Amelia, Ch 395- Sophia
Officer Karacas walked in, wearing her usual scowl. I had no fucking clue how the six foot one pile of muscles got a job in a juvie for women. Either she had a dick or more steroids than the WWE. "Your visitor is here, Hess."
I smirked back at her. "About time." I stood up, crossing my arms. It was the best way for me to cope with these damn cuffs. With my arms crossed they were visible, but the chain holding them together didn't look restraining at all. It was more like a badge, showing the other inmates that I was more dangerous than they were. I am the predator. Yeah, some of them think they're hot shit. Some of them might even be right. But they aren't on my level and these cuffs are proof. As was the fact that whenever I was escorted anywhere, they always kept two guards on me. They fear me, and everyone knows it.
I didn't cause any trouble. I was more than halfway through the sentence and I'd make the other half. Then I'd be out of this fuckhole and free to do whatever I wanted. Well, not quite whatever. Hebert was fucking untouchable, now. Little bitch went and found herself a fucking Class S girlfriend to hide behind. I could take her. I did it once already, and that's before I even knew it was her I was fighting. I could do it again and love every fucking second, and all the bugs in the fucking world wouldn't be able to stop me. But what was the fucking point? She'd just get brought back from the dead again, then run and hide behind her girlfriend or fucking Dragon or the god damn Endslayers.
Let them think they've housebroken me. I know how to play it cool and avoid getting caught. Just ask that loser they stuck in my cell with me. She reminded me an awful lot of Madison. Learned quick and knew her place in the world.
I was still smiling at that thought when we stopped in front of the private room they provided for meetings with lawyers. Still had cameras, but they were crap. No lip reading the inmates with their lawyers or whatever bullshit Tinkers were doing this week. "Swanky."
Karacas didn't say a thing, simply swiping her keycard. The door buzzed and she popped it open. She looked away from me to stick her head in, while the other guy watched me like a rat staring down a cobra. "You have one hour."
I walked in when she stepped out of the way. And for the first time in well over a year, I got to talk to Emma and her father. Both in expensive looking suits. I'd seen Emma on the news once or twice, apologizing like the ass kissing coward that she was. There her skin color was always ice blue. This time was black. Well, brown, but a darker skin color than mine and I wasn't gonna be passing as a mulatto any time soon. She made it look weird, with the naturally straight hair ending in her original red hair color. And the freaky ass solid black eyes. Fuck those are creepy looking.
"Hey, Mister B, didn't expect you to be my lawyer. Innit that some kinda, wussname, that thing where lawyers might want to fuck with the client's chances or something."
"Conflict of interest," he answered. "Even this is edging the line, but there's enough leeway in the law to make it acceptable, now that my daughter's probation is officially over." Hiding behind his lawyer-talk. The man liked to pretend he was a predator, but he was just another herd animal. But useful for controlling all the other prey. Like a Judas goat or whatever. "It helps that you don't have any appeals. When you turn eighteen it's functionally a clean slate. No risk of me sabotaging due process."
But he wasn't here to help me, so I'd already stopped paying attention to him. "Hey, Ems, I see you landed on your feet after I left. Sorta expected you to come around sooner."
She smiled apologetically at me. "Part of the plea bargain. Having to name my co-conspirators and agree not to contact them until the end of my probation. Dad said it wouldn't actually hurt you any, since your case was already closed."
I shrugged. She was right, they had me 'till I was eighteen and not shit anyone could do to make it better or worse. "Nah, it's cool. Can't snitch about somethin' that everyone already knows. Love the new look by the way, did my replacement get her girlfriend to do that up for you?"
Emma kept her eyes on me. Still so fucking creepy. How the fuck can anything glow black? "Replacement?"
I looked at her. If Thinkers are supposed to be so fucking smart, why are they always so damn stupid? "Yeah, replacement. The cunt sucking bug girl. Gotta say, when we were doing our little, umm, lessons, turning her into a predator, I didn't expect us to be quite that good at it. She came out nice, didn't she? Fuckin' the system right in its face and making it thank her for the privilege. Like we used to do. Had that school, your dad, everyone eating out of our hands."
Mister B looked like he'd been slapped. Fucking lightweight. Emma glanced over at him for a moment, before looking back at me. "Have you heard from your family, lately? I mean, since after Brockton Bay was lost."
I shrugged. "Didn't make it out in time." Not that I noticed a difference. "Thought you'd know that."
"No contact clause. Extends to the family of co-conspirators. Anyone likely to transfer messages."
Nice excuse. "As if that'd stop you, survivor."
"And I've been busy," she added. "There's so much to do these days. Avalon's been busy. I'm in charge of R&D for an organization that boasts several of the greatest Thinkers and Tinkers. We're designing some of the premier tech-"
"Woah, when did you start with fancy talk like that?" I interrupted. Emma could talk forever already, but at least she used real people words before.
