Middle School Heroes

Chapter 33 - Aftershocks and Enlightenment

Rumlow moved away from the cot and Skye rolled out from under it. She sat up using her elbows awkwardly, before pulling herself to a standing position. Feeling a rush of blood to her head, she sat down on the cot and put her head between her knees.

"Roll Call," Scott yelled, and each person, in turn, shouted that they were alright. No one asked what happened or who did it. The only other comment was when Scott shouted loudly that he was very happy not to be in a cell alone anymore. Skye guessed that was his way of thanking whoever it was.

She was feeling so lightheaded and tired that she didn't even notice that Rumlow was sitting on his knees in front of her, blocking her from the camera and examining her hands, until he turned one over and she felt the pain. She let out a little yelp before jerking her hands away from him. There were angry red bruises already forming on her hands and wrists. She pushed up one of her sleeves before looking at the other and was relieved to see that the bruises didn't appear to go beyond her wrists. At least it wasn't as bad as last time.

He watched her checking out her arms before speaking as quietly as possible. "So this is why you were in the medical wing last Halloween?" He waited for her to answer, and when she didn't, he continued. "The bruises went further up your arm then, right? That's why you had to wear those cast things that covered up to your shoulders?" She remained quiet and kept her eyes down. "I wondered if using your power caused you to get hurt somehow, and that was why you were hiding it. Is that what happened?"

He didn't move from where he was, and she didn't speak for a long time. She was thinking about how she could spin a believable story, but nothing came to her. Besides, he knew. She understood that now. He knew before they ended up here together. He had known since that day in the woods. She realized that all of his insistence that she keep her mouth shut and the looks telling her to stay calm were all because he knew, and he didn't want them to know. He was trying to protect her.

She finally sighed and nodded her head. "Yes, but only when I lose control. I was trying to stop it and sort of turned it on myself," she replied, without looking at him. "I can use it without getting hurt, but when I lose control, this is what happens. The bruises are caused by broken blood vessels. I also had a bunch of tiny fractures from my hands to my shoulders then, too. Believe it or not, I've actually gotten a lot better at it. This is the first time I've lost control and hurt myself since that day, and it is nowhere near as bad."

"So you make earthquakes?"

"Well, sort of. Everything vibrates at a frequency, and I can focus on the frequency and affect it. When I concentrate, the ground doesn't even move unless I want it to. I just wasn't doing a very good job of concentrating in the Ops contest, or just now."

"You shouldn't have done it, Skye. Can you imagine what these people will do to you if they figure out that you can do that?"

"I....I.....I couldn't help it. I couldn't sit there and watch you get beaten up."

"What? You think I haven't been hit before?" He sat down on the floor next to her with a sigh. "I can take a punch, Skye." She looked down at him. His cheek was red, there was dried blood and swelling around his upper lip, and his left eye was swollen and turning dark. Even with all of that, he looked calm and unaffected. "How do you think I got on Xavier's radar? My dad was a drunk who liked to beat on both me and my mom. One night he was particularly violent with my mom, and I stepped in and stopped him with a kitchen knife."

Skye inhaled sharply. "You didn't...."

Rumlow shrugged. "Kill him? Naah. He lived. Momma was a different story. Slipped into a coma and never woke up. He went to prison, and I was passed around the Foster system until Professor Xavier showed up and invited me to the school. At that point, I was running with a local street gang and getting a reputation, even at my age. He said the school was for people who had something special about them, and he thought that I could learn to focus my skills for something good instead of bad. I figured I might as well give it a try. It beat ending up dead or in jail."