Eloi
48
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Eloi Chapter Forty Eight
Disclaimers Apply
A/N Goddess Foxfeather, Queen of Mad Plotbunnies, BUSIEST
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ProPhile: Soooo…yep….
Morgan: *pokes with pokey stick* You
there? Readers/Reviewers: This week I’m
going to take a day off of this fic to work on some others I have let lay too
long. Just thought I’d warn ya there
will be an updateless day this week.
reading/reviewing! J
Kitty
pressed the heels of her hands over her eyes, blocking out light and trying to
marshal her thoughts. _My life is
officially fucked up, _ she thought bitterly.
_It’s like everything that could possibly go wrong in the past twenty
four hours has gone wrong. _ Sniffing miserably, she forced her hands down and
onto her knees, sitting in a semblance of order as she took several deep
breaths, trying not to cry any more. The
knocking that fell on her door drew a disturbed, angry growling from her
throat, not animalistic but definitely human, certainly pained.
creaking with pent up tears. “I’m
sleeping!”
“Kitty,”
Mark’s voice came after the briefest of pauses, “you’re needed downstairs.”
of the door and the soft rustle of bedclothes as she shifted about.
creeping into his voice. He knew she had
not been asleep but rather working herself into a tizzy while behind locked
doors. He knew about her outburst at
Magneto, about the Danger Room and about Kurt.
But at that moment, he could not bring himself to be overly sympathetic.
he knew there were other things more pressing than a teenaged girl’s broken
heart and migraine headache in that moment.
“Kitty,” he called again, knocking on her door steadily in just such a
way that would be annoying to anyone who could hear.
Her face
red and eyes puffy from crying, she ghosted through the door, glaring at
Mark. The vague satisfaction of seeing
him recoil, his eyes widening briefly before realization set in, was lost
beneath the patina of anger and frustration.
“Unless someone is dead, it’s not important enough for me to
Mark
frowned, folding his arms over his chest and narrowing his eyes at his show of
petulance. “I know you’re no spoiled
brat, Kitty, not if what I’ve heard is true.
Stop acting like the world revolves around you and your problems and come
downstairs. Paige has been taken from
the hospital against her will,” he stated bluntly.
Kitty
blinked, her eyes clearing of their cloud of anger.
paled. “Oh my God… No!”
a few moments later, pulling a sweater over the camisole top of her pajama
set. “What do I need to do?”
The
librarian nodded in satisfaction at Kitty’s change in demeanor.
divided everyone into teams. You’ll get
your assignment then. Now hurry, please!”
Kitty
nodded and bolted towards Jubilee’s room, pounding on the door as Mark turned
to disappear downstairs. “
“Um…”
Kitty frowned
as the sound of scuffling and slamming drawers sounded through the door.
Are you okay in there?” She peered
at the door as if she could see through it, knocking again, though a bit more
gently than before. “
“I’m fine!”
she called back, her voice too high to fake calmness.
“
her eyes adjusting to the half-light of the room.
nightlight, an eye of mars sparking softly on the nightstand between her bed
and Rahne’s. Her eyes finally focused enough for her to see Jubilee sitting
very still at the head of her bed, cast into shadows by the glow of the colored
bulb. “You look like you’re gonna be
sick!”
Jubilee
pulled the sheet up high, almost to her neck.
She knew there was a mark there, a deep purple hickey, two tiny red
spots marking where Kurt’s sharp canines had caught her tender flesh.
“Mark said
we need to go downstairs… They’re dividing us up into teams. Paige was
kidnapped…are you sure you’re okay?”
“Dandy,”
Jubilee said sharply. “Who took
Paige? What do they know?
Is she alive?” She threw the sheet aside and slid from the bed, heading
for the half bath to get dressed, away from Kitty’s eyes.
“I don’t
know, just what I told you, I don’t know and I hope so!”
low in her belly, like a burning cramp.
knowledge that Paige was not only injured and in danger from her experience
with the blast at Emma’s home, but the possibility that she might be dead,
either from her injuries or the kidnapper’s actions.
emerged from the bathroom, oddly ghostlike in the strange light.
“Me too,”
Jubilee breathed. “Maybe she just
wandered off,” she offered, cautious of getting too close to Kitty.
“Maybe,”
Kitty nodded shakily. “I don’t know!”
Mark’s
voice came up the stairs, faint through the closed door and distance.
“Well,”
Jubilee replied, mimicking Kitty’s nod unconsciously, “let’s go find out.”
Kitty
swallowed hard and phased into the hall, holding on to Jubilee’s wrist to bring
her along. Glancing sideways as they
hurried down the stairs, she noticed the dark mark on her neck.
“Huh?”
“Nothing,”
Kitty shrugged. “It’s what I see… put
some ice on it and the bruise won’t be so bad… Kurt always gives…gave…me dark
mean to but I guess he was just…enthusiastic.” S he shrugged sadly and paused
at the landing. “Do you think today will
ever end?”
Jubilee
sighed. “It doesn’t feel like it, does
it?”
In a sudden
movement, Kitty wrapped Jubilee in a tight hug.
“I love you, Jubilee. I’m glad
you’re my friend.”
“What the…What’s
this for?” she asked, surprised and uncertain as she returned the hug.
“Just in
case something happens later,” Kitty replied.
“I don’t like this feeling I’ve got.”
Mark rounded the corner from the hallway to the foyer and she
sighed. “Come on, before he bursts a
gasket.”