Paradise Blvd. Year One

Chapter Fifteen

Saturday

There were no screams. No warnings. Just like that, they were dead. They weren't. It had slipped Marceline's mind that Troye wouldn't burn, since he couldn't experience physical pain. They were staring at her. The fire was out, but she hadn't put it out. Marion was holding a fire extinguisher. "Marcy," he said softly. "I take back, everything."

She frowned at him. "What?"

"That look, Marceline," said Troye. "You're not okay."

"She knows that, Troye," said Forest. He turned to her. "I saw it too. You don't need to worry, we're fine."

"What?" She gasped. "What was that?"

"It's your mind playing tricks on you," Forest told her. "I think you're overwhelmed by the stress to the point that you thought the worst of what you can do with your abilities."

"How are you so calm?" Marceline asked him. "If you saw that too, how are you so calm?"

"Because I know it's not real. My powers give me focus, Marceline," he said.

"You!" She turned to Marion. "You suddenly take back everything. Why? Am I too special to not be at the receiving end of your wrath, Marion? Of your judgement? I'm just another case now, like Lucia. So, you wanna treat me softly, pretend that you weren't talking to me five minutes ago."

"Marceline." Troye stepped forward.

"No!" She waved her arm and a flame blew Troye into the wall. Troye stood up and sighed. Without another word, Marceline ran up the stairs and out the house.

Marion put his hands on his hips and looked, respectively, at Troye and Forest. "What the fuck just happened?"

•

W

hen Tulip and Lucia walked into the house, Forest was still trying to explain the situation to Marion. "It's stress, man. Marceline's under a lot of stress and, dare I say, you didn't help with that. That kind of stress caused hallucinations and when Marceline zoned out, I saw what was in her head. It's all biology and science, don't trip that she went apeshit."

Marion nodded and slouched into his beanbag.

"When did you do biology and science?" Troye asked Forest.

He sighed. "I read, man. I've also been watching a shitload of brain science videos since these powers came about. Trying to make sense of all of this."

"What happened?" Lucia finally asked.

"Gee, where do I start?" Troye jumped up. "Marceline decided she wanted to cool off by burning some stuff and while she was at it, she had some stress-induced hallucinations and almost burned down the basement. After that, she went all manic and struck me before ditching the scene."

Lucia and Tulip remained silent.

"So, that's a shocker but moving stuff with your mind and screaming stuff to oblivion is not?" Troye remarked.

"We should go after her," said Marion. "She's not okay."

Forest nodded. "I second that, but what then? We find her in a private place, she's a danger to us; we find her in a public place, she exposes us."

"Exposes us to what, exactly?" Marion asked. "This isn't some badly written movie or TV show, okay? This is life, Forest. There's no secret government organisation that's gonna abduct us to harvest our organs or some shit, there's Marceline and she might hurt herself or someone else and we can help her."