PROJECT: WIDEAWAKE

Subject: Shepherd, Thomas

Date of Birth: 06/21/98

Citizenship: American

Family: Mary Shepherd, Frank Shepherd.

Location: New Jersey State Institution for Troubled Youth

Enrollment Date: 07/05/11

Status: Active Mutant

Clearance Level: Alpha
Abilities: Superior speed, other promised abilities to be determined
Weaknesses: His humanity can be used against him; is partial to protecting the boy in the next cell, should investigate.

~*~*~*~

"What happened today?" Tommy croaks out, to the hallucinatory boy sitting across from him. Figures it'd take four months for him to break, for his guilt to crack over and his masochism to create yet another person he can't ... his imagination was supposed to let him survive this. He doesn't deserve to survive this. It takes the boy a few minutes to respond, to wake up, to shake off the drugs they use to transport them from cage to cage. Eventually, the boy shrugs and somehow, he can see how much it hurts, can feel the phantom twinge of pain in his own shoulder.

"I don't think they understand," he mumbles, feverishly. "I'm not supposed to be here. I can't do anything."

That's not the problem, Tommy thinks bitterly. "It's not that you can't, it's that you could," he explains, again to the mirage. "It's why we're all here."

"You can move fast. I can't."

Tommy looks away.

Teach me how to run like you, Tom, please?

"Moving fast is stupid anyway," he replies brusquely. "I'm going to bed."

"Lights out is still an hour away."

"Don't care," he spits out, turning away from the boy, from the stupid kid who reminds Tommy of himself, a year or so ago. Hopeful.

The boy reminds him of hope.

~*~*~*~

"Tom," the tiny girl says, tugging on his sleeve. "Tom, where are you going?"

"Don't worry, Lily buddy," he mouths, slowly and without sound, trying to disarm the girl with a smile. If he could just prove he wasn't ... "I'll be right back."

"Don't bring the bright car lights. They hurt my eyes." She pauses, reaches for her terrycloth bunny, supposedly the last thing she had from her family, from her dead family. Why would anyone try to guilt him like this, tonight of all nights? "Take Sophie. She'll take care of you."

He stares at the old, worn, loved toy. The guys would rib him if he took it. He glances up at Lilly, who looks close to tears. "But who will protect you?" he bullshits, because that's who he is, some dumb teenager who lies to his deaf foster sister, to his foster family, to his last chance at freedom, to being treated like a normal person.

It's the big house for sure if you get caught again, Tommy, he reminds himself, as Lily blinks away tears.

"But Sophie told me you need to stay. Here," she signs fervently.

"Go back to bed, Lil," he sighs, taking the raggedy toy. "I'll be back in time for pancakes, okay?"

"The fire workers are too bright. What if there's a fire?" she asks him, as if reading his mind.

"You'll be fine," he lies, lies, lies, because that's who he is: a liar.

~*~*~*~

Tommy jolts awake, the freezing water filling his lungs, filling, filling, forcing out the air, forcing out his ... power. He is building up to something, to short circuiting, to ... trauma. He can't breathe, needs to ... needs ... air. He can't ... he needs ... he can't ... his hands ... he can't ...

He can't ...

The facility blurs past him, blurs into nothingness, nothing but the pain, but the fear of death, but the inevitability of it

Faster, faster, go faster, he screams at himself, urging himself faster, quicker, quicker than light, than sound, than anything, quick enough to save ...

"LET HIM GO!" Tommy shouts, buzzing with anger, the collar around his neck ineffective, thankfully, mercifully, as he shoves the lab coats out of the way, jabbing at buttons, trying to get one of the subjects, one of his caged companions, out of the floor's water tank.

As the tank's lid slowly retracts and the kid's fingers grip the tiny ledge of it, his sodden head poking out, loud, racking, wet coughs of life, the guards arrive.

Then, and only then, the specially armed guards arrive and try to stop Tommy.

They try to stop him.

