Chapter 8: Deal Breaker
The amount of visitors outside of Dad was equal zero. Well, I know there were some reporters from the local news who really wanted to get a piece of me, but I didn't actually care about those. My classmates had sent me well wishes, flowers I had next to me, but none of them actually came to visit.
I haven't heard any news of the suicidal girl either, and I've actually been largely isolated, staying in my room. I wouldn't really mind that if it wasn't for the fact that I barely had any books here to take my time to read.
No, instead I was spending much more time staring at the ceiling, waiting for Dad to come visit, and thinking about how I could get another adrenaline kick now that I was crippled. Maybe saving up and asking some healer cape to do the work would help. Panacea was in the city, right? But she didn't do requests, there was a long waiting list until she could take care of someone because everyone in the city needed her, and she wasn't in the city anyway.
Someone knocked on the door.
"Come in," I said, looking over to it. Dad walked in with a bunch of letters in his hands, looking a lot better. It's been almost a week since I was stuck to the bed, but I should be able to go home soon enough, and it seems he finally stopped moping around. I might have to find a way to drag my belongings down with the help of my Dad because getting up the stairs was going to be a bother.
Yes, I've made peace with it. Maybe it was the fact that after the drugs finally stopped, I could think more clearly about what exactly this meant for me. I was technically in an unfortunate situation that would break a lot of people, and despite all the negative emotions associated with it, I knew that there were people who achieved much more in a wheelchair than I ever did outside of one.
Maybe a Tinkertech wheelchair with a hover function was cheaper than a healer. Something I should be looking into.
Dad sat down in the chair next to my bed like always, putting the letters into my lap.
"It seems," he said, sorting through some of the letters which were full of empty well-wishes. "It seems that due to Winslow's lack of accessibility, you've been pushed up on Arcadia's waiting list due to your condition."
I blinked, tilting my head and urging him to continue.
"You'll still have to go to school," he said. "And there aren't actually any schools nearby that would have the equipment to deal with your con-"
"You don't have to keep calling it that," I said, interrupting him. "'Your condition' this, 'your condition' that. I'm disabled from the waist down, crippled, paraplegic. There's names for that, you can use one of these."
"I get it," he all but snapped. "It's… not something you can really get used to, you know?"
"Tell me about it," I said dryly, staring at the rest of the letters in my lap. "Look, if I can deal with this, I'm sure you can as well. Now, what was this about Arcadia?"
"They are equipped to deal with your paraplegia," he said, actually using the term. Progress. "So you can just join as soon as you are ready to go to school again, though catching up might be a bit hard on you."
"That's alright," I said. "I can catch up quickly."
I'm already caught up, but that didn't matter. Arcadia! A dream come true! My dreams stopped being dreams…
And someone else knocked on the door. More forcefully, and rather straightforward before just opening it, not even waiting for me to say anything. What if I was getting dressed? That was all kinds of rude. I stared at the newcomer, a woman in a gray suit, looking confident.
"Good evening, Ms. Hebert," she said, nodding at me and then moving up to my bed, offering my father her hand. "Hello, Mr. Hebert."
"Hello?" He shook her hand, looking as confused as I was feeling. The woman took out a card from her pocket, giving it to him.
"I'm an consultant in the PRT East-North-East," she said, stating the official designated name of Brockton Bay's PRT. Oh. The name on the card was 'Trucy R-' something. I couldn't actually read the rest from the way he held it.
Oh…
"What does the PRT want with my daughter," Dad asked.
"We've been informed of a possibly new cape that has triggered due to recent events," she said. That was the truth, her voice and expression said as much. "We keep a close track of events where residents of Brockton Bay might be traumatized heavily, in which case we contact them to see if we could be of any assistance."
She lied. No, not quite a lie. What she said was somewhere in between, she was confident in her words without really stating the full truth. The policemen, maybe. Or that reporter? One of them had tipped them off.
