Chương 34: Covering Up

I pulled the edges of my scarf as tight as they would go as I sat on the subway chairs, shuttling my way home. The reflection of myself in the windows immediately educated me in just how bad the bruises were around my neck. As did people's stares. But this was Chicago and the injuries of others were merely a conversational point, not an incitement to ask if someone needed help. So they didn't find out about my croaky Voldemort voice.

But the people who regularly saw me in my life would notice that I was continually showing up to school with injuries. Plausible explanations would include me being the vigilante everyone was looking for, or worse, that I was getting abused at home. I would not envy the social worker that came to investigate Gran. With that in mind, I opened up my system window.

Status Secret Identity: Cassandra Keene Super Alias: Zero Class: Chronomancer Hero Rank: F Stats (Rank F) Strength: 0 Agility: 0 Constitution: 1 Charisma: 0 Intelligence: 4 Focus: 2 Skills: Chrono Shift (Rank F): User can displace themselves and any touched objects outside the normal flow of time. Duration and uses are extremely limited due to current skill level and low intelligence.

Hero Points Available: 263 Villain Points Available: 0 Spend Hero Points Thanks system, for always reminding me of my low intelligence. My eyes read through the words over and over. The pep talk with my good buddy Rigel made choosing where to put points feel even more like a Grand Canyon-sized dilemma. What if saving for level five in intelligence was the right move? Should I try to put some in everything to balance myself out?

Everything was permanent, so anything I chose now, I would have for my lifetime, however little that might be. Clicking through the various stats presented a variety of possibilities. Strength could be specialized to any part of the body just like con had, but agility had various additional options. There was a general improvement or it could be applied in specific ways: improved coordination, speed, or reflexes. Charisma was the biggest surprise.

Rigel was right; it was useful for a lot more than just looking good. It could be generally applied like everything else, although some of the specific uses ranged from helpful, sinister, or both on my morality meter. You could alter your physical appearance towards your personal ideal, or create an emotional reaction in those around you. You had to choose the emotion like fear, love, or even trust.

Two that were tempting was one that pushed others to believe your lies and another that obscured your secret identity. That presented a lot of possibilities. I could slap on a pair of glasses or change my hair style and even Gran wouldn't recognize me. The problem was that none of those things would help in a fight. It wouldn't matter how good of a liar I was or how hard it was to recognize me if I was too weak to handle a suped up Chem Head.

On the other hand, if I didn't properly protect my identity, I wouldn't be able to fight anymore, not on my own, away from the Academy, anyway. Which brought me to con. Rejecting the specific part of the body option and selecting whole body, I was presented with an additional choice. Would you like a general improvement to constitution or would you like to focus your enhancement towards stamina, durability, or regeneration? My eyes focused on regeneration. This could be exactly what I needed.

Something to help my recovery so that I didn't out myself to people who knew me in real life while also building towards becoming more powerful. I doubt one point at F Rank would have me regrowing cut-off limbs mid-fight like The Gecko, but it might turn a couple weeks of recovery into a couple of days. The subway chugged along as I hesitated over my decisions. I could become a master of lies or improve my chi strikes with some enhanced agility.

What I really needed though was something that would be helpful in and out of my secret life, so I braced myself and made the selection. Are you sure you would like to upgrade constitution to the next level? This will cost 200 points. Yes/No"Yes," I croaked, making the woman across the aisle turn to look at me. After a quick perusal, her head whipped back, likely assuming that I was just a regular teenager who was drunk, on drugs, or praying to Satan.

I clicked through the options and selected whole body regeneration. There was one last message after I confirmed. Warning: recovery can be calorie intensive and, without sufficient stamina, draining. That would have been great to know before I confirmed my choice. Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author. I braced myself for a change.

My body shrank into itself, waiting for my blood to boil or my bones to crack like when I enhanced my hands, but the experience was completely different. There was a tingling sensation across my skin and a warmth that washed across my body, but that was it. I looked at my reflection in the window next to me and pulled the scarf down. It could have been the overbright fluorescents of the subway train, but the bruises on my neck might have been less black, but it was hard to say.

I clearly wasn't getting any instant solutions, but I could stay covered for a day or two. Still looking at myself, I tested my voice.

"You look like crap." My voice came out slightly less wheezy than it had been back at Rigel's. Maybe it was exposing my injuries or the fact that I kept talking to myself on the subway, but the woman from before sitting nearby got up and moved to the front of the car. Maybe she thought I had graduated to full on possession from the demon lord, and he wasn't so pleased with his receptacle. Not my most circumspect moment, but at least I just looked crazy and not like a super.

Besides, strangers on subways weren't my problem tonight, Gran was. —- Our apartment door loomed in front of me. I was close to an hour late. Not a big deal but if she saw my neck or arms, then I would have much larger issues to deal with. The door creaked as I opened it just enough to slip inside. Gran sat in her chair, eyes closed as "The King and I" played on the T. V. I slipped my shoes off before the left one could give me away with its telltale squeak.

I was halfway across the room before Jiji hopped off the stool and scratched at my leg letting out an indignant meow of hunger. Betrayed by my closest friend. Et tu, Jiji? You would think that someone who could sleep through a musical with the sound turned up too loud could sleep through a cat's indignant cry, but you would be wrong. Gran's eyes snapped open and her head turned to find me bent over to pet my faithless companion. She yawned loudly and stretched as she shifted in her chair.

"You're back late. You better not be tutoring that boy in any physical science." I shook my head and tried to smooth out my voice as much as possible as I uttered a single syllable.

"No." My efforts were entirely in vain as the word came out whispery and coarse. Gran's eyes narrowed.

