Chapter 090


High kick, while in a crouch and I nicked her in the shoulder, pushing her back with a grunt of pain. To my feet and then to the air, I spread my wings and glare accusingly at my teammate, Blackflame.

She gritted her teeth and held her bruising shoulder under of her other hand.

"What is your problem now?" Julie picked up on emotions better than anyone because she was an empath. So when I needed someone to help me with my mind, I went to her. Why not Jean? Because the mind and heart were interlaced and to straighten out the stronger of them was more important to me. Since my mind has no hope of ever being normal, I had to rely on the second half of the pair.

"You tell me." She knew what I was talking about because I made a deal with her. Blackflame was able to take off the dampers (not a complete power cut off, they destroyed D-M's after that scare a month or so ago) and let her 'feed' off my emotions.

Over the rim of her sunglasses, prescription I found out, she wrinkled her nose in disgust. "You're dripping with fear, you coward. Blech, 'love' you pathetic trollop, and something else that I can't rightly detect because it's so repressed."

Hmm, fear. Arty, my grandmother, supposedly had a heart attack about a week ago. I'd been searching high and low for her since. The Professor offered to look when I couldn't, seeing as how I wouldn't be able to concentrate until I found her. 'Love', puh-leese. Like I was in love-like, not love. Love was scary. And something repressed? Ha! I invented that concept.

Okay, so I borrowed the concept from Scott who invented it, but I made it stylish for the next generation! Or something…

Swooping down, I grabbed her as she went to flame me and hauled her up by the shirt up into the air with me. I wasn't sure a tube top could really be classified as a uniform shirt, but at least it covered the important parts (barely).

"Let me go!" She demanded. I leveled off and looked at her then the floor.

"Do you really want to be dropped on a metal floor from sixty feet in the air?"

She looked down and paled (and since she already resembled the undead, it's pretty impressive to know she could look even whiter).

"I-I guess not." Then Julie got her, excuse the pun, fire back and she struggled against my grip. "But let me go, dammit!"

I threw her up, above my head, and she screamed as she traveled upward0 and then quickly started to plummet. Several ticks later I stopped her from splating on the ground and carried her back into the air and then safely to the ground. She was shaking and gasping for breath.

"Ready to talk yet?" I asked, rather smugly. So smug in fact I didn't see her change in attitude as she glared, then leapt on me, causing me to lose my balance and fall hard on to the floor. Julie started to punch me in my sore shoulder, and around my ribs and the like.

"Talk?" She screamed, enraged. Her flames licked my face, my mind, my conscience and suddenly I could only focus on the rage. The hate. Before she had a chance to blink, I threw her off of me and into a nearby wall.

Growling, I climbed to my legs, wiping the thin line of blood from my lips as I snarled at her. Julie moaned as she recovered, attempting to find some comfortable spot in order for her to nurse herself back to semi-decent fighting health.

"Blyt!" Cyclops yelled from the open door. Hmm, didn't see him standing there. I guessed our time was up in the Danger Room. He came thundering over to me. "What is the meaning of this? First I hear that you have released her from her cuffs and now I find the two of you in some elementary slap fight?" He looked angry.

Julie's flames have a habit of lingering.

"Did Professor find my Grandmother?" I asked, unconcerned by the amount of painful noises that were coming from the lump of pale flesh behind me.

"No." He crossed his arms. "But you haven't answered-Blyt! Get back here!"

I had been lectured all day about beating up on Julie, no matter how often I tried to tell them that she started it by pushing me to the ground and then punching me mercilessly. Of course they said I should have been the mature one. What that meant I couldn't even start to guess. What? Was I supposed to lie there and let her beat the living (and dead) snot out of me for the sheer enjoyment of knowing I was the mature one?

Like heck.

So anyway, then, once the preliminaries were finished, came the semi-finals. It was with Jack. We got into a fight because of my lack of wanting to 'discuss' things. It just spiraled downwards from irritating to petty with our remarks. Drudging up the past and throwing it in each other's faces.

