Disclaimer: Nope. Worm isn't mine. Only wish I could write something so awesome. For those of you who have found Worm because of my fanfic? That feels great. Bet you're just as disappointed Taylor's story is done as I am.
Special thanks to MarkerIV and Spacebattles! 10k Chapter here. Hope you all enjoy!
Chapter Four: Skitter
Three days later, Sunday night, I was still trying to work up the nerve to tell them. Tell them anything. Anything at all. They were… painfully patient with me. I think they could tell I wanted to say something but the both of them had come to an odd sort of understanding.
Keep me from talking about my past. The two of them were quite good at it.
They had seen my feelings, seen how I could rage when thinking about the past, and what I could do with my voice. Neither of them wanted that apparently. Instead, if I tried to bring up anything regarding what had happened at the seminar they derailed me, instead focusing on the boys, school, my hair, Sophia's car, Chloe's cooking, or anything to keep me from dwelling on whatever I'd wanted to bring up.
I wasn't sure if they were doing it to be sweet or if they were just afraid I'd pull out evil Taylor.
We were sitting in the living room watching the television when I decided it was time to spill the beans. I was only a bit tired from my work at the cafeteria and no one had really attempted to engage me in conversation. A good lot of students at school weren't aware of my video, and by the end of the day I had began to feel good about the idea of this all blowing over. It probably would… as long as I could keep my damn mouth shut at any rate.
Sophia and Chloe had gone out of their way to avoid trigger topics with me. My video had reached five million views I knew but still, it seemed the outbreak was contained. Some study revealed a simple fact that I hadn't taken into account.
All video's with Heroes had a shit ton of views. The glamour of it all still hadn't worn off for this world. People wanted powers, wanted to know how to get them, and wanted to know everything about everyone who had ever had them. Just the idea of it made people in this world giddy, because there weren't many disadvantages. No birdcage if your power was dangerous. No Case 53s to make you gruesome or repulsive. No Endbringers to be fought if you didn't want the public's hatred. There were only a small few cases of powers going wrong.
But those that went wrong here went horribly wrong.
There were plenty of villains though. Never a shortage of those. Normal people wanted to be safe from those that had already proven themselves evil. Blight. Ganon. Jeremy Lodestone, a cape who'd killed people for calling him by his media given title "Massacre." The very few that had actually died while triggering were apparently not enough of a concern to make people want to avoid getting powers of their own.
Death by trigger event was rare. So rare in fact that some people were still attributing a few of the deaths to chemistry or bombs. Most shards were still directed by whatever Eden had set in place to generate the Manton Effect it seemed, even Scion's. Still, some few were slipping through the cracks.
That was my best guess anyway. Not much else could explain what some of the stories were telling. Exploded brains, autopsies revealing mush inside of a perfectly intact skull. The man who had developed poisonous skin, which had of course poisoned him. Spontaneous freezing. One particularly horrifying case reminded me of Gray Boy's victims: a woman stabbing herself repeatedly but not dying. A regeneration that became more painful with each new injury. She'd been driven out of her mind. I suspected she'd triggered due to her chronic hives. As far as anyone knew she was still unable to kill herself. Still screaming in a padded white room somewhere now. I pitied her.
Chloe was cooking something. Steam rose around her and carried with it a scent of potatoes of some sort. The girl loved to cook unlike every other college student I'd ever met, and we tended to be decent taste testers. Sophia loudly protested Chloe's failures while I happily accepted anything she made.
"Hey… you guys… Can, uhm. Can we talk?" I asked quietly.
"Sure, what's up Skinny?" Sophia asked with a smirk. Now certain that the nickname irked me, the girl had taken to using it constantly.
"I-!"
A hard knock came at the door. I cocked a questioning eyebrow at Sophia who shrugged. Who would be here at seven in the evening? Probably Tanner and Reid again. The two stuck to Chloe like butter to toast, which was okay. I liked them both alright enough but I didn't want them here for any secret spilling.
"I got it!" Chloe yelled. The kitchen was closer to the door than me or Sophia so I leaned back into the couch relaxing.
"Uh, hello sir?" Chloe's voice echoed from the doorway. Sophia looked at me and I shrugged. Sir?
"Hi. This is where Taylor lives right? Is she in?" My father's voice came in through the sound of crickets chirping outside.
"Uh yeah sure. Could I tell her who you are?"
"That's my Dad!" I shouted towards the front door, standing.
"Oh! You're Taylor's dad? Nice to meet you!" Chloe said brightly. Sophia got up and followed me as I headed towards the front door.
I ran up to him around Chloe and gave him a hug, which he returned warmly. "Not that I don't appreciate the visit but its a little late. Something going on?" I asked after he let me go.
He gave me a sort of skeptical stare that said 'Really? You're supposed to be clever.'
"I think you know why I'm here, Taylor." He said, a little bit offended.
"Uh, yeah. Well uhm. Come in! You… want some food? I'm sure Chloe wouldn't mind!" I was kind of nervous and I didn't really know why. My dad was one of the few people who I was terrified of disappointing, even now after all that had happened.
"No offence, Chloe I presume?" He asked her, to which she nodded. "I kind of just need to talk my daughter alone for a minute."
I nodded too. "Y-yeah, alright. We can talk in my room."
My dad nodded politely to the two girls but followed me through the living room to my room and closed the door behind him briskly.
I sat down on my bed, sulking a little.
"I… I had to do it." I said before he could try to squish a reason out of me.
His long suffering sigh made me cringe. "I know you did. You always have to for some reason or another."
Guilt plagued me. He wanted so much for me to be close with him like we used to be. A year of trying and it had happened. We'd become something like father and daughter again. I could guess how he felt though. Not two days out of the proverbial nest and I was already flying into the fire.
"Someone would've died if I hadn't spoken up." I said, trying to make it sound like I wasn't making excuses.
He threw up his hands in exasperation. "It's been two days! And your powers… you told me your powers were gone. You couldn't possibly have found a life or death situation that quickly!"
