X-Men Evolution: Rogue Evolution

Snow Fall 11.4

The following school day that Monday started as any other, yet everything felt as if it had a greater weight to it. When getting ready that morning, Anna's backpack fell off her bed, and she jumped as if a gun had been shot. She was aware of every single word said by her fellow X-Men and exactly the way they said it. The cadence at which they would speak and when they would pause to take a breath. She noticed the bus stopped short of where it normally did that morning and that the bus driver was wearing gloves while driving while she normally didn't.

Looking out the window of the bus as the world raced past her, she felt her eyes begin to water and didn't understand why. Her breathing became more shallow and it felt as if someone was sitting on her chest. When she felt a hand rest on her shoulder she jolted and snapped her neck back.

"What?" She felt her throat croak through a wall of flem. She hadn't even noticed Kitty was sitting next to her.

"Are you okay?" The other girl was sitting like she normally was, her backpack resting on her lap and a tumbler of coffee in her hand.

"Yeah, I..." Anna's eyes lingered on Kitty's backpack. She noted portions that had been stuffed to bursting, and areas where the pockets hadn't been filled and the fabric was slack. She almost jumped again when she felt Kitty's hand in hers.

"I know," Kitty gave Anna's hand a reassuring squeeze. "But whatever happens, we face it together. All of us."

Words ran through Anna's mind, yet none of them slipped past her lips. Only a tight lipped smile and a nod acknowledged what the other girl said before she returned her attention out the window. However, this time the world beyond didn't seem to slip by quite so fast.

She wasn't sure what she expected once they got to school. If it was wanted signs with her face on it or burning torches, they weren't there. Still, there were whispers between her peers in the hallways. Phones held in front of clusters of friends and pointed at, and she swore she saw one of them crossing their arms over their chest like she had at the end of the fight. But conversations were always just out of earshot and gestures too vague to understand. What felt like every few seconds she felt the need to check her phone under her desk for any news updates. Silent videos with captions rolled through her feed of talking heads giving their opinions over the same few clips she saw over and over again. Everytime the one with her removing her helmet came up, she swore she could make out her cheek bones or the cut of her hair. Cold sweat gathered at the base of her neck and crown of her forehead.

"Miss Marie?" A man's voice called to her.

"Yes?" She said with a start before even seeing where the speaker was. Her heart competed for room next to her tonsils as she looked up and saw Mr. McCoy leaning against the whiteboard with his hands on his hips.

"I asked you a question, young lady. Are you paying attention?"

"Uh -" She could hear snickering off to her left where Taryn Smith, Bayville High's resident bitch, sat.

"Who was the woman who is credited with discovering and naming radiation?"

Anna felt her eyes go wide. She looked at her desk and saw she didn't even have her textbook out. "Um..."

"She was mentioned in your weekend assignment, if that helps."

The weekend assignment? Did she even do any of her assignments? Was there time? Surely she had some time. But what time was there outside of what happened? But the whole weekend wasn't the incident. What did she do for the rest of the weekend? What did she have time to do? Did she even have her backpack? Of course she did, where would it have gone? But what if she didn't? Then it wouldn't be her fault that she didn't do her assignment.