Here is a chapter! :) I hope you like it.

I'll try to update again this weekend :D 

Love you all!

Chapter Five

~Nobody's POV~ 

"Have you noticed that something is a little bit...off with Thea?" asks Kyle. He's cleaning up the kitchen from Sunday brunch, wiping off the counter and putting the pans in Max's tiny dishwasher.

"Of course I have," says Max. He's standing at the counter, leaning against it and looking rather distracted, "Ever since the Halloween party, she's been really quiet and sad."

"Yeah, and then there's the thing about her asking Emmaline and me about relationships. Since when does Thea outright ask for advice?"

"Since never," responds Max. He glances down the hallway.

"What's she doing anyway?"

"Supposed to be working on her Umber app essay," he responds, "Angelique's coming over after dinner."

"Not to sound like a broken record," says Kyle, "But do you think it's Jack?"

"I've already thought about that, and I doubt it. Jack's been acting normal."

"Okay, so do you think that it's one-sided? I mean, Thea's upset about something and Jack, as a typical teenage boy, could be completely oblivious."

Max sighs, "I really don't know, Ky, but I doubt it."

Kyle leans back against the wooden kitchen cabinets, "She could be just having a momentary lapse. Think about it. Her parents died about a year ago, Leah died six months ago, the kid has been thrown into a reality that is definitely not normal reality."

"Yeah, and you ask why I'm concerned. Thea's 'momentary lapses' aren't exactly the typical momentary lapse."

"How about, for once, we just ask her what's wrong instead of contemplating a hundred things all of which are probably wrong?"

"You know she won't tell us," says Max, "Unless she wants to."

"She told me about Videl back in New York," points out Kyle.

"Yeah, she was at the end of her fuse then. Which I guess means we should be grateful, because that means she is currently not at the end of her fuse."

"Or," says Kyle, "She's doing a better job of hiding it."

"Great work, way to make me feel better."

"Hey," Kyle raises his hands defensively, "I'm just trying to think of every possibility."

"I'd rather not think of every possibility," says Max, "I'd rather just straight-up ask her and get the one possibility that is actually the right one."

"Be my guest, go talk to her."

"I've already pointed out the fact that she probably won't tell me."

"I've got an idea," says Kyle, closing the dishwasher and walking out of the kitchen, "We ask Archer or one of his vampire buddies to do that mind control thing to make Thea tell us."

"You have got to be kidding me," says Max, "Please tell me that you are kidding me."

"I'm half kidding, half serious. We could even ask Videl to do it."

"Sometimes, I think you're possessed."

"Some days, I know I'm possessed," says Kyle.

*

~Thea's POV~

I know that Max and Kyle are talking about me.

I've been doing a terrible job at hiding my emotions, and I know it. I need to take lessons from Natasha, which actually wouldn't work because she would weasel out everything that is wrong with me anyway. I've been able to keep up the charade better with Jack and Peter, because I haven't seen them in person since Halloween, and have only been texting them. It's much easier to fake normality through text.

I lie on my bed, staring at my computer screen. I'm supposed to be writing an essay for my Umber application ("describe the thing in your life that you are most proud of"), but I don't remotely feel like it. I feel completely numb. I could probably light myself on fire and not blink an eyelash.

The four-year-old side of me had been hoping, praying, that Loki would change his mind and magically appear to me, ready to apologize to me and make everything okay. The fourteen-year-old side of me had known from the start that it would never happen.

Thus far, my fourteen year old side has been right.

At five, I hear a knock at my door. Klaka, who has been getting even bigger, runs up to it and scratches eagerly. Apparently, he likes whoever is on the other side.

"Yeah?" I ask, trying to sound like I've won a million dollars and probably sounding instead like I just went bankrupt.

Max walks in and pets the top of Klaka's head, "Hey, Ace. Kyle and Emmaline are going on a date, and seeing as we all know that I can't cook, how about we go to May's? Klaka could use the exercise."

May's is a cafe a couple blocks from here. The house speciality is funnel cakes and pie, but it also has really good hamburgers and salads. It's also the place that Max and I usually fall on when Kyle's not around to cook.

But I had planned on making my own dinner, probably Kraft macaroni and cheese, and trying to plow through my application before Angelique gets here. And also avoiding the human population in general until absolutely necessary.

However, I know perfectly well that there is no point going against Max just as much as I know perfectly well that he is going to be trying to get information out of me during dinner.

