'Miss Lucere?' a strange voice asked. 'Miss Lucere, are you awake?'
Crystal was instantly awake and sat bolt upright. She looked at her watch and the dial read 3am.
'What is it?' she asked in a hurried manner. Now Warren and his mother were awake also and looking concernedly at Crystal.
The doctor paused. 'I'm so sorry Crystal. Your mother didn't make it,' he said gravely.
She sat in the chair, shocked. 'What…how…why is she dead?' she finally stuttered out.
'Although the wound at first seemed superficial, on further investigation it appeared there was a large shard of glass embedded in your mother's brain. It caused the brain to bleed out and consequently… I'm so sorry Crystal.' After a moment he added, 'You can see her if you'd like.'
She nodded mutely but when Warren stood up to go with her she motioned him back.
'No,' she said quietly. 'This is something I need to do alone.'
He sat back down and watched a sad and lonely girl walk slowly with a doctor down the hallway to say goodbye to her mother.
She tentatively pushed open the double doors and walked over to the bed on which her mother lay.
'Why are there so many tubes still attached?' she asked in voice barely audible.
'Your mother's death is suspicious. They need to be left in for a coroner to see. I'll leave you alone now.'
Crystal nodded wordlessly and pulled up a stool to the side of her mother's bed. She looked so peaceful lying there, her eyes closed and her face clean of the blood that had covered Crystal's lap. She held her mother's hand and looked down on the sleeping face as tears welled up in her eyes and spilled over onto her cheeks.
'Mom, mommy come back. Wake up mommy I need you, you can't leave me like this, no! It isn't fair; you can't die on me now. Why have you gone away? I can't survive without you. Who's going to look after me? Come back, you can't go, you just can't.'
She collapsed under the sobs racking her whole body. She held her mother's hand and rested her head on her chest as her own chest heaved up and down with the strain. She couldn't breathe, she felt as though she were dying. Wave after wave of grief washed over her until she wore herself out and simply lay there sobbing.
After some time, Warren, who had been watching from the door, came in and gently led her away. He wrapped his arm around her shoulders and, with his mother in tow, slowly took her out of the hospital to which she would never be able to return. He placed her in the back seat of his mom's car and sat next to her, cradling her gently in his arms while his mom drove them back to his house.
Once there he led her up to their guest bedroom where she lay on the bed, limp and overwrought. He brought her all the tissues in the house and silently closed the door on a girl he barely knew but felt as though the bond they'd formed this night would never be broken.
He finally got to his own bed and crawled under the covers. It was 5am he noted and guessed neither of them would be attending school the next day.
He finally woke up again around lunchtime and after a shower and a change of clothes wandered downstairs to find his mom sitting at the breakfast bar reading the papers. From the looks of it, she hadn't been up for very long either.
'Hey,' he said as he wandered over to the fridge.
'Hi,' she replied back sipping on black coffee. 'Did you sleep well?'
'Not bad. How's Crystal? Have you heard from her?'
'Nothing. I was thinking about maybe taking her something to eat in a bit.'
'I'll go if you want. I can make eggs,' he offered.
She smiled at him. 'You're a good boy Warren Peace and don't let anyone ever tell you you're not. You've got such a big heart, looking after this girl. And yes, I think eggs would be good. Make me some too?'
'Sure,' he smiled back and in no time he was carrying a tray of scrambled eggs on toast up to Crystal's room.
'Crystal?' he said softly outside the door. When he heard no reply he set the eggs down outside the door and crept in.
She was sat in the armchair that overlooked the garden surrounded by tissues. He went round to her and she simply stared past him.
'Crystal?'
Her eyes seemed to regain some focus as they slid over to him.
'I brought you something to eat. Do you want it?'
She shook her head, wincing slightly at the pain that caused.
'Would you like some water then?'
She nodded and gingerly accepted the glass he held out to her. She drank it down quickly; obviously dehydrated from all the tears she'd shed throughout the night. He refilled the glass and left the bottle on the windowsill.
'I'll come back up later to see if you want anything then.'
She nodded again and went back to staring out of the window clutching the glass in one hand and a tissue in the other.
When he came back downstairs with the tray full of food his mother smiled sympathetically at him.
'She didn't want it then? Don't worry. She'll eat eventually. We just have to be there for her.'
'She looked so terrible. Her face was so pale and her eyes were glazed over. She looked like a robot. Nothing like she was at work.'
'That's what grief does to you Warren. When your father –.' She stopped. She had never spoken about Baron Battle since he got put in jail when Warren was only four. But perhaps now was the right time to talk about it.
'When he was sent away you had to go and stay with your aunt because I couldn't cope. I was exactly like Crystal is now. It was as though he'd died because to me he had. He'd become a totally different person. He was no longer the man I had fallen in love with.'
Warren sat, silently, at his mother's side as she told him the repercussions of his father's defection to villainhood.
