Step 2.7
Darkness enveloped around me, save for the glow of flames in the distance. Another roar echoed through the air, followed by another crack, and…squealing. Guess that plan to force the Merchants back before the capes started fighting didn't work out.
The officers shifted nervously around me. The sounds of fighting came closer and closer. The light of the flames grew in intensity and the city is on fire. Of course, the city is on fire. Why wouldn't it be?
A dragon was fighting a tank.
Only in Brockton Bay.
"StarGazer?"
No response. The light on my visor said green though. An open line but nothing went through. Obviously, my HUD still worked on some level, which surprised me. I glanced at the Haros. Hard to see them in the dark, but they were moving.
So Squealer's tank doesn't shut off everything.
I checked my phone and, sure enough, it worked. Well, it turned on. I got a "call failed" notice when dialing the house phone. Not just my connection to Veda. Nearby, an officer tried to use his radio. The only response was static.
Direct current went unaffected? No. The bus driver kept trying to turn the engine only to get a sputter. So it wasn't that simple. Something else, disrupting transmission mediums at an atomic or particle level maybe. No, not that. My power supplied me with the means of doing it myself in the form of a jammer.
That explains it.
GN Particles messed with electronics. Not to the degree that they shut everything off, but the particles disrupted wireless signals and electronic transmission. I started shielding my tech from the effect before I even built the furnace in preparation.
The next roar sounded closer than the last.
"It's coming this way," someone whispered.
I turned. "Pink."
The ball left of the one I looked at flapped its ears. Hard to tell color in the dark.
Night vision needs to go into my visor.
"Red. Sorry. Go back to the garage. Tell StarGazer I'm okay. There are fires in the Docks."
The Haro chirped and rolled away.
I spun on my heel and waved my hands in the air. "Get everyone off the bus! We have to get out of the street!"
Inside the bus, the driver kept trying to start the engine while people got out.
"I can't see," a voice said, a woman I think, but old and raspy.
"Haro!"
I handed my phone to one of them, and he held it up over his head.
"Follow Haro," I said. "He'll guide you to the street corner. Then just keep going down the street towards the lights!"
I stepped around the bus to help people out, and promptly fell on my face while some asshole cursed under my leg. I forgot about all the thugs tied up on the ground. They were in the middle of the street; a good two dozen with change. Exactly what I needed to deal with at the moment.
I got back up and started pulling the guy.
"Watch it," he snarled.
"I'm saving your life, dick!" I looked over my shoulder to the other shadows watching. "We need to get the assholes out of the road!"
The officers helped me, and one other guy after he got off the bus. The fighting grew closer and closer. I started to feel the heat, even from a distance. The police officers shouted, using their voices to guide people around the row of thugs we'd arranged on one sidewalk. Haro waved my phone in the air, letting the light guide people safely to the sidewalk.
A PRT van came around the corner to our right, and of course it was on fucking fire too. I helped the bus driver out and ran to the corner right about when it slid to a stop. The truck doors swung open.
The flickering light illuminated the troopers. They looked worse for wear, armor torn and cut. One needed help getting out, his right arm bound up in a makeshift sling.
I walked up to them, asking, "What's going on?"
"Lung and that Tank are fighting," one of them answered.
I already figured that. Not many other explanations for setting the city on fire.
"I meant what's being done about it."
"We're still waiting for the Protectorate. Dauntless and Velocity are the only ones here."
The driver door swung up, and the man stepping out hefted a can in his hands. A mist sprayed from the nozzle, extinguishing the flames around the vehicle and darkening the street again.
"Where are the rest of the heroes?"
"ETA two minutes. Minute thirty for Armsmaster." He flipped on a light. Guess the PRT had tinker-tech batteries too. Why not? "Everyone follow the lights. Keep going west. That way! Mash, get those bangers in the truck and haul them out of here!"
"Sure thing lieutenant."
The troopers ignored me as they moved. The sergeant, a man named Jenkins, began talking to the police officers about directing people out of the area until the fire department was clear to put out the fires.
As for me, I wasn't sure what to do. Nothing on me could hurt a tank. Maybe if I overloaded the battery for my rifle I'd dent the thing, depending on how serious the armor was. Lung I planned for ages ago, but standing on the edge of maybe actually doing something, I started doubting I'd planned enough.
Hello paranoia my old friend.