"All right," I say reluctantly.

"Awesome. Be ready in about ten minutes, okay?"

"Okey doke," I say as cheerfully as possible.

As soon as he leaves, I slump against my pillows and groan.

*

Dinner isn't actually terrible. As we sit out in the lovely weather, on the terrace of the restaurant, at one of those iron tables with a yellow umbrella over us, and Klaka tied to my chair, it's actually sort of nice. Max keeps up a steady stream of conversation that is thankfully mostly one-sided, so that all I have to do is nod and answer the occasional question. Seeing as Max is also looking at me carefully, I also have to act like everything is completely normal, which is sort of difficult if you're feeling immune to all human emotional feeling. I feel like a puppet; tied with strings and looking like a person, but really a simple imitation of a teenage girl.

I control myself enough to ask a single question, which I actually want answered anyway, "What's Angelique like?"

Max looks up as he eats his slice of cherry pie. I've abandoned mine.

"Tony says she's awesome. She's ridiculously smart, and comes with a bonus: she knows all about SHIELD and demigods and all that, so if you accidentally try to deflagrate her, she'll only be mildly surprised."

"Ha, ha," I say.

Max shrugs, "I don't know much else, but I guess we'll find out soon enough, won't we? By the way, how's that application going?"

"Stupendous," I say, trying to keep out the sarcasm in my voice.

But Max, who has lived almost thirty years with Kyle's sarcasm, recognizes the signs immediately, "Hard to think of what to think, huh?"

"Sort of," I say, which is true, because I haven't exactly been able to think of anything I'm extremely proud of, except for maybe killing a vampire lord. Except for the fact that I'm not even proud of that either.

But the real problem is concentration.

"Ask Angelique for ideas," suggests Max, "She's been through the college application process, so she's bound to have a thought or two."

We get back to the apartment around five forty five, which gives me exactly fourteen minutes to get ready for Angelique. I take out my math and science stuff, looking at my calculator and lab notebook with the same disgust that I usually reserve just for Saissa. While I wait for her to get here, I work a little more on my essay. I get through typing name and the most brilliant title of all "The Event That I am Most Proud Of".

I am so not going to be accepted.

The doorbell rings, which signals Klaka to bound out of my room to greet the new person. I follow him out into the living area/kitchen/doorway.

Max opens the door and a girl of around twenty opens the door. She's not that tall, but still much taller than me. She has long black hair that is fastened back with a headband, Boho fashion. Her eyes are practically black and are large, yet slightly elliptical. She is not conventionally pretty, as her face is long and angular, but she has full lips, thick arched eyebrows, and sharp cheekbones. She's curvy, but not ridiculously so, and her legs are athletic.

"Sorry I'm late," she says with a smile, her leather fringed purse swinging from her shoulder. She nearly knocks over Kyle's guitar, which for some reason, is in here." Whoops, sorry. I'm Angelique, by the way."

"Max Calen," says Max, shaking her hand, which is small and olive-toned, "Thanks for doing this, Tony says you're great."

"Oh no problem," says Angelique, but her eyes have already focused away from Max- which is unusual, because most people her age find Max really attractive- and onto me. She smiles again, "Hi, Thea, nice to meet you!"

"Hi," I say, trying to smile, because Angelique seems really nice and I don't want to sound like an annoying teenager, "Nice to meet you. Sorry about Klaka, he really likes people."

"Don't worry about it," she says, leaning down to rub Klaka's belly, "He's adorable. His name is Klaka? What's that mean?"

"Chatter," I say in a dull voice, trying to push away the memory of Stjarna and vanilla icing and warm breezes.

Angelique stands up, and as Klaka whines, she asks, "So what are we doing today?"

Max nods to me, and I say, "Math and science. I'm terrible at it."

"I'm sure you're not terrible at it," says Angelique, "You just need a little help, and maybe you haven't figured out how you learn best."

"On that note," says Max, "I'm going to do some work. I'll be in my office if you need me."

He leaves the kitchen, leaving Angelique and me (and Klaka) alone.

"Where do you want to work?" she asks, taking off her white-laced headband before pulling up her hair in a ponytail.

"In my room," I say, "I already have my stuff out."

Angelique appears interested in my bedroom. She looks around at my pile of photos, saying, "Are you going to collage those?"

"Eventually," I say, wishing I sounded friendlier.

