We are Skitter

Edith Kassidy

April 11th, 2011

My fork screeches like a rooster and I don’t bother lookin’ up, I know both Tay and her pa got their eyes on me. I try to put my cringe away as I scoop a mouthful of egg into my mouth, hoping that the next bite will lodge in my throat and fuckin’ kill me.

Last night was damned amazin’, we took down Oni Lee, got to jawwin’ with two heroes, and made it home well before the sun rose. Only problem though is that Tay was right ‘bout bein’ exhausted, we came home, she changed out of her suit and into her pj’s and didn’t really have the mind to be squeamish ‘bout me being inside her.

She settled into bed, we were biddin’ each other goodnight and well… I didn’t think about what sleepin’ with her might mean. Not like that I mean!

I figured we’d just… stay fused, I mean that would follow the fuckin’ pattern wouldn’t it? Last January when Sophia… did what she did, I didn’t come to 'till we were in the hospital. Or rather, when Tay was in the hospital.

They opened that locker ‘tween periods, far as I know, students and faculty just figured the ambulance took us both but they only found one girl in that cesspit. Tay was unconscious and I was with her, my body had… well, it had dissolved in our cramped little hell.

I musta fused with her 'cause when I woke up I wasn’t me, I was… I was in Taylor. We spent a whole few days like that, her gettin’ used to the bugs and me tryin’ to truck along side her.

There was hell to pay when we got out, mama nearly had half a mind to beat me silly for makin’ her file a missin’ person report and with me bein’ a shit liar, I just stayed quiet and let her slap me a few.

I don’t know why I’m thinkin’ this—

The point is, we’ve slept with me being— with me fused with her before. It made sense that it wouldn’t be a problem but… at some point in the night, I… slithered out I guess.

Now that wouldn’t have been a problem at my house but Taylor’s pa is apparently keen on wishin’ his daughter a good morning ‘fore one of them cooks up a breakfast. And with the exhaustion keepin’ the alarm at bay… well, you can imagine where Mr. Hebert’s mind went when he found his daughter and some other girl in bed.

Course, I’m just speculatin’ given that no one’s said a single word since he found us like that but I think the silence can attest to the conclusions I’ve made. And I have a feelin’ that we probably ain’t gonna be explainin’ the situation any time soon, I mean, we’s can either say ‘oh, don’t worry, my power’s make clothin’ a bitch to wear’ or we can just let him figure his daughter prefers the fairer sex.

I’m not sure if Tay quite gets that though, I mean, maybe her pa doesn’t have a problem with it but I wouldn’t let somethin’ like this lie ‘specially in a city of neo nazis.

Either way, Mr. Hebert cleans his plate off quickly and doesn’t bother carryin’ it to the sink as he speaks, one hand fiddlin’ with his tie.

“I uh… I’ve really got to get going and I hope you two have a nice…” he trails off, his lips half forming ‘relationsh—’ ‘partnersi—’ and ‘day’, before he closes his mouth with a snap and heads for the door.

The door closes behind him and the thump of Taylor’s head against the table echoes the sound.

I’m about to open my mouth, some kind of bullshit comfort locked and loaded when she groans. Yeah, I think it be best if I took a page out of Danny’s book and just let it pass. I grab the man’s plate, my own, and Taylor pushes hers to me as I head for the kitchen.

I’ve got the trio of plates in the sink and the water runnin’ as I grab the scrubber. I get the first two done before Taylor speaks up from the dining room.

“Couldn’t you have at least been wearing something?” she asks, voice an odd mix of glacial frustration and despair. Heat rises on my face and I try to focus on my task, her footsteps soundin’ behind me, “I thought you said clothes were easy to mimic? You said it was a refl—”

“I’m sorry, alright?!” I shout back, whirlin’ around and feelin’ the heat get worse as I look her up and down, her nose pinched between her fingers in exasperation. “Look, you got a manual to your powers, I’m still figurin’ out mine!”

Even without anymore dishes to do, I turn back to the sink and grab at the washcloth off to the side, my hands set to dryin’ it all. Taylor groans and I look down at the clothes I’m wearin’ or rather, the flesh that looks like cloth.

I don’t understand it either, I can make my… I want to say skin but I doubt it would look like normal flesh under a microscope. Regardless of the nomenclature, I can make myself look however I want, look like I’m dressed however I want.

And when I thumb at the hem of my shirt, it looks like cloth, it feels like cloth, it was one of the first things I did with my powers and… well, I figured it would make sense I’d come out of Taylor ‘wearin’ what I did hopin’ into her. Again, that makes sense with the pattern we’ve got, every other time we’ve unfused it’s worked like that but just this once…

“Could we…” I groan, “could we please put this on the backburner for now? We’ve got to get goin’ if we wanna make it to school on time.”

