Chapter 1: In The Dark

                "Ahhh!"

                The cry of pain sounded loud in the relative quiet outside Harry's. Bobby paused as he was about to get into his car, listening. There it was again.

                He closed the car door, his steps quickening as he traced the sound to a group of people standing some way down the block. Eyes wide, he watched as the slender, black-haired girl wearing dark glasses pressed her back to the brick wall ahead of her and brandished the white cane she held like a weapon.

                "Hey!" Bobby yelled. Two of the dark, shadowy figures surrounding the girl turned, and he saw the tattoos on their cheeks. A gang, then. And what were they doing threatening a blind woman? "Leave her alone, dude," he said, tensing, getting ready for a fight if the gang was going to make it an issue.

                Apparently not. They were cowards, Bobby thought as he watched them haul their sorry butts down a nearby alley, vanishing off into the dark. He turned back to the woman.

                She hadn't relaxed, hadn't moved. Bobby held his hands up, even though he suspected she couldn't see him do it. Very few people wore sunglasses at ten at night. And no one carried that unmistakable white cane except blind people. "Hey," he said, his voice carefully soft and non-threatening. "I'm not going to hurt you. You can put the cane down now."

                The woman's cheeks flushed, and she lowered the cane. Her head turned in the direction of his voice, and she straightened up. "I'm sorry," she said softly.

                Bobby shook his head, then sighed to himself. She couldn't see it. "No problem," he said. "If you don't mind my asking, what are you doing in this part of town at this time of night?"

                "They changed the bus stops," she said quietly. "I got off at what I thought was my regular stop, and started taking my regular route home. If the bus had stopped at the corner of Rosewood and Grant this would be my apartment building right here. It isn't, is it." It was more a statement than a question, but Bobby answered it anyway.

                "No. You're at the edge of Hell's Kitchen," Bobby said, using the old term for this area.

                The woman sighed. "I'm not that far, then," she said. "Could you do me a favor? Would you tell me what the street sign says?"

                Bobby looked up. "Kent and Fifth," he said. "Where's your building?"

                "275 West Ninth," the woman said. Bobby blinked. "That's four whole blocks away, Miss," he said. "My car's back there--" and he jerked a thumb behind him before he remembered she couldn't see it. "My car's a few feet behind me," he amended ruefully. "I could take you to your building."

                The woman tensed visibly, but shook her head. "The best way for me to learn the new route is to walk it," she said. "Is this Fifth behind me?"

                Bobby nodded. "Yes. Sixth would be the next street down, then Seventh, Eighth, and Ninth. However, you're on the East side of the street. You'll have to cross if you want to hit the West side."

                "Thank you," the woman said. "Thank you very much. I'm Amy." She held out a hand blindly in front of her.

                "Bobby." Bobby stepped forward and took the offered hand. "I'm glad I was able to help." She gave a brief nod and turned, her cane tapping the pavement at regular intervals. Once or twice she stumbled on the uneven concrete of the sidewalk, but she recovered and kept going.

                Bobby had turned to go, but stopped just as he was about to get into his car, his eye caught by something. The retreating figure, once she thought he was no longer watching, had allowed her shoulders to slump and was limping heavily from her left ankle. Bobby stopped, then sighed, locked his car back up, and shoved his keys into his pocket. Least he could do was walk her home.

                "Wait," he said, rushing to catch up. She froze as she heard his footsteps, and he saw her quickly straighten up. Too proud to admit she's hurting. Oh well, Bobby thought. Aloud, he said, "Amy, I can walk you there, if you don't mind. The pavement's rough here, and the traffic's kinda busy. Never settles down here completely. The crosswalk lights don't work either." He looked at her. "I'll be your Seeing Eye dog, for lack of a better analogy."

                "You don't need to," the woman said stiffly. "It's not the first time I've gotten lost, and it certainly won't be the last time."

                Bobby sighed. "I don't mind, really," he said. "And it's going to be harder getting home with your ankle hurting like that."

                "You noticed?"

                "Kinda hard not to, Amy," he said. "Come on. The light's green." He touched her arm lightly, and they crossed the street, her with the cane out in front of her checking for the curb. She got up onto it, and she and Bobby started down the opposite side of the street in a companionable silence.

