Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Margaret has given up. 

A part of her thinks she is being unfair. That she is wasting a precious opportunity gifted to her, that it is no longer a matter of having the strength to keep going but the duty to, but… she is just so tired. 

The boulder she is leaning against scratches her back through her t-shirt. The one stained with blood and sweat and dirt. It stings, and hurts, but it’s been a while since pain has been a factor to take into account when surviving is at stake. There is dust floating around her still, and it’s hard to breathe, but she has no strength left to cough. She rests her head on the rock keeping her upright. Her eyes sting, tears blurring her sight, and keeping them in is giving her a headache. Her ears still ring after the collapse. 

The hold on her hand is getting cold. 

They had played the alarms too late. It had been early in the morning, prime time for people going to work and children going to school. The streets had been bursting with activity, with voices, claxons and car engines. They had been on their way to work, stuck in the morning traffic and listening to some country song she can’t remember the name of. Then, the alarms broke into the morning hecticness, and the first aircrafts crossed the sky like bullets, all of them leaving behind a grating screech and panic. 

Everybody knows that, once you see the first signs of combat, it’s already too late. 

A few rocks moving in front of her startle Margaret, enough to have her scoot back in her place. It’s a person. Bloodied, battered and disoriented, but a person nonetheless. She should be ecstatic. She should be getting up right now, running toward them and screaming for help, because if you learn anything from the emergency simulacres they have you go through every month, is that being in a group is your best, your only, chance at survival. 

She keeps quiet, watching, almost bored, as the person stumbles ahead, away from her, as fast as they can. A voice at the back of her head whispers that, if they are in a hurry, that means something is going after them. But she is just… done. She looks down, to where their hands connect, and takes in a shaky breath through her nose. She still doesn’t allow herself to cry, and her headache becomes stronger. 

It is then when she feels the footsteps. 

Boom. Boom. Boom. 

They are steady, calm, slow. The creature, the beast, is in no hurry. It’s been a while, although she wouldn’t be able to tell how long, since she last heard any explosions or, bombing, or simple screaming, so that means they are alone and away from any type of help. Good, she thinks. 

The steps, and the trembling, get closer, to the point where the sheer intensity makes her teeth vibrate, and she tightens her hold until her knuckles go white. She bites her lip, and because her hearing is still not back to its full capacity, she makes an effort to look around. See which way death is approaching.

It’s on her left. She can see, in between the collapsed buildings, a hulking form advancing, stepping on rock, metal and flesh. It moves unbothered, almost placid, and she thinks she can see a head move around and take in its surroundings. If she is lucky enough, it will see her. 

She leans her head back again, closes her eyes, and exhales. Her mind is as quiet as it is loud, and her hand’s grip is so tight she can feel the bones in her fingers shift and hurt. The beeping on her ears is painful, and the blood and sweat on her clothes makes them stick to her. 

She just wants it all to stop. She wants to pretend she’s still in her car, him next to her, and listening to shitty country music at max volume even though she hates it. She wants to go back in time and choose a different route, take longer to get dressed, or even forget to turn on her alarm the night before. She knows that is not possible, and she thinks that that hurts even more. 

The trembling and booming steps come to an end, and Margaret fears for a moment she has gone deaf, because she does not hear the beast, the monster, come to stand in front of her. She opens her eyes when she feels something block the sun and, finally, she sees it. Him. 

The kaiju is looking at her.

He is red and big. Those are the first adjectives that come to mind to describe him. There are horns at the back of his head, on his cheeks and on the sides of his face, the same one that looks at her with such intensity, such intelligence, that for a moment Margaret thinks he considers her something more than food. 

Those golden eyes are stuck on her green ones, scrutinizing every inch of her being, looking into her soul, and she internally laughs, because he is going to find it pretty empty. 

Belloc, the King, blinks lazily, still looking at her, and lowers his head. She stays on her place, sitting against that damn boulder and looking up ahead at death impersonated, and the kaiju only stops when he is close enough for her to tough him if she wanted to. 

Why are you not running? He seems to ask. Why have you given up? 

Margaret, for the first time in who knows how long, smiles. The kaiju’s eyes seem to catch on the change of attitude, and watch in silence how she lifts her arm as high as she can while maintaining eye contact. 

