Superfreaks -CHAP.03-

  It was starting to get dark by the time Presley got home. As usual. She always tried to spend as little time at home as she could. She opened the front door and was instantly assaulted by a wave of stale alcohol and, even worse, the overpowering smell of marijuana. She wrinkled her nose as she closed the door behind her. The first thing she did was to go round the entire house, opening every door and window to let the air circulate. As usual.

  Her dad was unconscious in the lounge. Asleep didn't really do his state justice. A dark lick of stubble covered his face, topped by a thin streak of drool that trailed from the corner of his mouth. He hung half on, half off the couch, his head lolling awkwardly against the arm rest and his numb fingertips loosely clutching an empty bottle that balanced precariously on its edge against the floor. His shirt sleeve had flapped open from the ungraceful position, revealing the cluster of dark pinpoints that littered the crook of his elbow.

  Presley's gaze merely passed over him, almost pretending like she hadn't seen anything. This kind of scene wasn't new to her. Though she'd grown up in a somewhat dysfunctional, yet still two-parent home, Presley had always been a devoted daddy's girl and her father had been her hero. Nowadays, though, Kal Peralta was far from a model parent.

  Presley set about preparing something for dinner. She'd never used to be a good cook, but since the responsibility usually tended to fall on her, she'd learnt to be better at it. She'd also learnt to make things that didn't perish so quickly. She always left half out for her dad, but when Kal would be conscious to eat it was indeterminable. It wasn't unusual for food to sit out in the kitchen for days at a time, so she was much better off using non-perishables. The house didn't need any more stink adding to it.

  She set about making a fairly plain rice dish with peppers and onions. She thought about adding chicken to it, but meat wouldn't be any good after a day or two. She didn't particularly want to add food poisoning on top of her dad's list of substance abuse. Whilst everything was cooking, she attempted to clean the house some.

  It was a good thing she wasn't obsessive-compulsive, she thought, as she retrieved half a rotting banana from underneath the couch that her dad was sleeping on. Even so, that didn't mean she liked living in such a grotty, smelly house. She tried to clean as best as she could whenever she got the chance, but it was difficult to keep on top of when it managed to get into that same state almost every day.

  After cleaning, eating and sealing Kal's portion of the rice into an airtight Tupperware container, which she left next to the microwave, Presley escaped upstairs to the cleaner, fresher air of her bedroom to make a start on her homework. Just because her home life was a pain, it didn't mean that she couldn't still be a straight A student. There was a reason she was class president after all. She had particularly sizeable shoes to keep filled.

  After homework, it was exercise. Her daily life followed such a strict routine that it would have been depressing, had it not been all she'd known for the last seven years. Presley liked exercising. Not only did she think it was important to keep in shape; it was also a good way to keep her mind occupied. If there was one thing she didn't particularly enjoy, it was time alone with her thoughts. Plus her particular kind of workout happened to have a lot of fond memories attached.

  She warmed up with stretches and sit-ups in a tank top and shorts, then changed into her robes. Her room was surprisingly low of clutter for the average teenage girl. The fact that her minimal furniture was pushed back against all four walls, combined with her having the biggest bedroom in the house, allowed a large central space for her to train in.

  She dragged the stand-up punching bag into the centre of the room, fastened the black belt at her waist tight and began throwing punches. The punching bag - more fondly known as Spongebob, due to its absurdly unconventional yellow shell - tottered back and forth on its stand, as Presley unleashed upon it all of her frustrations of the day. In a sad way, Spongebob was both her only friend and also her worst enemy. He didn't exactly punch back, but then you didn't beat on your friends as much as she beat on him.

  Presley reflected back on what had happened that day. She still couldn't believe how stupid that Crichton girl had been. She didn't believe for a second that her attempts with the school's generator had simply been for a practical joke. She didn't know what the real reason behind it was, but she was determined to find out. Part of her still felt that she should have just gone to a teacher about it... But the rest of her knew that whatever the Crichton kids were up to, it went further up than what the school board could do about it. She was sure of that, at least.

  It just didn't add up. The tardiness, the poor performance both in class and in keeping up with homework, disappearing off campus altogether during hours of the school day... Not to mention Presley had seen all three of them sporting various bruises, scrapes and sometimes even slings and ankle supports at more than one time or another. Plus they always seemed to be on a constant buzz - elated and almost smug about it. Like they were in on some big secret that nobody else was.

