“How about my father, then? My real one, I mean?”
Laura shrugged. “We do not know who he is - or if you even have an actual biological father at all, Sasha. There was no mention of it in Scarlet Fire’s documents we found.”
“I see,” Sasha said. “So I am the product of a criminal who fumbled around with my DNA to make me a better criminal. That about sums it up?”
“That your real mother chose that path for herself doesn’t mean that you have to, Sasha. Nobody is born or even created to be a bad person. You are what you want to be. Nothing more, nothing less,” Laura said.
“I don’t want to be a bad person,” Sasha whispered.
Laura nodded. “That’s all you and we need to know.”
Sasha let her gaze wander between her adoptive parents. “I am glad that you told me the truth, and that I no longer have to wonder why I am the way I am. But as far as I am concerned, you’re mom and dad to me, and always will be. I don’t have any other parents than you. Whoever that person was who...made me - she’s not my family. You are. And I couldn’t have asked for a better one.”
Laura could barely suppress a tear. Then her lips formed a smile and she moved next to Sasha and pressed her close, burying her daughter’s face at her shoulder.
January 10th, 1998
Sasha didn’t try to conceal the urge for a healthy yawn, as she put her textbook and pens on the desk and crossed her arms in front of her, waiting for the teacher to come into the classroom and start the class. Another day of school was about to begin. And it was only a Wednesday, so she would have to go through three more of those days in this week. But thankfully, she had only six more months left until graduation. Sasha couldn’t wait until she would be able to walk out of this building for the final time, with her diploma in her hands. The eighteen year old girl was looking forward to university. Sasha didn’t mind studying at all. She only minded school. Or more precisely, she minded a certain aspect of it.
With a sigh, Sasha noticed that the certain aspect was just walking straight towards her.
“Good morning, Sasha,” Matthew Finch purred in a tone that gave Sasha goose bumps.
“What? It’s ‘Sasha’ now instead of ‘White-haired freak’? How come?” Sasha coldly said to the person who had made her school life miserable from the very day they met in class for the first time. Sasha had never understood what made Matthew harass her at any given chance, but she guessed Matt, being the extremely weak student he was, just needed to vent his frustration at someone. And the girl with the odd white hair who also happened to be the best student in the class was probably the most obvious target.
“So how is little Miss Einstein doing on this wonderful day? Solved the unified field theory? Or developed a cure for cancer before breakfast?”
Sasha stared hard into Matt’s face. “Leave me alone, Matt,” she snarled.
Matt’s smirking gaze wandered from Sasha’s face to her possessions on the desk.
“A textbook? What would you need that for? I am sure you have memorized the entire thing already, with that superior intellect of yours, no?”
Sasha sighed. “Matt, it’s not my fault that you didn’t pass the last math exam. Would you please stop now?”
Matt shrugged and tossed Sasha’s textbook over his shoulder. “Oops,” he said. “Now I have dropped it.”
Sasha let her gaze wander from Matt to the other students. Some were giggling. Some were averting their heads when Sasha looked at them. One other girl looked at her with some trace of sympathy, but didn’t say anything either. In this class, nobody opposed Matthew Finch.
Slowly, Sasha rose from her chair and trotted to the place where Matt had dropped her textbook. She reached down to the ground to retrieve it.
And Matt’s body bumped into her from behind.
The surprised girl had no way to compensate for the unexpected push. Losing her balance, Sasha stumbled forward. She tried to break her fall by reaching for a desk, but her hand couldn’t find enough hold on it. One of her feet finally slipping from under her, Sasha’s body flipped around in mid-air, as gravity pulled her mercilessly down. With a yelp, the girl fell butt-first to the floor before she was showered in pencils raining from the desk her desperate attempt to regain balance had shaken.
Matthew Finch laughed. “Oh, Sasha, I am so sorry. Did I do that?”
Lying on her back on the floor, she pushed her upper body upright with her elbows. And she noticed that Matthew wasn’t the only one taking delight in her misery.