"I'm so not an artsy person," she comments, "I don't really have the patience for it. But that sounds like fun." She gestures to the top photo, "Is that Jack?"

"Yeah," I say, looking at the photo. It's of us at the Melting Pot for my birthday, pre-Wairua crisis.

"He's cute," says Angelique, but not in the patronizing tone that Max and Kyle use when talking about Jack, "He has nice eyes."

"Yeah, he does," I say truthfully. Jack does have nice eyes. Jack has nice everything.

Angelique smiles at me, and then turns away, "So, what do we do first?"

"Math I guess," I say. "It's polynomial equations.

"Ew yuck," says Angelique, "No wonder you hate it. It's basically math with Satan deciding to throw in the alphabet."

"That's exactly it," I agree as we lie down on the floor. Klaka curls up next to me, halfway under my bed and halfway out.

"Wait until you get to calculus," muses Angelique as I flip through my textbook, trying to find my homework pages. "In some of the answers, there are more letters than numbers."

"That's not math," I say, "That's advanced spelling."

Angelique's laugh is almost magical sounding, "You've got that right. So what have we got here?"

*

Two hours later, I've come to the conclusion that Angelique is an absolute miracle.

I have all my homework done, and for once in my life, I actually understand it. About halfway through trying to work through the polynomial equations and failing, Angelique had stopped me and we had spent twenty minutes sorting through my photos and labeling them by person, and then combining them. After we had done that, she had me make up an algebraic equation for my photos, so that I could figure out the total of each person, or total altogether. We had gone back to the math problem, and suddenly, it had made much more sense.

"Ah," said Angelique, "You're a concrete learner. You like to touch things when you study, and learn by example instead of listening to someone talk about some boring problem. And you probably get distracted easily."

It's like she could read my mind, "Yeah, that sounds right."

"In that case," said Angelique, and took out several pages of math problems that she had written out for me from the textbook, "Burn these."

"Uh, what?"

"Burn 'em. You don't need them, and we'll work through problems differently."

I hesitantly had lit the pages on fire, and watched as the flames lick away the papers.

"Let's carry on to science, it'll be more fun," she said casually as if seeing nothing unusual at all about a fourteen year old girl who could set random objects on fire.

Now, after science, Angelique is peering at the prompt for my application essay. She whistles, "I hate those questions. One of the essays I had to write for college was 'write about your biggest challenge and how you overcame it'. I hate those things. It would be so much better if they just gave us essays that made sense. Do you have any ideas at all?"

"I haven't done anything really remarkable," I say, "I'm not exactly Saint Peter."

"Saint Peter," says Angelique, "Denied Jesus Christ. He wasn't perfect either."

I can't exactly argue that, so I say, "But really, I haven't done anything I could write in an essay."

Angelique considers me, putting her face in her hand and peering at me. "Well," she says, "You're fourteen, and you've already seen a heck of a lot of the world. You've done some pretty unusual things, both good and bad, I bet."

Yeah, like kill the aforementioned vampire lord. Mansar's dead eyes still linger at the back of my head too often for comfort.

"You've also had experiences with lots of different, diverse people," continues Angelique, "And you have some unusual abilities."

"My abilities," I say, thinking of my father, and feeling a familiar pain, "Are a curse."

Angelique frowns, "Why do you say that?"

BECAUSE MY POWERS ARE INHERITED FROM MY DEMIGOD FATHER WHO JUST LEFT ME FOR LIKE, FOREVER.

"I don't know," I mutter, "They just are."

Angelique leans against my nightstand and strokes the top of Klaka's head, "Your powers aren't a curse. They make you special. They make you, you. Who else can do the things you can do?"

Don't let me go there, sister.

I decide to turn this conversation away from rough waters, "I just don't know how to make an essay about me, when I don't even know something remarkable that I've done, or my biggest achievement or anything."

Angelique cocks her head, her dark hair flowing over her shoulders and down her side, "You've survived. You've gone through a lot, and you've made some tough decisions and faced some even tougher people. Things like that change you and make you a better person. How about you think about that? That's what I would do." 

It is then that I decide that I like Angelique. She doesn't treat me like a freak, or a scientific study, or a criminal, or an imbecile, or a child. She treats me like a teenage girl, a human being with feelings, just like her.

How do you like Angelique?

Please VOTE and COMMENT! :) 

love,

sierra xx