Chapter 9: Friendship
Tempestuous
Words are wind, so I write.
- Location
- CA
Posting from a friend's couch! Shoutout to him!
The best fake ID in the world wouldn't get Kasey Hudson in through the front doors of a nightclub, no matter how disreputable—and for all that it was owned by a group of villains, the Palanquin was a pretty classy scene. I went dressed to the nines in my cape costume and jacket, and the bouncer didn't even ask my name before letting me through. Somewhat of a letdown, since half the reason I'd gone through the trouble to finally pick one was for this excursion.
The club was crowded, but it wasn't packed, so there was plenty of space to move across the dance floor to the bar on the wall opposite the entrance. I did my best to stay out of the way of the people dancing, but I also didn't give an inch if someone bumped me. Any anger people felt at running into a random wall in the middle of the floor dried up fast when they realized they were about to start yelling at a strange cape. The club's security would step in fast if a fight broke out, but probably not fast enough to save your ass if you pissed off someone with super strength and a hair-trigger temper. I was almost disappointed that no one started anything, if only because I would have loved to laugh in their face and get away with it.
Overall, I'd attracted less attention than I expected by the time I took a seat at the bar. Being all cape'd up raised an interesting question: how do you card someone when they're specifically broadcasting their anonymity? The answer was simple: you don't, and everyone ignores the problem. Mostly.
"You old enough to drink, girl?" asked the bartender, a burly, graying old man who could have passed for a bouncer if he'd been a decade or two younger. I'm pretty sure that's what he said; the music was loud enough that I was relying more on lip-reading than actual sound to understand him.
"Nope!" I said cheerfully. "Gimme something fruity and virgin." He mixed up some kind of smoothie-like drink; it was okay, but not amazing, and probably not worth the money.
"Most people would have lied," the person next to me shouted over the music. "No one's gonna challenge it."
"'Most people' must want to get drunk," I yelled back, then did a spit-take when I looked over at the speaker.
"What? Something on my mask?"
"Wondering how I missed you when I sat down." It wasn't too surprising that I hadn't noticed; the pounding music and flashing lights were playing hell with my situational awareness. The frilly white and silver costume was splattered in distracting rainbow hues by the overhead lights, and the Venetian mask hadn't been visible from the back. I leaned in slightly closer and rested a cheek on one hand, obscuring my lips from other observers. "Bit of a shock to realize I sat down next to the second most dangerous master in the city," I murmured at the top of my lungs.
"That would be a bigger complement if there were more than two masters in the city," Regent snarked.
"Four, by my count," I corrected.
"Semantics." He waved his hand dismissively. "Not that I want to be 'dangerous', of course."
I nodded. "'Effective' is better. More success, less trouble."
"Good work earns more work, though."
"Of course, the Master creed: 'why do yourself what others can do for you?'"
The joke fell flat. "You know me, but I've never heard of you," he said with a scowl. "Your costume says speedster, your attitude says brute, and your drink says poser. Who are you?"
I bit back a sharp retort. "Name's Flux. Just someone new in town looking for a bit of trouble."
"Looking for trouble, eh?" Regent looked like he wanted to say more, but instead grumbled, "Ah, hell, that's my cue to leave." He dropped a roll of bills on the counter and slouched off into the crowd. I tracked him for a few moments, then realized he'd seen something behind me before taking off, and turned around just in time to meet Faultline face-to-face.
The owner of the Palanquin was a woman with an eye for practicality in her gear. Her 'costume' was half dress, half riot gear, featuring a bulletproof vest over a martial-arts-uniform-esque skirt that probably concealed more armor on her legs. Gray and black predominated, and her face was covered by a solid welding mask with a single massive rent for her eyes where the visor should be; the result looked like she'd narrowly escaped having her head taken off by a twelve-foot-tall cassowary.
Faultline cut straight to business. "Don't see many new faces showing up with a full suit like that. What's your name, kid?" It was even harder to understand her than Regent or the bartender, since that damn welding mask muffled her voice and obscured her lips. I was really guessing on some of those words.
"Flux. You must be Faultline." I offered a hand, and she shook it; my opinion of her rose slightly when she declined to engage in any bullshit grip-strength posturing. In the background, the current song wound down and was replaced by something slower, although still bowel-shakingly loud. At least it was slightly easier to hear people talk.
"New in town, or just passing through?" she asked brusquely.
"New. Here to stay, barring unforeseen circumstances. Looking for a bit of freelance work." I pulled out a card from my jacket, bearing just the name 'Flux' and a phone number. "I won't answer; leave a voicemail with a way to contact you."
She took the card and crushed it in one hand; there was a brief flare of light before she dumped the resulting confetti onto the already-dirty floor. "We don't hire freelancers," she said.
Ouch. "You also don't do jobs in the city. Don't shit where you eat, I get it." It was hard to read her under all that armor, so I had no idea how close she was to kicking me out—or kicking my ass. "But, I figure that might mean you need a little plausible deniability, sometimes. Keep me in mind?" I drew out another card and set it on the counter, playing it as cool as I could.
"Look, kid, I don't know how things work where you come from, but that sort of thing doesn't fly around here. If you'd come here looking to sign up, we could have worked something out, but I run a team, not a temp agency. Your bravado isn't making you any friends, either."
Part of me wanted to call her out over calling me 'kid' when I was older than she was, and I had to remind myself that I wasn't—physically, anyway. Instead, I took a deep breath and set the card down on the counter calmly. "Didn't mean to offend, ma'am," I said, dialing the arrogance way down. "You've got a reputation for success, and I was hoping to share in a bit of that while I settled in. You're right, though, I'm not looking to join up."
"Well, if you do decide to throw your lot in with a team, maybe you'll keep us in mind," Faultline said, picking up the card and tucking it into a pocket on the front of her flak jacket.
I did my best to conceal my surprise at the sudden reversal in attitude. "I might," I said, "but I'm not looking to travel too much."
She nodded in understanding. "At least we're unlikely to meet as enemies, then. You seem an alright sort. Not many capes can keep a cool enough head to back down from a pissing match, especially teenagers."
I'm at least five years your senior, asshole. "I appreciate the sentiment," I lied, "but if it's all the same, could you turn down the condescension? You already called me 'kid' twice."
She snorted, which made a strange hollow sound inside her helmet. "If you're mature enough to ask politely, I suppose I owe you that much. Hope you enjoy the Palanquin… Flux." Faultline headed back towards the Staff Only door, pausing to exchange a few words with the bartender, and I turned back to my drink. It had already gotten watery from the melting ice while we talked. Oh well, I hadn't been particularly fond of it anyway.
