Chapter Twelve
"Can you help her?" A distant voice asks.
"I can try, but I don't like messing with other people's molecular system," another voice says.
"Please, she needs help," the voice begs.
A hand is placed on my shoulder and it snaps back into place, I feel all of the pain but exert no reaction. The same hand is placed on my side and a weird burning sensation occurs. If I could move, I would be crawling out of my skin. Breaking a sweat, I feel myself starting to become more conscious.
"That's the best I can do, she won't bleed anymore but it will take a few weeks to finish healing," the voice says, and I recognize the voice, but can't put my finger on who it is.
"Thank you, sweetheart," the soft voice asks.
"Of course,"
"What happened?" A strained, but deeper voice asks.
"I wish I knew Dax; when I showed up, she was already beaten up and she was walking away from the other person I am assuming that was in the fight. He looked even worse than she does. Cathleen took him to the hospital, before dropping us off here," the voice says.
"Did you recognize him?"
"I've never seen him before in my life,"
I go into a horrible coughing fit and my body spams in pain. I feel myself being sat up as I cough up some liquid. Something soft is placed on my face and wipes away whatever just came out of my mouth. I try to breathe normally but my ribs ache and a groan slips through my lips. Somebody lays me back down and I become aware of multiple bodies in the room.
"Faith?" A scared voice asks me and tears well up in my eyes.
"Faith sweetie, can you hear us?" The voice continues, and the warm tears slip down my cheeks.
"Ruka," I gasp as sobs rack my frame.
Everything hurts, and crying makes it worse, but I can't make it stop. Tears pour down my face and I curl up trying to make the pain go away. The fear in her voice rips my heart apart. Why am I such a mess? Why do I always hurt them? Why can't I just be normal?
Somebody is trying to soothe me, but I don't deserve their attention. I do nothing but bring pain to everyone around me. Anger burns in my chest causing me to cry harder as my body trembles. Rolling over my face is buried into the fabric of the couch and I can barely breathe, but I can't seem to care. Warm hands on my back make me cringe and try to get away. Just leave me to burn in my hell, please just leave me alone.
"What should we do?" Ruka's strained voice asks, and I hear someone else sniffling.
"I don't know," Dax's broken voice responds and another sob rips through my lips.
Silence settles into the room as my body slowly stills as my tears stop falling. A sense of emptiness starts in my chest and spreads all through my torso. A numb feeling consumes me from the inside out and I just lay there trying to will myself back to being unconscious. But to no avail, I am wide awake. Somebody kneels next to the couch and I feel a soft hand placed on my arm very cautiously.
"Sweetheart?"
"Please... don't," I whisper.
"Faith, please, look at me," her gentle voice prods me and I roll over.
"Please open those big brown eyes," she whispers to me and I crack one eye open and then the other.
Ruka is looking down at me with such worry and compassion it makes my heartache. I don't deserve to have foster parents like Ruka and Dax, I am just going to get them hurt. Ruka reaches a hand and rubs a thumb on my cheek wiping away a stray tear.
"Faith, what happened?" Ruka asks me and I can see the desperate look in her eyes.
Memories flash before my eyes, my hands clench and it sends pain shooting down my arm and I gasp and grab my arm instinctively. I feel Ruka trying to sit me up and put a sling around my arm, but it hurts too much, and I withdraw my arm and curl away from her. She's not trying to hurt me, but everything is so heightened. His face flashes before my eyes and his touch sears into my skin.
"Faith?" Another voice asks me and my eyes pop open.
"Ion?" I ask confused and his smiling face greets me.
"Hey Fay, come here will you, we need to put this sling on you, so your shoulder can heal," he says gently pulling my arm through; I grind my teeth through the pain.
"What happened, Fay? Ruka and Dax are so worried about you," Ion says, and I can hear Ruka and Dax in the kitchen.
"I don't want to talk about it," I say quietly, and he shakes his head.
"We're not playing this game Fay, tell me what happened," he says in a more demanding tone and I sigh.
"Cabe found me," I say so quietly I'm not sure he could even hear me.
"Where is he?" Orion growls out, standing up and I am slightly shocked by his response.
"Did he touch you?" Orion continues, and I can see it in his eyes, I know that look, it's the same look I get before I am about to lose it.
"Orion," I say firmly, and we make eye contact and he grumbles and sits back down on the floor.
"He found me, and we beat the snot out of each other, but as always, I won," I say and he knawels on his lip uneasily.
"Where is he now?"
"The hospital, but..." He simply raises an eyebrow at me.
"I wiped his entire memory," I whisper out and Orion's eyes widen. I can't remember doing it, but I can still feel the words on my lips. Tears blur my vision as the frustration sets in.
"Faith," Orion says surprised.
"I don't know what possessed me to do it, and I'm not proud of it, but it's like I had no control," I say with a thick rasp to my voice. Clearing my throat, I try to control myself.
"Faith..." Orion trails off and I can see a question flitting around in his eyes.
"Yeah?"
"We'll be back," he yells out before picking me up.
I don't even blink and we are in an apartment I don't recognize. He gently puts me down on the tattered couch before going into another room. Coming back, he hands me a glass of ice water and sits down beside me.
"Where are we?" I ask him confused.
"This is my apartment," he says with a proud smile.
"And what country are we in?" I ask him skeptically.
"Canada," he says amused and I shake my head.
"It takes me too long to get back and forth between America and Europe, so I opted for Canada instead," he says as if it the most logical thing in the world.
"So why are we here? I am sure Dax and Ruka won't be pleased that we up and left," I say trying to situate the sling.
"I needed to ask you something, but I figured you would want to have the conversation in private," he says, and I see the nervous look in his eyes.