"You don't sound too good. Anythin' happen tonight?" I swallowed, shrugging.

"No. I think it's just bronchitis."

"Bronchitis, huh?" She eyed me from her chair, pausing Yul Brynner on the TV.

"You sounded normal to me before you left." Jiji was brushing against my legs, and I was trying to make sure the scarf stayed as high on my neck as it could.

"It comes on pretty quick. The guy I'm teaching had it a week ago, not that he told me until after I'd seen him several times."

"Cass, how about you take a seat over here." My shoes were off, Jiji was in my arms, and I was trying to make my getaway.

"I am just completely exhausted right now, Gran. I really think if I lay down, get a full night's sleep, my throat will feel a lot better." With my new points in constitution, that was undoubtedly true. Gran didn't even blink.

"Let me rephrase that. Sit down because we need to talk right now." I sighed, shuffling forward, still holding onto the heavy weight of my cat as if it were an anchor. My head swam while trying to figure out ways to explain things if she saw what was beneath my scarf, under my long shirt sleeves, but I was so tired and it was hard to think of anything other than my bed. Gran's lips were tight as she went to the edge of her chair and folded her fingers together as I sat down.

"Now I need you to tell me exactly what's going on in your life." Her voice was quiet for once. Gran was always brash, sarcastic, jolly, and many times cantankerous, but not quiet.

"Because it seems to me that there is something real big going on here that I don't know about and you keep trying to cover up." My eyes glanced down, fingers stilling in Jiji's black fur. If I told her now, she'd only see Cass the super who barely made it out alive from fights. My whole life, I'd been the coward, the loser, the ostrich hiding my head in the sand while Gran was a bear– ready to fight and roar and dig her claws into anything that bothered her.

Most of the time, it worked, her opponents running with their tail between their legs. This was my one chance to show her that I could do that too now– well, I would do that too, once I got better. But that wouldn't happen with a choked out voice, bruises on my neck, and scratches on my arms. When getting out of a fight alive felt more due to the toss of a coin rather than my skilled competence. My head raised to stare her in the eyes.

"There's nothing going on, Gran. I'm just staying out late to tutor." She shook her head, eyes closing like what I'd said pained her.

"You got a lot of clothes on that you weren't wearin' before, Cass. I know– I know that trick 'cause I used it before myself. Because I didn't want my parents to see what a boy had done to me. They wouldn't understand, I told myself, because they didn't know him, didn't know how it happened. Well, I'm tellin' you right now, Cass, I understand. Nothing ever gives a person the right to hurt you. Just talk to me, tell me about it, because I'll listen." Jiji leapt for the floor, and my hands dug into my pocket.

I slid the small lump onto the table next to her chair.

"That." I tapped on the metal money clip still holding the bills.

"That's what's going on. I've been working hard at tutoring to make money. I wanted to help you out with rent, the bills– if you really want, we could spend it all on a fancy dinner. I just wanted to do something for us because I can now. I'm going to do that from now on because I'm graduating soon, I'm going to work more, and things are going to change for us." My throat swallowed, painfully, and not just because of the bruising. I was getting good at lying to Gran.

If I looked in the mirror from now on, I'd just see George Costanza looking back. She took the wad of money and unclipped it, spreading the bills out between her fingers.

"Cass, there are four fifty dollar bills here and a single one hundred. No one is paying you in that amount of money for tutoring. Something else is going on with you and I need to know what it is. Because right now, I'm thinking that you're stealing, selling drugs– or maybe yourself 'cause I can't think of any other way that you could get this kind of money." My eyes closed, my brain pulsating in my head.

The fact that I was attempting this conversation after getting beat up, cut through, and almost choked to death was surprising enough, but every second it lasted drained the last vestiges of my energy. I brought my hands up to my eyes, pushing on them in an attempt to wake myself up more.

"Some of the people I teach have money– that's why they need tutoring because they've just coasted through school up to this point, but now they need high SAT scores to make it into their Ivy League schools. And maybe the others make their money from drugs, I don't know, I don't ask questions. I just care that they pay me, and they did. That's all that matters." I looked straight into her eyes.

"I would never do those things, Gran, and honestly I question why you would think I'm capable of it." Her mouth worked as she stared at me with pain on her wrinkled face.

"I don't believe you, Cass. That's what it all comes down to. I can tell that you're lying to me, and I've never experienced that before. That's exactly why it scares me. Because you've always been a good kid before. Scared and hiding away, maybe, but I could always trust you. I don't feel that way no more. That makes me think you're doing wrong things, the kind of things I did and I don't want you to go through what happens after. I'm worried about you.

So just talk to me, because right now, I don't believe a word that comes out of your mouth." Maybe it was the tingling in my arms, the warm sensation in my throat, the feeling that my body in general was ready to collapse on the floor from tiredness. There were a lot of things that were exhausting me right now, and had been for months. Why couldn't people just leave me alone? Why couldn't I just live my life the way I wanted? I was doing good things.

A good deed done in secret made it all the better because you weren't doing it for fame or adulation. And I certainly wasn't doing it for that. Arguments with Gran always ran hot. She'd storm around, we'd both yell, and then after we got everything out, we'd end up laughing about it. The coldness of this fight felt off kilter, alien. But I'd had to deal with a lot of changes in my life, so maybe this would have to be one to add onto the giant pile of others.

I stood up, trying not to wince from the ache all throughout me.

"You don't believe me? Fine. That's your problem." I walked to my room and closed the door. I thought for sure she would follow after me or start yelling through the wall, but she didn't. I crawled into bed with my clothes on, expecting her to do something, but there was only silence.