Characters: Hannah and Jake Setting: Hallways of the Facility, then across the island Summary: Hannah loses her shit Rating: Low
For the last two weeks or so, Hannah was being more antisocial than usual. In her year on the Island, she was usually too overwhelmed with long hours of work to get out much, and when she did, she was always pretty guarded. But when her last interaction went south fast, Hannah just stopped trying. What was the point, she was too fucked up now for anyone to understand.
Since then, something had been building inside of her, something that was a long time coming. It just happened to explode when Hannah was headed down the hall toward the Security office, when a guard bumped her into the wall as he passed and then made some comment about ‘stupid, worthless mutants.’ Hannah stopped in her tracks, hesitating for a half-second before turning and sending the guard crashing into the wall with a sound wave from a scream of rage. She suddenly no longer cared about what they could do to her, what her punishment would be. Hannah wanted to get away from this island and these people, and in this moment, she no longer cared if the only escape was in a coffin. Rushing at the guard, she started kicking and punching at him as he recovered from the initial blow and stood to try to subdue her. She was significantly smaller than him, and even though she could floor him with her ability, her fists and feet did little to fend him off. She was in too blind of a rage to realize how poor her judgment was, and what a world of hurt she was in store for if she kept this up much longer.
Jake was in one of the training rooms, working on speed when he heard a commotion down the hall he quickly broke into a ran and saw a scuffle. There were already a few people coming out to see what was happening. As he got closer he saw Hannah trying to beat up- or off? One of the guards. It was hard to tell who was the aggressor but he wasn’t taking any chances. Jakob ran forward and told the guard to stand down. He took Hannah’s shoulder and watched until the guard wasn’t touching her and in that split second he jumped, taking her with.
They landed outside by the cliffs, the grass and some twigs around them blew away as they were displaced from around him.
Once she got started, it was difficult for Hannah to stop and calm down. She’d always been a little fiery, but this was at a whole different level. She didn’t know what she was doing, or to who, or really even why. She was just fed up with the shitshow that had become her life and she wanted to fight the world. When Jake’s hand landed on her shoulder, she turned and swung at him, her fist just catching the bottom of his chin, doing little, if any damage. And then they were gone.
The jump was disorienting, she was used to teleportation, but every method was different and this was a little rockier than she was used to. When they landed, she was thrown off balance and landed on her ass, which helped to snap her out of her fit. Sort of. “What the fuck?”
Jake grabbed his jaw and rubbed it, he’d taken worse punches, but it still stung a bit. In his ear he heard a voice yelling at him. Jake put his finger to his ear, “There was a situation, I was just trying to-“ The voice turned to yelling, Jake had violate his regulations. He’d jumped outside the Facility without authorization, it didn’t matter the reason. Then Jake let out a small cry and fell to his knees as a shock was sent from his control chip into his spine. Then his comms went silent. With a huff he looked at Hannah. “They were going to arrest you if you didn’t stop.” Hell, she may still end up in detention.
Pushing herself up to stand, Hannah still felt tense and angry, but at least she was more outwardly calm now. Watching Jake drop, she took a step back with a frown. After a moment of hesitation, she offered a hand to help him up. “I don’t care anymore what they do to me anymore. Are you okay, what was that? And why did you get in the middle of things? They’re going to be pissed at you now too.”
“Yea. I can tell.” He grunted as he stood up. “Just a reminder that I have to walk back.” Jake answered, addressing her first question. “Getting in fights with the guards isn’t a bright idea. I should know… can get you detention for a long time.” He said brushing some dirt from his knees. “Besides, the way it looked like it was going, you were going to end up more hurt than him.”
Hannah watched Jake curiously for a moment and then just shrugged, looking away to finally pay attention to their new surrounding. “Maybe that was the point. Does it really matter if they toss me in detention? Besides, they wouldn’t bother putting me there, they have a more secure place they’d rather keep me.”
“Well in detention while beaten up I would think you’d want to avoid.” He said, with a sigh. “More secure place?” Jake questioned. He wasn’t aware of a more secure place than lock up.
“I guess.” She shrugged in response to his question, figuring he’d thinks he was crazy even though she gave an honest answer. “Well, password protected secure. In the cloud. Not too hard to hack in, but getting back out is a lot harder than you’d think.”
His brow furrowed, he was not following. “What?” Crazy may have been a bit strong, but confusing was definitely an affirmative. “I’m sure I know what you mean.”
Finally turning back to face him, Hannah shrugged again. “That little chip in your head keeps you from going too far. The one they put in mine traps me in the cloud, like a piece of data, until they want to let me out. Once they found out I could travel that way, they figured out how to keep me here that way too. Pretty fucking smart of them, I guess.”
“My spine, from jumping at all.” He corrected with a nod. Then processed what she said. “I see.” Jake remembered her saying she’d been in jail before so that must mean extra security is necessary in her case. It made sense. “So why pick a fight with the guard? You clearly don’t lie lock up.”
“I don’t like any of this. This place, these people, I hate it all. And there’s only one way out, so I’d rather be in control of that one aspect of my life since they took everything else away from me.” She didn’t expect him to really understand, so she just shook her head. “You should go back before you get into any more trouble.”
“This place is better than…” Jake started to say before putting a hand to his temple, he was going to say something, but the thought seemed to come instinctually, but vanish just as quickly. Her talk had him worried, he’d already lost people… people he only thought about when he wasn’t thinking about them. Memories that drifted into his head but the moment he tried to focus on them they vanished. But someone he wanted to protect. At that moment Hannah was filling that role. “Look, it’s not the worse place to be… I’m sure there are worse out there.” Even if he couldn’t name any at that moment. “And getting yourself locked up, or injured is no solution.”
Turning back to Jake, Hannah sighed heavily, feeling more defeated than ever. “To you, it’s no solution. For me, it’s the only solution. It’s not like I’ve got anything left to lose anyway. We both know we’ve got totally different perspectives on this, so no point in going into it any further. You better go back, I’m sorry you got yourself caught up in this. Hopefully they’ll be easy on you.”
“Don’t apologize. It was my choice.” He said. “I just couldn’t stand back knowing that in a moment you’d have a number of men on you beating you till you dropped.” Jake tilted his head at her. “You used your powers on him after all, didn’t you?” He’d seen it a number of times before. Someone who used their powers on a guard and the pulp of a person who was dragged away in the aftermath. Didn’t matter that it was once again five or ten when the one was a mutant.
Hannah nodded with a little shrug. “All I did was push him, I’ve done worse by accident, I was trained to do worse, they know that.”
“I don’t think it matters to some. Any use of powers on a government employee.” He shook his head. “Benign or not.” Avery had… “But as you said. It was your choice. Next time I can just let what happens happen, if that’s your preference.” Jake turned with a shrug. There was something eating at him inside he just couldn’t put his finger on.
Hannah just nodded, she knew the rules. That was kind of the point. “Hopefully there won’t be a next time, but thanks. Sorry for punching you..” Hopefully this was enough to achieve the means to an end.
He rubbed his chin and smiled, looking back at her. “Was nothing.” Jake tilted his head slightly. “Sorry for making you have to walk back across the island.” Though he’d jump her back if he could. Especially with all the cat attacks. Though they’d gotten quieter over the past week. Maybe the rouge mutant had been captured.
Hannah shrugged it off, looking around again. “It’s fine, I have a feeling they’ll be looking for me and take me in before I get halfway back.”
“Well, good luck.” He said as he started to head back. “Hopefully I’ll see you around.” Jake meant it, knowing that if she was locked up there was a chance he wouldn’t.