> ”You're a mutant?”

Noel blinked up at the large man in front of her. His eyebrows had drawn together and he was looking back and forth between Kaz and a friend.

She was missing a step. ”Not a very good one.”

The memorymancer moved to give herself more space. She tried to catch someone else’s eyes. Clearly this was a fight that was brewing and one that she was trying to head off, but they were forewarned about her abilities. She may have gotten the big one, but no one else was biting.

> ”We got a problem here baldy? Why don't you tell me what your issue is with my friend here, hmm? Or would you prefer I snapped this moron's neck?”

”Kaz.” Would he really snap a guy’s neck in broad daylight?

“I-I…” He strained. Poor baldy was trying to remember, but it was like the memory just wasn’t there.

Another man cursed and shoved the big guy aside. “Haha, funny. She *@#$ed with his brain, man. Again.”

”I don’t want to fight you.” He made the mistake of looking at her and Noel seized the opportunity to give that guy a good brain scrubbing.

Forget your beef with me. Forget why you want to fight.

Noel staggered. That one was a doozy.

Kaz was offering her a knife, handle first. She took it and felt like she was in some bizarre kind of play. She didn’t want to fight here. She couldn’t even fathom why someone did. Two of the other guys were already turning tail and running. Did she hear something about a twenty-something? Age? Or…?

There were three. Well, really just two after Kaz booted one into the asphalt some yards away.

>”Humans, are you all that stupid?”

She wanted to stop Kaz, but she also didn’t especially care about people who were foolish enough to face down a man who had been stabbed without bothering to bleed about it. She could see intelligence there in her opponent's eyes. It wasn’t exactly stupidity that made them stay. They clearly wanted something. One man was licking his lips and sizing up the distance between himself and Kaz. The other was looking back and forth between Kaz and Noel.

The lip licker threw his chain at Kaz, juked, and made a grab for Noel. She slashed at his face reflexively as she took a step back. The two ended up tumbling to the ground with Noel on bottom when the man cursed, got angry, and committed his total body to the tackle.

Kaz's attention moved from the two fleeing and Baldy when one of the guys threw a chain at his head. Ducking and leaning to the side kept the chain from hitting him in the face, but it did catch his shoulder and threw him off balance. Kaz didn't have a chance to do anything about him as he bulled Noel over. His first instinct was to tear the guy off of her, but he checked himself. Noel seemed like she could take care of herself. Besides, Kaz didn't really have much choice in the matter.

Baldy had apparently forgotten all about Noel. When Kaz was distracted by the chain, he had picked up the steel bat one of the fleeing goons had dropped. Kaz figured Baldy hadn't liked how his friend No-fingers had been treated. Why? Because the bat found its way, whistling in a low arc, right between Kaz's legs. It doesn't matter how strong or tough you are, if you're a guy and you don't have some sort of protective gear on, a blow to the crotch, especially an unexpected one, is going to hurt like the sun exploding in your face. Baldy apparently wasn't big solely because he liked to eat fast food.

Kaz let out a groan of pain through his clenched jaw, eyes blinking furiously as he tried to push the sudden sensation away. The blow hadn't seemed to do much more than make him rock back on his heels a bit, but Baldy apparently thought Kaz was going to be out of the fight. So he promptly reeled back and hit Kaz in the side of the head with the bat. Dense, tough skin and bone wasn't a great defense against blows to the head, might not break through, but all the rest still happens. Kaz's leg buckled as spots exploded in his vision. 'This is fucking embarrassing!' He thought to himself as another blow impacted his head, in nearly the same spot as the first.

Kaz got his wits together enough to roll with the third impact. He rolled away from Baldy and stood up a little shakily. Kaz's balance was off and he was still seeing stars and his head pounded with every beat of his heart.

Baldy was smirking with a triumphant gleam in his eye. “Ahh, did little Kazimierz get hurt?”

Kaz looked at Baldy with a mixture of surprise, dumbfoundedness, and irritation. Kaz knew he had to have been hit harder than he thought because he was absolutely sure Baldy had just said his name, his entire first name. No one should know that name.

