Chapter 12.

"Scarlett, calm down." My eyes were blazing red as I paced around the room, my heavy boots thumping down as I stomped.

"Breeding program." I growled out, eyes blazing in hellish fury. "Did you see how old that child was?" I spat, I knew he probably couldn't have seen, but surely he would've noticed how small he was in comparison to the men and women out there.

For a brief second I could feel large, slimy, callused fingers on my back, causing an enraged scream to tear itself out of my throat. In a moment, I had appeared in a red flash next to a metal chair and threw it, watching as it bounced off of the glass of the window. Old cuts on my body twinged as I felt a phantom dripping of blood crawl its way down my legs.

"SCARLET!" James screamed at me. His eyes wide and inner eyebrows reaching towards his hairline. My whole body snapped towards him, ready to snarl out a response when I heard it.

A floorboard creaked.

Dick.

I immediately reacted, rushing forward and teleporting outside of the door. Time moved slow as I turned, finding the exact person I was looking for. With a yell, my foot struck out and he went falling backwards, one of his hands still clutching his polished gun.

A guttural snarl left my mouth as my foot came down hard on the wrist still holding the gun. A sickening CRUNCH sounded and I could hear James running towards us as I grabbed 'Dick' by the throat.

Dick's eyes widened in shock as he saw me. It seemed he too had believed that I was dead. My eyes were still glowing in a hellish fury. I could see the reflection of my eyes in his own as the red energy snaked out like veins from my irises as the Rage tried to take over.

I did not doubt that I looked like I belonged in hell, under the heel of whatever Devil there was.

A beast set off of the leash.

"Y-You." As he tried to struggle out words I squeezed harder, my nails beginning to dig into the skin of his neck.

I released him, pushing him back.

"Yes. I am alive. You insignificant tarakan." My voice was heavily Russian as it growled out of the base of my chest.

I could see James out of the corner of my eye, watching us. It seemed that Dick could as well.

"T-T-Traitor." He stammered his voice weak. If I had of squeezed and harder I could have cause serious damage. But I didn't, I needed him to talk. James' eyes refused to meet his.

"I'm sorry Barry."

"Sorry?! Your-your father would-" He coughed. Voice returning but throat still bruised. "Thank god he would never see this." I rolled my eyes, bringing my fist into his face, my fist rebounding off of his cheek bone.

"ENOUGH." I roared in his face as he tried to cradle it with his sore wrist. "WHERE are they taking that boy?!" Dick stopped for a moment, beginning to let out a slow, dark chuckle.

"Having flashbacks, are-are you? I-It's expected from someone as unhinged as-as you." He let out another low chuckle that morphed into a hollow moan.

I squatted down in front of the older man and he sat still as he watched me. I watched a single bead of sweat flee down the side of his face as fast as it possibly could.

"Let me see your wrist." I grabbed his sore wrist without consent, squeezing it hard, relishing in the gritting of his teeth and his breaths coming out in pants. "Now," I started but any other words were soon cut off from the scream that exited his throat as I harshly pulled one of his fingers back so hard that it stayed that way.

James took a step towards us, worry on his face.

Your ally is weak. He will betray you to save that worm, young one.

I ignored the voice inside of my head as I kept my focus on Dick, the glow in my eyes slowly dimming as I began to regain control of myself. "You will tell me where they are taking him."

"No." Dick growled out. Followed by a slightly quieter scream as I snapped his next finger backwards.

"Wrong answer." James flinched, turning to look away slightly. "Let us try again, shall we?" I could feel him trying to yank himself away, his wrist screaming in pain as I held it tight and had my right hand lightly touch his ring finger. There was a faded tan line of a wedding ring on it. "Used to be married, did you? Any kids?"

A fierce glare from him confirmed my suspicions, as well as the slight sadness in the depths of his pupils.

A cruel smile began to grace my face as I pulled gently at the finger, about to snap it back. "The look on your face tells me that you would like them to live... Even though they are now estranged." Deep in his eyes... There was relief.

He can see your weakness for children. The worm knows you would not kill them.

"WAIT!" He yelled as he watched my face as it changed, about to snap his next finger back.

"Yes? Dick?" The cruel smile turned into a smirk as I regarded him.

He hesitated.

Followed by a howl as I skipped to his pinky finger, snapping it back. His ring finger was too important to him to use now... I had to wait, see what presented itself to me.