"Well spit it out already, Ion," I say.
"Have you ever heard of Dissociative Identity Disorder?" He asks me and my blood runs cold.
"Yeah, I have, I learned about it in a psychology course I took, I think its a condition where two or more distinct identities can control one person. I feel like I remember reading that sometimes people can describe it as if they feel like they are being possessed. A lot of the person can also experience memory loss, that is too frequent to be explained by ordinary forgetfulness," I say spitting out the textbook definition I memorized, and a chill goes down my spine. Forgetfulness too extensive to be ordinary.
"Do you know what type of a person it is common in?" Orion pushes and I grind my teeth.
"It has been reported a lot that people with the disorder frequently report having experienced severe physical and sexual abuse, particularly during childhood," I mumble out and something settles in my chest making it hard to breathe. I wouldn't know for sure and I won't self-diagnosis myself but everything I just described sounds so spot-on, how did I never notice it? Is that a possible answer to all of these half-memories and strange sensations?
"Sounds familiar doesn't it," he says quietly.
"Why?" I ask and my voice cracks.
"Nobody asks for it, Faith," he says and his hand rests on mine and I pull away.
Standing up I pace the floor ignoring the protesting in my ribs. Tears well in my eyes and I force them back, I am not going to cry. Looking at Orion, his eyes are cast at the ground and I can feel the pain radiating from him, a very similar pain to what is ripping my insides apart. Grabbing a pillow off of the couch I press it against my mouth and let out a blood-curdling scream until I can't breathe anymore. Dropping to the floor dizzy I try to not pass out and Orion sits down in front of me.
"A lot of the kids in the camp exude the symptoms, I started noticing it the older I became. Once I was finally free, I did some research in a library near here and then one day I stumbled upon a whole research study on the subject..."
"They destroy us physically, break us down until we're nothing but empty shells, and fracture whatever mental state we have left," I hiss out.
Orion doesn't answer me, and we sit there in deafening silence as anxiety eats away me. I lay down on the scratched up wooden floor. Orion comes and lays next to me and grabs my hand. I don't pull back, I don't care, and everything is just spinning.
"They're going to come after Dax and Ruka soon," I whisper.
"They have a lot of Meta friends to help keep them safe," he says quietly.
"Dax isn't a Meta, he can't protect himself as the others can," I say.
"Then you'll protect them," Orion says simply.
"They're going to come after them Ion, and I am going to go with them to appease them," I say, and Orion bolts up.
"No," he growls out.
"Listen to me before you say no," I say, and he sits silently.
"I've been loosely working on a plan, on how to bring down the camp. I just need to have Aviva to help me out with giving too much away..." I say.
"What do you need from her?"
"A smaller device that they won't be able to find on me, but it also needs to be able to admit a pitch to cancel out the other high pitch that they use a deterrent for me," I say and Orion's eyebrow crinkles.
"I'm going to bring down that camp Orion, and those blasted guards are going to help me do it without even realizing what is happening," I growl out and he looks at me.
"Faith, this is dangerous, you know they scan you once you return, they will easily find any device," he says, and I chuckle.
"Not if I wear a thick wired bra," I say with a devious look in my eyes and he shakes his head.
"I don't think I can watch you go back to that place after everything that happened there," he says.
"This isn't about me... it's about the hundred and eight children still trapped there and the thousands of kids that have and will die," I say and a shiver races down his spine.
"When?"
"I don't know yet... I have to wait for them to play their cards...."
"How will you get Aviva to help you?"
"I'm not sure yet..."
"You'll figure it out, you always do," he says with a nervous look in his eyes.
As the evening drawls to a close Orion takes me back home and I climb into bed tired. He gives my hand a quick squeeze before walking to go and find Ruka and Dax. I relax in bed and my tired body is thankful for the soft mattress.
"I thought I heard shuffling coming from her room," Ruka says.
"She's passed out," Orion says, and I can hear the amusement in his voice.
"Can you explain to me while you whisked my daughter away when we needed to find out what happened?" Dax asks, and he isn't amused in the slightest.
"I could tell she just needed some space and time to talk and I knew I could get her to tell me what happened in time," he says kind of brushing over the truth some.
"Well Mr. Orion, what did happen?" Dax asks in the same serious tone.
"Somebody from the camp we came from found her, and if it was just anybody it wouldn't have been such a big deal, but this person hurt her..."
"Camp?" Aviva's voice questions and I cringe; I guess Alexander didn't tell her.
"What did he do to her?" Ruka's voice asked angrily.
"He... tried to assault her when she was eleven," I can hear the emotion in his voice and the gasps.
"He didn't get very far because Faith may be tiny, but she is as quick as lightning and her hits hurt," he says trying to calm the room.
"But the memories stuck with her," Dax says and there is some shuffling in the kitchen.
"Is someone going to explain to me what he meant by them coming from a camp?" Aviva's voice questions.
"I'm surprised Alexander didn't tell you," Dax says.
"We haven't seen or heard from him all day," Cathleen says, and I didn't even need one guess to figure out why.
"Faith can explain it better than we could ever and it's not right for us to try and tell her story. But there is a camp across the country that takes children and tries to turn them into metahumans," Ruka says and I hear some noise but can't decipher it, knowing Aviva it was a gasp of disgust.
"Is that how you two know each other?" Cathleen asks, and I can hear the shock in her voice.
"We were actually in the same orphanage so our friendship goes back even further than that shithole," Orion says, and I am having a hard time keeping my eyes open at this point.
"I think Aviva and I should come back tomorrow and maybe have a chat with Faith," Cathleen says.
"We'll see if she is up for it," Dax says.
"Of course,"