Kaz raised an arm to block the next swing of the bat. Instead of stopping it,the tip of the bat skipped off his forearm and connected squarely on Kaz's chin, twisting Kaz's head to the side. Numbness ran all through Kaz's jaw before making its way down his neck and over the rest of his body. Staggering, he fell to the side, catching himself with an outstretched arm. He shook his head vigorously to clear it. He realized it wasn't just his balance that was off, but his perception as well. So instead of trying to block or move out of the way of the next swing of the bat, Kaz threw himself away from Baldy.

Landing badly, unbalanced, he fell and rolled even further than he had intended. Baldy was grinning, no, leering at him, with something predatory, something hungry, in his eyes. Kaz did not like that look, didn't like any human looking down on him. More than that, he didn't like that his guy knew him.

As Baldy stalked forward to continue beating Kaz's battered head, Kaz knew doing anything fancy wasn't going to work well. So instead of evading, Kaz exploded into motion, heading straight for Baldy. The bat missed Kaz as he barreled into the big guy. Because his balance and perception was off, he didn't hit squarely, but he did get a hold of Baldy's clothes. Before the man could shake him off or hit him with the bad, Kaz planted his feet, lifted and slammed the man onto the ground with all the strength he could, which was quite a bit less than it should have been, his body not responding the way it should. Weak or not, Baldy didn't move from where Kaz put him, and by the blood Kaz could see and smell, he might not move again, or maybe he would eventually, head wounds tend to bleed a lot even when they are very small.

Kaz almost stomped on the man's neck, but decided it would be better if he didn't. Instead he looked around to get his barrings and to see if Noel was okay or if she needed help.

She'd barely made a slice across the bridge of her opponent's nose. It was hardly anything. Just a scratch. But it was enough to enrage the man enough to prompt his full out tackle.

His decision prompted several actions to happened in quick sequence.

Noel was still in the process of bringing the knife between herself and the man.

Lickity Lips connected with her body. His shoulder hit Noel in the gut. His arms wrapped around her hips.

Unable to arrest their combined momentum, Noel tipped backward. Unable to break her own fall, she landed hard against the asphalt. Her head bounced. Her arms jerked upward. She felt a warm, thick spray and knew even that her knife had ended up in one of them before the gray spots ever cleared from her vision. That was the problem with a good, sharp knife: you can't feel the deep cuts.

Hitting her head felt a lot like coming out of an erasure. Her vision came back in spots. Clarity returned starting with a small point of focus: Lickity's Lips.

His lips were pale, parted in a soft "o" of surprise. His eyes were confused. His neck...

Noel let go of the knife that had embedded there. Her hand was covered in blood and more was pumping out with every heartbeat. She couldn't see the wound itself because of their positioning. His head and jaw were in the way.

"Oh God." Her voice was little more than air, a result of having someone land right on top of her with extra force.

"Issit bad?" He was trying to move. Jesus. Why did they even start this crap? She both wanted to throttle him and try to help. In the end, Noel used shaking hands to tip the man over onto his back. The man's friend, No-fingers, was there jerking him away from Noel and generally making things worse.

"You killed him!"

"He's not dead." Was what she'd started to say as she rolled to her side and pushed herself up. She didn't get to finish her words because he kicked her in the side. Once. Twice. Noel caught his leg on the third kick and looked up the line of his body into those furious eyes.

'Forget.' She didn't have the wherewithal to direct it this time. She didn't know what would make him stop. So she just started erasing time until she felt him relax in confusion.

She ached. Noel felt like she'd both run a marathon and then fallen down several flights of stairs. She was holding on to someone's leg. That was new. The confusion she saw echoed in his face was, at least, familiar.

"$#*%, Danny!" He saw something and Noel didn't have the strength left to stop him from going. She wasn't even sure she wanted to. She got to her feet among the sounds of a constant freakout over a stabbing victim and a body-slapping full on fist fight. Noel was soaked with what she was marginally sure was someone else's blood.

A pale man was going WWE on a dude that matched the theme the stabbing victim and confused leg man. It was so nice of them to wear a uniform of leather and poor life choices. It made identifying foes that much easier.

Both of the brawlers looked worse for wear, but after that body slam only one of them got up.

"Car." She blurted the word, almost as surprised to hear herself talk as everyone else was. Noel wanted to grab Pasty's hand and run before the police got there, but that was assuming he and she were even on the same side. But. Even so, the enemy of an enemy... She tried to ready herself in case her assumption was wrong. She felt bad, but he looked worse. She could go for the eyes and then run... He wasn't a tall man, his reach might not surpass her own.

