Chapter 4
“What the hell-” Hope’s eyes were wide, narrowed slightly, her mouth dropped open as she looked at the scene around them, then at Kara. Her head was raised slightly, and confusion was written all over her face, she looked almost concerned.
Kara opened her mouth to respond but no sound passed her lips. She just stood there, her heart pounding in fear.
It’s not like Hope would notice right? Just because Kara wasn’t wearing her glasses didn’t mean there was something more to this situation, right? At least in a human’s eyes. She was over thinking it, everything would be fine.
“The sink was uh-” Not a single excuse came to her head and she began to look around for anything that could spark an idea in her head.
“Can you even see?” so much for an excuse about the sink. Kara watched as Hopes eyes trailed down to the ground and then noticed she was looking at the pair of glasses sitting next to Kara’s foot. “You do know that the glasses are supposed to go on your face, right? They aren't supposed to be broken either so maybe you should learn to control yourself Danvers.”
Kara closed her eyes and noticeably shook her head, “you know, I never understood that about you.”
“Understood what?” Hope’s confidence and cocky expression was quickly swallowed up with a slight anger and to fuel that anger was exactly what Kara needed right now.
“You bully me, act like I did something terrible to you but every time you never give a reason. It’s a pity joke that makes only you laugh. I don’t even understand what gives you the right when you don’t even know me. When are you going to realize you’re not the hot shot that you think you are?”
“Excuse me? Who the hell do you think you are?” Hope took a threatening step forward.
“Someone with just as many rights as you! You think that you’re so popular, that you own the damn place but news flash, you don’t. Not to mention that all your friends are fake, the only reason they hang out with you is because they feel bad for you! They’re trying to fix that dark, heartless mess you call a soul! I bet your parents are proud,” She paused and nodded her head, “yep, so proud that they ended up with you as their daughter, their Legacy.”
“Don’t you dare talk about my parents. You’re only angry because your parents gave you away. Because they didn’t want a freak like-” whatever Hope was planning to say next was quickly lost when Kara threw a hard punch right into the other girl’s stomach without a second thought, throwing her across the room and into the wall.
The girl came crashing to the ground, the wall behind her cracked and broken. Parts of the wall had fallen around Hope and Kara could see blood staining her clothes on her back and around her neck. Hope got up, leaning on her hands and knees with one hand clinched to her stomach. Kara couldn’t believe the girl was even conscious right now judging by the amount of blood she was losing, now dripping slowly around her onto the bathroom floor.
When Hope looked up, Kara couldn’t tell if she wanted to murder her for the punch or if she wanted to crumple up and parish. She looked so angry, so hurt, so scared and confused at the same time.
“I-I’m so sorry, let me-” Kara quickly made her way to the bleeding girl on the ground, her own heart pounding desperately in her chest.
“No, just stay over there. I’m fine” She tried to reach behind her, trying to get one of the pieces of the wall out of her back. She was trembling now, and she couldn’t get a grip, her hands slipping right off the bloody shards.
“Hope, let me help-”
“I said I’m fine!” She threw her hand up defensively, wincing in pain with the quick movement.
Kara barely had time to think before being thrown across the room. She hit the wall on the other side of the bathroom, then hit the floor in seconds. She shakily got up on to her hands and knees and looked up at Hope who was just staring at Kara, her face pale, and eyes wide.
“How did you-?” Kara could hear the other girl’s heart beating profusely and saw her breathing increase rapidly.
“I-I got to go-” Kara watched as the girl, still bleeding with shards in her back, quickly got to her feet and raced around the wall in front of the bathroom door followed with the sound of the door swiftly opening and shutting after her.
Kara thought about going after her but instead she just let her body drop to the floor, as she caught her breath. What had just happened? It felt like someone had physically hit her and hit her hard, but Hope was the only other person in that bathroom and Kara was sure of it. So how did Hope hit her with so much force with such a big distance in between them? She couldn’t wrap her head around it. She was so lost in thought that she barely heard the door open again.
“Kara?” Relief washed over her when she saw Alex rush around the corner of the bathroom wall. “Kara? I wanted to-” she froze. “I just saw Hope rush out, I wanted to make sure you were okay but ... I guess I should be asking her”
“Hold on, I know it looks bad, but I can explain” Kara stood up shakily, walked over to the mess of porcelain, and grabbed her broken glasses off the floor, all while Alex stood there expectantly.