                Bobby studied the woman walking beside him. No one paid much attention to the lights here in this part of town, so most of them were out. There was very little light available to see with, but what little of it there was enabled him to see that she was probably about his age, maybe a little older. They were about the same height, though it was a little hard to tell with the way she was limping. Her feet made an irregular sound on the pavement, and at the rate they were going, it was going to take forever to get home. He went around to her bad side, took her arm gently.

                She stiffened immediately, sucking in a breath as she pulled away from him. "No," she said. "Don't touch me."

                Bobby shook his head. "Sorry. Suit yourself. I just thought I'd give you a little help; the ankle's not going to get any better with you walking on it. What happened?"

                "I tried to lunge toward one of those stupid gang members and hit him with my cane. The pavement was uneven, and I tripped and twisted my ankle." She made a rueful face as she spoke.

                They crossed the next intersection with little trouble, and started heading up toward Seventh. "If you don't mind my asking," Bobby said, frowning a bit, "What were you doing out so late?"

                "Coming back from work," Amy said. "I sing at the Starlight."

                Bobby's jaw dropped, and he was glad she didn't see him. The Starlight was a small strip club/bar about halfway downtown. "Why so far?" he said.

                Amy gave a short laugh. "There aren't a lot of places that will give a blind person a job," she said bitterly. "Much less a mutant. I was lucky Mr. Andover gave me a job there. I had an apartment there, but it was too expensive and I had to find another one. The one I have now was the cheapest I could find. I don't make much from singing." She sniffed. "Mr. Andover keeps saying I could make more if I participated in the 'extracurricular activities'," and her tone of voice left no doubt in Bobby's mind what those activities consisted of, "but I won't do it, and I've told him so. He hasn't insisted, thankfully."

                Bobby frowned. "That's not right," he said. "Can't you get a job anywhere else?"

                Amy shook her head. "No one wants to hire people with disabilities," she said. "Just like no one wants to hire mutants. I'm just unlucky enough to be both." She sounded challenging, as if she was waiting for him to reject her because she was a mutant, but Bobby said nothing, and after a few minutes she relaxed.

                They turned onto West Ninth, and a few more minutes of walking brought them to her apartment building. Bobby was glad she couldn't see his jaw drop as he looked up at the building. The wall of it, as far as his arm could reach, was covered with graffiti. Most of the lower windows were smashed, and those that were further up were so grimy and filthy Bobby couldn't imagine anyone actually living there. It was all such a stark contrast to the cleanliness and luxury of Xavier's mansion that Bobby suddenly realized how lucky he was to live there and not here. He felt an immense swell of pity for the woman beside him. She couldn't like living here.

                She didn't say anything about sending him on his way, so he took it as tacit permission to enter and followed her in. The foyer was littered with trash and beer cans; broken glass and bottles were everywhere, and he thought he even saw a used needle in a corner. Amy navigated the piles of trash with the help of her cane, then grasped the rail of the stairs and began to try to haul herself painfully up the steps. He couldn't stand seeing her slow progress, and again took her arm. This time, whether from increasing fatigue or pain, she didn't snap at him. She allowed him to help her up the four flights of stairs to the fifth floor, then took a key from her pocket and unlocked a battered, dented wooden door with what looked like bullet holes in it. Bobby walked in, and she followed him, locking the door behind her.

                He heard her walk off into the darkness, and called after her tentatively, "Uh, Amy? There's no light…"

                "I'm sorry," she called from somewhere off in the darkness. "Switch is beside the door there. Just feel for it." His hands found the switch, and the room suddenly flooded with watery yellow light from the battered bulb in the ceiling.

                In its light he saw hardwood flooring, no carpet. It had been rather stained once; but someone had attempted to sand it and get the stains out. Probably Amy, Bobby thought as he looked at it; her inability to see had made it impossible for her to get the stains out. There was a battered couch sitting back against the wall, a small coffee table sat in front of it, and a TV sat on a low table against the opposite wall. There was a tiled area that he supposed was the 'kitchen'; there was a sink, four cupboards under it and one over it, a small gas stove, and a tiny dormitory-sized refrigerator/freezer combo wheezed asthmatically in the corner.

