CRASH.

I felt like a rag doll as I fell, a broken marionette, fallen limp against the cold ground after my master had become too frustrated with my lack of flexibility. I was fine, truly there was nothing broken and no major wounds blooming across my skin, but red-hot shame stained my cheeks and my body was still burning with fire. The shame of falling so easily was what hurt.

Resisting the urge to cry out in new pain, I staggered to my feet, dodging a hit just before Inga's hands could reach me once again. Still, the effect of throwing myself out of the way almost immediately threw me off guard and still caused me to stumble, making my defences wide open. Like I fool, I slipped and struggled to stand and she had all the opportunities needed to strike her final blows, rip me to skin and bones and misery.

Inga pulled at my vulnerable torso, a low groan echoing through the room as my back muscles shrieked in new pain. I did not have the time to fight back before she was holding my arms down me still, face two inches away from mine. Her always-stained red lips had saliva beads bubbling and her breathe stank. I did my best to not gag.

"You're still too slow," she spat, droplets of saliva staining dripping down my cheek in an area I could not reach with hands held back. It dripped slowly, and I grimaced, holding back the urge to gag. Her taunts were a slow, careful song, perfectly performed in Russian and the poisonous rather of Inga Kuznetsova. "Once again, you failed. You fall too fast and give up too easily. Fool of a soldier, wasting time."

Our fighting was supposedly for practice, but none of that past hour had been for me or beneficial. No, it was her playtime, her being the spider and me a docile fly, drugged up and waiting for her to wrap me up and be drained of blood and energy. I fought, but she was always stronger, always faster, always ten steps ahead of me and anticipating any move. It was as though she was an enhanced clone of my own self; no matter what I did, she already knew and had already a counterattack loading up.

"Let me go."

She released my wrist and watched as I rubbed them in agony, a flicker of a smile on her face. "I still do not know what was seen in you. There were much better girls, yet you were the replacement. Your teacher is a идиот."

"You would be dead without my help."

Her laugh would never cease to scare me, and when it hit my ears in a shrill cry, I flinched and resisted the urge to cover them. "I doubt that. Now, clean up."

Shooting a glare at her turned back, I staggered up and gripped the coffee table tightly, wincing as my back lit up in pain in a billion different places. I would have to get used to the pain, for it wasn't like I could easily pull off a random back injury at school, but that didn't stop the eruption of wounds all down my spine as I struggled to make my way across the room. I just had to hope that the Parker boy wasn't planning on staging a fight session today, otherwise, I was more than doomed.

...

It was weird, actually being inside where the boy lived. I had visited it many-a-time before, sure, but that was from his fire escape, dangling and watching him for a few snatched moments before it was a worry of getting caught. I didn't know much about his building other than that small room, and everything was different on a totally normal side.

He lived in a small apartment, nothing ridiculously fancy, with long white doors lined up in rows across from each other, plain and all matching the one across from it. The carpet was worn, and I observed in great distaste that stains littered some of the walls as I hurried up the stairs and the way the putrid stench followed me and seemed to only grow worse as I got higher up. However, for some strange reason, the Parker boy's door was spotless and clean - a pleasant surprise to the other less meticulous disasters around. Not that that was that fascinating or something to report back to Inga about, but it was something to note about the boy.

It took several seconds of me standing outside of the door, shifting my weight from one shiny shoe to another and growing more and more irritated by the second before the door swung open and the familiar face of his Aunt May peered out. She blinked at me for a couple seconds, probably confused at my presence, then masked it with a smile. "Yes?"

"Hi, I am...Emily Newman and I go to school with Peter? We have a project, and I was told to meet up with him here?"

The words seemed to register and clear things up in her head, as she blinked and opened the door wide for me to come in, a smile growing. "Yes, he mentioned that! Something about a science report?"

"Mm. Something like that," I mumbled, already tuning her out to take in the small room I had stepped into. Like the door, it was kept very clean - surprising, considering what I had been told about this woman's grief complex. I was not accustomed to the process of grieving, but she looked like a woman who would let herself go, not resort to keeping everything picture perfect. I took note of the way things were set up, however; a picture of the seemingly beloved man hung amongst many other frames, another depicting a small boy sandwiched between a happy couple - no doubt a young Parker and his parents. My lip curled, and I forced myself to turn away. 

"Is, um, Peter here at the moment?"

May nodded and gestured vaguely down the hall. "Second door on the right. Just knock and let him know it's you first. He's rather touchy about people stumbling in uninvited."

"Ah."

"Yeah, he," she chuckled, like her next words were anything to laugh over, "he's a strange boy, he is. Nice, but so quiet. I hope he's not weird at school, right?"

"No."

Her smile broadened. "Nice to hear a second witness. Ned's been the only one who's come visit him - not that there's anything wrong with that, of course, he prefers his alone time. Maybe his strange contraptions make better friends, yeah?"