  Well, Presley was going to do everything in her power to find out what that secret was. She knew that she probably seemed obsessed - and maybe she was - but there was a good reason for it.

  Ever since she was little, after passing the whole ballerina/princess/ice cream lady dream job phase, Presley had wanted to become a police officer. As a kid, being a cop had sounded like the most exciting job ever - even more exciting than selling ice cream from a van, which was pretty high up there for a six-year-old. Then, as she'd gotten older, she'd gained more reason to chase the same dream. She'd gained a desire to do good - to help rid the world of bad people. Thieves, killers, con artists... drug dealers.

  Maybe it was a selfish reason for wanting to get into the field of the law, but selfish or not, it certainly spurred her on. Her ambition helped to make her acutely aware of what was going on around her. She'd honed her skills, her instincts and her sense of judgement to the point where she could spot trouble from a mile away.

  Sidney Crichton and her siblings were trouble. She didn't know why, but they just were. And the why was what she was going to get to the bottom of. Kind of like her first trial run at the detecting side of a case. It would probably sound immature to some people, but everyone had to take their baby steps somewhere. Why not at school?

  Presley could feel her hits losing some of their power, so she forced herself to concentrate more on what she was doing. As a master in martial arts, her dad had taught her that the key rule was that it was primarily a way to defend yourself. But he didn't seem to account for how much fun it was to release your frustrations by throwing punches. Plus with the line of work Presley wanted to go into, it certainly couldn't hurt to know how to use this stuff in an offensive way too.

  She started varying her hits, imagining Spongebob as a more skilled attacker, as opposed to just a punching bag. Assailants weren't likely to just stand there and take her punches. She swung left and right, jabbing at every level as she circled her make-believe attacker defensively.

  The longer she parried, the more invested she became. She felt like she was beginning to see images of herself, in spots where she'd just moved from, as well as in the following positions she intended to move to. That was a new one. Maybe it was time to call it for tonight... She had been at it for over an hour. She threw her last punch, then stopped and respectfully bowed to her opponent, as Spongebob wobbled to a halt on his stand.

  After hanging up her robes, Presley padded down the hallway to the bathroom so that she could shower. The exercise had left her hot and sweaty, but still refreshed. She was too used to it. She needed to train harder if she wanted to actually feel tired. She didn't feel she'd had a good enough workout if her muscles weren't aching afterwards.

  Even so, she did feel unusually keyed up tonight. The hot water washed away the sweat, but it didn't seem to relax her at all. It didn't do anything for the weird buzz she was still feeling. She really should have been at least a little tired after her practice, yet instead she felt more energetic than ever. Like she could run an entire marathon without even getting breathless.

  Part of her wondered if it was something to do with earlier that day, as she finally allowed herself to replay the scene in her head. When she'd heard Sidney's screams from inside the storage room, she'd barrelled in after her. She'd already been following her again, having spotted her heading in the direction of the music building by chance, and knowing for a fact that they didn't have music lessons that day. They were in the same class after all.

  The scene that had then met Presley's eyes had pretty much gone beyond comprehension. Only one thought had entered her head in those moments. Save her. She probably shouldn't have been quite so hasty. She should have thought a little more before jumping in... Electricity was highly dangerous. Touching someone who was being electrocuted should have caused her incredible pain too. But she hadn't thought. And, weirdly, she hadn't felt anything.

  Well... She had felt something. In those few blurred seconds before Presley had managed to pull Sidney away from the generator's grip, she'd felt something... alien. It was like she'd felt the electricity leave Sidney and flow right into her. Inside her, but not harming her.

  Presley shook her head, slipping into her pyjamas. It had been adrenaline, not the electricity. That was probably why she was still buzzing now, she decided, as she towelled her hair dry some more. She moved forward to throw the towel into the hamper in the corner of the misty room, but stopped abruptly as a figure suddenly appeared in front of her.

  She gasped and dropped the towel and the figure disappeared as quickly as it had materialised. She'd only seen it from the back, but there had been no mistaking that wavy, still damp blonde hair that she was so familiar with. It had been... well, her.

