Taylor sleeps like the dead. When she wakes, no dreams linger. At least none she can remember. She is a bit sweaty and her covers are somewhat bunched up. As she steps out and goes for a morning shower, she picks up on Danny downstairs. From the sound of it, he’s cleaning up before the PRT arrive. A night’s sleep has taken the heat out of the argument, but its sting remains.
Taylor takes her shower. As she’s combing her hair, and getting ready for the day, she routinely takes her fever pills. It’s as she puts them back that her hand brushes against the PEP pills and it occurs to her that she hasn’t taken them for a few days. It’s the kind of thing that could easily trip her up. She takes a minute to consider her options, but simple and practical wins out. The pills go down the drain.
Trying to hide them in the house, or throw them in the trash is worse for her, if they find them. It’s not worth the risk. She does need to figure out how many she was supposed to have taken, but a second reading of the instructions in the box helps with that.
Afterwards, she extra careful in wrapping up her stomach. It helps there are long pale lines along her ribs where the cuts healed. Soft scars, made from too fresh skin and flesh. It helps to remind her what she needs to cover.
Then she’s back in her room, and she needs to decide what she’s doing. Her pools are full, but she isn’t sure if she should risk using them with the PRT in her home. Taylor takes the time to stash her notes and drawings among her the school stuff and moms boxes. There’s plenty of notebooks and school and university books, and they won’t have the time to go through them, not really.
She decides to pretend to cooperate with the PRT, but focus her efforts on the nurse who should be a safer and less suspicious possibility for her questions. To that end, she dresses in sweatpants and a T-shirt. For a moment, she panics over her weapons, as there is no way she’s allowing the PRT into her home while she’s unarmed. A few minutes of panic, a quick trip to the basement, and a bit of adjustments to her pocket make it easy to hide her shiv and keep it on hand. It’s thin and small, and looking at herself in the bathroom mirror, she can hardly tell there’s anything there.
Taylor knows she should go down and arrange things with her Dad, work something out, but she doesn’t. Instead she spends the time waiting going over what she will or won’t say, and what she feels comfortable trying, showing and sharing. Apart from her notes, there’s nothing really telling in the house, not even her designs, and she hid those as well, just in case.
***
The agreed time for the visit is around 8AM. Dad calls Winslow to tell them she has a doctor’s appointment and to excuse her from first and second period. 8AM rolls around and past, and no one shows up. Taylor and Danny linger together in the living room in a fragile silence neither is willing to break before guests arrive.
They’re over half an hour late, and when they do show up, all three of them are surly. The car is an official PRT vehicle, and even before they get to the door, Taylor knows this will not be an easy visit. For one, they hear them from home as the two agents struggle to handle a dog from the back seat.
The nurse with them is no help, and if anything seems amused by their troubles, as she lights up a cigarettes while they struggle. Taylor would have preferred them not to draw so much attention to themselves and their visit, but there isn’t much she can do about it now.
*
The introduction starts with “Danny Hebert? Agents Galvan and Kirby, we’re here-“ and that’s as far as he gets before the dog pulls him in through the open door. It does not beeline for the basement or her room, instead going straight for the remains of their breakfast and the few pieces of bacon still left on the table.
The ice firmly shattered as the two agents try to manage the dog, her Dad waves her off, deciding that he’d deal with them. She lingers in the doorframe, uncomfortable with just leaving it to him. The nurse behind them has taken out her phone and is clearly texting a friend on it, with how quickly and often she types.
From what she can see, whoever the agents are, they aren’t used to the drug sniffer dog. They seem intent on making up for it by tossing the place, but it doesn’t take much prodding from him for her Dad to have them complaining about work, what a waste of time this is, and how someone from up high has decided to be pedantic about little details when they’re fighting a war out there.
There’s the slightest hint of a vibration from her inner web of light, of possibility, but she discards it. The agents aren’t who she means to test today.
Taylor can tell that their dismissal of her whole issue does not sit well with her Dad, but he swallows it in favor of ensuring they don’t do any real damage to the house.
Reassured that the agents and their dog aren’t a threat, she goes to the bathroom with the nurse. Taylor has to nudge her to be noticed, which isn’t a good sign.
“Well, let’s get this over with then.” The nurse tells her as they go upstairs. She has a strong perfume on, one smelling of something sickly sweet. Like rotting fruit. She isn’t the one Taylor spoke to, and she feels that asking about it is a decent place to start probing:
“I spoke to another nurse on the phone, are there many of you?” Taylor asks.
“Nah. Well, it depends what you mean by many. There’s a few of us still walking around.” She answers. The nurse left her large coat at the door, and is wearing a grey sweater beneath. She’s shorter than Taylor, a looks a bit lumpy, her gait a bit off.
“Is everything alight?” Taylor asks, hesitating at the door. The nurse(who still hasn’t introduced herself) notices her looking at her feet and says in an amused drawl: “Old injury kid. Broke my ankle in a car crash, and it never healed right. I’m used to it. Come on.”
There’s a confident tilt up of her lips when she says it, like it’s something long resolved. Not in the sense that it doesn’t bother her anymore, but that she’s made peace with it and is happy about how it all turned out. It’s nice to see that even if she got hurt, she recovered and learned to live with it.
