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Thank God that’s over, thought Marissa.
The usual team drama had almost boiled over into violence, Cody’s fist raised as he marched towards Krouse, but it had faded back down into quiet, condensed tension by now. The room was lit brightly, lights beginning to spark through the night through the window. Everyone here, even Oliver and Cody, was tense with readiness for the most important match they’d ever played.
Noelle went over strategies, going to each of them in turn, giving them some personal team-captain time.
Marissa nodded, listening well, already mapping the paths and movements in her mind's eye. Noelle turned to Krouse next, reminding him of threats and notable past plays to watch out for. He laughed that huffing laugh, nodding along with her. There was that old pinch in her chest again, watching them. Her preferential treatment was obvious. Cody, slouched behind them, clearly felt more than a pinch, scoffing under his breath.
Well, no time for that. She turned her PC on, typing in the password – she'd argued with her mom over that, just the fact that she dared have a password that she didn't know at all – and settled in to wait. She was the last and least of five, the one least likely to even have to play. If it came down to it, though, she’d either be the deciding factor, the entire game hinging on her… or completely irrelevant for anything other than future analyses, the games hopelessly stacked against them.
She was staring into the pixels onscreen, still deep in thought when the screen turned black, all the lights in the room with it.
Seven voices filled the room as everyone started talking all at once.
"Shit! A power cut, now?" Luke said.
"The sponsors won't like this," sighed Noelle.
A scream split the air, and shut them all up at once.
It was horrible in a way Marissa hadn't ever heard before. It was like something in a horror movie in the way it was larger than life, harsher than harsh, like nails not on chalkboard but across her brain. And it didn't stop, after that first blood-curdling moment. It went on, and on, and on, longer than she could have thought a person could scream.
But you've never heard someone die before, the thought came unbidden, maybe that's what it sounds like to scream yourself to death.
She shook herself. What was she thinking? The voice changed notes, shifting across the register in a way that was just wrong.
"What," Noelle's gentle whisper broke her out of her trance. Her best friend stared at the ceiling – the voice seemed to be coming from above, sure, but... from outside? "What is..."
Krouse stood up with a screech of his chair, which toppled over. "I'm going to go look outside." He announced. "Check on the apartment's circuit board. Luke, you wanna call your brother or the landlord or something?"
"Uh." Luke glanced around with his eyes wide. "I guess?"
"I don't think you should do that, Krouse," Noelle said, "It sounds like... I mean, it started at the same time as the lights all went, maybe there was a... an electrical... accident."
The scream was still going. So that person's being electrocuted? Mars thought, They'll find them and their lungs will be all wrinkled and crushed into their own chest-
She heaved, suddenly, the disgust and sympathy too much for her.
"Mars!"
"Mars." Noelle and Chris. Krouse had stopped short at the doorway and was looking at her. She flushed. Not going to hear the end of it from him if I lose it.
Their phones all began ringing, a message blaring across the screen. The disaster warning system?
A resounding boom stopped her from reading any further. Oliver, who was the closest to the window, squeaked in horror. Mars would have asked him what happened but then- the floor began to move.
I'm just dizzy. She thought, even though in her heart she knew that wasn't it. It can't really be-
The slope increased rapidly.
-that-
Krouse raced across the room to them, shouting something, and Cody roared back.
-bad?
The floor gave way, and Mars saw the others be lifted off their feet – she was lifted off her feet, the opposite wall hanging over her head, her body turning in the air as the floor moved to where a wall should be, Jess and her wheelchair, Luke's table and everyone's computers, Noelle's hands whirling to find some balance.
And then she hit the ground with a painful smack. The ground hit the ground a moment later, an impossible dusty roar of brick on earth that still somehow didn't drown out the scream.
Maybe she was screaming too. Something crashed into something else with a wet sound, and then more wet sounds. Other things crunched as they came down and broke. A boy's howl was cut into a gasp, then nothing. She smelled metal. Oliver started crying.
Marissa struggled up to her knees, shaking, and – there was a boy in front of her. Lying on his face with part of a bookcase on top of him. The metal one. It was lying across his head, but she could tell it was Chris.
"Hey. Hey, Chris-" Her voice faded to nothing in her throat, as she saw -
The point of the metal-
The curve of his neck-
The way it lay on him-
The red-
"Oh God. Oh God, ohhhhhhh-" Her breaths gasped through her chest as she covered her eyes, away from her friend's...
Someone, a boy, roared something. Krouse? A hand caught her shirt and turned her away from the... It was Luke. Krouse's next roar registered as words. "Noelle's hurt! She needs help-"
"Chris is dead."
It was a punch in the gut. She barely caught Krouse's next words, though she saw him standing and gesturing and talking, a fear in his eyes and his mouth downturned like it rarely ever was.
Everyone else was moving – except Noelle. She was- No, no, she was moving, her chest was still lifting and falling with breaths. Her Noelle was still alive. Her expressive face was loose and motionless, a stream of blood curving down her lips, but she was alive.
The scream continued, but a wail of sirens finally joined it.
“We need to get out of here,” Cody said. He was on a ‘ledge’ - the wall on that side of the kitchen used to turn a corner, and it had turned into a platform on which Cody, Oliver and Jess had fallen - higher up than the rest of them, and closer to a window. “How’s the door?”
“Can’t use it!” Luke called back.
“We’ll take the window.” Krouse had freed Noelle from the debris that was on her, and gestured Luke over. “You need to help us up.”
Mars breathed in. Out. In. Out.
Chris is dead.
With heavy, cottony limbs, they moved Noelle out in a wrapped sheet, then climbed out themselves. They worked to stack furniture into ladders, reaching the window.
“Is Jess…” Mars whispered to Cody, who was carrying her.
“Jess is awake.” The girl herself muttered. She was bleeding, and even paler than usual, but she nodded grimly at Mars.
Another boom shook the building. They held eye contact for a moment longer before Mars turned away.
“It’s driving me insane,” she said, without really meaning to. “It’s like some kind of music.” Because the scream had yet to end, or even pause for breath.
“Music?” Jess asked.
“Like an opera singer singing a high note and never stopping for breath. Only it changes a little if I pay attention to it.”
“You can hear it too?” They all turned to Krouse. “It’s not someone singing. Try covering your ears. It’s in our heads.”
And he was right. It changed when she tried to focus on it, to isolate the notes that made it so cacophonous, but it didn’t change at all when she covered her ears.
“What the hell?” Luke asked.
“What is it?” asked Krouse.
“I know what it is.” Jess’s voice was severe, and she twisted where she sat on Cody’s back to look around, fear obvious in her body.
“It’s the smurf.” Cody breathed. The what? She followed his gaze.