"What's my bill?" I asked as the barkeeper passed by.
"On the house," he yelled back. I passed him a ten, hopped off the stool, and made my way out of the club, heart pounding.
Intellectually, I knew I hadn't been in any real danger. Even if I'd offended Faultline enough to get myself thrown out, she was extremely unlikely to start a potentially damaging fight in the middle of her own club unless I escalated first. But facing down a cape in full costume was still a bit like staring down a lion. I'd kept cool as a cucumber during the confrontation, but once the moment had passed the adrenaline had made itself felt. I made sure to get out of sight before the shaking started to show.
"Where have you been?" Homura asked neutrally when I got home a couple hours after midnight.
"Palanquin." I didn't see any reason to lie; teenage body or not, I was a grown woman. I could damn well spend a night out, especially if I wasn't drinking. She must have thought similarly, since she didn't feel the need to critique my choices.
"Anything happen?"
"I think I made a good impression on Faultline, somehow. Oh, and I ran into Regent at the bar."
"One moment." She pulled an item out of her shield's pocket dimension and pushed it into my hands. "Hold this."
"What is it?"
"Rolodex." She stared at it for a few seconds, then took it back. "Thanks."
"Sure, no problem." I had no idea what I had just done, and wasn't particularly curious. "Goodnight, Hom—I mean, Emily."
"Goodnight."
I felt much better the following week. The stress of mingling with people who had the power and/or authority to kick me across the room had satisfied my craving for conflict, at least for now. It would be back, and it would want more, but that was a problem for another day.
Taylor finally showed up on the seventh; a Monday. The first 'warning' I had that she was coming was the fact that the bugs that normally annoyed me on the roof were absent, but I only realized that in hindsight, after she'd pushed open the roof door.
"You've been eating up here every day for a month," she said.
I didn't bother asking how she knew that. "I was hoping you'd show up," I said truthfully. The statement made Taylor uncomfortable, but I figured bullshitting her wouldn't endear me to her. She sat down next to me and pulled out a tupperware container full of salad.
"How did it work, for you?" she asked after a few minutes of eating in silence.
"What?"
"You said you were bullied when you were young. How'd you make it stop?"
"That's a long story, if you've got time." Taylor shot me a look that conveyed quite clearly that she had nothing better to do. "Right. Where should I start?"
The bullying I'd had as Kasey had just sort of disappeared somewhere, like a dropped plot thread. My life back home would make a far better answer, although I'd have to fudge a few details. "When I was in middle school—I was probably twelve or so at the time—my parents saw that I was struggling to get along with other kids and put me in an after-school program for 'poorly socialized children'. That mostly meant kids who were bullying others, rather than the kids being bullied. There are a lot of reasons kids become bullies. Some of them just don't know how to act around other kids, so they become aggressive and confrontational. Some kids are taking out their insecurity or self-hatred on others, some kids do it because they need to feel like they have power or control. And some kids are probably actual sociopaths who just like causing pain, although I don't think I've ever one of those.
"Sorry, got off track. Back to my story: being put in a small group with four to six kids who were 'poorly socialized', mostly in the first sense of 'didn't know how to act nice so acted mean instead', was a bit of a trial-by-fire for me, but it taught me a lot about how to relate to other people, and how to not get angry when someone said or did something that was, well, 'not nice', for lack of a better word. In school, I stopped crying when they taunted me, so they didn't have any encouragement to continue. More than that, I started engaging with the bullies socially. I acted like I was already part of their group, and they just adapted to that. I learned to laugh at myself, so when they made fun of me, they were laughing with me, rather than at me; and I learned how to tell those kinds of jokes, so they'd have to laugh at themselves, too. By the time middle school ended, the kids who'd bullied me in sixth grade were almost my friends."
Taylor hadn't reacted at all to my rambling, long-winded recounting. She eventually asked, "You just forced them to be your friends?"
I made a face. "That makes it sound sinister. I'd say it was more of a 'fake it 'til you make it' sort of situation. I acted like I belonged, and they decided to let me."
"And that worked?"
"Yeah. It wasn't easy, and I wasn't perfect. I slapped a kid at one point. But eventually I managed to fit in." I sighed. "I get the feeling that wouldn't work for you, though," I admitted.
"Why's that?"
"Because you've been singled out. I wouldn't have described my bullying as a 'campaign'; it was just something they did because I was there, like kicking a rock down the road. Emma seems really focused on you, though, so what worked for me probably wouldn't work for you. Not reacting isn't going to make her give up, no matter how long you last." Taylor slumped as I finished speaking, curling into a ball around her chicken Caesar. Shit, that was her plan A, wasn't it?
"I just want them to leave me alone," she muttered.
"I know," I said. "Can I help?"
Taylor shook her head.
"Let me rephrase that. I want to help. Will you let me?"
She stared at me for a long time before shaking her head again. "Why are you so…" She let the question hang unfinished.
"Persistent?" I guessed.
"Convenient," she corrected irritably. "If I fantasized about having someone swoop in and save me from all this bullshit, it would be someone like you. Pretty much exactly like you. Rich, pretty, smart. Older and wiser. Protective." Taylor's gaze was intense, to the point it felt like I was being dissected. "You are too good to be true. Who are you, that you're such a perfect answer to my problems?"
"I… I'm Kasey." Was I feeling killing intent from Taylor? I took a breath and rallied. "Maybe it's because I'm such a good answer to your problems that I want to help! I'm trying to rebuild my life, you know! This is something I can do. At least one good thing can come out of all that shit."
She wasn't impressed, but I carried on anyway. "I get that you're suspicious—you've probably been burned before—but I swear to you that I'm on the level. I'm not here to set you up for a fall or take advantage of you. I want to be your friend."
Taylor kept staring, and I looked away rather than try to keep up the staring contest. When I finally looked back, she'd gone back to her normal, timid self, protectively huddled around her lunch. I went back to eating, and after a moment, she followed suit.
"They're going to target you too, if they see you spending time with me," Taylor said after we'd finished.
"Let 'em try," I said.
"I'm not going to be a very good friend."
"I'll be the judge of that."
"I don't even know what friends do, anymore," she whispered.
"Well, then," I said. "Do you want to come over to my house after school?"
I called Emily to let her know that I'd be bringing a friend home with me. I expected her to show up in the van she'd used back in January; instead, she showed up in a luxury car that, while lacking the absurd come-hither aura of that fucking car, was nevertheless a very nice, very expensive ride. This was a problem because Taylor emerged from her last period class covered in glue from head to toe.
