There may or may not be a hint of what Beta's real name is in this chapter. I would love to hear your guesses in the comments!!
Chapter Three
"Please," Click whines and I stare at the pile of schematics I was sent this morning. The schedule that Nathan has me set up with is going to be murder to keep up with. I hate that they don't just hire someone else, I don't see why they can't, especially now that they have all these big projects to work on. I really need to spend the evening working on test builds, but Click has been asking me almost every night this week to go out.
"Fine," I say pushing my work away. She's more important than an extra hour trapped in this lab.
"About time!" She says excitedly before darting away to change. Walking away from our messy lab, I change into a skintight shirt and grab my mask from a drawer. Pulling it down over my face, it covers up to my nose. Grabbing my glasses, I slip them on as well so I can see better as well as protect my eyes from the wind.
"Ready?" She asks me excitedly from my doorway. Yanking on my boots, I activate the magnets in the bottom.
"Let's go have some fun," I say, and she bounces up to the rooftop.
Pulling my inch wide disk off my watch, it expands out to about three feet and I hook my boots in and lets the straps tighten before turning the board on. Slowly rising off the ground, Click joins me, and we take off into the evening sky. Dancing around each other with ease, we bob and weave further into the city at a remarkably fast pace. I can hear Click laughing and having a blast as we speed past buildings and weave through the ever-growing skyscrapers of the city.
"Race you!" She calls out to me and I chuckle and twist my wrist to get the board to speed up. She needs to be careful or one of us is going to hit something.
"Click watch yourself," I say seriously, and she slows down.
"What?" She asks confused and I slow down to hover next to her.
"We are flying in helicopter airways Click, we need to be careful. If one of us crashes into a helicopter we're as good as dead," I say seriously, and I look of understanding dawns on her face.
"I forgot," she says sheepishly, and I chuckle.
"Just be more careful, I don't need to plan any funerals," I say, and we twist around a building and start heading home.
As we start to weave back towards our warehouse, my stomach churns slightly and I feel my heart start racing. Searching the area, something is unnerving me but I can't figure out what. Landing on a nearby roof, Click drops down next to me confused. We don't normally land here when we come back.
"What's wrong? Did you see something?" Click asks me confused as I glance at some of the other burnt or warped rooftops; I can feel the shadows moving.
"She's here," I say unnerved and Click gives me a baffled look before it hits her.
"How can you tell?" She asks alarmed.
"I would know the sensation of the shadows being alive anywhere, she practically drawls them in unconsciously, they cling to her, they are a part of her," I say annoyed.
She can't be here because of me, no one knows where I went. Would Arlington have tracked me from work? She doesn't even know who I am. Or does she? It would have been hard for her to get any kind of read on me from such a short and work-focused interaction. But I would be a fool to doubt her, she is a genius in her own right and backed by two incredibly capable and calculating people.
"Over there," Click points out and I follow her hand to see someone lying on a charred roof.
"Oh, this can't be good," I say, and I twist my wrist quickly and we zip over and drop down onto the nearby roof. Walking I see that her shadows are down, but her mask is in place. I don't see any physical damage on the outside of her suit nor is there a puddle of blood. Sneering at her, I debate what to do.
"What do you think happened?" Click asks me confused and I shrug. She probably got in over her damn head again, she has a true talent for it.
"I don't know and don't certainly care. It's none of my business, she isn't my problem anymore," I say bitterly before re-expanding my board.
"We are just going to leave her here. Unconscious? On an unstable rooftop?" Click asks me surprised at how cold I am being.
"She can handle herself," I snip annoyed, and Click gives me an unimpressed look and I waiver slightly.
"She could die," Click says and I shake my head.
"No one else is going to get up here, she'll be fine," I say seriously. I don't need to help her; she doesn't deserve it, nor does she need it. Whatever she got herself into is her problem to handle
"Beta c'mon," Click says softly and I resist the urge to shock something. A charge builds in my body and I try to figure out where to let it off. I can't keep letting this charge increase or I will hurt myself, again.
"Why should I help her? After everything that happened! She would probably spit in my face if I woke her up," I growl angrily, and Click goes silent.
"Be the bigger person, Beta," Click says and I grumble and take a breath before pulling out my phone. What kind of example am I setting throwing a fit like this? She knows my moral alignment isn't flawless but this is still low, even for me.