Sasha’s eyes narrowed to thin slits. Blood shot into her face, changing her complexion to a solid red. And the young woman experienced an emotion she had never felt before.
Hatred.
With lightning fast speed, Sasha propelled herself back on her feet. Her eyes locked into Matthew’s, who was still laughing. But his laughter froze when he stared into Sasha’s eyes.
“I am sick and tired of you treating me like a piece of shit, Matt. I have never done anything to you. And now it will stop,” Sasha yelled.
Sasha’s right arm shot out, the flat palm pointing towards Matt. Her furious mind drew on the hidden magical power inside her and willed it to life. From the palm of her hand, a wall of kinetic energy launched towards her target. A split-second later, Matt screamed in agony as the powerful mental blast knocked into him with the force of a truck and lifted him from his feet.
His arms and legs flailing in panic, Matthew sailed over two rows of desks and crashed into the third with a sickening thud. The inertia of his body mass toppled the desk and the chairs behind it, and Matthew vanished under a mass of collapsing furniture, textbooks and pens.
Sasha was standing still, her arm still outstretched. Then the rage inside her subsided, giving room to logic and reason again.
And Sasha realized what she had just done.
Her eyes went wide in shock as she stared at the entangled mass of Matthew’s body under the desk. He didn’t move at all. Panicked, her hand shot towards her mouth. “Oh my...” she muttered, helplessly looking around, but her eyes were finding only the terrified, frozen faces of her classmates.
Sasha charged to the place Matthew had fallen, quickly removing the debris from his body while she intensely begged for him to be still alive.
With great relief she noticed that Matthew was moving. He groaned as she took the last chair from him. Sasha could see that his arm was angled in an impossible direction and he had multiple deep cuts and bruises in his face.
Matthew’s eyes opened. And when he recognized Sasha leaning over him, he lashed out at her with his leg.
“Get off me, you goddamn bitch,” he yelled. “You broke my arm.”
Like in trance, Sasha slowly backed off. She had suddenly become the main actor in a very bad nightmare. Someone put a hand on her shoulder. Sasha turned around. The hand belonged to Mrs. Turner, her English teacher. “You better do just that,” the teacher sternly said.
***
Sasha quietly sat on a chair in the classroom’s far corner. Tears were freely flowing down her cheeks as the paramedics rushed into the room and started treating Matthew.
“I didn’t want that,” she whispered over and over. But nobody paid any attention to her.
The paramedics had just lifted Matthew on a stretcher and hauled him off when two uniformed policemen entered the classroom. They were having words with the teacher and several students. Fingers were repeatedly being pointed at Sasha.
Finally, the cops marched over to Sasha, towering themselves in front of her.
“Miss,” the female cop sternly said, and Sasha shrunk a few inches in size, for she knew what was about to happen. “I think you need to come with us.”
Sasha looked up into the cop’s face. “You’re arresting me, aren’t you?” she whispered.
The cop nodded. “I am afraid so,” she said.
Slowly, Sasha rose from the chair. The female cop reached to her belt, and pulled a pair of handcuffs from a pocket. Sasha
looked at the shining metal restraints dangling from the cop’s hand. She moved back one inch and shivered.
“Please, I will come with you, but don’t put those things on me,” she whispered.
“I am sorry, miss. We have to. Please turn around and put your hands on your back.”
And Sasha complied, her gaze locked at no particular point at the ceiling and her eyes clenching shut twice as the cold steel closed around her wrists.
As the restrained girl was being led from the classroom, Sasha’s head hang low and her eyes kept fixing the floor, for she was unable to look into anyone’s face. But she still knew that everyone in the room had their eyes fixed at her, watching her ultimate moment of shame.
January 11th, 1998
Tom Clarkson parked his patrol car in front of the police station and cut the engine. Inhaling deeply, he exited the car and glanced at the building where his daughter had been held and questioned for the entire day. It had already been past midnight when he had received the call.
Getting notified that their child was being held by the police was one of the more unpleasant nightmares for any parent. And it was one of the last things Tom had expected to happen to him personally, for he never had imagined his darling daughter to be able to get in trouble. But it had happened now.