The hand holding her follows, and a bleeding arm sways in the air without a body to be attached to. 

I am already dead, she doesn’t say. 

Green and golden eyes stare at each other, unblinking, breaths trapped in their throats, and hearts beating side by side. 

Belloc holds out a hand to her, and Margaret takes it.

Chapter Text

They arrived last night. 

It took them by surprise when Barnes showed up to their front porch at almost nine in the evening, two weeks ago, a moving truck parked on the street next to their car, and a group of men, of soldiers, around him with the mission of packing up and turning their lives upside down with not a care or a warning. 

They didn’t start until past eleven, his mom screeching like a banshee in the middle of their front yard, the men not daring to take a step forward for as long as she brandished the baseball bat she kept next to her bed like a sword. She yelled at Barnes about “fucking decency”, about “fair fucking warnings” and so many more things that Duncan had lost track of the conversation well before it was over. 

He was too busy leaving marks on the stairs railing from his tight grip on it. It was not his fault, this time he was sure of it, and that was what hurt the most. They had been living on a small town close to Seattle, a pretty open-minded place where they had spent the last three years of his life. It was the longest placement they had had, and it had been fantastic. People kept to themselves, he was allowed to participate on the mathematics decathlon with the high school team, he had friends. Not very close, not the type who would try to maintain contact in a long distance setting, but they were nice, nonetheless. And now it was all gone. 

Unlike he would normally, he felt good when the soldiers packing their stuff tensed up when seeing the metal stair rail bent with the shape of his fingers, and he took the liberty to bump shoulders with Barnes with just enough force to make him stumble. The man made a move to raise his voice, but one look and he continued on supervising the move in silence. Mom tried to cheer him up: “we’ll redecorate your room”, “we can get you a bigger bed, or a better desk”. That ship sailed a long time ago, though. 

Duncan was not five anymore: promises of presents and cool toys will not make him accept with a smile leaving behind the best placement they have had since he was four. 

Margaret knows that, and sometimes Duncan feels bad for being mad at her when he sees just how defeated she seems. Sometimes, though, a little, tiny, hurt voice in the back of his head tells him that, had she not been so selfish and not had him, he wouldn’t have to live this way. 

Now they are in their new house. This one is more or less as big as the other, though it doesn’t have a second floor and it has a more modern style. His room is big enough, he supposes, although the window it has doesn’t allow him to put his desk under it, like he likes to do. There is, also, no greenery to look at outside because they are in a fucking desert. 

How fucking fitting. 

He hasn’t really talked to mom in the last few days. He is not doing it because he wants to hurt her, but sometimes he just deserves to be mad, and he knows if he were to talk he would end up saying things that he wouldn’t necessarily regret later. He loves mom, really, he does. So, so much, almost as much as he knows she loves him —she says it to him everyday, without exceptions, no matter if they are not on speaking terms thanks to their temper—. But sometimes he thinks about the life, if you can call it that, that awaits him because of the choices she made. 

And today, of all things, it’s his first day of class. California is not necessarily his favorite state, to be honest, and to be forced to attend a high school in the middle of nowhere, in a town with no more than six thousand people, bordering a desert… 

He massages his temples, as if trying to chase away an oncoming headache, and gets up from his desk. He’s been up since five am, where sleep abandoned him and the familiar anxiety of being the new kid woke him up with a cold sweat. His sketchbook is shoved inside his backpack, one made of vegan leather his mom bought him for his fourteenth birthday and that he takes everywhere, and he puts on his favorite sneakers, the ones mom bought him so he could draw and paint on them. He loves the jungle designs he did on them, and after baptizing them as his lucky shoes, he likes to wear them whenever he does something that triggers his anxiety. 

Mom thinks it’s cute. 

He can already hear noise in the kitchen when he enters the bathroom. He has given up on doing anything to his hair since he entered high school. Once the first wave of puberty hit him and his first growth spurt happened, the consistency of it has changed drastically. It no longer feels like normal hair. It’s thinker, the curls more unnaturally defined, and the feeling of it resembles a porcupine’s quills, just longer, softer and easier to bend. It luckily doesn’t look bad, and the color helps a lot. When he was younger it was lighter, the kind of blond babies are born with. Now it looks like gold, and if he were to choose a feature of himself, he would bet all his money on his hair. 