There, atop a skyscraper a five minute drive away, floating, vast, were three enormous grey things. Pieces of concrete, a building trisected. And between them was a mass of white, like a torn pillow frozen in time. Like a flower bud, impossible and perfect, unfolding in a video.
“The Simurgh,” Jess corrected, her voice small. “What is she doing here? Why is she here?”
A pair of human legs hung under the mass of feathers.
“Shut up and run. Run!”
Mars ran.
Cries rung out from the building below them, the other people living in there struggling to get out too. The side of the building wasn’t meant to be run on, it was slippery and treacherous. Every stride was a struggle, and if she fell… but she couldn’t slow down, not with everyone else moving so fast. Even Cody, with Jess on his back, even Luke, sock-footed and holding Noelle.
Don’t look up. She thought, hysterically. Does it make it ineffective, if I have to keep reminding myself not to?
The ground - the building - keeled and the slope got worse. She saw Krouse move in front of her a second before she, too, was falling to the ground, slipping - a rough hand caught her, and she was pulled into a bony grip before she could fall through an open window. She held back from whimpering as her foot slipped through the hole it made. That could have killed me.
“Fuck! Fuck, fuck me!”
She looked back. “Luke!”
He’d slipped without someone to catch him, foot smashing through another window and tearing his flesh with shards of glass. He’d dropped Noelle against the concrete behind him, keeping her off the window - and off him - with his body weight, but - the blood was seeping through his jeans-
“How bad is it?” Krouse shouted, over the sounds of screaming and Screaming, crushing buildings and sirens, and the buzzing that must be Mars’ own head.
“I… I’m not sure. It doesn’t hurt that much.”
That sounds bad. “Can you move your foot?” Because she surely couldn’t carry him.
“Yeah.”
“Okay,” Krouse said, “Give me Noelle.”
She had to scramble to her feet first, then help Luke, then help Krouse get her onto his back and stand. Every moment of it felt like torture, like a clock ticking down until their doom.
“Marissa. Take the lead? Check our path is clear?”
She barely heard it, barely noticed herself nod. The last and least, but everyone’s relying on me.
Her knees shook with it. It had been less than a week ago, she remembered, when she had last laid awake, in the dark, unable to think of anything but how much easier it would be to just die. For Chris, she’d thought, for Noelle, who loves me. But now Chris was dead, and Noelle might be, and it was so hard-
“We need you to fucking go, Marissa!” She took a breath of cutting air and began to run again. Taking the lead, she stepped when she saw least snow and ice, away from windows and ledges they’d have to step over. Sometimes she almost slipped and fell, but thankfully she could catch herself. She didn’t look back at the others. The others, minus Chris.
As they came to the bottom of the skyscraper - the part that had broken like a pencil - they had to stop. It was a long, long drop, rusty metal rebars and crumbling concrete.
“We need to climb down,” Krouse started.
“We can’t!” Jess barked, “It’s too dangerous. There’s no way we could make it.”
“The concrete’s going to crack and fall. Or we’ll slip on the snow.”
“There’s no way,” Marissa said, thinking of the way she’d almost gone through the window. Doing that again, trusting Noelle and Jess to that?
“Do we have another choice?” Cody asked.
“Yeah,” Krouse said. “We could go through another window. Maybe there’s another place we can climb through.”
“We could get trapped,” Jess said. “Or if there’s a gas leak, or a fire, or…”
“It’s not going to be any safer from that if we climb.” Krouse said, his voice strangely steady. “Come on, someone else lead. Mars? No, okay. Oliver, look down that window and tell us if you think you or Marissa could make it.”
Oliver nodded jerkily and walked over, while Cody and Krouse stood by with Jess and Noelle on their backs, Luke sitting down painfully by the side of the window. Mars followed, Krouse’s instructions fading into the background as she focused on her task.
The sounds of the city and the Endbringer were hard to get out of her head. A green figure flew in the air around it, a real live superhero. All that crashing, and shouting, and…
Shouting. Wait. She frowned, paying more attention.
“Evacuees! Evacuees in the building! Are you in urgent danger or pain? I repeat-”
“There’s someone on the ground!” She called to her friends, gesturing Oliver and Luke forwards. She walked to the edge of the building, still far too high off the ground. The look of fire trucks and orange vests had never been so beautiful. “Hey! Hey, we’re up here!”
“Don’t wave like that!” Oliver complained from behind, helping Luke up. Krouse was already almost at her, even struggling under Noelle’s weight. Marissa breathed heavily and turned back to the firefighters. “Hey, up here! Help us!”
An orange helmet looked up and then at another. “They’re on the roof. How many of you are there?”
“Ei-” She bit her tongue. “Seven! Sir!”
“Alright!”
As they descended on the step-ladder, Mars tying herself to Luke like she was told to, Noelle being brought down by Krouse and Oliver in a ‘chair’ carry, she saw that there was a small crowd of rescued people, in every variation of heavy outdoor and indoor clothes, some clutching luggage while others clutched children. Some of them were bloodied. The birds-eye view of the buildings and the Endbringer in the city disappeared as she descended into them.
An old woman was arguing with a firefighter, the latter seeming calm if loud while the former shouted and gesticulated. She sounded like Marissa’s mother trying to overwhelm a reluctant teacher. Someone else spoke, maybe to Marissa, but the noise was almost too much.
Something came into the edge of her vision, and she heard the people around her gasp. They began to fall silent. As one, they looked up and saw the Endbringer, that enormous human-like thing, move across the sky. She almost looked human at this distance, dwarfed by the masses of concrete and metal she levitated around her. She floated almost leisurely, pulling the roofs and tops from houses, dragging buildings to the ground almost idly in her wake… and coming towards them. The machine parts rose, crackling like a halo, light rippling strangely within the circle, like a soap bubble.
A young man in their group let out a wail of terror. Mars turned and saw him make a break for it, running across the lawn of the walled garden they were gathered in. He made it to the gate and not much further, stopped by a solid wall of cars honking and revving and screaming-
They were all trying to get out. Everyone wanted to get out. Her mom, what was she doing?
She wouldn’t be any better off than the people in these cars, even if she was trying to run. Somehow, Marissa couldn’t see it from her. The cars were running over both road and pavement, but not a single one was moving. They were trapping them in, but they weren’t any better off for it.
“Why is she here?” The crowd was still talking, but this time quieter, almost in whispers as though to hide from the monster only a hundred feet away. Marissa could barely hear them. There was another voice in her head, and it was louder and far more magnetic than these. Rising and falling. Almost urging her to follow along with the notes.
No!
She steadied herself and tried to tune back in. Jess and Krouse were shouting, arguing.
“She might die! We need to get her help, now, I don’t care how hard it is.”
“You don’t care that it’s impossible?” Jess snapped back. “God, Krouse, I thought you had better sense than that!”
