Jane had only ended up cursing the fact she wasn’t 18 yet.
Imara didn’t know how they did it but sure enough, they wheeled Jane out of the hospital that day and into Mathias’ car.
“How the hell did you talk them out of taking me home?” Jane once again asked, looking around at the people around her. She was thin, clearly not 100% yet but still, she was alive and very much still Jane Mason.
“I told you not to worry about it.” Imara responded, pushing the wheel chair. “Unless you want me to push you into traffic.”
Jane huffed and settled back into the chair. “At least this means you have to do what I say for awhile.”
Imara smirked. “We’ll see about that.”
---
Conor would have been all too happy to tell her about how he’d lied his a** off and made a show of piety and had sold her parents a line of wanting to see her reformed along with Mathias and Imara, but he had a feeling doing so would result in an extra fifty laps and his legs were just barely starting to recover.
His whole body hurt in fact, but he didn’t complain. If anything, he tried to pretend it was nothing.
“Bed rest means bed rest, not wait on you hand and foot.” Mathias chimed in as he opened the back door so they could get her in the car. “Besides, there are going to be some changes made once you recover. Conor is already dealing with those, aren’t you?”
Conor nodded weakly, moving to help get Jane in the car without also being in the way.
---
Jane winced when she began to lift up from the chair and into the car. It didn’t matter how much they gave her in the way of pain meds, it all still hurt. Even her arms appeared bruised from the needle for the IV. Oh she looked a mess. But the morphine had been nice…
“Oh great. More changes and rules. What now? Report to you when I pee and poop?” Jane rolled her eyes, sliding slowly into the car, making use of Conor’s body to support herself as she bent. “Okay, that should not hurt that much...ow…”
“Get used to it. It’s just the start of some of the pain kicking in now. It’s going to be alot worse and I’m going to be watching how much of the prescription you take.” Imara sighed, turning to take the wheelchair back into the hospital before returning.
Jay looked over at Conor and sighed. She remembered what he did to help her and it bugged her a bit as she leaned back in the car seat trying to straighten her torso. “So what have I missed?”
---
“Oh, not much, just our lives being forever changed and us being thrown feet first into hell,” Conor said, his voice trying to sound chipper but giving away to the strain he’d been under once Jay was in the car.
“Conor, we’ll save that for when Imara’s back.” Mathias warned, before getting the car started to warm it up.
“Fine, fine,” Conor said, slipping into the car and looking at Jay with a small nod. “But yeah, the rules just got even more brutal, but they won’t hammer on you till you are -”
“Conor!” Mathias growled angrily.
“Alright, alright…. later then.” Conor said, giving Jay an apologetic look.
---
Looking from the man at her side to the one in the front seat, Jay quickly made a face of annoyance. “Okay, I’m missing something here and it’s not sitting well with me. What the heck is going on?”
She looked back at Conor for any sort of clue as the door opened and Imara slipped inside. “Because now you are scaring me. I know I was nearly killed but hey, I’m tougher than I look and…”
“And stupider.” Imara shot out, turning in the passenger seat to gaze back at her cousin. “Jane, you are alive because the man in front of you acted quickly. You owe Mathias the very life you seem to care so little about. Oh there are new rules alright and the first one starts now.”
Imara shot Mathias a look and then turned back to face the front.
Jay sat quietly for a moment processing what had just been thrown at her. “And what would that be Mars?”
“You follow orders.” Imara said dryly and left it at that.
That did not sit well with Jay who tried to sit up, winced as the wrappings pulled and sank back down. “I follow what? You aren’t the boss of me! Mom and Dad may have agreed to let me stay because I’m enrolled in some stupid school but you…” She winced again, shutting her up.
“And how the ******** did Mathias save my life? He wasn’t even there.”
---
Conor lifted his head and turned his gaze to Imara and Jay, chewing his cheek for a moment, weighing his options before he finally spoke. “They were there, both of them…” Conor finally said, pointing with a hand toward Mathias and Imara in the front seat. “They followed us without us even knowing, they had to have. When everything went south they… they saved us both.”
He paused for a moment. “They’ve got this strange magic… Mathias actually put his hand through your chest, and after he did that you changed. You got this weird uniform and then Imara came back with this strange crystal thing and Mathias put it in your mouth and made you swallow it.”
Conor looked over to Jay then fully. “I know this sounds crazy, but it’s true. Imara took you to the ER after that, and then Mathias did the whole hand in the chest thing to me… And for the last week and a half Imara has been making me run laps and work out until I pass out from exhaustion. They say we’re soldiers now in some ******** war that I haven’t even heard the reason for.”
