The unbearable weight of waiting ... - Part 3
Even as Kyle grinned at her look of shock, Caitlyn heard a disturbance coming their way. As she looked around, faces turned toward her, all holding their cell phones. Fingers pointed her way and expressions from wild amusement to pure, unadulterated hate crossed features. One of those faces belonged to Alaina, and Caitlyn began to open her mouth, about to ask her best friend what was wrong. She had no time, as Alaina slapped her, tears running down her face.
"How could you?" Another slap failed to hit as Kyle deflected it away. Alaina glared at him, then held up her phone in front of Caitlyn's face. "I've been your friend for years and you do this?"
Caitlyn had no words, her mouth opened and closed as she looked at the screen of Alaina's phone and saw an image of herself in a paused video. Alaina stared at Caitlyn, hurt lining every part of her features as she tapped the screen to play the video. As it started, Caitlyn couldn't see who she was talking to on the video. In fact, she couldn't remember this happening at all.
"Oh, yeah, she's a total slut." The Caitlyn on the screen laughed as she spoke to someone to the side, out of sight of the camera. "She's slept with most of the football team. In fact, Alaina told me she had the quarterback and the running back at the same time. Sometimes, she disgusts me."
The video paused and then began to loop, starting from the beginning. Off to the side, she heard laughter, whispers, people hissing 'slut' and 'bitch'. Caitlyn hadn't said those things. Not ever and she knew for a fact that Alaina was a virgin. It was all lies spouted out of her mouth, but it couldn't be her mouth. Despite knowing that, Caitlyn could see that Alaina believed she had said it. How could she not? It was right there, before her eyes.
"That isn't me! I would never say such horrible things! Such lies!" She shouted that, looking at everyone else behind Alaina. "You have to believe me!"
"It's right there! Everyone has seen it!" Alaina stepped away and turned into the arms of Rayna. The accusation in Rayna's eyes was almost painful. "And after everything I've kept secret."
Rayna led Alaina away, looking over her shoulder at Caitlyn and the crowds began to walk away. To her side, Kyle began tapping furiously on the screen of his own phone and found the video. He looked to Caitlyn, sadness in eyes that his hair almost covered. Even as he began to say something, Caitlyn saw other people walking toward them and she almost curled into a ball. Principle Wolfman and Caitlyn's physics teacher, Ms Whitmore, and neither looked happy.
"Miss Carter? We're going to need you to open your locker." The Principle waved a hand, urging Caitlyn to head toward the lockers. "It seems like you're having a bad day."
Caitlyn looked around, but Kyle had disappeared, leaving her alone, accused of something she didn't do, could never do, and now it appeared even worse things were ahead.
-+-
Later, at Aunt Mary's apartment ...
She couldn't look at Aunt Mary. Sat at the kitchen table, Caitlyn picked at the skin at the edge of her fingernails as Aunt Mary looked at the papers sent from the school, in silence. That she hadn't said a thing made it all the worse. The papers crackled as Aunt Mary looked at the second sheet once again before laying them down on the table and still Caitlyn couldn't look at her.
"Suspended. Stealing term papers? Really, Caitlyn?" Aunt Mary almost whispered the words and the disappointment in her voice made Caitlyn's heart ache. "Honey, if you were having problems at school, we could have worked something out, but stealing? What would Richard say?"
"I didn't." Caitlyn wanted to shout it out, for everyone to hear, but, instead, she kept her head dipped, slumped in the chair, picking at her nails. "I don't need to, you know that. Everyone knows that, I've been bullied enough for it."
"But they found them in your locker, dear." Aunt Mary reached out a hand, but Caitlyn flinched away. "I know losing the internship was hard, you probably wanted to prove yourself, but this isn't the way. I'm afraid I'm going to have to ground you."
"What? But I haven't done anything!" The chair clattered backward as Caitlyn jumped to her feet. "If even you don't believe me, then what's the point? This sucks!"
Caitlyn hadn't slammed her bedroom door in years, but she did now, thankful that the suit wasn't working. She doubted she could control her strength in the state she found herself in. Jumping onto the bed, she pulled the covers over her and curled into a ball in the darkness. From the video, to the stolen term papers, it seemed as though the universe had decided to bury her in mountain of lies, but she couldn't prove that any of them were lies at all.
By the time she heard Aunt Mary settling down for the night, Caitlyn had cried more than she had for years. Not since losing Uncle Richard. She could imagine him now, tilting his head, making that little sigh and telling her to get back up there and prove her worth. Prove to herself that she was the person she wanted to be. She missed him so much.