“I can carry her there if they can’t get an ambulance through.” Krouse sounded like he was trying to sound reasonable, but his voice hissed through his throat full of fury and fear. “But it can’t wait.”
“We’ll get everyone to safety in a methodical way.” Assured one of the firefighters. “Just wait for the message to go out. At the moment, the priority is staying calm.”
“Fuck staying calm!”
“Krouse, we aren’t fighting you!” Jess’ voice was shrill enough it almost hurt Mars’ ears. Frantic. It was eerie, wrong, a reminder that this wasn’t just another argument. “This isn’t you thinking these things! It’s - it’s the Simurgh. It’s what she does.”
“What-” Krouse grit his teeth. Cody and Luke were eyeing him, one wary and the other worried. Cody’s hand was raised, just slightly, but there were people between him and Krouse. Why did I think that? “Wait. Shit, you’re right. Sorry. She gets in your - my - in people’s heads, then? That scream, it’s driving our emotions up?”
“...yeah. That’s one thing.” Jess agreed. “That’s why the roads are that bad.”
“Dangerous, too.” Said the firefighter-lady. “People will be driving mad trying to get out in time.”
“Heh.” The side of Krouse’s mouth twitched up over the pun. Mars wanted to shake him for it. “Wait, in time?”
Cody took that opportunity to jump into the conversation. Jess had her arms wrapped around herself, her head hanging. Mars wanted to go over and help her, or, at least, she wanted to want to. But going back into the knot of people, getting into the conversation…
The firefighter lady was lying to us. Or hiding things. It’s her job, just her job, but she’s stuck here helping us. It still infuriated her.
She glanced at the road again. They might be right about it being dangerous, but none of the cars were really moving. There would be space for someone on foot to squeeze through and cross the road. She thought about putting her best friend on her back and walking into the street, and her own exhaustion disgusted her.
Noelle seemed so far away, and so did Chris, as though he was just eating dinner safe at home, but so much more present and treacherous was the Screaming in her head and the horns and engines vibrating in her bones and the panic in her chest and throat. She shoved her shaking hands into her pockets and
“You looked too pale up there,” Mom muttered, peeling a pistachio with her long nails. “Green is not your colour, it makes you look pukish.”
“That’s the colour the whole group was wearing.” Marissa regretted speaking as soon as she did, when her mother’s eyes sparked.
“Well, why didn’t you ask them to shift your groups? You’re a perfectly serviceable dancer, certainly better than those children, aren’t you? Pink or red would do you much better.”
“I’m not going to bother the teachers because I - because you don’t like the colour of my outfit.”
“You need to assert yourself more, or you’ll never be successful. You are set for mediocrity at the rate at which you’re going, and that is not a fate my daughter will ever have.”
“I’m doing fine.” She hissed, trying to believe it. She had messed up a couple times in rehearsal today, and every time the teacher yelled at her to get back into synch she’d find it harder to remember the steps and positions. “And we didn’t even know what colours we’d get beforehand.” And Chris was in her group too.
“You could have asked.” Her mother scoffed. “Really, Marissa, show some initiative! You can’t just stay placid at the bottom with all your little friends.”
“My friends are fine!”
“Your friends,” her mother scoffed, “Only want you for your talent. For your potential - they see it just like I do.”
Always on the potential thing.
“And that boy - what’s his name? Christopher?” She felt fear run icy in her veins. “I don’t want you hanging around him. Oh, be civil, be friendly, but keep your distance. I know the kind of boy who wants to attend dance classes.”
She couldn’t say another word, mouth open in a kind of infuriated shock. “You - Mom, you-
“-can’t…” Her voice trailed to nothing in her throat.
A body slammed into the ground behind her. It was the firefighter lady. She was clutching her head, tears running down her contorted face. Someone screamed. Someone threw a punch. Cody’s voice rose into a roar, and Noelle was still a bundle on the cold, cold ground.
No, no, nonononono-
Mars began to run.
A car swerved in front of her and she threw herself back. Another hit her back, making her cry out in pain as the bumper bruised her ribs. She stumbled between the two. The roads were clogged with vehicles, the sidewalks with vehicles and people. No people. Some instinct from breakdown in the past told her she needed to find some space, calm the hell down. Or just not get run over. Ignoring the honks, she half-stumbled, half-ran forwards.
She slipped into an open door, through an empty, abandoned house, and out through the back door. Instead of the backyard she’d expected, she found herself in an alleyway. The kind that had shops and houses and streets linking to it, but ended in a cul-de-sac. The shops were all empty, people had dropped anything they owned and run.
They ran for a good reason. The crashing of buildings behind her told her that. What am I doing in here?
Breathe. Breathing exercises. I’m safe, nothing’s attacking me… right now.
She looked back towards the sky. The Endbringer was no longer hovering near the ground, somehow, but high above the city. Could it teleport, too? A small green figure was flitting around her like a fruit fly. The two seemed almost to dance, moving in some strange pattern, pushing at each other with invisible attacks. The green figure stood still for a moment, then rushed her. Marissa could just barely make out the flutter of a cape on them. They crashed into the Endbringer and out the other side, only for it to collapse into a mass of white. Marissa didn’t believe it was dead for a second, and clearly neither did the hero, floating in place for a moment before dashing to the ground and out of view.
And she needed to move too.
The alley was blocked by a fallen house, through a bedroom cracked open like a dollhouse, where she picked up a curtain rod to help drag herself over the wall. Heroes were appearing through holes in the sky, or by the side of the glowing green figure she’d seen before. He or she would rarely stay, now, dropping them in and disappearing right after. Some of them simply fell through the air and landed wherever, but she guessed they could have powers to let them survive that.
She leaned on her makeshift walking stick, panting.
Most of the lights in this part of the city were broken, the occasional fire the most steady source of light.
She made her way down from the wall and slumped into the corner, cold and tired and heartsick. Raised voices from around a corner made her ears prick up.
A wretched thing - a person, but strange and contorted - slumped on the ground, an older man standing over them, shouting. Mars’ heart almost stopped as she stepped closer and saw the extent of their injuries. He looked male, with a head twice as large as his entire torso, huge and lolling like his neck was broken. A wound the size of a child’s entire body was torn into the back of his head, with bits of bone and ugly clotted flesh poking out. His eyes were lolling. The man towered over him, shouting and insulting him. “No,” the deformed man whimpered. “No, no, please. Please, I need it…”
“What’s the matter?” The human man swung around to stare at Mars with wide eyes. She cleared her throat and addressed the… she wasn’t even sure what he could be called. The deformed man. “Do you need help?”
“I need it,” He whispered again. His eyes, tremulous, raised to meet hers. They were full of blood and pus, she realised with disgust, but they were a soft hazel, human in shape, if not size. “Help me…” Everything about him terrified her, but she placed one foot ahead of the other anyway.
