What's There Inside You by Maggie
Chapter 1 by Maggie
Chapter 1

Rose Littrell looked up and smiled when she spotted Aiden enter Miss Ellison’s classroom. She waved when he looked her way, but he didn’t wave back, didn’t even smile. He bit his lip, shuffled his feet a little, then dropped into a seat beside Matt. Matt smiled nastily at her before bringing Aiden into the conversation at the group of desks with his friends.

The bully desks.

Rose stared, mouth dropping open a little. Pain twisted inside her. Aiden had promised he’d never sit with them, never stop being her friend.

He had lied.

Wilting, Rose hunched her shoulders and started rearranging her already tidy desk - notebook, freshly sharpened pencils, homework folder. She tried to ignore the whispers from that side of the room, but she already knew what they’d say.

Freak.

Freak kid with a freak family and anybody that wanted to be friends with her was a freak too.

She’d thought Aiden wouldn’t listen to that, would keep being her friend like he had since their first day in Miss Ellison’s fifth grade class. She’d been wrong. Just because her mama, daddy, and older brother David were mutants. It didn’t help either that she was the only kid in her class--in the whole school--with white hair. Only Mr. Anderson, the music teacher, had white hair, and he was older than her Papaw Littrell.

A nudge at her elbow made her look over. Brooklyn frowned at the group. “Ignore them,” she said, fiddling with one of her dark red pigtails. “If Aiden wants to stop being your friend, then he’s not mine either and he’s a bigger jerk than all the rest of them.”

Rose tried to smile. At least she still had one friend in the class.

“Who needs him anyway?” she asked, trying to sound brave.

But her eyes kept drifting over to him as class went on, through the different subjects. He never looked at her, not once, even when Matt and the others made rude faces at her.

And then recess came.

Most of the time it was easy to avoid Matt and his friends. They always hung out at the jungle gym or kickball field, while Rose and Brooklyn stayed by the swings or the hopscotch games. But not today.

Rose and Brooklyn were on the swings, giggling and trying to act like they didn’t need anybody but each other, when somebody suddenly grabbed her swing’s chains and yanked backward, sending her flying forward with a scream of fright. Rose hit the ground, the pebbles digging into her palms and knees.

“Hey!”

Rose whipped around at Brooklyn’s shout to see Matt and Benjamin holding their swings and laughing at them.

“No freaks allowed on the swings,” Matt said with a mean grin. “Take your freaky selves somewhere else.”

“That’s not fair!” Brooklyn protested. “You won’t let us on the jungle gym either. The playground’s for everybody!”

“Not for freaks like you.”

“We’ll tell Miss Ellison,” Brooklyn threatened. “And you’ll get in trouble again.”

Matt scowled. “You’ll have to reach her first. Time to run, freaks.”

~~

“Think Ella and the boys will make it to the show Saturday night?” Brian asked as Kevin joined him and Howie at the table, his plate laden with lots of fruit alongside gravy-laden breakfast biscuits, eggs, and sausage.

“That’s the plan,” Kevin replied. “I know the boys can’t wait to tell me about their week. Jerald had a field trip to the Natural History Museum on Tuesday, and I think Luke has one today.”

“What about Ororo, David and Rose?” Howie asked Brian. “Are they gonna make it out?”

Brian shook his head with a disappointed frown. “Not this round. We’ll be done here by the time Rosie’s out for spring break. So, they won’t get to see any kind of performance till we do publicity for Don’t Go Breakin My Heart, and then back here in July. Ororo might be able to make it out by herself, but we’ll see.”

AJ joined them then with his own breakfast plate and coffee. “Too bad none of you teleport,” he remarked. “Then they could pop up here and back home again in a blink.”

“Not even Kurt is that powerful,” Brian pointed out, referring to fellow mutant and his wife’s fellow X-man, Kurt Wagner, code-named Nightcrawler. “He’s a strong teleporter, sure, but even he’d have to make several stops along the way.”

The Boys jumped as a loud crash and scream broke through the gentle murmurings of the hotel’s other guests. Brian grunted and gripped the table, trying to brace himself against the wall of panic that ran into him, heart beginning to race to match the feeling.

“You try to prepare yourself for sudden ones,” he muttered, “but it never works.”

Almost eighteen years as an empath, and some incidents still took him by surprise. He exhaled slowly as most of the panic quickly subsided. A little bundle of it still remained, though, so he turned when he heard one of the restaurant workers speak.

“Are you okay, honey?”

A little girl’s voice answered. “I think so… What happened? Where am I? Where’s Brooklyn?”

The worker grunted in confusion. “You’re at the Fairfield Inn. Is Brooklyn a friend of yours?”

A group of patrons and restaurant workers were gathered around a cart they’d just righted and now worked to pick up the scattered dishes, blocking the child from Brian’s view. He knew his daughter had a friend named Brooklyn, but neither of them would be here.

“My best friend,” the girl replied. “Is Fairfield Inn in New York?”

Brian stiffened. Impossible. Well, not really, but still…

“There might be, honey. But you’re in Las Vegas.”

Surprise and confusion bloomed as the girl said, “Las Vegas? How’d I get to Las Vegas? My daddy works here. He sings at Planet Hollywood.”