Upstairs, Crystal could hear their voices but not loud enough to discern words. She was sat in the armchair from which she hadn't moved since about dawn – whenever that had been.
She hadn't slept since she'd crashed out on Warren's shoulder before… She shuddered remembering it and a single tear rolled down her cheek. She didn't think she could cry any more. It was as though the initial shock had begun to wear off and now she had reached some stage of tranquillity before the difficult part of getting back together would begin. But she couldn't think about that right now. Of course, the grief still struck her and rolled over her in waves making her heart ache dreadfully – sometimes so much so she wasn't sure if she would survive – but she found comfort in knowing that there were people who were looking after her – Warren, his mother and the people at the NVTS.
She leant her head against the side of the chair and pulled the blanket around herself tightly. Slowly she closed her eyes and slipped into unconsciousness.
She woke up in her own bed and heard her mother calling her down to breakfast. She padded downstairs and sat at the breakfast bar over chocolate croissants and orange juice. She talked with her mother about school, work and where they'd go on holiday that year. Suddenly she realised the colour was fading from her mother's face and the world around her turned grey and she was in the operating theatre once more. Her mother lay on the bed they'd placed her on.
No, not again, Crystal pleaded silently.
She reached out to her mother but gradually she was slipping away and no matter how quickly she ran her mother's image disappeared even faster.
'Mom! Mom! Mommy, come back! Don't leave me again!'
'Crystal! Crystal, wake up!'
She awoke with a start, grasping for her mother until she realised where she was and what had happened. The aching in her heart intensified. She had been so sure her mother had been alive, just there, palpable.
But when she realised the truth her face crumpled and once more the tears flowed freely from her red-rimmed eyes. She wasn't aware there was even another person in the room until she felt another tissue being pressed into her hand.
'Crystal? Are you alright?' asked Warren concernedly. She'd been thrashing around and calling out for her mother. He'd heard her downstairs.
'I dreamt…that my mom was still alive. We were having breakfast at home but then we were back at the hospital and she just…disappeared, floating away from me,' she managed to say between sobs.
She scrubbed at her eyes with the tissue she'd been handed.
'Um, there's something I have to tell you that I know you won't want to hear, but it's something that has to be done. The cops are here and they want to talk to you about what happened. They know about the whole superhero thing and they already spoke to my mom and me. They just need to talk to you now. Do you think you can manage it?'
His eyes were full of worry for this fragile girl sat in front of him. It was so much to have to go through. And then to talk to strangers about it? He searched her face for an answer.
She nodded, 'I'll be down in a minute.'
Warren rejoined his mom and the cops in his sitting room.
'She says she'll be down in a minute.'
Just then, Crystal shuffled into the room. Her hair was pulled back from her head and her face was so pale. She held the blanket around her with one hand and in the other carried several tissues.
'Mis Lucere?' asked one of the officers. 'I'm Inspector Davidson and this is my partner Detective Morris. We are so sorry for your loss but we need to take your statement so we can start the investigation. We have been informed of your… situation by the NVTS so please don't feel as though you have to hide anything. Are you ok to begin?' he asked.
She nodded. She just wanted to get this over with as soon as possible.
'We're going to have to ask you to step outside though Warren. Miss Lucere needs an adult present and your mother agreed to be that adult. She has also offered her services as your lawyer Crystal, unless you want to find one yourself.'
'No, that's fine thank you,' she replied.
So Warren went and sat in his kitchen until the interview was over. Mrs. Peace came into the kitchen afterwards and told Warren she was going to pick some things up for Crystal and would he look after her until she got back. She was sitting in the den.
Warren wandered in and sat next to Crystal on the squashy sofa facing the television and the garden.
'How did it go?' he asked.
'They just asked about what happened from beginning to end. From when I stepped inside the house until now. I had to talk about it again and again but your mom was really nice and stopped them when they started to make me upset. I really can't say how much this means to me you know,' she said, looking up at him. 'I know we don't exactly know each other, well not at all, but I feel like I've known you forever. Does that sound weird?'
'No. No, I know exactly what you mean,' he said softly. 'What about your friends? Won't they be worried about you?'
'I can't face talking to them right now. I hope they're not too worried. Principal Powers might have said something to them. But they don't know I'm here, do they?'
'I don't think so,' he replied.
Suddenly her stomach growled.
'Are you finally hungry?' he asked.
'I guess so. It's been ages since I last ate.'
'Come to the kitchen and I'll fix you whatever you want. I'm not a bad chef you know.'
She smiled and thought about what she'd like to eat before finally deciding on fries and sausages. Warren fixed enough for the two of them and they sat in the den, quietly eating until his mom came home with some new clothes for Crystal.
When she saw the two of them sitting together she smiled. Warren had never really had any friends before and she was beginning to doubt he was able to do so. But this whole situation had shown her that her son really was good at heart. She left them to their meal and watching old cartoons as the sky turned to dusk and then night.