Perfectly Normal

PERFECTLY NORMAL CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Disclaimers Apply

A/N Goddess Foxfeather, Queen of Mad Plotbunnies, BUSIEST WOMAN ALIVE™, Prophetic Muse, Hamster Witch and Uberbeta... I think I have a clever plan re the website... InterNutter, TC, Maxwell Pink, Dracena, and Greywolf are loverly and wondermous for archiving/hosting.  ProPhile: Hmmm... you know, I really am feeling better. Morgan: *staaaaaaaaaaaaalk* Readers/Reviewers: Thanks so much for reading/reviewing as you can!


Sam took a deep breath and braced his hand against the door frame, his other on the great brass latch Emma had installed to invoke the feel of a fortress door in her ancestral home. “Ready?” he murmured. He did not hear a response and doubted that Theresa actually heard him, but he knew she was behind him on the stairs. He could hear the rustle of movement that told him the handful of other students remaining at the Boston branch of the Institute were there, waiting. The knocking was impossible to ignore, the last vibrations of the recent assault on the wooden door still ringing in the high-vaulted marble and wood hall. Peering through the tiny hole in the door, Sam could only see blackness, as if someone were pressing cloth against the viewer. “Damn it,” he hissed. His muscles tensed, his skin growing hot with the pent up need to use his powers, nervousness driving him forward. “Okay...here goes nothin'...” His breath catching in his throat, Sam opened the door.

“Hello...Is Emma Frost in?” the very tall, very wide man rumbled. He looked down at Sam as if he were surprised someone so much smaller than he himself was could possibly exist in the world.

“No,” Sam said shortly. “Come back tomorrow.” He had a knot working in the pit of his stomach, nausea threatening to ruin any shred of composure and feigned authority he might have at that moment. He smiled tightly and started to shut the door, but the man's massive hand shot out, stopping it before it even reached the halfway point. “Look, mister...”

“I'll wait for her,” the man cut him off, smiling with gravestone rows of teeth.

Sam staggered back, pushed by the enormous bulk of the man at the door. He was shoved aside like a rag doll as the man lumbered in, not hindered by his size but rather using it as a tool to get his way, moving as easily as someone who had always been a sheer mountain of humanity. He wondered, quickly, if this man was somehow related to Blob but that idea was quickly discounted. Blob's not like this... he's not dangerous like this... “I'm gonna have to call the cops if you don't get out of here right now.” He put himself between the intruder and the stairs, wincing at the bruise he felt forming already on his hip, where the man had shoved him into the door's latch on his way into the house. The man did not respond, staring at some spot past Sam, his smile twisting into something less false, more threatening than before. Without a word, Sam knew what he was looking at. “I think it's time the first years did their evening chores,” Sam drawled, tensing. He could do it, he thought. He had no qualms about it. But would this man even move if he hit him? Or would he brush him aside like a fly on a summer day, send him flying into the wall, shattering his bones?

“They can stay,” their 'guest' said sharply. “I rather like the looks of 'em.” His eyes were focused strictly on Theresa, however, his gaze narrowing, making his eyes dark and beady in his large face. “You look familiar, girl. You got a father with dark hair, Irish man?” He took another step forward. “You look like a picture I've seen...”

“Leave.” Sam's voice was loud, firm, surprisingly so. “Leave now or I'll call the cops.”

“Try me,” the man laughed, a loud and rumbling sound. “See how that works out for you.”

Sam let out a low growl involuntarily, barely registering what he was about to do. He had considered it, even halfway planned it, but his better judgment had tempered his actions, the knowledge that if he used his powers, if anyone found out, he could bring down Hell on the entire Institute, had delayed him. Now, thought, he simply did not care. Heat enveloped him, the sudden explosion of energy from his body driving him forward as he shifted, controlling the angle of his thrust so he headed for their intruder rather than upwards. Air rushed around him and he thought that he heard Theresa scream but he knew she would not, not where it could hurt the younger students. A sudden, jarring pain shot through his body and the world spun crazily on it's axis around him as Sam hit the floor. The ceiling seemed to breathe in and out overhead and the cold marble of the floor seeped into his bones, his lungs airless and throat suddenly burning with the need to breathe. His head ached and warm, sticky blood ran in rivulets down his forehead and into his eyes before he could close them again.

“Get out,” Theresa spat. She was beyond being afraid and was not purely angry. “Get out now.”

“Black Tom,” the man laughed, this time a sound of delight rather than derision. “Black Tom had your picture! You're little Theresa...” he did not move towards her but rather rocked back on his heels, seemingly oblivious to Sam at his feet. “Tell Emma that Cain came by. Tell her I'll be back tomorrow night.” He glanced down at Sam, a faint glimmer of interest in his eyes. “Tell her this one might be useful.” He sketched a mocking half-bow to Theresa on the stairs and the scared students cowering behind her, letting himself out with the air of a man who was the epitome of chivalry.

“He didn't even move!” one of the younger students whispered. “What did he do to Sam?”

“I don't know,” Theresa replied, hurrying down the stairs. “Call Bayville,” she barked at one of them, choosing a student at random. “Tell them to send my father back here now.”