Mom says he has a beautiful face, but he can see in her eyes that, no matter how handsome and cute he is, he reminds her of someone. Those conversations never end well. 

He goes to put on his t-shirt when, through the mirror's reflection, he sees the scar on his chest. It’s not too big, at least now that he is bigger, but it’s notorious and bumpy to the touch. It’s located just over his heart, and although it’s superficial, mom’s eyes fill with tears every time she sees it. He covers it quickly, not because he is self conscious about it, but because he can hear mom’s voice calling him to the kitchen to have breakfast. There is no need to make her feel bad so early in the morning. 

He abandons the bathroom, takes his backpack, and rushes toward the smell of toast and juice. 

“Good morning, baby.” 

Margaret stands next to the stove, wearing a work suit and the earrings he managed to buy for her birthday last year, and smiles at him like he lights up the room with his presence when she turns around. The scar on her face is as notorious as always. It’s long, from the left corner of her mouth almost to her ear, and when Duncan was very little, he would tell her that way they could match.

Duncan walks up to her and lets her hug and kiss him, because even when he is angry, or upset, he would never say no to that. Margaret smiles at him and tries to fix his hair to no avail. She gives up when he sits down on the kitchen aisle to eat his toast. 

“Morning.” 

Margaret sits in front of him and takes a sip of her coffee. 

“Are you excited for your first day?” He looks at her mid chew and raises an eyebrow, and mom laughs. “Ok, ok, stupid question.” She takes a bite of her own toast and looks at him again. “Look, I know you’re not happy about this, and you have every right to be upset, but don’t give up before starting, ok?” She cups his cheek and rubs her thumb on his nose, something he has always found very calming. “You never know, maybe you’ll manage to make new friends.”

“I suppose it’s not outside the realm of possibilities.” He doesn’t really believe in jinxing stuff, but he also doesn’t wanna risk it. 

“Don’t be so positive, you could hurt yourself.” Mom laughs, drinks from her coffee, and unblocks her phone to read the news. He finally finishes his toast, drinks his juice and goes to the bathroom to finish preparing for class. 

The high school is not too far away, fifteen minutes on foot at most, so he has decided to walk to and from class. A few minutes of peace and some me-time to enjoy. 

When he gets out of the bathroom, Margaret has already finished eating and is getting ready to go to work. She gave up military life when he was born, and since then she has been working at different organizations that help single mothers and women running away from abusive situations. Mom says she doesn’t want anybody to feel as alone as she did when she escaped. 

“I’m leaving now.” He waits by the door, backpack on his shoulder, and Margaret comes out of her room with her work purse —black and big to hold so many documents she looks like a librarian—. 

“Good luck, honey.” She kisses his forehead, and he has to bend down a bit for her to reach. “If you get any bigger I’m gonna have to get a step ladder.” She pinches his nose and gets her keys. “I love you, Duncan.” And again she gives him that look. The one that says I need to make sure you know just in case. 

He doesn’t smile, but he lowers his head until their foreheads meet. 

“I know.” 

(…)

Forget about me-time. He should have known better than to say anything beforehand; jinxing was no joke. 

He hadn’t even taken three steps away from the house when a car, a jeep with no roof, by the looks of it, came rushing down the street next to him. He would normally not have paid any attention to it, if not for the fact the car backtracked and got onto the sidewalk. 

Because of-fucking-course they couldn’t wait until actually reaching the school. 

“Dude, I’m sorry.” The guy speaking didn’t really look like he was. He was tall, with brown hair, and looked fit. He didn’t like stereotypes, but the abusive jock was starting to get on his nerves. They could at least get a bit more creative. “I thought there was some bird crap on my rear view mirror, but now I can see it was just your face.” The guy laughs, and the other boys, three equally big and stupid, laugh with him. 

He snorts, because, honestly, there’s nothing else worth doing with an insult as pathetic as that one, and takes a step forward before almost jumping out of his skin. 