Kaz's head was ringing like a bell as he looked around. For a few moments he couldn't make much sense of the things around him. Everything was just a little too bright or too loud or sharp. ”God I hate headshots,” Kaz said as he gingerly rubbed his head where the bat had hit him. ”when I'm on the receiving end.” Speaking about the bat he looked for it and found it on the ground a few feet away. Kaz's skull was pretty thick, add in his weight, and how bent and dented the bat was, he figured Baldy had the arms of some Major League hitter.

”Car.”

The word pulled Kaz's world together a bit more clearly, enough that it actually started the gears moving. He looked in the direction of the speaker. ”Noe...” He saw the blood all over her, ”Shit, are you okay?” He moved to her and began looking her over quickly. Not seeing any gushing wounds, he looked away from her and to the two men on the ground. One was, now that he looked at him, clearly the source of the blood. Kaz was sure he was going to die and fairly soon. The other was...No-fingers who seemed to still have his fingers. Well that's what Kaz assumed since the guy had taken the time to wrap his sliced hand in some cloth, Kaz had no idea where the cloth came from, but it seemed to be doing some good, though it was thoroughly soaked with his own blood.

Kaz found it hard to care that the three men on the ground were bleeding copious amounts onto Central Park's walkway, not when he noticed their little scuffle had drawn more than a few observers. The waters were keeping their distance, he saw at least one cell phone raised and pointed in their direction. Kaz made a 'Tsk'-ing sound. He wanted to know why Baldy knew his name, he wanted to grab No-fingers and make him talk and hopefully get answers. He wanted to know why these guys had taken the time to follow and wait for Noel and what they had planned to do. Wanted to, but things just weren't straight at that moment, not his head, not the odd look on Noel's face, and not No-fingers, who seemed to be ignoring both of them, asking his buddy stupid things like what happened.

Kaz was forgetting something, but he wasn't sure what. ”Hey, it might be a good idea to leave before someone shows up, eh?” And, of course, just as he was turning to leave, putting a hand out to 'guide' Noel, he heard the car. ”Oh, right. Car.” Looking to Noel and then behind himself, he saw the car jounce as it came to a stop, a few guys hopped out before the thing was fully stopped.

“That's him! It's 20, I told you he was here.” One of the men yelled to the others as he pointed at Kaz. They were all dressed similarly to the downed men near Kaz and Noel.

Kaz's head was clearing quickly and he figured as long as he didn't let one of the goons get a cheep shot in like Baldy had, he could take the lot of them down quickly, without letting any of them near Noel. At least that's what he had thought as he turned to face them and step between them and Noel. That thought shattered when he saw the group draw pistols. The man who had fingered him was shouting about the bleeding men and riling up the group.

Making sure he didn't glance away from them, Kaz focused through the lingering haze in his head. He was going to have to be quick. The throb in his head as he prepared to change had nothing to do with being hit in the head. If they stayed, Noel would most likely get killed, so it was all or nothing.

Kaz ramped up his speed, strength and density as quickly as he could. Turned quickly and put his back to the group. Even before his turn was completed three large 'wings' burst from his back, the membranes and bones of each wing were extremely tough. Each wing covered a large area, overlapping with the others to block them from the group. ”Hold on.” He said to Noel as he moved to pick her up and carry her, an arm behind her shoulders and under her thighs. ”Gonna run for it, okay?” Kaz heard the shots before he felt the impact against his wings, wings that should have been able to stand up to the assault easily. But he could already feel that they wouldn't. His head was too scrambled to get it right. At this rate he hoped he'd be able to run and carry her at the same time.

He knew going to his Hummer would be pointless. Sure they could get to it and get in, but these guys could probably catch up while they did, and then they'd be hard to ditch on the road, or they could follow wherever they went. No, the Hummer would just have to sit and probably get towed, if they could move it. Once they were far enough away, they'd either have to hide somewhere, out run them on foot, or if he could manage it, he'd fly them away.

> ”God I hate headshots,”

With the way he looked at that bent metal bat, Noel somehow didn’t think she could go for the eyes. She took one step back, still ready until he came close to her without so much as a hesitation. He was concerned about the blood so she relaxed and let him fuss. It took a second for her to find a category that she was comfortable with for this kind of behavior. Protector? Did she need one of those? Maybe friend?