“What?” Taylor asks and I put one of the plates on the counter as I turn back to her, my hands still wringin’ the wash cloth as I look into her brown eyes.

“We should get goin’,” I repeat, eyes fixed on the window and the early mornin’ blue.

”We’ve got half an hour before we have to walk to the bus,” she points out and I set the rag down as I take a step to her.

“Well, bus is a bit slow and ‘tween you and me, I think we need a bit of a head start to beat the bitch brigade.”

“Okay…” Taylor replies, her voice trailing off in a questionin’ way, “Even if we left right now, the bus would still be faster.” She’s about to let the sentence hang before her eyes light up, my unspoken suggestion finally clickin’ into place. “No—” she puts both of her hands up and closes her eyes as she steps back, “Edith, we are not using—”

“Oh c’mon!” I cut her off, taking two more steps forward until we’re almost chest to chest. “You know those bitches get up early just to fuck our days up, I put ten to one odds Madi’s at our locker right now, tryin’ to pick it.”

My warning makes Taylor falter, her lips thinning. Our art projects are in there and we’re barely passin’ as it is. Still, her resolve tries to build itself back up.

“Edith, I don’t— what if someone sees—”

“No one’s gonna see,” I tell her, my right hand reachin’ out for her left. “It’ll be a hard jog or a light sprint and even takin’ the backroads I know we’ll be there in… ten minutes, at the most and then we can slip out.”

My reasoning wins out and with a tiny nod, I let go of myself. My body turns into mush but before it can hit the floor, the ugly red mass that is me slithers up the bridge Taylor made of our hands.

In barely a second, we are one, my eyes overlaying her own as she takes a deep breath, one hand on the counter to keep herself steady when we… notice somethin’ odd. Her range… it’s bigger than it should be, much fucking bigger.

I mean, it ain’t city wide or anythin’ stupid like that but it should only be nine blocks! Now it feels like… okay, when I lay it out 9 and a half blocks doesn’t sound too much bigger but it is! And her bugs… they feel—

“What—” Taylor swallows heavily, the counter not enough for her to lean on and forcing her to fall flat on her ass. “What the fuck—” she takes another deep breath but this isn’t to steady herself, in fact, given that she starts breathing twenty times as fast— oh fuck, she’s having an attack!

“Taylor!” I shout in her mind, my limited control of her body doing fuck all against her will. “Taylor, c’mon now, you got to stay present okay, you’ve got to—”

“The bugs—” she says between gasps, “There’s so many Edith, millions, all of them with eyes and ears and I can’t— it’s—”

“Breath!” I order, puttin’ as much of me as possible into controllin’ her, constrictin’ her lungs the tiniest bit until she stops hyperventilatin’. My little trick works and after maybe a minute or two of leanin’ up against the kitchen drawers, she takes an actual meaningful breath as she stands.

She shakes her head and rubs at her temples even though I’m already takin’ care of her migraine.

“What…” she says slowly, squinting at the kitchen lights, “The hell was that?”

I don’t know what the fuck happened either, her range is still bigger than it ought to be and a lot of her bugs are almost as good for lookin through as her own eyes. She’s… stronger than she was yesterday, I don’t think our bondin’ any different though. I don’t know why we’re—

“Okay…” she says, voice choked, “We… we need to get going.”

I take the non sequitur for what it is, giving her a mental nod as she shakily walks to her room, the bugs' senses not quite dullin’ but her mind gettin’ better at takin’ it all in. Her mind is quiet to me, no thoughts directed my way as I try to understand what the fuck happened.

I don’t feel anymore connected to Taylor than usual, I mean, my power’s kind of an all or nothin’ thing, I either fuse completely or I don’t at all. At least, I thought that was how it worked, that’s how—

Motherfucker, how is it every other cape on this planet just has an ‘instinctive’ grasp of what they got goin’ on but I’m flyin’ blind?

Taylor has to have sensed my anger but she soesn’t comment on it as she enters her room, grabbin’ her own backpack and the spare I keep here before headin’ back down the hall. She closes the door behind her as we leave and her steps are even measured as she walks to the edge of her driveway.

Her mind isn’t as bombarded as it was earlier and without a word to me, she starts bookin’ it as fast as she can. Her bugs are angled in front windows and porches, all of them actin’ like a camera and tellin’ her if anyone’s lookin’ our way.

Of course, even knowin’ no one’s lookin’ at us with their own eyes, Taylor’s slows down when we make it to end of her street in under ten seconds, her speed several times beyond what an olympian could do, let alone a highschooler.

The even stranger thing though, is how it’s almost twice as fast as what we could do before, almost what we could do when we fully suit up.

She stops at the corner, her breath comin’ faster more out of reflex than any actual exertion as she speaks.