"Keep it down Dad! They're right outside!" I barked at him. He ignored me. If anything he got louder.
"Christ Taylor…!" He trailed off, burning with frustration at his own impotence.
I cringed at his tone. He hated yelling at me but I knew about his temper. I'd inherited it after all. I met his eyes and squared my shoulders. I knew I was in the right. He did too, whether he wanted to admit it or not.
"I did what I had to do." I told him firmly. The truth. The only truth I knew.
"You aren't a parahuman again are you? At least tell me that. Your powers aren't back are they?" He asked, his voice rising a little. He was angry, and he had every right to be really. "God dammit, how am I supposed to keep you safe if you keep… Taylor, it was government mandated that we keep our heads down when they gave us citizenship here!"
"I know! I know… but I just couldn't let those professors get killed! There wasn't any time! I couldn't think of anything else! I..."
I'm sorry.
The words didn't come. I wouldn't apologize for doing the right thing. What it always seemed to come down to. The right damn thing.
He slumped down onto the bed laying his head in his hands.
"Dad?" I asked trying to understand his frustration. He was so angry, and yet so sad.
He slid his hand down his face, wiping his eyes as he did. They were red from a weariness that seemed beyond sleep and I had no doubt that most of that was because of me. When he spoke again his voice was raspy. Wistful even. "Don't you know how much you worry me Taylor? You just can't help saving the world, can you? Its not even in you to back down and let someone else handle it, is it?"
"Mm your daughter," I feebly mumbled.
He barked a bitter laugh, and his face sagged further into his hand. Drops of liquid were glistening between his knuckles. "That's no excuse! I never humiliated my professors on national television. I never fought villains. Enbringers! Scion!"
My mumbling became even more feeble, not the least of which because I was certain Chloe and Sophia were probably trying to do their best to hear us and Dad was only getting louder. I felt rotten. The knot of guilt in my throat seemed to be robbing me of breath, and no telling myself that what I'd done was right could help to assuage it.
"If I hadn't someone would've gotten…! There wasn't anyone else to…! I had to…" Each new way I tried to convince him only made him more– what was he? Exasperated to tears? No matter what he did, his daughter couldn't stop painting targets on her own back. Fuck, why didn't I just stay in my damn seat?
"How? What made you the only one who could talk out for that man? What made you have to, Taylor?" He finally asked after the silence had stretched a crater between us. "Why only you?"
Why was it only me? I didn't know. I didn't understand what was happening to me. A new trigger? A new power. Fucking hell what could I tell him that would make him stop crying? Lie! I'd lie and make some shit up!
"I… could feel it." I almost whispered. I knew what it would imply. I was a cape again. It wasn't entirely true, because I wasn't even certain what it was I'd felt. The feelings I got around capes, recognizing them and what they could do, felt nothing like my old powers had. But it definitely wasn't just intuition. Something had happened. I didn't want to lie to him. Not him. He and Anne Rose were the only ones I could be honest with. I'd done so well at opening up. Making myself… human again. Trying so hard to be okay, to come to terms with everything that I had broken and everything I'd saved.
He nodded, seeming to accept that. It was enough.
"Taylor, you're… you're killing me. God, when I saw you on that stage, I thought it was happening all over again. My little girl was speaking on television again and I didn't recognize her! I don't know if I was more afraid for you or… or of you."
A spike of guilt caught in my throat. My eyes stung. I felt like I'd been slapped.
Goddammit.
I stood and wrapped my arms around him fiercely, squeezing him for all I was worth. "It won't happen again." I whispered. "I… won't do that to you again."
His hug felt really good.
"I guess… we had a good year didn't we?" He asked as if I were about to leave his life entirely all over again.
"We'll have plenty more." I assured him feeling his hands rubbing my back, and subconsciously doing the same to him. "Its… not as bad as last time. Different. Not nearly as noticeable, and it only happened twice. It could've just been a fluke."
"I think you and I both know that's not true," He murmured into my shoulder. I felt a wetness there.
"It doesn't matter. If… if they come back I'll tell you. I'll tell you the minute I feel it! I promise I'll tell you dammit! You won't find out… like that." Feeling Rhapsody, and then Obelisk really could've been a fluke. It had only happened twice so far. It felt nothing like my old powers. Nothing at all. I hadn't controlled it consciously either.
Slowly my dad pulled away meeting my eyes. I could no longer be the shy girl I'd been before. Anyone staring at me with eyes like that, I could only meet them. Their challenge made me feel alive. Tearstained, they were challenging me. He was about to ask something that I wouldn't want to give.
"Please Taylor. When they come back in full... could you try to not use them? Just try. For me?"
I hesitated. I wanted to complain. My powers had been permanently active whether I'd wanted them to be or not! What he was asking was unfair! Sometimes the bugs reacted to my emotion more than any direction I actively gave them! How could he–? But the pleading in his eyes was stronger than any protest my mind could formulate. I lost this challenge before I could even speak.
"I just want you to be safe. Can't you please… try?"
What could I say to that? I nodded.
"Promise me. Promise me you'll try?" He demanded, the feeble words of a parent who only hoped that his child might listen to him.
"I promise." I told him.
I wanted so much to believe I could keep that promise. I would try with everything that I was to keep it, but I knew if I were placed in the same shoes I'd been in at the seminar I wouldn't hesitate to run that promise through the mud. Even so, his smile brightened my world.
"Thank you. After I saw that video I had to talk to you. It couldn't wait. I had to… I just… I'm sorry to bother you. I'm sure you and your friends were doing something before I barged in."
The serious talk was apparently over.
"Nothing too interesting." I said while wiping at my own tear stained eyes. "Chloe was cooking something."
"I could tell. It smelled good. How are they, your friends? Nothing like Emma I hope."
I shook my head. "No. Definitely not. Don't know them all that well yet but they don't seem too bad. We'll see. Chloe really wouldn't mind actually if you wanted to try some food. She loves new people to taste test for her. Want some?" I asked heading towards the door.