”Not me.” She responded to his worry with as few short words as possible. The shallow breathing, Noel discovered, had a purpose. Anything to do with her ribs moving was now her least favorite thing. Frankly, if she wasn’t sure she’d be in a lot of hot water later, Noel was ready to just sit on the ground and throw her hands up over this whole thing. Nope. Nopenopenope.

And the fact that more bad guys showed up was just a lovely little cherry on the top of a crap cupcake.

Noel took inventory as she pat her pockets. Phone was still in a mostly dry pocket. It could stay there. No gun in her running shorts, definitely none at the ankle. No blade at her back. She had one drumstick? What good was one drumstick? It wasn’t even shaped quite right…

Her headache intensified in new and unnerving ways for a moment. Not a drumstick. There were supposed to be two… escrima?

>“That's him! It's 20, I told you he was here.”

Noel looked up from her stick when the man, number 20, stepped between her and the unloading car of men. She didn’t hide behind people. So she started to step up next to Kaz, but… numbers were the most mild of the things he was shouting. She’d stabbed a man, apparently. That explained the blood. Some of that struggle was coming back now. It wasn’t a long one.

The devilish number 20 would apparently make for a nice trophy. They whooped and opened fire as soon as the man… Kaz. As soon as Kaz sprouted wings.

> ”Hold on. Gonna run for it, okay?”

”Not… yeah.” She gave up on saying “not much of a choice” and opted for the shorter of the two, especially given that Kaz had picked her up. It wasn’t his fault that he had to hold her right where it hurt the most. Any other option she imagined was worse and it was true. They had opened fire. The two mutants just had to get out any way they could, pride be damned.

She grit her teeth and squeezed her eyes shut, gripping Kaz around his middle. Raising her arms was not an option right now.

They moved. How Kaz was not riddled with bullets was beyond Noel. She was just glad that was true. ”Stormtroopers.” That was how good their aim must have been.

They touched down somewhere considerably less noisy. It was almost a letdown to be be released, if only because she’d missed the whole flying thing. Noel didn’t dare open her eyes at this moment, though. She just sat right where she was and pressed the palms of her hands to her eyes. The lids were closed, but she knew her power was going off making the eyes themselves twitch in their sockets. Not painful, exactly. Just another hazard.

”You touched one? Skin to skin?” She panted while racking her brain for some such contact she’d had, herself. It would be easier to read memories from herself, but, other than the blood, she just couldn’t recall.

Noel put out her hand, eyes still closed and twitching. ”I’m a psychic. Let me see what that was all about.”

Kaz didn't bother to remove the 'wings' as they ran, he did however have them flow out behind him once they were out of range, so they didn't act like air breaks. He was focusing so much on getting away that he missed Noel's 'stormtrooper' comment. If he had heard it, and had been feeling better, he probably would have laughed. Of course she was wrong, they had hit him, more than a few times, but from her perspective it must have seemed like they were missing.

Kaz went past a few places before finally stopping on a roof with other roofs blocking the view of the streets below. Hopefully they were far enough away they couldn't catch up, and if they were following somehow, he hoped this would help them to be overlooked.

Moving a bit gingerly, Kaz set Noel down with some air vent duct work at her back. The way she pressed her hands against her eyes made him wonder if something had happened to her, or if this was the first time she had been apart of...whatever the hell that had been. Bloody, it was bloody. 'So maybe she's not good with blood?' He really didn't know, but he wasn't going to push either.

Before he dropped to the roof a few feet from her, he made his body reabsorb the wings, the bullets that were lodged in them fell with soft 'plunk'ing sounds. There wasn't much real damage, they hadn't made it through the membranes or bone, at least not completely. Most of them had merely been flattened against the skin with just enough force to slip under the outer later of skin and stay there. Even still, having bullet holes, even small ones wasn't something he'd want to deal with. So with his headache getting worse with every change he made to himself, he forced the wounds to disperse over the rest of his body, turning a few slightly annoying wounds into a lot of tiny scratches. Even the tenderness and slight bruising he felt on his skull dispersed so much it didn't cause him any more trouble.

”What?” Kaz said lamely as he leaned back against the vent-work-stuff. ”Touch one? I..” He thought back through what had happened. Had he touched one of them? Their clothes yes, their skin? ”I don't think I did, wh-”

”I'm a psychic.”