“What the hell is happening?” She asks out loud, bringing her hands up to stare at them, like they might look any different than before. There ain’t anythin’ different to look at though, still the same almost reedy hands with long fingers and thin knuckles.

“I… I dunno,” It’s a lame answer but it’s honestly the only one I can give her, like I said before, her powers and I’d wager just about every other Joe Scmo’s got some kind of manual attached to ‘em but mine… mine are weird. “We ought to keep going though, just… definitely look out for any peepers, the people and the cameras I mean.”

Taylor nods at my suggestion and she cracks her neck as she lines up bugs, their eyes and ears servin’ as markers for what ought to be a racetrack.

For the next tenish blocks or so, we’re speeding like a fuckin’ bullet, movin’ maybe three or so times faster than that Usain Bolt guy. It barely takes us more than two minutes to reach the end of that and we actually gotta hold up for a second as Taylor lines up her range again. The bugs on the far end of it are too slow, they can’t mosey ‘tween wherever they was to wherever she needs them to be in the time it takes us to book there.

That takes a good minute and a half or so and the whole time Taylor’s body screams disbelief, she's running so damn fast but her muscles don’t even ache, there aren’t even any microfractures or nothin for me to heal.

We run that gambit two or three more times, runnin’ then stoppin’, but all in all, it takes us a little less than ten minutes to have been out the door to the neighborhood outside Winslow. The cars are gettin’ thick by this point, parents droppin’ students off, students themselves drivin’ in their hand me down clunkers.

I try to urge Taylor to keep her speed up, suggestion’ that maybe we can hop through the backyards and such but she shakes her head. This newness is exhilaratin’ but she ain’t gonna be caught dead doin’ somethin’ that boneheaded.

And for the last block, she walks at a normal pace, somehow managin’ to not look antsy given that I can literally feel how much she wants to explore this new power of ours.

This early in the mornin’, none of the Trio nor their little goblins are waitin’ for us, they’re ain’t no one to signal that we’ve arrived. With that, Taylor walks into the first bathroom she sees, finds a stall, and closes her eyes.

“Edith,” she thinks at me and I do my best to pretend I don’t hear her. “C’mon, you can’t miss another day.”

Well that just ain’t true, sure the district says you can’t miss more than fifteen days a year but no one really counts that shit out, especially in a craphole like this.

“Edit—”

“Yeah, yeah,” I cut her off, slowly slitherin’ out through the front of her shirt. Once enough of me is out, I form a mouth out of the red blob, maybe two/thirds of my mass still under Taylor’s skin. “I get it, it’d be nicer if you could just turn in my shit again but I understand. ‘Can’t get too reliant.’”

I was unable to keep all the heat out of my voice when I quoted her but in the time it takes me to say it, I’ve already disconnected from her head, I ain’t got a read if my words even did anythin’.

Taylor doesn’t let my body collide with the gross floor, instead I land in her cupped hands and when I grow to be too big, she slowly lets me go.

I turn back into me, or whatever counts as me these days.

I look up at Taylor, not quite eye to eye with the taller girl as I fumble the lock behind my back, undoin’ it and awkwardly stepping into Taylor’s space to get it swingin’ open.

I step into the bathroom and actually get a good look of myself. Havin’ just stepped out of Taylor, there ain’t no bags under my eyes, nor is there any wear or tear on my clothes or body. I should stay presentable until some time tonight when I start achin’ all over again.

I lock eyes with my reflection, takin’ a good look at the bright blue of them. My eyes are the biggest part of my face, I s'pose they might even look good if I got some makeup on but right now they kinda look bug eyed.

My face is narrow as hell and it ain’t the pretty kind where the nose can make it all sit right, to me it’s always looked like I once had a normal face but it got caught in a door some time ago, all the features getting squished together a bit.

That lead to me having an actually nice full set of lips, a softish kind of chin and jaw, and a brow that could look intimidatin’ if I was pissed off. All in all, I give myself a six on a bad day, maybe an eight if I really went all out with it.

'Course I doubt most boys like the hairdo, the strawberry blonde wolf’s tail I got up top with my head shaved ‘round the sides.

The clothes I’ve decided to mimic are just black on black on black, a dark tanktop with a short cut leather jacket over that, high waisted jeans, and big ol’ stompy boots. If I wanted, I could force my hair to match but knowin’ mama, she’d have a right conniption if she thought I was dying my hair.

That’s moms for ya I guess, they don’t mind snortin’ a line off the armrest you were just sittin’ on but they’ll slap the shit outta you if you break their rules. S'pose it can’t be helped I guess, it ain’t worth thinkin’ ‘bout now.

I turn and grab the pack Taylor carried with her, all of my things and the homework I should pretend I completed are inside.

Without a word to each other, we make our way out of the bathroom and head for the crappy locker Winslow forced us to share. I s'pose we should count ourselves lucky they didn’t force us to pay for the one back in January but of course, being one locker short, they decided it be easier to have us share one than, y’know, actually being a fuckin’ school and orderin’ another.