“TROY!” It sounds close to an eagle screeching —or even a pissed off cat—, and it comes from behind him, if the terrified looks of the boys in the car tell him anything. The sound of heels on pavement makes him turn around and what he sees makes him wanna slap himself to make sure he’s actually awake. 

If Barbie was a real person, it would be her. The girl is short, but that doesn’t make her any less intimidating. She is wearing a pair of heels that make her at least five inches taller, a tube skirt that looks made of latex from how shiny it is, and a striped shirt that makes her look like she’s on her way to the office. Everything is, also, really pink. The shoes, the skirt and the shirt. The office purse and the hair clip too, including the light make up she is wearing. On somebody else it could have been too much, but with that level of confidence she seems to carry around she looks like it’s natural on her. The color makes her light blond hair look brighter, and her pale skin more glowy. 

It also makes her pissed off eyes burn. 

“What the fuck was that, Troy?” The girl walks to him, although she hasn’t looked in his direction once, and faces the jock on the driver’s seat. Troy looks about to shit himself. 

“Jenna-” He tries to talk, voice low and eyes looking desperately for a way out, and the other boys shut up and pretend they can not see nor hear what is taking place next to them.

“Don’t Jenna me.” Duncan takes a step back when she moves in front of him, and the girl, Jenna, raises her voice again. “Didn’t I fucking tell you to stop being a bitch?” She finally looks back at him, and Duncan ackwardly waves at her, because he really has no fucking clue about what is happening in front of him. 

The girl gives him a smile that could only be described as evil and turns back to the car. 

“You don’t even know this kid and you’re already fucking around with him. Who the fuck does that? Are you really that fucking desparate for attention?” The guy opens his mouth with a frown on his face, and Jenna interrupts him again. “Let me catch you one more time and your daddy will have a new reason to beat your ass aside from loosing on the fucking field.” 

My God-

Troy shuts up, white as a ghost, and is fast to get the car moving and away from them. Once they get lost in the distance, Jenna turns to him. He’d be lying if he said he didn’t tense up when she looked at him.

“Don’t look at me like that.” She flicks her short hair and walks closer to him. “I’m not a monster; he’s already signed up for counseling. Everybody in this town knows what happens at his house. We’re working on it.” She comes to stand close enough that she has to look up at him, and offers her hand. ”Jenna Shwartzendruber, head of the Student Council and future president of the United States of America.”

She is now smiling, the one a demon has when taking the souls of the innocent, and Duncan decides that he already likes her. He takes her hand and shakes it, almost as if sealing a deal.

”Duncan Rosenblatt, already late to class.”

Chapter Text

Jenna may not be very tall, but she sure as hell is fast. Duncan has to actually put some passion into his steps to keep up with her, who walks with her head held high, and such a confidence that almost makes his eyes water from how intense she is. 

She has spent the whole five minutes of the walk to the school rapid-firing who knows how many things about the school, the way an appointed student-guide would, and Duncan’s brain is already giving up by the time they actually get to the school grounds. 

“And please, do not fucking throw your shit to the ground, alright? We have recycling bins for a reason, so be a decent fucking person.” She says it with a brilliant cheerleading smile that shows all of her perfect teeth. It even makes her cussing look cute.

“Duly noted, Mrs. President.” Duncan nods at her and Jenna looks at him with that evil oozing smirk of hers, the one that lets the rotten genius inside be witnessed for a mere few seconds, before she speaks again. 

“See? I knew you wouldn’t be a total waste of space.” She walks up ahead, into the multitude of students arriving with them for the first period, and yells at him over her shoulder. The people around her jump in their place at her raised voice. “Don’t let it get to your head, though. And keep up, I don’t have all fucking day. I’m a busy woman.”

Duncan snorts and goes after her, ignoring the way the other kids look at them. 

The building is actually very impressive. For such a small town in bum-fuck-nowhere, it was spacious, very modern, and clean. If he remembered correctly, Jenna had mentioned numerous clubs and help groups with appointed classes, which made the building so much more diverse and inclusive. The original planning had not accounted for the fact that, being a town so far up into the desert, not many families would be interested in having children in the area. The building was old but recently renovated. They had both art and math clubs. 

