Eloi

Eloi Chapter Sixty Two
Disclaimers Apply

A/N Goddess Foxfeather, Queen of Mad Plotbunnies, BUSIEST WOMAN ALIVE ™, Prophetic Muse, Hamster Witch and Uberbeta… *GLOMP* InterNutter, TC, Maxwell Pink, Dracena and Greywolf are loverly and wondermous for archiving/hosting. :) ProPhile: *swat * Just cause. Morgan: *waves* Hola, chica… Readers/Reviewers: I know, I didn’t think it’d be this long, either! And on a serious note… is everyone in the Deep South okay after Katrina?

Kitty pressed her fingers against the brick wall and exerted enough pressure to make her joints ache and knuckles pop, but she did not let herself phase. She needed the pain, wanted it. Not like Amara, she thought to herself. More to prove she was alive and awake, less to experience pleasure. She hated failing, even if it was beyond her control. She felt useless. “Kit, come on. Let’s go get some rest.”
She turned bleary eyes to Lance and frowned. “I don’t feel like going back to the house,” she muttered, pressing her forehead above her fingers.
Lance glanced sideways at Amara, who was staring out over the dingy street, her face bearing an expression of distaste, before sidling up to Kitty. “Look, everything is fine, okay? Wanda’s back at the Institute, Paige will be fine…”
“You don’t know that,” she bit out, shrugging away his comforting hand. She sniffed hard, trying to hold back the bitterly burning tears seeping from the corners of her eyes. “I’m so tired,” she finally admitted, her words nearly a sob. “Everything is just too much!”
He sighed, a well of uncommon tenderness threatening to overflow in his heart. Kitty was his oldest friend, the only person who knew about his family, his home life before Bayville, and likely the only person who knew what he was really like, deep down inside. Even more so than Amara, he admitted to himself as he tentatively laid his hand again on Kitty’s back, between her shoulder blades. “Kitty, look…We need some rest. We turned up nothin’ because there’s nothin’ to turn up… Let’s go. Storm’s waiting and we need to get back.”
She pushed away from the wall and turned baleful, watery eyes on Lance. “Fine.” She did not slow down as she phased through him, ignoring his gasp of discomfort as she strode towards the meeting place, where Storm would be waiting. Amara fell into step beside her and this, somehow, fundamentally annoyed Kitty. “ Back off,” she snapped under her breath.
“No,” Amara replied pleasantly. “You’re not the only one in a bad mood. Now shut up and do your task and I won’t slap you.”
“You *what*?” Kitty demanded, turning to face Amara, hands on her hips in a posture reminiscent of angry mothers everywhere.
Amara sighed. They were not in a safe area. They were too public for this, she thought, but no use putting it off… “Stop. Being. A. Princess.”
“Hello? Pot? This is the kettle… You’re black!”1 Kitty narrowed her eyes at Amara, holding up one hand to stave off Lance’s advance forward. “Stay out of this, Lance!”
“He knows better,” Amara retorted. “I am operating on very little sleep, Kitty. I refuse to have a battle of the wits with an unarmed woman.”
Kitty literally saw red for a split second before she lunged at Amara. The feeling of the other girl’s hair wrapped around her fingers, the sudden gasp and rush of air as her knee connected with soft stomach, made Kitty feel oddly satisfied. The feeling did not last long, however. A blaze of pain shot through her back and arms, Amara’s hands on her bare skin under her shirt. “Let me go!” Kitty screamed.
“No,” Amara spat. “You let ME go!”
Lance stared for only a moment before his feet began moving. Running forward, he grabbed Kitty’s ponytail and jerked back, making her shriek in surprise more than in pain. She let go of Amara, who in turn let her own hands fall to the side. Lance pulled Kitty back by virtue of her hair, tugging until the shorter girl stood, eyes full of tears and face red in anger. “Kitty! What the fuck is wrong with you?”
“EVERYTHING!” she shouted. “EVERYTHING IS WRONG!”
Cold, bitter wind filled the narrow street, sending debris and leaves flying past in flurries of anger and disapproval. Storm’s voice carried above the din of the icy virago. “All three of you come to me immediately!”
All three teenagers froze, figuratively speaking, and turned to face Storm, standing a short distance away, the car running beside her. Her eyes glowed white and her entire body seemed to crackle with power. It was all Amara could do not to kneel reflexively. “Storm,” Kitty began, her fingers creeping to her hair as if to smooth it back into a neat ponytail.
“No,” Storm’s voice filled the space between them. She was not shouting but she was loud, commanding. “Come to me now. You are disgraceful!” The wind died down and her eyes became normal color again, but her face bore the distinct expression of an angry goddess. “This is how you act in a crisis?” she demanded. “I am recommending that you are not allowed on future missions for a very long time,” she added, motioning them into the car. “Not one word out of any of you!”
Lance slid into the backseat next to Kitty, sighing as Amara took the front seat beside Storm. He opened his mouth to speak but thought better of it when he saw Storm’s eyes in the rearview mirror. Not only were they angry, they were downright frightening.
“There’s been developments,” the former (current?) goddess informed them coolly as they joined the early Sunday morning flow of traffic heading into Bayville. “We seem to have company at the house… and a minor problem.” She glanced at them each in turn, seeing if any were about to break her ‘no talking’ edict. When no one responded after nearly a minute, she said conversationally, “There seems to be more than one of us.”


1 Stolen from “Friends”