook with sobs as he kept repeating the word. Standing over him, I was unsure what to do. I slowly moved downwards till I was kneeling next to him. I reached out, lightly placing my fingers on his back. He was shaking. Suddenly, he whipped around, lashing out at me. The sound of his hand hitting my cheek rung throughout the street.

"No, Kara, you don't get to pretend to be sorry! You were the whole reason we were out there! You could've saved her but you didn't! Now my sister is going to die and it's all your fucking fault!" I opened my mouth to speak but he cut me off. "Don't. Just get away from me."

I took a step back, shocked. The tears were falling from Gavin's swollen eyes like a river. I could feel my own tears running down my face and over the place that should've been stinging from the slap but felt perfectly normal. "I'm sorry."

Then I turned away and leaped up into the air.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

I found myself sitting on top of that old barn in the woods. I hadn't been meaning to come here, but it was where I ended up. Knees to my chest, head buried between my knees, I tried to breathe in the forest air. I could smell the rust, old wood, and the surrounding trees. It was peaceful. Finding quiet in a place that had caused me so much turmoil in the last few days.

I just- I couldn't figure out why I could see them all hurting. Sure, I'd always had powers, but nothing like this. The only dreams I ever had were of my parents, but now those were interrupted by the people I knew being tortured. None of what was going on made any sense and it made me so angry.

I let out a scream and slammed my fist into the roof. I crashed straight through, just like it had on my roof the night Josh went missing. It felt good. My heart was telling me to tear the entire barn down. I knew it wouldn't do anything to help, but it wasn't going to make anything worse either.

Letting myself go, I grabbed the hole I had made and pulled, ripping off a huge chunk of the roof. I threw it aside and kept going, tearing off piece after piece until the entire roof was only ruins surrounding the old barn. Then I laughed. For the first time since Josh went missing, I felt free.

I kept going, ripping apart the walls and throwing aside heavy farm equipment. It felt amazing like I was really embracing myself. For the first time, I didn't have to pretend I couldn't lift a semi or fly around the whole globe. In my excitement, I flew up to an old rusted tractor and slammed into it, knocking it over.

The sound of metal on metal filled the air as the tractor fell. I landed on top, breathing heavily. Then, I saw why the tractor had made that sound.

"What the hell?" I mumbled as I stared at a set of tracks that the tractor had been resting on. Resting between the two rails was a small man hold that was much newer than the surrounding barn. It looked new, just like the lock on the front door had been. I jumped down from my perch on the tractor, staring at the manhole. What the hell was down there? Focusing hard, I tried to see past the dirt, but my vision was impeded by something I couldn't see through.

My fingers gripped the holes in the small metal plate and I easily lifted it off, tossing it behind me with a loud clang. It was dark, but I could see metal rungs leading to whatever was down there. Part of my mind told me to call Sheriff Jackson, but the other part told me that I didn't have that long, and if Hadley was down there I needed to get her now. Making up my mind, I took the leap of faith into the darkness that waited for me.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

A/N: Oh gosh I'm almost done with this one? Well, I promised answers and here they are. School has been really hard recently, but with the new year, I've decided that I need to finish the things I've started, so I'm trying to wrap this up before I move on to new things. I'm terribly sorry for being gone for so long, but the conclusion awaits and I'm so excited for you guys to see it!