Jenna takes him through a couple of hallways filled with posters and art stuff, smiles like a shark at a few teachers who greet her on the way, and finally stops in front of a door with a small plack with the words “biology lab” on top of it. 

“I’ll give you your schedule and locker info after class, just know that you have biology first thing in the morning on Mondays and Thursdays.” She opens the door like she owns the place. 

“How do you know my schedule?” Duncan follows her in, having the decency to close the door after him. The teacher is not there yet. 

“Because I had to be able to recognize you, silly. You’re my anniversary present.” She, again, smiles at him over her shoulder, and suddenly sprints toward the first desk next to the door. She slams her hands on the desk, and Duncan, for the first time in the last fifteen minutes, sees a real smile come out of her. “Pookie!” She screeches. 

There is a girl sitting at the table, with her brown hair in two long braids and a Stardew Valley shirt that has an emo girl and an It Girl holding hands with a heart as background. She also has a beanie, a pale bluish gray color, with cat ears. The girl drops the notebook she was writing in the moment Jenna slams her hands on the desk, and is promptly pulled into a kiss by Jenna’s manicured hands holding her cheeks. 

To be honest, Duncan should have guessed. A raging bisexual on her first relationship with a woman, and with a God complex. He is not complaining. 

Jenna breaks the kiss, only to press another one to the unknown girl’s forehead. Jenna would be wagging her tail and shining pink if it was medically possible. 

“Look, Pookie.” Jenna says the words out loud, but they are followed with a fast and swift pair of hands that sign away as if they are being paid to do so. “Your present has arrived! Isn’t he cute?!” She signs and speaks as if they were the only people in the room, with eyes filled with little pink hearts and that same lovey dovey smile she can not seem to get rid of. 

The girl, her very much obvious girlfriend, finally takes notice of him and, as if realization hitting her like a brick, she sheepishly smiles and reaches for the notebook next to her. She writes something down on it, and turns it for him to see it.

I apologize for her, she is usually a bit nicer. 

Duncan snorts again, this time letting a little smirk slip in, and moves his hands. The girl’s eyes shine like stars when she sees him signing, and Jenna, who is now sitting on her girlfriend’s lap and peppering her cheek with kisses, side eyes him with something akin to real interest. 

“My ASL is kind of shitty, but I can manage if you have the patience.” The girl nods with such energy he fears her head will fall off her shoulders, and answers. 

“I’m Isabel!” She first spells her name, and then makes emphasis on the way her sign name is made. Duncan repeats the motion a couple of times, and Isabel beams at him. “It’s so nice to meet you! I’m sorry about Jenna, she actually means good, even if it sounds mean.” The girl in mention, swinging her legs from Isabel’s lap like a happy camper, signs something with her right hand.

“Pookie, at this rate you’re gonna ruin my reputation.” Jenna pauses to look at him, with a glare so intense it would intimidate lesser men, and adds: “Besides, I found him for you, I don’t have to be nice if I don’t want to.”

Duncan leans against the desk and signs. 

“Should I be worried? I don’t wanna wake up one day and find my organs being sold in the black market. I’m Duncan, by the way.” 

Isabel laughs out loud, Jenna glaring at anybody who turns to look at them, and signs back.

“She just likes to find people who would be likely to join my Cryptozoology club, but she tends to be a bit eccentric about it.” 

“Just about that, you say?” Duncan gestures to Jenna’s appearance, the embodiment of Barbie, and Isabel laughs again. 

“That’s just part of her presidential campaign, you’ll get used to it.” 

He’s gonna add something when the teacher comes into the class, a bunch of papers in hand, and a serious frown on her face. Jenna reluctantly changes seats to the chair next to Isabel and points to the desk behind them. 

“That one is yours.” Her hands move as she speaks, while Isabel opens her purse and gets a soft pink notebook and a pink pen off it. “Don’t disappoint me.” 

“I thought you said I was for Isabel.” Duncan has a shit-eating grin on his face, and Jenna looks at him like a butcher does a lamb. 

“And if she doesn’t keep you, I will.” 

