Leaf

by Slavok

When an expedition through Shadesmar goes awry, Lift finds herself stuck on earth. Fortunately, between the capes, the crime, and the local cuisine, she finds more than enough to keep her occupied.

6. Chapter 6

Leaf

Chapter Six

Home always smelled like clemabread. Hot clemabread, fresh from the oven, stale clemabread so hard it would break her teeth, and crumbs of clemabread that had the same taste of stale clemabread but wouldn't fill her stomach. Lift had been seeing more and more of the crumbs recently, and even that was growing rare, which made the smell of fresh hot bread so much ... smellier.

Lift offered to help with the baking, but that was mostly for the excuse to stay in the kitchen. Mother was missing one and a half fingers on her right hand that had fallen off when she was younger than Lift, but that didn't slow her down. Still, as long as Lift was nearby there were always bowls to be licked, crumbs to be snatched up, and smells to be smelled.

She smelled spices. Heldin mostly, a bit of sasna, and some ralt at the end. Lift's face fell in disappointment. Spices was expensive, and expensive was for other folks. Lift was left to smell the smells and imagine eatin' what was in the oven.

But when Mother pulled them from the oven, she gave them to Lift.

"Mine?" she whispered, holding the first roll. It was bright and hot, like a piece of the sun in her hands.

"No. I need you to take these to Sev Bren. Can you do that for me?"

Lift's hopes dashed to bits all over again. "What, all of them?"

"I think she'd appreciate knowing that we're thinking of her at a time like this."

Time like this. Mother always talked about it, but only about it. Never said that Sev Bren's son Del had got plagued real bad, then he got pyred and ashed, only said that it was a time like this.

Well, so what? Del had a face like a chull and a laugh like a horse, and bein' dead didn't change that. Bein' dead didn't make you hungry neither, living made you hungry.

"Can I have just one?"

"No. They're for Sev. All of them. Can I trust you?"

"But I'm hungry!" Sheer torture it was, giving a kid fresh rolls but not lettin' her eat none.

Mother knelt down on the stone floor and looked her straight in the eye. She held her gaze until she was sure Lift was listening, and said, "When your stomach is empty, fill your heart. And when your heart is empty, fill your stomach." That was one of her little sayings. Lift didn't understand it none, but Mother was crazy like that. Midna Thrade always said so, and she talked to shadows so she'd know. "And Sev Bren needs to remember that she's not alone, even when she is. So again, can I trust you?"

Lift's shoulders sagged, but she nodded her head.

Mother smiled. She didn't smile with just her mouth or her eyes, but with her whole face, all squeezed and stretched like dough. "That's my little girl."

Mother stuffed her pockets with rolls and filled a sack with the rest. You didn't want to take it all in the sack because they'd be too easy to steal. Besides, the rolls felt warm through her clothes, like little hugs.

"Hurry, now. Supper will be ready by the time you get back."

That would have been a better bribe if Lift didn't know what they were having. Gruel. Again. Brown clema mush with chopped tretta roots for extra misery. Expensive was for other folks, so they could save the cheap for home.

As soon as home was out of sight, Lift started thinking. Rolls were best fresh, and by the time she got to Sev's place they wouldn't be nearly as hot, which was a straight-up crime. And it wasn't like Sev knew how many Mother was sending her. If one less arrived, who would say? She didn't know that Mother was sending any, so who would say if none arrived at all?

It was one of those days that Lift would remember years later, and regret.

WWW

Lift followed her nose, which was what she always did, and found the kitchen on fire.

"Hey, Lisa," she said. "Whatcha cookin'? Smells exciting."

Lisa poured white powder over the stove until the fire died down. "A crude bomb. Also, humility."

Lift made a face. "A humility bomb? Ain't no one wants that for breakfast."

Lisa fanned the smokey air with a towel while covering her nose. "No, no they do not. I thought it might be fun to make something for the team, but I'm starting to realize why I eat out all the time. How do you feel about IHOP?"

"Why dontcha just use your smartness powers? Bet you could unravel a recipe easy, no blood sweat or tears."