“How do I help you?”
The older man rolled his eyes. “Leave it be, girl.” Both her and the injured looked at him. “It won’t-”
In a single motion, the injured pulled himself ahead and grabbed the man by the ankle of his pants.
“Memories!” He screamed. “I need memories! I haven’t dreamed in so, so long!” The man screamed and stamped on his hand. “Help me!”
Mars would have run, but she could only scream.
Just then, there was a flash of light, and a hemisphere of the pavement beneath them disappeared. She got a faint smell of burning flesh as a figure appeared in the centre of the crater. They were cloaked hood to toe in green, with a flat white mask - and, bizarrely, skin-tight green abs. The mask glanced at her once before ignoring her completely. They strode ahead, grabbed the injured by the shoulder, and yanked him away from the man by force.
“No!” The injured shouted. “N-”
“Door,” the cloaked man said. And in a second, they were both gone.
What.
Somehow, Marissa managed to breathe again.
If that was a hero, then… wow. He didn’t even look at us. Like we weren’t even there.
“Bitch.” The venom in the man’s voice made her jump.
“What?”
He stepped into her personal space and spat on her. “I told you to stay back, but you couldn't listen? Stupid fucking bitch.”
Her hand tightened on her walking stick and she saw red. “I couldn’t have known he would do that!” She shouted back. “I was just trying to get him some help. Back off!”
“He grabbed a hold of me, because you couldn’t listen to your betters-” He stepped closer and grabbed at her shirt. Marissa yelped, trying to push his hand away with her free hand, but was crowded against the wall instead. Suddenly terrified, she got the rod between herself and him, pressing the sharp, broken end to his throat. He barely seemed to notice, even as it deformed the throat and must have affected his breathing. He pulled her to him by the jacket and shoved her head into the wall, hard enough to rattle her teeth and send stars across her eyes.
His fingers dug into her neck and shoulders as he shouted more insults at her. She tried to work up the courage to force the sharp edge into his throat but something, something held her back.
Over his shoulder, she saw a figure in a coat and hat appear, a moment before it was on them, running.
The force of the blow brushed past her as the man was thrown to the ground. He struck his own attacker with his fist, almost knocking him aside, only for the latter to fall on top of him, keeping him down. She caught sight of a head of mussed dark hair and a dark face on the one throwing the man to the ground.
Krouse?
The recognition shocked her. Him appearing now, it made no sense. He moved in an unnatural, jerky way, as he slammed his hand up and and down, into the air and into the man’s chest.
There was something red.
She pushed herself away from the filthy wall and
kicked a pebble across the muddy ground, pouting. Her mom was so so annoying, pulling her into coming here when it had just rained and the mud was clumping into her shoes and making it so hard for her little legs to walk. She was still talking with the other grown-ups, her screeching voice sounding smug and mean, like when Marissa got food on the table while eating. Her feet were screaming at her from ballet practice, and she was sleepy and miserable, and her mom expected her to smile and be cute for all the other moms. The only kid her age here was a smelly, gross little boy who was poking around the grass behind her.
She stamped her way over to a small pond or really big puddle the rains had made, bending down to stare at her angry, ugly little reflection in the brown water.
Oh, a frog. Hello, little froggy.
Something hit her back, and she barely got to gasp before she was falling face-first into the water, mud squelching into her eyes and nose and hands. It ran all over her hair as she splashed back up, and into her fingernails. She sat up, gasping for air – and looked behind her, hearing someone gasping with laughter. It was that boy with brown skin, the one whose mom had been talking to hers. He had a wide, awful grin on his face as he looked at her, and stood there, and looked at her -
Her frilly dress was all covered in mud, she realised. Her mother would be so angry.
She tried to stand – she was going to kill that boy – and slipped on her nice shoes and fell back on her bum. The boy just kept laughing, little huffs of air through his nose. She had to crawl out on her hands and knees, tears beginning to brim in her eyes -
And dripping down her face as she came back to herself against the wall. Still kneeling. The boy – Krouse – the boy was hitting the man, again and again with something steely in his hand. A knife. Bright red like his hands and arms. He was -
Was he laughing?
For a second that was all Marissa could think, and a scream built in her throat. Krouse threw himself off the man and onto his feet, and turned to her -
A red face, dark with sweat, blood dripping down the mouth, too close to her. A red hand netted with tissue reaching for her – she pressed further into the wall with a little wail.
He stopped. The man – the boy – Krouse stopped.
He was still laughing, she thought with horror. No, not laughing. It sounded similar, because he always laughed through his nose in little huffs, but that wasn't this. Instead, there were little grunts, was the closest thing she supposed, breaths hard enough they made little vocalisations when they left his throat, like a ha, ha, ha.
For a moment the eyes seemed to bulge out at her – all of the whites visible around the pupil – and the red hand gripped air by his side. She could recognize the look in the eyes, she thought, a kind of silent scream. Familiar to her. As was the way they loosened when he wrested back control.
"Fuck," he sighed. She jumped at the familiar oath. He could have been complaining about a delayed bus. His lips smacked wetly from the blood when he spoke. He wiped at them with his shoulder. She had a handkerchief, she should offer it. "You alright?"
So casual. He could have been worried about a papercut. Well, no, he wouldn't bother asking for something like that, but. He only sounded out of breath.
"Yeah." Her voice, in comparison, was hoarse and high-pitched. Her hands trembled. She'd dropped the long knife sometime after. She was still crying, a bit. "Yeah, alright."
"Cool." He swung the hand that held the – was that a hatchet? Where the hell did he get that? "So, uh, help me out?" He swung it at, what Mars was getting far too good at recognizing as a, body.
There was a black hair stuck to his forearm.
It was a small detail, but it caught in Marissa's mind, as she helped Krouse lift the man. There was blood and... tissue... smeared all over his hands and arms, and the strand of hair, from the man he'd killed, was stuck to his arm with it.
They emptied out a bag of trash from the dumpster in the alley and shoved the body into it, then stumbled out carrying it together.
Lucky the lake was nearby. Nearer than it used to be – one of the sewers had burst and flooded a street, and mixed with the long furrows from the Endbringer throwing buildings around, created a new system of filthy canals that nobody wanted to go near.
"And stay down!" Krouse called as the bag splashed in. It was his best sports-presenter voice, he'd been annoying their class with it for years now. Quieter than his usual, though. "Any comments, Ms. Newland? Maybe a 'Go To Hell'?"
She screwed up her courage enough to shove his shoulder. "How about 'Shut up, Krouse'?" She said, her voice still utterly lifeless. He pretended to laugh at it.
She kept six feet between them walking back.
The Simurgh still hung overhead, tossing attacks back and forth with whatever heroes emerged. The novelty, such as it was, had faded.