(…)

The class is not boring per se, but Duncan has a lot of things going on in his head to pay attention to any of it. Right after the teacher asked him to introduce himself to the class —from his seat, thank God—, Isabel passed him the notebook she was writing in before. It’s small, almost pocket size, a deep blue with the initials I + J encased in a heart written in pink marker on the cover. The bookmark it has takes him to a blank page with only a few sentences written at the top:

Hi!!!! I forgot to mention, mine and Jenna’s pronouns are she/her, but if you ask her, she will say Barbie/President. 

Duncan swallows a snort and immediately writes back.  

He/him, although I’ve also been referred to as Demonic/Bastard and Stanic/Spawn. Take your pick. 

He passes the notebook along, and while Isabel, holding back a laugh, shows the page to her terrifying girlfriend, Duncan becomes very aware of who is sitting next to him.

He hadn’t really noticed because the guy was sleeping, soundly, on the desk, but there was a kid taking a nap right next to him. He has on the scrawny side, with blue dyed hair, and his head hidden in his crossed arms. 

Isabel passes the notebook back when the teacher turns to write on the board, and the next entrance puts a name to the guy snorting next to him.

Jenna says Satan’s spawn has a very nice ring to it hshshs

Also, that one there is Ken. They use he/they pronouns, and hate being called Kenny.

Right under Isabel’s black pen, a few scribbles in pink ink caught his attention.

We found him in a trash can and took pity on them. 

The black pen made another appearance.

He’s like our adopted child hshshshshs

Duncan is still trying to register all of it when the small notebook is snatched away. For a hot second he fears it’s the teacher, but Ken has apparently decided to join the land of the living and is writing something with a blue pen, at the bottom of the page. They pass him the notebook again, and promptly go back to sleep.

Run while you can, dude. I’m in too deep.

Duncan doesn’t add anything to their secret conversation, but a little part of him thinks that maybe, maybe, the move may actually be worth it.

Chapter Text

The doors to “Safe Heaven“ close behind her, and Margaret takes a quick look around. 

The office is busy today, probably because it’s the beginning of September and summer holidays are just over. Back in their old home, close to Seattle, Margaret used to work in an extension of the “Safe Heaven Quarters” for single mothers and divorced women in dire economic and social situations. The place had been bigger, because it not only had the residential side building, but also the offices. 

Back there she had been in charge of receiving them the moment they came through the door, as well as doing pick ups and other more physical activities, such as chasing away men who didn’t understand the word “no”. Her past as a military agent put her in the perfect position to serve as a strong support for those who came from broken homes, and her personal story had served as inspiration to show all those women that, like her, they did have the power to, if not succeed, try to push the odds to their favor. 

Margaret loves her job because she feels like she is able to heal her younger self a little bit every time one of them, especially one of the younger ones, comes back, tears in her eyes, to tell her how she has won. 

And MEGTAF has taken that away from her. 

This building is smaller and older, with a handful of people working in small offices and managing paperwork to send to the bigger structure in the neighboring town. Here, her new role is based on filling up document after document and read all the cases that didn’t even have an ending because they do not give a fuck. 

There is also the fact that more than half of the workers here are new like her. And they are all men. 

Because of course they are all men.

Margaret takes a deep breath in, almost as if she was trying to memorize the smell of the place, and takes her first steps. A few heads turn in her direction, but nobody makes an effort to greet her, to introduce themselves, and explain how things work around the place. 

They look at her, eyes stuck to her like cannons waiting for any sign of hostility to show in her face and fire. 

They, also, look at her scar, and some of them are too cowardly to keep up the facade and turn away. Good, she thinks. They know her. 

Margaret keeps her head high and walks with confidence towards her new office. It’s not as big as the older one, but it’s spacious enough. It has a modern design, void of any sense of coziness or familiarity that would help a victim feel comforted when asking for help. She has a desk, a comfortable looking office chair and a few bookshelves filled with paperwork and personal things from her old workplace.

She places her bag on the desk, still closed, picks up a small potted plant —fake, like everything in this place— and throws it to the left corner of the ceiling. The camera breaks, while the potted plant lands intact on the ground. She picks it up again, and walks to the bookcase to the right wall, where she takes an innocent looking book holder and smashes it with it. She does the same with the front left leg of her desk. 

