Chapter 4: Pain is a Phantom of the Mind
by: Mochaije
Disclaimer: I do not own Dark Angel or its characters. Other than that, the story and characters are mine.
Summary: Virus bitch goin' down! After "Medium is the Message".
Rating: PG 13
A/N: This chapter had a mind of it's own... But it definitely adds another side to Hailey. I'm glad you guys like the story so much, it puts a smile on my face when I log in and see someone rave about it. :)
I peeked around the corner in the hall. I wasn't tired. Too anxious to be tired. Worried, frantic, excited, adrenaline-pumped from the chase earlier. I played it back in my mind with ease, eaves-dropping on Max and Logan's easy banter. I could tell she was avoiding something.
I didn't run away. I'm not half that stupid... I just felt I could vent around Max and she wouldn't mind, but I needed an excuse to be out that late in the first place. I couldn't sleep and it was about midnight, and it turns out my sneaking-around skills are pretty good. In about twenty minutes, I was downstairs and across the street, running down Seattle's grid, rhythm helping my state of mind. Whap-whap-whap was the sound my running shoes made, but what I felt was a good solid pounding as they hit the pavement. It felt good; lost in the beat of my own sprinting, I could forget about anything. Until a heavily-armed man popped out of the corner and shot at me.
Blam blam. I blurred away from him with a speed I didn't know I had. A sniper on the roof; I blindsided him too. Before I knew what I was doing, I was on the roof, fighting armed men and kicking ass. Then I jumped from the top of the small conveinence store--pretty run down for Logan's part of town--and kept running, adrenaline surging through my blood. I didn't know what the hell I was doing, or how I was doing it. It was great.
An asian female came out of the shadows, long black hair flowing from a skin-tight ponytail on the back of her head, the streetlights highlighting her catsuit-covered body. She tried to engage in conversation with me, keeping a fighting stance and circling like I was prey. I didn't hear it, my heart was pounding too hard in my ears. Something about Manticore. Wham, a kick in the gut. The second shot she took at me--this time it was a punch--failed miserably; I grabbed her arm and chucked her at the ground like a little rag doll, snapping her neck when I jammed my foot down on her throat. She was dead when I put my fingers to her throat to check for a pulse.
I came down a bit from my high and realized it was snowing heavily. I hated the snow, my parents died by its hand. My running took me to a closed-off alleyway, where Max found me. I could feel the skin peel off my back from a large scrape I'd gotten during the brawl with the goons, but it didn't hurt. Pain is a phantom of the mind, my mother had told me one day when I was young, as she sliced her finger open to show me that she was right. We'd watch the blood stop itself from racing out of the wound, which was slowly healing itself.
"I don't think she was running away," Max said to Logan. I saw her glance at me from the corner of her eye, observing me and nothing more. "Kids don't run away to an alley that doesn't have an exit."
"Still," he insisted. "Don't leave her alone." His voice faltered. "Wait, that must mean you touched her, if she kicked your ass like that." I reeled. Max's retrovirus targeted Logan's DNA, and I'm his biological child... I could see the gears twirling in their heads as well. The expression on Max's face was pure shock.
"I guess it only targets you then," she covered. "Because she's fine." Did she know something the rest of us didn't? "Hailey, come 'ere." My name snaps me out of my eaves-drop daze and I walk over.
"What was that thing this morning about?" Max asks casually. I felt like I had two-hundred people eyeing me, waiting for an answer I didn't have. She and Logan wait, expectantly.
"I don't know." My voice was barely above a whisper but it got the point across.
"Don't know! You kicked my ass into the middle of next week. And I saw the scrape on your back... No tear stains on your face. Heck, even I'd be in tears from that."
"'Pain is a phantom of the mind'," I quote. Max and Logan share a look, then go back to watching my every move.
"What?" He asks. The idiot. I could more than tell he knew what I'm talking about. My eyes roll by their own accord.
"I don't feel pain." Max's hand fires at my face to test my statement, but I grab it and throw her out of her chair and onto the floor. She twists herself up, into a fighting stance.
"You're one of them," she told me, bitterly. I tiptoed away from her.
"One of what?" Seriously, I didn't know. Logan's parental instinct took over and he told Max to knock it off. "What am I?"
"One of White's ilk. Which doesn't make any sense because Logan isn't."
"It makes sense. When the third child of one of them is female, they find a male for her to mate with... I'm guessing she didn't know." He told her.
"But I'm her firstborn," I interrupt. "She was eighteen, after all. And who is White?"
"Which makes me wonder if that accident your folks were in was an accident," Max put in. "White tried to kill his wife when she wouldn't let his son go... Maybe they do the same thing when you don't kill your first two bambinos."
"But it wasn't fair. She didn't even know what she was."
"She told you that pain was a phantom of the mind, right? She knew."
"Maybe she just didn't know the rules."
"Stop being so damn naïve. She knew and didn't tell you."
"Fine." She saw me as the bad guy. I was 'one of them', one of those people she hated with a passion. I didn't knew what's up with her past and all that jazz. All I knew is that she's enhanced, and that she only surpassed me when it comes to skill. Brute strength? Pain? I was all over her.
And it scared the shit out of me.