I whisked her back into the school building, into one of the bathrooms, and began sponging the glue off with wet paper towels. I absolutely cheated: the hand I was using to 'steady' her under my aggressive cleaning let me temporarily change the physics of her skin and clothes to repel the sticky crap, while my hand on the paper towel did the opposite. By the time I was done, she was as clean as if she'd never suffered the indignity in the first place; I was even able to get it out of her hair.
"How did you clean that up so well?" she asked as I balled up the last of the soiled paper towels.
"I was diagnosed with OCD in seventh grade," I deflected. "They were able to mostly eliminate it, since they'd caught it before it could become ingrained, but I still have a few obsessive tendencies, particularly around stickiness. I hate having any sort of sticky feeling, especially on my hands." It was all true, just completely irrelevant, but if she noticed I hadn't actually answered her question, she didn't call me on it. I took her back out to the curb, introduced her to Emily, and we piled into the car and drove off.
It took almost half an hour to get home, since Emily wasn't using any magical traffic-ignoring properties this car may have had. We pulled into our entirely mundane, normal-dimensional garage, and I started showing Taylor around the house. Murphy saw to it that she immediately singled out the group photo I'd unpacked the first day I'd been here. "Who are they?" she asked, picking the frame up off the shelf. She was too focused on the picture to see the face I made at the question.
"My friends," I said simply, taking the picture out of her hands to hold it myself. Taylor stepped around behind me, using her height to peer over my shoulder. I pointed at the photo. "That's Kevin, Rachel, Jack…" One by one, I named each of the dozen people in the photograph. All people I'd known back home, recreated with me here on Bet and then erased. I didn't want to think too hard about what that meant, as far as how much this world had changed to accommodate me, and what sort of responsibility that left me with. "…and me," I finished, pointing to myself at the right edge of the group.
"You look happy," she said.
"We were," I agreed.
Taylor cringed. "Oh." She hesitated, but ultimately asked, "Did any of them…?"
"The flood got them all." My eyes were dry, but my voice still wavered slightly. "This is all I have left of them."
Taylor reached out and put her hand on my shoulder. It was an awkward, uncertain movement with slightly too much force behind it, but she tried. "I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't mean to bring up painful memories."
"I'm okay," I said stubbornly. "They're good memories, even if they hurt. I was lucky to know them." I ran a hand over the photograph, leaving fingerprints on the protective plastic. "It helps to remind myself that they're not really gone. I'll see them again someday."
"Uh," Taylor said, and I mentally kicked myself for getting so lost in thought I forgot who I was speaking to. "My family… isn't religious," she said awkwardly.
"Forget I said anything," I told her, meaning it literally. I put the photo back on the shelf and wiped a finger under my eyes to make sure they were still dry.
We spent an hour playing boardgames and talking about nothing. Music, books, current events; I did most of the talking, but I made sure Taylor was at least engaged enough to offer an opinion on the topics, moving on if she wasn't. Time flew, and soon Taylor pointed out that she needed to be back by the time her dad got home from work. Emily took us both back into the city to drop her off at home.
"If you're the same age, why does only she drive?" Taylor asked me on the way.
"Remember what I said about being the baby of the family?"
She frowned. "That doesn't seem very fair."
"She's not serious," Emily said from the front seat. "Kasey could borrow my car if she wanted. She just likes being chauffeured around."
"You have a car. I don't," I said.
"I was away at college. You always borrowed…" she trailed off.
I swallowed a lump in my throat. "I know, 'Ellie," I said. "You know I love you."
"Love you too, nerd." Taylor smiled at the byplay, and I grinned right back.
I spent the next week encouraging Taylor to brave the school cafeteria. I don't think she actually believed I'd be able to stop her bullies from abusing her, but by Friday she was sick enough of my nagging that she agreed. "It won't be as bad as you think, trust me," I told her as we sat down at a table along one of the walls, across from a couple of freshman who didn't acknowledge our presence at all. I had my sandwich in one hand and a tiny compact mirror in the other; much more subtle than constantly glancing over my shoulder.
"I'd think twice about that if I were you," I announced to the air five minutes later. In the mirror, I saw Julia stiffen and glance at the open carton of milk in her hand, then spin on her heel and head back to her table. I used my power to flex the mirror, 'zooming in' on the scene. After a few moments, Emma and Sophia stood up. "Don't look now, but trouble's coming," I told Taylor. "We can leave, if you want." She shook her head. "I've got your back if you want to speak up, but you don't have to say anything. Just try not to panic, okay?" She was already panicking, but she nodded anyway; she was a tough one, no mistake.
I relaxed slightly when I saw that neither girl had any food in hand, but that just made it less likely I'd have to physically restrain one of them from doing something stupid. Once they'd gotten close enough, I said, "I'd be very careful what you say around me, Emma." Like Julia, the pair stiffened at my sudden address, but unlike her, they soldiered on. Taylor had turned her body around by this point, and as they closed the distance I did the same.
"Neat trick," Emma said. "You using a mirror or something?"
I smiled sheepishly. "Got it in one," I said, displaying the mirror for her to see. It was an actual accident that I reflected the glare from the overhead lights right into her eyes, but my apology wasn't very sincere. "Sorry."
She clicked her tongue. "When I saw you back here, I thought you'd finally given up, but I guess you're more stubborn than I thought. What made you think dragging her in here was a good idea?"
I glanced at Taylor, but her expression was blank and unreadable. "I thought I'd be able to prove that she didn't have to live in constant fear of harassment. I guess you just can't control yourselves." I deliberately echoed Emma's wording.
Emma sneered at me. "I don't think you should be talking to me about self-control. How many pounds of mayonnaise did you put on that sandwich?"
"I suppose your model for self-control is your gag reflex," I shot back. Taylor stifled a laugh.
"The fuck are you laughing at?" Sophia demanded. She leaned forward; I put an arm out between her and Taylor, who'd made an 'eep' noise at the blatant threat display.
"Back off." To Taylor's visible surprise, Sophia did. "Sorry, that was too easy," I told Emma, which only made her more angry. "What I meant to say is: you could have kept me completely fooled if you'd just held back enough to not be a bitch where I could see it."
"I'm not trying to 'fool' anybody," Emma retorted. "This is how the world works. Better people rise to the top. Her? She's trash. You can lie to her all you want, but she doesn't deserve anything but what she gets."
"How very fascist of you."
"Fuck you!" Emma pulled a hand back to hit me, but Sophia got a hand on her wrist in time.
"You don't want to hit her," Sophia hissed. "Cool it." Emma looked between Sophia and me. I could see the moment where she remembered how well I'd done against Sophia in a fight, because she flinched slightly before she lowered her hand.
