Category: Novels

“Anything?’ Rox asked, sitting opposite Anita. The rest of the house was dark, and silent. In the middle of the table was a walkie. Anita’s hand hovered near it, even as she tried desperately not to look at it.

“Can’t sleep?” Anita asked.

“No. You?”

“The stress has my nerves a tangled mess. It’s messing with my foresight; I can’t see anything clearly, but seeing fever-dreams of Cris torn literally limb from limb in a concentration camp is a tough thing to pretend you didn’t see.”

“Any idea on the likelihood?”

“I wouldn’t put a lot of money on it. I mean, I have had cause to tear someone’s limb off. It’s not a simple task. Even cutting away a lot of the skin, there’s a whole lot of meat and sinew and… unless we assume it’s another Breed, or some very determined bigots, it’s probably a long shot. But I’ve seen a fair few of those come true in my day; your crummy President being exhibit A.”

“Yeah,” Rox said, giving a depressive chuckle. “I have to assume there’s someone else out there with an ability like mine, but in reverse- only they cursed the whole fricking country, maybe the planet.”

“That’d be kind of nice, actually,” Anita said. “There being some rhyme or reason to the world. Sadly, in my experience, there really isn’t. There are bigots, the congenitally cruel, the greedy beyond all understanding… but shit doesn’t happen for a reason. We suffer, pointlessly, until one day we stop.”

“Okay, we are switching you to decaf, and whatever the opposite of hard liquor is.”

“40 beers?”

“1 beer, if you promise to be less maudlin.” Anita glared. “Hear this with all due affection: I am a teenaged girl, on the run from my country, fighting against forces that would rather we stop existing, whose available romantic prospects are two dudes more interested in not showering than in me, and guaranteed friendship-ruining lesbian trysts. With all of that, you’re depressing me.”

“Fair enough. 1 beer.” Anita held out her hand.

“I’m not getting it for your lazy ass.”

Anita sighed, and kicked out of her seat. “Then what’s to stop me from drinking all the beer?”

“That somehow you have the second tiniest bladder among us, after Tso, and that if you try, I’ll focus my powers on you and you will have a hilarious accident. Or 39.”

“You’re a tyrant,” Anita said, dropping back in her seat with a beer, and handing one across the table to Rox.

“I’m just trying to keep us all sane in an insane world,” they clinked bottles.  

“I don’t know. It’s a noble pursuit… but I’ve usually found there’s wisdom in embracing the insanity.”

“Yeah, well, most of us can’t see the future to avoid the worst mistakes that would come out of that.”

“You can, functionally,” Anita said. “And I’ve been nuts, off and on. I don’t think you go through what I did- what we did- completely whole. Sometimes you’ve just got let yourself be crazy. Not all the time, but… sometimes the most damaging thing you can do to yourself and those around you is deny how… utterly broken you are.”

“Isn’t that your whole thing, though?” Rox asked.

“You’d think, right?” Anita asked, and took a swig. “But no. Most days I’m on the same wavelength as Tso; the world, generally speaking, needs to relax, and not take itself so fucking seriously. Of course, the last few days he’s been more on my other wavelength.”

“He has been… distant. I figured he was just worried about Cris.”

“Right,” Anita said. “You don’t know yet.”

“Know what?”

“Ben’s having a really hard time. More than that, it isn’t my place to say. But he’ll tell you, when he’s ready. Until then, be extra gentle with him.”

“You know this is fucked up, right? He’s one of my closest friends.” She closed her eyes and sighed angrily. “Can you tell me anything?”

“It’s going to be a really long time before Ben’s world feels sane again. And in the interim, we really need to take extra care of each other.”

“Is that why you’re hovering over the radio?” Rox asked.

“The uncertainty kicked into high gear once we chose to use a walkie.”

“We knew they’d take his phone. And they have; he’s not responding to texts or calls- but we expected that. It was both gross and cool, your idea of implanting a gutted radio in his wrist.”

“We can only use it for Morse code, but that’s something. Of course, he’s only got enough battery to last a few days, even using it sparingly. And there’s always the possibility it broke when they kicked him half to death.”