We crest up the stairs and take one look at the end of the hall to find out I was right, Sophia and three of her little hanger ons are in front of our locker, the head bitch herself sneerin’ as one of the nameless pretends she knows how to pick the lock.

I shake my head as I watch her, yep, that’s good, stick your tongue out and press your ear to the metal even though it’s an external lock with a key, ya idgit.

Taylor sighs behind me, her voice heavy.

“We’re too late.”

I pop knuckles one at a time as I advance.

“No we ain’t.” Once I’ve got all my fingers loose and ready, I raise up my middle one and shout for little queen trackstar’s attention. “Hey, Sophie!”

She turns her head to me and her eyes narrow like a dog’s, actually heavy with anger as I force a smile on my face. This girl… half of me wants to strangle her, the other half wants to hit her with a fucking truck.

Taylor trails behind me but keeps her distance, Sophia might be fast but Tay’s long legs should give her enough of a leg up if things get too bad.

“Oh,” Sophia says, the mock surprise not even a quarter as convincin’ as when Emma does it. “I guess the dyke’s must’ve had a faster quickie than normal, you’re up pretty damn early, aren’t you Kassidy?”

The barb’s weak as hell, literally the same shit the Empire’s said about me and my unladylike haircut for years, but her little friends hoot and holler like it’s the funniest joke in the whole damn world.

The smile on my face just widens as I put a hand to my chest, actin’ as if the weak ass insult was a bolt or somethin’ as I step back and lean on one heel.

“Oh c’mon now Sophie,” I start, smiling a bit wider as the cunt twitches, the little change to her name pisses her off every damn time. “I thought us dykes were s'posed to stick together, y’know what they say ‘bout faggots.”

The small smile that was on her face drops instantly, curling into a frown as she straightens up and leans off the locker. Her eyes narrow even more as her hands curl into fists.

“What the fuck did you just say?” she asks, her voice hard and stern and maybe intimidating if I didn’t know her main attack on my person weren’t a rabbit jab from behind.

“Oh Sophie, c’mon, I know what people say, you being dumber than a sack of hammers and all but I think even a sack of hammer would’ve noticed how much Emma stares at it.” I raise my brows a little suggestively as Sophia flinches, “I mean, she hangs on to your every word like you made the sun, she laughs the hardest at your jokes, she looks at you whenever she makes her own.”

This actually gets her goat, making her take a step forward but that just makes it easier for her to stumble when I shove her back mid step.

“And it’s just as obvious you like her, shoot, not countin’ rarities like this, you two are practically joined at the hip. If people talk about me and Tay’ out here in the halls, I’d bet good money they do the same for you two just behind closed doors.”

Sophia finally gets her bearings and this time she steps close enough to be nose to nose with me, her breath coming out like a snarl.

“If you want to get your shit kicked in again,” she growls, “We can do it right here, right now.”

“Oh sugar, is that a promise?” I ask, tilting my head a bit. “That ain’t how I remember it.”

As quick as I can, I stick my thumb in my mouth and use it to wipe at her cheek, the bully steps back a bit and I examine the dark foundation stainin’ my pale skin.

“Wow, y’know I wasn’t sure if it had just healed or not. Emma’s a professional at this, ain’t she? Did she kiss it better too—”

Sophia knocks the wind out of me with a hard kick to my right side, with the elbow up, she snuck right under it to kick me in the ribs. Looks like I’ve got another fight to lose.

Without even thinkin’, I charge the bitch head on, my arms wrapping around her middle and the crown of my head pressed just under her chest as I shove her back into the steel lockers. Thankfully, we stepped far enough away from them that I got a good build up going to really rattle her skull.

Unfortunately though, Sophia’s quick on the upkeep and she slams her joined hands together in a double hammerfist right on the small of my back. The pain is excruciating, the kind of blow to my kidneys that would make me piss blood if I still had to do that.

I grunt with it and turn with Sophia still in my arms, trying to throw the girl to the floor with all my might. Somehow the bitch manages to turn what shoulda been a hard landin’ into a roll. She turns quickly, utterly ignorin’ Tay as she puts her hands up.

It looks like she’s about to say somethin’ when one of her hanger-ons books it to the other end of the hall, nearly trippin’ as she turns the corner.

“Mr. Quinlan!” she shouts, her shrill voice bangin’ off the walls in a dull echo. “Mr. Quinlan!”

“Mother—” Sophia groans and turns her head up as she lets her hands drop, her rough face screwed up in a mean grimace like she’s passing a cactus. I can’t help it none, seeing Sophie so pissed gets a chuckle out of me.

“Thought you told your little minions not to call for no help,” I let my own fists fall as I turn my back on her, sure the bitch won’t try somethin’ now that a proctor might interrupt us.