The crack that shook the air nearly threw me down. Grinding metal and the crushing of stone followed, echoing through the blackened streets.
I saw the man standing on top of it, his costume a bizarre patchwork of blue and yellow. Beneath his feet, a roughly welded frame rolled backwards on four wheels. It looked like a beetle, broad back with two stubby limbs holding up the body while a pair of longer ones supported the front. The turret on the top cracked again, and the tank is coming right at me!
I ran. The bus snapped in half as the contraption slammed through the frame. Metal and fiberglass cracked and splintered like wood, followed by an explosion of flame illuminating the mad cackling figure on top.
"Eat it, dragon shit! You like that?!" He stomped his foot on the vehicle. "Do it again!"
Another set of needles right into my ears, and smoke billowed into the air. The advancing figure's shoulder shot back, a foot crashing into the ground behind him as he retained his balance and continued forward. Unperturbed, the figure on the tank kept laughing.
"This shit rocks!"
I knew Lung's power. Nearly everyone did. He turned into a dragon, it's in the name. Sure as hell I'd never seen Lung's power though.
I stared in disbelief at the huge mass of silver scales. Flame surrounded him, licking off his body and enveloping everything he passed. He bore no mask, I think, just a maw of fangs and burning eyes. Fifteen feet tall, maybe sixteen, with a tail that snapped at the air behind him and fierce claws at every fingertip.
I can't do anything against that.
I pulled myself around the street corner, sitting and watching the massive figure march forward while the tank retreated over a line of cars and fired again. I covered my ears. Even my mask failed to keep that noise down.
Lung threw his arm at the shell. The limb shattered, but he kept marching. A building beside him exploded. Something akin to words escaped his maw between the snarls, but I couldn't make out the words.
Patchwork man just kept laughing. "You think your shit's that hot huh?!"
The figure I assumed to be Skidmark stomped his foot again, shouting "left" and "right" seemingly at random. The tank swerved, crushing cars and smashing the side of a building as it spun around and sped off. Lung picked up his pace, his body slowly accelerating into a massive flaming sprint.
Dauntless' lightning shot from the sky, breaking against the monster's back. Lung responded by waving his hand. A streak of flame shot into the air, and the figure above abruptly stopped and dropped. Squealer's tank kept going. The turret spun back and fired, the shell flying over Lung's head and missing.
I sat on the sidewalk, staring as he passed. One thunderous foot step after the other, and a growl as a pair of limbs started to grow from his back. The flames spread, flowing over the street in Lung's wake. He didn't even look at me, or anything for that matter.
I pushed myself into the wall regardless, hands gripping the Haro I didn't even remember picking up tightly to my chest.
Too big. Too strong. Knocking a fucking tank shell out of the air? The reflexes, the speed…and how quickly he healed. I could see his arm stitching itself back together. My pistol had nothing on that.
Lung grabbed the PRT truck, which fortunately didn't have anyone inside, and threw it like a fucking brick. The vehicle crashed into the street, the tank sliding to the side on its wheels.
Screaming drew my eye. The building smashed by the shell Lung knocked aside. I saw the rooms inside, the entire front half collapsed into a story tall pile of rubble and fire. On the exposed floors, a woman on her hands and knees looked down at the rubble. She screamed almost as loud as that cannon, and beneath her a man was digging through the rubble in his boxers.
My legs shook as I rose. Lung continued on behind me, chasing the tank as it continued to roll back and shoot. The PRT troopers spread out, spraying extinguishers and even containment foam to stop the fires from spreading. No one chased him except for Dauntless.
A hand sticking out from the rubble caught my eye. Dead. Alive. I didn't know. I ran, crossing the street and half the block in a matter of seconds.
"Hey!" I needed to climb to reach him, every hold shaking slightly as my weight fell on it. "Hey. Can you hear me?!"
The hand moved weakly, and I started pulling debris away. The young man grabbed hold of my arm as I freed him, coughing and gagging right up to the point I got him up and away from the building.
"Are you okay?"
He answered with fits of coughing, but between the choking sounds he pointed. I couldn't make out what he said, or even what he was pointing at.
Helping him down to the ground took some doing.
"Stay here. Okay? Just stay here."
The flames on the street died down, over time. A few cars burned and the sides of some buildings, but they didn't seem to catch fire in a way that would hurt anyone. The PRT kept putting them out one by one, another truck pulling up and troopers piling out to help people from the collapsed building.