“I meant it when I said less maudlin,” Rox said with a grin, taking a sip, “or I’m taking your beer away.”

“I’d like to see you try. I will bite your hand.”

Rox’s eyes narrowed.

“I mean, I’d lose a tooth doing it, but that sounds worth it to me.” Rox cocked her head to the side. “Yeah, that I could see clear. So, as long as it’s within the next ten seconds, and within five feet of me, my foresight is sharp as ever.” Rox took another swig, then gave the remaining half of it to Anita.

“Finish the beers, then get some rest. Maybe that will jog you. Even if it doesn’t, it’ll do you good to sleep. I’ll watch the radio.”

“What about you?”

“I always figured we’d take shifts; I figured I’d take the first one, but you’ve been guarding that radio like it was your only cub to survive the litter. I promise, the first yahoo who wakes up I will fill full of coffee and make take the next shift. Like you said. We’ve got to take care of one another, and to do that, we also have to take care of ourselves.”

Anita finished off both beers, then belched loudly. “I will take you up on it, but only because I’m seeing double, and I don’t think it’s the alcohol doing that.”

“Go to bed. And I better not catch you up there playing Nintendo.”

“You’re not my real mom.”

“It’s… and don’t take this the wrong way, but it’s hard to picture you having a mom. Like… I’m sure you did, but you feel more like you popped out of a factory fully formed.”

“Well, the me you know and… grudgingly tolerate, was born in a lab. Hardly recognize the girl I was, or the woman who stubbornly refused to raise me in any conventional meaning of the word.”

“That sucks,” Rox said. “Eh,” Anita said with a shrug. “It was another lifetime ago. And I don’t think we have enough liquor in the house to cover that conversation, so I’m going to bed.”

“I’m telling you, we’re fine, mom,” Tucker said, adjusting the cushion on the sofa. “You didn’t have to come all the way here; you could have called or something.”

“Really?” she asked. “Because it looks like a stampede came through here.”

“Just a few friends over, and we just had a few drinks.” Her mother led her eyes to a cemetery of dead soldiers on the counter. “One of those ‘few’ might have been an understatement.”

“And are you using protection?”

“I tried. I put a condom on a beer, but it kept me from being able to drink it. Kind of spoiled the fun.”

“You know what I mean.” She picked up one of the bottles and turned it over in her hand thoughtfully, before setting it back down. “I think you and Iago should come home.”

“Why?” Tucker asked, annoyance showing in his voice.

“Because you’re not safe here.”

“And we would be at home?”

“I know you and Iago are good kids. But the rest of these Breed…”

“You think my fellow students are the threat? As opposed to the bigot gun-humping militia all but sicced on us by your President, with the sycophantic backing of your party.”

“That’s not fair. I don’t support the hateful rhetoric they spout about your… kind.”

“And what form does your lack of support take? Because if it’s quiet disapproval, a glare and a wagged finger at the dining room TV, they don’t care. They don’t even know about it. In fact, they take your silence as approval; the rest of us see it as complicity.”

“You’re not being fair to me.”

Tucker sighed. “Fairness really doesn’t enter into it. You’re tacitly supporting a lot of really bad things. And it really doesn’t matter if you personally approve of those bad things or not. You might not personally feel disproportionately disenfranchising people of color is right, but your party does, and you support them, which they take as approval. You might not personally agree with a travel ban on ‘certain kinds’ of people of color, but your party does. You might not support all the hate spilled on LGBT people, the assault on our rights or our dignity, but you support the party that does.”

“I’m not a bigot, Tucker.”

“Mom… I know what’s in your heart, and in your head. But what you need to understand is that doesn’t matter. You support a bigot. A racist. A homophobe. A transphobe. You support a political party that wants to strip me and everyone I care about of rights. Right now, if they had their way, people like me, like Iago, we would be in cages, mom, just because we’re different. If you think you can support something like that without becoming a monster yourself, you’re wrong. And I have to believe the person you are would want to stop being wrong.”

“I’m not a bigot,” she repeated bitterly.