After that, then came the grand finale. Stupid me went to Scott and Jean for a hopeful escape only to find out that they had gotten a hold of my latest report card and were appalled by the less than sterling grades. When I brought up the point that if they would stop pulling me out of school to chase phantom cheese men and Las Vegas card sharks I would probably do better-well, let's say Mr. Bishop would probably have lost his lunch at the messy happenings.

"Your grades are the most important things right now," Scott, Dad, argued in the calm way only he could.

"Then stop making me run around like a demented chicken and let me go to school!" I yelled back. I was sick of being fought with (aka I was in a bad mode) and had to vent somehow. "It's not like I asked you to make me some spandex wearing freak!"

He gritted his teeth and leaned in for leverage.

"Would you rather have been wondering the streets without anyone to depend on?"

"It's better than being stuck here with you." I fought back the tears stinging at the corners of my eyes. "You're ruining my life!" I screamed at him in a fit. Jean was silent, watching as we bashed each other.

"We're the reason you still have one," Scott replied in a low tone. His words were chiseled out in stone. I shook, I was so mad. Without another word, I turned on my heels and stormed out the door.

That was three hours ago.

Back in my room, and searching frantically throughout all my files of Grandma, I jumped a bit when my phone rang. Picking it up, I wanted to snip off some sly remark but refrained. I was having people problems today; I didn't need a telemarketer telling me off as well.

"Yeah?" Less than eloquent, but come on, it was me.

"Look in Vireshame," and then a dial tone.

My brain tried to point out where I had heard that voice before, but I couldn't for the life of me come up with a name. It was so quick that I had to repeat the phone conversation in my head—if four words collectively counted as a conversation.

I hung up the phone. Staring at it like it was going to come to life and eat me and then typed in the word the 'voice' told me to look toward. I felt slightly James Bondish with freak hints and telephone calls. When I found 'Vireshame' it screamed my Grandma's type of place. It was a suburb of a large city about a half a day's ride from Westchester. There was a hospital named 'St. Mary's.' After getting the phone number, I called and asked for Mrs. D'mon and they said she wasn't able to answer the phone.

Yes!

At least I knew where she was!

It took me all of five minutes to pack a bag of things, but I realized I had one problem. If I didn't want everyone to find me two seconds after I left, I had to get cash. Cash was something that never stayed with me very long.

Thinking it over, I went to my next door neighbor. I would have gone to Jack, but I was still less than talking to him. I wasn't even looking at him today.

Chris wasn't asleep. I didn't think he ever slept (except for at school, when he used to go). He answered the door, his eyes were blood shot (from lack of sleep) and his hair was in a state of disarray as if it was trying to get as far away from his scalp as possible(from lack of hygiene?).

"What?"

"I need money." His eyebrows shot so high I was sure the ceiling plaster was going to come crumbling on his head.

"You and fifty million other people. What's your point?" After slipping by him into his little pit of chaos (his room) I started to lie but he stopped me by saying just what a horrible liar I was.

"I can't help it I'm too innocent to be swayed to the dark side."

Chris snorted, "Right, that's why your wings are black. Oh holy one."

I felt my brain bite at my sense, calmly trying to tell me that I was practically flirting with my frienemy.

"So I'm a unique kind of innocence." He rolled his eyes and sat back down in front of his computer. "But I do need money."

"I'm not supporting your habits." Chris retorted lamely. "Go to your precious boyfriend, Kerry." Oh, yeah that was warm and cheery.

"Come on, Chris." Begging, I was begging now. "He's asleep and I don't want to wake him." I was not going to give him the satisfaction of knowing Jack and I were in a miff. "But I really, really need just, I dunno, forty bucks or something."

"And what makes you think I have any money?"

"Well, I figured because you hardly left your room, didn't have a girlfriend, or a sense of cleanliness that you would have a bank in here."

He swiveled around and glared. "And you think I'm going to give you anything after saying something like that?"

Dummy! Dumb, dumb girl. Okay, begging wasn't working. Maybe flattery would?

"But you are such a kind and forgiving person. You know that I'm not as eloquent with words as some and you have such a generous heart-"

He picked up his wallet, fished a few bills out of it, and stuffed it into my hands.

"Get out of here before I get physically ill and psychologically scarred."