“I’m not in pain just shocked, I promise I’m okay,” She walked over to the sink closest to the wall, still intact and began cleaning her glasses.
“What about Hope?” Alex was staring at the blood on the ground where Hope had landed, she looked horrified.
“I-” Kara exhaled loudly, her breath shaky, “I don’t know.”
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Hope made her way through the school doors with her backpack flung messily over her shoulder, her breathing shallow and quick. She felt like her heart was about to pop right out of her chest and fall out onto the concrete. She was sure that even if that did happen, she wouldn’t even notice. Her adrenaline was pumping so fast and she couldn’t think straight.
Where was she even running too? The Mikaelson mansion was far from the school and she had left her cell phone at home today so calling someone wasn’t an option. The question was just floating around in her head. What had just even happened? No answers where coming to her mind. It wasn’t until she was at least a mile away when she stopped to breath.
Almost immediately she was able to feel sudden pain shooting through her back. The shards were still there, and her backpack was pushing them deeper down. Was she even bleeding anymore? She couldn’t tell, her vision seemed to be off.
She had to calm down, what was wrong with her? She closed her eyes and let herself breath, trying and failing to ignore the pain coursing through her body. She decided that getting home was her best option and then she would figure out what to do next.
She began running again, sprinting quickly. She hoped no one would notice the back of her shirt covered in blood. She wanted to avoid the police as much as she could.
After running for what felt like hours, she was able to spot her families mansion in the distance and began pushing herself to run faster. She could barely breath, whatever air she managed to get into her lungs was quickly gone and she felt like she was trying to grab something that wasn’t there. When she got to the door she was practically panting. Her legs hurt so bad that she could barely feel the pain in her back anymore. She flung her backpack onto the concrete in front of the old wooden door.
She struggled to catch her breath or to hold her weight, she was visibly shaking from pain and distress and part of her wanted to collapse right here and wait until Freya had come home from work, but she opened her backpack and fumbled for the keys in the small pocket in the front of it. Getting the key into the lock proved to be a struggle with her trembling hand but soon she was able to push the door open slowly.
Inside was a large open space surrounded by walls made of concrete and staircases with black fancy rails used to get to the mansion's rooms. The room was filled with plants in the corners and on the rails. There was a fountain in the center with plants around it and on one side farthest from the front door was an old red couch with a table in front of it and two chairs on either end. On the side of the fountain closest to the door was a small fire pit surrounded by four red chairs in the shape of a square.
She left the door open with her key in the lock and her backpack sitting outside. She was too weak to pull the key out of the lock and had already forgotten about her backpack. Her fingers slipped elegantly off the handle and she made her way to the stairs on one side of the courtyard.
Gripping the black banister tightly she began to pull herself up the stairs. Sometimes she wished she wasn’t so strong. She wanted nothing more right now but for someone she cared about to find her struggling and to help her out, but she had to be so stubborn and do everything herself and sometimes she really regretted it. She somehow managed to get to the top of the stairs and stumbled to her bedroom.
From the inside you could see that it was a small rectangular room. To the left was an easel with a half-finished painting of her family at Freya’s wedding on the canvas. In front was a wooden stool and to the left of the stool was a tray of paint and different art supplies. In the center of the room was her bed pushed up against the back wall. The light blue-gray bedspread pulled up nicely and her light blue and hot pink pillows where arranged neatly at the head. To the left of the bed was a little nightstand with a light blue water bottle and other random little items scattered on it.
Next to the nightstand was a dresser with hair ties and perfumes arranged neatly together and a small mirror hanging over it. Above her bed was a large painting of the French Quarter in New Orleans that her father had made not long before she was born. On the right side of the bed was a full body mirror with a little blueish grayish nightstand next to it. The walls where a brown and red rusty color and in some places the bricks underneath showed. And on the right wall where double white doors that lead out onto a balcony.
She walked quickly to the dresser and began rummaging through the stuff on top, before moving to her nightstand and rummaging through the drawers but she couldn’t find anything useful. She would have to try pulling the shards out by hand again but even then, if she was able to get the shards out, she would need something to stop herself from bleeding out.
But the more she thought about it the more she realized she had not even the slightest clue where any bandages would be. She was trying hard to remember any time she had needed bandages and where her family would have kept them, but nothing came to mind. There had to have been a time before when she needed bandages in her seventeen years of existing right? She exhaled deeply; the pain was probably just getting to her head. For now, she would just find a towel to wrap around her torso.