  Presley could feel her heart thumping against her chest. The figure had definitely been there - she hadn't imagined it. It was exactly like when she'd been training. She'd thought that she'd been seeing multiple images of herself. But how was that possible? The only way she could see herself was if she looked in a mirror.

  Nervously, she turned to face the bathroom mirror and cleared a wide circle in the steamed-over glass with a shaking hand. Thankfully, all that looked back at her were scared blue-green eyes, framed by the same blonde hair she'd just seen standing in front of her. There was nobody else. And there certainly weren't any more of her. Had she just imagined it?

  She took a deep breath in an attempt to calm herself. She tried to retrace exactly what had just happened. She'd made to move towards the hamper, but this weird ghost Presley had beat her to it. It had been the same when she'd been training too. The other images had seemed to appear in the places she'd just moved from, as well as where she'd intended to move to next.

  Did these strange doubles read her mind and appear where she wanted them to? She really had no idea. Gripping the edge of the chipped sink like it was a lifeline to reality, Presley stared at the mirror and imagined there being one standing right next to her. As if on cue, an exact duplicate of her blinked into life beside her, casting a twin reflection.

  Presley screamed and jerked away from the spot where it had been standing. It vanished again in a second. "Go away!" she shouted, fumbling the latch open on the door behind her. "Just leave me alone!"

  At any other time, she would have felt stupid talking to thin air, but right now she just wanted to get away. As she went for the door handle, something suddenly crashed into the other side of it with a loud bang. She shrieked again and leapt away from the door.

  But then the voice she heard was one she'd recognise anywhere. "Presley! Are you in there?"

  The door was flung open and Kal Peralta stumbled into the room. His eyes were heavily bloodshot, his skin was pale and bits of rice were stuck to his stubble. But he was here. He'd heard her scream and still came running. Underneath all those layers of permanent intoxication, despite the fact that Presley was the one who looked after him nowadays, he was still here to protect her.

  Choking back a sob, Presley ran to him and threw her arms around him, feeling like a little girl again. "Daddy!"

  Kal gingerly hugged her back, patting her damp hair. "I'm here. What's wrong?" He still slurred his words slightly.

  Presley hesitated, biting her lip before answering. "I'm just glad you're awake."

                                                           *

  Sidney got dressed for school the following morning with a heavy sense of dread weighing down on her. The twins had no idea that anything was wrong, besides the fact that she seemed unnecessarily cranky, even for a non-morning person. When they got to school, that feeling of dread only worsened. She found herself jumping every time someone spoke to her. She was going to get suspended. She just knew it.

  Yet, weirdly, nothing seemed to happen. No teachers approached her, she didn't get called to the principal's office... She didn't even see Presley around. Then to top it off, she overheard one of the teachers talking to the science technician about the generator being old and faulty and that they were getting somebody in over one of the weekends to completely rewire it.

  Why hadn't Presley told on her? The girl seemed to live for sticking her nose in. It just didn't make sense. Though as the day went on, Sidney soon forgot about it. The burning of her hand, now swathed in a thick bandage after feigning that she'd tried to pick up the hot metal stewing pot at home without oven gloves, was the only reminder of the incident. Though the pain was also driven to the back of her mind, as everywhere she went on campus she heard students discussing the mystery of why Jordy Frye had suddenly been pulled out of school. It seemed that everything had worked out in the end.

  Although when Presley didn't turn up at school for the rest of the day or even the day after that, Sidney started to grow concerned. What had happened to her? She'd seemed fine the other day, albeit pissed off about what had happened. So now where was she? Sidney knew that the two things couldn't just be a coincidence. She wasn't that lucky.

  So when Presley finally reappeared the following week, Sidney had never thought she'd be so relieved to see her. When she spotted her in class, she noticed that the blonde seemed edgy, almost guilty, and that she was a lot more withdrawn than usual. Perhaps her absence hadn't been related to the generator incident after all. Maybe she had something going on at home... Either way, Sidney just had to speak to her. If the girl was having issues right now, then Sidney owed it to her to try and help after Presley had saved her life. Plus she needed to know once and for all if the class president was going to tattle on her or if her secret escapades were safe.

  She managed to corner her during their recess. "Hey!" Presley turned as she shouted, but didn't really appear to focus on her. She seemed distant and tired. Sidney found herself uncertain of what to say. "So... Is everything okay?"

  Presley shrugged, still seeming detached. There were heavy shadows clinging to the skin beneath her eyes. "Everything's fine."

