Orphic | Spider-Man

NINETEEN

THIS SUCKS. OCTAVIA thought as she stood on the roof of the warehouse, looking down through an open sunroof window. Spider-Man had snuck down into the window, after he had told Octavia the plan where she stood and watched. Well, just "in case" things got out of hand, she was going to drop down, shield Spider-Man and herself with Meg and Joe while Beth and Amy scattered the two of them out of there. 
      I'm the one who got shot in the back. I should be much more help than this. Octavia crossed her arms. "This is bullshit." she kicked at a small pebble on the roof. She sighed, looking back down into the window into the wide warehouse, which smelled musty from where she was. She leaned back from the window, silently groaning as she bent backwards, all four tentacles touching the ground as Octavia's chest was pointed to the sky. 
      "Ugh. . ." she groaned, dragging out the sound. The tentacles pushed her upright as Meg and Joe curled around her shoulders, claws closed and pointed at her. "We're meant for more than this, girls. And Joe." Octavia looked to her left tentacle, petting his cool metal body with all its metallic ridges and parts. 

      Octavia blew a raspberry in response to her boredom, and then tilted her head back to look up at the night sky, and there, a memory flashed in front of her eyes. 
      Vincent van Gogh's Starry Night blew into her eyes, and for a second that's all she saw while hearing a voice, The stars. . .no stars. . .the stars are gone. . . 
      Her frontal lobe started to pound against her skull. Octavia's jaw dropped from the excruciating pain, and the tentacles reacted. Meg and Joe flailed as Beth and Amy stuttered Octavia to a fall. She landed on the ground next to the window, holding the front of her head, pressing her palms into the skin. Closing her eyes didn't help. 
      There was a face. It was blurry. Blue and Red. 
      Another voice, Octavia! She didn't remember the voice being this clear, but it still wasn't perfect. Octavia! Talk to me! 
      No, Octavia thought, pushing her hands into her forehead. No, that's not right. There was a face, peach skin. Something else was red and blue. 
      Bleeding. . .came the first voice, and this she knew who it belonged to, as a memory of her holding up her bloody left hand drenched in the puddle of blood from her back flashed over the voice. . . .I'm bleeding. . . 
      The tentacles whirred and clicked. 
      "I'm fine," Octavia breathed as her head still pounded. "Get me up, please." 
      The tentacles did as they were told and pulled her up, but left her feet dangling a few inches from the ground. Octavia wiped her face full of tears as she looked to the night sky once more. Nothing happened. 
      Her face felt hot, and in thinking this, Meg and Joe both pressed their cool closed claws up to her skin, pressing gently against her cheeks. They whirred, and Octavia giggled. 
      "Thanks, guys," she sniffed, wiping her eyes as the claws moved away from her face. "Oh, I hope that's not going to happen a lot." 

      Up a few inches from the ground, Octavia heard the engine of a car coming, and she almost dropped to the floor if she hadn't seen the name of a company across the van's side. She nearly had a heart attack seeing it pull into the drive of the garage, behind the black vans. Octavia blinked and secretly inched closer to the edge of the roof to check out the van and the name on the side of it. 
      She rubbed her eyes, thinking her mind was playing tricks on her, but she knew exactly what the company name on the side of the van was: Vibrant. It's logo was iridescent with blue and leaning font that looked modern and cool, but it's goofy glitter and forced coolness was making Octavia panic. 
     Then she saw who exited the van. Two big guys in the front, bodyguards, and when one of them opened the sliding back door, Octavia could hear the sound of a disgust wealthy rich man from the top of the roof. In a shiny black suit, walked out no other man than Charles Cockholder Sr. 
      "Oh my God," she whispered to Meg and Joe who were secretly laying low with Octavia. "What does this mean? H-How long have they been working together?" 
      She grew quiet listening to the disgusted remarks of Charles Sr. as he brushed his nice navy suit and berated the body guards. 
      "Could've cleaned the back a little more," he snapped. "Also, when there's a speed bump, you're supposed to slow down." He approached the garage going, "How'd you get your license? Ugh! Look at this place! If I get one speck of dirt from this place on my suit--" 
      The bodyguards didn't look like they liked Charles Sr. as much as Octavia and Otto hadn't.