“And what you refuse to hear is it doesn’t matter. If you do bigoted things, if you enable bigoted outcomes, if you have thrown in with bigots, you are marching with a bigoted army. Not every Nazi was an anti-Semite, homophobe or racist; that didn’t do anyone who they killed in the Holocaust a lick of good. I’m begging you- do better, mom. Because someone I care about is going to get hurt, and I will blame you for it- I will never forgive you for it.”

“I should go. Before one of us says something we can’t take back.”

“You already have,” Tucker said, as his mother shut the apartment door, the screen door clattering noisily in her wake.

CW: Cris is let into the general detention facility among the other children. Most are sleeping, a few are weeping, one is despondently punching the floor. I struggled with adding a warning to this one. It was a hard chapter to write, and it’s just as hard to read, but it kind of should be read for that reason. Because we did this. And maybe aren’t doing it on the same scale, but we still are, and we need to understand that ugly truth.

Cris was still uneasy on his feet; most of the healing was done, but his knees buckled with every step he took. He was glad to see a friendly face waiting at the gate when the guard unlocked it, and closed him inside. “I was worried, when I woke up and you were gone,” he said.

“I’m about halfway through my EMT training, so they let me help out in the infirmary. But I don’t stay there all day. A girl needs to get her vitamin D.” Angela gestured at the ceiling, and the sickly-looking fluorescent lights fifty feet overhead.

“This used to be a warehouse,” Cris said.

“Still is. Only the ‘wares’ it houses now are people.”  

Fully half of the kids on this side of the fence were curled up under flimsy foil sheets, the kind that came packed in emergency kits. “They don’t turn off the lights?”

“That little twinge of humanity you’re feeling? They don’t have that. You’re just lucky it’s late. Come the morning, this place will be a chorus of crying children, whimpering for their parents. You’ll have to hear it eventually, but this way, maybe you get one good night’s sleep before it haunts you for the rest of your life.”

That was when Cris heard it, the slap of meat against something that didn’t give. There was a moment’s silence, before it was filled with a half-choked off sob, and another crack. This time he followed the sound with his eyes, to a toddler, alone, near the corner of the enclosure, sobbing and pounding her fists on a mat.

“Not sure that’s the,” Angela stopped, as Cris started across the room at a brisk pace, “crap.” She rushed after him. He was kneeled beside the toddler before she caught up to him.

“Hi,” he said. “Hey.” She bashed the mat again, neither seeing nor hearing him through her tears. Her tiny fists were cracked and bloody, and he couldn’t help but wonder how long she’d been at this. “Hey,” he said, gently touching her shoulder. She leapt back, scurrying across the floor in a crabwalk. “It’s okay,” Cris said, holding out his hand. “I know it’s scary. I know you feel alone right now. But I’m here to help.” Her tiny face contorted with anguish, as her fragile mind tried to understand if he really was safe, but even the possibility was too much, and she ran at him, hitting him hard enough she knocked him onto his back. She stared at him, terrified he might react angrily. He laughed. “I think you have a bright future as a tackle.” She grabbed onto his leg. “Is that a position, or just a thing you do?”

“Yeah, something told me you weren’t much the football type,” Angela said.

“Can I see your hands?” Cris asked. The toddler wouldn’t let go of his leg, so he balled his hands around her and the fabric she was clutching.

“Wait,” Angela did her best to block what he was doing from view, as his hands started to glow.

“See?” Cris asked, wiping the toddler’s hands off on his pants, to reveal that her hands were healed. She stared down at her hand for an instant, before jumping at this neck and latching on.

Cris stood, lifting the toddler with him because she wasn’t about to let go of him. Already, he could hear another child nearby weeping, muffled very slightly by a foil sheet. “What the hell happened to this country?” Cris asked, the words shuddering out of his mouth.

“You’re not from around here, right?”

“You are?”