She leaned forward onto her bed, if she wasn’t bleeding onto her bedroom floor right now then she would probably have already collapsed onto it. She took a few deep breaths, wincing in pain each time she breathed in. She went back to her dresser and pulled open one of the bottom drawers which revealed a neatly folded light blue towel. She pulled it out quickly, causing the towel to become unfolded in a messy quick motion. She slammed the drawer shut and straightened her back, the entire experience extremely painful.
She put the towel onto her bed and began carefully taking the white T-shirt she was wearing off. It was ruined now, torn and stained with her blood. She tried her best to pull the shirt from the shards instead of tearing it and soon she had the tattered mess in her now blood-stained hand. She tossed the shirt onto the ground considering there was already blood on it and walked around to the bigger mirror on the other side of her bed. Looking into the mirror at her red stained skin and stained white bra she let out a deep breath.
“Okay, you got this,” She reached her hand around herself, a small gasp of pain escaping her lips as she did so. She grabbed the piece that would be easiest to reach and wrapped her hand around it. She felt the sides dig into her palm but only gripped tighter. Then she yanked it out of her back, squinting in pain. The pain increased for a moment and she looked at the wound in the mirror. The blood swelled around it and began rolling down her back before the pain faded completely. The wound closed quickly, and Hope was left staring into the mirror dumbfounded.
“What the-” She couldn’t help saying it out loud. Had she just healed herself? No, she’s hallucinating, there is no way that was real. Or was it? The more she thought about it the more she realized she couldn't think of a time she even had a wound, but she could think of plenty of times when something had happened that could have given her one.
She shook her head; something was different about her and none of it made any sense. She took another deep breath, her breathing steady now. She stared at her reflection for another moment or so before putting the shard she was holding onto her nightstand and then continued to pull the remaining shards out one by one without another word. There wasn't a lot of them in the first place, just big sharp ones. And before long she was gripping the last one and yanking it free. She tossed it towards the others and took a moment to breath, closing her eyes and letting the silence fill her ears as the pain completely faded from her body.
Feeling a wash of relief flood over her, she sat down on the floor and took in a deep breath. Running her fingers through her tangled hair. Finally, she could take a moment to breath. Just as she began to revisit the days earlier events, she heard her aunt calling frantically from the courtyard outside followed a slam from the front door.
With a sigh she got up, she didn’t bother changing her bra and quickly threw on a thin black shirt in the top of one of the drawers in her dresser. When she stepped out of the door her aunt was already on the balcony running towards her room.
Hope was immediately met with a tight hug, she could hear Freya’s breathing begin to calm before she gripped Hope’s shoulders tightly and broke the hug.
“Are you okay?” Hope asked, sure it had taken an hour or two for Hope to get home and to pull the shards out of her back but she was sure school hadn’t ended quiet yet so Freya still should have been at work.
“Am I okay? Hope, your school called and said you hadn’t been in your fifth period. When they called and let me know you had also missed sixth, I figured something was wrong. Especially since you aren’t the type to skip. When I saw your backpack up front and your keys in the open door I didn’t know what to think.”
“I appreciate the concern Aunt Freya, but I’m fine. I just-” She began to revisit the day's events in her head again. She still felt so confused and even a little scared. She was about to just tell Freya she was fine and then just walk back into her room, but she knew that Freya would want an explanation for why she left school early, even though Hope didn’t have one. “It’s nothing,” She decided she would just try to slip away so she could take a shower and get all the dried blood off her back before Freya asked her anymore questions.
“Then why did you leave school Hope?” Freya’s eyes where filled with worry. Hope only shook her head in response.
“You’ll think I'm crazy”
“What makes you say that?”
“Cause I think I’m crazy!” Hope’s voice started to raise slightly, the fear and confusion from all that happened today finally clashing.
“It’s not the first time I’ve heard that,” Freya reached forward and grabbed Hope’s hands, squeezing tightly for reassurance. Hope took in a slow, steady breath, closing her eyes as she inhaled.
“I... I threw someone across a room,” she opened her eyes “A girl across a bathroom and I didn’t even touch her.” She watched as Freya shifted slightly, leaning back against the railing. She didn’t look surprised or shocked, in fact she seemed... relieved?
“Maybe we should find somewhere to sit down, I need to tell you something.”