Mathias didn’t say anything as he drove, though he did lock the door locks so that only he could unlock them, the same with the windows. He listened to the conversation in the back seat, letting Imara do the talking. She’d already brought Conor in, and he didn’t feel like giving them mixed messages.
---
Jay just sat there staring at Conor as he spoke. Then she looked at the two in the front seat then back at Conor.
“You…” Her voice broke and she seemed to crack into a smile. “You are ******** crazy. What the ********? Did you get into a bad batch of weed? Come on. It’s not nice to screw with the girl on pain pills. My head is already fuzzy enough without the bullshit about magic, rocks, and hands in chest.”
“Jane, calm down.” Imara said, not looking back at her but casting a glance in the slide mirror to see Conor behind her.
“Calm down? I’ve been shot Mars! That’s fact. This…” She pointed at Conor though stared at Imara. “Is some sort of made up bullshit. What, did the fairies of Ireland come down and give everyone some sort of….of….”
Her voice froze as she watched her cousin’s attire shift. One moment she was staring at the side of a face she knew well and the next...the side of a hood and an all black outfit sat in the passenger seat. Something in her mind flashed. She had seen that before...that outfit that…
“No…” she shook her head looking back at Conor. “******** no…ow” She winced, the sudden movement causing more pain.
---
Conor frowned and shook his head slowly. “I know it sounds nuts but-” When Imara shifted though, he winced and gently placed a hand on her knee. “I know, it scared the ******** out of me too…”
“But yeah, they came down from the roof and just… They killed everyone,” Conor said, shuddering a bit. “But, after you got shot, Mathias did his thing and now you’re one too… It’s some sort of magic thing… They haven’t really explained beyond we derive our powers from something called Metallia... “
He gently gave her knee a squeeze. “Like, the new outfits come with different names and stuff too, it’s really weird…”
“We did what we had to do, to keep you alive Jane.” Mathias said softly. “I don’t generally force the issue with people unless I have no choice… Conor decided that if you were going to have to face this road, he wasn’t going to let you go down it alone.”
Conor winced and looked down at his lap, moving his hand back. “Well, yeah… I should have done a better job at keeping Jay safe.”
---
Jay’s hand went to the car door. She would wait until the car stopped at a light and then...and then what? She knew she couldn’t move well and even trying to get out of the car would drop her to the ground. She was stuck! That did not help being in a car full of crazy people.
“You are all insane! Every single one of you!” Jay’s voice and heart were racing. Every move hurt but even when she had taken bad drugs, the effects had been nothing like this. She could deal with hallucinations. This?
“What the ******** did you do to me…” Her voice was shaking….”You better now have ******** with me. I don’t care if you are banging my cousin. No one messes with me without my consent. And you!” She turned to Conor. “You being all high and mighty. You don’t even ******** know me! And here you come saying you should have protected me? I’ve done just fine on my own thank you very much! If you hadn’t ******** taken out Shawn none of this would have even happened! But your damn ego and your climb the ladder ways...I told you! I told you that they don’t give a s**t about anyone but themselves.”
“That’s enough Jane…” Imara’s voice came from the front. Sometime during her rant, she had shifted back into her human form. “Conor is the reason you even had…”
“Don’t you stick up for him!” Jay snapped. “You were there the entire time and you just watched and let it ******** happen? If you have all this power and ability, why didn’t you just stop it from ever going down? Why didn’t you just take over and …”
“I said ENOUGH JANE.” Imara’s voice almost shook the car as she snapped. “You want to know why I didn’t? Because you needed to ******** learn to handle your own deep s**t you got into. You got yourself into the mess and I wasn’t going to get you out…”
---
Conor winced away, forcing himself to keep his gaze on Jane even as she yelled at him. She wasn’t entirely wrong, if he’d not gone and lost his temper, Jane would have been protected by Shawn and they’d of probably been able to make it out of there. But Shawn had, had to go and mouth off and push his buttons and Conor had acted accordingly. All the same they had gotten in a tight spot and if he’d had the ability to do it all again he’d probably do it differently, but that was hindsight.
“If we’d interfered before it went south, we’d not have been able to send the proper message. I don’t allow drugs in my house - I certainly don’t allow them anywhere near my city. I’ve been targeting their kind explicitly since I was a Lieutenant in the Negaverse, you think that changed when you came into the house?” Mathias said coldly, keeping his driving steady and pulling onto the highway on the way out to his home. “There’s a reason they were getting harder and harder to find them.”
Oh, Mathias knew this could be taken as putting her in the situation she’d been in, in the first place. But this was his city, and like hell he was letting her think he was going to put aside his charge for a second.
