Arcana Academy, California

Part of her expected him to throw her off. To yell at her. For him to roll over and coddle Erin next to him, not that he very well could handle the physicality of such an action. But he didn’t. Instead, Drake kissed her back, his tongue teasing her. She leaned over him, keeping his face in her hands, not wanting him to move, but to just feel the adrenaline surge of passion. As she stared down at him, mumbling the only thing she could manage. He was driving her mental and yet at the very same time, grounding her and preventing her from panicking more than she was. The focus on her arm was gone. She looked down at him, watching his lips spread into a sly smile. There was just enough of himself in it that she sighed in relief, shifting to tuck her hand over her shoulder. Lulu turned slightly to the side, her eyes sweeping across the grass to see the only thing she could to her left. Corentine. Lulu’s eyes widened and she felt the violent gust of wind catch her before she saw the girl’s hand swish through the air. Before she could do anything really, she was suddenly flying, up in the air and with a hard push she was thrown off to the side, landing on her slashed hand. “Fuck,” she cussed, trying to roll to make the landing more graceful. It wasn’t. Instead she heard a crunch as her body landed on top of her bleeding and t-shirt wrapped wrist. Shock ripped through her as she felt all the air in her lungs escape her.

“Fucking bitch!” Corentine hissed. Lulu winced, rolling onto her back and gasping. The blond brought her hand to her lap, feeling her lips spasm and twitch with pain. It took her one quick look at her hand to know it was broken. She couldn’t bare to move her fingers. “Leave it to Cor to hurt more people than help them during an earthquake,” Lulu mused aloud, squeezing her eyes shut and groaning. Turning her head back toward her friends, she swallowed back tears. Drake wasn’t about to move toward her. He wasn’t exactly the type to defend her from his sister. And then there was Cor herself, on her knees screaming at Erin, coddling her passed out friend.

And then there was Jackson. Standing next to Kate, holding her, likely using his powers on the brunette. The girl was practically a stranger to her, but the death glare that was coming her way from her didn’t make things any better. Two girls who wanted her very much underneath the rubble dead were now hounding the men she loved. And she couldn’t move and she couldn’t do anything to stop them. They were stronger than her. They would kill her right then and there and blame it on the earthquake and get away with it if she dared get up and talk back to them. It felt just like when she was little, when her brother would torment her and everyone else would watch. No one was going to be rushing to help her. That’s just the way things always had been and likely always would be. She had nothing left in terms of gusto but there was something deep inside her that seemed to break. Her last bit of empathy for the two of them maybe. She hated both of those girls for hating her. Over nothing. For just picking on someone because they could. She would kill them when she had the chance. She’d love to see it. As she closed her eyes and felt her eyes finally tear, she could just see the twisted look of shock and agony on Corentine’s face if she drove a knife through her chest, ripping at her nonexistent heart like it was nothing.

"Now, you."

Kate's eyes narrowed at Jack and her mouth opened to protest, but whatever possible words she might have been able to muster were wiped away by a sudden flush of sensation. The first, of an immediate and sharp pain. But that was nothing new, all things considered. The second was the feeling of Jack's arm slipping around her back to wrap around her small waist. She let out a sharp gasp when he began to lower her towards the soft grass. She felt his grip around her body tighten in response as Jack attempted to cause the least amount of pain possible for her.

It was a useless effort as she felt the already excruciating amount of pain spike to almost unbearable levels. But she was tough. She wouldn't allow this to bring her down. A breath that Kate hadn't realised she was holding was released when she settled down onto the ground and Jack began to roll up her pant leg. His murmured and useless apology reached her ears and she felt a tearing sound, along with a sudden coldness on the area around the wound on her leg. It didn't matter that he tore them anyways. She wasn't very keen on wearing the singed and burned jeans ever again.

And then what seemed like an impossible feeling reached her ears. The pain began to fade, almost to the point where it was a mere shadow of what it had once been. It felt liberating. The pain was still there, of course, but it was far less in intensity than it had been before.

She began to smile in appreciation (and a slight euphoria, though that went unrecognised). But what was nearly there quickly faded when she turned her head to look at Jack. It was very clear that he was in pain and the realisation of what he had done for her settled in with haste.

"Any better?" The sound of a thick Irish accent accompanied the words to Kate's ears and she returned the weak smile.

"Your a bloody idiot," The young woman replied, her unusually soft voice tinted with a similar accent. She allowed her eyes to roll back down to the woman she hated on the ground. Her eyes narrowed at Lulu, the unspoken words easily conveyed.

Try to screw with me, and I will not hesitate to kill you.

Her voice had just about gone, worn away by her screaming and now by the uncontrollable sobbing. She was panicking. She couldn't scream any more and was just sobbing, trying to regulate her breathing and stop the awful coughing. She managed to climb unsteadily to her feet. The ground started swooping beneath her, and she braced both arms against the walls. It was a fraction too low for her to stand fully in, so she bent her knees and kept her head low. She found herself pulling free pieces of rubble, ducking when pieces flew towards her. There was one awful moment when she had to stop and cough and the rubble teetered, like it was about to attack her. But she kept pulling, kept digging. Eventually, she broke through at a level low enough for her to pull herself through. God, I miss Australia.

She crawled through the rubble, catching her hand on a shard of something sharp and managing to catch her calf on the same shard. She didn't even know what it was, but crawled through and stood on the pile, taking a few deep breaths. The air wasn't a lot better outside. Suddenly, she remembered something about earthquakes sometimes causing a fire and swore. "Let's move to California. No, you can't live with your father and your sister. There's no risk of earthquakes in this area, it's far enough outside San Francisco." She muttered to herself, stumbling down the pile of rubble. Her mother had said all of those things and more. Sometimes she wondered if the cold, careless woman who hadn't said a word to her in the drive up to the school was the same woman that had so tenderly painted Casey's nails as a kid, who had so lovingly braided her daughter's hair, making sure she didn't tug on the strands.

She found herself stumbling towards the front entrance to the school, cursing her mother. She wondered if her father had changed in the same way that her mother had. She wondered where Angel was and if her big sister was okay. As far as she knew, her sister was still in Australia, which brought her a little comfort. She'd heard that powers were sometimes genetic, that siblings could share powers or have similar powers. Even though Angel was only a year older than Casey, she always looked after her younger sister. Angel had matured a lot faster than Casey- at least, until they'd been separated.

She hit the front lawn and looked around, looking for someone to tell her what the hell was going on and what the hell she was supposed to do. She suddenly realised that she was a lot younger than most of the other students. They looked eighteen, nineteen. And she didn't want to be treated like a kid. Especially because she was verging on the short side. People had an annoying habit of thinking she was fifteen or sometimes younger when she was just in jeans and Converse. She's passed for seventeen before, and she knew she could again.

But until then, she had a pretty good idea that they'd think she was younger than sixteen.