"Listen to her," I said. "And listen to me. You may not be a Nazi, but if you're going to start separating people into 'worthy' and 'unworthy', or talk about 'betters' and 'lessors', that's not a good look."
"Some people aren't worth the time," Sophia said. "It's not about race, for fuck's sake. If you can't swim, you're gonna sink to the bottom."
"You mean you push me to the bottom!" Taylor yelled, the emotions she'd been holding back suddenly boiling over. "I can't very well 'swim' with you holding me down! You never—!"
I wasn't fast enough to block, this time; Sophia stepped forward and sucker-punched Taylor in the gut as hard as she could. I had just enough time to get my hand on Taylor's arm before Sophia's fist met an immovable object. The crack of breaking bones was clearly audible.
Oh fuck. I just did that.
Sophia hissed in pain and clutched her broken wrist. Taylor recoiled, looking from her stomach to Sophia in confusion. Emma was completely lost. "The fuck?" she asked. "What the fuck just happened?"
"Nothing," Sophia spat. She was glaring daggers at me—she'd realized what I'd done. "Fucked up my wrist."
"Are you okay? How did that happen?"
"'Course I'm fucking okay," Sophia said. "Just got sloppy, that's all. Let's go, Ems."
Emma sniffed disdainfully. "You won't be laughing later," she told us, before the two girls turned and left the cafeteria, probably heading to the nurse's office. I stayed poised and confident until they'd disappeared into the crowd, then dropped my face into my hands.
"I could have handled that better," I said.
"That was unpleasant," Taylor said. I looked up to see that she still looked confused. "I think you hit a nerve there."
"So did you. Shit. I wonder if Sophia's going to show this afternoon."
"Huh?"
I shook my head. "Sorry, thinking out loud. We usually spar on Fridays."
Taylor's brow furrowed. "I thought you weren't friends anymore."
"I don't have to be friends with someone to spar with them. It's not like beating the crap out of someone is a very friendly activity."
"Then why…" she started to ask, then switched questions. "I didn't imagine that, did I? She broke her wrist."
"I think so, yeah." I sat there, waiting for Taylor to ask, to demand to know what the hell had happened.
She didn't. We spent the rest of the lunch period in silence, undisturbed.
Sophia showed up to the sparring session with a cast on her wrist. "Hudson."
"Hess."
"I'm not throwing any punches like this. Let's walk." I followed her out into the street. The temperature had risen a bit, but it was still cold, and recent rains had left puddles on the streets and sidewalks. "The fuck did you do?" she asked.
"Something stupid," I said.
She snorted. "No shit." We kept walking. "You said she was a breaker."
"What?"
"You know… the cape."
Ah, so that's how she was going to play it. "I did."
"Striker, too, huh?"
"Yeah. What I—what she can do to herself, she can do to anyone she touches."
"Can she kill someone by making them too heavy?" she asked.
"No. It works for them the same way it does for m—for her. She can still breath even if she's unmoveable." I hadn't actually tested whether that applied to other people, which was just one reason why what I'd done had been stupid. I'd acted on instinct, trusted the mechanics of the power to make sure I didn't accidentally kill someone with their own body mass, and the fact that I'd been right didn't retroactively make it less of a stupid thing to do.
"Huh." Sophia didn't say anything while another man passed us on the sidewalk. "Hebert knows what's up, then?" she asked once he was out of earshot.
"I don't think I can hide it, if she pushes, but she hasn't yet."
"See what I mean?" Sophia asked. "Compare me and Hebert. I suspect, and I go straight to you. You actually do something to her, and she sticks her head in the sand and ignores it?"
"You weren't exactly direct," I shot back.
"I was as direct as you can be, when you're dealing with shit like this."
I frowned. "Fair enough," I allowed.
"Yeah. Identity shit is fucking weird. S'why we talk about things in the third person. Deniability, see? 'Just gossiping.'" Sophia paused to see if I understood, so I nodded. "I beat around the bush a bit, trying to feel you out, but when push came to shove I asked what I wanted to ask. You think Hebert would push like that? You think she'd follow you up to the roof?"
"I think she would, if she hadn't spent two years learning not to confront anyone."
Sophia snickered. "I bet she'd follow you off the roof if you asked her to. She's so desperate she'd do anything for the first person to show her even a lick of kindness. Like a lost puppy."
"You think that's funny?" I asked harshly. "You think it's funny that you managed to break someone down like that, to the point where they can't have normal, healthy social interaction?"
"That's who she is," Sophia said. "She was always gonna break. Don't blame me just because I was the first thing that happened to do it."
I stopped and grabbed her shoulder roughly, turned her to face me. "She was right."
"What—"
"What she said, what made you hit her. She hit a nerve, didn't she? You say victims like her always end up back in the same place, but I say you made sure to put her there, each and every time she started to climb out!"
"You don't know shit!" Sophia yelled.
"What's wrong? You don't want to think about the fact that you're the 'place' the victim keeps ending—"
"SHUT THE FUCK UP!" She slapped me as hard as she could with her good hand. I let it happen, took the hit on my cheek, turning my head with the blow and adjusting myself slightly to lessen the impact without bending like rubber or breaking her other hand. The slap rang like a bell in the silence that followed.
I turned my head back to neutral with a grimace, rolling my neck as I did so. "Sore spot," I said, massaging my cheek with one hand.
"Shut the fuck up unless you want to get hit again."
"I didn't break your other hand. Don't make me regret that."
We glared at each other for a few seconds before I stood down. "Who was it?" I asked.
The question caught her off guard. "What?"
"Who was it who wouldn't stay saved?" Sophia bristled harder, which I didn't think was possible. I took half a step back; not in retreat, but to settle into my stance. It wasn't necessary; she turned away and resumed her walk down the street, and I followed a step behind her.
"You just can't stay out of other people's business, can you?" she asked.
"I'm nosy," I admitted. "I shouldn't have asked, though."
"Yeah, no shit."
Cass is finally starting to make friends and influence people.
The Car (alternately that fucking car) is, to me, one of the funniest things in this story, which is really the only reason it exists. I forgot to point it out at the time, but its introduction in chapter 6 is hands-down the smuttiest thing I have ever written.
I'm interested to hear what people think of my interpretations of canon characters: Taylor, Sophia, Faultline, etc. I'm trying to avoid falling into the fanon pigeonholes.
While writing conversations with Taylor, I tried to keep track of her perspective even when I wrote from Cass's/Kasey's. Looking back on these chapters, I sort of wish I'd actually written Taylor's POV down, if only because it would make an interesting 'special feature' or similar. I could go back and do it now, but I don't think it would be the same.
