Periodical Cicadas – Chapter 15

It’s a sad statement about the past state of my social life that coming to Florida keeps getting me in stereotypically teen-themed situations that I never experienced back in Brockton. From confusing flashes of hormones that have nothing to do with broody people wearing black jackets,  or often clueless yet piercing blue eyes, not to mention tender hugs in the middle of a night-clad forest or even tanned cleavage firmly pressed to my face, to…

… Fuck you, Brooke.

Okay, yes, it’s mostly the bipanic assaulting me from unsuspected corners at the slightest provocation, but! I’ve also been invited to a party! And tasted beer! Heck, we even topped the evening off with a nice art exhibition!

…

Sorry, Brooke.

I mean, yes, the guy was a creep and either a pedophile or ephebophile, whatever the actual difference is, with some very alarming—

Right.

My social life and stereotypically teen situations.

One of the most frustrating ones I’ve recently been acquainted with?

Waiting for a phone call from a guy. Or a girl. Or whatever, I don’t think my confused hormones care anymore. Do you hear me, Killer? My bipanic is completely inclusive and doesn’t care at all about the state of your genitalia or lack thereof. I’m sure we can properly establish some rapport over your latest attempt at sounding like a caring, concerned friend while cyberstalking me and murdering people from my recently acquired social circle.

Not that I liked the ones murdered so far, but I’m going to attribute that to chance rather than you and I sharing some well-founded opinions about who’s expendable enough to get turned into no-longer-living art.

…

I’m going to go insane, aren’t I?

“Relax,” one of the reasons for me going insane says as she nonchalantly looks back at me over her black-leather-clad shoulder and, by an expenditure of good luck that I’m not likely to get back, doesn’t catch me staring at her jean-covered butt swaying side-to-side with every aggressively purposeful step on the way to Washington High.

… Stupid bipanic.

“It’s been days,” I despondently mutter like a regular teenager who hasn’t gotten a phone call from her cyberstalker.

“They stopped calling right after you told me you thought the lines were tapped,” piercing blue eyes say from my right and slightly behind, likely staring at my own jean-covered butt if the angle of the vinegar fly on the back of his head is anything to go by. Which it is. “Do you think they caught on?”

“You’re being particularly PC with the killer’s pronouns, Noah,” tanned cleavage says with an insolent eyebrow that tells me she knows precisely where he’s been looking and hasn’t thought to warn me or smack the back of his head, thus saving the life of the vinegar fly nestling there. And Noah’s. “Thinking about avoiding the Twitter lynch mob?”

“They use a voice-changer,” the Night Hugger calmly states, reassuming her usual sweet demeanor now that her terror of a big sister isn’t there to rile her up like I bet Audrey could if—

…

Okay, I no longer know whether to attribute that to mere bipanic. Is this that thing about stress affecting one’s libido? Because I wouldn’t say I’m particularly more stressed than I was in Winslow, yet… Nah. It must be the weather. Or the supermodel agency that keeps sending their hopefuls to my high school. Or that the idea of Emma the Second and Audrey the One and Only tenderly looking at one another as the taller girl slowly unzips a leather jacket and—

Fuck.

Wait, no. Not like that—

“Seriously, you okay?” tanned cleavage—Brooke!Brooke asks!

“Yes! Why wouldn’t I be? It’s not like I’m more friendly with a superpowered serial killer than with any of the people I went to school with for years or that they seem to be more insightful about my traumas and past bullying than my own father! Nothing at all to be concerned about over here!”

For reasons beyond my ability to understand, Audrey abruptly stops walking.

Abruptly enough that I collide with her back right before she slowly turns to look up at me with green-blue eyes that are, for once, about as piercing as Noah’s before she clutches my chin and doesn’t make me gasp as she firmly tugs me down so that I won’t flee from her gaze.

Really. No gasping at all. Unless it’s because of my newfound allergies to the local pollinators.

Trees. Those fiends.

“You’re not like the Killer,” she says.

“What?” I coherently answer the incoherent statement.

“Are you sure? Because I could see it—”

“Not the time, Brooke,” Emma sharply cuts in.

So.

I’ve got intense Audrey and stern Emma surrounding me and Noah right behind me and, going from the body language my bugs transmit, about to resume his ‘hugging from behind’ maneuver if he deems it necessary.

… I should mace them all with fire ant venom and run before they get a chance to talk, shouldn’t I?

“I don’t think I’m like them,” I calmly say, not quite lying.

“You’re worried about it,” Audrey answers, not catching the hint.

Seriously, failing to recognize the most elementary societal clues and mores while inflicting me with piercing, paralyzing eyes is supposed to be Noah’s thing, Audrey. You’re being very inconsiderate right now.

“I’m worried about a lot of things, up to and including your continued survival, but me being like the person who seems to have become fixated on me right after their first killing doesn’t even rate because, if I am? That means I can…”

I trail off.

And Noah does step closer, but, rather than hug me, lays his hand on my shoulder, the warmth of his skin immediately going through my thin shirt and into my flesh as Audrey keeps holding my chin.

Not letting go.

Not even as Noah leans closer still, almost close enough to whisper in my ear when his reassuring tone delivers words that only he and I would find at all comforting:

“That means you’ll be able to kill them if you need to,” he says.