I started to go to help them when the sound of shattering glass rang in my strained eardrums. Further up the street fire, billowed out of another building. A shower of shards sprayed from a building across the street, and flames poured from a window on the top floor.
One person ran back in, which baffled me until I noticed some screams coming from inside.
Given the two problems, I picked the burning building. It seemed logical. Lots of people were helping with the collapse, digging through rubble and pulling victims free. Not much I could add there but another set of hands.
As soon as I got through the door I pointed. "Search the building! Guide people out!" The Haros spread out, Green and Orange going up the stairs while Red and Purple went down the hall. "Stay here Pink. If anyone wanders by, get their attention. Make sure they're outside or helping people get out."
Smoke billowed through the building, though not as much as I expected. I didn't even see any fire inside at first. My elbow smashed the glass protecting the fire extinguisher. I'd never used one before, but the instructions on the side walked me through the steps.
And it didn't work.
Inspected May 2001. Naturally.
I tossed the extinguisher aside and pulled the fire alarm. That didn't work either.
"Seriously?!" I yanked down on the switch so hard I broke it. Threw the stupid thing to the ground and cursed.
Just keep going.
I started knocking doors down. A saber swing through the hinges and a good shoulder shove did the work. The first two rooms were empty. In a third a family hid in the corner.
"The building's on fire, you need to leave."
The man looked at me angrily. "I don't hear a fire alarm—"
"Do you hear people shouting fire?" I knew he did. Hard for me to hear anything over the ringing and I heard people shouting fire. "The alarm is broken. I tried it already. Get going! It started on the top floor!"
I moved on. Fortunately, the family shuffled out of the room behind me.
In the seventh room a woman cried out. I found her on the kitchen floor.
"I can't get up," she said, voice ragged. Tears streaked down her face. Wrinkles and graying hair, she looked at least sixty. Maybe older.
"I got you," I said.
The building grew hotter by the moment, but still no fires I could see. I got the woman to her feet. She leaned into me as I guided her to the front door and outside. Two police officers were just coming into the building. One took her and helped her down the front steps, while the other went upstairs and started knocking on doors.
The Haros guided a few people out, ringing noises sounding from their balls. The smoke grew thicker and thicker. Only a matter of time I suppose. I cut a door open, only for flames to lick out at me. I stumbled back, the heat choking me as much as the smoke for a second.
The police officer who helped the old woman came back. "We have to go!"
"But—"
"The whole building is going up! We have to go!"
The fire spread into the hall, and I scrambled to my feet and headed toward the door.
"Newtype! Help. Help!"
I stopped, Green pointing one of his robot hands toward the stairs.
The officer shouted again. "We have to go!"
"But—"
"This whole place is going to burn u-Where are you going!?"
The officer called after me as I followed Green up to the third story. It wasn't burning just yet, but the smoke choked me. Covering my mouth didn't help much with breathing but bending over as I walked did. Smoke rises, so the lower I stayed the easier it was to breathe.
The door was open when I got there. The place looked a mess even without the smoke. Pizza boxes here and there, dirty clothes discarded randomly.
"Hello?!"
"Help! Help!"
Green stopped next to a couch. The woman lay motionless, dressed in underwear.
"Hey. You okay?"
She groaned as I shook her.
"There's a fire, we have to go."
She didn't move to get up. She didn't even open her eyes. The answer to my confusion lay on a cushion beside her. Glass shattered in the distance somewhere. I threw the needle aside, wondering who decided this was a great time to get fucking high.
"Come on!"
I tried coaxing her up. She opened her eyes briefly only to swat at me like some annoying thing. She didn't make any move to help herself, even as coughing fits started.
I dragged the woman from the couch. Even after weeks of exercising and building up muscle I struggled to lift her. Tall I may be, but skinny as well. Hefting another human being and dragging her along beside me was hard. The weight of her constantly leaned in and away from me, threatening to pull me to the ground.
And that was just getting to the door of her apartment. Fire crept toward me from the far side of the hallway. The heat was blistering. My costume might stop bullets, but breathe well it did not. I felt myself cooking inside every step of the way to the stairs.
The woman started making more whining noises as I pulled her along. "Le'go," she grumbled. Her hand batted at me. I ignored it, eyes focused forward. Needed to keep moving, get out before the building collapsed or the fires consumed me.
Damn junkie wasn't helping.
