eleMental: The Gifted

Chapter 3: Apologies are Hard

          John brought the van to a stop outside headquarters. Clarice looked scared and unsure of us, but she would come around. I was more worried about Marcos. He woke up about halfway through the ride and was surprisingly silent. I think he was in shock.

"When we get back, we're going to figure out a way to save Lorna. I promise, Marcos... I will help you save her." I said genuinely. 

"Yeah... How long is that gonna take?" Marcos replied bitterly.

"We're gonna find her..." I began but was cut off by Marcos yelling.

"How could you let this happen? Lorna is your best friend. You didn't do anything. You just stood there. You couldn't have made a wall appear around the police officers or something?" Marcos yelled.

"Marcos, you know that she has trouble with her Earth powers." John defended.

"No, John... he's right. I could've done something, but I would be in the exact same place as Lorna. Only worse because I would've killed someone." I said getting out of the car and going straight to Sage. 

"Dylan! Dylan... wait." John said trying to catch up to me.

"What?!?" I yelled as I turned around to face John who looked surprised that I raised my voice.

"Listen, Marcos is just worried about Lorna. You did everything you could we all know that." John said trying to clean up Marcos's mess.

"John you can't fix everything." I said leaving John alone as I walked up the stairs and into headquarters. I met up with Sage and Clarice.

"So, Clarice is your real name?" Sage asked.

"Yep." Clarice said popping the p.

"Anyone we should contact? Family?" Sage asked again curious if she had to contact anyone.

"No. My family It's complicated." Clarice replied sheepishly.

"Family is always complicated." I said trying to maker her feel better that she didn't have anyone.

"Right. Well, look, you'll stay here with us for a few days, lay low, and then we will figure out where to move you." Sage said. She always got straight to the point.

"Yeah. Thank you." Clarice said while trying to explore the place. I walked around looking for John to apologize. I was in the heat of the moment and was just so angry. I found John, but he was patching Marcos up.

"Hold still. Almost done." John said stitching up his bullet hole.

"I'm fine, John. We need to go after Lorna. We get a team together, we" Marcos demanded but was cut off by John saying, "And do what? Huh? Get one of us killed? Marcos, we barely got away from a dozen cops. Now you want to take on a hundred? We can't take that risk - right now. Then when? The X-Men, the Brotherhood, we don't even know if they exist anymore. We are alone. And we are getting picked off one by one. Look around. We'd be risking all these people. Everything we built. Everything Lorna built."

"That was some speech." I said trying to cut the tension. Before they could reply Sage walked in.

"Guys, we got a situation." Sage said leading all of us to the control room.

"What is it?" John asked curiously and Sage just pointed at the TV.

"Yes, and as we have reported, breaking news on the mutant attack at Belleview High.vWe believe two young mutants to be responsible for the destruction. We've also heard the federal authorities will be getting involved." A reported said on the local news.

"Well, if it wasn't too hot before, it sure as hell is now. I'm sorry." John said placing his hand on Marcos's shoulder.

"Hey, John. Can I talk to you?" I asked before he exited the control room.

"Yeah, Dyl. What's up?" he asked.

"Listen, I'm really sorry about what I said. I was really mad at Marcos and everything that happened with Lorna." I said running my hands through my hair. 

"Hey, it's fine. Everyone's on edge. It's understandable." John said before walking off to see Sonya. I went to go find Clarice to show her around. I found her lounging with Marcos.

"Is that your dog?" She asked.

"She's, uh she's everybody's, really." Marcos said petting her head.

"She kinda just showed up one day and we decided to bring her in." I added from the doorway.

"I just wanted to say thanks to you guys for, you know, saving me. Even though I threw a coffeepot at your head." Clarice said nervously pointing to Marcos.

"And a mug." Marcos added.

"And a mug." Clarice confirmed.

"Don't worry about it." Marcos said.

"Yeah, we've all wanted to throw a mug or two at Marcos." I said laughing.

"So this group you guys run it?" Clarice asked.

"No. The network's nationwide. Founded after the anti-mutant laws first got bad. Just before the X-Men disappeared." Marcos explained.

"Yeah... My parents advocated for the anti-mutant laws... They're pretty influential people. It just so happens they have a mutant as a daughter." I said spacing out a little.

"That's awful. When did your power's manifest?" Clarice asked sadly.

"I was fifteen. Had to leave home, but everyone has their sob story." I said.

"Yeah... What about this place?" Clarice said trying to change the subject.

"Uh, it's been abandoned since Oakwood. Figure it's the last place they'd look. I got brought into this station by, uh, John, Dylan and and by Lorna." Marcos said his mood dampening at the mention of Lorna.

"I guess this has something to do with getting her out of jail?" Clarice said referencing the conversation they were having.

"Yeah. Well that was the idea." Marcos said rubbing his hands together.

"Should work great, as long as they have no guards or cameras Or smoke detectors?" Clarice said sarcastically.

"Yeah." Marcos agreed.

"For what it's worth, uh I know you lost her helping me, and I'm I'm sorry." Clarice said.

"That's all right wasn't your fault... It wasn't anyone's fault." Marcos said looking at me knowingly apologizing. Marcos wasn't good at admitting when he was wrong. This surprised me and I nodded accepting his apology."You got yourself out of prison using some kind of portal, right? You think you could get someone in?

"It doesn't work like that. It's bad if I try to go someplace that I can't see, someplace I haven't been.

"What do you mean by bad?" I asked curiously crossing my arms. Clarice took one of the dog's toys and threw it through one of her portals. She couldn't see where she was going, so the toy came back cut in half. 

"See?" Clarice said pointing to the dismembered toy.

"Right. That was her favorite toy." Marcos said as his phone began to ring. 

"Ooh. My bad." Clarice said as Marcos left the room to answer his phone.

"Come on, Clarice. We can fix this with a needle and some thread and a lot of time." I said grabbing both sides of the toy and a sewing kit.