Chapter 9: Friendship
The best fake ID in the world wouldn't get Kasey Hudson in through the front doors of a nightclub, no matter how disreputable—and for all that it was owned by a group of villains, the Palanquin was a pretty classy scene. I went dressed to the nines in my cape costume and jacket, and the bouncer didn't even ask my name before letting me through. Somewhat of a letdown, since half the reason I'd gone through the trouble to finally pick one was for this excursion.
The club was crowded, but it wasn't packed, so there was plenty of space to move across the dance floor to the bar on the wall opposite the entrance. I did my best to stay out of the way of the people dancing, but I also didn't give an inch if someone bumped me. Any anger people felt at running into a random wall in the middle of the floor dried up fast when they realized they were about to start yelling at a strange cape. The club's security would step in fast if a fight broke out, but probably not fast enough to save your ass if you pissed off someone with super strength and a hair-trigger temper. I was almost disappointed that no one started anything, if only because I would have loved to laugh in their face and get away with it.
Overall, I'd attracted less attention than I expected by the time I took a seat at the bar. Being all cape'd up raised an interesting question: how do you card someone when they're specifically broadcasting their anonymity? The answer was simple: you don't, and everyone ignores the problem. Mostly.
"You old enough to drink, girl?" asked the bartender, a burly, graying old man who could have passed for a bouncer if he'd been a decade or two younger. I'm pretty sure that's what he said; the music was loud enough that I was relying more on lip-reading than actual sound to understand him.
"Nope!" I said cheerfully. "Gimme something fruity and virgin." He mixed up some kind of smoothie-like drink; it was okay, but not amazing, and probably not worth the money.
"Most people would have lied," the person next to me shouted over the music. "No one's gonna challenge it."
"'Most people' must want to get drunk," I yelled back, then did a spit-take when I looked over at the speaker.
"What? Something on my mask?"
"Wondering how I missed you when I sat down." It wasn't too surprising that I hadn't noticed; the pounding music and flashing lights were playing hell with my situational awareness. The frilly white and silver costume was splattered in distracting rainbow hues by the overhead lights, and the Venetian mask hadn't been visible from the back. I leaned in slightly closer and rested a cheek on one hand, obscuring my lips from other observers. "Bit of a shock to realize I sat down next to the second most dangerous master in the city," I murmured at the top of my lungs.
"That would be a bigger complement if there were more than two masters in the city," Regent snarked.
"Four, by my count," I corrected.
"Semantics." He waved his hand dismissively. "Not that I want to be 'dangerous', of course."
I nodded. "'Effective' is better. More success, less trouble."
"Good work earns more work, though."
"Of course, the Master creed: 'why do yourself what others can do for you?'"
The joke fell flat. "You know me, but I've never heard of you," he said with a scowl. "Your costume says speedster, your attitude says brute, and your drink says poser. Who are you?"
I bit back a sharp retort. "Name's Flux. Just someone new in town looking for a bit of trouble."
"Looking for trouble, eh?" Regent looked like he wanted to say more, but instead grumbled, "Ah, hell, that's my cue to leave." He dropped a roll of bills on the counter and slouched off into the crowd. I tracked him for a few moments, then realized he'd seen something behind me before taking off, and turned around just in time to meet Faultline face-to-face.
The owner of the Palanquin was a woman with an eye for practicality in her gear. Her 'costume' was half dress, half riot gear, featuring a bulletproof vest over a martial-arts-uniform-esque skirt that probably concealed more armor on her legs. Gray and black predominated, and her face was covered by a solid welding mask with a single massive rent for her eyes where the visor should be; the result looked like she'd narrowly escaped having her head taken off by a twelve-foot-tall cassowary.
Faultline cut straight to business. "Don't see many new faces showing up with a full suit like that. What's your name, kid?" It was even harder to understand her than Regent or the bartender, since that damn welding mask muffled her voice and obscured her lips. I was really guessing on some of those words.
"Flux. You must be Faultline." I offered a hand, and she shook it; my opinion of her rose slightly when she declined to engage in any bullshit grip-strength posturing. In the background, the current song wound down and was replaced by something slower, although still bowel-shakingly loud. At least it was slightly easier to hear people talk.
"New in town, or just passing through?" she asked brusquely.
"New. Here to stay, barring unforeseen circumstances. Looking for a bit of freelance work." I pulled out a card from my jacket, bearing just the name 'Flux' and a phone number. "I won't answer; leave a voicemail with a way to contact you."
She took the card and crushed it in one hand; there was a brief flare of light before she dumped the resulting confetti onto the already-dirty floor. "We don't hire freelancers," she said.
Ouch. "You also don't do jobs in the city. Don't shit where you eat, I get it." It was hard to read her under all that armor, so I had no idea how close she was to kicking me out—or kicking my ass. "But, I figure that might mean you need a little plausible deniability, sometimes. Keep me in mind?" I drew out another card and set it on the counter, playing it as cool as I could.
"Look, kid, I don't know how things work where you come from, but that sort of thing doesn't fly around here. If you'd come here looking to sign up, we could have worked something out, but I run a team, not a temp agency. Your bravado isn't making you any friends, either."
Part of me wanted to call her out over calling me 'kid' when I was older than she was, and I had to remind myself that I wasn't—physically, anyway. Instead, I took a deep breath and set the card down on the counter calmly. "Didn't mean to offend, ma'am," I said, dialing the arrogance way down. "You've got a reputation for success, and I was hoping to share in a bit of that while I settled in. You're right, though, I'm not looking to join up."
"Well, if you do decide to throw your lot in with a team, maybe you'll keep us in mind," Faultline said, picking up the card and tucking it into a pocket on the front of her flak jacket.
I did my best to conceal my surprise at the sudden reversal in attitude. "I might," I said, "but I'm not looking to travel too much."
She nodded in understanding. "At least we're unlikely to meet as enemies, then. You seem an alright sort. Not many capes can keep a cool enough head to back down from a pissing match, especially teenagers."
I'm at least five years your senior, asshole. "I appreciate the sentiment," I lied, "but if it's all the same, could you turn down the condescension? You already called me 'kid' twice."
She snorted, which made a strange hollow sound inside her helmet. "If you're mature enough to ask politely, I suppose I owe you that much. Hope you enjoy the Palanquin… Flux." Faultline headed back towards the Staff Only door, pausing to exchange a few words with the bartender, and I turned back to my drink. It had already gotten watery from the melting ice while we talked. Oh well, I hadn't been particularly fond of it anyway.
"What's my bill?" I asked as the barkeeper passed by.