“Born in Texas. They burned my documentation in front of me, then took me into custody; I have duplicates, but no way to get to them. But I asked the question because it’s been fucked up here. My grand dad got beaten nearly to death after 9/11, because apparently bigots can’t tell the difference between a Guatemalan and a Saudi Arabian- most of whom weren’t in on the terror attacks, by the way. Dad got deported a few years ago, because he had a name similar to a cartel smuggler. It wasn’t worth the hassle to come back, so I haven’t seen him since. So you ask what happened? America took the mask off. I guess I always knew she wasn’t a looker, but I’ll admit some shock as to just how ugly she really is.”

“Jesus,” Cris whispered.

“That’s a lot of the problem. American Jesus doesn’t give a shit; his followers, even less so. They’ve got a new messiah now. A cruel fucking orange one.”

Drake popped the top off a hard lemonade with the bottle-opener built into the fridge. “I’ve heard, through the grapevine, that this is your drink.”

Irene was coy, “I’m not technically old enough to drink that,” she said.

“And I’m not technically offering it to you.” He set it down on the counter, and took the beer he was nursing to the couch.

“Yeah, he didn’t technically offer me one, either,” Iago said, brushing past her to get into the fridge. He used the same opener to pop the top, then took a swig. “You really should drink it while it’s cold, cause as a wise girl once said, you can’t possibly have more if you hadn’t had any.”

Irene frowned, then picked up the bottle. Iago clinked with her, then took another swig.

He nodded towards the front room, then took a running leap over the back of the couch, landing next to a nonplussed Drake. “Now normally,” Tucker started, plodding down the stairs, “a young woman such as yourself drinking with a pair of older college bros like this I might warn. But I’m honestly not sure either of them would know what to do with a woman if one fell in their laps. They’re probably more dangerous to each others’ hymens- and I mean that in literally every sense of the word.”

Drake raised a middle finger to him without leaving the couch. “What he gestured,” Iago said.

Tucker stopped in the kitchen and ducked his head in the fridge. “Mind if I grab one?” he asked.

“Go ahead,” Iago said. “But I’m not getting the next pack.”

“I mean, I don’t think any of us should be driving after drinking. I’m not sure the same prohibitions apply to teleportation.”

“I- provided I can walk straight- I can grab it. But I’m not paying for the whole thing.”

“Oh. Yeah. Of course I’ll chip in.”

“Uh,” Iago said.

“And of course I’ll chip in for my brother, who somehow never seems to have any money whatsoever.”

“Have I told you lately how pretty you are?” Iago asked, batting his eyes at Tucker.

“Not… really the vibe I’m going for these days.”

“I meant macho,” he said, thrusting out his chest, “Manly. Strapping.” With every new word his chest got wider.

“I really hope he said ‘ping,’” Drake whispered loudly.

“I did; don’t be a dick.”

“Thanks,” Irene said, sitting in a lounger opposite the couch, “for the lemonade.”

“It was our pleasure,” Drake said. “We watched you, on TV. I’m not typically a believer…”

“In like, God?”

“God. Humanity. Good having any shot at not getting its pelvis kicked in by evil.”

“You made his shriveled, black, cold little unfeeling lump of coal of a heart feel something, if only for one fleeting, solitary moment, is what he’s trying to say,” Iago said.

“But I was hoping to say it with a tiny bit more dignity.”

“And I wanted to rob you of that. Because it’s funny.”

“Somehow we’re still friends.”

“Because drinking alone is sad.”

“I didn’t use to drink, either.”

“Yeah. But then being sober in this world became sadder.”

“That’s fair,” Drake said, and polished off his beer. “So fair I think I need a drink.”

“Admitting it is the first step.”

Drake groaned while standing up. “Is your plan really to make me really want to drink, then make me feel really bad for wanting to drink?”

“I think assuming he has a plan is giving him too much credit,” Irene said.

“Yeah,” Tucker agreed. “he’s an agent of chaos.”

“The bonding equivalent of a loving wedgie.”

“Loving?” Drake and Iago asked together.

“I think that’s between the two of you, your butts, and your underpants. I promise I won’t ask, and I’m hoping you don’t tell.”

“I like her,” Tucker said. “Because she can call you out on things that would be too weird coming from a blood relative.”

“I’ll have you know I’ve spoken to multiple girls in my classes,” Iago said.

