(no subject)
Sooraya heard a noise from the hall outside. She paused with hands still on her laptop's keyboard. What...
It was someone walking, but they sounded as if they were trying not to be heard. She stood abruptly and glided to the door. Opening it a crack, she peered out.
No one was there.
She noticed an odd smell, though, one that made her grimace. As if someone had been wading in garbage.
One of the rooms across the hallway was ajar, light streaming into the hall.
Wait. That shouldn't be, it's-- She left her room and started to walk
cautiously in that direction.
"Kevin?"
Silence followed from inside the room. Well, it had been his, after all.
Sooraya pushed the door the rest of the way open, less anxious now.
He looked up, scowling at her.
Kevin Ford had been one of the "Hellions" training squad, before the catastrophe that deprived the majority of the Institute's students of their powers. He had retained his, despite his hopes to the contrary.
Not long after that, he'd vanished. They'd assumed he'd gone home. Almost anywhere was safer to be, immediately following 'M-Day'...
"Sooraya." He sounded not at all pleased to see her. "Spare me the sermons,
'k. I'll be out of here in a min."
She blinked. "Why? You don't have to..."
"Funny. I don't see Laurie here telling me that."
Oh, Allah help me... Sooraya swallowed hard.
Kevin hadn't been at the Institute when Stryker attacked. He didn't realize...How was she going to tell him? But she had to, somehow. "Kevin. Laurie isn't-- It's not that she wouldn't want to be here. None of us knew where you went, and then"
"I don't care!" His voice rose. Sooraya didn't flinch.
"I know what Julian said. In this, he wasn't speaking for the rest of us.
You're one of the team, too. If you want to stay, no one's going to make you leave. But we won't make you stay either, we can't," Sooraya conceded. "Do you have somewhere to stay? Your family--"
"Shut up. Just don't! Where was all this concern earlier?" he demanded. "I wasn't trying to hurt Laurie, you should know that. Everyone acted like I think it's my favorite hobby or something! I can't help it, you KNOW that!"
Sooraya's temper flared. She spoke before she thought. "And running away from the only people on Earth who may be equipped to help you, that really proves
how much you want to change things for the better. Right. "
He picked up a bag from the neatly made, dust-streaked bed in the room,
zipping it shut. Glaring at her, "Now would be a very good time to get out of my way, 'Dust'."
Sooraya didn't move for several seconds. She searched his face, sighed, and stepped aside. She could, in all likelihood, have kept him from going. In her other form, she had the advantage. They both knew it.
She wouldn't.
"Find me, when you're ready to listen. I'll be waiting."