Brian’s jaw dropped. How? “Rose?”

He got to his feet at once, ignoring the blast of surprise and the confused looks. The move brought the child into view. Wavy white hair inherited from her mother, olive skin, blue eyes. It was Rose, all right. She spun around, trying to spot him, but the worker found him first and turned her in the right direction as Brian started toward them.

“Daddy!”

Rose raced around tables, and the other patrons wisely stayed in their seats to keep out of her way. Brian held out his arms and let Rose barrel into him. He held her tight and sent out a wave of comfort to counteract the fear and relief that emanated from his little girl.

He glanced up at the workers as they finished cleaning up the mess. “Did she break anything? You can put it on my bill if she did.”

The woman that had spoken to Rose--her tag said Mia--just waved it away. “Don’t worry about it, sir. You just find out how she got here from New York.”

So she hadn’t missed the comment after all. Brian nodded and turned Rose back toward the table. As they moved, he caught a tendril of a thought from the woman.

… more mutants in Vegas…

He glanced over his shoulder with a frown and studied her. He didn’t sense any animosity; more like frustration or weariness. Caught, her gaze darted away and she turned her focus to the other patrons. Tempted as he was to do the same, Brian had a more immediate need. Returning to the table, he saw that someone had pulled over an extra chair for Rose.

“What happened sweetheart?” he asked as they sat down. “You’re supposed to be in school. In New York. How did you get here?”

Rose shrugged, her blue eyes darting from him to the table. “I don’t know.”

Brian frowned at the answer as Rose’s fear started to push at him again. Fractured images started to slip into his mind. “What is it? Do you need me to see instead of tell me?”

Rose shook her head vigorously, eyes wide. For some reason, knowing he could read her mind was frightening, so Brian had promised years ago that he never would without her permission.

Howie slid over some fruit he and Kevin and AJ had shared from their plates. “Want something to eat, Rosie?” he offered. “It must be coming on lunch time for you.”

After a moment, Rose nodded. “We were at recess. Lunch was gonna be later.”

She took a slice of melon, but paused before taking a bite. “Aiden started sitting with Matt and Benjamin and Jackson.”

It took Brian a moment to realize who she was talking about. “I thought Aiden was one of your friends.”

“Me too,” Rose mumbled before taking another bite. “But Brooklyn said we didn’t need him if he was gonna be a jerk and stop being our friend and sit with all the bullies instead.”

“Bullies?” AJ repeated in surprise. “You getting picked on at school, Rosie?”

Rose hunched her shoulders and nodded, eyes on the table. She blinked rapidly and swallowed. “They keep calling me a freak,” she revealed. “And anybody who wants to be my friend is a freak too. Just ‘cuz mama and daddy and David are mutants.”

Brian closed his eyes, his heart breaking at her words. This wasn’t the first time his daughter had been bullied for being part of a mutant family, but this time she had lost a friend to them. He pulled Rose into a tight hug and placed a gentle kiss on her head.

“I’m so sorry, sweetheart,” he murmured.

Rose sniffled. “Me and Brooklyn were on the swings at recess--Matt and Benjamin and Jackson won’t let us on the jungle gym--but this time they made us get off the swings too. Said freaks aren’t allowed on the swings.”

Irritation from the other three at the table tickled Brian’s senses. Howie spoke. “Freaks aren’t allowed on the swings? I swear, bullying starts younger every year. Did you tell your teacher?”

“Didn’t get the chance,” Rose replied. “Matt said it was time to play ‘Tag the Freaks’ and they started chasing us.”

Brian frowned. That was a new one. “Tag the freaks? What on earth is that?”

Rose just poked at a grape and didn’t answer for a minute. Brian glanced around the table and noticed that his friends were just as horrified as he was. He could also sense the worry from Kevin. He understood. Kevin and his wife were both mutants, like Brian and Ororo, and their boys were both still in elementary school. There was still time before their powers, if any, emerged, but Kevin could now see that that didn’t mean they wouldn’t be made fun of or bullied.

Rose started to explain, her voice so quiet that the four men had to lean in to hear. “Matt and the others chase me and anybody else that’s still my friend until we’re too tired to run and then they catch us and push us and keep calling us names and--"

“How do the teachers not see this?” Kevin demanded.

“They don’t do it at school,” Rose admitted. “Before today. It’s on our street or at the playground.”

Brian’s eyes widened. “Is that why you come home scraped up and crying sometimes?”

She winced and ducked her head, nodding.

“Rose, why didn’t you ever tell us the whole story? I thought it was just you and your friends getting a little too rough. Mom and I could have talked to their parents. We could have let Miss Ellison know and she could help. This needs to stop. Speaking of Miss Ellison,” he paused and pulled out his phone, “I need to call her and your mom and let them know you’re okay.”

Scrolling through his contacts, he prompted, “You said those kids started chasing you and Brooklyn. What happened then?”

Rose made some uncertain noises, her nose scrunched as she tried to think. “We were running, and Brooklyn was calling Miss Ellison, and I wished you and mom were there to stop it and… I don’t know… I was here and ran into that cart thing.”

Brian glanced at AJ as he brought the phone to his ear, having found Ororo’s number. “AJ, you joked about having a teleporter in the family a minute ago. Looks like you might be right.”


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