Ah...Haha… Hi? Yes, I am horrible. I have no excuse. I'm just sorry. In apology I shall write the next chapter as either a WonderBeetle or Arsenal/OC depending upon what you vote for in the review… Thing… Umm… Ok then.

Enjoy

"Italics" = Spoken in a languages other than English

Italics = Thoughts

Chapter 3

In which I lose my cool… and go in hot

Boston, MA

February 8th 2017, 06:50 EDT

I was awakened by a furry tail to the face and a louder than strictly necessary meow.

"Valentine, what part of leave of absence do you fail to understand?"

She just meowed again and tucked her head under my chin which caused me to forgive her instantly (Again). I rubbed her back and looked up at the ceiling, tracing cracks in the plaster and tried not to think about the last three days in any distinct detail. I was still in that hazy, in between state of waking and sleeping and maybe, just maybe, if I kept verrry still and verrry quiet I could…

And it was at that moment that Henry Guan decided to kick his ancient van's rear in gear. The thing was worse that an elderly air-condition unit with the flu. In the background I could hear his brothers jeering at one another as they clambered inside, hitting each other with backpacks and giving the youngest brother, Edward, a hard time. I growled, threw off the covers and stomped to the window and glared down at them. Henry spotted me.

"Hey Hafsa, do need a ri…"

I slammed the window shut in his face, partially because I was mad he had woken me up, and partially because explaining exactly what I was still doing in my pajamas 20 minutes before school was due to start was a conversation I didn't want to have out a window. Or ever, really. Still scowling I marched back to my bed and sat down hard, blowing air out my nose like a bull. Valentine just cocked her tabby head to the side and mewled at me, big green eyes gleaming, batting the drawstring of my onesie with a white paw. I sighed. What was it about having Valentine around that made it so hard to stay mad? Sighing again, I picked her up, cuddling her to my chest, sinking my face into her furry shoulders. After five minutes, she applied gentle yet firm pressure to the back of my shoulder with her claws, as if to say,

"Hey, I'm sorry you're upset, but their is a limited amount of kitty therapy I can do on an empty stomach. We might want to fix that ya?"

Why must my cat be so practical? About ten minutes later, we were downstairs, her eating the leftover frozen cocktail shrimp from New Years and I stuffing my face with pad-thai still in the takeout container. Chewing absently, I stared blankly at the opposite wall as images from what was possibly the worst night in my life played themselves across my vision in excruciatingly vivid detail. What the hell had happened back there? It had been like having a fever, if a fever was a living thing that was trying to become a chestburster from Alien. It had HURT goddammit! Like my DNA was being unwound and forcibly stuffed with at least 3 dozen new letters. That had been soaked in corrosive acid.

And then of course I had fainted into the arms of that cop, which was not only mortifyingly embarrassing but also almost cost me a trip to questioning. I just was thankful that in the craziness of the fire, no one had given much thought to a fainted girl with singed sleeves. Of which I was very glad they hadn't or else they might have had some very convincing evidence along the line of arson. Which it wasn't! I had been running AWAY from the fire. Wow, that didn't make it much better did it? I would have sucked at the whole questioning thing.

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To say Arsenal was having a bad day would be like saying Cupid had a crush on Green Arrow. In other words, complete and gross understatement that was likely to get you killed. As was his custom, he had ditched the Clubhouse before they had beamed up to the Watchtower, offering a basic explanation of his part of the stakeout turned raid for Blue Beetle to relay to Aqualad. He had then zataed to the nearest of his safe houses, an abandoned Katrina house in New Orleans only to discover that in his absence, someone had gotten past his various traps and managed to snag his sleeping bag and about two months worth of food. Oh, and there was a feral cat somewhere in the rafters. Arsenal hated cats. At least the damn thing hadn't shit in his clothes again. Shrugging out of his uniform, Arsenal pulled on a pair of oversized but comfy jeans, grabbed an old band t-shirt (Eight years old to be exact. Red had given him some of his/their old clothes) and, feeling the chill in the air, dragged a dark blue hoodie over it.

Peeling his mask off his face he surveyed his cramped quarters, contemplating what to do. It was too early and he was too whipped to do anything about his stolen supplies until (later) morning, but he would have to get them back soon. His emergency food stash only covered about another's week, and as it was it was mostly protein bars. But as it was he wolfed down five and curled up on the ratty mattress, trying not to miss his sleeping bag to much. Soon he was dead asleep.

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Most of the time, I quite enjoyed having a brain. My brain was useful, and dare I say sometimes extremely fun. It could figure out solutions to software bugs. It could read a book an concoct a moving, living image based upon words on a page. It could maneuver my limbs into the needed positions in order to pet a kitty's tummy. It could also, more often then I would care to admit, make the decision to veg out in front of the tv watching Charlie's Angels. Unfortunately, for all it's processing power, it seemed quite content to sit at the kitchen island, stare vaguely at the refrigerator and reflect upon the fact that it's host could apparently shoot FREAKING FLAMES out of her hands. I was, as we say in layman's terms, flipping the hell out.

My mother, oblivious to my current plight, was trying to contact my grandmama. Which, given the extensive surveillance of any calls from Bialya to the States and vice versa, ment she was being shuffled through various servers, middle-men and exorbitantly high prices to get her (possible) five minute phone call. By about the sixth line change I could see her jaw beginning to clench. Usually it was around this point that some member of our family would approach her and gently ask if we could hold the phone for a while she did X, Y or Z, which was code for;

"You look like you want to reach though the phone and strangle someone, so I think it's best if you go take it out on the throw pillow then the next poor sap who comes online, no matter how much he/she deserves it. (And lets face it, you and I both know they do.)"

But somehow I couldn't do it. My muscles failed to respond, my mind was blank as a new piece of paper. And suddenly something began to spread across my consciousness, dark and insidious like and oil spill, creeping up on unsuspecting neurons and swallowing them whole.

Didn't we tell you?

It reached into my memories and began searching.

We did try to warn you.

It rushed past recent memories, memories of what Alice, Katie and I had planned to do this weekend, before my life went to shit.

You thought you could escape? You were wrong.

Even deeper, past my sixteenth birthday, past Jawdah's middle school basketball tournament, past the start of sophomore year, past our vacation to Maine, past Humam's graduation from BU.

But then that's no big surprise is it? You… Being wrong...

I'm watching my life unravel backwards like a cassette tape, images flashing by quicker and quicker, dragging me back to a place I never wanted to see again.

You can't escape what you are.

I'm frozen now, as the words grip my soul and drag me under, filling my lungs with soot and my blood with fire, pulling me down, down, down.

You were made for someone else. Every breath you breathe, every pint of blood in your veins exists because they say it can. You are just a piece in a game, another ant waiting to be squashed. And to think you could have been someone.

The door is visible now. Its plain and white and doesn't have a doorknob. Behind it is a room. A room that's worse than all the other rooms in this building. It screams at me and tells me things that make me want to cry, but I can't, I CAN'T. And the worst part is I think it's telling the truth.

Now princess, shall we try that one more time?

Something inside me snaps and suddenly all I can feel is unfathomable white hot rage. I awake to a blaring of a fire alarm, my mother's screaming and a half inch deep imprint my hands have left in the stone table top.

Apparently I have a thing for cliffhangers. Who knew? So, do you want to see more Arsenal/OC or Wonderbeetle next chapter? I know, I know, curse me for my slow narrative pace but I've never been a gal who gets things over with quickly. Stories and S'mores are both better if it's a slow burn, I find.

Anyway's, review and comment and all that swell stuff!

(Yes I used the word swell. No, I did not use it ironically)

Zoo Out, Peace!