"No, I don't want to impose. I need to get back home anyway. I have work in the morning. Drove here right after I got off shift and stopped for food on the way." He said following me back towards the door.
I'd suspected as much. He worked long hours, and most days of the week. Sunday was not a day off for him.
I opened the door, happy to find Chloe at the kitchen stove and Sophia having retaken her spot in the chair, far enough from my door to have given us privacy. I hoped.
Neither of them really said anything as my Dad and I stepped into the living room.
"Sorry for intruding." He told Sophia first, and then made eye contact with Chloe in the corner. "I was concerned about Taylor and that video, so I wanted to make sure she was okay." He told them, very formally.
"No problem Mr. Hebert. And its cool if you want some food too!" She offered, enthusiastic as always. I gave an over exaggerated sigh at her. Honestly, the girl came to college to become a doctor when she so clearly exhibited a passion for being a chef. It was maddening. I suppose there wasn't nearly as much prestige in a culinary degree.
"No thank you, Chloe. I appreciate it but I ate on my way over." He paused for a moment walking towards the doorway. I was left standing in my room's entrance.
He must've felt really awkward about being here.
"I just thought I'd do my best to embarrass my daughter in front of her friends." All trace of his early anguish had been erased, replaced with an impish smirk.
Or not.
Chloe and Sophia laughed a little at that. "Well it's been nice to meet you Chloe and… ah." He looked towards Sophia and gave a questioning pause.
"Sophia Fehrenbacher." She said with a small nod of her head that counted for a bow I suppose. "Just so you know, your daugher has been awesome. Best roommate I've had since coming here, no question."
My dad blinked. I blinked.
"Hey! I cook for you!" Chloe shouted, with mock indignance.
"Yeah but it sucks half the time. Taylor embarrassed Mr. Comerford in front of the whole school, and a million others. Parmesan Chicken just doesn't top that!" She said brightly.
Goddammit, that is just not what my dad needed to hear.
He looked at me and beamed though. There was pride in his eyes now. He knew the full story. A year living together, everything had come out eventually. Lung. Meeting the Undersiders. Dinah. The Nine. Leviathan. Coil. Echidna… All the way up to the final fight with Scion. Sometimes I don't think he believed the story but he knew it. Every now and then I caught him giving me a strange look that I didn't quite understand. A sort of wistful smile. I attributed the gap in my knowledge to Khepri, but I was too afraid to ask what it meant. It was the same look he was giving me now. This time though, I understood it.
Pride. But not in the same things I was thinking of. No. I think now, he was just proud that I could make friends again.
"Sophia?" My dad said with a grin that held secrets, his mood having lifted tremendously with my promise. "You don't know a quarter of it."
I blushed furiously as he met my eyes again, that same pride gleaming there.
"Well, again, it was nice to meet you girls but I'd better be going. I'll leave you to it."
Dad had gained some confidence, recently. He really was just trying to embarrass me. Then again he could be putting on a strong face for my friends. It could be either. Maybe both. I stewed, irritated that I hadn't known what to say. Danny Hebert could get around my stone cold attitude more easily than Jack Slash himself.
I loved my Dad. It was a weakness I was willing to live with.
Fifteen minutes later, Dad was gone and I was digging into some delicious potatoes after profusely thanking Chloe for making them. They were a definite win.
"So sorry about my Dad. He worries sometimes, and I guess I don't really make it easy on him," I said conversationally.
"Understandable," Chloe said thoughtfully. Weird. I detected a small bit of a stutter in her voice. "You know your video showed up on TV today."
"It did?" I asked, honestly surprised. It was a big deal I knew but not that big. News crews were probably focusing on Vigilant anyway. I'd freaked out about it already, but no one from the government had shown up my door, and it seemed Weaver and Skitter were both in the clear. If an Earth Bet refugee had known me, either they were keeping quiet or I wasn't under any scrutiny.
Or they're waiting for the perfect time to blackmail me.
"Mmmhmm," Chloe said plopping down on the couch next to me with her own plate of loaded mashed potatoes.
"Weird." I said, trying to sound uncaring. "I didn't think Vigilant was that hot a topic."
The two of them stared at me like I was an idiot. My eye twitched, but I blushed a little. Maybe I was a bit of an idiot.
"Erm… yeah… Vigilant is… not really what they focused on,"
Dammit.
"So speeches like last Thursday… Are they the norm with you?" Sophia asked, her eyes focused on me questioningly.
I paused. Memories filled me one by one with a sort of tunnel vision. The bank robbery and my role there. Boldly claiming my territory in Brockton Bay in front of a crowd. My short words to Mannequin before I'd cut his head off and then again when I later turned his body into a crushed and sticky mess. The cafeteria and being outed in front of everyone. "You can call me Weaver." Ignoring the prompter for most of that speech. Battling words with Jack Slash for Nilbog's loyalty. Marquis. Teacher. Lung. Talking Bonesaw and Panacea into experimental brain surgery...
"...No." I said very, very slowly so as not to betray the word for the horrible horrible lie it was.
Sophia fidgeted, noting her posture. Strange… she seemed. A bit uptight?
"I hope not." I continued, recovering a bit of normality. I was afraid I might've paused for just a hair too long before answering. "I'm just… passionate about a few weird topics is all, capes in particular." I said, trying to turn the situation into something more commonplace. A pet peeve maybe. I was alright with them thinking cape rights was a hotspot for me.
"I like that word." Chloe said, her tone still just a tad shy of normal. Was something on my face? I could swear I saw the two of them exchange a look. "Capes. Its… clever. Avoids hero or villain. Just a person with powers. Vigilant didn't really strike me as a hero or a villain. Well. Not anymore definitely. Not after he let us die and all." She was trying to joke but it fell flat.
"People are people." I said, feeling a little bit stupid. "Were all a little bit of both. It depends on the situation. At that bank, when the cards were down, I thought Vigilant was a hero. Then again, I bet Obelisk doesn't think of herself as a villain."
"Are you kidding? She robbed a bank! That's like, Villain 101!"