Lisa rolled her eyes. "Yes, but I like to save my powers for more important things than breakfast. Is that a no on IHOP?"

Lift narrowed her eyes. "More important than breakfast?"

She shrugged. "I only get a few hours of superhuman brilliance a week. Then I'm stuck with a headache for breakfast worse than ten humility bombs."

"More important than breakfast?"

"I guess the idea that there are more important things than food would be rejected out of hand."

Lift frowned thoughtfully. "'Kay, I got an idea." Awesomeness was awesomeness, right? Besides, it had worked for Alec the night before. She got up close to Lisa and blew in her face. Smokey white awesomeness flowed into her mouth and up her nose, and even a little bit went into her eyes. "Feel smarter now?"

Lisa blinked ... then stared. She stared at nothing that was and at all the things that weren't. She stood like a statue, eyes flickering towards a thousand invisible ideas as for the first time in her life she used her powers for what they were truely meant for.

"I know," she whispered finally, "what I want for breakfast."

WWW

What followed could not be put into words. Let it be said only that even as words cannot describe every experience, reason alone cannot comprehend all of reality, and sometimes, even when they shouldn't, the universe works out perfectly. The skeptic might call it a fluke, the credulous a miracle, and few others—possibly only one other—would call it breakfast.

WWW

"Well, that hit the spot," Lisa said, lounging on the couch, her discarded plate lying on the coffee table.

"Mm-hm," Lift replied, sprawled out on the other couch, her face covered in the remains of her last meal.

"Chocolate covered calamari shouldn't be a thing, but it works. The vinegar really tied it all together."

"Huh." Lift had had an idea once where she would use her powers on a plant to make it grow fruit and eat it for infinite awesomeness. Wyndle had said that wouldn't work and started rambling about the laws of the universe, but Lift had nearly managed that. She gave Lisa some of her awesomeness, and Lisa gave her food. Lift one, universe zero.

She sat up when she heard Brian enter the room. He had loud footsteps even for a guy his size, so it was good his darkness could muffle sound. He sniffed the air as soon as he came in. "Did you guys try to cook something?"

Lisa flashed a smile. "Try, he says. Try! Ha!"

"You can have some if you want," Lift said. "But then you gotta do the dishes. And save some for Rachel and Alec."

"Rachel won't want any," Lisa said. "She doesn't eat chocolate. It's a solidarity thing."

"What is it?" Brian asked, peering into the pot.

"It's ... something you want to try before knowing what it is."

"She doesn't eat chocolate?" Storms, no wonder she was always so grumpy.

Brian paused for a long moment. "I see tentacles in there."

Lisa shrugged. "A lot of things have tentacles."

"Like Wyndle," Lift said.

"These are vines," Wyndle said.

Brian pulled himself away from the kitchen. "I already ate." He went to bang on Alec's door. "You still in bed, man? It's past eleven."

There was a groan from the other side of the door.

"Well, we won't be able to get started until Alec crawls out of there, and Rachel is, what, walking her dogs?"

Lisa nodded. "Walking her dogs."

"While we're waiting, Lift, there's something I want to talk to you about. You're the last person I would have wanted to throw at Lung, but you really held your own. Have you been in combat much since you got your powers?"

Lift chewed her lip thoughtfully. During a heist, she only needed to fight if she got caught, and then it was better to run. She had fought Darkness, but that barely counted. Their fight had mostly been her trying not to die as she convinced him that he was crazy and that the world had ended.

What else? Oh, right, she had been at that battle with the Alethi Warlord, the Assassin in White, and the other Surgebinders, but she had been there to steal God's dinner, not fight nobody.

"Nope," she said. "Haven't needed to."

Brian nodded. "I guess that's the advantage to sticking to small crimes. Hardly anyone tries to kill you for stealing a cake, but if you stick with us Lung won't be the last cape to come after you. You can't run from every fight, and if your enemies know you can beat them, they'll try to run first."