There is the slightest shimmer of possibility in her web as it flickers. Seeing as how Taylor’s plan is to test the nurse and the agents are busy, she pushes it.
There’s no shift in events. The talk doesn’t happen differently. But as the nurse turns away and starts unpacking her tools, what changes is what Taylor saw. The slight edge of amusement and mockery. She isn’t happy about her dealing with the injury, she’s happy because she thinks she got one over on her. The words themselves don’t ring false, but it’s like there’s something missing from them.
“Come on kid, let’s see the damage.” The nurse cajoles, once unpacked. In that moment when their eyes meet, Taylor notices the slightest hint of glass in her eyes. Just a tiny bit of glaze to them. A sense of distant horror and disgust wells up on her gut as Taylor realizes that:
“Oh yes she is used to it. She’s used to dealing with it by taking painkillers. And if it is an old injury, how long has she been taking them?”
It’s entirely possible that the nurse is taking regularly prescribed painkillers given to her by her doctor. But this is a town with the Merchants in it, and she is a girl with fresh powers. Even as she reaches down to take off her shirt, the connection occurs to her and suddenly Taylor is glad she has her shiv on her.
She freezes for a moment, with the shirt halfway over her head and then pretends it was only a yawn. When the shirt comes off, leaving her only in her top only in a bra and bandages, the discomfort isn’t easy to bare, and she shies away from those probing eyes.
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The nurse snorts. “Teenagers. What is it this time? Still not thin enough? Your boobs not filling in? Catfights at school?” Taylor flinches at how casual the nurse starts poking her issues.
“You’ll learn.” It’s a light promise, but there’s something a bit sinister about it that has Taylor backing away.
The nurse scoffs: “Oh for Christ’s sake, girl, get over yourself and get over here! Your body is fine, nice and smooth, I bet plenty of boys would love it.”
It’s embarrassing as hell, but Taylor tries to see it as the better option that her issues are what the nurse is focusing on, rather than her sudden need not to reveal too much to her. The nurse draws blood first, having no trouble with that part. But it’s hard not to squirm and shift when the nurse starts going over her healed scratches and minor injuries. Inspecting the fresh skin and probing it with her fingers.
“Well, that’s going well. Those will all fade in time, it’s normal for small cuts to leave fresh skin like that.” The nurse goes over them, including taking out a camera to record them. Taylor isn’t very comfortable with it, but plays along, as it’s not like the picture are of her. They’re so close and zoomed in that they don’t really show anything but a part of her arm, or a healed scratch on her leg.
Then it comes to the bandages and the nurse reaches for them, to take them off. Taylor jumps from the sudden touch on her ribs, hyper-aware of her secret.
“Still tender, it’s supposed to be. Take em off so I can take these damn pictures.”
Mutely, Taylor shakes her head. She isn’t about to show off like that. Not to her.
*
Taylor isn’t aware of it, but the way she’s bent over and covering her bandages also hides the nearly non-existent swell of her chest. On her preferred dose of painkillers, and not too invested in the job, the nurse tries to get her to cooperate.
*
“Come on girl, I’m supposed to document everything.”
Taylor mutely shakes her head in denial, trying to hide and the nurse decides it isn’t worth it. There’s a flash of light, a picture of her taken in only her bra and with the bandages that makes Taylor mortified, but the nurse only says: “Eh. Good enough.” She starts packing up.
Taylor all but runs from the bathroom, all plans to test her and the PRT lost. If anything, sending a nurse that’s under the influence only further underlines the lessons she’s learned: Taylor has to count on herself. Because there will be plenty of time when no one else will be there to help her.
She comes down quickly, passing by the agents who are going through her room, her Dad at the door.
“All done?” He asks, and she nods quickly. He frowns at her expression, sensing her discomfort and even with this thing between them, she isn’t about to allow him and his anger to dictate her life. He needs to know if he’s to be of any use to her here.
Taylor slips up against him, laying a kiss on his cheek and whispers in his ear. “The nurse is on something. For the pain, I think.”
Danny’s eyes go to the slight limp of the nurse as she goes by and his frown grows. The dog is in her room, barking and several books and clothes have been tossed about, with drawers and closets open.
“The nurse is finished.” He says, and then repeats himself louder when the agents ignore him.
They twitch, turning to him.
“So unless you’ve found anything… I need to get to work and my daughter has classes.”
The two look at each other, than at the dog that’s slipped into her bed and is nosing all around it. They bustle out of the room after another minute, while her Dad stands at the door and starts tapping his foot, his arms crossed and utterly un-impressed with what they’ve done.
Everyone gathers in the living room. The nurse informs the agents: “Girl’s shy, but I did the exam. No signs of any of the effects or side-effects. She is a fast healer, but the ribs are still a problem. Don’t stress them. I don’t want to replace stiches.”
“What is she talking about?” Her Dad asks.
Agent Galvan replies: “We just need to make sure Taylor here wasn’t affected by any of the drugs in the syringe. Kirby, what’s the protocol for this batch?” He asks, taking out some strange contraption from the bag they brought with them.