The screaming seemed to hit a fever pitch, and she grit her teeth through it. Stupid, stupid fucking bird.
"My cousin's dead." Krouse said, suddenly. "I called my mom, we have a landline that still works. My uncle, uh, pushed him down some stairs. They came over for Christmas." Mars turned slowly to stare at him, mouth open. He was looking up at the sky, hands clasped behind his back. "Mom's fine, though. Don't know about yours, sorry."
"Noelle?" She managed. Krouse just nodded and continued like it was nothing. "She got to the hospital alive. They say she'll need surgery, but, hey, not nothing. Worst case, might give Jess some company."
It took a moment for her to get it. "You're horrible."
"I know, I know." He looked back at her, and – had his eyes always been that empty? "My family got a radio, those still work. Did you hear? About what the..." he jerked a thumb of the hand not holding a murder weapon upwards. "Big streaker in the sky does?"
"Her scream." Mars whispered. Somehow, she knew it wasn't the telekinesis he meant.
"Yeah. Says it drives people nuts, sets them on a path she plans out to do fucked shit." He gave her a squinty sideways look, having to turn his head back away from her to do it. "You feeling a bit nutty, Mars Bar?"
"Just stop." She wished it came out deadpan and not pleading. "The – the only thing driving me to – driving me nutty is you."
They stopped at a tap that had ripped open and was blasting water out wildly, so that she could wash the vomit out of her hair, and he could clean the blood off his hands and face, and swill his mouth. His hand was scraped raw around the hatchet, she noted, and his knuckles were torn and bruised purple. There was a bruise on his forehead too, like he'd slammed it against a wall. He chuckled again when the icy water touched him, and she couldn't help but flinch.
Ridiculous. Stupid. Am I just going to freak out every time he laughs from now on?
Herself, she had the fingermarks on her shoulders and neck, still burning away. A greater ache in her bones and chest than when she'd had to practice dance for six hours straight. The smell in the air reminded her constantly of the man's rancid breath. Every movement seemed to pull more and more heat away. She kept walking, but it was slow.
Will I die? She wondered. Here, just a few miles from her? On the day we were going to win the championship? Is that what the Simurgh has planned for us?
It was all too much. Her legs failed her, she fell to her knees right there on the road, heaving. Hair fell over her face – stupid, why had they bothered washing up? In the snow?
"Hey," Krouse started reaching for her head.
"Don't touch me!" She screamed. Another phantom retch knocked her head forwards, but thankfully nothing came.
"I – sorry. I thought I should hold back your hair."
"Don't." She whispered. Not with those hands.
He sat there beside her for a while, until the dry-vomiting stopped. His eyes were somewhere far away, lost in thought.
The screaming reminded her of what a bad place that was to be, and she shook him by the arm.
"Noelle," He mumbled dizzily as he came back.
"Not now," She said. "How much further is it?"
"You don't even know where I'm taking you." He muttered, but he got up. "It's a couple blocks away. My mom's making a safety group, gathering supplies with some neighbours."
She knew vaguely where his house was, but the speeding emergency vehicles and the lack of other cars, not to mention the random parahuman messes, made the path stranger. Still, the unassuming suburban houses were in sight when he stopped short again. "Hey. Mars."
His eyes were wide again, boring into her.
"You won't tell, right?"
Like a kid pulling a prank. Like a kid throwing a girl down and not caring about her tears.
"Tell me you won't."
He'd been so... normal this whole time, when she couldn't even break skin without her hands still shaking.
"Mars. Marissa."
How had she ignored it so long? How hadn't it occurred to her? What they said about the Simurgh- violence, madness, that man had had a wedding ring-
"Marissa!"
She jerked up. Krouse was very close to her, gripping his own wet sleeves, shaking. His eyes were wide, like he was seeing something bearing down on him, something he could not struggle against. He looked cold and weak and desperate. She pitied him. He was her friend.
And for the first time, a voice in her head was whispering, he could push you down so easy.
"Of course I won't." She reached out and put her hands over his clasped ones. "I promise."
If the world had been fair at all, the Scream would have faded to nothing as they entered the house, and the movie credits would have rolled. But it really wasn't, so she had to stand it blaring in her skull while Krouse's mom shoved her aside to hug and kiss and smack her boy, screaming about how he'd wandered off. She shifted from that to fussing over Mars soon enough – she was huge and heavy-breasted in the way some middle-aged moms got (not hers, of course) – but shockingly speedy for all that, seeming to almost teleport around the house. Or maybe Mars was just tired. Certainly she almost fell over when she was pulled into a rough hug, then shoved towards a sofa to sit. She got a lecture about going around in the snow, wet, too, and much reassurance that her mother was well and that the Endbringer would be chased away soon, definitely.
Is his entire family like this?
They found a towel and some of his clothes that would fit her, and she went to shower in his bathroom. Scrubbed the vomit-smell out of her hair, while his uncle's sobs echoed through the walls.
When she came out, he was sitting on his bed there, flipping through a book and glaring, two mugs of some hot drink beside him. An ordinary scene – if not for the look in his eyes and the hatchet lying on the floor.
"Why do you still have that?"
He looked up. "I... 'm not sure. I just brought it in, I guess, I didn't think-"
"Well, get rid of it." She hissed. "You can't trust yourself with a-" a weapon? A reminder? "With something like that right now!"
He held up his hands. "Alright, I get it. I'll put it behind the desk or something, nobody can get at it there." He stood, pointing behind him as he went. "Hot chocolate, by the way. Mom's stress-cooking. It's probably not poisoned."
"Right, thanks." And she caught him by the arm before she sat down, the warmth of the room feeling like a thin illusion over everything. "And. Thanks. You know?"
His eyes brightened a little with relief.
Hours later, listening to the radio with the taste of chocolate still in her mouth, she felt the gravity of her words at last. The subtext. Long-term quarantine, the radio was saying, is the current method of control used by Earth Bet USA. Psychological evaluations and permanent registry of names of anyone cleared to leave.
It wasn't just a 'thank you'. Even more than the actual promise given outside his house, it was an oath.
She couldn't rat him out now.
It was another day until the Endbringer actually left. Not died, not defeated, but dragged through the portal by some kind of whirlpool power and, apparently, leaving for the upper atmosphere of Earth Bet of her own accord. Recovery was slow – most of the casualties were on the roads, people trying to escape the city in a rush of desperate vehicles. It would have been a bloodbath even without the Simurgh.
Krouse had already recounted what he knew about their friends – Jess and Noelle were both fine, Luke's brother had been alive to call the hospital where they all ended up. He didn't know about Oliver, and Chris was, well.
She'd cried a lot over the past day, but it hadn't really been for him. It had been fear, mostly.
She cried again, when they made the long walk to the hospital from Krouse's place, pushed through the heavy crowds and snuck their way through, and finally found the ward they'd been looking for.