Lift raised an eyebrow. "So, what? You're gonna teach me to fight?" That sounded boring. It was no fun stealing from folks you could beat up; that was just being a bully. The risk of getting caught was what made it fun.

"You came close to getting killed last night, and that would have been on me for putting you in that position. I'd feel a lot better if I knew you could defend yourself."

Lift rolled her eyes, but she couldn't really argue with that, so she got up. "Fine, fine. How's this work?"

He smiled at her and stood in the middle of an open space in the room. "First, no powers."

Her jaw dropped. "What? That ain't fair. You're bigger than two of me!"

"And Lung was bigger than five of you. Also, your powers run out, don't they?"

Lift looked down at the floor. "Only when I'm hungry."

"You're always hungry. If you know how to fight, you'll need to rely on your powers less so you can save them for when you need them the most. Also, this is a sparring match. It's not about winning, it's about learning. And ... that's it. So come at me and show me what you're capable of."

Well, she was capable of running away, which is what she'd try if she was faced with someone Brian's size and couldn't use her awesomeness. She could kick him in the nadgers too, but he might take that sort of thing personal. No, if she was gonna fight him, she was gonna fight like a thief.

"Oh, hey Alec," she said, looking behind him. "You're finally up."

Brian glanced over his shoulder at Alec's closed door, and Lift charged him, punched him in the gut ... and nearly sprained her wrist. Brian apparently did a lot of sit ups.

"Good thinking there," he said, looking down at her. "A distraction at the right time can make all the difference—if you know how to use it."

The punch would have done more if she was awesome, but there was nothing for it. She grabbed onto his leg and heaved with all her might to throw him off balance, but it was like wrestling a tree.

Alright, that's not working. As a last ditch effort, she scrambled up his back, perched herself on his shoulders, and tried to rip his head off.

"You two having fun?" Lisa said from the couch. Lift glared at her.

"Alright," he said. "I think I have a better idea of what I'm working with." He plucked her up off his shoulders and set her on the ground. "Let's start with the basics: how to punch."

WWW

After finding out that even a perfectly executed punch from Lift's skinny arms wouldn't do crem (she didn't know what he was expecting), Brian let her use Wyndle, 'cause even though awesomeness ran out, Wyndle lasted forever. And the starvin' spren could make forever seem like a long time.

A Shardrod appeared in her hand, and she whacked Brian in the knee. I'm not enjoying this, Wyndle muttered. She hit him again, Brian caught it, and Lift dismissed the Shardrod, made it reappear, and jabbed Brian in the gut. I'm a gardener, for Mother's sake. This is soldier's work.

"You're keeping your distance, good," he said. "As long as I can only grab your weapon, you can keep me on the defensive. But sometimes your enemies have weapons too." He pointed a finger at her as though it were a gun. "If this happens, what do you do?"

She formed a Shardshield, blocking Brian's imaginary line of fire, deflected a few imaginary bullets, and threw the shield at him like a discus. Brian blocked it with his arm, but he needn't have bothered. Shardblades were famously light, and if they couldn't cut you they couldn't do much else neither. Brian pointed his finger at her and pulled an invisible trigger. "Blam."

Lift spun around and threw herself to the floor. "Argh! You've killed me dead! All me blood and guts're spewin' out. Oh! A light! I see ..." She let out her last breath and went limp with her tongue hanging out. As an afterthought she kicked her foot in a death spasm.

Lisa began clapping softly and rapidly. "Woohoo! Encore, encore!"

The door opened and seven pairs of legs came in. "Who died?" Rachel asked.

"Lift," Lisa said. "There was an epic battle and everything. You just missed it."

Lift wrinkled her nose when one of Rachel's dogs started sniffing her. "Huh," Rachel said. "I thought we were having a meeting."

"Yes," Brian said. "We were just waiting for you to get back and for Alec to get out of bed." He banged on the door again. "For god's sake, Alec! How long does it take for you to wake up?"

Alec made a noise that sounded like, "Uwa umawa. Summa muvama."

