Of course Jackson couldn't just be quiet and let me stew in peace in the corner of the elevator until we made it all the way down and could go our separate ways. Oh no, he had to keep talking at me the entire time. He was doing his best to be friendly and asked me how I was doing. He even talked about his son a bit. But none of that helped. All I wanted to do was get off the elevator and away from him. Every time he said anything, all I heard was the voice of the man who had terrified me before stealing my memories. I had to stand there and pretend that the emotions I was feeling were only because my parents were sick.
At least that helped cover some of it. I had no idea how I would have gotten through the whole thing without letting him know the truth if I didn't have a very good reason to be upset right now. This elevator ride was only a few floors long, but we kept stopping at every single floor to let people on and off, including a rather extended bit on one floor where they had to hold the doors open to let a very elderly man who walked with a cane slowly make his way down the hall and get on.
Through it all, Kent talked at me, and I did my very best to respond as appropriately as I should have. Thankfully, we weren't super-close in the first place, plus he was my ex-boyfriend's dad, so it made sense that there would be a little bit of awkwardness. At least, I hoped it made sense.
I didn't completely ignore him or anything. Nor did I turn around and punch him in the gut like part of me wanted to. It would've been satisfying for a moment, but it wouldn't have solved anything. He'd only been doing what my parents asked him to. It wasn’t like he snuck in and did it behind their backs. They thought they were helping. That was a whole big thing that I definitely needed to get into at some point, but in an elevator with the man who erased my memories was not the right time to do it. Especially not when my parents were in absolutely no condition to actually participate in that discussion. Or even understand it.
Somehow, I made it all the way to the end of that agonizingly long ride. If we had been at one of my family's office buildings and I had to go on a full fifty or sixty floor ride with him, I probably would have completely melted down. Finally, I stepped off the elevator, only to realize he was stepping off too. Of course he was, my time with him wasn't over yet, we were both walking out of the building together. Fantastic, what a positively beautiful--
“Hey Cass!” It was Tomas. Obviously, he was here to meet up with his dad. And he wasn't alone. Maki was there too, standing back a bit with a slight smile my way as Tomas approached. “I didn't know you were gonna be here today too. I uhh, sort of got the impression that you needed a break from this place after we talked yesterday.”
Oh right, Sierra had told me a bit about that. Well, that she'd had a talk with Tomas as me anyway. She did say something about implying to him that I might not want to come visit every day for a bit, and that ‘I’ felt like it was getting too difficult to stand there and see my parents like that. Apparently she hadn't been certain that I would want to come here immediately considering all the memories that had popped back into my head, and wanted to lay the groundwork for it if I felt like staying away. She thought I would be conflicted. And she was right about that, but I still came. I had to come.
“Yeah, it's hard to see them like that,” I confirmed in a voice that actually cracked a little bit even though I wasn't trying to make it do so. There was a quick rush of painful and confusing emotions that I shoved down before continuing. “But I decided I needed to come anyway. Who knows, they might come out of it any day now.” I did intentionally inject my voice with a bit of naïve hopefulness then. There was no way they would just spontaneously snap out of it, of course. Pittman wouldn't create a bio-attack like that and just let it clear up on its own. Not a chance in hell. Still, the Cassidy they knew wouldn't understand anything about that.
The Cassidy they knew was kind of an idiot.
Thomas and his dad exchanged a quick look. It made me wonder yet again just how much my ex actually knew about the whole situation. Was he completely on board with the whole Ministry thing by now? There was still a small part of me that was afraid that our entire relationship had been some sort of assignment to keep an eye on me. Or maybe our parents had simply set it up in order to have me be involved with the son of one of their lieutenants. Honestly, I really wasn't sure being set up for that reason would actually be that much better than the whole keeping an eye on me for them as an official agent of the Ministry option. It was just bad in a different way.
Well, now I definitely couldn't just duck out that easily. Maki approached as well, and asked if I had heard anything about the Scions’ claim that Cup had been infected while I was upstairs around all those doctors and nurses. My first instinct was to wonder why they thought any of those people would say anything in front of me. But then I realized the truth. They were simply changing the subject so I wouldn't have to keep talking about my parents. Standing back out of the way, they had seen how uncomfortable I was and, quite understandably, decided it meant I didn't want to think or talk about my mom and dad being like that. So they stepped in with a question that shifted the focus just enough.