”Oh...that figures. Should have guessed that.” Kaz's tone made it obvious he wasn't exactly thrilled at the information. It almost sounded similar to what Nicki could do, picking up information in a similar way, but Noel apparently did it with what?

”Uhh....Yeah, how about not.” There was no missing it this time, his voice was almost hostile. ”I don't like people poking around in my head. I like it even less when I don't have a clue what's going on. Ugnn,” Kaz leaned forward, putting his head between his knees as he gripped his head, ”Especially not while my head is pounding like a jack-hammer!” He didn't yell, but he didn't need to, the intensity of 'jack-hammer' expressed how much it hurt.

”Why..ah....shit..uh....Tell me what the hell that was all about huh? Why were they waiting for you?”

The intensity in Kaz’s voice made goosebumps march up Noel’s exposed skin despite the heat. She put her hand down and hazarded a peek at her… friend.

”Your head wouldn’t be the aim. Theirs would. Should’ve…” Hooo that was a lot of continuous talking. Noel wrapped her arms around her own middle with tender care and tipped her head back to let her eyes shake at the sky. ”Should have… taken it… back there.” Maybe now wasn’t the best time to go diving into a memory anyway. She wouldn’t be able to explain it.

So of course that’s exactly what Kaz was demanding.

”Don’t suppose you would believe that I don’t remember.” If she went slow and spoke softly, it was doable. ”Maybe the blood. Ugh.” Wasn’t there some kind of disease or…? Blood was just a bad idea.

She didn’t have a better one.

So Noel pulled her head back up, closed her eyes, drew her eyebrows together, and put her fingers in her mouth.

Ugh. She tasted the blood. But it was working. She felt a mental connection immediately and dropped her fingers away from her mouth. Her chin and teeth painted red.

If Noel didn’t put a question to this, it would just be a not-always useful dump of information. So she started with the obvious. Why were they mad at her? and would move right on into what the heck the number 20 business about.

She saw events from a fight. Noel whipping cloth around in order to bloody noses and pop his friends on the cheeks and eyes and asses. It was embarrassing to get whooped by a chick. Worse that she was using non-lethal force.

”I embarrassed them because we fought and I did nothing worse than bruise their bodies and egos. I cut some of them, but mostly clothes. The jackets. The belts. These are status symbols.” She was gone to the vision, speaking more robotically than was her typical cadence and not giving proper heed to what was mostly likely a cracked rib. At least she kept her eyes closed. It wouldn’t do to start erasing memories as soon as she’d gotten them.

”They were approached by Davronskis. Ugh.” She wrinkled her nose. She knew about the Davronskis. ”Filthy Russians want her powers.” She was slipping more and more into the mind of the man. It was sometimes hard to keep who was who straight at this point. ”We don’t care, though. Money they offer isn’t bad, but that’s only if she’s not dead after.

She’s on the list too. Bird Hunters spotted the pair at the park. Showing off. Typical mutant bulls#it. When I looked ‘em up, Kazimiera Corydon was the other one.

“Dangerous mutant with an unknown source of wealth, appears to be well trained in weapons and openly disrespects the police force. Took part in the KP battles and destroyed numerous stalker-bots. Do not approach, attack from a distance!”

Bulls#it. They just don’t know how to take on the big numbers like we do.” She could keep going, but Noel was visibly shaking now. She put her hands back over her eyes, smudging the freshly wetted blood on her face now too. Didn’t matter.

She needed to make a memory or a note. ”There’s a hit list. His memory is spotty, but what he remembers... for a short time, so can I.” This is where paper would have been nice and handy.

Kaz was watching Noel through narrowed, suspicious eyes. When she lowered her hand and spoke, he relaxed. Not a lot, but enough that he wasn't basically glaring at her. 'So not like Nicki? She has to touch the person for it to work... Direct contact? Would clothes block her?' He assumed they would since she had asked if he had touched one of the guys, skin-to-skin. So as long as she didn't touch him he was safe. Probability. Even thinking that, Kaz felt like he was forgetting something, something important. It was itching the back of his throbbing head. Try as he might, he couldn't drag it out.

