☑ THE SHADOW | Peter Maximoff

t h i r t y - f o u r

~ 𝐀𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐚 ~

The bed creaked under Amara's body as she fell on top of it, her hands over her eyes and a loud huff escaping her lips. She took a deep breath, her limbs quite literally shaking from anger and her teeth clenched so tightly she was surprised they hadn't all completely shattered.

The girl couldn't even speak English. How were they supposed to help a girl that they couldn't even talk to? What the fuck was Peter thinking? Was he insane?

She seemed to be asking herself that question a lot lately. Actually, she had been asking that question about Peter ever since she met him. His ideas were always so opposite to hers, and it was so... fuck, it was so infuriating.

She wants to go North, he wants to go South. She wants to be alone, he wants to bother the shit out of her. She very much wants to get out of Russia, and he wants to adopt a child they can't even speak to.

Her eyes blinked open, and she sighed, looking up at the ceiling.

Where was the logic?

Nowhere.

Exactly! Nowhere! What kind of saint-like outcome were they going to get out of starving in the forest with a six-year-old?

This is why we should just take him. You know how much easier it would be-

"Shut up," she huffed, waving her power away and rolling her eyes.

That was when her eyes focused, specifically on a peculiar panel in the ceiling she somehow hadn't noticed before staring back at her. Her eyebrows furrowed. It wasn't directly over the bed. It was beside, rather, and looked like it took up a good portion of the ceiling as well.

She stood up, her eyes locking on the string dangling down from it.

Amara used her mutation to help her pull the panel down, which revealed a rickety old ladder covered in spiderwebs. It didn't take much besides her curiosity to climb it.

The attic it led her to was empty except for the endless amounts of spiderwebs and dust to match the ladder, though it also held an empty bird's nest in one of the windows, and what she assumed to be a dead squirrel in one of the corners.

Another panel appeared in the ceiling above her, this time clearly holding up another ladder. When she climbed this one, it took her directly outside.

The house was taller than she expected it to be; she could see beyond the tops of the trees and along the valleys of the forest, which meant the surface she was standing on raised her quite a bit. The house must have also been on a hill higher than she anticipated, since the trees further away looked much lower.

But out in the distance, her eyes met the setting sun peeking out from behind the mountains. It gave off enough light to see the inescapable terrain they were trapped in. She walked along the roof of the house and sat down just below the peak, her eyes locked on the form of the one thing they were trying to get away from: the Remedy base.

She thought that with all the walking she and Peter did, they'd have made it far enough away that they couldn't even see it anymore. Yet, there it was. Very far away, but still visible. Sitting proudly on top of it mountain, blending in with the darkness of the dead forest with its grey walls and depressing nature.

Amara sat there for a long time. Thinking. Contemplating. Sighing.

Eventually, she remembered what Peter said to her, and put It away completely. She had to think for herself, without the influence of anything else. And the longer she did it, the more guilty she became.