After a minute of that, Tomas and his dad had to step away to talk to one of the dark-suited men who came walking past. Part of me wanted to eavesdrop on that conversation to see what was so important, but I didn't want to be caught doing so. Besides, I was also happy just to be away from Kent for a minute. I would have made it much longer and simply left while they were distracted, but Tomas asked me to wait a minute because he had something else to talk about. Sure, I could have played it off and promised to talk to him later, pretending I had something to do. But I froze up in that moment. I had no idea what he wanted to say to me, and my mind was running off on its own wild possibilities. Besides, them stepping away left me with Maki and I didn't want to be rude. So, I found myself looking at them. Oh boy did I have so much I wanted to ask. Their own power clearly allowed them to shift back-and-forth between male and female, and given my own strange feelings on that whole subject, I felt like they would've been a good person to talk to about it. But how was I supposed to bring it up? It wasn't like they were open about that sort of thing, and I could hardly tell them how I knew all of it. The only thing I would end up doing was freaking them out.
So, rather than get into all that, especially right then and there, I simply asked, “How’s that tutoring thing going?” One of the earlier times I had spoken to them, they were at the school dealing with being set up with some extra tutoring in addition to their normal homeschooling. That was when… grrr San Francisco had made them think I might still have feelings for Tomas because I was trying to find a guy to date again, or something.
Which reminded me that I needed to take a minute and smack that guy sometime soon.
Maki offered a faint smile. “Oh, it is going well enough, Miss--ahh, Cassidy.” Their eyes met mine with a curious expression, like they were going to ask something but eventually changed their mind. Instead, they clearly switched to simply adding, “With the amount of times your school has been closed early or opened late this past week, the teachers there have been available for extra sessions. It is quite good for my studies, but I am afraid you and your classmates may be suffering the consequences of my good academic fortune.”
Right, that was a thing. Whenever any fighting in this stupid gang war took place too close to the schools, they had to shut down for a while. Still, I just shook my head. “Don't worry, we get plenty of studying done. There's a reason our test scores are so high. Those teachers don't let us slack off. But then, you probably know all about that. I can't believe you deal with full homeschool and tutoring all together. Your parents sure keep you busy, don’t they?”
My words were met with a chuckle. “You should know. I’m told you are often quite busy as well. Though your extra work seems less focused on academics and more on…”
For a second as they held that, my wild brain started going off about how they knew the truth about my secret identity and all that. Which was ridiculous, of course. But still, since when had something being ridiculous ever stopped my brain from insisting on it? Or, for that matter, prevented it from actually being true. Absurd things actually being the truth was basically my life twenty-four seven at this point.
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But no, Maki just finished with, “Playing the daredevil and tempting injury? From what I have been told, you spend quite a bit of your free time skateboarding and performing stunts that I am afraid would cause my own parents to… ahh, freak out.” As soon as they said that, their face paled visibly upon realization while giving a quick glance around as though just remembering where we were and why I would be in this place. “Oh. I--I am sorry. I should not have brought up parents, not when--”
“It’s okay,” I quickly interrupted, not wanting to get into that or let them feel bad. “I get it. And you're right, sometimes I do some pretty dangerous stuff. Really dangerous.” My eyes flicked away briefly as a few specific memories played out quickly in my head. They really had absolutely no idea just how dangerous the stuff I got involved in really was. And how wild would it be if I just told them about it completely randomly? After doing so much to hide everything and protect myself, the wild urge to simply tell this near-stranger the truth out of nowhere was surprisingly tempting. It was weird, like when you stand at the edge of a long drop and some voice in the back of your head tells you to go ahead and step off.
Well, that was probably less relevant here, since I actually listened to that voice pretty often. I jumped off buildings all the time, even before I got my powers. Granted, those were much lower drops and always had a pool or something to catch me. But still, the point was, I was told that most people didn’t listen to that voice. Just like I didn't listen to the one telling me to go ahead and randomly let Maki in on my secret. Besides, it was probably just my somewhat desperate wish to talk to them about the whole gender thing. That part of my subconscious thought that if I opened up to them, they could open up to me about their own stuff, and then I would have someone to actually talk to who would absolutely understand. Oh God did I want to talk to someone who could understan--
But wait, I did have someone to talk to. Eits. He knew all about me, even my identity. He knew my secret and had kept completely to himself so far. Hell, he’d even brought up the question of whether I was… questioning back when he first found out I was using a voice changer. He wasn't fluid himself or anything, but he had his own gender questions and had worked his way through them before settling on the fact that he was male. Why in the hell hadn’t I thought about talking to him before?
As I was realizing my options as far as that went, Tomas returned. His dad was still talking to that guy, but he had apparently excused himself. Seeing me there, the boy smiled. “Thanks for waiting, Cass. I was just gonna say, you should come over tomorrow night for dinner. Mum’s been hoping you’d come back and visit. She’s got some new recipe she really wants you to try, and she won’t make it until you come. So, you know, you’re sort of holding our taste buds hostage. We don’t get to eat her new food until you’re there.”