"On the house," he yelled back. I passed him a ten, hopped off the stool, and made my way out of the club, heart pounding.
Intellectually, I knew I hadn't been in any real danger. Even if I'd offended Faultline enough to get myself thrown out, she was extremely unlikely to start a potentially damaging fight in the middle of her own club unless I escalated first. But facing down a cape in full costume was still a bit like staring down a lion. I'd kept cool as a cucumber during the confrontation, but once the moment had passed the adrenaline had made itself felt. I made sure to get out of sight before the shaking started to show.
"Where have you been?" Homura asked neutrally when I got home a couple hours after midnight.
"Palanquin." I didn't see any reason to lie; teenage body or not, I was a grown woman. I could damn well spend a night out, especially if I wasn't drinking. She must have thought similarly, since she didn't feel the need to critique my choices.
"Anything happen?"
"I think I made a good impression on Faultline, somehow. Oh, and I ran into Regent at the bar."
"One moment." She pulled an item out of her shield's pocket dimension and pushed it into my hands. "Hold this."
"What is it?"
"Rolodex." She stared at it for a few seconds, then took it back. "Thanks."
"Sure, no problem." I had no idea what I had just done, and wasn't particularly curious. "Goodnight, Hom—I mean, Emily."
"Goodnight."
———X==X==X———
I felt much better the following week. The stress of mingling with people who had the power and/or authority to kick me across the room had satisfied my craving for conflict, at least for now. It would be back, and it would want more, but that was a problem for another day.
Taylor finally showed up on the seventh; a Monday. The first 'warning' I had that she was coming was the fact that the bugs that normally annoyed me on the roof were absent, but I only realized that in hindsight, after she'd pushed open the roof door.
"You've been eating up here every day for a month," she said.
I didn't bother asking how she knew that. "I was hoping you'd show up," I said truthfully. The statement made Taylor uncomfortable, but I figured bullshitting her wouldn't endear me to her. She sat down next to me and pulled out a tupperware container full of salad.
"How did it work, for you?" she asked after a few minutes of eating in silence.
"What?"
"You said you were bullied when you were young. How'd you make it stop?"
"That's a long story, if you've got time." Taylor shot me a look that conveyed quite clearly that she had nothing better to do. "Right. Where should I start?"
The bullying I'd had as Kasey had just sort of disappeared somewhere, like a dropped plot thread. My life back home would make a far better answer, although I'd have to fudge a few details. "When I was in middle school—I was probably twelve or so at the time—my parents saw that I was struggling to get along with other kids and put me in an after-school program for 'poorly socialized children'. That mostly meant kids who were bullying others, rather than the kids being bullied. There are a lot of reasons kids become bullies. Some of them just don't know how to act around other kids, so they become aggressive and confrontational. Some kids are taking out their insecurity or self-hatred on others, some kids do it because they need to feel like they have power or control. And some kids are probably actual sociopaths who just like causing pain, although I don't think I've ever one of those.
"Sorry, got off track. Back to my story: being put in a small group with four to six kids who were 'poorly socialized', mostly in the first sense of 'didn't know how to act nice so acted mean instead', was a bit of a trial-by-fire for me, but it taught me a lot about how to relate to other people, and how to not get angry when someone said or did something that was, well, 'not nice', for lack of a better word. In school, I stopped crying when they taunted me, so they didn't have any encouragement to continue. More than that, I started engaging with the bullies socially. I acted like I was already part of their group, and they just adapted to that. I learned to laugh at myself, so when they made fun of me, they were laughing with me, rather than at me; and I learned how to tell those kinds of jokes, so they'd have to laugh at themselves, too. By the time middle school ended, the kids who'd bullied me in sixth grade were almost my friends."
Taylor hadn't reacted at all to my rambling, long-winded recounting. She eventually asked, "You just forced them to be your friends?"
I made a face. "That makes it sound sinister. I'd say it was more of a 'fake it 'til you make it' sort of situation. I acted like I belonged, and they decided to let me."
"And that worked?"
"Yeah. It wasn't easy, and I wasn't perfect. I slapped a kid at one point. But eventually I managed to fit in." I sighed. "I get the feeling that wouldn't work for you, though," I admitted.
"Why's that?"
"Because you've been singled out. I wouldn't have described my bullying as a 'campaign'; it was just something they did because I was there, like kicking a rock down the road. Emma seems really focused on you, though, so what worked for me probably wouldn't work for you. Not reacting isn't going to make her give up, no matter how long you last." Taylor slumped as I finished speaking, curling into a ball around her chicken Caesar. Shit, that was her plan A, wasn't it?
"I just want them to leave me alone," she muttered.
"I know," I said. "Can I help?"
Taylor shook her head.
"Let me rephrase that. I want to help. Will you let me?"
She stared at me for a long time before shaking her head again. "Why are you so…" She let the question hang unfinished.
"Persistent?" I guessed.
"Convenient," she corrected irritably. "If I fantasized about having someone swoop in and save me from all this bullshit, it would be someone like you. Pretty much exactly like you. Rich, pretty, smart. Older and wiser. Protective." Taylor's gaze was intense, to the point it felt like I was being dissected. "You are too good to be true. Who are you, that you're such a perfect answer to my problems?"
"I… I'm Kasey." Was I feeling killing intent from Taylor? I took a breath and rallied. "Maybe it's because I'm such a good answer to your problems that I want to help! I'm trying to rebuild my life, you know! This is something I can do. At least one good thing can come out of all that shit."
She wasn't impressed, but I carried on anyway. "I get that you're suspicious—you've probably been burned before—but I swear to you that I'm on the level. I'm not here to set you up for a fall or take advantage of you. I want to be your friend."
Taylor kept staring, and I looked away rather than try to keep up the staring contest. When I finally looked back, she'd gone back to her normal, timid self, protectively huddled around her lunch. I went back to eating, and after a moment, she followed suit.
"They're going to target you too, if they see you spending time with me," Taylor said after we'd finished.
"Let 'em try," I said.
"I'm not going to be a very good friend."
"I'll be the judge of that."
"I don't even know what friends do, anymore," she whispered.
"Well, then," I said. "Do you want to come over to my house after school?"
———X==X==X———
I called Emily to let her know that I'd be bringing a friend home with me. I expected her to show up in the van she'd used back in January; instead, she showed up in a luxury car that, while lacking the absurd come-hither aura of that fucking car, was nevertheless a very nice, very expensive ride. This was a problem because Taylor emerged from her last period class covered in glue from head to toe.