"And next she uses the money she got from the bank to build a super-evil underground lair!" Sophia continued Chloe's joke and stood up waving her hands wildly for emphasis.
"Mmhmm!" Chloe nodded sagely. "Filled with "Obelisks." All shapes and sizes."
I snorted, and Sophia joined me, the crude joke eliciting horrible humor. These two were pretty fun when it got down to it.
"But come on, think about it." I said, trying to play devil's advocate. "Maybe she wanted to feed a starving kid, or was behind on her college loans."
"Oh I'd rob a bank for that." Chloe posed with complete and total honesty.
"Yeah, except she murdered a dude. Teacher here actually." Sophia countered sharply.
I shrugged. "Maybe she thought that guy was a villain and needed to be killed."
I didn't personally believe it. She'd been almost ready to hurt those teachers at the seminar just for talking, and she'd sure as hell been trying to threaten me. But who could say? She'd been pretty adamant that she'd done something right. Her face in the video, smiling as she killed him was clear enough.
Either way she was a horrible villain. If she'd really wanted to kill the professor, she could've done it from his class without even looking at him, assuming her powers didn't require eye contact or something. No one would be the wiser. If her plan had been to disguise a murder attempt as a robbery then she was a poor planner indeed.
Well if you're gonna kill someone, might as well steal a bit while you're at it.
"Oh yeah, Professor Coals was a villain. Right. Teacher by day, mad scientist by night." Sophia barked sarcastically, and folded her arms under her chest, offended. Had she known the guy who'd been killed?
"Oh, you didn't know him did you?" Chloe asked, shocked and worried she'd offended Sophia, her words mirroring my thoughts.
"Sort of. Talked to him a few times after class about some trouble I was having in Chem One. I'd have had him next year, and he seemed like a pretty cool guy." Sophia admitted, coming down off her slight anger.
I thought of Mr. Gladly, and suddenly felt a hair less bad about Professor Coals death. And a little guilty about it, but not too much. The world could do with a few less pretty cool guys as far as I was concerned.
"Who knows?" I said. "Maybe he was a real dirtbag behind the scenes? Making the pretty girls sleep with him or fail his class? Something like that. You don't have to have powers to be a villain." I said.
"Mmm. Wise, Zen Master Taylor." Chloe joked.
I smacked her playfully with a throw pillow, but not too hard. She had a plate in her lap after all.
"I don't think so though. I mean, that sort of stuff doesn't really happen," Sophia said.
I shook my head and could help a small huff. So naive. People were disgusting. I'd seen proof of that. Emma. Sophia. Mr. Gladly. The Merchants. E88. All the way up to Alexandria. Being nice and having a degree was just a fine cloak to cover up the debris.
Maybe I was being too pessimistic. If I was though, that meant Obelisk was just a murderous bitch.
A downer either way, though I'd prefer Obelisk be in the right. She was still alive. Still able to be a threat.
I felt good about this conversation even so. Real talking, connecting with normal people about… sort of normal topics. I wasn't intimidating them! I was just talking to them! They seemed to be getting more comfortable around me by the minute, forgetting "Cripple for Capes! Taylor" and remembering that I was just a regular girl. Whatever it was that had set them on edge at the beginning of our conversation seemed to have faded to the back of their minds.
We continued talk for another hour or so before it became too late. We all had classes in the morning, though mine were admittedly earlier than theirs and they poked fun at me for it.
I wasn't jealous, as I'd have been up to run anyway, but there was a little sting of thought: Maybe next semester I should schedule my classes a little later. So I could sleep in if I wanted to.
Somehow, my plans to let them know about being a refugee from Bet never came up. I was glad.
What followed were some of the best weeks of my entire life. We did everything together. I could hardly recall a time I felt so… accepted. Well. There was a brief few months that had been really hard to top just after I joined the Undersiders. But these few weeks that followed my conversation with my Dad came real close.
The hype about me died down. People slowly forgot and soon the missing arm became something of a school-wide joke.
Katie Dillen did facebook me, and was very insistent that I join her Speech club. I was in tryouts, and I'd gone out with the group twice already.
Professor Butler's exaggerated kindness began to grow as my grades continued to increase in his course in tandem with the approaching date of the tenure meeting. His hearing was drawing close and I could see the stress building from the bags under his eyes drooping a little more each day. He didn't seem to be a bad man. I doubted any of them were. Good people who'd been trying to strike out after losing a friend, no matter that they'd chosen the wrong target. They'd been trying to do something in their own way.
It didn't excuse his bribery though. When I purposefully flubbed a quiz and still managed to rock a B+ I confronted him about it. Intimidated, and fearful that I'd pull back my slim agreement to speak at his hearing, the man promptly regraded the test and apologized. The large D on my new paper pinged me only a tad. Maybe I should've kept him trying to bribe me. I wasn't the type to turn down something useful if I could avoid it.
Ugh. No. Damn morals.
Chloe and Sophia stuck to my side like glue and if someone ever brought up my speech or tried to question me on it, I found myself defended by iron eyes and closed windows on all sides. The girls kept the questions at bay as my Youtube's views continued to climb along with my notoriety, they were a shield for me. They let me be normal.
I even flirted a little.
A very little. But it was there. Reid, Tanner's friend, was worth paying attention to, and that boy who kept smiling at me was named Anton. He was a Russian exchange student with a small but growing understanding of English.
As usual, I kept my distance, trying my best to keep Sophia and Chloe from worming their way into my heart. They were a tenacious sort, but occasionally, I caught little whispers about something when they thought I wasn't listening. Chatting and then shutting up the minute I came into view but I never figured out the secret they were keeping from me. It wasn't just them though. Once or twice, I caught almost everyone I knew doing the same thing. Talking behind my back.
Even weirder, throughout the whole time, I couldn't help the small inkling that I was being watched. Weirdly, not only was I unconcerned, it actually comforted me a little. Someone was keeping an eye on me and I didn't think it was only so they could put a knife in my back.