"And what does that have to do with me?" I asked, trying to sound innocent. She didn't buy it.
"The possibility of a trigger event came up," she said, nodding to Dad before explaining it, knowing he was probably unfamiliar with the term. I wasn't, I knew exactly what it was. "That is the moment a parahuman receives their power, a usually very traumatic event that is the worst day of someone's life. Due to the incident a week ago, I was sent to ask Ms. Hebert if she had obtained powers."
Dad looked confused, then scowled, then back to confusion. Then his stare turned to me, suddenly comprehending just what she was implying.
"And if she does?" He asked.
"Then we would like to recruit her to the Wards team, a place where young parahumans can train to use their powers in a safe environment with people in their age group to have a healthy social life."
Truth. She believed what she said. The Wards team was promoted as that online as well last time I checked.
"And if I didn't wish to join, that is, if I had powers?" I asked. She knew I had powers, so I didn't actually have to worry about asking these 'hypothetical' questions.
"We'd never force you to," she said. "And your father would have to give his permission. If you were to join, all of the medical equipment of the Protectorate and possibly even the help of healer capes could be used to heal your legs, however."
Bribery, ah, the sincerest form of-
No, for some reason, this actually pissed me off. What with people who actually did something similar that I did and didn't have powers? Maybe she just phrased it badly, but I didn't want to be bribed in such a way. I scowled slightly, and she seemed to have caught on to the fact of why. She wasn't bad at reading people either, it seems.
"I apologize," Trucy said. "I didn't wish to imply that you would be simply left on your own because the you were not a parahuman-"
"That's quite alright." I shook my head, calming down. My left hand kept moving behind me, from where she couldn't see it, I had to keep moving.
"No, please, let me," she began, and stopped. After she thought for a while, she started to speak again. "Due to what you did, the mayor wants to give you a medal, and the entire citizenship of Brockton Bay is singing your name outside of these walls, calling you a hero in the same breath as Armsmaster and Miss Militia. Even if you do not join the PRT, I am sure that you will on a higher priority to have your legs checked by someone like Panacea-"
"I said," I interrupted her, squeezing my eyes shut. "It's alright. I am not a parahuman, I did not get powers, and I do not want any priority-"
At the last statement, I could
feel Dad's eyes snap to me, but I ignored the feeling in my chest and kept my eyes closed, trying to think and not read them.
"I will wait for however long it takes if Panacea deems it fit to heal me, and if she doesn't," I continued. "Then that's that. I'll just go to school like usual, with a pair of wheels instead of legs, and I'll do it knowing that the other people before me will be healed because they waited such a long time for it."
"... I understand," Trucy said, sounding… impressed? I couldn't really place the tone without reading her face, it seems I could practice that a bit more. "If you ever change your mind, Ms. Hebert, please call us with the number on the card."
"Alright."
I knew exactly why I was angry, and that just made my temper flare up more. The possibility of Panacea healing me came to mind, yes, but the implication of having her take care of me before taking care of others? One would argue that it would 'only be a few minutes', but those few minutes add up, those minutes are what people have been waiting for, and I imagine that those waiting lists were huge.
I waited until the woman left before opening my eyes again, staring at Dad. He looked disappointed.
"You could have been healed," he said.
"I don't care," I told him honestly. I had all the time in the world to find my peace. "I did something reckless, and I'm not going to take someone's spot on a list they waited for."
"I get that, but… but it would have been nice," he said, dejected. "Just going home with everything like it was."
"Maybe," I said. "But it's not something I want."
I didn't even know what I wanted anymore. The Wards seemed like an attractive possibility until I heard this offer anyone else would have jumped on. Maybe if I didn't have all those minutes, all those hours, where I was lying in bed and thinking, maybe I would have jumped onto the train that was offered to me.
"You're not parahuman, right?" He asked again.
"No," I lied. "I'm just a really stupid, impulsive and reckless person."
