To All Those Brave and Lovely

To Those Who are Brave

She looks like an angel, lit up in the light like that.

It's the last coherent thought that Nora can remember having, before the whole thing was a haze of starbursts of pain and voices floating down to her.  She remembered Peter moving in front of both her and MJ, arms spread out like that was going to protect them, and then a pinprick of pain in her neck.  Then the ground rushed up to meet her, the pavement skinning her bare knees and stinging her palms, one arm bent underneath, the other stretching those few inches to get to MJ.

"Don't worry,"  Evangeline's voice was coming from somewhere far away, like she was underwater.  She was still surrounded by the light coming from the headlights, her hair down around her face in a halo as she kneels beside Nora.  Her hand comes with her, gentle and apologetic as it cradles her cheek, like she wanted to make this easier.  "It's all going to be okay."

"Eva..."  It's the only sound that Nora can make.  It doesn't occur to her to scream, but she does reach out and fumble for Evangeline's wrist, wrap her heavy fingers around the skin and try to tug her down to the ground.  It wasn't making sense yet, and she couldn't make the words to ask questions, not with her tongue so heavy in her mouth.  

"Sshh,"  There was that hand again, smoothing the hair away from her face and pushing her back into the ground, and then there were more hands, wrapping around her and lifting her into the air.  They take her to the van that had started all this, and when they sit her down, Evangeline huddles on the ground beside her and lets Nora use her lap as a pillow.  "It's going to be fine,"  She says, as the door closes and she catches one last glimpse of MJ's face.  "Everything's going to be fine."

She wakes up to a room full of white.  White walls and white floors, blinding white lights that send flashes of pain shooting through her temples.  It's overly clean, the kind that speaks of hours spent with buckets of water and worn down rags, the product of someone who was trying very hard to make a statement.  And in the corner, with a red light blinking down at her, was a camera.

"You're awake."  The voice from the doorway made Nora jump.  She hadn't noticed the person before- she couldn't turn herself around to even look at them, not with how tightly they had tied her into the chair.  "That boy has been up for ages, screaming for you the whole time.  It's been rather bothersome."

"What boy?"  It's strange how decidedly calm she felt, like now that she was actually here, in the danger that everyone had warned her about, she didn't see any reason to worry.  Maybe the waiting was the hard part.  "Do you mean Peter?"

"Peter?  Is that his name?"  There's the click of heels on tile, and then the woman appeared in front of her.  It only takes Nora a moment to recognize her from that day at the mall, when her face was broadcasted on every screen in America.  But there's another layer of recognition, like this woman had taken the features of someone Nora knew very well and warped them, shaping them into something similar but entirely different.  "You made a very cute couple.  I'm sorry we had to do this tonight, of all nights."

"At homecoming?"  It was like her mind was working through a fog, trying to connect dots that weren't there.  "But how- how did you see- were you watching us?"

The woman laughed, and it was a high, tinkling kind, the one Nora imagines that suburban moms make when they wait outside the school for their kids and have to make small talk with one another.  "My daughter showed me.  Kept me updated the whole time the two of you were getting ready, and getting pictures.  It's fun for her, those high school things."

"Your daughter?"  Nora felt the same sinking in her stomach she had when she walked outside to see Peter and Evangeline together, like she knew something was horribly wrong but could not quite figure out what it was.