On impulse, I squealed and leapt at him, hugging him.

Chris' face was pure shock, and then burned a bright red. Saying a quick good-bye, I left a speechless Sparky.

"Do you know the man in the mask?" This old drunk guy asked, pointing to a picture in his wrinkled newspaper. I smiled weakly and went back to ignoring him.

This was the punishment I got for riding a Greyhound bus at five in the morning.

I wasn't running away. Though, trust me, the thought was oh so tempting. I would more or less call it a day trip that would possibly last for a week. After all, no one knew where I went. Hopefully they wouldn't get too mad-oh wait, they were already furious. Darn. Oh well. Guess that took care of that. Heh. Anyway.

I just had to know if Arty was okay or not. I supposed I could have asked someone to drive me to see her, but come on, eight hours in the same car with the people who were looking at me like I belonged on the menu of KFC at the moment? You know, like they wanted to tear me apart. Yeah, right.

I'd rather be stuck on a bus with a drunk that smelled of onions and oranges for eight hours. Oh wait, I was. Guess I had that covered as well. How was I so lucky?

After getting off the bus the first thing I did was find a bathroom that had been cleaned within the last ten years. The town was small and reminded me of Mayberry. There were these kids laughing and peddling bikes down the street. The teenagers seemed to be springy and in need of a chill pill. I mean really, who got all frantic about a guy with long white hair on an anime magazine cover?

I got directions from the lady at one of the cafes to the hospital and I set out to find it.

By the time I got to the glass doors of St. Mary's I was frantic (sleep deprived minds often go nuts and do crazy things like worry). The nurse gave me this look, like I had sucked all the hair off of her patients and was now wearing it under my nose.

"Do you know where Arty D'mon's room is?" I asked quietly, finding my worry and anxiety catching up with me. They (X-people) had to know I wasn't there by now. What would I say to my grandmother? What would I tell Scott and Jean?

"You're the reason you still have one." I screwed my eyes shut, trying to block out that line. The nurse must have thought I was really upset about my grandmother and had enough sympathy on me to take me to Arty.

I couldn't move past the doorway. Never in my life did I ever remember grandma looking so—so white, so lifeless. Tears wouldn't listen to reason as they fell. Somehow I thought it was a joke when Darcy called me telling me that Arty had suffered from a heart attack. But here she was, the vixen I called my Grandma-not smiling, not moving, and breathing through a tube.

My knees wouldn't stand for shaking so much and I met the floor. Tears overflowing and my whole body trembling like a leaf. The nurse, who was long gone, said she had to do something. My mind throbbed with pain as I inched my way to the lone chair, and forced myself to crawl into it.

Edging closer to her bed, I gingerly reached for her fingernail-polished fingers, bowed my head and concentrated on trying to remember how to breathe.

I don't know when, but someone came in and started talking, making me jump slightly. Puffy red eyes turned to the man. The police?

"Hi, miss. I'm Officer Mark Schwalem." I went to tell him my name, but my voice broke and he just nodded. "You a relative?"

I nodded my head slowly; my heart was tearing itself up inside.

"Granddaughter?"

Again, I nodded.

"Thought so." I sighed inwardly; I just wanted to be alone with my grandmother. "Maybe you can answer a few questions? It's important to the case."

"Ca-se?" I cracked out. "W-what case?"

He seemed dumbfounded. "Didn't anyone tell you?" I was here wasn't I? "She was stabbed in what we believe was a mugging gone wrong in the local park."

My throat constricted so tightly that I began to see black blobs in my vision. "S-s-tabbed?" New tears ran down my face, and splashed on my lap. The shaking got worse; my heart had ruptured a while ago and was now useless jelly in my gut.

This was just like when Dad-

"I'm sorry to be the one to tell you this. What we—have been able to put together was that she was walking home from a bar, the Hopper, when she cut through the park. Witnesses say that she was attacked in the dark. There is no accurate description of the person. Do you know anyone who would want to hurt your Grandmother?"

I gave him a blank stare. Why was he pumping me for information given the state I was in? "I-I don't talk to her much." Now. "I live in New York." Go. "Not here." Away.