I whisked her back into the school building, into one of the bathrooms, and began sponging the glue off with wet paper towels. I absolutely cheated: the hand I was using to 'steady' her under my aggressive cleaning let me temporarily change the physics of her skin and clothes to repel the sticky crap, while my hand on the paper towel did the opposite. By the time I was done, she was as clean as if she'd never suffered the indignity in the first place; I was even able to get it out of her hair.
"How did you clean that up so well?" she asked as I balled up the last of the soiled paper towels.
"I was diagnosed with OCD in seventh grade," I deflected. "They were able to mostly eliminate it, since they'd caught it before it could become ingrained, but I still have a few obsessive tendencies, particularly around stickiness. I hate having any sort of sticky feeling, especially on my hands." It was all true, just completely irrelevant, but if she noticed I hadn't actually answered her question, she didn't call me on it. I took her back out to the curb, introduced her to Emily, and we piled into the car and drove off.
It took almost half an hour to get home, since Emily wasn't using any magical traffic-ignoring properties this car may have had. We pulled into our entirely mundane, normal-dimensional garage, and I started showing Taylor around the house. Murphy saw to it that she immediately singled out the group photo I'd unpacked the first day I'd been here. "Who are they?" she asked, picking the frame up off the shelf. She was too focused on the picture to see the face I made at the question.
"My friends," I said simply, taking the picture out of her hands to hold it myself. Taylor stepped around behind me, using her height to peer over my shoulder. I pointed at the photo. "That's Kevin, Rachel, Jack…" One by one, I named each of the dozen people in the photograph. All people I'd known back home, recreated with me here on Bet and then erased. I didn't want to think too hard about what that meant, as far as how much this world had changed to accommodate me, and what sort of responsibility that left me with. "…and me," I finished, pointing to myself at the right edge of the group.
"You look happy," she said.
"We were," I agreed.
Taylor cringed. "Oh." She hesitated, but ultimately asked, "Did any of them…?"
"The flood got them all." My eyes were dry, but my voice still wavered slightly. "This is all I have left of them."
Taylor reached out and put her hand on my shoulder. It was an awkward, uncertain movement with slightly too much force behind it, but she tried. "I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't mean to bring up painful memories."
"I'm okay," I said stubbornly. "They're good memories, even if they hurt. I was lucky to know them." I ran a hand over the photograph, leaving fingerprints on the protective plastic. "It helps to remind myself that they're not really gone. I'll see them again someday."
"Uh," Taylor said, and I mentally kicked myself for getting so lost in thought I forgot who I was speaking to. "My family… isn't religious," she said awkwardly.
"Forget I said anything," I told her, meaning it literally. I put the photo back on the shelf and wiped a finger under my eyes to make sure they were still dry.
We spent an hour playing boardgames and talking about nothing. Music, books, current events; I did most of the talking, but I made sure Taylor was at least engaged enough to offer an opinion on the topics, moving on if she wasn't. Time flew, and soon Taylor pointed out that she needed to be back by the time her dad got home from work. Emily took us both back into the city to drop her off at home.
"If you're the same age, why does only she drive?" Taylor asked me on the way.
"Remember what I said about being the baby of the family?"
She frowned. "That doesn't seem very fair."
"She's not serious," Emily said from the front seat. "Kasey could borrow my car if she wanted. She just likes being chauffeured around."
"You have a car. I don't," I said.
"I was away at college. You always borrowed…" she trailed off.
I swallowed a lump in my throat. "I know, 'Ellie," I said. "You know I love you."
"Love you too, nerd." Taylor smiled at the byplay, and I grinned right back.
———X==X==X———
I spent the next week encouraging Taylor to brave the school cafeteria. I don't think she actually believed I'd be able to stop her bullies from abusing her, but by Friday she was sick enough of my nagging that she agreed. "It won't be as bad as you think, trust me," I told her as we sat down at a table along one of the walls, across from a couple of freshman who didn't acknowledge our presence at all. I had my sandwich in one hand and a tiny compact mirror in the other; much more subtle than constantly glancing over my shoulder.
"I'd think twice about that if I were you," I announced to the air five minutes later. In the mirror, I saw Julia stiffen and glance at the open carton of milk in her hand, then spin on her heel and head back to her table. I used my power to flex the mirror, 'zooming in' on the scene. After a few moments, Emma and Sophia stood up. "Don't look now, but trouble's coming," I told Taylor. "We can leave, if you want." She shook her head. "I've got your back if you want to speak up, but you don't have to say anything. Just try not to panic, okay?" She was already panicking, but she nodded anyway; she was a tough one, no mistake.
I relaxed slightly when I saw that neither girl had any food in hand, but that just made it less likely I'd have to physically restrain one of them from doing something stupid. Once they'd gotten close enough, I said, "I'd be very careful what you say around me, Emma." Like Julia, the pair stiffened at my sudden address, but unlike her, they soldiered on. Taylor had turned her body around by this point, and as they closed the distance I did the same.
"Neat trick," Emma said. "You using a mirror or something?"
I smiled sheepishly. "Got it in one," I said, displaying the mirror for her to see. It was an actual accident that I reflected the glare from the overhead lights right into her eyes, but my apology wasn't very sincere. "Sorry."
She clicked her tongue. "When I saw you back here, I thought you'd finally given up, but I guess you're more stubborn than I thought. What made you think dragging her in here was a good idea?"
I glanced at Taylor, but her expression was blank and unreadable. "I thought I'd be able to prove that she didn't have to live in constant fear of harassment. I guess you just can't control yourselves." I deliberately echoed Emma's wording.
Emma sneered at me. "I don't think you should be talking to me about self-control. How many pounds of mayonnaise did you put on that sandwich?"
"I suppose your model for self-control is your gag reflex," I shot back. Taylor stifled a laugh.
"The fuck are you laughing at?" Sophia demanded. She leaned forward; I put an arm out between her and Taylor, who'd made an 'eep' noise at the blatant threat display.
"Back off." To Taylor's visible surprise, Sophia did. "Sorry, that was too easy," I told Emma, which only made her more angry. "What I meant to say is: you could have kept me completely fooled if you'd just held back enough to not be a bitch where I could see it."
"I'm not trying to 'fool' anybody," Emma retorted. "This is how the world works. Better people rise to the top. Her? She's trash. You can lie to her all you want, but she doesn't deserve anything but what she gets."
"How very fascist of you."
"Fuck you!" Emma pulled a hand back to hit me, but Sophia got a hand on her wrist in time.
"You don't want to hit her," Sophia hissed. "Cool it." Emma looked between Sophia and me. I could see the moment where she remembered how well I'd done against Sophia in a fight, because she flinched slightly before she lowered her hand.