“Some people didn’t get the fucking memo,” Sophia grunts, too pissed to remember she shouldn’t be talkin’ to someone as lowly as me. Least that’s what Emma says whenever she wants to talk down to me.

I laugh again and her little soldiers back away from me and Taylor’s locker like rats running from a bushfire.

“Don’t worry about it Sophie,” I tells her, shooing away the more stubborn sycophants with a hand gesture. “You and me can pick up our date at a later—” I turn around, one finger raised like a thought just came to me. “I’m sorry, I figur Emma’s pro’bly a bit too possessive for that kind of vernacular, ain’t she?”

“Go fuck yourself Kassidy,” Sophia replies blandly and stalks off without shoulder checkin’ Taylor.

I laugh at her again and Taylor sighs as she walks towards me, her head shakin’ a tad as she speaks.

“I keep telling you, just—” she grabs for the lock and lets her backpack fall to one shoulder, a hand already reachin’ inside the top pouch to fish for the key,  “one day could you at least try to defuse her, instead of just setting her off.”

“And I’ve told you,” I step back as the locker door swings open, “That this is defusing the situation. Either her and I get to flirtin’ in the mornin’ or she takes it out with shoulder checks and tit punches the rest of the day.”

Taylor doesn’t have nothin’ to say ‘bout that, though somethin’ tells me it ain’t cuz of my airtight argument. She grabs at her and mine art projects, both little cardboard dioramas that wouldn’t look out of place with any other high school diorama. She hands me mine with a bit more force than necessary but I don’t mind none, Ms. Morgan asks… I’ll just say the dent’s artistic liberty.

I bet she’d accept that excuse too, she’s right kooky.

The march down the art hallway's a bit bleak even for a shithole like this, used to be, some time a while ago, they had lots of art classes here, shit like sculptin’, paintin’, all them kinds of higher art stuff. But some budget cut way long passed ixnayed all that cool shit.

My eyes drag on the plaques next to the doors, the plaques that used to be a sign the administration gave two shits. Now’s they just a reminder of how lil they care, them plaques ain’t anywhere else in the school save here, ain’t no need to get rid of the teacher’s name when the teacher themself got fired long ago.

Still, they make me wonder. I ain’t never met a Ms. Frizzle, Barker, or Hope but something tells me just from the splatterin’ of clay, paint, and wax on the sides that they might’ve been like Morgan, a little on the backwards side but passionate.

Taylor knocks on Ms. Morgan’s door and I roll my eyes, just cause she don’t got a class right now don’t mean ya’s got be all polite like with her, classroom doors are meant to be swung open. I go to step around Tay but the moment I do, our knuckles brush and a shot of lightning flies up my arm.

I damn near drop my diorama as the skin on my knuckle fades away from my perception, changin’ into that red black slime just as the door to the art room opens.

“Students!” Ms. Morgan shouts as she opens the door, her posture ramrod straight and her eyes blown wide. She tilts her head at the both of us and I can’t help but gulp as I awkwardly jam my fist down into a pocket. Please, for all that is fuckin’ sacred, don’t tell me she saw— “Your dioramas!”

Her hands pop out in front of her, the long spindly fingers reach out and without a word to the teacher, we give her our projects. She brings mine up to her eye like she’s appraisin’ a rare stone or some other such antiquity and her eyes blow big and glassy as she looks over the little structures Tay helped me make.

“Marvelous work Edith,” she says breathlessly, like somethin’ I helped make out of Target supplies is worth any praise. “You’ve really improved since you came to my class, do you know that?”

Despite myself, I can feel a bit of a heat rise up my neck. I ain’t used to take compliments much and try as I might, my head turns down as I try to wipe off the scuffs of my shoe.

“T’weren’t nothin’” I reply, tryin’ to sound as bland as I can. “Just needed doin is all.”

Ms. Morgan chuckles a bit and the room gets a touch hotter as she speaks.

“It might have,” she acknowledges, “But you really went above and beyond with this, I’m proud of you.”

“Yeah well—” my dry throat gives way to a cough and I try to clear it as best I can as I gesture over my shoulder with a thumb. “We’s best be gettin’ off to first period right bout now so—”

“Oh well don’t let me keep you,” Ms. Morgan takes a step back and I chance a look up at her.

She’s just like she’s always been, tall enough that there ain’t a shelf in the world she’d need help reachin’ and lanky enough to match. She’s thin like a reed and I think damn near half her width is just in the big lab coat that I think she stole from the chemistry department. Her hair is wild and untamed, with beads, braids, and half done ponytails dottin’ the mop of wild frizz.

