J's P.O.V

After last night's storm of sorrow, I needed something to pick me up. I woke up to see that Nate had left the room before I had even woke up. The clock said that the time was 7am, Nate was usually somewhat terrible when it came to waking up in time. However it was this morning that had me worried, without batting an eye, I stood up, got dressed and walked out to look over the balcony. Nate was awake and talking to Lara, this satisfied my curiosity so I went back in the room to get clean. My psychological status was taking a toll, after the talk I had with Nate last night had pushed me to the edge, I had a stream of dreams including me and my father trying to kill each other, I managed to fail each and every time.

The dreams didn't effect me on the outside, however there was the bags I had under my eyes. This was seen as soon as I got down the stairs, Lara must have seen the bags, or Nate had told her about the conversation yesterday.

"You didn't sleep well?" She asked.

"No, I'm ok though." I smiled again.

"Really, well the mumblings in your sleep told Nate quite a bit about why you couldn't sleep. Come with me J."

I knew I was in trouble, so I followed Lara back to the Library where she sat behind a desk. This looked like I was about to have my ass kicked again, an old familiar feeling rised up in my chest, I hated it. It made me defensive against the woman who saved me from the worst crime known to man. Her gaze bored into my head.

"Why did you help Nate think like that? How could you J?" She accused me.

"Wait, I don't understand. I told him to stop thinking about me in pain, I didn't tell him to do something horrible Lara." I protected myself.

"He cares about you J, it's his right to be sad for you."

"Being sad for me doesn't help Lara! I can't fight my demons by hiding behind my friends!" I retaliated.

"Nevertheless J, it is wrong for you to tell someone how to think." She stood up.

"I don't like people thinking about me being beaten half to death! How would you like it if I couldn't sleep because I couldn't stop worrying about what happened to you in the past?" My eyes were reddening.

"You don't know about my past." Lara began to realise something.

"That's the point, Nate doesn't know all that much about my past yet he can't sleep because of it. I didn't want him to know the worst that happened to me, he only knows the regular stuff, that's why I told him what to think about. I can't stand it when people do that."

Lara realised what had happened, she came around the desk and hugged me, that was the straw that broke the camel's back for me. I tried holding back tears but there was nothing that could stop it, after repressing the memories for nearly a week, they all came back to me. Flooding my mind again, weakening my knees. Dragging me to the floor. I hated myself, to try and stop the memories, I had to cause something else to think about. I head-butted the floor to try and cause something to come to mind, but there was nothing, I was too far gone.

"J, please calm down. I'm sorry." Lara apologised.

"No, no. I'm sorry." I sniffed.

"I'm trapped in my mind Lara, I can't get out." I panicked in my stress, Lara didn't know what to do.

"You're not trapped, remember what you told Nate." She calmed me down, helping me up, but I couldn't get up.

I began to control my breathing, it worked for a little while, enough to get me to my feet. There it was... A figment of my imagination, he was there. My father stood in the doorway. My heart stopped, pushing me back, into the large desk, knocking my head on the side of it, flooding my vision with darkness.

Lara's P.O.V

He collapsed into the desk, an audible crack was heard as he hit the floor. Quickly, I checked for everything; pulse, bleeding, pupil dilation. He'd knocked himself out, or at least given himself a concussion. Without having to think about it, I took him to his room and put him down on the bed. He looked in a very bad way, with the tears and everything else, I took a few seconds to look over him before I regretted being too hard on him. It was only a few minutes before Nate walked in, he looked terrible.

"What happened to him?" He looked pretty shaken up when he saw J.

"He collapsed, he should be fine." I explained as I checked J's pulse again. He was fine.

J's eyes began to flicker slightly, slowly he opened them. He wasn't unconscious for long so there wasn't that much chance of a concussion building up in the 3 minutes he'd been out cold.

"What happened?" He groaned as he rubbed the back of his head.

"You collapsed, did you see something that shocked you?" I was concerned.

"I saw Angel." he covered his eyes again.

"An Angel?" Nate asked.

"His dad." I explained.

"He isn't here, you don't need to be afraid anymore." I smiled.

J sat up and but his legs over the edge of the bed, again he rubbed his head quite vigorously.

"I know that, it just came to my mind. This sucks." He sighed.

"Hey, cheer up. He's not in the country." I reassured him.