"It's downtown!" He gasped. I released his hand and he took it back, cradling it like an infant to his chest.

"I am listening." I growled out as I continued to squat in front of him. Watching.

"They keep him mostly doped up to inhibit him, but he-he's downtown. There's a few others in the same place but they're going to be dead by the end of the week. He's the one the Russian bitch wants."

"Where downtown?" I asked him, watching around his eye darken from a fresh red to a deeper purple.

"I-I don't know! That's all I was told!" He watched in horror as I reached out towards him and scooted backwards. The idea of escape only now occurring to him.

The cruel smirk returned as my eyes glowed a dull red.

"Yet." I rose and hovered over him.

Without warning I jumped onto him, railing him with fists, James let out a startled sound and began rushing towards us.

Just before he could reach up and touch me, I rose.

Dick rolled over and spat out blood, groaning.

I shot a glare to James who sent me an equal one back, his chest puffing up.

I turned back away from James, looking back at Dick. "You will go to Vasiliev. Tell her what has happened and that I am looking for the boy to end him. When you learn the address, you will get a message and will send it to me exactly how you are told if you want to live."

"Scarlet-" James interjected in horror but I rose my hand cutting him off.

"You have no say in this." I turned back towards Dick, taking another step towards him. "Paint her the picture sparing no detail to what I did to your boss and to you. This conversation will not be discussed. And if it is? You will not live to see the next morning." At the next step, he pushed himself back a tiny bit further. "Understand?" I growled out, red eyes flashing.

I was already turning and walking away, abandoning them both as Dick's breathless answer followed me.

"Yes."

"Call him an ambulance. Make it very public." I shot James a dark look over my shoulder, as an earpiece formed in my hand. Placing it in my ear I walked towards the elevator, heading for my shoes. "Anastasia? Rendezvous point. 15 minutes."

At the elevator I turned back towards where I had come from, James watching me as he slowly came closer.

He was well and truly pissed.

We did not say a word as we left, the only evidence left over of us was the bodies and the bullets.

The surveillance was mysteriously corrupted by electromagnetic interference.

A convenient by-product of long-distance teleportation.

(TW: Drug abuse.)

"Scarlet!" Gloria called after just walking around through the apartment at 0521 in the morning. I had already been at Gloria's for almost a year by then. As soon as she saw me she raced forward, fury thick and hot in her eyes.

My own emotionless face stared back at her.

"She stole money again! This is the last straw! You go get her. I'll tell her myself how disgusted I am in her and that she will not be protected by this roof anymore!"

"How much?" I asked rifling through my pockets for money.

"$450! And don't you dare excuse her for those drugs. If she trained more she wouldn't need those drugs." With a sigh, I placed the money Georgia owed onto the table and strode past Gloria, shrugging on a heavy coat.

The bell above the door rung before falling dead. "Scarlet?" Gloria called, and I turned towards her, my face still forcibly emotionless. A contrast to her now sad face. "We can't help her anymore. It's just too much. I wish I could have gotten through to her."

I turned away from her and left. It did not take my long to get to downtown. The more I walked, the drearier the streets got. Abandoned buildings, some with a distinct smell of urine escaping from them.

I stopped in front of an old, abandoned church and stared at it for a moment. People of the morning drifted past me, gliding by like water past a rock. I was nothing to them. Almost as if I did not exist. Just as sure as Gloria wished that places like the church in front of me did not exist.

A cold wind lifted my mess of dark hair, urging me to find Georgia. I was sure that she would be here. It was the cheapest spot for heroin and other types of drugs.

The front door opened easily and I slipped in, almost tripping on a young man sweating and lying in a heap as his eyelashes fluttered and he let out a low moan. There was a ghost of a smile on his face as he began to shake slightly.

I stepped over him, moving down further into the church, passing pews with the odd person lying, sweating and moaning.

One, appeared to be having a religious experience as she kneeled in front of the statue of a crucified Jesus, the closer I got, the more she started rocking back and forth, mumbling incessantly to herself.

"Heeeey Scarlet." A voice, younger than my own slurred as I watched the woman half-praying mumbling about blood.

"Antony." I turned to look at him, stumbling out of a room, obviously high. Most likely on the cheapest thing he could get because they laced it with the unknown. I wondered just exactly what he was seeing.

What else was a homeless 20-year-old supposed to buy to forget how life had screwed him?