"Let me think..." I mumble as I scroll through my contact list.
I don't have anyone on the team's number, I deleted them all years ago and blocked them all. The only person I have even spoken to in the last few years would be Lyle. I try to recall if he is even back in New York. I feel like he moved back a while ago but he could still be in California for all I know. Glancing back down at the unconscious superhero, she is probably going to need medical attention immediately if she is out cold like this. Unfortunately, she is the only one capable of moving herself far distances.
"Are you stalling or genuinely trying to remember phone numbers?" Click asks me after a while and I find Lyle's contact and pray he still has the same phone number.
"Something must be horribly wrong if you are calling me, and it's not my birthday," Lyle's concerned voice answers the phone on the last ring. Staring down at the unconscious woman on the ground I sigh.
"Yes," I say unsure of how to explain the situation.
"What's going on?" Lyle asks me, panic seeping into his voice.
"Ruka and Dax adopted the one kid who can teleport, correct?" I ask carefully and Lyle pauses. He never told me about that, but I have my ways of finding things out.
"Yes, why?"
"I'm going to send you an address... I am on the roof. I don't know what happened, but she's going to need immediate medical attention," I say awkwardly before hanging up and pushing him to our location. Stepping away from Lena, I feel for her electrical signals and find them to be very low. Who did this to her? How did they do it? How could she be stupid enough to let this happen to her?
"Wow, you are horrible at communicating," Click says and I groan and take my glasses off so I can rub my eyes.
"I speak to that man once a year to wish him a happy birthday, I don't even talk to my own parents Calikta. What exactly did you expect from me?" I ask her exasperated and she snickers.
"For you to sound like you graduated from at least high school and to be able to articulate complete thoughts," she teases I zap her foot causing her to jump. She slugs me in the shoulder and I just chuckle.
"Don't even start with me right now," I say, and she snickers but we quickly shut up when we hear two male voices.
"She said the roof," one says, and I would know it anywhere, that's Lyle.
"This building looks like it's about to collapse," a much younger voice says.
"Please Orion," Lyle says, and the name sounds familiar. I think the other boy's name is Cabe, he has a similar ability to... him.
"Fine," he says and there is a moment of silence before two people appear by the edge.
"Oh my god, Invi," Orion says startled and he barely even glances at Click and me before darting towards her. We don't say anything or even move, I don't need nor want to start a fight with them right now. Looking up at me, he slowly pulls her into his arms.
"What happened?" He asks panicked.
"I found her like that, I don't have answers," I say seriously, and he gives me a doubtful look before disappearing with her.
"H-" Lyle starts but I raise a hand to cut him off.
"Don't start with that," I say, and he purses his lips.
"What did you do to her?" He asks me flatly and I am offended by his accusation. I've managed to mostly keep myself out of trouble for the last decade! I also don't walk around attacking people! I never throw the first hit, but I always finish the fight.
"Nothing? I told you I found her up here when we were on our way home," I say taken aback.
"Bull. You are trying to tell me you just happened to stumble upon the woman who," Lyle continues and a crack of lightning cuts him off. My crack of lighting that is building around me.
"Yes, that is exactly what I am telling you, Lyle. I haven't seen her in years and I certainly wouldn't have sought her out now!" I yell becoming frustrated. Why would he accuse me of that?
"The chances of you stumbling upon her are slim to none considering she had no reason to be over this way! Unless maybe someone wanted to finally talk," Lyle starts but I cut him off again.
"Go screw yourself Lyle Caspian, I was trying to do the right thing and make sure she didn't die. I didn't lay a hand on that psychotic, selfish, absorbed diva!" I yell at him. Another crack of lighting happens, and I can feel my energy multiplying. My body lights up with electricity and it's almost intoxicating.
"Beta, calm down," Click says concerned and her hand grips my wrist hard. Wincing slightly at her grip, I can see my heart rate is synced to her watch and it's starting to fall out of rhythm. Shooting a crack of dark lighting past Lyle, I make sure it doesn't hit him, but the release allows my heart to return to normal and is enough to make his hair stand on end.
"What the hell?" Lyle growls.
"I had to let off some steam," I say snarkily, and Click releases my wrist. I can tell she is twisting her rubber bracelets. She never leaves home without them.