"Hey, Mars. K." Noelle's eyes were heavy, and there were empty hollows in her cheeks.
Krouse’s legs were longer, so he got to her side first, kneeling beside the bed and wrapping her hand in both of his. Mars felt a moment of deja vu - hadn’t she seen them sitting just like that the day before? - and a flicker of the same pinch that always came.
But more than anything, she felt like she could finally see and feel the sun again. She came close and stood over both of them, a hand on his shoulder as she drank in the sight of her best friend, her… everything. Her skin looked soft and wrinkled by the stress, and there was an old shadow across her forehead.
Noelle waved one arm, bringing their eyes to the drip stuck to it. “Sucks, huh?”
“So much,” Krouse scoffed in the time that Mars was still looking over Noelle. He started rubbing his hands over hers, and she tried to keep her eyes away from that.
“I’m still set for surgery, they’re saying.” Noelle sighed. “It’ll be costly, and I’ll look like a real freakshow afterwards. Pipes all up my mouth all days of the week, big scars, sack of shit in my gut… and it’s so ironic…”
She glanced at Mars as she said it. Their eyes seemed to meet somewhere far away from this ward.
“...you don’t even know.” She muttered.
“It’ll be okay.” Krouse muttered with the kind of force of someone who intended to make it okay, by hook or by crook. Mars rolled her eyes behind his back and Noelle cracked a faint grin.
“We spoke to the others,” she said. “Jess and Luke are here too, somewhere.”
“I’m glad. We all made it?”
“Actually-” She began, at the same time as Krouse said, “Yes-”
She stopped, and he rolled over her. “Yes, we made it. You just leave your worries behind and focus on getting better, okay?”
Mars bit her tongue.
It was harder and harder to talk after that, so after another few minutes she left the lovebirds to it.
“We are gathered here today to mourn the loss of a dear friend, a brother, a devoted son-”
Mars sighed through her nose, eyeing her feet. The wet grass was patchy on the lawn, more mud than foliage. The wind cut against the bruises on the back of her head, covered by her grey-and-pink hoodie - not exactly funeral code, but she wasn’t exactly invited.
“-I invite his daughter Maria to take the stage.”
“Thanks, Bob. My father Antony was a good man…”
A good man.
Maria Waybill was a very pale, young woman, maybe mid-twenties, with a spotted face. She looked like she worked in a call centre or as a receptionist somewhere. Some of her hair had been cut shorter than the rest, but there were no bandages or anything like most survivors of the Simurgh’s attack had. She didn’t look or sound like she was lying.
Mars’ hands twisted inside her hoodie pockets. She stood there, listening to the mourners speak.
“It wasn’t any natural thing that took him from us. It was unfair, and cruel and it wasn’t any of our fault. The Endbringer takes sense from us, and we can’t do nothing to fight back. I wish he had died a better death, but I can only hope he was satisfied, knowing he was a good man, knowing what he spent his life providing for us.”
Her breaths were shaking as they left her throat. She couldn’t be having a panic attack now, could she? Now?
She pulled out her phone for lack of other distractions, the fizzy feeling of terror still growing with every moment the daughter’s voice rang in her ear.
Messages from her mom, ignored. From Noelle being bored in the hospital, the last message Mars’ own.
RE: if ur on my side of the city we could go gam…
You:
Are we still up 4 this?
Luke:
depends when, r u free?
You:
nows fine
not far from ur house
This had been a mistake, anyway. She half-ran half-walked away.
A mistake. Nothing learnt.
It took a bit more co-ordination with Luke to find the skate park he was waiting at, sitting on the sidewalk with a crutch in his hands watching Cody mess about on a board. He wasn’t particularly good, in her opinion, but then she’d never tried it herself. He jumped off in a hurry when she raised her voice to greet them.
“Hey! Back here!”
“Marissa, nice to see you!” Luke waved. Cody wobbled off and glared at the ground. “We can get going, then.”
“I was just getting the hang of it,” Cody complained.
“Man, you’ve had ten minutes. And you can do it again anytime.”
“Don’t fucking patronize me.”’
Jesus Christ.
“I’m not, man. If Marissa wants a go-”
“I don’t.” She said.
“Huh. Well, you can keep going if you want, but the others will be waiting. Me and Marissa can wait for you, right?”
She sighed. “Yes, we could.”
Cody looked between them, mouth drawn. “Fine.” He grumbled. “Let’s just leave.”
Progress? She and Luke exchanged a glance.
It felt a bit like walking on eggshells to talk to Cody, but they could keep to small talk and things remained civil.
Eventually, the conversation turned to the psych evaluations everyone left in Madison was having to give.
“God, they’re so annoying!” Cody burst out, throwing his hands into the air. “Like, yes I’m pissed! My fucking house got broken down! Fuck you!”
“Fuck them, yeah.” He turned to Marissa with a surprised look. She shrugged and continued. “They don’t really know what they’re doing. It’s not like they want to be here, they’re people too. The only psychologists left in the city are the ones like us, who couldn’t get out in time. And they’ve been… they’ve been biased about me too. I was in therapy before. Maybe they think it makes me more vulnerable to her.”
That hadn’t been the worst part of the sessions, as much as seeing the judgement and suspicion in a stranger’s eyes made her want to curl up and die. It had been the sneaky questions about what she’d done during the attack. The psychiatrist had the kind of demeanour that projected ‘reassuring and open’, and a part of her wanted to spill those ugly secrets she was lying - probably very badly - about. She could only reassure herself that her eager self-awareness and willingness to discuss feelings at the beginning would distract someone who probably had to deal with a lot of offended hostility.
As for the fears that maybe she should be honest…
Cody looked mollified at her agreement.
“You heard what they do to people they think are compromised,” Luke murmured. “Like, Marissa, you weren’t there for this but we saw a guy - a hero - run out of time on this wrist computer thing he had. And they blew him up before they let him go back out.”
“But that was the Bet government, right? Not ours? They’re… harder, out there.”
“Well sure, but they’re saying-” He lowered his voice to a whisper, “They’re saying that they tattoo the people who don’t pass the tests. And that’s just the ones who’re going crazy. If they think you’re part of some kind of plan, these shady guys turn up at your house, and drag you away.”
They entered Jess’ house with an embarrassment of noise, Cody trying and failing to skate up the ramp too.
Mars was chuckling at something Luke had said, when she saw Cody stiffen where he leaned against him. The others had already set up, music playing and PS2 linked to the TV, but she saw Krouse perched halfway on the back of the sofa, grinning as he argued with Jess.
Of course he would be here, she thought, he and Luke were close too.