"What's going to happen to him? I mean, he planned for us to be hit in Spain... Shouldn't someone be looking for him?" J thought aloud.

"There's an APB in the US for him, I doubt he'll come looking for you." Again, I gave him a reassuring rub on the shoulder.

"So would I be safer in the US? If he came for me then the police wold find him." he began panicking again.

"You're safer with us, the police didn't help you when you ran away did they?" Nate jumped in, he had a good point but they never had a firm reason to arrest Angel.

"He bribed them, he has enough money to bribe the UN... Am I screwed?" J looked up at me, sadness in his eyes.

"No you're not, as long as you stand strong you can be safe from anyone who wants to hurt you?" I sat next to him and pulled him into a hug.

"How can I do that if I'm in a country that wont let me defend myself?" He looked down again.

I did my best to cheer him up, then I realised something, J came from a village of the Tiwinoku, the race to which he belonged, strong warriors who would protect him from anything that came to him. He needed to go back, to learn the strengths he was born with and how to control them.

"Do you remember the village you were born in?" I asked.

J answered in Cantonese, I couldn't translate for Nate.

"Yes, they aren't like anyone you've ever met." He smiled.

"What would you say if I said we could go back and train you?" I asked.

"Train?" J was confused, he rolled up his sleeve and rubbed his arm. The tattoo on his arm had begun to glow slightly.

"After the fire, they wont train me." he sighed.

"That was Angel, not you." I spoke as I looked over J's tattoo

"Either way, I was the cause for it. Would they hate me for that?" He shook.

"I was caught trying to steal one of their most sacred artefacts, they forgave me and let me go. Angel setting fire to a hut was nothing compared to what they've been through before, they will forgive you. In any case, we have to worry about something right now don't we?" I smiled at J.

J just looked up at me, confused.

"What?" he asked.

"Cheering both of you up, come on, we're going to the city." I stood up again and brought J back up to his feet.

"I thought we couldn't go because we had something to do." Nate brightened up.

"Well, we have something much more important than that now. Come on, get ready and we'll head out. Nate, go and get Sully and tell him what's happening. I'm going to stay here and make sure that J hasn't taken a harder hit then I thought." I ordered.

I examined J's eyes with a small torch to figure out what happened to him, there was nothing wrong so I told him to get cleaned up whilst I got the car ready, it was a good 10 minutes before anyone was ready to go. J was the first to come down, wearing the black jacket I'd gotten for him. He looked relatively cold, he shrugged off the feeling and walked over to me. We were outside, admiring the small dusting of snow that had begun to fall again, J lit a herb and took a few minutes to smoke before I spoke to him.

"You're afraid of him that much?" I started.

"I suffered under him and his friends, of course I'm scared. Sis could take care of herself so I'm not worried about her, it's you guys. I mean, I saw the way you fought the other day through the scope, but he's almost demonic. As I said before, he's got more than enough money." He shook at the thought of it.

"Assassins?" I joked.

"Don't take him lightly, I wouldn't put it past him." He took one last drag of the herbs before he stubbed them out of the gravel.

"Were you serious about China? Going back for training?" He looked away from me.

"Only if you want to, I can't force you to go back." I explained, smiling.

"Mom could freeze things with her hands, would I be able to do that?" He asked.

"With enough experience, how many bands do you have now?" I had forgotten about the bands that marked a Tiwinoku's experience and skill.

"3, I didn't think about it before. What do they mean?" He looked back at me.

"They have something to do with how much power you have, how strong you are I mean."

Before J could ask another question, Nate came down with news.

"Sully's not coming, says he needs me for something. I can't go Lara, sorry." Nate apologised.

"Fair enough, are you ready J?" I asked as I opened the car door.

He nodded and waved bye to Nate before he got into the car, the journey was quiet for a while before J winced in pain. He rolled up his sleeve franticly as we neared the bridge into the nearby city, London had taken some environmental damage so we weren't going anywhere near London, floods had destroyed a number of buildings during the summer. More importantly, J distracted me from driving. Then I remembered what he would have been looking at, the stitches. He resisted scratching at the wounds as best he could, it looked as if he was in quite a lot of pain.

"Are you alright?" I asked.

"It itches like nothing I've ever felt." he sighed as he rolled the sleeve so it would stay up.