I blinked. 

May's smile beamed down at me, unwavering. "Sorry for all that gabbing. I hope you two have fun, get lots of learning done!"

It was difficult, remaining composed, when such obvious suspicion was practically being offered to me on a silver plate. Did this woman not realise how odd such behaviour was? Perhaps all American teenagers were antisocial shut ins, I knew a large portion of the population dealt with introverted tendencies, but still. A teenage boy, alone in his room, only coming in and out with strange machines and secrets? Perhaps I had been wrong about Peter's aunt, that she was not the worrier I presumed. Clearly, she had no clue about who her nephew really was.

Still, it was of no consequence. This woman did not matter. I dismissed myself quickly, mumbling a soft 'thanks' before heading down the hall. I paused for a moment, gathering myself and running through my objective in my head before knocking.

Three sharp raps against the thin wood were all it took for an answer-back, difficult to make out through the wood, "I'm busy, Aunt May!"

"Can I come in, Peter? It's me, Emily!" That thin, chirpy voice was going to be the death of me; each day pretending to be the fluttery and innocent transfer got harder and harder, and as soon as I was done I was going to scream any essence of that stupid, sing-song accent out of me. That was if I was even still able to speak by the end. "I am here to work on our project."

There was no verbal response, but it wasn't hard to guess from the sounds of distant crashes, a couple of thuds and grunts that he was, slowly and messily, making his way to the door. I shifted my weight and ground my teeth, holding what little patience I had to my chest to endure waiting for him to answer. After several long moments of pause, the door swung open and his wide-eyed gaze landed on mine.

"Uh-hi."

"Hi," I gushed, waving. My eyes darted from his face to what little I could see behind me. "Can I come in?"

"Oh, yeah, sure - sorry about that." He shuffled back, allowing me to shoot in and take a proper look at the bedroom of a troubled vigilante.

My glimpses from the fire escape hadn't given me much to look at, but to my dismay, there wasn't much else that needed to be looked at. His room was rather uninteresting, a dark blue with a bed against one wall and a large closet of sorts against another. Around it rested large piles of seemingly ancient tech that laid desolate on corners of tables or on top of piles of unwashed clothes. Posters littered the walls, and a dart board with a single tiny arrow hanging off the far left sat alone in the corner. I glanced over his old computers, trying to puzzle what mysteries could be hidden on such devices - it was probably nothing, but still, if he was trying to hide something...

I slid my bag off of my shoulder and walked over to one of them, running a finger across the dusty surface. My eyes remained on the dirty screen even as I spoke up, "Where did you find this?"

"Um-uh-well, just...places," he mumbled, trying his hardest to seem casual as he leant against his wall - though the squeak in his voice and the way his fingers slightly shook gave away much more than he intended. "It's not really that special, nothing to look at. Should we, should we get started, yeah?"

I glanced behind my shoulder, brows furrowed in pretend worry. "Are you alright, Peter? You sound like you are worried about something." My hand dropped from the computer. I took a step closer to him. "I'm not interrupting anything, am I?"

Peter's eyes didn't linger on mine long. Instead, he chose to look all around the room, trying to find something that could distract him. Which was good; I could work with fluster. He was not a social boy, I knew that, and I also knew that having a female in his room had to be a strange thing for him. If his only friend was Ned, that meant my invasion of his safe space was going to be all too easy to manipulate.

So I smiled and batted my eyelashes up to him. He wasn't that much taller than me, but the height difference still worked in my favour. "I am grateful you invited me here to work on this, you know. Your place is nice."

Pink spread across his cheeks like a bush fire; I watched in amazement as it crept down his jaw, tinging down to the edges of his plaid shirt in that rosy hue. "I, uh, y-yeah, uh, t-thanks. Yeah."

"Mm." I raised a brow. "Are you sure you're okay?"

He only shrugged, awkwardly wringing his hands in front of him, and shuffled over to his bed. I followed close behind. "Sh-should we get right into it? I started on some, uh, notes, if you'd like to see it?"

"Yes. I would love to." However, my thoughts still did not drift to the boy and his work. My eyes were focused on his room, staring at anything in my sights that could somehow link to the boy and his alter ego. Or, anything that gave more character to the enigma of a subject, a strange figure of attention that I still could not understand. A loose panel on the ceiling directed me to the belief that there was something obviously up there - how his aunt did not pick that up amazed me, but she did not seem to be coming into this space too often - and carefully placed screws and objects told me that the boy had things hidden around here that would give away the secrets I craved so dearly. If only-

"Emily?"

Once again, I had found myself trapped in a reverie that was broken by the boy in front of me, who stared me down with a mixture of worry for both himself and for me. "Are you listening?"

I nodded slowly, trying to correlate my thoughts and figure out my next move. There would be no way of me to get a hold of anything in here, not with the Parker boy watching me like a hawk. I had to make sure of some way that would work but now wasn't the time. "Yes, sorry. You were saying?"