Krouse’s nose turned up haughtily as Jess told him to fuck off. He hopped off the sofa and the expression fell for a moment as he saw Mars, eyes widening fractionally. She shifted her weight uncomfortably. He broke eye contact first, looking at Luke… and his face turned back up into a cool look that was subtly smug as he saw Cody.
Ohhhhh no, this won’t end well. Cody was already raising his hackles, even though all Krouse did was sweep his eyes over him. “Didn’t think you were coming.” He called, holding a fist out to Luke. After a second, the taller boy stepped forwards to bump it, leaving Mars with no buffer between her and the roiling storm of resentment.
“We weren’t really planning on it. But Mars said she was nearby, so we figured we’d walk over here together.”
“Nobody expected you, either.” Cody butted in. If Noelle had been here, she would have reassured him, reminded them that they were all welcome. Krouse just snorted in amusement.
“I try to be unexpected. Marissa, you’re here too.”
Leave me out of this. “Yeah, hi.”
Oliver waved at her from the sofa. “Marissa! Any news on Noelle?”
“I visited her two days ago.” She took the excuse to shove her way inside and lean over Oliver, who was pink-cheeked and babbling as ever. “She’s… recovering, I guess.”
“My mom’s not letting me visit her more than once a week. And I broke my phone when I, you know…"
“Moms. Mine’s actually gotten worse, somehow. She keeps complaining about school being shut down-”
“Noelle said you wanted to leave home, though?”
“Yeah. With her, maybe.” It was a distant dream, especially with their Worlds hopes in tatters and Noelle’s rough condition, but distant dreams were still something. “Hey, does this do multiplayer?”
“Yeah! I just beat Jess last round. I’m pretty g- I mean, I’m actually not terrible at this one, so…”
“Let’s see if you can pull that off twice.” She sat down and took the other controller.
They played in silence for a while, muttering occasional curses or poking fun at themselves or the other for a loss. Oliver was good for that, quiet and intense playing without having to worry about making conversation.
The silence made it easier to hear the argument start.
“What the hell are you doing?” Cody snapped.
“He’s just being annoying-” Jess’ words were cut off.
“Bullshit! You always take his side. None of you get it! Everything he does is planned, he’s never ‘just’ doing anything! He’s manipulating all of you!”
Mars’ character slammed into a projectile and died.
“Oh, hell.” Oliver muttered, clicking away at his controller. “Marissa, can you revive me?”
This time, it was Krouse’s dry drawl that answered. “I don’t know what happened to you, Cody, and frankly I couldn’t care less. But if you want to make a scene here, sure.”
“Yeah, because you don’t care about anyone besides yourself-”
“Because we aren’t friends.”
“So long as you get what you want! So long as you get to be on the team and you get to have them stroke your ego and you get the giiirls around you-”
“Wait,” Krouse said, suddenly smiling, “Is this whole tantrum about Noelle?”
Mars flinched at the name, but Cody did the opposite, crossing the room and shoving at Krouse’s chest with both hands. “Don’t you fucking talk about her like that!”
He raised his hands again as Krouse toppled backwards. His side was to Mars - the only warning she got was a sudden flash of teeth, and then Krouse’s palm was colliding with Cody’s cheek.
The smack was loud, and Cody staggered, but before he could even turn his face back Krouse slapped him again.
“‘Don’t talk about her’,” he mocked, voice a hiss. “‘Don’t show me up’,” he grabbed Cody by the collar and pushed him back, “‘Don’t take charge’, because it makes you look like a stupid kid, and you need to be the biggest man in the room, huh?”
Cody swung at him, and it barely grazed the side of his head, unbalancing them both. Immediately, Krouse’s elbow was buried in his side, pulled back and driven in again and again. He fell to the ground, and Krouse kicked him. He screamed in pain. “Idiot! Moron! You feel like a big man now, Cody?”
Someone moved towards them, arms out. “Hey, hey, quit it! Oh, holy-”
Cody threw himself upwards, grabbing at Krouse’s legs, and only got a knee to the face - contorting for a moment as Mars saw it, the sound as horrible as any part of the fight.
“Krouse, cut it out!” Jess yelled. He pulled himself off Cody, rising painfully, slowly to his feet. His hands and face had gone red with a flush. “Okay-”
Cody came up right after him and punched him square on the nose. “Fucker!”
Krouse’s face twitched, but he didn’t move. Not even when Cody drew his fist back again.
“That’s enough.” Luke walked behind him and put a hand on his shoulder. “Cody, you’ve both done enough.”
“You - you -” His eyes were full of tears, “-you’re taking his side again?”
“Cody, you just hit the guy.”
“And you didn’t say a damn thing to him before! Never stepped up to call him out when he was getting off on his own ego-”
“Ugh.” Krouse flicked a few drops of spittle off his face and dramatically rolled his eyes. “Not doing that again.”
Oliver had curled into a pillbug-like defensive position on the sofa. Mars continued to stare, feeling like her body was miles away.
“Asshole,” Krouse scoffed under his breath, too quiet for Cody - who was trying to brush off Luke’s scolding, or pacifying, or whatever it was - to hear. He slapped a hand down on Mars’ shoulder as he passed her, and she jumped. “Ow! Krouse-”
Her glare met his grin. The grin won and she broke eye-contact first.
“Is he upset that he had to start a fight, or that he lost it, do you think?”
“You both started that fight,” Mars muttered.
“Shouldn’t you be on my side?”
She flinched. He wanted to bring that up here? With Oliver wide-eyed watching him like a prey animal would a hawk?
“I’d prefer to forget about that, honestly.” She whispered as quietly as she could. Krouse nodded.
“Sure, sure. Hey-” He threw one leg over the arm of the sofa. “You got room for one more player?”
“No-”
“You can take mine,” Oliver squeaked, pushing his controller over. Krouse paused, grin still stuck on. He looked between her and Oliver. Then he swept himself back onto his feet.
“Nah. I can tell where I’m not wanted. Just don’t scare each other too bad, hm?”
“What does that mean?” Oliver asked her. Marissa could only shrug.
The vibes were just off after that. They all kind of clustered around the console, so Oliver quickly let himself be shunted out. Krouse leaned against the back wall, messing around on his phone and occasionally cheering Luke on. Cody, as far from Krouse as he could get, was sitting where Oliver had been, right in the middle of the group like a lightning rod to their poor mood.
As everyone began taking their leave, Krouse caught her before she could. “You know he was talking trash, right?”
“I’m not going to tell anyone,” Mars said quickly. It had been in the back of her mind all evening. But even if Krouse really had become more vicious than he used to be…
“That’s not what I meant,” He said, looking worried. “I just… you know it was all him, right? He started it, and someone needed to shut him up. No, that’s not what I…” He sighed.
“It’s okay.”
“It’s okay?”
“Okay.”
“Great!” He glanced around and then quickly stepped forward and hugged her. “Feel better soon.”