...Or an obelisk between my legs. Whatever. Maybe Devin Maxworth was trying to defend me where I'd defended him? Watching was sort of his thing after all.
I'd tried to find the girl who'd broken into tears at the seminar as well, but she was nowhere to be found. Theresa Fairchild was her name. I knew she'd been a college student but the few people I'd found who knew her said she'd been skipping classes. Not eating. Hardly sleeping, and had been missing at odd times of the night. Or day for that matter.
That didn't bode well. But it was hard to apologize to a girl you just couldn't fucking find.
Times like those I wished I had my bugs again. They had given me a sort of quasi omniscience. A feeling like I could know everything. Secrets like these would've been impossible for anyone to keep around Skitter.
That's when the news came out with a new story that brought the questions down on me harder than ever. Hardest of all because they only came from my shield, who I had more reason to trust than ever.
"You can see the future, can't you!?" Chloe asked, her tone accusatory. "You lied! You totally have a power and you lied to us!"
I blinked. Where the hell had this come from?
"Uhh, what?" I asked, perplexed.
Sophia, looking skeptical but still a little angry, shoved a newspaper under my nose.
"Late Professor Outed as Rapist!" Then in much smaller print, but still a title it read: "Blackmailed students with failing grades! Victims Speak Up!"
My eyes skimmed the page caching key phrases like 'more than 30 suspected victims...' and 'Professor Coals might've been doing this for years before Obelisk...' and 'didn't feel safe to come out. Who would believe…?'
You've got to be fucking kidding me.
I let myself sink against the wall of the rec-center where we had come to run together and laughed at the complete and total bullshit this was. Now my friends thought I was a precog because I'd taken a shot in the dark!
Hah. They couldn't be further from the truth but even I had to admit that they hadn't jumped far to reach this conclusion.
It didn't matter, and was fortunate really. Maybe Obelisk really wasn't a psychopath. It seemed she'd gotten her proof. She was like me in a way. Doing the wrong thing for the right reason. The world just got a little bit brighter. Either way, I had a pickle to get myself out of now, and some friends who were so damn convinced I was a superhero that I knew I'd spend weeks trying to stop them from buying lottery tickets with my guesses on them.
"Hey Taylor, wanna come study with us at the library?"
Well, alright. I do have a lot of work to get done.
"Taylor, forget your run today! We're going this afternoon to the gym. Wanna come?"
I… guess I could. Its a little cold out today anyway.
"Wanna come to the movies with us? You can sit by Ree~eeid!"
Okay, I could do with a little less mocking, but I did want to see that flick.
"Were going to the comedy club down on 13th! The have open mic night tonight. Wanna go?"
Y-yeah. Yeah I do!
"Wanna come with us to New York this weekend? A group of about six of us are headed up there and the van has space for one more!"
Seems legit.
In retrospect, I really should've seen this coming. But it had become so normal to hear them ask me to go places that I'd been utterly blindsided when the giant red cross of Clinic's place of business came into view.
"I can't believe you conned me into this!" I screamed. Indignance, anger, and maybe a little bit of resentment all mingled together with this unbearable fondness that I couldn't manage to quell no matter how hard I tried.
"We asked you to come with us to New York. You can't honestly expect us to believe you didn't see this coming!" Sophia turned back from the shotgun seat of the van to send me a winning grin.
"Well… I… Well…!" I huffed in mock anger, surprisingly blanking on any viable retort to that. My taxed mind found purchase soon enough, but far too late to seem clever, or like I wasn't surprised. "But she charges! She charges for her healing! Out the ass! You can't expect me to be able to afford her prices to regrow an arm!"
I remember finding that a clever alternative to what had happened to Panacea when I had discovered that no, Clinic's healing was definitely not free of charge. The woman's prices were exorbitant in some respects but I'd rather her charge those fees and continue healing than become jaded like Amy had been.
"Aw come on, Taylor. Being the one armed girl is pretty cool introduction material but even you have to admit its stupid to not even try. Especially when Clinic's clinic is only two hours away." Said Tanner. He was now Chloe's… friend. I was hesitant to call him a boyfriend. They danced around the subject everywhere except for the bedroom where they spent a lot less time dancing and a lot more time keeping me up at night through the thin walls.
I scoffed but no one heard it. Chloe was too busy laughing at "Clinic's clinic." She was easily amused, at least by the boy she liked.
This red glow had settled about my face in light of their duplicity. My friends. My friends. They'd plotted behind my back and told me they were going to New York to shop. They invited me along just like they had many times. Made it seem just like a normal trip. Of course I'd suspected they'd try something; part of me still wary of attack from my days at Winslow had been waiting for the other shoe to drop. I'd never expected what they were talking about behind my back would be a good surprise.
My arm… I really did miss having a functional one. Now we were parked a hundred feet from Clinic. A hundred feet from the cape with the power to restore me. And they'd done this for me. No provocation. No questions asked. They still couldn't afford her prices. I know. I'd looked them up more than once. Regrowing an arm was something no one else could do, so the woman was able to charge unreal sums of money for procedures like that, but she set her own prices on a case by case basis. But never for free. I had a few more than two hundred dollars on me. I… doubted that would be enough.
"This is… really nice you guys but there's no way she's just going to heal me for free. I've…" I paused feeling a little guilty. It was as if I was admitting to a huge secret. "I've looked up her prices. She charges an arm and a leg to replace an arm." I deadpanned, sort of somberly. It had been a kind gesture but not one that I could ever feasibly afford.
Chloe, Michael Bels one of Tanner's nerdier friends, and Reid all laughed at my horrible joke.
Katie, my newest friend from the speech club was a bit harder to draw a laugh from. She didn't know me as well as the other two girls but we got along pretty well and they'd invited her along even before me. At first I'd thought that was a little weird but now I knew why.
Chloe offered me a hand out of the car while I tried feebly to both remain indignant and stop the gushing thanks from dripping into my voice.
They steadfastly ignored my protest and as one, seemed to take off towards the building, leaving me behind with Chloe.
"Aren't you guys listening! I can't afford this!"
