Chapter Twenty-Five: Reluctant Admissions
"You do?" I'm shocked. I mean, I knew Cara and Layla had history, but I'd thought – I didn't even know what I had thought. Not this.
"Yeah, but she promised-" Cara broke off, looking bitter and pissed. And maybe a little sad, but I could be imagining it. "I suppose that doesn't matter anymore."
I stayed silent, though I'm bursting with questions. What did she promise? Not to tell anyone about her powers? I knew Cara and Layla used to be friends, but what happened? Was this the reason why they're not friends anymore?
The old grandfather clock beside the stairs ticked continuously, marking the seconds with every swing of its golden pendulum. The television flickers, the bouncing icon of the screen saver fading to black and leaving Cara and I sitting in the dark.
Eventually, Cara sighed again, "If she's using her powers again, then we need to tell superheroes, not the police."
"What happened?" I asked, holding myself back from asking more questions by slowly reaching for the lamp's floor switch. The warm buttery light casts soft shadows on our serious faces. Cara crosses her arms across her chest, and I couldn't tell if she was trying to be tough or simply protecting herself. Perhaps, when it comes to Cara, the two are synonymous. I expected her to say, 'None of your business!', but to my surprise, she just sighs.
"Me and Cassie and Mike were friends with Layla and all the rest last year. For a long while before then, actually. We all went to the same primary school and all that." Cara looked out through the darkened window; eyes unfocussed. "We were tight. Layla was always the leader, probably something genetic from her Senator dad. Anyway," she paused, "one night after we'd gone out, me and her were walking back together when we were mugged. Well, almost mugged. Layla stopped it."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean that one moment he had a gun pointed at us, telling us to hand over our valuables, Layla was asking him to stop, and the next, he actually stopped. We ran." Cara looked uncomfortable, "I asked her later, and she'd had no idea what she did. We didn't tell the rest of the group, but we began experimenting on our own, you know, trying to find out how it worked."
"Experimenting how?" I asked, but I thought I already knew the answer.
"Mostly on strangers. At first it was just little stuff, like asking a barista for a discount on our coffees, but then it got worse. And then she..." Cara trailed off into silence, her mind in the past.
Little stuff. Like listening to someone's thoughts on the train. Or practicing making your friends see things that aren't there.
"What did she do?" I asked when she didn't continue. There must have been something else. It couldn't just be that she'd got drunk on power and gone too far. That was too -
Cara glances quickly at me, then away.
"Something bad. You don't need to know the rest. The point is that she has mind control powers and disturbingly flexible morals," Cara said, standing up, "Now, how do we warn your super friend?"
"Really?! You're not going to tell me?" I exclaimed, still sitting. What constituted 'bad'? How bad did it have to be for Cara to keep silent? Well, based on my experience, it didn't have to be that important. Cara wasn't exactly a big talker at the best of times, after all. Then again, something about this felt different.
"No. Give me your phone," Cara demanded shortly, her face like granite as she held out a hand.
I sighed, standing up. I took my phone from my back pocket, though I didn't give it to her. I opened up my messages and scrolled through the list, pausing over Layla's name before going down to find Caitlin Snow. How much harm could she really do, especially without me? For all I knew, they had called the whole thing off and we were overreacting.
"What am I supposed to tell her?" I asked, fingers hovering over the keyboard.
"How about, 'my crazy new friends are planning on breaking into the police station tonight and one of them is a mind control meta. Please tell the Flash'?" Cara snapped, "I don't know! Figure it out!"
I flinched back as she raised her voice. "Sorry. This is all my fault."
Her angry expression immediately softened. "No, it's not," she sighed, "I just…she promised – and, well. Sorry. I shouldn't have shouted."
"What did Layla do?" I'm not just asking out of curiosity now. Cara seems genuinely upset, but why would she be surprised that someone she's not even friends with now broke a promise? That just seems like part of the territory.
"It's complicated, and I don't want to talk about it. Just write the damn text, will you?"
I wrote a short text, trying to give a minimal of detail.
'Hey Caitlin, The Pack is planning on breaking into the CCPD tonight. I have more info, but it's complicated – I'd need to explain in person.'
Almost immediately, I got a response.
'Okay. Coming to pick you up now. You can explain on the way.'
"She's asking to pick us up," I told Cara, asking her a question with my eyes.
She shrugged, "She probably wants you to explain in person. May as well."
'Okay,' I wrote, pressing send. I had a funny feeling in my stomach, and it was only partially due to nerves. I'd just remembered that I'd lied to Caitlin at least twice about The Pack. How many apologies would I need to make? And all without any of them solving any of my real problems. At least Layla had given me a solution.
An awful solution, that you stupidly went along with until it was almost too late.
