Magneto tells us the next day that he's called in a favor from a colleague. A woman shows up after lunch, her face gaunt and her skin pale. Magneto introduces her as 'panda,' and I try to picture why the name's appropriate. Even when she lifts her hair and demonstrates her power, pulling a large metal spike from the base of her skull, I can't see why she would name herself after the bear.
The metal spike lifts from the woman's hands with a flick of Magneto's wrist and darts to my throat. I flinch and become tense, feeling the metal collar lift with the dagger's touch. With a sharp tug, the metal falls from my neck and my friends all quietly cheer. Magneto looks proud of himself and gives the dagger back to Panda.
She swallows it with a morbid smile.
My hand touches my neck where the necklace had been. My thoughts had barely turned from it for a minute since it had been put there days ago. A grin spreads across my face and I meet Magneto's eyes. I snap my fingers and no one moves. Then, I see Blanc on the other side of the room, looking at me in surprise. I had forgotten to take her with me.
I consider quickly unfreezing to let her in, but it would ruin the effect. I turn from them and explore the house, looking for things to adjust. I don't want to mess up their house. They've been so kind. Instead I go right back into the living room and start moving people around. I take most of my friends over to the front by the door and move Magneto, Panda, and the two others with them to the windows. Magneto, I turn to face the center of the room. The others look out the windows.
I leave Blanc's parents alone. I don't want to move a pregnant woman. It seems wrong.
Instead I stand back where I was and imagine the start. Magneto will reach into his pockets and throw confetti at me.
I snap my fingers and it happens. Magneto looks down at his own hands and then at me with a grin. He turns to the blue woman who's hardly left his side since I've seen them and says I'm impressive. I glance at Blanc's parents, who smile with a little jealousy.
I look back at Magneto, who inspects me.
"What else can you do?"
I list a few things I'd learned, still not quite comfortable with the way I'm being looked at by the old man and his friends. Panda practically glares. He thanks me and the adults go into the dining room and talk.
I turn to my friends, who all grin. I don't see Blanc, though, and immediately feel a little bit of dread. I push past my friends, feeling Douma's feathers on my face, and hurry into the hallway. I don't see her there, or in her room. As I leave, though, I notice her hair under the door of her closet. I throw open the door.
Her head rolls a little on the wooden floor and I notice a bruise on her forehead. She's out cold, hands on her chest. I fall to my knees by her limp frame and pull her out of the closet to put her head on my lap.
"Blanc," I shout, "Blanc! Wake up!" I check her pulse and it's weak. The bruise on her forehead is fresh and trickles blood.
"Help!" I call, "Someone call an ambulance."
I hear scores of footsteps in the hallways and my vision fills with worried faces.
"She was choking again and it's my fault," I say to them, sobbing.
"She's choking?" "Do the Heimlich."
"No, no," I interrupt them all, "She was choking." I throw my hands to my throat to demonstrate, "it's a game, she stopped 'cause I said I'd help, but-" I cry again. I hear someone pressing phone buttons, and no time seems to pass until the sirens sound in the distance.
We helplessly watch as the ambulance drives away, Blanc's parents joining her unconscious form inside.
Magneto stands behind me. He places a hand on my shoulder.
"Humanity will drive us to ruin," he says quietly, as though he somehow knows what caused her to start her awful addiction.
I balk. Little does he know, the brotherhood was what drove her to ruin. I pull away from his hand and walk away. He scares me; the subtle ownership he seems to think he has of me.
It's just little things, how he doesn't move out of the way when I walk past him, the way he puts a hand on my shoulder. They're power moves, and he's an expert at them.
They're not going to work on me. I pull on a jacket because it's started to rain and I step out into the yard.
I hear the door open and shut several times behind me, but I want to be alone. I snap my fingers and follow the path into the woods.
I find the forest strange and lonely without the regular sounds, like birds or wind, or even the sound of sticks and leaves crunching under my feet. The sounds of my footsteps are cut short, flat.
Once I'm out of sight, I unfreeze and sit on a mossy log. The breeze is chilly, and raindrops fall from the canopy.
This was my fault. It was. Blanc and I made promises to each other, and I broke mine. For the Brotherhood.
I was such a bad friend. Am such a bad friend. I hear my friends approaching on the path, talking quietly. I huff and snap my fingers again, standing and trudging farther into the woods.
I see the path we took to get to the lake and turn left instead. The trees are thicker here, more of them are evergreens and the path is dwarfed. I should turn back, because I don't know where I'm going, but I don't. Instead I unpause and keep walking, enjoying the sound of the breeze and the rain. The color of the clouds gets darker as I walk, and I realize the time must be later than I thought.
Time isn't a problem for me now. I don't want to think, so I walk.
When the clouds are a dark blue rather than grey, I freeze again and turn around. I meet my friends at the fork in the road, most of them sitting in various positions on the ground. Douma is far above us, motionless in the sky. I walk around their frozen forms and hope they know that they should run now, before I mess up for them, too.
I unfreeze and they all notice me at once a few seconds later.
"Lapse!" they say. Douma hears them and lands in a tree. She climbs down as I watch, the rest of them expressing quiet support.
Douma, though, looks at me in that way that she does and she sees that I blame myself. She holds out a hand, a simple gesture, and I take it as we walk. I think she or Scarlett would know best how this feels.
Back at the house, we crowd in Blanc's room, making deep conversation. Talk turns to the X-men and the Brotherhood, and we all come to a serious conclusion.
"Guys," Blossom says quietly, "We... aren't all going back to the school, are we?"
We all look at each other.
"No," I say, "I don't think we are."
"But we can't be enemies," Scarlett says quickly, "Even if some of us are Brotherhood."
"Does that mean you're X-men, Scarlett?" Coleton asks.
She nods, slowly at first, then more sure. "Yes," she says, "Yes I am."
"We should figure it out," says Samantha, "So we're sure. Sure who's who I mean."
I'm not sure where I'll go. Thinking of making a decision makes my stomach hurt. It's similar to when I first discovered my powers. "I don't feel like I can go anywhere," I say, "I don't trust either of them now."
"I go where Lapse goes," says Coleton. He catches my eye and smiles at me.
"I'm brotherhood," Blossom says quietly. Though I feel like I should have seen it coming, I'm surprised.
"I'm brotherhood," says Douma, looking apologetically at Scarlett.
"I'm Xmen," says Samantha, "I didn't mind the school, even though what they did to Lapse was an awful mistake."
"So that's all of us, then?" says Blossom, "Except for Lapse and Coleton. And Blanc."
"Yeah," I say, still thinking about the decision I have to make. Maybe I won't go with either of them. I bet it's like most wars; there are never just two sides.