He let go in less than a second and waved his phone at her, hurrying away. “Bye. Answer my messages once in a while!”
Noelle healed. In spite of all the odds, Noelle was getting better.
It’s nearly eleven P.M., and Marissa’s balancing a laptop and a glass of coke and ice-cream, while electronic rock music booms through Jess’ speakers. It's just them, the non-esports-obsessed kids - the non-obsessees, general, they’re all coming up on eighteen. Her, Noelle, Oliver, Jess. Okay, maybe Noelle isn’t quite not obsessed, but she’s Noelle. Chris would be here.
The others argue over whether the Big Six - famous superheroes, probably the only decent ones on their planet - could one-v-one Legend from Earth Bet. Oliver kept waving his hand back and forth to try to convey Legend’s flight - which is apparently top-tier fast - and Jess kept slamming her fist into her palm as she got more heated. Noelle, for her part, was sitting on the sidelines between the two, occasionally adding something that sent Jess up in arms correcting her.
She made eye-contact with Marissa over their heads, giggling. Ah. She was messing with them. Marissa’s fingers tapped a little on the keys in happiness.
Welcome to the US urgent response division. We are pleased to inform you that your application for residence within the Madison Urban Area, Wisconsin, is under consideration. Please complete the following form.
Please enter truthful responses.
1. Are you a current resident of the Madison Urban Area?
Her best chance at freedom. Rooming with Noelle, community college, some level of independence.
She clicked.
3. What was the length of your contact with the Simurgh’s Psychoactive Signal (“The Song” or “The Scream”)?
30 minutes or less ------------------o-----------------48 hours (full period)
She pulled the slider all the way to the right. That wasn’t a deal-breaker anymore, she knew.
7. Define your relationship with each of the following individuals:
click here
click here
click here
She followed the first link, to a picture - seemingly taken from a government ID - of an ordinary-looking bald man with his name and occupation below. She confidently clicked circle 1 (‘no known relation or interactions’) out of five (‘close friend or family connection’).
She clicked on the next link inattentively.
“You’ll lose your cake if you keep doing that,” Noelle warned, when Jess’ next fist-thump sets the plate balanced on her wheelchair’s arm shaking. “Oliver, you want more?”
“I still think auto-homing wins,” Oliver mumbled through a mouthful of corn.
Mars rolled her eyes and turned back to her screen.
Antony Waybill’s face stared back at her from the screen, eyes wide and hungry in the dull light of the camera room.
“I mean, uh, if anyone else is taking any?”
“I’ll-”
“I’ll get it, Noe’,” Marissa rose to her feet. She snapped the computer closed and gave Noelle a backwards glance as she entered the kitchen, though.
Nobody else in this room knew the extent of Noelle’s problems. Jess was always so confident about her own body, and Oliver had always looked up to Noelle like a dictator.
Noelle was having better days, and she did like sweet things, donuts and cake and crunchy processed oatmeal with no milk. And fruit juice, which Marissa poured four glasses of to go with their midnight junk marathon. It was nice to be able to do stuff like that, now that she was sleeping over at Jess and Oliver’s more often than she was at home. Krouse’s mom kept inviting her over too, with promises of home cooking and declarations of how sweet she is, but frankly she had to deal with that guy enough everywhere else.
He was always there. When Noelle took her first steps on a walker and he cheered in genuine delight, when the Ransack Worlds was livestreamed without them (and Noelle gripped her hand under the table and hissed ‘next year’), when it was ten in the damn night and it was just her and Mars, sitting and sharing a DS like old times and he just would not stop blowing up her phone -
She wished it was easier to hate him, but talking with him was still easy, and fun. He was still the same old Krouse as ever, even if sometimes he seemed sharper than usual, or nicer in a way that put her hackles up. Sometimes he gripped her shoulder just a bit too hard when nobody was watching and the attack - the Simurgh’s attack, not the other thing - was under discussion, but that was understandable. All told, she could confidently say he was alright.
Why was he taking it so much better than her?
Jess was playing some kind of gloomy song with electric guitars screeching, Oliver banging his head to it.
“I don’t know, I just prefer the base on their older songs!” Noelle glanced up and caught her eye as she was heading upstairs, and nodded her goodbyes to Jess, “-and yeah, I think the energy makes their lyrics more meaningful, you know? Anyway!”
She caught up halfway up the stairs, and followed Mars out of the window that still lacked its bars, and onto the sloped roof. “Man, this is nice.”
“Yeah.”
“Lake.” Noelle points. It sparkled in the distance with the lights of the city, and of the few stars in the summer sky.
“Yeah.”
They sat for a long moment, in the silence of the rooftop. Not quite silence - the music was still booming indoors, their friends close at hand.
“Have you been doing okay?” Mars asked, finally. And it was as the Mars from the hospital, the Mars who had whispered secrets while bunking school with Noelle.
“Well, school’s kicking my butt, I’ve been trying to get Luke back into the game before we end up having to use Cody for our laner, I really need to show my dad that I can manage my exams, Krouse is really tiring me out just, emotionally-” And of course we’re on him again. “-to everything he says, and it gets so draining after a while, you know?”
She rubs her arms again. One of her sleeves pulls up a bit - it’s not unusual for Noelle to wear long ones even in the summer but -
“Noe’.” She must see what Mars means in her wide-eyed stare right at her arm. “Is that-”
“Oh, please, don’t make a big deal of it-”
“Noe’!” She can’t help but make a big deal of it! She pulls on her arm, and after a bit of struggle, Noelle lets her take it with a groan of humiliation. There’s a series of small cuts, familiar. Far too familiar. From a girl years and years in the past, fidgeting back and forth on her chair in the circle and smiling widely at Mars.
The same girl groans and rubs her eyes in exasperation. “It’s… I might have been… backsliding. A little bit. Nobody’s fault but mine.”
And that’s not something she can budge her on. “You know you can tell me if something’s up.” Mars sighs. She takes Noelle’s arm, and suddenly her whole body bends into a flinch. If the first one was a chilling reminder, this - this feels like ice.
There’s a series of bruises, all lined up in a ring around her arm. She doesn’t make a habit out of looking at her best friend’s sufferings, she thinks almost hysterically. These don’t look like that. They don’t.
A laughing boy, a mocking man. “Did…”
She brushes over Noelle’s next words. “This wasn’t him, right?”
“What?!”
“I don’t know! It was a stupid idea, I’m sorry, I’m sorry..”
“It’s fine.” She pulled the sleeve back down with a jerky motion and stood up. Mars wanted nothing more than to bury her face in her hands and disappear. She’d just wanted to see if Noelle was alright. “It wasn’t that, it was… it’s…”
Noelle’s back was to her. There was something bothering her, but was it the same old…
Or was this what keeping his secrets brought?