Chloe rolled her eyes and shook her hand at me menacingly. "Just get outta the car Taylor! You're coming in! She's already expecting you."
I sighed, doubting that severely.
"You guys didn't have to do this." I said, trying not to sound as grateful as I felt. I didn't like being indebted to people.
"Hey, what are friends for?" Chloe told me. She had that expectant grin that might be found on a patient parent coaxing an unruly child to brush their teeth.
I took only a moment more to stare at her outstretched hand. The three of them, Chloe Tanner and Sophia, were grinning at me. I'd only known them for a month and change now but they really seemed to like me. Despite my avoidance of cape topics. My tendency to spend hours reading books instead of doing the more normal things. My refusal to drink alcohol until my next birthday. They'd accepted those things easily rather than scorn them.
They… thought of me as a friend. Even after we'd spent the last two months hanging out together, going to movies, making fun of Chloe for her nightly activities, it only just now sunk in that there wasn't going to be a backlash. No devastating prank to take it all away from me.
I hadn't felt that warmth in my heart since the Undersiders had allowed me to stay at their loft. Peace. This…? These friends? This normal life. It was what I'd been fighting so hard for all this time.
I wiped at a red eye as I took her hand and hopped out of the SUV, into the cold air of early October.
The moment my feet hit the ground a much bigger problem reared its head. They'd had only the best of intentions, of course. How could they know that they were leading me into Bonesaw's laboratory?
I cringed staring at the large building with the red cross burning in the sunlight near the roof. I knew it wasn't Bonesaw. It wasn't her, or even a version of her. The woman just looked so damn much like her that I had trouble separating the two.
It wasn't so much the fact that she looked like Bonesaw either. The last time a healer had… edited me… I'd become capable of enslaving an entire army, and lost my mind while doing it. I felt my nervousness was understandable. Panacea wasn't Clinic though, and this woman wouldn't be touching my mind.
As far as I knew.
None of these thoughts mattered. They'd brought me here and on some subconscious level I'd known what they were trying to do whether I wanted to believe it or not. I could've stopped it. Could've stayed at home, but I'd chosen to come. I'd allowed their subterfuge on the hope that they really did care about me. I'd cast out my line and caught the best bite a fisher of friends could hope for. Now I had to live with the consequences...
...I'd have to let the scary bone tinker grow me a new limb. How horrible.
Dammit why did I keep thinking that this was going anywhere anyway? There was no way we could afford Clinic's prices! They'd turn me away at the door!
"Come on Taylor. You look like you're walking into a funeral! Its not like you can leave here any worse off than you came!" Tanner joked.
I couldn't help the bitter huff that left my mouth at that. I'd known hundreds of capes. Capes that burned, created suns, could see different futures, and could punch through buildings. My back had been broken by a thirty foot tall water demon. My arm had been severed by a girl with tentacles. Minor nuisances. Healers left the deepest scars.
I remembered my conviction to stay as far away from the Wardens as possible. That too was faltering. I was in the spotlight already. If they wanted words with me they would have them and god help me if they had a mind-reader.
I didn't know what to expect from the clinic but what I got wasn't it. We walked inside and almost instantly I began to feel an easing in my gut. Tiredness washed away and the small headache that came from being stuffed in a car for hours literally melted off in moments. I could tell that the others felt the same by the sighs of relief that echoed my own.
Several people were milling about a large entry room just waiting around. I had a feeling they were mooching off the high Clinic's power seemed to produce as they looked healthy otherwise, but poor. Maybe even homeless.
A stark interior that mimicked a hospital office except there were no posters or decorations whatsoever. Hardly what I would expect from a woman who could make thirty grand in ten minutes doing something no one else in the world was capable of.
A single black haired teller dressed in very rich clothing sat behind a large but plain counter. She was surrounded by three customers. Unlike those lingering in the entrance, these men were well dressed and trimmed. They turned away from the counter just as we approached, and I was almost certain the shortest one sneered at the teller before smashing his palm on the exit door. His two companions followed him out stoically, not meeting any of our eyes.
"Wonder what that was about?" I pondered aloud. Before any of my friends could answer me the teller did.
"Oh I was just letting them know that Clinic doesn't take well to threats. She has instructed me to inform anyone that she will heal when she wants. Who she wants and for whatever price she deems appropriate," the teller said with a vaguely vacant smile.
"Oh. Uhm. We're not here to threaten Clinic at all!" I said, feeling a bit stupid.
"Wonderful! Do you have a reservation?"
"N–," I started.
"We do! Taylor Hebert." Reid said with a nod towards me.
"We do?" I voiced.
Chloe grinned at me. "We do."
My lower lip quivered. H-Holy… shit! The prices Clinic sometimes charged for regrowing limbs was more than my dad's house!
Either of them. Bet or Dalet.
"Y-You… You guys paid for…?"
"Not just us skinny. There was… a bit of a fundraiser. We started the idea small. Thought maybe we could get you started saving for it but it kinda snowballed and over half the school donated. Some other people made really big donations too. Keeping it a secret from you has been hell you know." Sophia offered nonchalantly as if thirty to fifty thousand dollars wasn't much of a big deal. "You're a snoopy one."
I didn't even register her annoying nickname for me.
What the fuck!?
"It was our idea though," the girl tagged that on as an afterthought.
My lips were dry. My face was numb. I thought this might be the nicest thing anyone had ever done for me in my entire life.
What the fuck!?
Where were you wonderful people when I was lost and broken? When I had no one to turn to, no one to save me? When I had learned beyond doubt that I could only depend on myself?
I schooled my features, while inside I was turning into mush and putty. I did my best to hide, but I was afraid I was quivering. Oh god...
"Ah, here we are."
My eyes shot back to the teller like she was a lifeline. My image was breaking into a thousand pieces and I couldn't stop it. Fuck. It was the exact opposite of Emma bringing up my admission of crying for a whole week, but it had the exact same effect.
