Chapter 27: Asking For It
Morgan was sitting in the window sill in the cafeteria, her friends were sitting at the table nearest her, so she could still hear them all talking and she chimed in when the conversation deemed it necessary for her. She was so happy to not be wearing her boot. She'd been out of it since a couple days after Christmas. At the moment she was reading through the grimoire that she got for Christmas. The more she read it, the more she felt herself getting sucked in and she couldn't stop. There were so many different things she could be trying. If her powers were expanding, this book would be the key to learning what they are at her own pace. She had a plan where every night, after her homework and her hunter training with her dad and Sam, she practiced a different ability that the psychics in her bloodline tended to have. But Morgan wasn't finding anything to be working yet.
Although, her telekinesis was getting stronger and more precise. Dean took her out to the woods and they messed around with the trees. She even levitated the Impala with them in it without hurting the car. Though the suspension creaked a little bit when the car landed a little too harshly. She was getting better at communicating telepathically and hearing other people's thoughts too, but it still hurt her head and still gave her nose bleeds. Morgan just had to keep trying at everything she was reading about. The one thing she wasn't allowed to touch was the magic aspect. There were psychics who practiced magic and some of them went down a dark path. Her Dad and Sam laid down the law and told her that she wasn't allowed to practice magic. She was going to agree with it for now. She was in the middle of reading an entry from the late 1800s when someone came up to her and ripped the book right out of her hands. Morgan stood up faster than she could look up at who took her book. But then she saw the back of some blonde's head and realized that it was Lainey. She still carried that chip on her shoulder that Morgan was the enemy, or at least that far beneath her that Morgan needed to be punished for simply existing.
"Give it back," Morgan said calmly, though she was ready to spring at any moment. Getting into another school fight was the least of her worries. She just wanted the book back.
"What is it anyway? Looks old," Lainey flipped through all of the handwritten pages of the overly large book. It was centuries old and spelled to stay together by one of the psychics turned witch in her family.
"It's mine and you need to give it back," Morgan told her. She could feel her heart pounding in her chest as her hands shook.
"I don't think I'm going to," Lainey told her as she flipped the book upside down to the point where the two photos that she kept inside fell out. Morgan dropped to the floor to grab the pictures, but she was only fast enough to grab the one of her mom and her grandma. Lainey shoved Morgan as she snatched the picture of her parents up into her little hands and looked at it.
"Give it back," Morgan growled through her teeth as she stood up from the floor. She was biting back the growing need to use her powers in front of the whole school.
"Who are these two freaks anyway? Friends of yours? Or are they dead too? Did you kill them like you killed Jonah?" Lainey was about to laugh but Morgan let out an angry cry as she make a swift side kick, nailing the girl straight in the chest, hard enough to knock her onto the ground and take the photo back along with her Grimoire. The blonde got so angry that she got up and tackled Morgan to the ground. She went to punch Morgan in the face, but she caught Lainey's fist and threw the teenage girl off of herself. She stood up and looked the blonde right in the eye.
"You disgusting, two-faced, skank bitch," Morgan told her as she put the photos back in the book. "They're not freaks they're my goddamn parents. That's my freaking dead mother that you're calling a freak. I may have been injured the last time you tried to start something with me in front of the entire goddamn school. But now I'm just fine. Remember what I said the last time we got into a fight? In the hallway?" Morgan asked her. The blonde went wide eyes. She took a step back.
"No-"
"I said: Touch me again, Lainey and I will hit you. I will break your nose and you will have to get a shitty nose job because we live in Kansas," Morgan quoted herself word for word. She remembered that day vividly considering she was going to hold herself to her promise.
"You're not going to-"
"Normally I wouldn't, but you called my dead mom and my awesome single dad a freak. So Lainey, you touched me again. I'm a girl of my word," Morgan told her. She swung faster than Lainey could react, aiming straight through Lainey's head, right at an angle to break the girl's nose without any serious brain damage. The whole cafeteria went silent. It was funny though, because as Lainey's nose was gushing blood and her friends were helping her go back, the teacher's all ignored the scene. Morgan looked into the doorway across the cafeteria to see Mrs. Jeurgens waving her over. Morgan quietly grabbed her things and quietly walked to the principal, waving to her friends on her way out. Madison gave her a discreet thumbs up as everyone else got back to business as usual with their lunches/social hour. She walked with Mrs. Jeurgens to her office and sat down in the chair across from her desk.