Oh boy, what the hell was I supposed to say to that? How could I possibly stand to sit and eat dinner with his dad right there? But I couldn’t explain why I didn’t want to be around them, and anything I did would just look suspicious. Or they’d think I was withdrawing because of my parents and probably push harder to ‘help’ me. Especially with my own parents in… in their condition, Tomas’s family would want to make sure I was okay. Even without the whole Ministry thing, they’d probably feel obligated to. So… fuck, what now? I couldn’t just say no without risking exposing too much, one way or another.
In the end, I had very little choice. No matter how uncomfortable it was, I just couldn't think of a decent excuse that wouldn't cause more problems down the line. So, after just a moment of frantic inward thought, I offered a shrug. “Yeah, sure, I'll text you later to figure out the details or whatever. I should probably head out for now. Lots of crazy stuff to do, you know.” I offered a wink at Maki. “Airplanes to jump out of, burning hoops to jump through, stuff like that.”
“Hey, hey, wait,” Tomas interjected. “Don't be giving my boyfriend any wild ideas, you.” He pointed at me. “You already gave me enough heart attacks for one lifetime. I don't need you two sharing habits. Actually, come to think of it, I probably shouldn’t let you talk at all.”
That made me arch an eyebrow at him pointedly. “Let us talk? You hear that Maki, he's going to decide whether he should let us talk.” The smile on my face might have been a bit dangerous and highly manic.
“Oh yes?” Maki turned that way as well, staring at him just as intently. “And what have you decided about what we are allowed to do?”
“Ah--that’s not what I--um. Uh. Coming, Dad!” Tomas retreated, almost tripping over his feet as he pivoted and retreated that way.
Snickering despite myself, I looked toward Maki. “You should come to that dinner too, it’d be cool.” And I would have one more person to help distract me from Kent.
They considered me for a brief moment before giving a short nod. “I will see if that is possible, thank you. But if this is because you think I don't want you to spend time alone with Tomas just because of your shared history--”
“No,” I interrupted, “it's not like that. I just think it’d be cool, that's all. Seriously, we should hang out some more. I want to hear your stories about all the places you've been. I mean, you travel all over the place with your family, right?
They nodded once. “Yes, and I would like to hear some of your stories as well. I feel as though you have some exciting ones.”
Yeah, they really had no idea. Or at least I hoped they didn’t, or I was a lot worse at keeping my secrets than I thought. But either way, I managed to excuse myself and headed out. I had to get away and clear my head. Besides, we had other stuff to deal with. Fortunately, that meant I had plenty to distract myself with.
There was no chance constantly switching between distracting myself from my real life with my Touched life and distracting myself from my Touched life with my real life would backfire at any point, right?
Yeah, it was probably fine.
********
After sending a message to Izzy to check on how that whole thing with clearing out those gang members had gone, I changed into my costume and headed back to the shop to see what was going on there. On the way, I got another message letting me know Wren and the others had all gone out to get a few things, so the place was empty for the moment.
But while the shop itself was empty, as I was heading up through the alley, I could see two figures seated against one of the walls. Well, seated was probably a bad term. It was more like they were slumped down there, either from exhaustion or injury. Either way, they weren’t trying to hide or anything. Though they were dressed in black and wearing dark masks. Still, they held their hands up to show that they were empty, and didn’t seem to be doing anything untoward.They were just sitting there, like they were waiting for me.
“Uh,” I started hesitantly, “can I help you? Who are you?” Fuck, if they were strangers who somehow knew about this place and… yeah this could get complicated. And we really didn’t need even more complicated things right now.
“Please.” One of the figures spoke up, sounding equal parts exhausted and terrified. It was like her adrenaline had completely run dry but she was still panicked. “W-we need your help. They said we should come find you if anything went wrong, they gave us the address. We’ve been waiting, because we didn’t know where else to go.”
Only then did I realize the masked figures were smaller than I’d thought. They didn’t look like they were any older than me. Actually, they were probably younger.
“Who?” I found myself demanding in confusion. “Who gave you this address?”
“Pack,” the other figure replied, sounding just as winded as their partner. “Pack said we should come get help. He… he took them. He took all of them. We tried to stop him, but he had help. We tried, I swear, we were trying but he-they all--”
“What? Who? Hang on, what do you mean, ‘he?’ What’s going on?” I needed them to start over, because I was lost. But I was starting to think Pack was in some real trouble.
Except it was so much worse than that. The two masked figures looked at one another before the female, the one who had spoken up first, answered, “It’s Whamline. He’s a bad guy. He’s one of the Scion candidates. We were trying to catch him, but he and the other candidates ambushed the rest of the Minority, and our group. Pack, Eits, Broadway, Grandstand, they all got taken with That-A-Way, Raindrop, Carousel, Wobble, and Syndicate. That was the real target, the whole ‘hundreds of civilians’ thing was a distraction.
“They’ve got five Stars and four Fells, and they’re going to kill all of them to earn their spots in the Scions.”