She’s got an angular face, with a prominent nose, stern brow, and narrow chin. It’s got the kind of wrinkles on it that make it hard to tell if she’s in her early thirties or late forties and green eyes that look a little like algae growin off a pool’s surface. She smiles at me and even though her teeth are a bit crooked, it still feels like a nice smile, the kind that makes something warm spark in me.

“You two have a good day and you better not be ‘late’ to my class again.” And with that, she closes the door on us, the usual slam slowed down by her coat getting stuck. She pulls the cloth free on the other side and I feel my shoulders sink with relief as I turn around.

“I can see why they call her Ms. Mantis,” I joke and rest my arms behind my head. “Big, tall, and bug eyed, plus the way she moves is all janky.”

Taylor doesn’t say nothin at my observations and when I turn back round’ to face her, she’s got an eyebrow raised.

“What?” I ask, gulpin’. I know I’ve got one of the shittiest poker faces to ever grace the planet and what with my eyes dartin’ to the door, it ain’t exactly hard to read what I’m gettin’ at. And just as I predicted, Tay tilts her head to Ms. Morgan’s room and then back to me. ‘Fore she can get to jawwin’, I cut her off. “I don’t know what you’s thinkin’ but it ain’t like that,” I grumble and this time when I turn my back on her, she gets into step with me. “She’s just a cool lady’s all.”

“I didn’t say anything,” Taylor argues and I shake my head a little as I keep my eyes fixed on the hallway in front of us.

“Didn’t have to, I know you’re thinkin’ it.” I point a finger at her and she stares at it like I’m just jokin’ round again. “I might be Winslow’s resident dyke but that don’t mean I go after everyone with a pair of legs.”

There’s a long stretch of silence and for just a second, I think Tay might’ve dropped the whole thing but then she decides she ain’t done picking at me.

“Okay…” she says, “Then what is it about? You always act so weird around her.”

“I ain't actin’ weird,” I reply, “She just… I dunno, she’s nice is all. Now can we just drop it and get to Knott’s already?”

“Okay,” Taylor resettles her backpack and I can’t help but feel a sting in my chest at her tone. It’s more mumbly than it should be and I know that’s my fault. I was too curt and I— fuck it, I ain’t her babysitter, she’s gotta know what’s not good to ask about.

We walk into Knott’s class in silence and it ain’t the first time that I wonder what kinda programmin’ error must’ve put me in here. I take my seat in the farthest row from Knott’s desk and the blonde at her desk barely reacts to me as I scoot the chair back.

The assignment's the same as it was last week, just got to build myself a calculator, that's all. 

That said, while I ain't exactly computer illiterate (I doubt anyone born after '90 is) I wouldn't say I'm a whiz at this whole codin' thing. Luckily for me, I don’t gots to be.

The bell rings and class officially begins and with it, a bundle of ants climb up and out of my keyboard, their little black bodies perfectly camouflaged against the surface. It used to be this took us forever to do, my eyes weren’t used to catching the ants movin’ and more often than not I’d squish the poor fellers but after months of doin’ this together, we’re able to get our work done with nearly two thirds of the class to spare,

Now, this is normally the part where I try to catch some shuteye tween classes but a little icon at the bottom of my screen turns bright red just as Taylor’s ants start to run circles into my knuckles.

First thing I do is chance a glance behind me, just to make sure her and the icon are connected but after a pointed glare and a point of her finger I turn back to my screen and get to clickin’. The little notification’s a link to some thread on PHO and when I read it, I scrub a hand over my face.

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♦ Topic: A New Thread

In: Boards ► Ants & Aphids

Posted On Apr 11th 2011:

Owe you two one. Would like to repay the favor. Meet?

Send a message,

Tt

And that’s about as far as I get before I turn around and shake my head at Taylor as fiercely as I can. Her brown eyes meet my blue and she points back at the screen, I don’t turn though. I know what she’s gonna say, I know what she wants to do and that dog don’t hunt.

I ain’t gonna be strung along into a group of thieves and I sure as hell ain’t doin’ it because of some half assed idea neither.

Taylor’s glare sharpens into somethin’ prickly and I almost turn back to the screen but I hold my ground. I thought we’d already had this discussion, it was already hassle a plenty to keep her damn mouth shut when she wanted to let ol’ A and B on her little idea.

She was right pissed with me then, more ornery than a wet hen. The whole sprint back home all she did was try to tell me that it was a good idea but I can tell from miles off that it weren’t nothin’ than absolute buffoonery.

I’m bout to tell her to shove that idea back inside when Ms. Knott speaks up, her old creaky voice pro’bly meant just for me.

“I’d like to remind everyone to please keep their eyes on their own screens.” I turn back and sure as shootin’, the old teach is looking right at me over her hard edge bifocles. I nod an apology and shake my head at the little message adorning the bottom right of the screen.

“We’ll talk at lunch,” I read aloud.