  But it certainly didn't look like she was fine. As Presley made to turn away, Sidney jumped in to reclaim her attention. "Oh! Presley?" The blonde turned back again questioningly. Sidney shifted her feet awkwardly. "So, um, you're not going to tell, are you?" She knew it sounded juvenile, but she really needed to keep her record clean.

  Presley immediately turned defensive. "Tell who about what?"

  Sidney stared at her in surprise. Did she not even remember what had happened last week? Oh god... Had Presley maybe gotten electrocuted too and it had somehow affected her long-term memory? Was that why she hadn't been in school? Sidney felt sick at the very thought. If anything had happened to her, then it was entirely her fault. "Y'know, about what happened with the generator?"

  Only then did realisation dawn in Presley's eyes. "Oh... I don't know. I guess I haven't really thought about it..."

  Sidney continued to stare. What had happened to the busybody who'd freaked out every time she'd put a toe out of line? Where had all that energy gone? Had something bad really happened to her? If it was anything to do with the incident with the generator, then Sidney had to tread very carefully. "Listen..." She lowered her voice. "Are you feeling okay? I mean, did anything... happen to you that day? The generator didn't affect you or anything?"

  The look that Presley gave her could only be described as terrified. "What do you mean? Nothing happened! I'm fine..."

  But the words had barely left her mouth when everything seemed to go wrong. For one crazy moment, Sidney felt like she'd just completely lost her mind. Because suddenly she was looking at three Presleys. It was like two ghosts of her had just appeared out of thin air. All three of them wore the same panic-stricken look on their faces. What the hell was happening? This just wasn't possible.

  Then Sidney's brain kicked into gear. If she'd learnt anything from the gifts that had been passed onto her and her brother and sister from their parents, it was that anything could be possible. This must be a bio-power. Presley had a bio-power. And she was using it in broad daylight.

  Sidney grabbed Presley with her good hand and forcibly dragged her towards the nearest door into one of the school buildings, hastily looking back and forth to make sure that nobody else had seen. As soon as she touched her, the other Presleys disappeared, but Sidney still kept her moving, in spite of the other girl's protests. She didn't stop until they were safely inside an empty classroom and she'd slammed the door shut behind them.

  "What on earth are you doing?" Presley spluttered.

  "Me? What are you..." Sidney stopped abruptly. It suddenly occurred to her that maybe Presley didn't even know much about her power. She'd definitely seemed scared by what had happened. Maybe it was best if she didn't address the issue outright. She couldn't afford for Presley to guess that it wasn't her first experience with inhuman abilities. "I mean..."

  But Presley had already clocked on. "You saw it too, didn't you? Didn't you?" she practically demanded. If somebody else could see these other... hers, then she wasn't crazy after all. There had to be some other explanation for it.

  Once again, Sidney found herself struggling to find an excuse to give her classmate. "See what?" she improvised quickly, trying not to sound nervous. "You suddenly went real pale - I thought I should find you somewhere to sit down and..."

  "No, you saw it! I know you did!" Presley insisted. "You know something about it! Do you know what's happening to me?"

  Sidney swallowed. So her powers were new? She was only just discovering them? Maybe it really was because of the generator... Only it wasn't Presley's mind it had affected - instead it seemed to have drawn from Sidney's power and given Presley a power of her own. Was that really possible? Sidney had never known there to be a way of gaining powers other than inheriting them through family. This so wasn't good...

  "I'm sorry; I have no idea what you're talking about," she lied. She couldn't afford to give anything away. Not yet. She had to speak to Cody and Tessa first. "Are you sure you're feeling alright?"

  "No, I'm not!" Presley cried desperately. "Something's happening to me and I don't know what it is!"

  Presley's outburst only made Sidney feel guilty, but she just couldn't let on that she was already familiar with powers. It could endanger her entire family if anyone found out the truth. "Then maybe we should take you to the nurse..."

  "I don't need to see the nurse! Just please tell me what's happening to me!" Presley begged.

  Sidney found herself shaking her head, suddenly desperate to get away. Thankfully, at that moment, the bell rang, prompting the students to head back to classes. In the second that it distracted Presley, Sidney quickly made her escape. "I'm sorry," she whispered, as she darted through the doorway. "But I can't."