"Taylor Hebert. Oh, you're missing an arm? Huh, I could hardly tell!" The teller's vapid tone was a ruse. It had to be. How could she be meeting my red eyes and not pity me in the slightest bit? I must look so damn pathetic. Fuck, I was better than this.
"If you'll follow me, Clinic will be with you shortly."
I was embarrassed beyond reason or reckoning. I'd had more money and tossed more out for less reason when I'd been Skitter. Is this how I'd made people feel? This singing sting in my chest? Fuck, no wonder they'd stood up for me at Arcadia! Right now I would murder for these people.
"Y-You guys..." I rasped, quietly awed by what they'd done, steadfastly avoiding meeting any of their eyes. I felt inexplicably guilty in their presence. Here I'd been suspecting them of plotting a prank behind my back when the... when It had been...?
Fuck all the shit I'd gone through and it was the good feelings that turned me into a mess. This sort of gratitude wasn't what so unfamiliar, so fucking warm, that I bubbled with it.
"Hey…" Chloe said softly and I felt her drop an arm on my shoulder. Could she see this? Could she tell that this was making me fall to pieces? This unbearable kindness. "Its okay. Everyone wanted to do it, you know? You don't have to say anything. We know you don't like the touchy feely stuff."
Katie bounced on one foot looking a little embarrassed herself. She didn't know the others very well yet but I was glad they'd invited her along. She'd sat next to that Michael kid. He was a quiet type. Odd that he'd be such a close friend with loudmouths like Tanner and Reid.
I licked my lips and forced myself to meet Chloe's eyes. "Th-thanks." I nearly whispered, hoping it conveyed an ounce of what I felt. Guilty again. I could give them so much more than that...
I turned trying to ease my shaking by holding onto the counter all the way around and followed the teller behind the counter to a door that opened automatically after a few inputs from the woman.
"Good luck!"
As I walked through the doorway behind the woman I heard Sophia murmur, "Damn I'm glad you know how to talk to her. She was really freaking ou–!" Before the closing of the automatic door cut her off.
Dammit couldn't they see what they were doing to me? I wasn't! I was… I was normal. Completely normal. I didn't have to hold that image anymore, but damn did that habit die hard. I'd try and make them understand how much this meant to me on the way back. I would. I had to.
The woman took me down a long hallway past a series of small offices to a big one at the far end of the room and walked in.
Then, to my surprise, she pulled a black haired wig off, letting a scraggly mess of blonde curls fall free.
"God that's better!" The girl spoke, her voice suddenly entirely different.
"Uh… Clinic?" I asked, unsure.
"Oh, yes! I'm Clinic. Sometimes I run the teller to help the weak ones out front. They're nice people really but they're beyond my ability to cure. Sort of on death row those. Genetic diseases are a bit of a problem for me, as well as being retarded. Can't fix things people are born with usually, but those ones out front have nowhere else to go. They tell me they feel clear around me, so I let them hang around and sit out front for them when I'm not too busy healing the Wardens or clients. Oh! I'm babbling."
She was. She was extremely long winded too. But that was alright.
"I… think thats kind of nice of you. I don't know if I'd be patient enough if I had your powers," I said with a sort of calmness derived from masking every emotion I had. I was still trying to calm myself down from the waves of … of… love pouring out of me towards those friends I'd left in the waiting room.
Fuck I just wanted to go back out and hug them all. When had I become such a sap?
"You said 'your' powers. Implying you've got ones of your own?"
I scowled annoyed. That calmed me down easier than any mental exercises could. "Why does everyone keep asking me that?"
"Oh come now!" She said, her voice a high lilting sort that might be found in an 1800s era play. "Guessing what powers "Taylor Hebert" might have, has been all the rage lately. You're quite popular for what you said here in New York. Several of the Wardens have wanted to thank you personally."
I flushed. "I didn't do anything."
"No? You didn't single handedly curb the start of a full anti-hero riot? Ah. It must be some other girl who got their school to send me upwards of forty grand in order to fix their missing arm. Well, there's the door. I'll wait for the other girl. I was so hoping she'd show up today."
I bristled. The woman had a very… uppity attitude. I don't know. She had a regal bearing that annoyed me. Her sarcasm had been meant encourage me but I only found myself irritated.
"I… didn't do anything someone else wouldn't have done." I amended.
"But you did it." She said with finality. "You did. It really made a lot of us feel good about ourselves and what we were trying to do. Honestly, if you'd have stepped in here the next day I'd have healed you on the spot. Still would. Will in fact. The money your school donated has already been re-donated to people like those ones out front. I couldn't in good conscience accept money for what I would've given freely."
I cocked an eyebrow. "Why? I just didn't do all that much!"
She smirked at me, exasperated and amused. "You really do spin a wonderful tale. Humble too. I like you. Tell me, want any cosmetic surgery while I am at it? Different color eyes? Hair? Shorter? Taller? Bigger bust? Its on the house. The girl who gives an entire nation of capes a reason to be a hero and she doesn't even realize it." The last bit the woman said almost to herself as she sat down in a stool and spun around, propping one foot up on her knee.
Not Bonesaw in the slightest.
"Uh… n-no. Just. Just the arm please. I couldn't… accept anything more," she had me flustered.
Bigger bust size?
No.
But mayb–!
No!
"Alright, well here's how this works. My healing hits everyone near me but I can direct it to affect specific people within my range. Smaller the building I'm in, the better I can direct it. If I'm outside I can't do that at all. For stuff like regrowing skin, veins, fingers, limbs, anything really, I'll need to touch you directly. You're going to burn a lot of energy regrowing it and the rest of the material for your arm comes from… well… bodies donated post mortem. And you'll have to touch them. Yeah. It kinda grosses me out a bit too."
Surprisingly I was okay with that. About the same as feeding my bugs to Panacea for protein really.
"Also…. its gonna hurt. A lot. Can you take pain and make sure you hold on both to me and to the cadaver? If not you'll need to be knocked out." She said, in probably the most unprofessional tone I'd ever heard.
This was all very casual.