When she wrapped her arms around herself Kaz's face softened more. He was sure she wasn't faking it, the way she spoke seemed, pained. Maybe she did get hurt after all, he thought and felt a little bit of regret for thinking she could handle herself. He was sure if he had stepped in, he wouldn't have gotten his bells wrung, not to mention... Just thinking about it made him wince a little and shield his crotch a tiny bit. It was a completely involuntary action.

”...I don't remember.” Kaz raised a skeptical brow and gave her a 'Nope, not buying it' look. The look turned into a furrow browed, curious look at the mention of the blood. Kaz was wondering how she could do the brain-rummaging through blood that was no longer inside the person it came from. There needs to be a living brain, a living person for that...right?

And then she put the blood in her mouth.

He didn't even try to hide his reaction. He was surprised and a little weirded out, and it showed. He knew there were mutants with strange abilities, but they all seemed to make some sort of twisted sense, or at least once he got a few bits of info, he could form a decent understanding of their abilities. Not Noel's though. She was a self-proclaimed psychic, who needed to physically touch a person, but blood in her mouth seemed to work just as well. Yeah, he was lost. He decided he was going to stop trying to figure her's out on his own and just ask straight questions about it. Besides not making himself more confused in the process, it also allowed him to do less intensive thinking, which was good, thinking was painful at the moment.

While he wanted to have answers right then, the blood thing had been a deliberate act, so it had a purpose. Instead of speaking, Kaz leaned back, watched and listened. He was so intent on hearing what she said and what the words meant, that he barely noticed the shift in her speech. She had gone from her own voice, to something sort of distant, emotionless sounding, to...not herself at all.

Whatever she had done, he was getting what had asked for: Answers.

While he continued to pay attention, he repeated certain words over and over in his head, adding more any time she said something that seemed important. He wasn't liking any of what he was hearing. He wasn't surprised that stupid humans would do something stupid because of some ripped clothes. It was this 'List' that he was most interested in, and he wanted to know who, or what, the Bird Hunters were. Find that out, and he'd find out how they knew him. After that it would just be a matter of finding them, and killing them, and destroying every bit of info they had.

When she put her hands over her eyes again, it made the back of his brain itch again, yet he still couldn't remember what he was suppose to remember. If he ignored the whole blood-in-mouth thing, touching something to relive, see, or experience past events, it made sense, and it seemed familiar. He knew there was a word for it...psycomancy? psycotelemetry? psychosis?

'Do you even know what you're trying to think of?'

'Yeah, obviously, or else it wouldn't have come to mind at all.'

'Yeah, right, keep telling yourself that, maybe you'll believe it. Besides, didn't you say you weren't going to try and figure it out anymore? Look how long that lasted.'

'Bite me.'

He turned to face her, ”Hit lists aren't a good thing. Know anything besides, 'there's a list'? Like names or other info?” He knew he was being a little snippy, unnecessarily so, but he was also obviously interested in knowing. 'Why is she covering her eyes again? Headache?' Eyes...eyes...something about eyes... Kaz couldn't help but look at her, trying to look her in the eyes through her hands. The itching wouldn't go away.

He'd wait until she gave him what he asked for, but as soon as she did, he knew he wouldn't be able to hold out anymore and blurt the question out: ”What the hell was that with the blood? Were you going to like put my hand in your mouth?” It was probably going to be the most impolite way he had ever questioned a mutant about their abilities.

”One hundred names.” Noel mumbled, trying to keep that list in mind. She wiped her hands on what little was untarnished of her clothes and edged her phone out of her pocket.

It unlocked at her touch. Coded for her fingerprint or something. She really had to thank Hades when he got back from his trip.

New Note. She started typing.

Bird Hunter Hit List

There was a phone number, but the guy paid it no mind. The email address, he noted, was the same.

BigBalls69HGonHate@

Crap. His vision flicked on. She had to replay the memory to get the rest and verify. And his vision was erratic. Sometimes a name caught his attention and he read it, but the memory wasn’t clear. Sometimes he just skipped through. There were a lot of single letter entries on her list.

But Noel filled it out as best she could down through number 20. After he’d hit number 20, he hadn’t read on. Not in this memory. She could find another memory and another. And she could play all those a hundred times over until she pieced things together. It would just take time and concentration. For now, this was a start and it would have to do. It was hard enough to concentrate through this blinding headache.

When she came out of the vision to look at her notes, the list was spotty at best. Isabel Duskmoore was the only full name Noel had been pretty sure was accurate.