Sighing, Brian turned the doorknob and barged in. A moment later he came back with Alec mostly cooperating. Alec squinted around the room with a look on his face that said, "I'm going to be here, but I'm not going to be awake for this."

"That's fine," Brian said. "Lift, stop being dead. The sooner we get through this, the sooner we can all get back to our own things."

Lift sat up. "Stop being dead? You act like death has lost all meaning."

Brian gave her a flat look, and Lift stared back innocently.

"Aw, you guys made me breakfast?" Alec sniffed the air as he wandered into the kitchen, a blanket wrapped around his shoulders. "Thanks. You should have led with that."

Brian hoisted Lift off the floor and tossed her into one of the couches before sitting down himself. "Right. So first on the list, Lung and Oni Lee. What's their status?"

"The PRT got Lung, but Oni Lee must have teleported away before they showed up," Lisa said. "I mean, if you would have blindfolded the guy and tied him up ..."

Brian shook his head. "Letting the heroes scavenge our fights is one thing, but if we start gift wrapping villains for them, we're going to start looking like vigilantes."

"And no one likes vigilantes," Alec said.

"Besides, he won't be walking on his own for a while, and he'll be too busy holding crutches to pull out his sword. Maybe with him in charge, the ABB will know to keep their distance from us."

"If he ends up in charge," Lisa said. "It's either going to be him or the bomb Tinker they just recruited, and I'd bet on anyone who's not Oni Lee."

Brian frowned. "You think the ABB would follow someone who just joined the gang over their oldest remaining cape?"

Lisa shrugged. "He's not leadership material. I don't know much about Bakuda, but they might just split up into two groups, or the gang could dissolve entirely. You know, if we're lucky. We'll just have to wait and see."

"We did get credit for Lung though, right?" Alec asked.

"Not really." Lisa looked down at her phone. "The PRT published a statement this morning saying ... hold on, let me pull it up. Here it is. 'Armsmaster—'"

"Goddamnit, Armsmaster."

"I ... didn't finish."

Alec waved a hand at her to continue.

"'Armsmaster successfully ambushed and defeated the villain Lung, leader of the ABB last night, who was weakened from a previous encounter with a rival gang. Lung was taken to the PHQ for holding until blah blah blah trial, blah blah blah Birdcage, blah blah blah.'"

"We so need our own PR team," Alec said between bites. "This whole word of mouth shtick is never going to get me my own merchandising line. How much does one cost on the black market?"

Lisa shrugged. "If I can find some starving humanities major willing to work as an unpaid intern, nothing. I mean, they'd be limited to spamming the PHO, but ..." She shrugged again. "You could do that yourself if you wanted to, you know, make the effort."

"Speaking of getting paid," Brian said, "you and Rachel were the only ones who got anything last night. You're splitting that with us, right?"

Lisa smiled at Rachel. "What do you think?"

Rachel frowned. "How much did we make?"

"Just a few thousand. Split that five ways, and we'd be lucky to get a grand each. Some of it will take a few days to liquidate."

Rachel frowned. "Might as well split it then."

"Fair enough," Lisa said. "Team rules. We go in together, we come out together. I was kind of hoping for a bigger haul. I guess Lung and Lee interrupted the rest of you?"

Brian nodded. "Lee hit me right on my way out. I literally had a bag full of ..." He shook his head. "And we were planning on hitting another six targets before calling it a night. Hey, any chance we could still go through with that? It's a shame to let a good plan go to waste, and with only Bakuda left ..."

Lisa shook her head. "Right now the ABB is either imploding—and we don't want to touch that—or turtling down and any target we hit wouldn't be worth the effort. Now, if you wanted to start establishing territory this would be the prime time, but we'd need more henchmen to hold it than the zero we have right now."

He nodded again. "Well, I think that's about everything. Unless anyone has something else to add, we're done."

"I got something," Lift said. "Me and Alec found some girls last night. What happened to them?"

"I thought I told you," Alec said. "I took them a block away, got out of the car, and let them drive off. Unless they fell through one of the bottomless potholes around here, they probably made it home."

