Author's notes: Thank all of ya'll who reviewed! I'm so happy that you like the story! There was some confusion regarding Becky's 'powers'. She can create and control water, meaning she can make water just by thinking, and can control water from lakes and such. She can also walk on water when she wants to. She's not quite in control of them now, so she can only walk on its surface instead of falling through. Makes swimming a lot of trouble! Also this part of the story is told from Gabby's perspective. (If you haven't noticed, I'm going in a pattern…)
Disclaimer: see the chapter before this one. Arbor Place mall does not belong to me, no matter how much I may wish it did.
"How did you drag me here?" I asked myself more than Becky. We were sitting in the salon in Arbor Place mall, one of the many malls that are in metro-Atlanta. I sat in one of the swivel chairs, watching Becky get streaks in her hair. I had bugged her almost the entire time to tell me what color she was getting, but she wouldn't tell me. I watched her, bored out of my skull. An hour ago, two old women had sat under the hairdryers, pointing 'discreetly' at me and whispering. I'll admit I did look rather odd in my all black clothes in the bright room. The florescent lights gave the place a 100-watt brightness that assaulted your eye as soon as you entered the door. But still that was no reason to act so rudely. But, like I said before, I was feeling bored and gave a bit of a show for the ladies to gossip about. I crossed my eyes, and gave a slight twitch. I hid a smile when the whispered fast and furiously, sounding a lot like three cackling hens. I yawned once, showing off my beautiful fangs. After that, though, I ignored them. The old cronies were beginning to bore me…again. I watched the various people walk by. Blondes, red heads, Brunettes, people with black hair like me. One girl was especially interesting, walking around with bright neon orange streaks in her otherwise boring brown. Her nose and eyebrow were pierced, and I had a small glimpse of her pierced tongue. Boredom caught up to me again, (I have a very short attention span apparently) so I spun the chair around once or twice. The room started to tilt at odd angles, and I noticed the hairdresser moving towards Becky's chair. She started to unravel the foil that hid her streaks from view, but got in the way before I could figure out the color. I glared at her back, and turned to the mirror to see Becky's reflection.
Bright blue streaks stood out against her white blonde hair. Blue? Why did she get blue? I thought.
"What do ya think?" she asked, modeling it off for me. I noticed that she was wearing a baby blue t-shirt, and dark blue jeans. We walked towards the cashier, and I said, "Well, it's certainly different. But why blue? Is that your favorite color now?" She turned away from my curious gaze and pulled out a few bucks from her purse and paid the woman in front of us, who was noisily chomping on her gum. She thanked us for coming, and we walked through the bright entrance to the hustle and bustle of the mall, the bells attached to the door jingled behind us.
"I suppose you could say that…." she said absently. We walked past a Payless Shoe store and a nature store into a JCPenny. She walked towards the back of the store to one of the racks in the junior section. She searched through the clothes and pulled out boat necked shirt. The sleeves were a pale blue color, and once they were past her elbow, they turned to a lacy sort of pattern and faded from a dark blue to white. The collar went to where her collarbone and then the rest of the shirt flowed to her mid stomach, and in turn faded to the lacey fabric of the sleeves. The entire shirt, save the ends of the sleeves and the body, were a cerulean blue. It was a cool shirt, but very unlike Becky. She never wore stuff like that.
"Why the sudden change of taste?" I asked once she moved to a different rack.
"Oh, I don't know. I just though we needed a little upgrade in fashion," she said, inspecting her reflection in the full-length mirror.
"We?" asked, a bit wary now. She looked at me in the mirror, glancing in surprise at my change of tone. "Yeah, you don't think I dragged you here just to watch me find clothes, did you?" I shook my head, trying to sort out her objectives.
"What do you mean I need an upgrade? I happen to like my choice of fashion," I said indignantly. She rolled her eyes, and turned to face me.
"No you don't. You like to change your appearance as much as I do. I can tell your gettin' bored with being a normal Goth," She said, taking me by the hand to go searching for more clothes. I tried to disagree, but saw myself that it was true. I did like to change a lot, and I had been doing the gothic thing for two years now. Some of my black shirts and pants were getting worn out from so much use.
"Maybe your right," I mumbled, " I guess I am ready for a bit of change." She sighed with satisfaction, and stopped at a random rack.
"So, what sort of look were you going for?" she asked, like a professional. I grinned and thought a while on what I wanted to look for.
"Well, I thought we might try to look for something that celebrates our 'uniqueness'," I said in a snooty voice. Her eye lit up, and she turned to the rack.
"Well. Seeing that you are very similar to a snake," she whispered, pulling out a tank top, "I thought you might want to go into the snake skin style." I held the tank top up to me. I looked at how low the collar went, and blushed slightly. Becky turned to me and noticed me blush.