He rushed through the door and charged up the stairs to the second floor, taking two steps at a time. Inside he was greeted by a familiar face. Inspector Frank Udall and Tom had served together before they were separated by Tom joining the Integrated Task Force for Superhuman Crime. They had still remained loosely in contact, sharing the occasional after-duty drink every few months.
The two men shook hands, but neither was smiling.
“Where is my daughter, Frank?” Tom asked, omitting any sort of verbal greeting.
Frank nodded over his shoulder, at a glass window separating an office room from the rest of the floor. Tom peeked through the window. From within, a devastated Sasha stared at him with tears in her swollen eyes. Tom shot her an encouraging smile.
“You’re going to charge her?” Tom asked.
Frank’s shoulders slumped an inch as he looked into Tom’s face. “I am sorry, Tom. We have to. I know that this guy provoked her for who-knows how long, and for all what it’s worth I sympathize with her. But there is simply no way to justify that sort of reaction with self-defence. It was just too much. I know that she didn’t mean to do that, but she almost killed the guy.”
Tom sighed. “What will the charges be?”
“Aggravated assault,” Frank whispered.
“Aggravated? Are you guys crazy? She didn’t attack him with a deadly weapon,” Tom protested.
“I am afraid her powers will be seen as the equivalent of one, as far as the interpretation of the law goes.”
Tom ran a hand through his hair. “Geesh, Frank, she has had her eighteen’s birthday just a week ago, meaning she’s going to get an adult-sentence for whatever you charge her with. She will be going to jail if you slap an aggravated assault charge on her. Frank...she’s the sweetest girl in the world, she doesn’t deserve that.”
“It’s not up to me, Tom, I am sorry,” Frank whispered.
Tom shook his head as he regarded the picture of misery that was his daughter, staring into nothingness from her motionless eyes. “Can I take her home for now?” Tom asked.
Frank nodded. “Tell her not to leave the city.”
“Of course, Frank. Thank you.”
***
The Pacific Northwest winter rain was relentlessly pouring down on Tom’s car so hard that the wipers were having trouble to keep up with the watery onslaught. Keeping his eyes staring at the wet road, Tom drove his daughter home through the light early morning traffic.
“How is Matthew?” Sasha whispered from the passenger seat.
“Broken arm, light concussion, two bruised ribs, a few cuts. They told me that he will have to spend the night in hospital, but he can go home tomorrow. He will be fine,” Tom said.
Sasha bit her lip as another flow of tears ran down her cheeks. “I am so sorry,” she whispered.
“I know you are,” Tom said.
When had to stop his car at a red light, Tom looked over to his daughter, giving her a smile and a wink. “Next time, just give the guy a good old-fashioned slap, ok?”
For the first time since the incident a shadow of a smile appeared on Sasha’s face. “I promise, dad.”
“Will I have to go to jail?” Sasha asked in a hushed voice after a minute of silence.
“I don’t know, honey,” Tom said with a sigh.
January 15th, 1998
Nelson Vanderbilt’s office was neither sparse nor extravagant. It was probably what could be considered appropriate for a Crown counsel to have. Being a high ranking policeman, Tom Clarkson had been in the prosecutor’s office numerous times before, but of course he had never have to come here to discuss his own daughter’s fate with the prosecutor, until this day.
“Nice to see you, Tom,” Vanderbilt greeted him.
“Forgive me for saying that I’d rather not be here today, Nelson,” Tom said, while he shook the man’s hand.
“Understandable. Please, have a seat.”
Vanderbilt inhaled deeply. “I have known you for years, Tom, and I know that you prefer to be blunt and open. So I will just be open with you as well. I have looked at the documents very carefully and with the most favourable eye I could possibly read it with. There is really no way I can drop the charges against your daughter, Tom. It would look like an act of favouritism, with her dad being a merited cop.”
Tom sighed. “Can you at least downgrade the charges, so she can get away with a conditional sentence? You can’t possibly think sending my daughter to jail is the right thing to do. Geesh, she’s already punishing herself much harder than you ever could.”
