Rowan sat down with a sigh, waiting on the pizza he had just ordered. Bain wasn't back from his job yet. He probably wouldn't be for another fifteen minutes or so.
He had suggested moving into the mansion. Rowan was sure the idea had been Dani's, but what was the point, anyways? He wasn't a mutant, so technically he would be back on the streets. And even if he did get to live there, he would only get more verbal harrasment from Wisteria every single day.
He had some secrets of his own. He wasn't human, but he was as far as she could tell, because she knew he wasn't a mutant. And any time he tried to get close he got rebuffed. Just for not being a mutant. Of course, he got the worst of it, but it wasn't like he hadn't noticed it happened with everyone. Even Jamie, who everyone got along with, had had a hard time getting Wisteria not to bite her head off when she had been around.
Oh, and that was another reason not to move into the mansion. Jamie. Because ever since she had died, Ben had been treating everyone except him with indifference. Rowan he singled out and made an example of. Freeloader. Charity case. Random words to describe him. Sometimes even thief.
One time and you're branded for life.
Rowan sighed again and leaned his head against the back of the couch, closing his ice blue eyes and picturing the night before. What he wouldn't give if Wisteria could just give him a second thought and be sober. That kiss had sent him through the roof, but the whiskey tainted it. It had just been from a drunken troubled girl. He remembered her laugh...she had still been drunk, but it was nice. She never laughed. Never smiled. He'd give anything to make her smile. It hurt to know he couldn't.
He heard a key turn in a lock behind him and didn't even raise up or turn to greet Bain as he came in.
"You asleep, bud?" He heard his best friend say as he entered the apartment.
"No." He answered, still not opening his eyes. "I ordered a pizza."
"I intercepted it on the stairs. Double pepperoni?"
"That's the one."
Bain sat down on the opposite end of the couch. Bain was practically his brother. It felt like they had been looking out for each other forever. "What's up? You'd think you'd be in a better mood. What is it, Friday? Shouldn't you have a date, or something?"
"No date." In the old days Rowan could find a girl in a snap, and they'd have maybe a good two weeks together before it ended. He hadn't had a date in weeks.
"No date? You sick, or something?" Bain had a laugh in his voice as he said it, but as Rowan opened his eyes and just looked at him apathetically, he immeadiately sobered. "Dude, seriously. What's wrong?"
"Nothing, Bain." He took a piece of pizza and caught a string of cheese before it fell onto the floor. "It's not important."
She lost track of time. She forgot how long she had been there. A month? A day? A year? The wall that had at first started out as only a block with her name carved into it now had that same sentence carved as far up as she could reach. Here and there there were drawings and song lyrics, anything she could remember. Arianne sometimes wondered who had carved those things. She often forgot who she was, what she had done the day before, when she had gotten there, or whether she had ever been free in the first place.
She had aquired some skill, however. She was no longer living off of pure luck in the danger room. All of her skill was used, and day by day, after countless different combat situations, her starving body was getting stronger in reacting automatically, merely for the sake of survival. Because of malnutrition, all she had now was the skill built into her mind. No great increasement of strength. It was like she acted without thinking now.
Arianne still resisted the voice that told her to use her mutant powers however. It had earned her many scars, some from beatings, some from brandings, and some from the combat room itself. It meant that White offered her no protection against the soldiers when they wanted to have their fun with her. But she had learned to block out the pain by now. Sometimes she found herself even wanting it. Needing it. It was the only thing the that made her realize she was alive.
"Who am I?" She whispered, suddenly hearing the footsteps coming down the hall in quick succession. Their was a drag in the quick step. They were bringing something to her. She didn't try to figure it out anymore.
A small amount of light came into the room as White opened the door. The lightbulb in her room still flickered. The collar around her neck still chaffed her.
They threw in someone and White sidestepped the body, looking at Arianne where she sat on the floor, staring at her knees. "Morning, mutant. Did you sleep well?"
She didn't answer. She didn't remember if she had slept or not. White didn't seem to notice. He pointed to the body he had thrown into the room. "This girl is a traitor to our cause, mutant. Her father was caught trying to help your kind further destroy our good earth. So we brought you his daughter. You are to kill her." He turned to leave the room. She could hear his smirk just by listening to his voice. "If you don't, we'll torture her and then force you to kill her. But we'll give you some time to do it on your own." He left, and the door's slam was ominous.
The little girl couldn't have been more than eight or nine years old. She was crying against the stone floor, huddled up and shivering in a corner, watching Arianne with frightened eyes. Arianne cast her a look for a few seconds, but didn't make a move toward her. She just continued to stare at her knees. A few more seconds went by and Arianne heard them sliding in her dinner. Several more minutes passed in silence. The girl had stopped crying. She was just sniveling now.