Brooke is tense enough that I wouldn’t be surprised if she bolted out, Audrey’s still staring right through me even as my breathing picks up and I keep staring at her, and Emma…

Emma is smiling at me in that sad, gentle way that is only hers and hers alone. The smile of the daughter of a parahuman watching another one.

“Is that so bad?” I finally ask.

“No,” Audrey answers. “No, it isn’t.”

“You are insane,” Brooke says.

“Brooke!” Emma barks, going back to the stern tone from before as she glares at a friend that should be much closer to her than I am.

“No. No, fuck off, Emma, this is insane. You four are acting like Taylor should even consider going against that crazy—why. Why the Hell would you even think you have a…”

Her eyes widen.

Fuck.

“Brooke—” I start, finally tearing my eyes off Audrey’s.

“You are a parahuman,” she says.

“Brooke, I—”

“A parahuman who got here right as the murders—”

And Emma slaps her.

“She saved your life,” she says, furious for the first time since I’ve met her.

And, going by the way in which Brooke cradles her cheek and incredulously stares up at her friend…

Yeah.

“So what? She was the first to get there, in a house full of people who knew me. She got to me just in time. Doesn’t that sound convenient? Doesn’t that—”

“You don’t believe any of what you’re saying,” Noah calmly states.

No. Not calmly.

Icily.

A shiver runs up my spine, and I slowly turn to look at him, to see what the vinegar fly on the back of his head was already telling me: that he’s staring right at Brooke.

At Brooke hugging her arms and taking a step back when she sees what I see in piercing blue eyes without a clueless smile to take the edge off them.

“Because if you did, Brooke? That would be dumb. It would be incredibly stupid of you to loudly tell somebody that you believe to be a serial killer that you suspect them. It would be the kind of thing only doomed cheerleaders do right before they get written off the movie. And you aren’t as dumb as you pretend to be, are you? No, there’s a brain in there, constantly watching and calculating how people will react, how to make them do what you want them to do after years of trying so very hard not to feel alone in the middle of a crowd. It’s… fascinating, really. Because you can still be so careless when you don’t plan things out and act on impulse. Is that the issue, Brooke? Is that how you’re broken? That you understand people when you think but not when you feel? Are you really—”

“Noah. Enough,” Audrey says.

And I don’t even know how to react.

Neither does Brooke.

Emma… Emma shoots Noah a reproachful glare and immediately hugs the blonde girl, who latches on the taller one with trembling arms, and I don’t know what hushed words they share because I’m still slowly turning around toward Noah. Toward goofy, harmless Noah. Toward the guy who made my heart race with a horribly misleading letter.

He still isn’t smiling. Still staring at Brooke.

Until he looks right at me.

“She was hurting you,” he says with a small shrug.

And, for the first time in… For the first time, I think I see in his eyes that thing he’s so often said he sees in mine.

***

“Here. I no longer have an excuse not to get you one of these,” I say as I hand Brooke one of my totally-not-mace canisters, patent pending.

“What?” the girl sitting on the raised line of concrete separating the sidewalk from the grass on the other side says as she goes from looking at the spice bottle filled with aggressive chemicals in my hand to my eyes and back again.

For a few repetitions.

I’m starting to think that Noah was wrong about how bright Brooke actually is.

“It’s filled with imported fire ant venom. It will be far worse than pepper spray if it gets on bare skin, and… and the Killer doesn’t have any way to track that you have it, so, please, don’t tell anyone.”

“The killer… how do you track… fire ant venom?”

I take a long breath and look to the side, where Emma is keeping Noah and Audrey away from the conversation as if she were the only socially aware, tactful person in the whole group.

Showoff.

“It’s my power, Brooke,” I say, guiding a bright blue butterfly to alight on the tip of her nose. “I control arthropods. Or, well, at least bugs, and—why are you looking at me like that?”

‘Like that,’ in this case, meaning as if she’s letting out the kind of acute noise of excitement that makes dogs commit suicide. Likely not in an artful manner because dogs are not known to be patrons of the arts.

Now, if it was cats and a musical…

“Butterflies,” she says.

“Arthropods,” I correct while disguising my growing alarm.

“You can control butterflies.”

“They are arthropods.”

“You’re invited to my wedding.”

“I have to wash my hair that day.”

“You’re invited to my wedding. You are my wedding. You’re going to weave the lightest bridal veil out of spider silk, and it will float around me, held up by butterflies of all colors, and screw having pigeons shitting around the whole place, butterflies. Everything will be butterfly-themed—”

“This is starting to sound like the birth of a supervillain—”

“Shut up. You owe me a wedding—”

“I saved your life. And you just accused me of being a murderer.”

“That was before I knew that your power is to make superweddings!”

“I’m not attending your wedding! I have a secret identity, even if there are too many living witnesses for my comfort!”

“You will get me that wedding even if I have to marry you!”

“You’re insane!”

“That just means I’m your type!”

I finally stand up and away from eyes that have too much in common with those of former classmates said to have been Merchant affiliates and slowly turn around to the (and I can’t believe I’m thinking this) saner members of our group.

“She’s got a point,” Audrey says with a shrug.

I glare at her.

She smirks.

And I flip them all off and walk away toward Wins—Washington High.

… They are going to make me homesick, at this rate.