Iridescent ↳ Peter Maximoff

6 | rest in peace

"Mankind has always feared what it does not understand."
-Magneto

***

CHAPTER SIX
REST IN PEACE

THE MODERN WAYS which make up the American culture are about as foreign to Brianna as they are to Kurt Wagner. From the time she could walk to now, she never found a good reason to leave the mansion, her home. She felt as if she had everything there that she could ever want.

But when she gets a taste of an ice cold blue-raspberry slushee, she realizes just how wrong she was.

It tastes like heaven, she thinks, if heaven had a taste, that is. She has never tried something so delicious before in her life. As she cradles the cold beverage close to her, Scott sends her a glance, visibly raising an eyebrow.

"It's like you've never had a slushee before, Bree," he says, in a joking manner, unaware of how right he is. Brianna looks away, watching the floor as it moves with her feet and the heat rises to her cheeks. She doesn't want him to see the embarrassed look in her eyes.

"You've never had a slushee before?" He asks, disbelief flooding his voice. Brianna shrugs and continues walking, Scott falling into place beside her. A few feet in front of the two, Jean and Kurt walk at the same pace, seemingly in a heated discussion about the terrible movie they just saw.

"I don't leave the house much," Brianna argues quietly, still watching her feet. She sticks the white straw in her mouth, sipping at her drink again. Scott rests his hands in the pockets of his leather jacket, finding warmth for them there. Brianna watches the ground in front of her as she walks, careful not to trip over anything in her way.

"I know," Scott responds, "Alex told me." This gets Brianna's attention. She whips her head to the side and furrows her eyebrows at him. However, he does not notice, as he is still looking at the ground.

"What else did Alex tell you?" She dares herself to ask, tossing the empty slushee container into a trash can as they walk.

"Not much," he says. "Says that you spend most of your time in the library. And that you always skip class, and no one says anything about it, because you're the Professor's kid."

Brianna's jaw hardens. If Alex told him all of this, who knows what else he said? She thought that Alex was someone that she could trust with anything, and he would keep it a secret so long as she asked him to.

"We should probably go back," Brianna says, trying to change the subject. Also, she has never been out for this long. Already, she is getting homesick. She misses the cool walls of her room and the books that are just beginning to collect dust and the posters that cover half of her wall space.

"What?" Scott asks incredulously. "We haven't even been gone that long!" Brianna begs to differ, as she glances at her watch and shows it to Scott, proving that they've been away from the mansion for hours.

The boy puffs air out of his cheeks in an annoyed manner and reluctantly agrees, and after some convincing, the other two also decide that it is time for them to return to their home.

-

When the four of them pull up to the school thirty-five minutes later, they come upon a shocking and terrifying sight. The school seemed to have burned down. It is in pieces, gray, hot, broken pieces of Brianna's home, all morphed to rubble.