“I don’t think that’s the strong defense you think it is,” Drake said from the kitchen.

“Just because my brother’s pathetic, doesn’t mean you’re off the hook,” Tucker called into the kitchen.

“I would mostly raise the objection that between school, the world being on fire, holding down a part time job and occasionally being called on to break and enter or otherwise use my skills to help people, I’ve got a full dance card.”

“And fully half of those dances are happening across a fricking table from Demi,” Tucker said, “who it doesn’t take a mind-reader to know would ride you like the last pony on Earth.”

“Is that the kind of thing a guy is supposed to want?” Irene asked.

“No,” Tucker said, stopping Iago. “Don’t corrupt her.”

“I wasn’t going to; I was going to say Demi’s got kind of,” Iago puffed out his cheeks.

“Really?” Tucker asked, frowning, jabbing him in the beer gut with an accusatory finger. “My brother obviously emerged from the shallow end of the gene pool; I got all the good stuff, and left mom’s bits parched, so it’s only somewhat his fault. But I expected better of you.”

“What?” Drake asked. “I didn’t say anything.”

“Exactly. In that you didn’t refute any of the dipshit dribbling out of Iago’s mouth. Demi is a beautiful, smart, fun, funny, aggressively sexual person. If she just wasn’t your type, that might have been one thing, but because she put on a little weight…”

“He’s, like, Mr. Fitness,” Iago said. “Runs constantly. Even the beer he buys is light beer.”

“That at least explains the taste,” Tucker said, making a face. “Though clearly your lack of taste extends beyond beer.”

“Seems harsh,” Iago said.

“And sort of beside the point,” Drake said. “We’re here to raise a glass to Irene.”

“Crap. He’s right,” Tucker said. “Sorry,” he said directly to Irene. They raised bottles, and clinked over the coffee table in the middle of the room.

“You look bad. Really, really bad.” Cris could tell it was a woman’s voice, and that she was young, teenaged, probably.

He couldn’t really open his eyes, and when he tried to reach up to his face to understand why, his hand stopped after six inches. He could feel the metal collar o the cuff holding him to the bed. “Oh, right. I fell down a spiral staircase at a policeman’s ball.”

“That… sounds very unlikely,”

“Little help?” he asked. “Need to get my hand to my face.”

“Sure,” she said. He felt a sharp pain in his wrist as his hand was twisted at an unnatural angle, then felt the spongy, swollen flesh around his eye. He’d felt injuries like that before, seen how bad they were, and the thought made him wince- which was a terrible idea because it moved all the damaged meat around, scraping against what he now felt fairly certain was a broken cheek bone. The pain nearly made him black out.

“Fuuuugh,” he moaned.

“You sound like a mummy. But you’re not at all dressed like one.” Cris could feel warmth in his face as it began to heal. “Uh,” she said, concerned, letting go of his hand. The swelling in his eyes had receded enough he could open them to see the young woman talking to him. She wasn’t wearing a staff uniform, but the clothing of a detainee. “You can heal,” she said, surprised. “That could come in really useful around here.”

“Surprised,” he said, “they don’t block our abilities.”

“I’ve heard rumors,” she said, “that they have the tech. But it’s experimental, finicky, expensive. They just threaten to shoot us if we use them; and in the event we can block bullets or whatever, they’ll shoot somebody else.”

“Jesus.”

“Just use it discreetly. But please, use it. ICE hurt a lot of people in here. We could really use someone like you.”

“I don’t mean to just staunch the bleeding. We need to end it.”

“Given the shape you arrived here in, I guess good luck with that. My name’s Angela, by the way. And if anybody asks, I didn’t hear any of that.”

”Cris. And you’re right. I need to be more discreet. Channel that anger into something useful. Like a revolution.” Angela raised her hand, but he stopped her. “I heard it, yeah; I think I might have a mild concussion. Should probably fix that before I say something I’ll regret.”

Mikaela opened the door to Tucker’s car and slid inside. “Was beginning to think we’d have to pick you up at the corner store,” Tucker said, nodding at the rearview mirror, “because there’s our girl.”