                He looked across the room; there was a door to what he supposed was her bedroom, and another one, open, to the tiny bathroom. He looked curiously inside. An ancient white porcelain tub dominated one wall, stained with rust and hard water. The toilet was similarly adorned, and the sink was nothing more than a metal bowl sitting on a tall table. The faucet stuck out of the wall, slowly dripping rust-colored water from its spout, and Bobby watched as the drops disappeared down into a rough hole cut into the side of the bowl with a flexible aluminum pipe trailing from the hole and running into the wall.

                "I'm sorry," said Amy, quite close behind him. He jumped and turned. "I'm sorry, did I startle you?"

                "Ah, no," Bobby said, feeling his face flush as he blushed. "Not at all."

                She stepped back, and he made his way back into the living room. "I'm sorry. I'm blind, so I don't have a use for the lights, usually," she said. "I rarely ever turn them on. Besides they hardly ever work."

                As if on cue the light went out, plunging Bobby into darkness again. He winced, standing there in the dark. He wasn't used to this pitch-black, unrelieved darkness. "Amy," he said uncertainly.

                Amy walked to the wall, and flicked the switch. He heard the click, but there was still no light. She sighed, then went to her kitchen and dragged a chair over to the floor under the fixture. He heard a sound, as if she were unscrewing the bulb, then a moment of silence. She sighed. "I'm sorry, Bobby; looks like the building super hasn't paid the electric bill again. The electric is all out." She screwed the bulb back in and sighed. "At least I didn't buy any perishables this week. Nothing's going to spoil in the fridge." She sighed. "I rarely notice the electric going on or off, just every now and then in the winter it goes out, and there's no heat."

                Bobby frowned. "It's summer," he said. "It's going to get really hot in here tonight. Isn't the lack of air conditioning going to bother you?"

                She laughed, a short, bitter laugh. "There's no air conditioning in the building," she said. "I tried to get an apartment in the front with windows, but this was all they had when I moved in."

                Bobby shook his head. How could she live like this? "If you don't mind," he said, "how much are you paying for this apartment?"

                "I do mind," Amy said sharply. "It's not really any of your business. Thank you for showing me the way home, Bobby; I appreciate it. Now you'll want to be on your way, I assume." She walked past him and opened the door.

                Bobby felt the displacement of air, but didn't see anything different in the blackness. "Um… Amy?" he said tentatively, "How am I going to find my way out?"

                Amy sighed. "I'm sorry; I forgot. You need light." There was a sudden flare of radiance, and Bobby suddenly blinked as his eyes were assaulted by light from a ball of flame resting casually on air a couple inches off the surface of her palm.

                He blinked again, startled by the sudden light as he was by the sudden sense of déjà vu. He had the vague feeling that he'd watched a girl juggle balls of fire once, long ago; but the memory was buried, and he couldn't pinpoint its origin.

                Amy led him out into the hall and placed his hand on the railing of the stairs. "I would walk you all the way back down, but my ankle hurts a lot," she said. "Can you manage?"

                Bobby looked down into the dark stairwell, gulping at the thought of going down it in the dark, but nodded gamely. "I think I can," he said. "You don't happen to have a flashlight, or a candle?"

                Amy shook her head. "Don't need it,' she said dryly. "Here. Hold out your hand." He did, and she reached for it with her left hand until she found it, then dumped the ball of flame into his hand. "It's not going to last long once I let it go, so you have to run, okay?" he nodded, and she let it go. Bobby took the stairs as fast as he could, but even so, the light didn't last all the way to the foyer. He had to descend the last flight cautiously, and held his breath until he finally emerged out into the street. He let out his breath as the familiar warm glow of the outside streetlamps met his eye, and he took one last glance at the dark, silent apartment building before he started walking back to Harry's where he'd left his car.

                That odd feeling of déjà vu kept nagging him as he walked. He could swear he'd seen balls of flame being hurled, but he couldn't remember where or when he would have seen something like that. Sighing, he pondered that as he went back to his car, unlocked it, and got in.

                He was still thinking about it as he drove out of the city and headed for home.