Chapter 9

Remember that weird dream I had? The one with Khione warning me? Yeah, that one. After that odd occurrence, I got a normal sleep. Nothing important. In my life, that's something strange.

Anyway! Once I had woken up, I realized that Khione had forgotten to wake me up for school. I was going to be late on my first day back! This was NOT what I was hoping to happen today. I was hoping to have today go pretty smoothly. You know, no fighting, no accusations, nothing. But, that ended up me just having stupid false hope.

Back to my current situation. I had to rush around my room, putting on clothes and shoes, doing my hair, putting some mascara and concealer on so I don't look like a complete zombie. The usual.

When I got downstairs, Jax was standing by the door waiting for me. He had two pieces of toast in his hand. Thank god for my having a generous brother!

"Here you go. You're welcome," Jax handed me the toast.

"Thank you! Oh, my god! Khione didn't wake me up, and I had turned off my alarm because she was waking me up now, so I literally got up ten minutes ago," I finished as we walked out the door.

"Guess having some cool other powers has some downsides," he smirked, and I rolled my eyes and shoved him to the side in response.

"Shut up," I said as we got into the car.

As we were pulling out, our parents came running outside, motioning for us to stop. This should be good.

"We want you to come straight back home after school. I want to talk to you alone, Blair. Ok?" dad told us.

"What for?" I asked.

"You'll see," he answered.

"Ok, we got it! Bye!" Jax said, keeping me from getting mad again.

On the ride to school, I was silent. I just ate my breakfast and thought to myself. It was no mystery why my dad wanted to talk to me after school. He wanted to discuss my latest rebellious act. If anyone has forgotten, it's the one where I let Khione take complete control over my life. I know what most are thinking: What an idiot! Why would she do that?! That's what I'm asking myself right now. What had come over me? I want to blame it on Khione's bad girl influence, but I know it wasn't that. This was my fault. I had been angry at my parents for punishing me about a tattoo Khione got, and I had lashed out. I wasn't thinking things through. I still had anger coursing through my veins. That's a lesson for you kids out there! Don't let your bad girl other half get a tattoo! It does not end well.

Of course, that wasn't all I was thinking about. I was also thinking about my little dream situation. What had Khione meant? Was it just some rude prank? I wasn't sure. All I knew was that I needed to let me parents and Jax not ASAP. For now, I would just try to act like nothing weird had happened at school. Like I hadn't suddenly dyed my hair, put an excessive amount of makeup on, and dressed more provocatively. Cuz' that is totally unnoticeable! Right.

I had been so wrapped-up in my own world that I did not realize that we had gotten to school. Curse the only ten minute drive! I thought I had more time to prepare myself for this. I could practically SEE the stares awaiting me. I had really screwed up.

"Ready?" Jax asked.

"As I'll ever be," I answered and stepped out of the car.

I tried to keep my head down, blend in. That was a lost cause. As soon as I got into the crowds of chatting students, the whispers started. Oh! I forgot to tell you! I had been passed out for a week from exhaustion. Before I had disappeared, I had acted a little differently, so, naturally, rumors had started. Apparently, some thought I had had a psychotic break and been checked into a nuthouse. The imagination on my classmates baffled me!

I think the fact that I had gone back to looking as per usual had started some. They might have thought I would have my hair all tangled and be twitching. Or at least that's what I could think of. Who knows what others think.

I decided to ignore all of the stares and whispers. If I didn't acknowledge them, then they weren't happening. That was what I was telling myself, over and over again.

When I got to my locker, I just acted as if nothing was happening. I opened it, got my things, and looked at my phone. If I looked down at my phone, then I wouldn't see the stares. Unfortunately, that did not work when someone walked right up to you and got up all in your face. Let me explain what was happening:

"What happened to you, freak?" Jasmine asked.

Jasmine was like the Regina George of my school. She acted like she ruled the place, but everyone just tolerated her and tried to stay out of her way. I guess I was failing at that.

"I got sick, so I stayed home," I lied smoothly, just like I had practiced so many times before. It's not like it was a complete lie! I was sorta sick, but it wasn't the average type.

"By sick, do you mean, like, psycho?" she asked.

"No," I answered simply, and then I just turned back to looking at my phone.

"I'm not done speaking to you, freak!" Jasmine had started to yell, which drew a crowd. Great.

"Well, I am, so please leave me alone, Jasmine," I told her.

"You don't get to tell me what to do!" she snapped back.

I could not believe this was happening. I had barely gotten to school before I had a confrontation. That is my life in a nutshell right there, if anyone was wondering.