"But where's that? I wanna check on 'em." She had made a promise after all. Not to them, but to herself. Promises made to other folks didn't matter much, but one to herself ... if she didn't remember those ones, no one would.

"I don't think they'd make good henchmen," Alec said. "Henchgirls? Henchers? Though if any of them want a job as a maid that'd be great. The dishes around here don't seem to be doing themselves like they're supposed to."

Lift ignored him and kept her eyes on Lisa. If she were back in Azir, she'd ask one of the noodles for this sort of thing, but Lisa could out-noodle any noodle who ever noodled.

"I mean, I could find out," Lisa said. "But are you sure that's a good idea? It was a nice thing you did for them, but nice isn't the sort of reputation we're going for. We're villains; hero complexes are for other people. Besides, sometimes the best thing you can do for someone is to give them space."

Lift remembered how Brian had been with his dying mother. He's always there when you need him, but when you don't ... Then she remembered her own mother who wasn't only there when she was needed, but also when she wasn't needed. When folks got sick she went to see them, and they wanted to see her because she was there when they was well, and when they died she stayed to see the folks they left behind. She had been everywhere all the time, like God, only done right.

"But you can find 'em," Lift said. "How much you want for it?"

"I wasn't trying to bargain with you, but fine." She pursed her lips together. "Give me a few boosters when I need them? I'd like to use my powers more freely, maybe cook lunch too while I'm at it."

"Speaking of," Alec said, "what is it? It tastes okay, but the texture is just ... it's going to bother me all day."

WWW

There was a right and a wrong way to rain. Rain ought to have some oomf to it. The Stormfather needed to burst through center stage yellin', "It's party time, y'all!" Right now though, the storms didn't feel like putting in the effort and were just ... drooling on everyone.

Lift walked through the puddles, mildly soaked but not drenched. The streets were like that too, not wet enough for the grease and dirt to get washed away, but enough for all the funk to float around a bit.

Lisa had written down some addresses for her, and Lift had shown them to Wyndle 'cause he could read. She wasn't dumb. She could learn letters if she wanted, but she had never had the chance when she was small and now not knowing how to was a challenge. There were so many words on every sign and wall she felt like she was living in a book, and to live in a book, see nothing but scribbles, and still win, well, that was really winning.

Angela hadn't been home. Lift had snuck into her house, found nothing, and had left nothing but a damp patch on the carpet. She'd try again later, but out of everyone, Angela had been hurt the least. Next was Emily.

Emily didn't live in an apartment like Angela, but in a house. It was small, old, and had vines growing up the walls, but Lift had lived in old shanties full of life and preferred them to palaces.

Lift walked across the unkempt lawn. Kempt lawns had the grass all the same length and their owners looked down at their neighbors who had yards full of wildflowers, 'cause people didn't make much sense.

She wasn't sure what she was gonna say to her if she was home. Play it by ear most likely, which was what she always did. She had nearly gotten herself killed a few times, but each time she had gotten herself in trouble and gotten herself out. The four girls she met last night had done neither. They'd got tossed around like a grubby rockbud, like a thing. When you started seeing other people as things, that was bad, but when you started seeing yourself as a thing? Trouble.

She peered in through the windows and climbed inside when she didn't see no one. She made all the water on her slide off in a puddle and began looking around. She saw furniture, couches that smelled of smoke, a table with scratched wood, and a television fabrial, but no people. There was a cat, though.

Cats didn't bark like dogs, and this one didn't seem to mind that Lift was trespassing. "Hey, cat," Lift said. "Is your human home?"

The cat made no reply, but Lift heard a creak from the other side of the house, and a face appeared around a corner. Her hair was wet, but her clothes were dry as though she had just taken a shower.

Ah, she thought. There you are.

WWW

Emily stared ahead at the intruder in her living room, and a surge of panic went through her. Nowhere is safe. It didn't matter that she was too afraid to leave the house when anyone would just break in.