Her phone began to make a noise she had never heard before. Not a call, or a message, or a notification of any kind. She poked her head out from under the covers to see a red light flashing on the screen. That seemed odd. Sitting up, she wiped her nose with the back of her hand and leaned over to look at the screen. It was an alert, but not any she knew about. A picture of the apartment sat on the screen, with a red, flashing star in one room. Her room.
No matter how much she tried, she couldn't summon the suit. It was there, she could feel it, but it wouldn't come. Couldn't. Still healing. She needed a weapon, though, remembering Trooper Jane's words. Trying not to make any sudden moves, she eased her hand down the side of the bed and grabbed her hair straighteners, rolling the cord on her other hand.
"Good choice. Heavy, but not too cumbersome. The cable could parry away any strikes and tie up your enemy." The voice came from the deepest, darkest corner of Caitlyn's room and she shook the straighteners aggressively that way. "Suit up. We've got work to do."
Something hit Caitlyn in the face and she struggled to pull it away, hitting it with her makeshift weapon until she realised she was hitting some kind of cloth. She poked the cloth several times before she remembered someone was in the room with her. She turned on the bed to see a face emerge from the darkness. A familiar face.
"You! What the hell? How'd you get in here?" She still didn't drop the hair straighteners, even as she recognised the dumb smile on Kyle's face. "Why? Why are you even here?"
"Put on the suit, stop your yapping or you'll wake up sweet Aunt Mary, and get your ass in gear. How I do what I do isn't important. That I can is all you need to know. Blood Obsidian." He circled a black gauntleted hand, bulky above the wrist, urging her to hurry up. "You know that sounds like a villain's name, right?"
"And 'Pho-Boy' just sounds lame. Why do I need a suit?" She picked up the cloth that had hit her, holding it up on the light from the window. "You know I'm grounded?"
"Eh. Tommy grounds me all the time. Never stops me." He opened the window, hanging his leg outside. "Or do you not want to clear your name?"
Of course she did, but she couldn't see how that was possible. The video looked pretty damning, even though she knew it was fake, and the term papers were right there in her locker. Whoever had put them there couldn't have made it more obvious if they'd hung a sign on the locker shouting 'Frame-up in process'. She sniffed the suit before even considering putting it on and then glared at Kyle until he left the room through the window.
-+-
Up on the roof ...
She felt ridiculous, tugging the sleeves up, adjusting the crotch, and the gauntlet-like gloves Kyle handed her looked so big she doubted she could do anything wearing them. The boots were as bad, although those, at least, seemed to fit. The mask he gave her felt stifling and tight, completely unlike her own mask.
"I look like an idiot!" She dropped her arms and the sleeves pooled around the tops of the gauntlets once again. "My suit is better than this."
"Your suit almost got destroyed because you caught a grenade with it. Until it wakes up, this will have to do." Kyle now wore a mask of his own, like half the mask that Fear wore, the lower half of his face showing that goofy smile. Caitlyn wondered if Fear had told Kyle everything. "This is a polymer blend that is both bullet resistant, flame retardant and has unique adjusting properties. Like ... so."
He pressed something on one of the gauntlets Caitlyn wore and she felt a mild electrical current run through the suit, causing it to tighten and gather in the longer, badly fitting parts. Once done, it did feel a whole lot more comfortable, but a little too skin-tight. Kyle, or Pho-Boy, gave her a little up-and-down check before turning away, lifting his gauntleted arm to point to a nearby, taller building.
"Wait! What are we even doing? I've never done this without my suit." She stepped forward, glaring down at the boots that felt too heavy to run in. "I'm new at all this."
"Don't worry, let the targeting computer do all the work. Enjoy the ride. Try not to swing into anything and, oh, yeah, don't look in buildings as you swing past. Some things you cannot unsee." Even as he looked at her, a line of cord shot from the back of his gauntlet, making no greater sound than a soft 'pfft'. "Trooper Jane showed you how to fight. I'm going to show you how to be a detective. Autobots! Roll out!"
The cord straightened taut and Kyle almost flew away from Caitlyn, toward the next building. Caitlyn lifted the gauntlet on her hand, looking at a hole at the top, in the bulky cuff section. This was stupid. She didn't even know how to use this dumb gauntlet. What was she supposed to do? Point her arm, as Kyle had, and think 'thwip'?
The cord shot from the gauntlet. That wasn't the bad thing. The bad thing came when the end grappled to the building across the way and the cord began to retract, fast. Caitlyn didn't even have time to scream.