...

The time spent at Peter's house as long and boring and a waste of my time, as I would learn three painful hours later. I couldn't get my hands on anything useful, and all he had wanted to talk about was the project and anything around it - a topic last on my list of things to discuss. I had only managed to worm the most boring of details from him. His Lego collection was not why I had come, nor was it what I wanted to know when asking about his interests. Even if it was oddly intriguing, it wasn't at all helpful.

All I had been able to procure for Inga were bare bones and scraps of information she would have little use for. I would have to hope the small drive I had managed to pocket would be worth something - though, I doubted it. Whatever Super Samurai III was...well, it did not matter. It was something.

I mimed a yawn, stretching my arms way above my head in exaggerated exhaustion. "It is getting late. I really should be getting home soon, before Inga wonders where I am."

Peter frowned at me, his eyes crinkling in confusion. "Inga?"

"I - my mother."

"You...refer to her by her first name?"

I swallowed, forcing a thin smile to cover my unease. идиот. "Old habit. She hates to be called mother. Says it...ages her." I pulled the excuse from an old movie I had seen, studying parental relationships. The woman had pretended to be her teenage daughter's sister, despite looking much older than her, and prided herself on looking 'young'. Considering how narcissistic Americans were...it probably wasn't the worst excuse.

Peter nodded, seemingly buying my answer. He handed me one of the many books I had brought, flushing deep once more when our hands touched. "You, uh, can stay for dinner, if you'd like? Aunt May is-"

 "Oh, I'm alright. Inga will worry too much." I smiled wanly, wishing I had something to rip my tongue out with at such a lie. Imagining that cruel woman worrying about my life was enough punishment; but to lie, for her own sake, was another. "She's a protective mother."

"Right...yeah, I get it. I'll see you at school Monday then?"

I shot him a smile as I trudged to the door, a million thoughts and curses flooding my mind, mostly directed at how idiotic I was for not trying to make a move. "Of course, and then we'll have to meet up and finish this project, right? How about next weekend?"

"I'd like that," he mumbled, and a shy, innocent smile flit across his face for a second, like a shadow of a headlight, focused on a dark road. "Sounds good to me."

As I trudged back down the stairs, nose wrinkling at the repulsive smell and bones aching at the wounds previously given to me not hours before, my smile faded and was replaced by a dismal frown. Gone was the chirpy, ever-so-lovely Emily; Freya was back, heading away from something good and into the gates of hell.

I could just not go home. I could run now, escape and pretend like none of the trauma I had gone through ever existed. Hell, I could pretend to be a normal kid, maybe find a good place to stay, get a job, do something that wasn't hurting others and being hurt back. I was growing close to eighteen, and while I wasn't familiar with every law in America, I knew that at the age of seventeen, I could soon be independent. I could be free.

While there was really nothing funny, my bitter laugh bubbled and boomed in the quiet street, causing the people around me to look back at me and frown, one urging their child to look away. What a beautiful thought, being free. What a ridiculous idea, the thought of me being alone and free and forgetting everything that ever happened. What a hopeless whim of mine, believing for a single second that I would be allowed to walk free and leave it all behind. 

No, it was pointless to think that way; I had no doubt that there were at least five pairs of eyes on me at all time, hidden somewhere and urging me silently to fulfil my duty. If I so much as stepped out of line, in a matter of seconds my body would no doubt be riddled with bullets, and I'd be left to bleed out right there on the street, broken dreams in hand. The Academy and the people who ran it weren't stupid.

My legs grew heavier, and each step seemed like more and more work, taking me closer and closer to the world I had learned to accept. And, unfortunately, farther and farther away from the world I had learned to love.

Ah, this update took a little while to complete but here it is. This chapter is all over the place and really fluctuates between dark and happy subjects, but I think it's an important one - plus, it's the beginning of the bonding between her and Peter in private, so, yay? That sounds weird, but y'all hopefully catch my drift.

Because I can already sense concern and angry comments towards Freya/Emily, hear me out, kiddos. Yes, she is rude to Ned and rude to Aunt May, at least in her mind. However, that's who she is; she's been in such a hostile environment and left to only care about herself and her mission for so long that caring for others is extremely difficult. I mean, you've seen her; she doesn't even truly like Peter that much, right? She's not going to love everyone, especially after everything she's had to do/has had done to her, and being judgemental is just who she is. I realise that you may love the characters, but that doesn't mean she does and IT DOES NOT MEAN THAT I DO. I love these characters, and I don't want to see them burn, it's just the character. Stop coming for me because you think I'm treating your faves badly. I love them too.

I hope you all enjoyed this chapter! And guys, we're so close to 50k reads already - holy shit?!?! I know I'm always talking about new milestones but it just blows my mind that so many people have read this. So, thanks, mes cheries, for the millionth time in a row.