"Aren't there, like, forms I need to sign? Something like that?" I asked. I wasn't exactly trying to stall but I didn't really like pain.
"I'm not a doctor. I don't do things by the book, and if you plan to sue me, I assure you, you will lose. Cuts out a whole lot of paperwork and keeps me able to heal as much as I wish." She said without pausing once for breath. "I don't have a hippocratic oath either. If I find out you had HIV, I'm not gonna keep that a secret. Its why I only heal by reservation or my own whim now. People don't like their secrets spilling out. You got any you need to hide? I actually might keep your secrets."
I gulped. Then nodded and backed away.
"Oh come on. I swear I won't tell anyone anything I find. Alright? You girl, deserve what I can give. If anyone does." Clinic told me, and for some weird reason I trusted her.
That wasn't nearly enough. I didn't budge an inch.
She twisted on the stool and hit a few buttons. To my disgust, a tank in the corner of the room rotated to reveal a glass side and a dead woman floating in the water within. There was a small panel that could be detached with rubber lining. I assumed that was where I'd be putting my hand.
"Now please, Taylor. I need to find out the extent of your injuries. My power focuses on your entire body at once. It won't start healing old wounds until everything else is fixed, unfortunately. Here, just have a seat and grab my hand, and we'll get you a new arm. Okay?"
My secrets… Oh god this was so monumentally stupid, but how could I go out there now and tell them that their work had been in vain? Their efforts to help me, just because they had wanted to, I would be turning down for some inexplicable reason?
They'd hate me. They'd…
I couldn't accept that. Not again.
Damn the consequences.
I sat down on the stool next to the tank and Clinic, and offered my hand. She moved to take it.
She touched my hand, and she instantly jerked rigid. Her eyes were wide, breathing labored as if she'd just run a marathon. Slowly, though she relaxed. I found her hand coming to rest around my shoulders. She was… hugging me?
"Are you okay…?" I asked trying not to startle her as she clutched the wall, and me, for support. "Was… that normal?"
"N-Normal." She scoffed. "You poor girl…"
I didn't really like the sound of that.
"Mental trauma. Shrapnel… from some type of bomb I don't recognize. Blunt impact damage or bruising on nearly every bone and muscle."
I cringed. She probably meant Bakuda and Lung.
"Back broken, spinal injury, fixed by another healer probably better than me. Mental Trauma." She continued.
Leviathan. Panacea. Armsmaster outing me.
"Skull sawed open across the forehead? More mental trauma," Clinic's words were growing louder now.
Oh right, I'd forgotten about that. Always too focused on seeing Grue's entrails all over that kitchen...
"Piercing wounds, one horrible one in your shoulder. Not healed. Just… vanished but it left an impression."
Hadn't Shadowstalker hit me with something once? Or maybe that was Mannequin. No… Foil? Fuck.
Some of these injuries weren't coming to mind.
"You've been blinded, and also healed of that!" The woman bellowed, her tone now growing angry.
Noelle and Scapegoat. I remember that.
"My power is telling me you were… were… torn in half. Your legs were r-ripped off! You're…! No. No I refuse to believe that's real. Somehow by god there's no mental trauma from that!"
I hadn't been worried then. I was dead. No reason to worry when you're sure you're going to die. That I didn't was merely a bit of luck.
Clinic's lower lip was quivering. Well, so much for that regal bearing.
"And a little over a year ago you went fully insane due to… something fucking with your brain. Yet here you stand, hardly even noticeably different from your peers at first glance. All this, and you're here…" She paused twitching, almost shivering. "...to get your arm healed. Which you stuck in a fire to cauterize."
I blushed a little. "Hey I lived!"
"And let's not forget the goddamn bullet wounds in your head! Taylor Hebert… what… are you? I've seen veterans that would scream like little girls at your injuries! I've never seen… I can't even…!" She let me go, her eyes filled with pity that they hadn't held before. This was easy though. Old injuries that didn't hurt anymore? Old pains, long recovered? I took these memories in stride. It was the good things from unexpected sources that fucked me up.
Well. This was awkward.
"I… I'm from Earth Bet." I admitted. She didn't look surprised. Not even momentarily, but she did let loose a strangled cry. "Did a lot of fighting there. Got hit by a bomb early on. I think it upped my threshold for pain a little."
"You can say that again!" She barked. "Who the hell are your parents? Who let this happen to you!? This is…! You're twenty! Twenty!"
Yep. Real awkward.
"Would, it be okay if you didn't ask that? Its over now, and its nothing my Dad could've prevented anyway. He did his best, but its over now," I repeated. "I've made some good friends. I'd like to put that world behind me."
The best of friends. I'd love these people forever.
Emma came to mind and I cringed.
I hope...
Clinic still seemed a bit shaken. Outraged? She wasn't scared, and whatever panic she'd felt was devolving into a sort of bloodthirsty rage at whoever had allowed these injuries to befall me. But slowly she came out of it. She nodded, gathering her composure.
I smiled and walked to the tank to get my arm healed.
I was doing a handstand against one of the few open spots of wall in my apartment's living room, grinning like a hyena. I had a right hand. I hadn't known how much I'd missed it.
"Woohoo!" Sophia cheered as I wallered my way down the wall, and climbed back to my feet. With both hands.
Clinic hadn't been lying. It had hurt like hell, but it was nothing I couldn't handle. And the pay off was…
Whoa.
Old aches and pains that had plagued me so long I'd forgotten them had vanished. My back felt straighter, my shoulders lighter, my neck didn't pop anymore when I turned it, which it had done since I'd been in middle school. My joints seemed fresh and new. Everything felt fresh and new.
Something in my mind had eased as well. Like the weight of Skitter, Weaver, and Khepri had just drained away. She'd done something about my mental trauma but it hadn't fucked me up like Panacea had.
I felt like I was walking on air. A high that I wasn't sure I'd ever fall from.
"Oh god, Taylor there's a huge cockroach right behind you!"
I knew. I felt it.
Joy slowly faded to horror.
My high came tumbling down.
Skitter was back.
End Chapter