"Just, please, leave me alone. I'm busy," I asked slightly more firmly, but still nice.

"No! I told you, no freaks get to tell me what to do," she said.

I sighed. I had really tried to keep my cool. I had taken ten deep breaths, just like you're supposed to! But no, nothing could ever go right with me. I found myself wishing high school would just end already. I still had another year and a half left, sadly.

I quickly grabbed Jasmine, turned her so her back was against, the locker, and pressed my forearm against her chest.

I whispered to her, "I told you to leave me alone."

I saw fear in her eyes. I realized that my eyes had turned icy-blue. That didn't differ me, though. I just turned them back and prepared to punch her in the face. By now, a huge crowd had formed, but that was in the farthest part of my brain right now. That fact was near my conscience and rationality. Right now, I was running on instinct and irrationality. In hindsight, I would have thought my actions a little farther through than I did. Whatever, doesn't matter that much.

Right as I was about to get her right in the nose, I felt someone pulling me back. This is when my brother decided to make an appearance. I had just started to have some fun, and he had to ruin it! And that was NOT Khione talking, that was all me!

"Cool it, B! What do you think you're doing?" he demanded, still holding me back from attacking Jasmine, who had crawled into the arms of her evil minions by now.

"I was thinking that I should punch her lights out!" I struggled against his grip.

Jax started to drag me away from the crowd. Do not think I hadn't put up a fight, though. I was elbowing him in the ribs the whole trip to the girls locker rooms. Wait a minute! Why was he going into the girls locker room! I can guarantee that's what most of you are asking right now. I guess the face that he was the opposite gender who the locker room belonged to didn't occur to him at the time. His only thought was to get me to calm down.

He pushed me into one of the showers and started it on cold. He let it start running over me. That woke me up. I had just started a fight. AT SCHOOL! I'm so dumb! I leaned against the wall, starting to slide down the tile. Once I had reached the floor, I was completely myself again. Or as far as I could be with another person living inside of me. One who had apparently started to effect my daily personality. That or I had really snapped, just like the rumors said. I really hope it was the prior. Unfortunately, the answer was closest to the latter. Lucky me, right?

Jax came over and turned off the water. He kneeled down in front of me and put his hands on my shoulders.

"Are you ok now?" he asked.

"Fine," I answered.

"Are you sure?" Cole asked.

I had just realized that my friends had shown up. They all looked down at me with concerned faces. I took advantage of their friendship too much sometimes. They would follow me into anything, and that it what I was afraid of. Now that they knew the big secret, something was bound to happen that would jeopardize they safety, and I would blame it all on myself. I would become a wreck. That is why I needed to try to keep them as much out of the superhero part of our lives for as long as possible. For now, I was safe. Jax and I weren't doing the hero thing until the end of high school. It was the smarted play.

"Yeah. I'm fine. I just had a momentary freak-out moment," I answered.

"And Jasmine just happened to be in the crossfire," Lucy said.

I smirked, "Exactly. It wasn't my fault she chose that moment to interrogate me."

"Don't think mom and dad won't be hearing about this when we get home," Jax told me.

Great. More to add to my list of things stressing me out. This fell in as about the 50th one. That just shows people how hectic my life has become.

"Snitch," I muttered under my breath as I got up.

"What was that?" Jax asked me.

"Nothing. Love you, lava hands!" I smiled innocently.

"Uh-huh," he said, narrowing his eyes.

****time skip to after school (I couldn't think of anything exciting to write about class)****

After this morning incident, nothing out of the ordinary had happened. I got quite a few stares and weird looks, but that was to be expected after what I had done. I had threatened the queen bee. She would come for me, probably packing a greater punch that before. Might even get the football team to help her out, knowing her connections.

I wanted to stay and hang out with my friends, but Jax reminded me that I needed to get home. Why did he choose the worst times to be responsible? I just needed a partner in crime right now, but no!

"I guess that's my cue to go," I told my friends, "See ya!"

"Bye!" Caitlin said.

Everyone else said goodbye, too. For some reason, it felt like I had just been called the principal's office the entire ride home. Jax tried to make smalltalk, but he ended-up giving up on it. We both knew what was coming. I was going to get scolded. Again. You'd think our parents would cut me some slack because of how they're the reason I have these powers. I was born this way!

"In here!" dad called from the kitchen.

I looked over at Jax. His face showed pity. He actually felt bad for me. How sweet. Of course it would have been better to have when I was getting in trouble the first time, but better late than never, right?