"What did you do to Invi?" Lyle asks me downright over this conversation. Tilting my head to the side I walk over to him and get into his space. He takes a step back alarmed and I sneer at him under my mask.
"I didn't do anything, but I guess if everyone thinks so horribly of me, I might as well do something," I say in my darkest voice and Lyle's eyes widen in alarm as I step away from him. Grabbing my board, I expand it and attach it to my foot with ease and turn it on, and hover over him while I secure the second one.
"H-" He starts but I just let out a horrifically enraged chuckle.
"Don't Lyle," I say again, and he swallows hard and I take off with Click right behind me. We slow for a moment and drop onto our roof.
"Are you okay, Beta?" Click asks me genuinely and I try to swallow the irrational rage that is slowly consuming me.
"I will be, I just need space from them," I say, and I start to see red.
Touching my partially numb face, I clench my teeth and try to focus. The sense of panic consumes me for a few moments as I think about how it happened. A gentle hand on my shoulder surprises me and I look into Click's almost black eyes and for a moment I don't feel so lost. Pulling her into a hug, she hugs me back tightly.
We don't say anything for a long moment and she just hugs me even tighter. We don't need to talk; she knows how much I care about her and the lengths I would go to just to protect her. Click stumbled into my life when I was still horribly lost in my rage and grief again, and in a shocking twist of events, has been a positive influence. She calls me out all the time for my behavior and sometimes I really need someone to do that. It's hard when you've been by yourself for so long, everything just seems normal.
"Are you really going to do something to them?" Click asks me and I can see a fire brewing in her stormy eyes. It takes me a moment to place why; she's angry at how Lyle treated me. I know she wasn't expecting his tone and accusations, and how protective I feel towards her is reciprocated. She's never been afraid of me or my anger; her father was much more manic, and rage-fueled than I have ever been.
"I just might, if they think I am the evil scum on their shoes I might as well just make a point," I seethe.
"I am always down to stir up some chaos," she says and a smirk slides onto her face.
"I'll stir up a plot," I growl out before stalking inside and I can feel her trailing after me.
As much as we both try to pretend that we are 'normal' people, we both seek the comfort that chaos brings. Something is soothing about everything being ever so slightly outside of our control. It drowns out the things that haunt us and for a moment we can breathe.
Later that evening as I continue to play and toy with the ideas I have, the rage slowly starts to soften. With every passing moment, the hatred I try so desperately to cling to fades away leaving me exhausted and utterly numb.
It's deceptively easy to mask the pain, the betrayal, with a blinding rage. The intensity of the fury makes it easy to forget what is really there, what has really happened. For a few moments, I can be lost in the feeling and not my reality. Anger has always been so much simpler for me to maintain and feel; it's always been the easiest emotion to sink into and deal with, rather than the pain. The jarring reality and suffocating pain of knowing I lost everyone I cared for in one day, for something I couldn't even control.
All of this is her fault, everything I could have been, everything would have been fine if she could have just controlled herself for once. But no, that was too much to ask of her. Giving her everything I ever could, supporting her, caring and training with her, and being her biggest advocate wasn't enough for her, in the end, I was just another person standing in her way. I was just another piece in her game, and when someone made a devastating move against her, she destroyed the pieces in front of her without hesitation.
But this is what our stories wrote, I live in an abandoned warehouse overworking at a garbage job that doesn't pay me nearly enough and takes advantage of my willingness to work. Instead of having my entire family, I have Click. Thinking of her I soften, and smack my head into my pillow, she is family, she will always be family now. I shouldn't think about her like that, but it still doesn't stop the sting of knowing how quickly everything that I relied on was stripped away.
Climbing out of bed, I walk over to our open lab and see a bush of vibrant red hair. Click glances up and gives me a sheepish grin, we both find it so much easier to work in the late hours of the day. The silence that falls over the city and the darkness is calming. Sitting down across from her, we work in comfortable silence and the pain eases a bit. I am so thankful to have her.
The ending of this chapter is heavy, but it's very personal for me. We all cope in different ways and not all coping mechanisms are positive. It's always easiest for me to just be angry rather than hurt, but rage is toxic and consuming. Right here is where the real Beta starts to show through, and I guess a little bit of me too.
Remember you are always worth more than you realize, and change is hard but you will only get stronger from here. Life goes on.
All my love and support
XX Cc