Under the Same Roof

He had been downstairs the entire time.

Arbor typed Cayden Hawke into the search bar, into the website she had only been given access to that day. She had sweet talked the librarian, one who thankfully wasn't there when she initially destroyed the place. The page flashing to life with his picture. It looked like a mugshot, but he smirked like he was enticing a girl to bed, on his face a cocky-eyed expression that he had given her when they reunited. She was sure he didn't live so close, though. The small girl thought she had seen his face in crowds before, his leg as he disappeared around a hallway bend, but she always thought she was imagining it. Now, it seemed less so. They had been living under the same roof, she and this boy who she had been looking for for months.

Arbor rushed out the door, almost dropping her laptop on the ground and leaving her coffee steaming in the nightstand. How could she have been such an idiot? She didn't even grab shoes, but rather slippers, looking out at the high moon and hoping he was still awake. If not she would wake him up. Or break the door down if she had to.

She rapped the door violently, the one labeled 105, flipping a coin into the air in a metronome. Up, down, up, down. There was an urgency and sloppiness to these flicks, one even getting away from her. She eyed the door impatiently and waited for it to open, for a face to appear. She would shoot him dead. From what she knew, the school didn't care for that stuff anyway.

I'm the strongest person alive. It echoed in every tink of the metal. This wasn't a game. No dragon was there to save him.

She stopped flipping the coin, staring at the door for a short moment. She hoped he'd be less cautious over answering the door, and knew any vocalization would tip him off. She couldn't disguise her voice. She didn't have the will or the skill too. Arbor looked the door up and down, and a thought came to her. Did he refrain from opening the door because he was afraid of seeing her on the other side? For the first time, it seemed that he could be scared of her. She was stronger than him. He finally realized that she was stronger than him, and stronger than everybody. She knocked again, more urgently, powered by this surge of confidence. Her arms were sore from some previous run-ins she had, the week peppered with skirmishes, but she pushed past. This one was more important than any of those.

She felt like a child who just received a prize, and the corners of her mouth gave way to a small smile.

She gave another rap on the door, a harder set of knocks. Now that her identity was blown, that she wasn't posing as a well-intended visitor, her blows to the door were booming. She would not leave. "You left my friends," she said in a solid voice. She pressed a penny into the door facedown, shooting magnetic energy into it until it began to melt into the wood, stamping and singing it. "You leave or you pay. You're no use to me anymore." Truth be told, she had been waiting to unload on him for a while. She needed him back then, though. He was the key to food, survival.

Not anymore.

When the penny melted in far enough, she pulled back. One of the door's three hinges pulled off, and it lurched in Arbor's direction, a dark crack fissuring across the side of the door.

Arbor pressed a penny to the door, and was ready to give it another blow. That was, until there was the opening of doors down the hall, the peeking out to see what was going on. Arbor got an idea of where she was suddenly, and how many powerful people she could piss off by harming the building. Or causing the ruckus she was causing. She was definitely stronger than all of them, but numbers beat her. She waited for the faces looking out at her to close their doors, possibly abandoning their worries to the sight of a small girl. Then, sighing, she sat down beside the door, hugging her legs. She'd make him think she left. She'd make him investigate the sudden silence of the predicament. Then, she would kill him cleanly, without toppling a building, and get some sleep.

Of course, sleep decided to come before her plan, and within minutes, she had closed her eyes a little too long, and slouched over, surrendering to fatigue. Perhaps it was all the battles she had been in, what with that strange hypothermia-resistance initiate or that girl in her class or that dragon. Whether she was more powerful than anyone else or not, she was still human. The palms that grabbed her legs ached, the tips of her fingers throbbing from hours of training, magnetic pulses sometimes giving way and pushing against the power outlet across the hall, sending small zaps. Arbor sat against the wall asleep, mouth slightly agape and chest rising and falling slowly.

She did not notice she'd fallen asleep. It was a languid feeling, the push and pull of magnets against her fingertips. It mimicked her breathing, the rocking of a ship. Even when she opened her eyes to the kick, her brown irises coming alive in slits, she seemed unperturbed. Tranquil. Cayden's voice was an alarm, though, one that could wake even the furthest of dormant beasts, and Arbor blinked away the sleep. She sat, wide-eyed. She fell asleep. Holy shit, she fucking fell asleep!

How weak.