"Who are ... what are you doing here?" The intruder was a girl younger than she was for what it was worth, but Emily doubted that was worth very much. She had heard that some people grew stronger when frightened and could lash out when cornered, but she was just the opposite. She had learned that for herself just the night before. I could scream. The neighbors probably wouldn't do anything even if they heard, but I could still scream.

"Tresspassin'," she said. The girl looked at her, her head tilted. "You ain't forgot me already? 'Cause I ain't forgot you."

Emily's eyes widened. You ain't forgot. She'd recognize the slurred drawl anywhere, and the near verbatim repeat of last night's promise was a dead giveaway. "You! You're ... you're not wearing your mask."

"Nope."

She felt stupid pointing out the obvious, but her brain was mostly inactive. "And your eyes are a different color." They had been a brilliant white the night before, shining like diamonds, and now they were brown like hers.

"Are they? Hadn't checked."

"And you know where I live," Emily said. "How do you know where I live?"

Leaf grinned. "I'm mysteriously pow'ful. And I got a clever friend. You seemed about to fall apart last night, so I wanted to see how you were holdin' up."

See how she was holding up? Was that normal? Most of what she knew about capes she had learned from the movies where the hero ended the rescue by flying upwards toward the camera. The rescuee either ended up as the love interest or was never seen again. "I'm fine." Physically, at least. There wasn't a scratch on her, and as for the rest ... well, she was coping.

Leaf nodded patiently but said nothing, and soon the silence sucked more words out of her.

"I'm fine," she said again. That's what everyone had told her. Thank God you're okay, her dad had said, so she must have been, right? And even if she wasn't ready to go back to school, even if every time she closed her eyes she saw that gangster carving her face and feeling his knife scrape against her eye socket, and even if she wanted to scream so much she couldn't breath, she was holding it together. Because she was fine. And that was a house of cards she wasn't going to pick at. "I ... I never got the chance to thank you. For saving me." That was how the script went, wasn't it?

"I didn't save you. I stole you."

Stole? Oh. Oh. She was starting to understand. Why else would Leaf track her down like this? Everything cost money, even heroes. "How much do I owe you?" She hoped it was just money. Her family didn't have a lot, but with money, once it was done it was done. Right now, she'd give anything to just be done.

"Owe? What do you owe the last lot as took you? Nothin'. Same as me. You don't owe no one a starvin' thing. But you're stolen all the same, so there's only one thing for it. You needsta steal yourself."

"I ... have to steel myself?" she said, following along as best she could. She was normally much fresher right after she took a shower, but right now she felt like she had a head full of cotton and knees full of jelly.

Leaf nodded. "I've always been a thief, but it didn't matter what I stole 'til I stole me. Once I was mine, I could steal the sky just by lookin' at it."

Oh, steal. That made ... moderately more sense. "I ... am mine," she said softly.

Leaf cocked her head. "Are you?"

She opened her mouth to say yes, but saying it, screaming it wouldn't make it less of a lie. "It wasn't even night," she said instead. "Mom always said to be home before dark, but they picked me up like a stone under the sun and took me and made me theirs. He marked me with his knife and left me to drip down my own face. I ... I ..." This wasn't right. She had gotten out! She was home! How was she still there?

Leaf was suddenly in front of her putting her arms around her, and Emily slumped forward. It wasn't right to have to lean on someone younger than she was, but Leaf was a cape and the same rules didn't apply. She slid down to her knees and her eyes welled with tears. "How do I ... how do I get rid of this?"

"Gettin' rid of it's easy. It's keepin' it that's hard. If you want, you don't hafta feel nothin' at all. Don't hafta feel scared or sad or nothin'." She fell silent and held her more tightly for a moment. "Tried it once. Wasn't worth it. It was as easy as dying, and near as fun. And even then with all the sadness gone, it wasn't never far. So instead I ate it. Tasted like pure misery and it took a while to get it all down, but after that it never got in my way."

Emily thought through the metaphor, trying to understand it. She pulled away and dried her eyes, suddenly feeling self conscious, but she stayed kneeling on the floor. I have to eat it. I have to steal myself and become mine. "I ... I'm sorry, I still don't get it."