"Do you have any bandages in the car?" He almost gave up on trying to resist the urge.

"Look in the glove compartment." I suggested as I diverted my eye on the road again.

J pulled out the bandages from the compartment and took them out of the packaging, he slowly but tightly wrapped the bandages around his wrists, he winced as the disinfectant burned the wounds. With a satisfied sound, he tightened the bandage with his teeth, he left the other wrist, it must not have hurt very much. I felt sorry that he had to go through this a second time, I wanted to cheer him up a little. Eventually we reached a shopping plaza, surprisingly it was almost empty apart from a few security guards and bored store attendees, confused, I asked the nearest security guard what was going on.

"Well Miss, apparently there was a festival a couple of miles away, business is slow at this point." He explained.

I thanked him and moved on, J following close behind, the bandages still exposed.

"I don't like this, these places are usually noisy." He spun around, taking the detail of the plaza in.

"Doesn't mean we can't cheer you up. You said something about changing the way you look to change yourself, come on." I smiled.

We wandered through the plaza until we reached the hairdressers I wanted to visit. I knew the stylists well.

"Lara, what brings you back so soon?" The woman, Zane, joked with me.

"It's not me today, Zane. This is a friend of mine, he wants to look different." I explained as I guided J into the store.

"Different's my middle name, they don't call me Zane for nothin' honey." She joked as she flapped one of the capes and gestured for J to sit in the chair which he took.

J's P.O.V

I sat in the large leather chair while this woman with more piercings than a paper target in a shooting range ran her metallic fingers through my hair, she wore full finger rings, making it feel like a oddly shaped comb was running through my hair.

"How different do you need to look baby?" She smiled at me through the mirror.

"Enough that someone couldn't recognise me." I smiled back.

"Oh I hear you, but you want to keep your cute looks right?" She ran her hand down my shoulder, making me shudder.

I nodded awkwardly as Zane chuckled with Lara.

"Oh don't you worry, you're in good hands here. Lara honey, you should sit down, this might take a while." Zane moved away from me and looked through one of the many cabinets that were stacked in the place.

Speaking of which, the place looked as if it was some sort of pirates cabin, it was clean but messy at the same time, the wooden floor reinforced the theme strongly.
I fidgeted slightly in the chair, it was a nice feeling to talk to someone I didn't know at all, then again, the metallic fingers had me worried. Zane returned, shaking a bottle of liquid behind me.

"Ok, this here's a conditioner." She explained as she poured it over my head, my hair seemed to absorb it, making it string out in several different directions.

"This makes it easier to dye specific hairs." She pulled out a drawer from the table in front of me, it was filled with boxes.

"What's your favourite colour?" She asked.

"Red, what are you doing?" I wasn't strong in the hair and beauty thing.

"Dying your hair baby! Nothing makes people mistake you when your hair looks different." She explained as she took a box out of the drawer.

She began shaking the things up in the bottle, humming as she went. However I saw something in the corner of my eye, there was a man in a black long coat, he'd made eye contact with me. The feeling was strange, before I could do anything, it was too late, Zane held up the bottle as it exploded, going everywhere. Red covered the room as everyone dived for cover. No-one was hit by the shot, never-the-less. Worse things were happening.

The man I'd made eye contact with moved towards the door to see if I was dead, rage built up in me, something incredibly dangerous clicked in my head. As soon as the door opened, I tackled the long coat to the floor, throwing the gun away. I didn't know what to do, he did. He threw me outside without much effort, Lara called out, making the guy turn around. I launched myself on the back of the tall guy, his neck trapped in my elbow joint, no matter how hard he threw me I managed to hold on, choking life out of him.

I didn't want to kill him, it was his fault anyway. He pushed me back into a railing, crushing my back making me recoil in pain. That recoil pulled the guy backwards, over the balcony, luckily I held onto the balcony, he grabbed onto my legs, hanging on to me. It was no wonder I felt heavier. He fell once my shoe slipped off of my foot. He was dead. Something clicked in my head, a security guard pulled me from the balcony, I fell into the rails. My hearing left me, ringing replaced everything, Zane and Lara hovered over me, trying to break into my head. A shield hovered in front of my body -figuratively speaking- until Lara grabbed me and shook me. Ringing became silence.