“I realize that, Tom. But I still have to treat her like I would treat any other person. The judge will weigh in all of it, including that she got provoked by this guy. If that’s any consolation, she will get nowhere near the fourteen years maximum sentence.”
“How much do you think she will get?”
Vanderbilt shrugged. “It’s hard to tell. Six months, if she’s lucky. Two to three years are more realistic, though.”
“Damn it, Nelson,” Tom spat out.
“I know. Look, I really would drop the charges if there was any justification to. I can see that your girl isn’t exactly a danger to public safety unless someone keeps harassing her for a few years straight. I could perhaps argue lack of public interest in prosecution in her case, but only if the victim would agree to drop the charges. But we have already asked Matthew Finch about his stance on the case, and there is no way he will do that. He wants to see Sasha behind bars.”
***
Tom shattered the receiver down on the cradle with force. He had expected this call to come sooner or later, but nevertheless he had no idea how to break the news to his daughter. Sasha hadn’t been talking much for the five days since the incident, not even to him or her mother. Most of the time, whenever Tom looked at her, she was staring out of a window. He had no idea how she would react to the news.
He approached his daughter from behind and put a hand on her shoulder. “Sasha...the school board just called.”
The girl turned around and looked up to him. Tom strongly suspected she knew what the call was about, but she didn’t show it.
Tom squeezed her shoulder and drew in a deep breath, before he spoke on. “You have been permanently expelled from the school and may not enter the building anymore. They have asked me to come over and empty your locker.”
Sasha nodded and turned her head towards the window once more.
***
Tom Clarkson was angry as he threw open the door to Sasha’s school building and climbed the stairs. Five days. That’s all they had needed to decide to end his daughter’s school career, half a year before she would have graduated. They hadn’t even granted h
er the customary hearing before doing that.
He walked down the locker area in the main corridor, reading the name tags until he had found Sasha’s locker. Tom opened it and tossed Sasha’s books and writing utensils into a sports bag, then slammed the locker shut with a healthy dose of frustration.
The noise made one of the teachers turn around to stare at him. After a second of hesitation, the young female teacher walked towards Tom and stopped right in front of him.
“I am sorry,” Tom said, holding out his hands apologetically. “I shouldn’t have tossed it into the lock like that.”
The teacher looked at the name on the locker and then back at Tom.
“You are Sasha’s dad?” she asked, ignoring his apology.
“Yes. I am Tom Clarkson.”
The teacher extended her hand. “Amanda Smithe,” she introduced herself. “I am...was...Sasha’s math teacher. I am so sorry about all of that. Your daughter was the most brilliant student I have ever had.”
Tom nodded his acknowledgment of the teacher’s praise as he took her hand.
“For what it’s worth, I was against expelling her, but the decision wasn’t mine,” Amanda said.
“That won’t help her much now, though.” Tom snorted.
As soon as he had finished the sentence and saw the teacher flinch, Tom realized the unintended sting of his comment. “I am sorry, that was a rude thing to say,” Tom said. “I do appreciate your kind words. It is just so frustrating. This guy had been harassing my daughter for how long? Years? And after all this time of taking this crap from him, Sasha finally snaps and does something she admittedly shouldn’t have done. But all those years, nobody has helped her. Not the teachers. Not the school board. Not her classmates. Everyone had to see what was going on, and nobody did anything about it. But now everyone is really quick to lay all the blame on my daughter. She won’t get a high school diploma. She’s probably going to jail for a few years and have a criminal record that will haunt her for the rest of her life. Her life hasn’t really started yet, but it’s already ruined.”
Amanda stared to the floor, her cheeks developing a shade of red colour.
“You know what the worst thing is, Amanda? The guy who set all this in motion would have the power to stop it. Matthew could agree to drop those charges and my daughter could at least start a new life, instead of facing jail time in a federal penitentiary. But he’s so full of spite that he doesn’t even realize his own part in causing this mess.”