Mikaela tossed a bag into the back as Irene opened the back door and sat behind Tucker. “You already got snacks,” she said, her voice creaking. “And a fidget spinner.”

“I felt bad,” Mikaela started, and Tucker cleared his throat, “about taking your pen earlier.”

“It’s okay. If I hadn’t had you two keeping me company for the trip down here, I’d have chewed every nail and cuticle off my hands. You helped distract me, is what I’m saying. And I appreciated it.”

“How’d it go with the prosecutor?” Tucker asked, pulling the car away from the curb.

“She was really nice.,” Irene replied. “And she said it went about as well as it could. Especially the parts where the defense opened the door for us. She said it was a really good sign he hardly had any questions on cross; it means the testimony was so devastating that more questions would just increase the damage. Still, I’m shaking.”

“You want your pen back?”

“I want to be less of a neurotic mess, if I’m being honest.”

“I have a pen,” Mikaela held it out to her, before putting a sucker in her fingers next to it, “or a lollipop.”

“I could make you sleep the whole way home,” Tucker said.

“Might that make me incontinent?” Irene asked.

“Only if that’s what you really want.”

“I might have something to say about that,” Mikaela said.

“Why?” Tucker asked. “It’s my backseat and her front seat, respectively.”

“I think I’d rather, remember this, if that makes any sense,” Irene said. “Whatever happens next. This feels like a moment I can use. I got a chance to stand up for us. And I did.”

“And we are both really proud,” Mikaela said.

“And a little jealous.”

“Was that why you were rallying so hard for me to wet myself?” Irene asked.

“Either you two have a stranger friendship than I realized, or this is some really weird flirting,” Mikaela said.

“She’s just jealous,” Tucker said, and Irene burst out laughing.

“There is nothing to be jealous of,” Irene said, barely containing more laughter.

“There isn’t?” Tucker whimpered.

“Now he’s just fucking with you.”

“I’m not sure Tucker’s ever not fucking with anyone,” Mikaela said. “We both love him and hate him for it.”

“Aw,” Tucker said, “really?”

“No. It’s mostly just hate.”

“I feel bad,” Ben said, as another blow landed on Cris, this time delivered from a baton.

“Watching a gang of fascists beat your friend half to death will do that,” Rox said.

“It’s not like this was a practical joke we played on him,” Rui said. “If one of us is getting into ICE detention, it was going to be this way. And Cris can at least undo the damage done. Any of the rest of us would have spent several weeks in traction with broken hands, ribs, ow,” he winced, “dislocated limbs and I really hope that wasn’t his eyeball coming out of the socket.”

“We… might have to intervene,” Sonya said. “I think our plan fails if they beat him all the way to death.”

“Wait,” Anita said from the back seat. “I think Rox’s luck just intervened for us.” A police siren squelched as a patrol car drove through an intersection, and rolled to a stop beside the ICE agents. “Unless of course the local bacon and federal ham decide to stomp together.”

“We may have to intervene,” Rox said, “if Anita just jinxed us.”

“I shouldn’t be able to. Your whole thing is your supposed to be our lucky rabbit’s foot.”

“Yeah, well, you’re a black cat crashing through thirteen mirrors and rolling under thirteen ladders; I can only do so much, is what I’m saying.”

“Seems like it’s enough, for now,” Rui said. The cops were lifting the kid off the pavement, and took him to their squad car. The ICE agents walked Cris back to their SUV.

“Unless they give him the Freddie Gray treatment, and he dies in transport,” Ben said.

“I’m beginning to think that maybe this wasn’t the best-thought plan ever,” Sonya said.

“I think we’re just highlighting that when you go up against the brutal agents of the fascist police state, there’s going to be violence,” Rox said. “That’s why we’ve got to do what we can to keep Cris safe.” She started the van, and pulled into the street, about a quarter mile from where the ICE SUV was pulling into the road. “We still getting GPS off of Cris?”

“Yeah,” Anita said, “but I wouldn’t trust his life with it.”