"Listen to her," I said. "And listen to me. You may not be a Nazi, but if you're going to start separating people into 'worthy' and 'unworthy', or talk about 'betters' and 'lessors', that's not a good look."
"Some people aren't worth the time," Sophia said. "It's not about race, for fuck's sake. If you can't swim, you're gonna sink to the bottom."
"You mean you push me to the bottom!" Taylor yelled, the emotions she'd been holding back suddenly boiling over. "I can't very well 'swim' with you holding me down! You never—!"
I wasn't fast enough to block, this time; Sophia stepped forward and sucker-punched Taylor in the gut as hard as she could. I had just enough time to get my hand on Taylor's arm before Sophia's fist met an immovable object. The crack of breaking bones was clearly audible.
Oh fuck. I just did that.
Sophia hissed in pain and clutched her broken wrist. Taylor recoiled, looking from her stomach to Sophia in confusion. Emma was completely lost. "The fuck?" she asked. "What the fuck just happened?"
"Nothing," Sophia spat. She was glaring daggers at me—she'd realized what I'd done. "Fucked up my wrist."
"Are you okay? How did that happen?"
"'Course I'm fucking okay," Sophia said. "Just got sloppy, that's all. Let's go, Ems."
Emma sniffed disdainfully. "You won't be laughing later," she told us, before the two girls turned and left the cafeteria, probably heading to the nurse's office. I stayed poised and confident until they'd disappeared into the crowd, then dropped my face into my hands.
"I could have handled that better," I said.
"That was unpleasant," Taylor said. I looked up to see that she still looked confused. "I think you hit a nerve there."
"So did you. Shit. I wonder if Sophia's going to show this afternoon."
"Huh?"
I shook my head. "Sorry, thinking out loud. We usually spar on Fridays."
Taylor's brow furrowed. "I thought you weren't friends anymore."
"I don't have to be friends with someone to spar with them. It's not like beating the crap out of someone is a very friendly activity."
"Then why…" she started to ask, then switched questions. "I didn't imagine that, did I? She broke her wrist."
"I think so, yeah." I sat there, waiting for Taylor to ask, to demand to know what the hell had happened.
She didn't. We spent the rest of the lunch period in silence, undisturbed.
———X==X==X———
Sophia showed up to the sparring session with a cast on her wrist. "Hudson."
"Hess."
"I'm not throwing any punches like this. Let's walk." I followed her out into the street. The temperature had risen a bit, but it was still cold, and recent rains had left puddles on the streets and sidewalks. "The fuck did you do?" she asked.
"Something stupid," I said.
She snorted. "No shit." We kept walking. "You said she was a breaker."
"What?"
"You know… the cape."
Ah, so that's how she was going to play it. "I did."
"Striker, too, huh?"
"Yeah. What I—what she can do to herself, she can do to anyone she touches."
"Can she kill someone by making them too heavy?" she asked.
"No. It works for them the same way it does for m—for her. She can still breath even if she's unmoveable." I hadn't actually tested whether that applied to other people, which was just one reason why what I'd done had been stupid. I'd acted on instinct, trusted the mechanics of the power to make sure I didn't accidentally kill someone with their own body mass, and the fact that I'd been right didn't retroactively make it less of a stupid thing to do.
"Huh." Sophia didn't say anything while another man passed us on the sidewalk. "Hebert knows what's up, then?" she asked once he was out of earshot.
"I don't think I can hide it, if she pushes, but she hasn't yet."
"See what I mean?" Sophia asked. "Compare me and Hebert. I suspect, and I go straight to you. You actually do something to her, and she sticks her head in the sand and ignores it?"
"You weren't exactly direct," I shot back.
"I was as direct as you can be, when you're dealing with shit like this."
I frowned. "Fair enough," I allowed.
"Yeah. Identity shit is fucking weird. S'why we talk about things in the third person. Deniability, see? 'Just gossiping.'" Sophia paused to see if I understood, so I nodded. "I beat around the bush a bit, trying to feel you out, but when push came to shove I asked what I wanted to ask. You think Hebert would push like that? You think she'd follow you up to the roof?"
"I think she would, if she hadn't spent two years learning not to confront anyone."
Sophia snickered. "I bet she'd follow you off the roof if you asked her to. She's so desperate she'd do anything for the first person to show her even a lick of kindness. Like a lost puppy."
"You think that's funny?" I asked harshly. "You think it's funny that you managed to break someone down like that, to the point where they can't have normal, healthy social interaction?"
"That's who she is," Sophia said. "She was always gonna break. Don't blame me just because I was the first thing that happened to do it."
I stopped and grabbed her shoulder roughly, turned her to face me. "She was right."
"What—"
"What she said, what made you hit her. She hit a nerve, didn't she? You say victims like her always end up back in the same place, but I say you made sure to put her there, each and every time she started to climb out!"
"You don't know shit!" Sophia yelled.
"What's wrong? You don't want to think about the fact that you're the 'place' the victim keeps ending—"
"SHUT THE FUCK UP!" She slapped me as hard as she could with her good hand. I let it happen, took the hit on my cheek, turning my head with the blow and adjusting myself slightly to lessen the impact without bending like rubber or breaking her other hand. The slap rang like a bell in the silence that followed.
I turned my head back to neutral with a grimace, rolling my neck as I did so. "Sore spot," I said, massaging my cheek with one hand.
"Shut the fuck up unless you want to get hit again."
"I didn't break your other hand. Don't make me regret that."
We glared at each other for a few seconds before I stood down. "Who was it?" I asked.
The question caught her off guard. "What?"
"Who was it who wouldn't stay saved?" Sophia bristled harder, which I didn't think was possible. I took half a step back; not in retreat, but to settle into my stance. It wasn't necessary; she turned away and resumed her walk down the street, and I followed a step behind her.
"You just can't stay out of other people's business, can you?" she asked.
"I'm nosy," I admitted. "I shouldn't have asked, though."
"Yeah, no shit."
Cass is finally starting to make friends and influence people.
The Car (alternately that fucking car) is, to me, one of the funniest things in this story, which is really the only reason it exists. I forgot to point it out at the time, but its introduction in chapter 6 is hands-down the smuttiest thing I have ever written.
I'm interested to hear what people think of my interpretations of canon characters: Taylor, Sophia, Faultline, etc. I'm trying to avoid falling into the fanon pigeonholes.
While writing conversations with Taylor, I tried to keep track of her perspective even when I wrote from Cass's/Kasey's. Looking back on these chapters, I sort of wish I'd actually written Taylor's POV down, if only because it would make an interesting 'special feature' or similar. I could go back and do it now, but I don't think it would be the same.