She fidgeted more and more, forcing me to take a knee and shout at her to stop. That worked, one lazy eye watching me as I got back up and started down the stairs. She started again halfway down, saying, "Dun wanna go." She tried to pull away from me, nearly throwing us both over the railing to the floor below.
"Hey! Stop!"
She tried to walk, her foot swinging forward and missing the step. The weight of her body fell fully on me. My ankle twisted and we both went tumbling down the stairs.
Wood creaked and groaned as we hit the floor. I covered my head as a wave of plaster fell from the ceiling. The dust choked the air, and I frantically pushed the larger burning chunks off my body. My injured shoulder cried out in pain, eliciting a hiss from my lips.
The heat made everything hurt more.
My stomach, ears, shoulder. Even the fatigue I felt after running and getting into two fights felt overwhelming. Wood creaked and groaned as we hit the floor. I covered my head as a wave of plaster fell on top of me. The dust choked the air, and I frantically pushed the larger burning chunks off my body.
Green rolled his ball into my side. "Get up! Up!"
Coughing fits took me as I pushed myself forward. Sweat fell from my face. The heat choked me, and the smoke nearly blinded me. I barely saw the way to the stairs. Starting out on hands and knees, I got close enough to reach for the railing. I grabbed for the banister only to recoil as the heat singed right through my glove.
"Fuck!"
My palm throbbed even as I pressed it to my side and squeezed. Ragged breaths accompanied the pain, I kept crawling forward. Third floor. I went down one set of stairs, just one more to go.
"Help! Help!"
I stopped myself and turned back. The woman still lay on the floor, her arms and legs squirming as she grumbled.
"Help! Help!"
Green flapped his ears while I stood staring, repeating himself over and over again. It bugged me. Why should I be in this building, surrounded by fire, saving someone who decided to get high. Probably bought those drugs from the Merchants in the first place. Why should I…And it all goes back to that in the end.
The little girl crying in a locker.
I crawled back toward her.
I pulled her by the armpits to the next flight of stairs, fire licking at my body. I barely managed to breathe through the smoke, but I hoisted her up onto my back, feet dragging behind me as I rushed down the steps. Her weight helped on the way down. It pushed me forward, my feet frantically taking the steps to keep up until I hit the floor at the bottom again.
I pushed with my legs to get to the door, and once there Pink and Green started making noise. The dead weight lifted from my back, and hands grabbed my arms to pull me from the heat. Clean air burned my throat going down. Both lungs recoiled, hacking up the taste of ash and bile until a mask pressed against my lips. I shot back, but a hand took my head and held it in place.
"Breathe," a voice said. "Slow deep breaths."
The woman lay on the ground beside me, two EMT's checking her over.
"No OD," one said. "She's just wasted. Light burns on the extremities. Nothing too serious."
"Low priority," the other said. He tied a blue band around her arm and they lifted her to a stretcher.
"You alright?"
I turned my gaze to the man holding the mask over my mouth. Young, handsome even, with wavy brown hair. I nodded to him, but he kept the mask in place while I breathed.
Ambulances and firetrucks lined the street. Hoses sprayed volleys of water on buildings, even the ones not on fire. PRT troopers and police directed people out of the area, entire sections of street given over to emergency vehicles and crowds of injured.
After a few minutes the mask left my mouth and the guy asked if I was alright. I nodded, and I quickly got up.
"I have to keep going."
I nodded once more, slowly rising to my feet. I barely felt my legs. They carried me forward anyway. Not everyone left the area. Some people seemed too shocked or occupied with other people to move. A family of four watched an apartment building burn, not the one I was in. I saw the young man from earlier. He sat with an older woman.
A bunch of people with "volunteer" armbands were piling out of vans and trucks. They carried bags and blankets, handing them out to anyone waiting or loitering about. A younger man in a suit broke from that group to approach a fireman, police officer, and PRT trooper gathered in a circle behind a fire truck.
I was walking past an ambulance when I saw that woman again. No one paid her much mind. She lay on a stretcher just outside the vehicle while the EMT's inside dealt with a screaming man.
"You need to hold still," one of them said.
"My arm!"
"It's not as bad as it looks," the other said in an oddly even tone.
It looked bad to me. Bad enough I turned away from the sight of flesh literally peeling off bone. The shock of it sent my hands searching my body. My hand felt tender, but when I pulled my glove off I didn't find any burns. The fire got close toward the end of my little rescue, but I escaped with only singed hair.