“Noted. But if we don’t give ICE a little distance, they’ll catch onto us, and then we’ll all be in worse trouble.”

“Still feel like I should be behind the wheel; I’ve got tactical driving training.”

“And my powers might not have helped you. Shit.” Too late, Rox realized she was rolling through a stop sign at a four-way stop just as the patrol car arrived there from the opposite direction. She locked eyes with the officer driving, and suddenly he tilted, as his front passenger tired blew out loudly. Rox continued through the stop as the cop got out to examine the damaged tire.

“Show-off,” Anita muttered.

“It’s passive,” Rui said. “Her power works with or without her.”

“Though it’s less chaotic than it used to be,” she admitted. “Used to be if somebody said something mean behind my back in proximity, they’d face-plant within a dozen steps. It’s gotten a lot less… petty since.”

“I maintain she’s gotten less petty,” Sonya said. Rox’s eyebrow went up, as she side-eyed her from the driver’s seat.   

“That is the other reason we chose this location,” Rui broke in, “because we’re a couple of miles from an ICE facility. They’ll drop him off before they do anything else. Probably learned that keeping a Breed with unknown abilities in the backseat is just asking to get a laser bolt shoved through the back of your seat.” They were all silent a moment. “I’m going to assume we’re all wishing we could shove a laser bolt through the back of their seats about now.”

Note: It’s Thursday, so this is your last Breed until Monday. There will be three more MCU pitches coming your way, though, so you don’t have to go to bed lonely over the weekend. Frack; apparently this didn’t post yesterday. So have it late, I guess.

Eight

“That was tense,” Tucker said. “And intense. I think I’m both angrier than I’ve ever been… and sadder. And given the last few years those are not low bars.”

“Yeah,” Mikaela said. “On the one hand- hoe-lee-crap, did Irene do a good job. On the other hand, my heart is fucking breaking for her. After last year, to be revictimized again… I guess we’ve all had to grow up, and quick. But she’s a kid. An actual fucking baby. I imagine me, what, four years ago, trying to deal with what she has, with the tiniest fraction of the poise and grace she just did and I- God, I just want to cry and I can’t because she’s going to come out here any minute and we’re supposed to be her support network and how the hell would that work if I’m sobbing?”

Tucker smiled. “It’s not too late for you to pull a duplicate out of the mirror and then hide in the trunk and sob the whole trip home.”

“It’s kind of good you’re a dude, now; because you’re a dick.”

“Let’s be fair- I was always a dick. You just used to enjoy being dicked around more than you do, now. And, to the extent I have the capacity to not be a dick, I’m saving that up for Irene. She just gave us probably our best damn chance of convicting those bigoted assholes and keeping us all safe. She’s all of our fucking hero,” Tucker sniffled, “aw, fuck, now you’re getting me all emotional.”

“Maybe that’s not so bad, though,” Mikaela said. “Maybe after all of that, what she’s really going to need is a big old cry. And to be held.” Tucker eyed her. “Platonically held. I’m fairly certain she does not swing my way.”

“I’m just busting your lady-balls,” Tucker said. “But I’ve kind of been thinking. When she was attacked, the way we handled it…”

“We didn’t handle it. The Dean did.”

“Sure. But we were there. And he’s a he. And you’re not. I haven’t always been. We have perspective. And, right now I’m just kicking myself that because of that, what happened, what she just described- what if all of that hit her harder because of what we did?”

“Shit,” Mikaela said.  

“And… I think for us- as in, all of us- it was the right call. If bigots like Drump could have spent the last year crowing about us not even being safe at the school, and at the same time finally have even on tiny piece of evidence to justify the way he’s demonized all of us as rapists … but just because it was better for the rest of us, doesn’t mean it didn’t hurt Irene. Doesn’t mean we were right to go along with it.”

“Doesn’t mean we shouldn’t have interceded, and made sure it was her call, top to bottom. Because look at what she did in there? I have no doubt she would have chosen the greater good, even though it hurt her. And maybe she did. Maybe she feels like she did. I just feel awful that I can’t know it, now. Like, even if you tried to read her, people paper over details like that. By now I’m sure she’s convinced, consciously, that it was as much her idea as anything. But that doesn’t mean we didn’t hurt her- doesn’t mean she isn’t still holding onto to those scars, and getting hurt worse by this dumpster fire of a world we’ve failed so badly at protecting her from.”