The rest of the class just zooms right on by and before I know it, the next three do the same. By the time the lunch bell rings I’m no closer to comin’ up with the right words than when I started.

I follow Taylor up the steps to Winslow’s roof, the unused stairwell is positively ancient and without any foot traffic, our esteemed custodians have decided there ain’t no need to scrub the dirt that piles in the corners. The brown smudges everythin’ and almost makes the whole corridor and the steps leadin’ up  look like theys stained in coffee.

I was the one that first found this little get away, right when I got into Winslow I think. Of course, didn’t actually get through the door till months later, when I could shapeshift my finger into the lock.

“Y’know,” I start as the door bangs closed behind me. “Iffn I’d ordered a truck load of dumbasses and all I got was you, I woulda gotten my damn money’s worth.”

Taylor ain’t got no reply for my southern wisdom and as we take out usual seats at the building’s edge, I decide to deign her with a bit more of my honesty.

“I mean that, y’know,” I tell her and swing my backpack off one shoulder to grab at the lunch she made for me. “I’ve met a lot of people in my time but I gotta say, ain’t no one ever gonna take the trophy from you Tay. Somehow, youse the smartest person I know but you can be just as boneheaded as me.”

Again, she doesn’t speak, instead she just takes her own bag out and angrily unwraps a sandwich. Her silence is fine by me though, I can talk for a whole room of silent sallys if need be.

“It’s a stupid plan,” I unwrap my own sandwich and with a snort, I amend my words. “No, it’s not a plan, a plan might actually, y’know, have steps that ain’t impossible. A plan can be stupid but this goes beyond that, it’s dumb with a capital everything.”

Okay, now the quiet game is startin’ to piss me off rather than egg me on.

“Gee Tay, what problems could little ol’ Edith see in that plan. Maybe it has somethin’ to do with bein’ a villain—” she tries to speak up this time but I ain’t gonna let her drive now that I’ve got a horse to saddle. “A pretend villain mind you but stills a villain nonetheless. Oh! And the team we’d be joinin’ gots some kind of Thinker on it, the cape literally made to rip secrets out of— her names Tattletale for cryin out loud!”

“Calm down,” Taylor’s tone is icy like the first frost of Winter and despite myself, my tongue bends knee to it as she tries to explain herself. “It could work, Battery told us that they have a boss, someone that’s trying very hard to not be seen. All we need to do is play ball long enough to be let in on that and then we can flip on them.”

Her words don’t inspire the confidence they’re meant to and with a sigh, I lay out why I ain’t exactly rallied.

“Y’know what I said about plans havin’ steps, well while you might’ve laid out… oh let’s see—” I lift up my index and middle finger, “Two steps, they have to be a helluva lot more defined than that.”

“We can—”

“And what happens if we get caught, arrested I mean.” I take another chomp out of my sandwich and speak around the mouthful of turkey and ham. “You think the heroes are goin’ to believe us when we explain, ‘no really, we were going to switch sides.’”

She doesn’t have a rebuttal planned and though I might be laying it on a bit thick, I don’t really give a damn. Taylor’s as stubborn they come, stubborn enough that even mules might call her unreasonable.

“Aw,” I mock, hoping that this gets through to her. “Ya didn’t think that far ahead didja?”

“That’s exactly why we should’ve told them,” Taylor growls. “We should tell the Protectorate what we’re going to do as soon as we can, we took down Oni Lee, that should—”

“Should?” I ask, incredulous. “You ever notice that when a plan has that many ifs and shoulds, it almost always goes to hell in a handbasket?”

“If we told Assault and Battery—”

“They would’ve thrown us out on our asses at best, arrested us for conspiracy at worst!” I can’t help it, I can feel my face gettin’ red with anger but I don’t give two shits about my complexion. She needs to get this, what she’s got in her head is just suicide with extra steps.

And I suppose a homicide too since she’ll have me taggin’ along.

“You’re not listening to me,” Taylor’s tone is as icy as ever. “After school, we can—”

Her brown eyes widen like saucers and her head turns so fast to look at the door that my neck twinges in sympathy.

“They’re…” she gulps, “They’re here. Fuck, they found us!”

She starts to pace, her hands going up to her hair as I try to think of a way out of this. It ain’t lookin’ good to be honest. The stairwell and hallway leadin’ here are a straight shot for maybe a hundred or so feet, iffn Emma and her trope are makin’ their way towards us, there ain’t much w can do to avoid them.

That said, even if we did avoid them, this spot is out of rotation. Son of a bitch, I was just startin’ yo like not eatin’ in bathroom stalls.

“Fuck,” Taylor mumbles, the anger underneath her panic starts to rear its head and I know from the rise in it that I’ve got maybe a minute before she gets too pissed to listen to me. “Fuck, fuck, fuck we’re not even supposed to be up here. Emma’s going to twist this on us, maybe say it’s trespassing, we—”

In two calm steps, I slam my hands on Taylor’s shoulders, snapping her out mid ramble and forcing her wide brown eyes to stare into my blue.

