Lucky Me

Chapter 91


"Softly and tenderly, Jesus is calling."

I couldn't move or breathe, but I could think. Hazily. I could hear though, the soft, broken sobbed out song of my sister as she rocked me back and forth in her lap. She held my neck and head as securely and gingerly as possible.

She thought it was going to be safe.

Safe, what a joke. Just like my life, just like this situation.

Like an idiot I walked into this home.

My eyes opened, watery and wearily. I could see blobs of color in the darkened room. The blood was everywhere, being soaked up into everything. Wasn't it funny how blood looked black in the moonlight?

"Calling for you and for me."

We had been so carefree. So happy. Darcy and I were walking through this tiny town she now called home. It was nice, sorta like Salem Center but without the spandex.

When we got to the house, she smiled up at me and said that everything would be fine. I guessed she could read my uneasiness.

I had every right to be ill at ease. She talked me into turning off my image inducer because my wings were just 'oh so cool' once we were in the safety of the house.

The house was empty, like Darcy promised. She showed me around the two-story home. Cheerfully Darcy pointed out every oddball thing. Her room dripped with young girl motifs and stereotypes.

After we ate, I had a bad premonition. A horrible gut feeling. I wanted to get back to Arty. She was the reason I left Xavier's in the first place. It wasn't for pizza and coke with my sister.

Some last meal.

I could hear Darcy scream my name in a broken way as she shook my shoulders lightly.

I wondered if becoming numb to the pain in my back was a bad thing.

We never saw it coming. My sister had been checking the answering machine located in the living room when I felt the butcher knife lunge into my right wing.

So much pain and shock, I could only turn around and stare in horror.

"See, on the portals he's waiting and watching."

Was this how dad felt? So betrayed, so shocked, and disbelieving yet so relieved?

Darcy hadn't been hurt I think. As soon as realization hit me of what was sorta going on, I realized, too, Darcy's predicament. Here I was, wings showing and one of them bleeding badly and Darcy was in the corner screaming her head off. Stumbling backwards, away from my crazed eye attacker, my fear was for the both of us.

I don't think she knew what she was doing.

The butcher knife in hand, tears in her eyes, and an expressionless mask on her face.

When she lunged, I threw myself on top of Darcy. So much screaming…so much blood….pain….and all I could do was shelter our bodies with my wings.

The knife came down again, and again, and again.

I screamed out, tears poured from my eyes, and the only word I managed for a long time was 'stop' but she wasn't listening to me.

I should have never gone back there. I should have stayed with Arty. I should have fought back.

I should have seen it coming.

"Watching for you and for me."

Darcy was trembling. I wanted to tell her it's okay, that she didn't do anything wrong. I was still trying to protect her even when I was barely hanging on to the conscious world.

I was the strong one.

The stubborn one.

The outcast.

I…was the mutant.

"Why'd you come back!" she screamed as she hacked away at my back. Darcy was pleading; I was quickly being overcome by a shock-induced numbing, darkness. So much agony laced through my wings that they began to move erratically as she severed nerves and muscles.

The knife was sitting beside us now, where she dropped it.

Only too late did I reach her. Only too late did I realize I was going to die…

"Come home, come home."

I could hear Scott's voice reprimanding me for being so dumb as to venture to this place alone. For not telling anyone where I was going. That's when I knew, sadly, there was probably little hope for me to make it out of this one.

I had been shot before and survived.

I have been slammed into trees and survived.

I have been forced to eat Mr. Remy's 'pure Cajun cookin'' before and wanted to rip my tongue out but always survived.

But that's because I always had someone there for me that could do something. Now the only person here was Darcy.

Darcy who couldn't do anything but cry and sing as she watched, helplessly, as her big sister slowly shook hands with death.

"Ye who are weary, come home."

I wondered if…if they will ever know what I'd done and what I hadn't.

I wonder if Scott and Jean took me seriously when I told them I'd be better off without them. It wasn't true, but now they'd never have a chance to know that I was just mad.

Allowing my head to loll to the side, because it hurt too much to keep it turned toward Darcy, I blinked wearily. The blood was covering my eyes and starting to cake them shut.

Why didn't she just aim for my heart? Why did she always make me suffer?

Dad, did you feel like this?

So thankful you could save me but so sad because you knew the cost?

Was this what sacrifice was? Excruciating pain with happiness?

I closed my eyes now, not forever, just a little while. Everything was so dim anyway that I really didn't need to see my feathers or the knife or Darcy's knees.

The only thing that got her to stop trying to kill me was my plea of, "Mama! Please!"

"Earnestly, tenderly, Jesus is calling."