"We should go out front, so we don't wake anyone," Cara said, looking down at her pyjama-clad self, "and I need to get changed."
"Right," I said, twisting my hands into my black hoodie for the umpteenth time. I wished I had my ipod and earbuds. The world was so much simpler when it was reduced to a drumbeat, vocals, keys, and guitars.
"Hey," Cara said firmly, "it'll be alright, Jay."
"I know, I just-" I muttered, looking down at the floor. But she was already gone, disappearing up the stairs to get changed.
I waited anxiously by the door, every sense alert for the headlights that would signal the beginning of who knows what. This could all be a false alarm, after all. Cara could be worrying over nothing. But if Layla had mind control powers…I'd never seen her use them though. I wondered if that meant that she'd kept the 'promise' Cara kept muttering about. But if that were true, why was Layla happy to let me invade people's minds? Maybe she saw it as a way of getting around the promise? I had no idea. Everything was all over the place and I couldn't see the whole picture, if there even was one. Layla had good reasons for everything she did. Even though I disagreed with her methods, her motivations were solid. It wasn't fair the way people treated metas, but that didn't give us the excuse to mistreat humans.
I was just considering this when heard the rumble of an engine. A car had pulled over in front of our house.
I turned around, intending to quickly find Cara, but she was already there, shrugging on a hoodie over jeans and a t-shirt. She took one look at my face and headed straight for the front door. After we were both outside, she got out her keys, locking it behind us.
"Good thinking." I hadn't thought of that. If I had have gone with my original plan, I probably would've ended up leaving it unlocked, and then burglars might've gotten in.
Cara's only response was a grunt, shoving the keys into her jeans pocket.
"Hey Juliet, and you must be Cara?"
I spun around, locking eyes with Caitlin for one charged moment before I looked away. The guilt I thought I'd gotten rid of began gnawing at my innards again.
Cara brushed past me, giving me a funny look before marching up to Caitlin.
"So, you're the super-friend who helped her last year?"
"That's right. I'm Caitlin. I would say it's nice to meet you, but Juliet said the attack will be tonight?"
"Is that all she said?" Cara said, her tone a mixture of incredulity and weariness. I wince, which Caitlin catches, though she doesn't mention it.
"That, and that it was complicated, which she can explain on the way. So, shall we go?" Caitlin responds artfully, but I see the considering look she gives me. I do my best not to cringe again, even though my insides are feeling like mashed bananas. All Caitlin's ever been is good to me, and how do I repay her? By lying about the one thing she asked me to give her.
I go to sit in the back seat, but Cara gently but firmly directs me to shotgun, taking the backseat for herself, which I suppose is fair. It's not like Cara knows Caitlin very well, and based on her questions before, she knows there's more I need to tell Caitlin.
"So," Caitlin begins, after a minute of silent driving, "are you going to explain or not?"
She's looking at me, but I'm looking out the window into the pools of yellow light the streetlamps leave on the road. They pass us like opportunities as I gather my courage.
Come on Juliet! YOU called HER. Get over yourself.
I take a deep breath. "I – I lied." I closed my eyes, reminding myself that I'd already admitted most of this to Cara. "I lied the other day when you asked about The Pack. I know who they are and I – I almost joined them. I – kind of did." I feel Cara's warm hand on my shoulder, and untense a little bit. "And Layla is a meta, so we couldn't just call the police. And I'm supposed to be with them, supposed to be helping them tonight. But I couldn't."
"Why did you join them?" Caitlin asked, and my head snapped around to stare at her as if she'd told me that Flat Earther's were right and the world was flat.
"What?"
"Why did you want to join them?" Caitlin asked again, eyes on the road, but saving a glance for me. It wasn't accusing or hurt, at least, not on the surface. It was as patient and calm as ever.
"Um, I've, well, I've been having a bit of trouble at school. And I'm fed up of the way people treat metas!" I add, feeling pent up emotion and frustration begin to flood out. "Most of us don't hurt anyone – we just want to live our lives! But people want to make us monsters and villains and it's not fair! Why can't they just treat us normally?! And at least Layla was doing something about it because no one else does! We're supposed to have all this power, but – but why does doing the right thing make me powerless against people who don't?"
Author's Note:
And so, to the surprise of all (including myself), I am not dead! Yay? Anyway, I'm not going to promise regular updates, however, I will try to update more often. You know when you start a project and it's all sunshine and roses but then flash-forward almost 3 years (WAIT HOLD UP - THREE YEARS?!) and then you're trying to find it in yourself not to hate it but you kind of do? But then you feel obligated to finish because you're so close but you can't until you realise that you need to love it again? No? Figured. Anyway, I feel like I'm in a better place with this now, and am as determined as ever to finish...though maybe not during my exam period.
Have a lovely exam season!
BellatrixTheStar