“We’re gonna be okay,” I tell her and something in my throat webs itself together, my power already reactin’ to my thoughts. “You got to trust me on this, okay?”

“What are you—” her eyes widen, maybe catching on to my idea because of the sudden gurgle my words take or maybe just because I’m that transparent. “No.” she shakes her head and I step just a little bit closer. “No, Edith— tagging them with my bugs is one thing but using your power on them—”

“I’m not gonna use it on them,” I promise. “Tay, I know I been tough on you and I know I was bit bitchy, but please. Let me try and help.”

She gulps and her eyes dart down to my chest. For a moment I’m flattered but then I look down with her and see that my shirt has faded away. Where once there was a facsimile of cotton, now there’s just a red black sludge that pulses with a heartbeat I don’t need.

It gives one last beat and now that it’s out…

Fuck, it shouldn’t hurt this much already, I’m supposed to be able to hold out for longer than this. Fuck… I just wanted help and now I can feel it all falling apart.

“You’re not gonna use your power on them?” Taylor asks and when I try to answer her, nothin’ comes out. I spose that makes sense, without lungs or a diaphragm, I ain’t shit to talk with. Still, the nod I give is promise enough and with one last look at the door, Taylor speaks up. “Okay but I’m taking control the second—”

She doesn’t get the rest out before I turn into goop and seep between the cells of her skin. In seconds, we’re one again and everything feels so damn amazin’ that for a moment, I almost don’t remember Taylor’s senses.

But as the process completes, I put my mind into her bugs and take a peek behind the veil of her power. Three little gnats are on their way to us and surrounding them are almost half a dozen aphids. 

The way the move clues me in enough, the ones leading the pack are the bitches three and the extras bringing up the rear are just that, faceless nobodies.

Like this mornin’, the girl I’m bonded with nearly falls over with the power boost but this time I’m ready for it. Tendrils shoot out of our— out of her palms and stab into the brickwork, keeping her mostly up right as I put my plan into action.

It shouldn't be as easy as it is, morphing my own body is one thing but changing someone else's feels damn near sinful. 

First thing I do is shorten the hair, I know Taylor loves her mane and I can tell just by the silkiness of it that she puts in twenty times the effort I do. But that effort is pretty damn visible.

I beat the curls down and force the long strands back into her skin, the edges of them burning into a chestnut brown that I force into gelled spikes.

I fill out her jawline and chisel it into something statuesque and hard. I define her nose into something just a little blunter than my own.

I shrink they eyes a little bit and force tendrils to sprout from her eyebrows to take them off.

The big features done, all I can do is fix her clothes as the Trio starts to make their way up the steps.

I force a lot of mass to sprout around the nape of her neck and small of her back, the sludge turning into a bloody red leather jacket that hides the sleeves of her baggy sweatshirt.

I can't do nothin about the jeans and shoes but the way we're sitting should hide that. I just barely manage to grab the extra sack lunch and stuff it between our thighs when the door swings open.

"Well, well…well?"

Taylor's just about calmed herself enough that she can turn to look at the voice and as she locks eyes with the snake of Winslow, I help lift an eyebrow.

We don't look anything like Taylor Hebert, hell, to be honest we look more like a senior than a sophomore. Taylor swallows and with me schooling are expression, it manages to come off more like an unimpressed swallow than her acclimating to the tingle in our— her throat.

"Who the fuck are you?" I ask, the voice deep, smooth, and impressively bored.

Emma actually stamps her foot as she turns around, barkin' something to a blonde bitch that sounds suspiciously like: "I thought you said they were here!"

The door slams closed with a bang and Taylor breaths a sigh of relief as the gnats and aphids march back down stairs. And then she looks down at her hands, at the noticeably tanner skin.

"We're not a real person, are we?"

Her question blindside's me and I try to answer through the same mouth.

"Whatcha mean? Course we're—"

"No," Taylor cuts me off, shakin' her head. "I mean, we're not— are we supposed to look like someone specifically? Like someone that actually exists."

"Uh…" I do my best to keep my thoughts away from the… particular inspiration of this disguise. "I don't think anyone will recognize an old magazine."

"How old?" Taylor asks as I start rearrangin' her appearance to how it was before.

"Maybe late 70's?" I answer, tryin' to remember if I ever bothered to look at the date on that issue. "Early 80's at the latest."

She doesn't say anything for a long moment and as the wind blows past us, she tries to speak up again

"Edith, I'm just asking, will at you least think about it?"

It's so fucking stupid, it's so fuckin' stupid that there's not a number I can put it to. And yet, when I answer, I find myself being just as dumb.

"Maybe, Tay… maybe."