"What? Think of something a little…forbidden?" she asked in a fake low sexy voice. I slapped her arm, my mouth fighting against a smile and shock.
"No you perv," I said softly, battling a losing battle against laughter. "This collar just goin' to show a bit a unwanted cleavage," I said calmly, slipping faintly into my Georgian accent.
"Yeah, but there's nothing wrong with bein' a bit of a temptress every now and then," she said turning back to search through the rack.
"Temptress?" I asked in a strangled voice. She pulled out a pair of fake black leather pants and held them out to me absently. I took them a little uncertainly. She went through the racks quickly, picking out things for her and me. All of her clothes were blue, and she only gave me snake skin shirts or pants. We picked out a few outfits, and then went to take turns trying them on. She walked into one of the dressing rooms, and I heard a faint rustling as she changed clothes. She came out a few minutes later, wearing the lacy shirt and a pair of blue fake leather pants.
"Very nice," I said, watching as she spun in quick circles. I clapped goofily, and watched her go back into the dressing room. She came back out in dark almost black blue jeans and a seagreen shirt with a mermaid decal on it.
"Umm…I like the shirt, but the pants don't go with it very well," I critiqued. She looked in the full-length mirror.
"I don't know, I think it looks fine," she said, but returned it to the rack later. She motioned for me to go in, and I grabbed two outfits from our pile. I pulled the black clothes off and replaced them with the low-necked snake skin tank top and leather pants. I checked my reflection and saw myself for the first time after the Goth movement. The brown detailed tank top looked good with my dark brown eyes and black hair. It made my skin look more delicate, instead of the normal washed out look it usually had. The almost skin tight black pants shined in the florescent lights that shown over head. I unlocked the dressing room door and was greeted by Becky's excited face.
"You look great!" she exclaimed. I grinned a little shyly, and turned to the full-length mirror. I loved my new look. I felt more at home in the snake skin shirts than the black insulting t-shirts I used to wear. I smiled at Becky. I was reborn in more than ways than one.
We came home from that excursion at 5:00. I personally was ready to drop. We were 'normal' teenagers, and had been shopping nonstop for the last six hours. Both of us had what we wanted, and the clothes we bought mirrored our 'gifts'. Becky had bought nothing but blue and white. She only bought it if it had something to do with water, whether it was the color or it had some sort of design on it. I bought only fake leather and snake skin, reveling in the feeling of the deadly teeth that poked through my gum. It wasn't a very good trip for my allowance, though. I had spent two months worth of money on all of the clothes. Becky left her stuff in my room, and I heard her running down the hallway steps. She greeted my mother, who was cooking dinner in the kitchen, and then settled on the couch next to me. I flipped the TV on. We watched VH1 for a while before my mom called us in to eat.
Becky was staying with us for a week, because her parents had gone on vacation. They had left a couple of days ago to go to Florida. I think that they needed to clear their heads of the mutant business, otherwise they would have taken Becky and her sister. Her sister was staying at a friend's house for the week. I walked into the kitchen and sat down in front of the door that led out to the back porch. My mom had made the original southern dinner tonight. Fried chicken, black-eyed peas, mashed potatoes, fried okra, and corn bread. I sat down and spooned a little bit of everything on my plate, and sat back, enjoying the feel of my family and friends company. We sat in a companionable silence, breaking it every once and a while to talk a little of the day.
"So what did you girls by at tha' mall?" Mother asked.
"Oh, lots of things, Melissa," Becky said. "I finally pulled your daughter away from her Gothic image and got her to buy some color." My mother smiled and mumbled faintly under her breath, "Thank God."
"I heard that!" I said with a fake growl. "And for your information, black is a color." My mom grinned and opened her mouth only to have the ringing phone interrupt her. She went into the living room, grumbling about salesmen and how they always called at dinnertime. Becky and I looked at each other, grinning at my mom's obvious hate of salesmen. We heard her voice, a dull hum in the next room. She came back, a bit of curious surprise on her face. "It's fo' you motha'," she said, handing the cordless to my grandmother. She excused herself from the table and went into the living room for a minute. I strained my ears to try and catch some of her conversation, but her voice was too low. I watched as a minute later her large form entered back into the kitchen and sat down at the table.
"Who was that?" my mother asked. All of us turned to look at her. Amusement lit up her strong blue eyes.
"That was an old friend o' mine that ah met back in collage when ah was a girl." She turned to look at Becky and I, smiling.
"He was callin' abou' ya'll. He works in a school fo' gifted people, such as yoself." I turned to look at her, wondering why she was telling us all this. She answered my question in her next sentence.