Conor winced even more, and looked at Jay, but he didn’t have words, at least, none that would help. He just hoped she didn’t try to bolt once they got home. He wouldn’t blame her if she did try. He’d even probably help… But, not much he could do with the Captain in the car. He already knew she was stronger than him, and faster. He didn’t even want to think what that meant with Mathias.
---
Jay’s bottom jaw began to twitch. Her hands balled into fists and she wanted to lash out. “You...son of a bit…” The quick jerk of the car onto the interstate cut her short. It was enough to jerk her body and sent a shockwave of pain through her. That pain covered her face as she leaned her head back against the headrest trying to breathe.
Slow tears came down her face as she visibly started to semi relax. It took some time, and some smooth driving before she could manage the pain in her body. Everything bloody hurt. From the top of her head to her feet. She just…”Damnit…” Jay finally muttered, reaching over to undo her seatbelt.
She couldn’t help it, she hurt to damn much. Slowly, painfully, she lowered herself down onto the back seat, her head landing on Conor’s lap. The tears came easier now as she kept her eyes closed.
“So I’m ******** is what you are saying? You have made it so I’m an Angel of Death to dealers and are basically forcing me to go cold turkey. On top of that, you turned me into some sort of freak show thing. Why didn’t I just go home with my parents then? This sounds as bad as Bible Camp…”
---
As she laid her head in his lap, Conor, for lack of anything better to do, gently brushed her hair. “You’re not ******** Jay-bird… As s**t as this is, there are some upsides… Granted those come with rules too apparently.”
“You’re not a freak,” Mathias said not nearly as coldly as before. “You’ve been given great power, and Imara and I will show you how to use it. You will serve the Negaverse and one day, when the war is over, you’ll be able to look back at how much good you’ve done in the world. But power isn’t free. There are rules.”
Once he got the car settled on the highway he glanced over to Imara. “We will be overseeing your training. Which has already started for Conor. Yours will start when you are fully healed, Jane. Which, by the way, will be far quicker than a normal human. So that’s a benefit to this new change.”
Conor sighed and continued to stroke Jay’s hair. “You’re not missing out much in that regard, Jay-bird… And I’ll help you out too…”
He owed her that much.
---
“What good has the world ever done for me?” Jay sighed but she knew at this point, there was no fighting it. She was stuck and until she was back to, well, as normal as she would be, all she could do was ride the wave she was on.
Several moments passed in silence before Jane spoke again. “Hey Mars.” she heard a hm from the front seat. “Did you plan to do this to me all along? The changing me into...whatever I am?”
Imara gazed out the front window and gave a long, deep sigh. “No Jane. I never wanted to bring you into this. You or anyone else for that matter. But turning you gave us a chance to save your life. The energy you got gave your body a needed boost. If we would have tried it without turning you…”
“Mars...no was enough.” Jay said, opening one eye and looking up at Conor. She gazed up at him and her second eye opened. “You have a long way to go.”
---
Conor looked down at her, meeting her gaze with his own. “I know,” He said quietly, bowing his head a little. “But’ll do what I gotta do to make good. It’s what I do.” Since she didn’t seem to be opposed to his brushing of her hair he kept it up, seeing no need to stop it. He was already thinking of how he could make this up to her. Well, there really wasn’t a way to make it up to her but…
Well… There was something HE could do that she probably couldn’t right then, and if he was smart about it he’d be able to pull it off. But he’d have to stay on his toes, and hope that when they finally released him into the wild they wouldn’t search him too much. He was sure until he proved himself capable of following orders they’d probably keep an heavy eye on him… But if he could manage to get something for Jay for when she was better… Something to let her enjoy herself.
Well he’d probably earn some goodwill. Other than that, he knew he was going to have to work his way back into the semblance of Jay’s good graces.
But he’d get there.
Mathias didn’t stop them until they reached the house, and pulled into the garage. Killing the car, he slowly got out. “Alright, let’s get Jane inside so we can get her comfortable and set up.” He said, slipping out of the car to get this done and over with.
Conor had to admit it was painful enough getting Jane where she needed to be, but he’d also volunteered for running Jane what she needed duty, if only because it gave the two of them time to talk - if Jane wanted to - and out of earshot of the adults for the most part, so if she wanted to ask him for something specific he’d be able to get it for her without the adults asking too many questions. The only thing he wasn’t allowed to take her was her drugs - he was pretty sure Imara kept that on a personal timer. But all the same, he did his best to make himself indispensable.
When Imara wasn’t trying to kill him with training, that is.
Torvil