Walking over to my dad was like the walk-of-shame. I took as much time in-between each step as possible without stopping completely. Little did I know that what was to come was almost the complete opposite of what I was expecting.

"Please, sit," dad gestured towards one of the bar stools. He stayed standing on the other side of the counter, making me feel like I was getting interrogated.

"What did you want to talk about?" I asked, putting as much innocence into my voice as I could.

"Your recent behavior," he answered.

"Oh," was all I could come up with. Seriously, Blair?! Real original!

"I would like to start having weekly training sessions. Just one-on-one. You and me. Jax will continue his schedule with you, but our sessions will be different," he told me.

"Ok, what would we do?" I asked skeptically, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

"Work out, meditate, develop your hand-to-hand combat and your powers," he answered, like he didn't just say what I had been secretly wishing forever.

"Yes! Thank you, thank you, thank you!" I ran around and hugged him.

This is what I was waiting to happen. A happier life was starting to unfold. I would start to train more, learn better control, and then I would become a superhero when I graduated! This is awesome! I started to go and tell Jax, but my dad stopped me.

"Don't think this will be easy and fun. You'll have to sacrifice a lot of your time to do this, are you ok with that?" he asked.

"I'm better than ok with it! This way, I'll be able to seem normal and things will go back to the usual in my life!" I answered enthusiastically.

"We meet every Wednesday in the training room," dad told me.

"Got it!" I yelled as I started to run and tell Jax.

I burst into his room, not caring about knocking. I was glad to just have found him doing homework. One time, I had walked in on him making-out with a girl from school. Don't ask. He was a very reckless freshman and sophomore. He was very lucky it was only me, and not one of our parents. He would still be grounded now if it had been! That thought made me chuckle in my head. Focus! Back to telling Jax the news.

"Guess what?!" I exclaimed.

"What? Are you in trouble. By the smile on your face, I'm guessing not," he asked.

"Dad's going to give me personal training! I'm not in trouble!" I just about started doing a happy dance in the middle of Jax's room.

"That's so cool!"he said.

"I know!" I said, "Well, that's it. I'm just gonna go now."

"Wait! Don't go! I wanted to see if we could hang out for a bit," Jax told me.

"Um, I guess," I answered.

"Cool," He said.

*****Time skip to right before bed*****

I had gone into my bathroom and started getting ready for bed. I washed my face, moisturized, brushed my teeth. You know, the usual routine.

Once I had finished, I went back to my room and got into bed. I started to look through social media on my phone. What I saw almost made me cry, but I refused to give them the satisfaction of breaking down my steel wall. Jasmine and her friends had been posting and tweeting a bunch of mean stuff about me. For example: 'If I were the freak, I wouldn't show my face in society ever again!' I saw that my phone was starting to ice over. I breathed, in and out, in and out. It started to melt. I was super glad I was going to get personal lessons now! This should not be happening anymore. I had had this powers for sixteen years already!

That thought brought another odd one. I tried to imagine what my parents had to deal with when Jax and I were babies. Imagine one randomly burning their pacifiers, and another freezing her crib over. I giggled at the image I had created in my mind. It almost felt as if someone was purposefully trying to cheer me up. Maybe it was Khione. Wait. Why hadn't I heard one peep from her all day? Usually, she couldn't stop annoying me, but today she had been on mute. Why? All this wondering before bed had to stop. This is why I never get a good nights sleep!

Eventually, I fell asleep. But not without my mind still filled with thousands of possible reasons why Khione had been silent today. Maybe she was just pouting, but what if it was something worse? What if she had been injured when we had mentally fought?! I would never forgive myself! We may be at odds most of the time, but we were still two halves to one whole person. Without the other, we just felt like a limb had been cut off. Maybe that was why I had been so easy to rile-up today. Now that I thought about it, I had been feeling kinda off ever since I had woken up today. I would deal with this tomorrow.

I woke up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat. I was panting heavily. My eyes looked all around my room. I had had the worst nightmare ever! I was being experimented on where I was interning at! My boss had me hooked up to a whole bunch of wires and made me freeze a room as much as possible. Eventually, I had blacked out from exhaustion, but came back as soon as I was hit with a shock of electricity from a cattle rod. The person who had shocked me was smiling, like he enjoyed torturing me. The third shock had been when I had woken up. What did this mean? That was the message I was silently sending out to Khione, hoping she was still inside me. Even if she was in some sort of coma-like state, I hoped she could still hear me. I needed her more than ever right now.