"He was curious abou' ya, and wan'ed ta know if ya wanna join his school," she concluded. I stared at her, not quite knowing what I what to say.
"What did ya tell 'em?" Mother asked. She seemed as surprised as Becky and I.
"Well, Ah said it was mighty kid a 'em, but we are doin' fine on our own, it'in' that right girls?"
"Yeah," we both said. My thoughts weren't really on this conversation. I was trying to picture in my mind what this school must look like. A tall, strict brick building was created in my head. Kids of all ages run about the place, laughing and joking. All were running to their next classes, hoping not to be late. I snapped out of my daze when faintly heard my mom mutter something about lights in the back yard. I turned in my seat, and saw that there were lights in the yard. The twinkled and moved like fireflies but were too big and too bright to be fireflies. My grandmother stood up abruptly, making all of us jump when her chair hit the linoleum floor with a crash. I turned to stare at her, a bit scared by her expression. I've never seen such a fierce expression on her face before. It was a mixture of horror and hate, and she hurriedly went about the house.
"Git up, git up!" she yelled. We all rose from our seats not even finished with our food yet.
"Git moving, they're coming!" she shouted. She shoved Becky and me to the front door, but saw more lights out the door. Her face fell briefly, and my heart stopped. I was afraid she might have a heart attack, but she pushed us back to the kitchen. She grabbed some paper and a pen and scribbled down a note frantically. My mother motioned us to just be quiet and told us, "Go get your new clothes. And anything else you might need." I started to question, but she shouted, "Now!" before I could get a word out. Becky and I hesitated before leaping as quickly as we could up the steps. We ran up my room, grabbing our bags. I grabbed my purse and my makeup, stuffing it into the bag of clothes. Becky took blankets and a first aid kit, and we ran down stairs. We weren't sure what was happening, so we went into the kitchen and grabbed some cans and packages of food. I stuffed scissors and a manual can-opener in the bag, and rushed to where my grandmother was looking out the window.
"What's happenin'?!" I cried. I was fed up with the unknown intruders that were surrounding our house. Grandmother looked me in the eyes, shock and fear crowding together until one looked exactly the same as the other. She handed me the piece of paper, and tried to explain as quickly as she could.
"Tha people outside are mutant hunters. Tha F.O.H. They've found us an' have come ta kill us. But we won' let that happen, no sir' ee." she placed her hand on either side of my head, holding my attention as well as my gaze. "Ya'll must get away from them, and try to find Charles Xavier. He lives in Bayville, New York. Use all of the training I taught you out here. Bite them without mercy." She added with a wry bit of humor. "But what about ya'll?" I asked, fear filling every cell of my body. "Don't worry about us!" she said harshly. I cringed, and watched as apology slipped in through the fear that clouded her eyes. "Whateva ya do, do not leave each otha's side. Do not look back, eitha of you," she whispered, lowering her hands from my face. Both Becky and I nodded solemnly. My mother and my grandmother held us in a bear hug, and I saw tears linger in both of their eyes. I looked at Becky, and held her hand. We would need each other's strength if we were to survive this.
"Ya'll both will stay behind us. We'll create a diversion so ya can get away. Run as fast as ya can. If they start to attack ya, fight them with everythin' you have. Do not allow 'em to catch ya! It would mean the end of all a us," she said. My body started to lose heat, my fingers cold and shaking from fright. I felt fear and realization wash over Becky and me. She tightened her grip, and we both held back tears for the other's sake. Both of them gave us one last hug before steadying us. We stood behind them, bags ready. Grandmother and my mom pushed the great oak door open and charged the men that were screaming and yelling insults at our house. Once we came into view, all of the men charged us. Becky and I ran, hoping against all hope we would make it through this. My grandmother threw a few guys out of our path with her telekinesis, but one slammed into her side, knocking her down.
"Grandma!" I cried and slowed down to help her. Becky ran back and grabbed my hand, nearly dragging me away from her fallen form. I screamed her name a few times, tears running down my ashen face. I felt Becky yank on my hand, trying to keep me going. I turned around, and watched the havoc that was unfolding in front of me. I ran faster, feeling hate and adrenaline run like molten lava through my veins. I felt a jerk as Becky went down. I turned around, jumping on the man's back. I dug my nails into his body and bit deeply in the bastard's shoulder, pumping all of the acid into his skin I could. I heard him scream, and I let go as he clawed for me and pulled my hair. He turned around to face me, which was a bad move on his part. I kicked him in the crotch and watched as he went down with his mouth in a perfect '0'. I rolled my shoulders and spit at his whimpering body. I held out a hand to my fallen companion when I felt a sharp pain in my side. I turned to see he horrid man and watched as he pulled the blade from my side.
So…what do ya think? Please review and let me know if I should continue the story!