"You hungry?" Arianne said apathetically. The girl didn't respond. Arianne slid the tray over to her, and then turned her attention back to her knees.
"You're...you're not going to kill me?"
"If I don't, they will." She replied in the same monotone. She sighed, and looked at the girl, examining her. "No. I'm not going to kill you until I absolutely have to. In fact, I suggest you kill yourself."
"But...but...that's wrong..." She whimpered. Arianne shrugged. What did right and wrong mean anymore? The girl wiped her eyes and scooted toward Arianne. "My name's Jennifer. What's yours?"
"I don't know."
"You mean you don't know your own name?"
"Nope." The girl was looking at her in shock.
"But if you don't know your name, how can you know who you are?"
"I don't."
The girl inched a little closer to her, examing her under the dim light. "Your skin is pretty. It has little flowers and vines on it." When Arianne replied, the girl just went on with her assessment. "That one's a rose...and you have a lot of wisteria here...does it always have flowers?"
Arianne shrugged. "It had thorns once."
The girl smiled. "I like wisteria. It's pretty." Her lamplike black eyes went to Arianne's face while a strand of her long black hair fell in front of her face. "Can I name you?"
Arianne shrugged once more. "Go ahead, if you want." Best to let the kid do what she wanted before Arianne had to kill her. It was almost as if she was granting her a death wish.
"Wisteria. I think you should be Wisteria."
"Wisteria it is then." Arianne watched the girl yawn. "You should probably get some sleep. They probably won't be back till late tommorrow." The girl nodded and curled up near Arianne. She just sat there in the same position she had been in for hours, and took a piece of the bread the little girl hadn't eaten. After injesting a little bit of nourishment, she began to sleep in that exact same position.
She had a dream she had many nights. She was laughing and free, skin a normal color, outside of a house that was off of a dirt road and had a lot of morning glories and marigolds growing around it. She was around six or seven, and today was the day she learned to ride a bike without training wheels. Her mother was standing a good distance off, watching as her dad coached her through it.
"Now, I'm going to be here to make sure you don't fall. You'll be okay, Ari." He began to push her forward slowly. "Begin peddling."
"Daddy, I'm not sure if..."
"You got this, sweetie. You can do this. Just peddle slowly."
So she peddled. She peddled and let her dad guide her from behind, making sure she didn't fall. It was slow at first, but then she began picking up speed, and she realized that her dad was falling behind. She was growing older, the bike was getting bigger as she grew, and the grass was dieing, turning to stone beneath her. Soon there was no bike at all. No parents at all. And she hadn't reached her mother.
"I'm dissappointed in you, mutant."
Arianne opened her eyes as the sentiment she thought was only in her dreams was repeated. "I'm dissappointed in you, mutant." She saw White standing a good ways off, in the doorway, looking at the girl who had fallen asleep next to her. Jennifer. "I ask you to do a simple thing, and you cannot." White moved into the room, kneeling next to Arianne. Jennifer was still sleeping. "Now, mutant, you learned a long time ago that resistance is futile. You can no longer hope to escape here. Don't you remember trying?" He didn't wait for Arianne to reply. "Do you want this normal little girl to suffer the fate that you deserve?"
Arianne was watching Jennifer now. How could she sleep through this? How was it possible? No one could be sure. She was just watching her apathetically. Just a normal little girl.
"Just kill her. It would be easy. You could do it painlessly. Spare her."
They were going to kill her if she didn't. She knew they didn't have any mercy. This was something she was going to have to do.
Slowly she pressed a finger against Jennifer's throat, finding the spot she was seeking. Arianne sat near enough to her that she could hold her still when she woke up, which she did a few seconds later, trying to breathe and finding she couldn't. Jennifer struggled to sit up, to throw Arianne off of her, but Arianne held her still. "I'm sorry. I have to." She whispered. She continued to watch until finally the girl struggled her last, dieing from lack of oxygen.
White smirked in her direction. "Good job, mutant. You are a murderer." He stood up and left the room, leaving her there with the dead body.
Wisteria had gotten tired of Dani constantly nagging her about her affiliation with Arachne. She had had to do some things in her past that she regretted.
She flopped down on her bed and turned on the TV, watching FUSE flicker to life. Jimmy Eat World were strumming fast and hard. After watching for a few moments, she finally fell back against the pillows and let the music wash over her.
So, everything was in the past. Including whatever had happened when she was completely smashed.
Yep. Completely in the past.
Wisteria heard footsteps somewhere in the room. She sighed and buried her face in her hands. "Dani, go away."
But Dani didn't answer. Wisteria raised up and looked around the room, gasping when she saw a small black-haired little girl smiling innocently at her. "Hi, Wisteria. Remember me?"