Leaf nodded thoughtfully and sat down on the floor next to her. "No. You can't get it 'cause I can't give it. Wouldn't do no good, 'cause you don't need mine, you need yours. 'Sides, I've always done it alone." She sounded a little sad as she said that, and fell silent for a moment. "But you don't have to." She jumped to her feet and faced her. "Right. So here's the mark. You're gonna break into Bronze Palace of Life and Red Pudding and take what's yours. To get in you need a crew, and I know a couple o' people as are wanting the exact same heist as you."

WWW

A thieving crew. Anyone else would have called it hanging out with friends or even a support group, but it must have been a cape thing to stick so firmly with a motif. Or maybe Leaf thought it would be easier to pretend to star in a heist film than ... than ... yeah. Thieving crew worked, even if there wasn't any literal stealing involved.

And Emily did become friends with the other girls over the next few days. All they had in common was a shared nightmare that she'd rather have forgotten and every time she saw them she remembered sitting in that room waiting to be beaten, taken away, or worse, but ... but she couldn't forget. Trying just entrenched the memories deeper, and the only choice she had left was to move forward.

Somehow they helped her with that, and even more strangely she helped them do the same. A therapist expressing professional sympathy couldn't have done that, and her normal friends would have been even worse. Her school friends could laugh with her, but not cry with her. Stephanie, Natalie, and Angela ... when she was with them, she didn't even need to explain how she was feeling because they felt the same way.

Soon though, her mother decided that if Emily was well enough to visit friends, she was well enough to go back to school. Natalie had laughed when she had told them. "Brockton Bay's Bowser just Princess Peached you, and you don't even get a week off?" she had said. "That's insane!"

No. What was insane was how easily the four of them could joke about what had happened. That was as much as a miracle to Emily as being able to see out of both eyes.

None of the other girls went to Winslow, though, while most of the teenage Azn Bad Boy members who hadn't dropped out did. She tried not to think that any of them had been involved in her capture. But she'd be fine no matter what because ... because ...

I ain't forgot.

She smiled to herself and repeated the mental mantra in Leaf's street-rough dialect. I ain't forgot. I am mine.

The second part was a lie, but also not a lie. A hope? A promise? An ideal?

She got through her first period English class on the lie that she had been at home sick for the past few days. Admitting that she had been a nervous wreck would mark her as a victim by people who would've been broken by far less, and wowing her peers with the story of how she had met a cape seemed cheap.

She got to her second period biology class early to ask the teacher what she had missed the days before, but Mr. Martins wasn't even there. In fact, the only other person in the room was Locker Girl, but she was always the first person there. She carried her whole life in her backpack and scurried through the hall like the world was out to get her. Emily took her seat, pulled out her phone, and actively ignored her like she always did.

But the more Emily tried to forget something, the harder it became. The Locker Girl wasn't an unpleasant memory because of anything she had done to Emily, but because of what Emily had done to her. Nothing major, of course, not compared to what had happened back in January, but nothing to be proud of, either. High school was ... cut throat, and Emily had been insecure, eager to make a good impression.

Others in the school weren't. Some of them walked with so much confidence, spoke with so much assurance that they seemed to own the school and everyone in it. And when people like that asked her to join in a game, who was she to refuse? Even if the game was sending hate mail to a near stranger, or swiping her pencil when she wasn't looking, or sticking a foot out to trip her as she walked past.

It had been mean, sure, but as long as everyone could laugh about it, it wasn't all that bad, right? Wrong, yes, but not cruel.

Some lies were easier to tell than others, though, and some jokes stopped being funny after you stopped to think. Or after the ambulance showed up.

Emily wasn't sure why she had gone along with it. Peer pressure? That was such a cliche, and one usually involving drugs. Emily had wanted to fit in with the other girls, and they had wanted her to join in their ... games? Competition? What even was it all about?

