The Darkness Overwhelms (The Gifted)

Chapter 6 Part 3

Lauren's Pov

I was outside again wishing people would just ignore me. No one seemed to care that I just wanted to be left alone.

Every once in a while someone would come up and try to talk to me I would just try to ignore them. I felt like my head was going to explode. Jace Turner left the shock collar on until I passed out maybe even after. That couldn't have been good for me. Everything felt so wrong. I felt like I couldn't even breathe.

I was sitting in the back corner of the yard again with my hands on my head, my fingers tangled in my hair. I probably looked crazy, but I didn't care. I felt crazy.

Someone else sat down across from me. I glanced up briefly, I barely even registered who it was before I went back to staring at the table trying to get my thoughts in order.

"Not going to say anything Mutie? I thought you'd have something to say after our last encounter," Lottie said as she casually leaned back in her chair.

I took a deep breath and tried to make my hands stop shaking, "What do you want?"

"I heard you got a pretty good shock last night. I heard your screams from two cell blocks over." she said mockingly, "I wonder what you did to get shocked that bad."

She gave me a pouty face then laughed with her other cronies, Carrie being among them.

"Just go away," I said.

"What are you going to do, make us?" Carrie said before laughing.

Lottie then nudged one of the other girls and whispered something to her. The other girl looked at me and smiled. I just went back to holding my head trying to pretend this wasn't happening. My go-to move the past two weeks.

I barely had two seconds before I felt arms rip me out of my seat and throw me on the ground. I looked up through my hair which was now in my face at Lottie smiling over me. I tried to back up but hit a wall.

"This might hurt a little bit," Lottie said smiling before clenching her fist.

I tried to block her hand but I had never been physically strong. Her fist collided with my face, making my nose bleed for the second time in a few hours. She kept punching me and eventually graduated to kicking me. All I could do was curl up on the ground and try to protect my face. No matter how hard I tried my powers just wouldn't come.

This kept going until I blacked out unable to take the combined pain from my bullet wound in my leg, my head pounding from the shock collar, and the now-forming bruises all over my body. I just couldn't take this anymore.

John's Pov

I was in the meeting room with Lorna talking to her a bit before Eva was supposed to come with her list of things that needed to be fixed.

"So all of this stuff was going on and we were so distracted that we didn't even notice," Lorna said as she leaned back in her chair absentmindedly rolling a metal ball back and forth on the table.

"Yeah apparently. I've been really paying attention the last two days, and I notice more things every day." I said.

She pulled the ball into her hand and sighed, "We really messed up didn't we."

"Yeah," I said. "We did, but we're going to fix it. We just have to stop focusing so much on other things."

Lorna pressed her lips together, "We can't stop looking for Lauren."

"I know but that might have to go on the back burner for a while. Nothing we've tried has worked." I said.

"Andy will freak." Lorna said as she put her ball away before pulling out a couple of marbles and rolling them around with her powers, "He's been acting so different lately."