The broken mics are dropped into the trash can, and the potted plant follows suit. She gathers the rest of the camera and throws it away too. She will take out the trash later. 

MEGTAF seems to have forgotten that, no matter how long she hasn’t been a part of its military forces, she still hasn’t forgotten her training; but that is not surprising. It’s not the first time they have done this. 

Since having Duncan, her life has become a shit show of cameras, light and action. Mics in every corner of every house they have lived in, cameras hidden in childhood toys and bathroom mirrors, weekly check ins by a children’s counselor —an impartial opinion, they said—. And the looks. Oh, how she hates the looks. 

She can feel their eyes on her from the moment she wakes up to the moment she goes to sleep. It’s the neighbor, the mailman, the delivery guy, the woman at the register, the banker, the teacher. They know she knows. They know Duncan knows. And still, they do it. 

Margaret moves toward her desk and sits on the chair, opens her purse and pulls out her phone and work laptop —the one with no personal information they can steal. The real one is at home, hidden away so they can never touch it—. She turns on her phone, and a picture of Duncan and herself as background greets her. It’s old, Duncan had been nine, and they had gone to the waterpark to celebrate his birthday. Just the two of them, no friends to play with —It’s ok, mama. I don’t like them either—. 

She takes a deep breath, opens the laptop and pretends to work on something. She types away on it, eyes vacant on the screen, and thinks. Her head is the only place where they can not reach her. Where they can not see, nor hear, so she has to keep it fast, swift, smart. Her baby’s life depends solely on how much and how fast she can outsmart them —on him too, but he is away, where she can not hide her son away under his shadow—, so she can not get lazy nor content. 

The move is a direct blow, and that’s what worries her the most. 

They have not seeked to directly antagonize her since the accident, which proved just how effective her message had been. For the past fifteen years —and six months—, almost everything has been on her terms. Schools, moves, housing, medical and legal. For as long as she plays nice, they respond in the same manner, and Margaret has been a master at this game for the past decade and a half. 

Now though… now things have changed. They have made their move, and Margaret is terrified. 

They are not scared anymore. They do not fear her, nor the words she uttered that day when she entered MEGTAF’s headquarters covered in sweat and blood, and that means that they have something to hang over her head. 

It has not gone unnoticed their new location either. It has been close to eighteen years, since then, but she remembers it like it was yesterday. 

She’d been six months pregnant and in the outskirts of this same town when they found her. 

(…)

Gym class is, surprisingly, not as shity as he had initially feared. 

They are in the locker room, slightly bigger and newer than the one at his last school, and above all the noise the other boys make, Duncan can hear the sound of mats being dropped on the ground just outside the double doors. He doesn’t know who their gym teacher is, and apparently nobody does. A new guy, they said. 

“Hey, dude, you play football?” He stops pulling white t-shirt over his head and turns to the new voice. It’s, surprisingly, one of the guys from early in the morning. A friend of this “Troy” guy. 

“Nah, did gymnastics for a few years though. Why?” He knows why. Aside from his hair, his physical capabilities have always been a factor to be proud of. He knows he is strong, has been since he was a toddler. Stronger than any adult. He also looks like it, too, and it wouldn't be the first time someone has asked him if he’d like to join a sport. That’s a no for him though, especially the ones that include physical contact with other players. Orders from up above.

“Don’t listen to him, dude, they wanna steal you away into their frat house themed hellwhole.” Two hands land on his shoulders and Ken jumps in from behind him. They have their hair out of their face with a headband, and he looks way more awake than he did in the lab. 

“Fuck you, Roger’s.” The insult doesn’t really have any bite, and the guy turns around and exits the locker room. Ken points to his t-shirt while waving away the the other boy with a shit eating grin. 

“Cover up and come on, I heard the new coach is a bit of an asshole.” Duncan snorts, pulls on his t-shirt, and follows Ken to where the rest of the class is waiting. the girls are there, too, and he can see Jenna in the white uniform holding Isabel’s hand. She looks murderous, and Duncan thinks it may be because the uniform is not pink. 

Just when he and Ken arrive next to them, the gymnasium doors open and Duncan’s worst nightmare walks through them. 

Oh, asshole doesn’t even begin to cover it.