Him.

"I'LL KILL YOU IF YOU LAY ANOTHER FINGER ON HIM!" Tommy threatens, jabbing his finger in the vague area of the lab coats, mouth frothing, practically. He looks to the boy, who flinches as he spews water from his insides, as he tries to rejoin the living.

"Calm down, Thomas," Dr. Miller states, her voice calm and soothing. "You're upsetting our test subject. Let's not be hasty about what you're thinking of doing."

His green eyes flicker to the boy on the floor, a lab coat reaching for him, their arms covered in a towel. The boy is shivering, tiny and stupid vulnerable. "YOU THINK YOU'VE SEEN HASTY, I'LL JAM THAT STUPID PEN THROUGH YOUR FUCKING JUGULAR BEFORE YOU CAN CALL REINFORCEMENTS SAVE YOU!" One of them flinches. Gotcha, he thinks. "I'LL SPILL YOUR GUTS, I'LL DO IT! YOU BETTER HOPE I NEVER GET FREE. I'LL FIND YOU AND ..."

"Thomas," Dr. Miller barks, as the group of guards box him in, pull him away from the room, from the boy.

The boy, the hallucination, his blue fingers grip the smooth tile floor, wet and slippery with water. Tommy thrashes the guards, trying to get to the boy, to touch his arm, his hand, his hair, anything. He needs to ... he wants to know if he's real. If anything's real here, it has to be that boy.

That boy is real.

He is real.

Tommy didn't imagine him.

Imaginary boy is real, has real thoughts, has the idea of escaping, of being part of the world again, is willing to escape.

So that's what hope feels like.

~*~*~*~

"I promise," Tommy signs, watching as the girl nods, intent on keeping up. "I will be back for pancakes."

She smiles. "Promise?"

"Promise," he signs, tucking her in. He waits until she's asleep, tucks the bunny at her side and runs out, runs, runs, to the school, to his school.

He's going to pull the best prank in the world.

Tommy Shepherd is going to blow up a patch of his school with fireworks, on the 4th of July.

"Had to kiss your foster mama good night?" George taunts, a mean smirk on his curled lip. "Else, why'd you be late?"

"Don't blame him," another boy leers. "His foster mama's pretty."

"Yeah, only cos' your real mama ain't a looker," says another.

What did he get himself into?

He remembers setting up the fireworks, grinning manically, snickering as some start popping, scaring the others, the older boys. He's the youngest, most to prove, but he's not scared, not flinching. He's in his element: carefully planned chaos. He's planned every possibility down to the smallest thing. Nothing can go wrong.

"Tommy!" Lily shouts, as she runs towards him, past the stacks of fireworks, not hearing the shouts to run, that they would explode in seconds, that she would be ... that ...

That stupid bunny was in her hands.

~*~*~*~

"You should stay away from me."

The boy glances up, wrists cuffed with some sort of metallic crap that looks like Tommy's collar. "Why?"

"I killed someone," he says, bluntly.

The boy blinks. Tears fill his eyes.

Don't I understand you, Tommy thinks bitterly, thinks and thinks, and thinks.

That's all you can do, in a cage.

Think.

Ponder.

Get crushed by guilt.

Maybe it's only him.

      Maybe it's only him who deserves to be here, in this cage. Maybe it's only him who's ever killed his baby sister, his joyous foster sister, his hope, killed her slowly and painfully, let her bleed out on the grass of his stupid school. Maybe he's the only who was handcuffed as EMTs tried to save her, covered in an orange blanket before he's even in the back of the squad car. He killed her to gain the possibility of the small and short respect of older boys. He killed her.

He.

Killed.

Her.

Maybe it's his own personal hell.

Least he deserves.

"Dr. Miller wants a word with you, Thomas."

Tommy bares his teeth at the solitary camera, forgets anything about retribution, about the boy, about Lily, about the dumb, stupid, idiotic bunny, and just ... exists.

He deserves this.