His thumb awkwardly pointed behind him silently and I nodded, brushing past him. We did not come into contact, yet he still flinched and cowered behind the pillar, no longer seeing me but something else past me, morphing and twisting into a monster.

I found Georgia in the dark recesses of a cold room. My breath came out in slight clouds as I walked towards her. She too was rocking back and forth, her arms around her knees as she cried. The sound was full of pain, like a dying animal, or one full of pain over a deceased offspring.

Without a word, I set down next to her, pulling off my coat and putting it around her shoulders, ignoring the cold that crawled its way into my bones.

"I couldn't do it." She moaned, not having to look to know that it was me. "It hurts. It all hurts so much but I couldn't do it." Her tears began to leak into the sleeves of the jacket as I helped her arms into it, keeping my mind clear.

She turned and leaned her head on my chest as she cried and I held her as we rocked. Even though I loathed contact, there was a pinching feeling in my chest as she cried so openly.

Her pain was probably greater than my own.

Mine was physical and mental... Hers, psionic.

She was an example of what happened to psychics that could not control their powers. Put into a body too weak to contain the power in it. She was the opposite of what I was, yet we seemed to understand each other.

Most of the time, we did so without speaking.

My hand reached out and stroked her washed-out brown hair down. It was a mess, and so was her face as she stared up at me, her power seeping out of her eyes in a ghostly white fog, one only I could see. "I-I'm pregnant."

Those two words left her mouth in agony, and she curled up harder crying. I could feel her power making the room even colder than it was.

"We should get you out of here." She nodded and let me get her up, helping her to stand, and allowing her to lean heavily on me. Her pale frame shook even though there was no more tears. Just a low moaning.

"I can't go back to Gloria."

"We're not." I answered immediately, my soft voice ringing slightly through the abandoned church. She let out a groan all over a sudden as the room grew colder, she clutched her stomach.

"I can feel it." I had no doubt that Georgia was barely pregnant, and that the baby was from a drug-fuelled encounter that I did not want to know about. But her power was so strong she would have felt that baby before its heart had began to beat.

I dragged her over the young man at the doorway, his shaking had stopped but he was still sweating, a few drops of blood had started to leak out of a wound on his arm.

She groaned again as I began channeling power, her own power trying to leak into it, to manipulate it as it did her.

She let out a gasp of pain as we teleported to the front door of a house, next to apartments, and a park.

I made her lean against the doorway as I struggled to find a key. When I did, I found it covered in dust and let out a sigh.

"You're the only one who doesn't yell or judge me." Her voice was soft as I helped lay her down on a dusty couch. I began moving to open up the place, avoiding opening any curtains near her. "Ever since you came you've always helped me... Why didn't you hate me? Like the others?"

"They hated you over jealousy of your power, of how Gloria spent so much time attempting to help you train your powers. I am not so fickle."

"But..." She groaned, trailing off as white smoke seeped away from her body. It seemed she and I were the only two that were able to see it. "Y-You've got the least psychic ability of all of us. Wouldn't you have more of a reason to hate me?"

"Why would I be jealous over something that is killing you?"

A deep silence filled the room as soon as the words left my mouth. Georgia in silence rolled over, facing away from me without even a groan rising from her throat. I took a hesitant step forward. "I did not mean to be so blunt-"

"I know it's killing me." Her voice was flat, her spirit long broken. "No one else believes me but I can feel it."

"And I can see what others cannot." She turned over to look at me and my eyes flashed red for a moment. Instead of seeing what was in front of me, they saw her blazing with sickly white smoke, her body withering on the inside as it failed to hold the power in. "I will tell Gloria that I gave you the message myself to kick you out and that I do not know where you are. This is a nice area... For you both." I hesitated, my hand brushing dust off of the couch she was laying on. "The bed has been made, I hope that you will do the rest yourself. I have plenty of money to spare but I would encourage you not to spend it on anything that could-"

"I won't buy drugs with it. As much as I hate to say this... I can't. Not while I'm carrying this..." She hesitated, her sentence ending in a sob. "I hope it does not get my power."

"Maybe it will be a boy, they cannot express the psychic gene." She smiled slightly at that.

"Yeah, a boy. That would be nice."

I left her, leaving money on the table and telling her where the drawer with local take out places resided.

I told Gloria she was gone.

And nine months later, I became the godmother to one Louise Mayweather. A tiny baby girl with her mother's eyes and brown hair.