What he said I wasn't sure, but he shut the door behind him. The eerie glow from the machines pumping life into my Grandma illuminated the room. There was a couch on the other side of the room, one of those small uncomfortable things but it's amazing how little importance comfort was at this moment.

Curling up on the old, worn cushions I cried myself to sleep.

"Kerry?" A voice was trying to kill my darkness, and taking away the numbness of my pain. "Come on, wake up." I knew that voice, it was friendly and familiar. "Please?" A voice I missed.

"Darcy?" I asked, blinking away the blessed sleep and trying to push away the heartache that thudded in my chest as soon as my memory recollected itself. Instead of doing the 'rational thing' and calmly asking her to explain several hundred things, I sprung up. On my feet I grabbed her arms and forced my, thankfully, still shorter little sister and forced out through gritted teeth. "Why didn't you tell me she was attacked?"

My sister's eyes were wet with tears, she tried to choke out an answer but her sobs were preventing from any words. She bowed her head and cried harder. My tears were starting form as well but I suppressed them. Drawing her closer to me, in a loose hug, I held her as she cried. My eyes were dry for the time being. I couldn't cry, I had to be the strong one.

I always had to be the strong one.

Clenching my eyes shut, I fought off the resentment at this thought. It was who I was. No matter what I felt, the others had to come first. It would be the death of me, trying to always protect the others from the world.

My wings reacted without my knowledge as they too wrapped around the both of us, trying to shut out the world and make a nice, safe cocoon of black.

"It's okay," I whispered to my sister as she wept. Deep in my gut I knew it wasn't, but she didn't need any more pain.

The heart monitor continued to bleep in the back ground.

Two hours later, around ten at night on Thursday, Darcy managed to tell me the whole story. Apparently Heather hadn't given her all the details, only that Grandma was in the hospital and she wasn't doing too well. My sister automatically thought it had to be a heart attack, thus the reason she had said as much to me.

Normally this town was quiet, and had nothing going on. Apparently, this was where Heather moved them after Washington. Why on earth would she move closer to where I knew I was? I thought she'd move to China or something to get away from me.

"Mom's been acting really, really weird lately," Darcy whispered, "I think it's 'cause Grandma doesn't like her very much." Like she ever did. I glanced at the unmoving woman in the bed and gave a sad smile. Arty was very honest with her opinions. When she was mad, she screamed. When she was sad, she'd cry, and eat enormous amounts of chocolate (oh you knew I had to get it from someone).

"Maybe." Then I checked the clock, ten thirty. "What are you doing out by yourself anyways?"

"Anyway." She corrected. Sheesh, even in the middle of a crisis, I was being given grammar lessons. I would have made a face if my heart hadn't slumped even further in my stomach. "Mom works nights at a restaurant downtown."

"She's not cutting hair anymore?"

Darcy went stiff. "She said something happened at the last convention she went to. She saw a bird girl and thought that the hair cutting business was no longer safe."

Anger sent a jolt through my heart, causing it (and my stomach) to growl.

My misbehaving body got a small laugh out of the girl.

"Guess you're hungry." I guessed I was. I didn't know anymore. I just felt like a puppet, I was getting my strings pulled but there was no heart in my motions.

"Yeah."

"You can come home with me and get something to eat." My fear factor kicked into high drive as a flashing red light danced around frantically screaming. 'Home'? Where Heather could be? My sister's eyes were large and doing that 'puppy-dog' thing. She really must have wanted me to see the house.

"I-I don't think it would be smart." It was the truth; I thought Heather had a restraining order on me.

"Please? I have to go home to get my homework and I don't want to be alone on the streets. Not after-" Her eyes flickered toward the bed. I knew what she meant. After Dad died, I didn't want to go near the woods or any type of truck. "And mom won't be there, I promise! She works from nine to four."

Sucking in a deep breath, I tried to think of something to say. I guessed this simple request wouldn't hurt. Just this one time.

"Okay, lead the way." Darcy smiled like the young teenager she was. I put my hands on my hips and smirked. "Your big sister will protect you!" She laughed at my odd 'hero' pose and I felt a small smile trace my lips.

Famous last words.