While my costume survived with only some blackening and soot, my backpack did not. My clothes weren't remotely wearable, and I needed to better heat-treat my next rifle given its warped look.
I turned and sat down on the curb a good distance from everyone else. The fires went out bit by bit, and the people who could be saved were.
Stepping off to the side with the remaining Haros, I checked in with Veda.
"What's going on with Lung and the tank?"
"The Protectorate successfully forced an end to the fight."
"They caught them?"
"Negative. All sides have withdrawn, save for the Empire. PRT and Protectorate are intercepting now."
Over just like that. Nothing more for me to do but sit and rest.
I played the moment over again and again. That moment in the burning hall when Green called me back. The feeling in my legs that wanted me to go one way. I gripped my chest, not entirely sure if I was breathing. I felt it rising and falling. And why did I feel like I was standing on the edge of a cliff looking down?
Sitting there in my own thoughts, I felt too much like Taylor Hebert the bullied girl instead of Newtype the hero. And why not? What did I even do? I stopped two fights between thugs, and most of that was the Haros. I'd never have pulled it off without them. And Lung…could I fight that even with the suit? Ideas came to me. Weapons. Armor. Maybe they'd work, maybe they wouldn't. I didn't know he'd be so big. So fast. What else didn't I know?
Naturally, it was the perfect moment for more shit to rain down on my head.
Pink rolled out of the way while she sat down. She didn't say anything at first, just sat there and watched me from the corner of her eye. My first instinct said to get up and leave, but Dinah's words came back.
It's better if I talk to her. Damnit Dinah.
My lips quivered before asking, "Why are you here?"
"You seemed a little tired," Mrs. Knott answered. "Thought I'd keep you company."
"That's not what I asked," I snarled.
She pointed to her shoulder. I glanced around the area, noticing for the first time the Blue Cosmos logo on all the armbands. Somehow, handing out blankets and food to people after a fire burned their home didn't strike me as something Blue Cosmos would spend its time doing.
I said as much.
"Hmm. I prefer it. More productive than holding a bunch of signs and shouting at buildings." She took in the scene around us, the air still hot from fire and heavy with smoke. "There were no capes when I was your age. Nothing like this ever happened. Not that the world was right and filled with sunshine, but it wasn't like this."
I shrugged, realizing without her saying or my asking that she indeed knew exactly who I was. I'd considered maybe I overreacted before. The way she looked and talked to me made it obvious. Figures that I'd run into her again. I swear if there's a god in the world he hates me.
"You know."
"I know. Alexander told me I got a call earlier. I thought it might be you."
"Are you going to tell anyone?"
"No."
"No?"
"What good would it do?"
I didn't believe her. I found Charlotte in the crowds. She didn't have an armband on, which confused me a bit, but she handed out food and blankets anyway.
"I can think of a thing or two," I muttered bitterly.
"Just make everything more complicated," she said. "It wouldn't help in the end, no matter how much some people rant about the unfairness of secret identities."
"And you're still in Blue Cosmos."
"Yes. I am."
"Why?"
"Because of you."
I knew that. Seemed obvious really. She complained back in October, nothing happened, she joined. I just didn't see the point. If anything, it felt like a deeper betrayal. She'd go spend hours of her time helping Blue Cosmos do this and that, but she didn't bother to help me past token effort.
"Some help that is," I snarled.
"It hasn't turned out the way I thought either," she conceded. "But I find it preferable to doing nothing."
I shook my head. I didn't leave. Leaving felt like defeat, or something like it. I'd had enough defeats for one day.
"I heard what you did from one of the EMTs. Staying in that building to save that woman. Very brave."
My knee jerked. "I'm not brave." I pressed my hand to the top of a Haro to steady myself. "I'm not."
"How many other people did you see running into burning buildings to help? Quite a few I bet, but far more who ran out. Nothing wrong with that of course. There's a saying about how it takes a certain kind of insanity to run toward bullets instead of away."
"I've heard it."
"And you went in. People might be dead if not for you."
I glanced at the woman. I still saw her from my spot, laying on the ground by the ambulances.
Mrs. Knott frowned. "What's wrong?" I shook my head. "Tell me."
"I was going to leave her…" I didn't mean to say it out loud, but once I did, the tears streaked down my face. "She got fucking high, and wouldn't stop fighting me and the fires got so hot…I wanted to leave her. I wanted to leave her."