"We gotta stop meeting like this," Mrs. Jeurgens laughed. Morgan didn't know if it was okay to laugh, but as she saw Mrs. Jeurgens eating a salad, she figured she was allowed to finish eating her own lunch as they talked.
"I'm sorry, I know getting into a fight was wrong. I just got so mad that I couldn't control myself," Morgan explained in a cordial manner.
"Alright here's the deal. I'm gonna let it slide because you've had a rough year. We know it's been a bit harder than we all realized because you were dealing with your mother's death when you moved here, and I've been hearing from other teachers and students that Ms. Lisowski has been targeting you in particular since you've arrived. But, I'm gonna need you to stop hitting kids. As previously seen in your fight last semester, the faculty and I are perfectly aware that you are an experience fighter and are capable of handling a five foot tall blonde bully. But the facts are, you shouldn't be fighting your bully with your fists. I need you to use your words and or walk away. As much as I'm all for you standing up for yourself, we don't fight fire with fire. So I will let this one slide, but you can't be getting into anymore fights. I can only let you off with a warning so many times," Mrs. Jeurgens told her. Morgan nodded in response to the principal.
"I understand. I will do my very best not to let it happen again," She told her.
"Good," Mrs. Jeurgens told her. "And I know it's hard to move past recent events, so if you're ever having a rough day and feel like you don't want to be put in a situation where you may act out, my doors are always open. So are the Counselor's, and each and everyone of your teachers. Never be afraid to ask about eating your lunch in one of their classrooms or spending your mornings in the classroom that you're going to the be in for your first class. Also, I hope you choose a more contact sport this spring to work your anger out now that Cheerleading is over. You know, we could use more players like you, girls with a fire," Mrs. Juergens told her. Morgan realized that she was right. She needed a more contact filled sport in order to better handle her rage. Her hunter's training wasn't enough. She was beginning to realize that she was more like her dad than she thought. Sam told her that Dean was a troublemaker and got into his fair share of high school fights.
"Thank you," Morgan stated as she started packing up the trash from her eaten lunch to throw away.
"Oh, and Morgan?" the principal stopped her for a moment before the teenager left.
"Yeah?" She looked back at the administrator, locking eyes even if only for a moment.
"I will be calling your dad to let him know what happened. But, I will make sure he knows you're not in trouble. Honestly, that girl had it coming. She bullies most of the girls at this school and you're the only one that seems to be standing up to her. But you didn't hear that from me," Mrs. Juergens smiled. Morgan nodded in understanding and left the office, making her way to her Science class. She found her seat with Madison and waited for the teacher to write something on the board so she could take notes. Morgan looked to the seat behind her, where Jonah used to sit. It was still empty, and it was still painful to see. It was painful for her everyday to see that empty chair. She just wanted to school year to either be over, or the seats to be rearranged.
It felt like her life flashed her by as she went from class to class that afternoon. When the school day was over, Morgan changed out of her gym clothes and walked out of the school to the pick up line where she spotted her dad in the Impala. She walked straight over to the car, opened the door and climbed in. She looked in the cupholder and it was a strawberry milkshake from her favorite diner in town.
"What's this for?" Morgan asked. Dean picked it up and handed it to her before giving her a fist bump.
"I, uh, heard you followed through on your word," He laughed. Morgan knit her eyebrows.
"How do you know it was me following through?" She asked. Dean laughed again.
"After I got a call from you principal, I called your friend Madison and she filled me in on what happened," He explained. Morgan let out a little chuckle.
"Yeah, last time I got in a fight with Lainey, I told her that if she touched me again, I would break her nose," She told her dad with a sort of comedic pride.
"And did you?" He asked. She nodded.
"Aimed through her face at an angle, there was a loud crack, then blood just like poured from her face and it was on my hand and everything." She talked about it with an odd sort of happiness, like hitting Lainey made her day, but she started thinking more about it and just grew more and more sad, not even touching the milkshake.
"What's wrong?" He asked her after the silence had grown rather loud in his opinion.
"I was reading the grimoire at school during lunch, and Lainey took the book. Don't worry, I got it back, but before I did she stole the picture of you and mom. She asked me if they were my freak friends and if I killed them like I killed Jonah because Lainey thinks that Jonah's death is my fault. I know it is, but she seems to be positive that I killed him but that's not the point. She called you and mom freaks. I know that I physically attacked her and that should make me feel better, but it doesn't." Dean pulled the car to the side of the road and came to a stop. He didn't say anything, not a word. But he pulled his daughter into a hug and rubbed his hand in a circle on her back as she began to cry.