Her hand shot to her pocket. The fatigued magnetic emissions continued, the sparks zapping behind him from the outlet, the pennies in her pocket sticking and falling from her hand. Shit. It'd been a while since she experienced that.

How weak.

She kept her hand in her pocket, and gave him a silent, threatening glare. Like a cobra ready to strike. Whether or not she was in the condition to, she could at least intimidate him. What she'd do afterwards, she had no idea.

A dreary lethargy spread over her head with the throb of a headache. All she wanted to do was get to her dorm and sleep. When did that overtake her? She was fine walking to confront him!

"I'll kill you," she whispered. Now he was talking about her plans. How dare he provoke her. She was stronger than him, stronger than he'd ever be. She put her foot down, getting up slowly, holding herself to the wall. She was rising, and with one hand gripping the coin in her pocket, she rapidly flung it out, forward, at the boy. The coin began to expand, but it was short lived, only growing a few inches in her fist. Rather than sending a blade into his gut, it was an awkward punch. A gut punch was a gut punch, but it was not what she was hoping. Hot, humid sickness clung to her head. Her palms flickered like faulty lightbulbs.

Arbor gritted her teeth. She kept silent, looking into his eyes with pure hatred, mouth trembling as she endured the pain. Her hair was short, and it didn't take much for pain to shoot through the roots, and being slammed into the wall blossomed a blurry dizziness. She looked at him and saw him years ago, doing the same, thing, saw her mother, saw the bullying 11th graders she and Cayden ended up stealing money from, he saved her then, it was a fickle relationship. Her eyelashes fluttered a little bit, and her hands clawed at his, throbbing hands. The lights flickered above them as she tried to get him loose from her hair.

Of course, when he spoke, she didn't answer, half-listening. She stumbled most of the time trying to keep up with his fast walk and grip. Of course, the blood pumped loudly in her ears, his voice distorted by the iron cloud that dragged her head down. She was wondering where he was taking her, wondering if it were outside and conscious how how cold it was at that time of night, but they turned up the stairs and she swallowed. They were going to her dorm. Arbor supposed it didn't take grand investigation to find out what she found out.

When they got to the staircase, she put a death grip on the railing and slipped under his arm. There were good things to being short. She stumbled back, and assumed some sort of fighters' stance. Her face felt hot, and her head tilted a little from the heavy illness, but her eyes said enough for her wordless mouth. There was dignity to be had, and if she couldn't use her power, she could use the fight-training she learned from that man back in Madison, the former black-belt teacher who was always on crack. It was a defensive position; she waited for his attack, because she'd probably fall if she attempted the thrusting force of an attack.

The fire only singed her, but rippled up her face in a hot spark. She grabbed her cheek, which bore a red streak, smoke coming from between her fingers. Fingers she then clenched, and through hazy eyes only fueled by a hazy anger, she thrust the fist toward her. Of course, he seemed to rush toward her quicker than she rushed toward him, and the impact of her fist to his chest was hardly much of anything. Before she knew it, she seemed to have thrown her body into him, like an embrace without the wraparound of arms. She winced. Without him there, she would fall.

Arbor certainly felt pathetic. She felt him grip the back of her collar, and the world pulsed around her. She looked up the staircase and wondered if she would even be able to ascend it. She blinked a little, trying to move her neck but unable to in his grip. "Let me go," she said silently, her grit teeth adding emotion to her monotone. She had to remind herself to stay awake, stay awake. What would happen if he let her go? Would she even be able to stay up on her own? Above them, tungsten twisted in bulbs, and a light fixture flickered off.

Arbor listened, half dazed until he mentioned that name, that accursed fucking name. Argona. There was a flame in her eye hotter than any fire Cayden could conjure, and her fingernails dug into his hand, the hand that held her collar. She began to pull, until she was suddenly dropped. She suddenly felt light, and what little balance she had was put down by the kick to her stomach. She dropped to the stairs, not being able to keep conscious enough for the pain to register.

She woke up in her room. She didn't know whether Cayden brought her there, whether someone else brought her there, or if she brought herself there. It felt like she had been out for days, that she had faded in and out of life like a drunkard who'd never sobered. And in her moment of clarity, she sat up. She looked around. Argona's name immediately popped into her head. She clenched her fist and tried to stand, but a wave of lightheadness erupted from her temples and she had to sit back down.

She'd wait. She wouldn't attack him so directly, but she'd wait to get better. Then he'd be sorry. She was stronger than he'd ever be.