She paused for a moment and shrugged. "Sorry, the powers. You know how Thinkers get. But like I was saying, we're building hope for the future. Avalon is building that hope. We're building a real future. An entire world, a legion of worlds, that can actually have justice and peace. A world which doesn't have victims. Where you don't have to be a monster in order to survive. Instead of the fucked up life that we-"
She paused. Good, she still knows not to talk about that. I scoffed. "Sorry, Emma, don't work that way. People don't work that way. Always going to have prey, always going to have people to prey on them. It's just how nature works. Stop being such a child."
She took a breath, going to argue her silly fantasy some more. "This is getting off track. I guess I hoped that maybe I was wrong. I see now that I'm not."
"About?" Fuck, anything, just stop with the rambling already.
"About you. Who you are, what you're about. I thought you were a hero, once. That you saved me, but you really didn't. You would have let me get mutilated or worse if I didn't save myself. You're nothing but a mindless thug, Sophia. Worse, even, you're a loser. Prey in the very philosophy you claim to believe in."
I grabbed the table and stood. "You BITCH!" I don't care about the guards, now. Or the consequences. No one gets to disrespect me like that! I'd gotten very good at controlling my power in the last year. Subtle, yeah, that's the word. I shifted just my fingertips, and the table I was holding. It had to be sixty or seventy pounds of metal bolted into the floor. No normal person could have picked it up, let alone throw it at Emma and her dad.
Emma moved forward, changing from brown to blue. The cold coming off of her froze my fingers before I could shift back to normal. I clenched my hands the moment they turned solid, and my fingers shattered like ice. I bit down hard to keep from screaming. I will not let them see me scream.
Emma's dad stumbled backward, stopped by his own chair that was also bolted into the ground. And Emma stood there with the table caught inside her arm. At the wrist and about halfway between her elbow and shoulder, like she was holding a shield, but put her elbow through it. Most of it and her chest were covered in ice.
The door buzzed and the guards rushed in. Well, I was fucked no matter what I did now, but at least the bitch paid for her insults. The big guy, whose name I didn't know since the male guards weren't allowed in the cell blocks, slammed down on me from behind and pushed me face first into the ground and shouting at me to cooperate. Stupid fucker, I wasn't even fighting. I already won what I wanted to win.
Karacas held a stun stick right in front of my face, letting the electricity crackle. She didn't matter, either. I looked up at Emma. You took my fingers, but I got your arm, bitch.
She looked down at me, and I couldn't tell what her tired looking facial expression was supposed to mean before another two officers blocked my view. One of them helped Alan up off the ground. "Are you okay, sir? What happened here?"
"Yeah, uh, I'm fine. Emma, are you okay?"
"Yeah, Dad, alive and well. I countered her phase with my own powers, forced the table back into normal space. She'd have killed you if it phased back how she wanted it to."
Karacas spoke up next. "We didn't realize she could do that, it wasn't mentioned in any of the security procedures the PRT gave us." Way to cover your ass for the fucking lawsuit. "We're going to need to question you both in regards to this incident, and review the security footage. But first, are you going to require medical attention?"
"If Dad's okay, then no. Even if I did, you don't have the facilities to handle my unique anatomy. But I am going to need to exert my powers. So please point the gun away from me for a moment. I'm not entirely bullet proof. And I'm gonna need some new clothes."
"She's cooperating, you can lower the firearm," Karacas ordered.
Moments later, there was a popping sound, and cold mist poured across the floor. Chunks of the metal table splintered and fell to the ground, shattering like so much glass. "My regeneration will take care of the rest in a day or two. But you should get Sophia to a hospital immediately. Maybe there's still time to save her hands."
"Do it. Mister and Miss Barnes, if you'll come this way so we can discuss the incident in detail?"
Two guards lifted me up by my arms, and I forced myself to focus throught the pain. I'd been stabbed before, even shot once, and nothing had ever hurt like this hurt. I snarled at Emma. She looked at me with a face as cold as the ice flaking off of her skin. She didn't seem remotely embarrassed by her near complete nudity, nor did she seem hurt by the jagged chunks of shattered metal sticking out of her wrist and shoulder.
"Just one second, please." Emma walked over to me. "I was going to ask nicely, before. That after you got out, you'd refrain from contacting me. Out of respect for the friendship we once had. Now? Fuck that. I just watched you try to murder my father. So let me make this clear. I am stronger than you, faster than you, tougher than you. I have five ways to see you, three ways to kill you, and twelve other ways hunt you down even without the part where I'm in command of the most powerful Tinker organization ever to exist. Think about all of that before you come near me or anyone I care about ever again. Goodbye, Sophia."
She's not ignoring the pain. I realized. She doesn't feel it at all. She froze cold enough to make her clothes and my hands shatter, and she walks around like it's nothing. Metal is sticking out of her, and she doesn't even fucking bleed! I started screaming as the guards dragged me out the door. "You're a freak! A monster! More like a damn Endbringer than a person! You don't get to look down on me you fucking traitor bitch!"
The door to the room shut. I didn't stop screaming profanities as the dragged me away. No one gets to talk to me like that! Especially not her.
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A/N- How did no one guess this? For shame.
And Officer Karacas is a reference. I won't say from where.