Kirby takes out a folded piece of paper and reads through it. “If the ribs are out, do the other side. Has to be sitting, for the stiches.” Taylor isn’t sure what’s going on, but agent Galvan plants a metal disk on the floor, and then attaches to it something that looks like gym equipment.
“Excuse me, sir.” He says to Danny, coming over and dragging a chair to the corner with the disk.
Finally he looks at her.
There’s a stutter in his motion, as her approaches her, stopping well out of hand’s reach. “Sir?” He asks, his eyes flickering to her Dad, but staying on her, suddenly wary. The other agent tenses as well.
Her Dad looks at between them, as Taylor hovers in place, unsure what’s going on.
He taps his hand on his shoulder with his fingers, shaking in place. “She’s been through a lot. I’m at work, and it’s happening in school. Winslow.” His voice is angry, and the school’s name a curse.
The agents take a moment to re-access, and Taylor notices how Galvan glances at her pocket as they do. A cold, cold tingle goes down her spine, and her feet move on their own. One slightly forward, the other back. Hand hovering near her pocket.
“We’re not here to hurt you miss.” Kirby says, carefully still.
Holding back bitter tears and feeling trapped, Taylor tells him: “School was supposed to be safe too. Look how that turned out.”
*
Their eyes go from father to daughter, to each other. It’s a rough school and a poor neighbourhood. Kid’s still wrapped up from the last time someone tried something. Dad knows, and while this might be worthy of mentioning in the report, that’s a matter for CPS. And they have their hands full with worse cases than a Dad that lets his daughter carry a shiv around the house when strangers are coming to visit.
Because that’s all they’ve seen. Now if she takes it to school, that’s a problem. But they can’t exactly accuse her of it, with the father hovering, nor is it why they are there. It’s sad but true, Winslow isn’t a great school. Not a year goes by that someone doesn’t get stabbed somewhere on the grounds, or just off them.
It’s a problem, and they’ll report it, but it’s not something to deal with here and now except to:
“We’ll take it slow then. Nice and easy, alight?”
Because while the agents are more than willing to break some heads, traumatizing an assault victim involved in a possible murder attempt never looks good on the report.
*
Galvan eases over to her and takes her other hand, slowly leading her to the chair. The nurse watches on. Taylor is seated and given a stretchy band to hold out with one arm, from the opposite side from her wound. They tell her to simply try to hold it up. When Taylor turns her arm around to hold on to it easier, the nurse is quick to correct them. She’s supposed to be holding it with just her hand, palm towards the disk on the floor.
It isn’t hard, there’s barely any pull to it. “Alright, ready?” Taylor nods, figuring this is some kind of strength test. As far as she can tell, she in good shape and strong for her age and weight, but not actually super strong.
Slowly, the weight builds, until she can’t hold her arm out anymore and it starts to drop. Then there’s a sudden yank as the ring is ripped out of her fingers.
Taylor flinches, the tips of her left hand’s fingers in pain, as she tries to shake them out.
Danny’s posture goes from impatient to aggravated. “Was that really necessary? Are we done here?”
Galvan looks at the plate and says: “High, but well within margins. It looks like everything’s alright on our end. We’ll be out of your hair in a moment.”
As they’re packing up, they give her a long list of possible side-effects and signs to look out for, like a suddenly suspicious mole growth, but they clear out. Taylor asks about the investigation, but they stonewall her, saying they “Can’t comment about an ongoing investigation.”
All in all, it’s not great, but not terrible. Her room is a mess, she’s missed morning classes, but it’s done. Taylor feels like she dodged a bullet with the nurse. Testing and pushing her without noticing that the nurse had problems could have easily backfired.
With that, the visit is over and her Dad offers to drop her off at school.
For a moment she feels unwell, as the web of light in her makes war on the poison in her blood again. And loses. A second pool of light bursts into action as fear slams into her.
It pours trough the web and everywhere it touches, the poison dies. Guided by the star in her, the light burns the disease right out of her, and for a moment, she can almost hear thousands of voices raised together in some battle cheer.
The slight discomfort and fever that has lingered for days begins to retreat, and Taylor feels confident that within an hour, she’ll be fine.
“That’s another problem off the list.”
Her father gives her a worried frown at her sudden spacing out and the short spike of fear so she tells him “Thought of school, what might happen. Then I remembered I’m not that girl anymore.” Her hands slips into her pocket on its own as she gives him a bittersweet smile.
His eyes are conflicted, but he sighs and lets it go, only saying over his shoulder as he goes to pick up his things: “Self-defense only Taylor. I don’t need to lose all my hair. And I’m getting you something more appropriate.”
Feeling just a bit better from the sudden turn, she decides to make a little joke: “You don’t have to. My new job tonight should help me afford my own stuff.” She says, voice innocent.
He freezes in place, before shaking his head. “I need to go to work and you have school. We’ll talk about this later.” He is disgruntled, worried, and still a bit angry with the agents. But he doesn’t seem totally opposed to the idea she could get a job.
Taylor takes that as a win and goes to pick up her schoolbag.