"Are you alright?" She panicked.

"I don't know..."

She looked over me worried, that was until the security guard came over again.

"Is he alright? The police are going to be here soon to collect a statement, don't worry, this kid's in the clear." He reassured me and the two women who were looking over me, I felt faint, I never thought I was going to kill someone accidentally. Even though I wanted to kill dad, I didn't know who he was, I didn't even know who he wanted to kill.

"Hey, I need to get that stuff out honey, ya'll better come with me." Zane helped me to my feet, helping me move towards the store with the destroyed windows.

She combed the dye down towards the tips of my hair, it was kind of too late. Most of my light brown had became dark red, like the blood that probably pooled the plaza below. Zane began to add some black to even out the dye before the police came up, they had decided that I couldn't speak for myself due to the shock I would have gone through, Lara explained what had happened as best she could, including my point of retaliation. Burning began to rise in my chest, I knew my eyes were going to go crazy again, in front of police that would have meant death or some sort of asylum visit for me. Closing my eyes made sense seeing as Zane had messed up with the dye, it was running down my face.

"Hey, are you ok?" She asked.

"Yeah." I answered quickly seeing as the police still hung around the store.

By the time that the dye had set -120 minutes- the police had still stayed around and asked me what happened while I kept my eyes closed.

"Can you recall what happened?" The female officer asked.

"A man was shooting at the store, we all ducked down and I waited for the guy to come in. When he got in, I tackled him to the floor but he threw me off of him and tried to go back into the store. I had to stop him so I jumped on his back, he pushed me into the railing and we fell over. He grabbed my foot but my shoe slipped off so he fell." I explained as calmly as I could.

"Do you know who the man was?"

"No, I just know he was shooting at the store." I lied.

"OK, we'll leave a number with your guardian. Call us if you need anything."

They left as Zane directed the chair over to a sink where she tilted it back into a sink, the porcelain clicking against my collar. The water washed away the dye as well as the guilt I had in my chest, there wasn't much to let out and if there was, there wouldn't have been anyway of Zane seeing the tears. Yet, both women seemed to know what it was that was going through my head, neither of them wanted to push me. Once Zane had dried my hair, I realised something. My hair was now a dark, deep black with a hint of red in it, my fringe was a deep bright red, like the blood that had stained the ground of the plaza below us. It soon dawned on me that it was soon time for me to go back to china.

Lara paid Zane and took me to the car again, once we were inside, I turned to her.

"I think you were right about going back Lara. I want to go back." I admitted

"I know, you realise what that means right? Nate and Sully can't go up there with us, believe me when I say that your grandfather will be thrilled to see you." She smiled at me.

"I'm sure, but what about the rest? They know Angel was my father." I worried

"Look, they know that, but they also know Rebecca was your mother. They'll accept you in." She reassured me again.

The rest of the journey home, I stayed worried, worried about what was to come should we leave for china. I had the feeling that something would go wrong, it just so happened that it did. As we got off the bridge, I saw something strange, it was a black shadow over the sun, some sort of demon looking at me. Stupidly I let it leave me for a while, that was until of course when I came to the conclusion that it was an omen.

A bad one.

As we pulled up on the drive, there was something out of place, Sully and Nate were outside. Standing in the snow, there was an air of worry around them that made me uncomfortable as I got out of the car. For some reason it was always Nate to worry the most, no matter what it was, he was always worrying. With enough force to knock a rhino over, he charged into me and gave me a very tight hug.

"What's wrong?" I asked, concerned.

"We heard about the shooting on the radio, we knew Lara would be fine but we didn't know about you." Nate was again on the verge of tears, out of his usual character.

"You should have seen him Sully, a real brawler." Lara joked.

"Not funny kid, what if he'd been hurt?" Sully was unimpressed.

"Then he wouldn't have come back to the manor, would have gone to hospital and sent into care or something. I don't know Sullivan, if J hadn't done something I would have, but he beat me to it, so sue me." Lara sighed.

"So, red?" Sully asked.

"Are you missing the black? He wont be recognized by anyone who knows him before. Either way, he looks better know. Or he will once Nate stops trying to suffocate him." Lara gave a hint which made Nate loosen his grip slightly, he eventually let go of me.

"You'd better go and pack, we'l' have a plane to catch in a few days."