Fox Trott (First Book of the Shadow Series)

Chapter 44: Poison Apple

Sometimes biting the hand that feeds you is the only way to eat.

Ashlie's search for answers went on for an entire week. She stayed awake for a few nights to see if anyone came into her room to do whatever they were doing to deprive people of their powers. She tried to sneakily keep an eye on the door all night, waiting for anyone to walk in. But this only left her exhausted by morning. She followed Hunters to their sleeping rooms, getting caught only a couple of minutes into her investigation. She tried everything she could, but nothing in the Venor seemed more suspicious than her probing around.

Even when she asked Jack if he knew what could have done it, he admitted that he was as clueless as she was. He hadn't even noticed his own faltering powers until she had brought it up.

She gave up on finding out if the Hunters were being affected by the same thing. Every time they left the Venor, it wasn't hard to see them changing into strange birds or testing their flames as they pulled up their hoods. Even inside the white walls, they would threaten agitated mutants by flashing their powers as warning.

By the time she had done everything she could to find out what it could have been, she was ready to give up. Around the time lunch was being served, she decided to look for Ang3l as her last resort. She grabbed a plate of food and headed out to the rose garden. The grey clouds covered any hint of sun that would be out, but the tall creature stood in the soft rain as if it didn't bother him in the least. His mask was on, and he was looking at a group of velvet black roses with red tips.

As Ashlie walked out into the rain, she pulled up the black jacket she had borrowed from Jack's closet. Ang3l turned his head to look over his shoulder immediately upon hearing the door open, tensing and allowing his claws to show next to his side threateningly.

He relaxed once he saw Ashlie, sighing audibly and dropping his shoulders, "You scared the hell out of me."

Ashlie chuckled, walking forward and looking at the thorny rose stems, "Sorry, I didn't think you were that easy to scare." She smirked as Ang3l moved his head, first back and then to the side as if he were rolling his nonexistent eyes. He looked back at the flowers with a small smile hidden by his mask. Ashlie noted the few stems and dying roses that littered the stone path underneath them. She raised her head to look at the strangely colored roses, "I've never seen this kind of flower before."

Ang3l's head turned towards her once more, "They're a Baccara and a Ruby mix breed. One of my personal favorites..." he trailed off as he watched Ashlie smile at their new autumn blossoms.

"And here I thought that we reached the extent of pretty flowers." She chuckled as she ran a finger over the silky petals. They felt soft and lively, as if it were pulsing with vigor. Something in the back of her mind told her to remember what it was like to feel a living thing just surviving and staying beautiful in such a messy world.

Ang3l forced himself to look back at the flowers, "So... You came here to visit me. What do you need?" He added the last part as if he didn't think Ashlie would ever visit him without an underlying reason.

Ashlie lowered her hand and looked up at Ang3l, "I... I've been trying to figure out what has made it so that we—us mutants that is—can't use our powers. Even Jack doesn't know. I just figured... maybe you would know since you know the place so well."

Ang3l's mask moved down as he narrowed his eyebrows under the mask, "I guess I never had the chance to tell you did I...?"

Ashlie looked at his mask, catching a glimpse of the empty sockets underneath, "Tell me what?"

"Well... they don't want the mutants here to have any chance to escape. So, every time you eat their food, they give you something that takes away your powers... I don't know what exactly but it seems to be effective no matter what powers people have."

Ashlie looked back at her plate of food that was sitting on the ground. No wonder it had always tasted the same every day. Something that tasted like a mixture of school bullies, concrete sidewalks, and skinned knees existed in every piece of food, even the water. Something so strange and yet so very familiar.

"Blood... they put blood in it..." she turned her head towards Ang3l slowly.

Ang3l was shocked into silence, then nodded slowly, "That... could work... if they added the blood of people without powers, there is a small chance it could disable your powers temporarily. Of course it would be mostly in theory..."

Ashlie went paler than usual, trying to calm down at the thought. If all it took was a little bit of blood to make her as human as the people allowed to walk around outside, unhunted, and uncaged... then why wouldn't they let them be free now?

Ang3l noticed her drifting off into her mind and set a clawed hand on her shoulder, careful not to cut her. She kept her head down, still lost in thought.

Ang3l sighed, "I know what you're thinking... it could all be different. You're thinking of how the world would be if you were normal... well, I'm sorry to be the barer of bad news, Ash, but that's just not possible."

Ashlie raised her head to look at him. He looked back with hollow eyes, his voice clear and gentle despite the deepness and pain that always sat behind it when he talked to her.

"The world is a bad and a cruel place, filled with holes with worse things than we could ever imagine on the surface. But if you were to sit in the hole and only think of the shadows, then you would never see what beauty the shadows can hide."

Ashlie stared at him for a moment, "But... why would I look at beauty when all there is, is darkness?"

Ang3l smiles, looking back at the rose and touching it softly with a black claw, "If something as beautiful as a flower can bloom in a storm, then there is beauty in darkness. Sometimes, we're just too scared to see it." He moved his hand back to her shoulder, "These roses, the sunrises, the rain, even you... Those are what beautiful things I have found in this darkness."

Ashlie felt her face grow warm at the words and she looked down at the pavement, "Well... if someone like you is considered a monster... then I wouldn't mind if the world was full of them."

Ang3l's face showed shock even with the mask covering it. Before he could reply, the door opened and Jack walked out into the garden.

Ang3l tensed almost instantly, pulling his hand away from Ashlie and standing straight. Jack walked forward and looked between the two of them, "Am I interrupting something?" he glared at Ang3l harshly.

Ashlie gave a snarky smirk, hoping her blush wasn't visible, "Nah we were just talking. Did you want to be interrupting something?"

Jack rolled his eyes and forced a smile, "Come on Ash, I have something I want to show you."

Ashlie stood up straight and sighed, "Alright, alright."

As Ang3l was looking away from the two of them, Ashlie made sure that Jack was watching when she pulled him into a gentle hug.

The two boys both seemed surprised, but only one of them was pleased with the action. Once Ashlie let Ang3l go and Jack lead her away, Jack flashed him a glare of warning that she caught without a problem. It filled her with disgust that someone so like her could treat someone as sweet as Ang3l so bitterly. And for what? All because someone had turned him into something he wasn't?