I expected condemnation. Maybe even wanted it. I'd heard the phrase the truth hurts, but that truth hurt a lot. I wanted to leave her behind rather than carry her the rest of the way and maybe die. All the pushing I did. Telling myself I could be a hero. A fake, I thought. A bullied little girl who thought she was special…
I wasn't any different from the rest of them in the end.
A hero at my convenience.
Mrs. Knott's expression didn't change a bit. I flinched when her finger picked a tear off my cheek. She just stared at me and said, "I'm not going to slap you, dear. I just think you've cried enough."
I stared back at her.
"Now, you were saying you thought about leaving her behind. And?"
"And?" I shook my head. "And what kind of hero even thinks about—"
"Did you leave her?"
"N-No but—"
"Then what does it matter?" Her smile turned solemn and she bowed her head. A hand reached into her pocket and pulled out a picture. "Here."
I took it, looking at a much younger Mrs. Knott with a young man. Her husband I assumed. He looked good, in a rugged kind of way. Kind of like a woodsman, which wasn't the kind of person I'd peg as being with Mrs. Knott, who even in the years-old picture looked like a bookish teacher type.
"He barely remembers me most days," she elaborated. "Alzheimer's."
I felt like asking why that mattered to me, and didn't feel very good about myself for it. I'd felt that before. The way I shunned Greg, or the groupies. When did I end up like that? Putting people down, and for what?
"Without my job, I couldn't afford to help him," she went on without prompting. "That's why I didn't push harder. Why I chose to leave you behind when Blackwell threatened to fire me."
She reached over and took the picture from my still fingers. You could see the memory in her eyes.
"But I thought about it. He's barely there anymore, and you're so young. If I pushed harder, complained to the board, or went to a reporter…Maybe nothing would have changed. Even the organization is dragging its feet."
She raised her head, tucking the picture back into her pocket. Somehow, she managed a chuckle.
"I'm afraid I won't be judging you for something so human as thinking about something and not doing it. If that were the standard for failure, I dare say we're all a lost cause."
I wanted to speak but I didn't know what to say. She never talked about her husband. I'd always assumed he was dead because she never talked about him.
"It's different."
"No, it's not."
"It is."
Mrs. Knott looked me in the eye, right through my visor.
"Being an adult is hard, Taylor."
Hearing my name stopped me. I nervously glanced around, but there was no one nearby. A few people certainly noticed us, including Charlotte, but no one close enough to hear my name aloud.
"You don't always get the choices you want. You have to live with the ones you have, and accept the ones you've made."
My hand was shaking again.
"So, you thought for a moment about saving yourself. What of it? Can't help anyone if you're dead. It's as good a choice as any. So, you risked yourself to save someone else, maybe even someone who didn't deserve it. That's a good choice too. People tend to call that heroic."
I wanted to say something, but I couldn't find the words.
"Don't think about good choices and bad choices," she continued. "Think about what'll let you look yourself in the mirror at night and feel peace…If I ever teach you anything, I'd like to teach you that."
She turned her gaze toward Charlotte. The girl was still watching us, hands folded behind her back. Just from the look on her face, I knew she knew too. Did Mrs. Knott tell her, or did she figure it out?
"I learned that lesson far too late," she said. She chuckled again. "A quarter my age and you're already braver than I ever was."
"Really?"
Another question to feel pathetic about. I repeated every line in my head, every word. Excuses for not helping me, justifications for being in Blue Cosmos, or was she honestly trying to be supportive? Mrs. Knott and supportive didn't fit. Not with the way I knew her.
Do I know her?
"I think so," she said. She rose to her feet. "We're all human, aren't we? You. Me. Even those people who let her savage you…It's what you do at your weakest that matters."
Fucking oxymorons. Mom said something like that once, but I couldn't quite remember the words.
I shook my head. "I don't want to be weak."
"We're all weak."
"I can't be weak!" Haro shifted under my hand as I gripped his ball. "I'm not a tiny, bullied girl!"
Such a pathetic reason looking back.
Mrs. Knott smiled. "And what's so weak about being a bullied girl?" I shook my head. "You're always going to be a bullied girl Taylor, and what of it?" She reached out and grasped my shoulder. "Own it."
She released me, straightening her back and looking out over the street.
"No one can go back. We carry it with us, for every step."