Heather had known, I didn't know how, but she did. She knew I was at the house. She must have come back early and gone through the kitchen. I couldn't believe my little sister would ever be capable of such vicious deceit.

No, Heather knew some other way.

She snuck up behind me and raised that damned butchering knife and plunged it deep into my wing. Over and over, her eyes were crazed as she kept screaming about having to kill the black bird.

It wasn't my choice. I knew you never approved but it wasn't something I could control. She wouldn't listen to her daughters' terrified shrieks of agony and horror.

She just kept going, up and down, up, down, up down.

Bone cracking, bits of flesh dropping all around us and so…much…blood….

"Calling, O sinner, come home."

It was my fault.

It was always my fault.

I felt throbs of pain that matched my heart beat wrack my body.

Couldn't she have just killed me?

Wouldn't that have been easier than letting me die in Darcy's arms?

Kinder than forcing my sister to be as emotionally scarred as I was?

Didn't she realize what she had done?

Sometime after my final plea of 'mama stop', Heather dropped the knife.

It was like she had just woken up from a dream. My nightmare. She gasped and started to cry trying comfort and help us both.

Darcy picked up the fallen knife, and threw it at her.

My little sister was confused. Heather cried out in shock, but not in pain. And then the sounds of her running, the door opening and then we were alone.

I was so sorry, Darcy.

"O for the wonderful love he has promised."

She still needed me but for once, there was nothing that I could do to comfort her. I couldn't do anything to comfort them either when they realized what happened. Maybe they wouldn't know.

Maybe Darcy would run away from this house once I was—asleep. Maybe she could run away and find a place of sense and peace where maniacs didn't kill people.

Someplace like the Professor always believed there could be. Humans and mutants in peace. But how? How can that be when the two different species couldn't' even get along in the same family? Where the hatred was constantly taking the numbers of the family members down?

Dad and me.

Half the family.

Half of my sister's world gone within a wink.

Dad…Scott…I never meant what I had said.

Jean…I knew you only wanted the best.

Jack….I should have told you….

Chris, Daisy-Mae, and all the others….why…why couldn't I just talk to them again?

Maybe I wouldn't be so dumb and take them for granted.

"Promised for you and for me."

Darcy, I could barely hear you talking. I could hear you singing, but not talking. What were you saying?

You didn't need to apologize for this. Yeah, I wished it didn't happen. I wished I had told someone where I was going. I wished I hadn't been so mad at everyone as to not consider them.

You didn't need to cry.

Dumb choices don't deserve tears.

I wouldn't have you involved in this, sis.

But I said I would protect you.

I just wished I could be around to see you through this aftermath.

But I didn't think I'd be around to see...

I was so sorry I couldn't protect you from that.

"Though we have sinned, he has mercy and pardon."

I was not outspoken with emotions…but I just wanted you to know that I-I love you, Darcy.

Even in my thoughts it's hard to admit.

Hard to come to terms with.

I wished I could laugh, I really did.

To think, it's easier for me to accept that I was dying than to acknowledge that I love someone.

Even the one I'd given my life for.

"Pardon for you and for me."

I never said it to Jack, in any respect.

Never said it to my new parents.

Hardly said it to my birth parents, but given the current situation, I was glad I didn't say it too often to Heather. Though, I was angered at myself, because this thought saddened me. I guessed somewhere in the darkest corner of my heart I always hoped she would realize what a mistake she made in leaving me.

Guess I was wrong.

Guess….she really….hated me….

"Come home, come home."

Thinking…on it …I could have fought Heather off. But I still saw her as the woman who raised me for sixteen years. The woman who kissed away my hurts and took care of me when I was sick.

I couldn't bring myself to hurt her even though she was quite literally killing me.

How can you hurt someone you love so much? So intentionally? Maybe I'd ask her when I meet up with her again.

Dad and Mom….Scott and Jean… why couldn't you help me now?

"Ye who are weary, come home."

I did love them. I still do.

Don't worry about me. I was one less person to be concerned about.

You wouldn't miss me too much I hope.

Did you love me?

My throat— it's clogging.

"Earnestly, tenderly, Jesus is calling."

I love you all.

Scott, I didn't know I said it to you when you rescued me, but I do love you. You were, my new father. I know Daddy would have accepted this because he couldn't be there for me the way you could.

Jean…you irritated me with constantly being in my life, but you loved me. I thought you did. Why else would you have put up with me? I love you all…

"Calling, O sinner, come home."

I let a smile cross my lips, probably weak, but it was there.

How right had dad been when he said that without them, I wouldn't have a life.

"Calling, O sinner, come ho- K-Kerry? Kerry!"