"You're not afraid, are you?" That had been the line they always used when someone wanted to back down from a challenge, and it was such a stupid line when one stopped to think about it. Most of the pranks were either anonymous or minor enough that she'd get a warning if caught, and Taylor Herbert wasn't the sort of person who sent people running. But some of the more popular girls had wanted her to do it to ... prove herself.

And what did you prove? a part of her asked. You proved that you were willing to hurt a stranger on demand. On their demand.

Then an even deeper, crueler part of her asked, Why did he need to cut out your eye?

Her breath caught in her throat. I am mine. What a joke. She had spent so long trying to belong that she hadn't worried about who she belonged to until now.

Then she finally understood what she needed to do.

She stood up, sat down next to the girl she had watched get abused since the beginning of the school year, and stole herself.

"Hey," she said brightly. "How're you doing?"

Taylor put a protective arm between Emily and her books and glanced over at her. She wasn't the sort of person Emily made eye contact with when she could avoid it. Most of the time, it was easier if she didn't think of the girl as all that human. But now, Taylor didn't seem as timid as Emily had expected. She acted timid, but there was too much anger in her brown, bespectacled eyes.

"Fine."

Isn't everybody? "So I kind of missed the last few days. Did the teacher say anything important?"

"Just what's on the syllabus."

"Any chance I could borrow your notes? I'd really appreciate ... it?

It was an innocent enough request, but Taylor looked at her like Emily had just insulted her mother. "You know what? Screw you. I mean it." She picked up her books and took a seat at the other side of the room.

What did I say? she thought. No wonder you don't have any friends! I was just trying to be nice!

A deeper part of her said, No. I was trying to apologize without apologizing. Why should she have accepted that?

She had joined in the pranks not because she had wanted to, but because she had been afraid not to. She was still afraid not to.

And that was reason enough to put an end to it.

"Look, I ... I'm sorry. I've been a jerk to you for a while now, and I'm better than that. Or ... at least I'd like to be."

Taylor held her gaze for a long while, and Emily liked to think that it ... softened. A bit. "Well, you weren't the worst of them. Where's this coming from all of a sudden?"

I was crying in the dark, weeping blood from an empty eye socket, and I asked, "What did I ever do to deserve this?" And then, half blind, I saw things more clearly than I ever wanted to. "It's ... a long story. Have you heard of a cape named Leaf?"

Taylor shook her head. "I haven't."

A group of students came into the classroom, and it looked like the bell was about to ring. Mr. Martins still hadn't gotten back, so either he was out for a smoking break, a drinking break, or had suffered a midlife crisis and had quit his job. "I'll tell you later," she said, trying to think up a watered down version of events that would work. There was too much that was too personal, and much of the rest wasn't her story to tell.

"By the way," she added as the classroom filled up. "Is that still a no on the notes thing, or ..."

Taylor blinked. "Oh. Sure." She opened her notebook and slid it to her. It was stained purple and the pages were wrinkled, but the writing was still legible. In places. It looked like it had been drenched with grape juice as part of a recent prank.

"You know, I once tried to do this to a tee shirt over the summer," she said lightly, trying to make out what words she could, "and it didn't turn out nearly this good."

Taylor made a sound that might have been part of a laugh. "Yeah, that's what happened," she said dryly. "I tie-dyed my own notebook. Glad you like it."

Class started after the teacher finally showed up, though Emily noticed more than a few looks of confusion, contempt, and outright hostility from some of the other students. That surprised her, but it didn't bother her as much as it would have a week before. Because honestly, after all she had been through, what could a couple of high school kids even do to her?

WWW

A/n Alright. Sorry about the technical issues with the false update. Thanks for your patience, guys, I mean it. Also I would like to thank my editor Exiled Immortal for his help in this chapter. I honestly wouldn't have written it at all and skipped straight to the bank heist if he hadn't suggested that I focus a bit more on the quieter moments of the story.

Also, thank you to my two patrons, Pv2 and Exiled Immortal for supporting my writing habit with sweet, sweet cash.

Finally, I'd like to thank my readers and everyone who has taken the time to leave a review on this story to let me know what you thought. And with that, I'll see you next chapter.