“Whoa there, cowboy,” Tucker said. “Look, I know you feel like an elder statesman because you can legally buy a beer, but we’re barely adults, and we really can’t take all that much credit for this absolute shit-show of a world. Unless you think pubescent us should have taken over the world and remade it in our horny, lesbian image.”

“We definitely should have. Probably would have been a gay old time. With me we’d have an army, and you could control anyone we couldn’t intimidate with that army.”

“I’m not entirely sure teenaged, noodle-armed you would be all that intimidating. Adorable, absolutely, but take over the country scary?”

“You could have made me seem more intimidating.”

“Starting to sound less like a partnership.”

“Yeah, screw it. We won’t track down a time machine and take over the world. But you know what I mean. She shouldn’t have had to deal with any of this.” “Neither should we,” Tucker said. “We all deserve better. Best we can do is try to make sure those who follow us get what we deserved.”

“I legitimately can’t tell if I pulled the short straw,” Cris said, “or if the rest of you heard me saying I wanted to do more and interpreted that as being a sacrificial lamb.”

“Some of it was all the Jesus talk,” Ben said.

“You were the one who brought up- you know what? Nevermind. Because either way, this is something. It’s something stupid. Dangerous. Crazy.”

“Ah,” Sonya said.

“Sorry. Reckless.”

“Thank you.”

“That’s our brand,” Rox said. “If you wanted us to reinvent the entire wheel, that would have at least entailed a longer conversation.”

“All I’m going to say is if I get killed in ICE custody, I won’t be healing any of you again.”

“That sounds fair. Now, Laren’s brief says that ICE come through this neighborhood practically daily. The corner’s a popular haunt, both for local gangs and dealers, but also just for the kids who live in the area. ICE don’t much care if they’re roughing up innocent LatinX citizens or if they’re, you know, criminals. And when they do come through, it’s pretty much always this time of day, around shift change for the local PD, so they get a few extra minutes to stomp the crap out of their targets- though half the time it sounds like the cops join in if they do get called.”

“I am not looking forward to getting stomped.”

“You can heal yourself almost instantly,” Ben said.

“The stomping still hurts. And I’m not assuming that they won’t have some kind of dampening field when I’m in custody.”

“Well, it looks like we’re in luck, and you’re out of it,” Sonya said from the front passenger seat. They could see several men in ICE armor kicking someone on the ground, holding up his hands.

“Let me out here,” Cris said. “We don’t want it obvious I got out of this van.”

“Right,” Rox said, stopping on the other side of the street. Cris slipped out, and the van rolled away, before turning down the street.

“Everything okay?” Cris asked.

“Sir, I’m going to suggest you keep your distance. We’re detaining dangerous –”

“Que pasa?” Cris asked. He tried to get a look at the person being held on the ground. “Cuantos años tienne?” he asked.

“Don’t think I like your tone.”

“No quiero tu cara, puta.”

“Now ‘puta’ I hablo, Pablo,” the agent said, extending a baton and advancing on Cris.

“Crap,” he muttered, ducking the first swing of the baton. That was when he saw enough of the kid on the ground to realize he wasn’t even in high school, and there was a growing pool of blood beneath him. “This is really going to hurt,” he whispered, before diving onto the pavement. He had his hand outstretched, like he was stealing a base, which meant he couldn’t break his fall at all. It did mean he managed to heal the kid a little before the first baton blow hit him. But the burst of light that traveled from his hand to the kid gave the game away.

“Breed freak!” one of the ICE agents yelled, before kicking him.

Cris couldn’t really get his bearings, as blows rained down on him, but he comforted himself that at least they were laying off the kid. He managed to catch the kid’s eyes, and saw a cut on his head that had healed when Cris touched him. “You’ll be okay,” Cris started to mouth to him, but was cut off by a blow from a baton in the face.