Noel held the phone out for Kaz’s approval, but wouldn’t let go. It would lock if she let go. ”The best I can do for now.” Had she told him yet, that she wasn’t a very good psychic? "Need to hit it again before I go to sleep or it'll be lost." Though she didn't exactly sound excited about the idea.

>”What the hell was that with the blood? Were you going to like put my hand in your mouth?”

She barked a quick laugh and doubled over with instant regret, a movement which also hurt. ”Yes. I was, actually.” Her words were still breathless. ”I have to taste something to read memories. Even then...” Well, he’d seen the list.

There were things she didn’t want to forget from this. She needed to make a memory, but… there just wasn’t anything unique around. Except. Well. Kazimierz called Kaz.

Noel studied him as he read and settled on his ears. They were pointy. That was just unique enough.

”So what kind of psychic screwed you over last time?” She asked because his gross overreaction to what she was made it kinda obvious. It also made for a decent distraction while she studied him.

Those ears matched his skin tone, his curious white hair parted around the points so that little bit was always just barely visible. If she had to guess, the tips reached his eyebrows and no higher. If she titled her head just so, she could almost convince herself the lines met in such a way as to for a K or an H.

Kazimierz, hunt the hunters.

If she had smell or taste or touch, even something auditory, this would be a stronger memory. But it had the benefit of being short and a train of thought she could probably pic up again if she needed to. Probably.

Ugh. Her eyes just wouldn’t be still in her head! Noel pressed her free hand over one of her eyes for a moment before trying again. It was the stress and the hurt, she knew. It always triggered her mutation.

Kazimierz, hunt the hunters.

Because names were important and somebody needed to.

Her eyes flicked down to Kaz’s. Just for a moment, she held a question there. She was ready to ask more, but… she should have known better than to make eye contact.

Kaz's gaze flicked to Noel's phone when she held it out. He gave it a quick once over, trying to pick out anything that seemed immediately important. It didn't take long, it wasn't a long note, short enough that he didn't have to look at it more closely, but he did anyway, making sure to memorize what he could. Kaz felt a little slighted when he noted his place on the list compared to Izzy's, though for a mutant hating group, it made sense. She was always more stab-happy than he was. Then he remembered that she had mentioned something about the number of names. 'Top 20 isn't so bad I guess, even if I'm at the bottom of that 20.'

'You like being on a hit list? You want to be a higher priority target? Are you nuts?'

'Considering I'm talking to myself like this, I'd have to say yes to that.'

Noel answered his snippy questions with a completely honest and silly answer, and all he could do is sit there with his mouth hanging open a little, while the rest of his face showed his...confused disbelief. Tasting memories... Nope. That was not one Kaz would have ever in his life imagined any mutant doing. It was, unique, to say the least, and weird. Very weird, very odd. And also, not very psychic-like, at least not to him. He guessed it made a sort of sense, memory is in the brain, abilities to access, control or manipulate the mind were psychic in a broad sense, but still...

'You're doing it again...' He thought to himself with a mental laugh at himself.

'Yeah, yeah...I can't help it. I can't like figure this one.'

'Who can ever really figure out brain-tappers?' Kaz's only response to that was a mental shrug.

'She said taste right? Ya think she could eat them too?'

They had apparently both been silent for a bit of time, not long, maybe a minute or three, but then she spoke. Well, asked a question, a barbed question, though it probably wasn't meant to be. Was probably suppose to be probing, information digging, maybe somewhat defensive because of his reaction. Maybe she was trying to provoke him..

Pursing his lips he looked at her sideways before looking away and to the roof between his feet. Kaz sighed, ”Better to ask what type hasn't screwed me over. Telepaths have rifled through my head and memories. I've been imprisoned inside my own mind while my body was used. Had my perceptions, ideas, and my identity twisted and warped. Had memories...altered. Been made to do, feel, think things I normally wouldn't.” Putting his elbows on his knees he pressed and rubbed his temples. ”And I couldn't do anything about it, couldn't stop it from happening, couldn't break out of it. Every time, I'd resist as hard as I could, and.... To know that your efforts mean nothing, that the most you might, MIGHT, accomplish is maybe to annoy them a little, maybe make them work just fractionally harder.”

Kaz gave Noel a skewed glance, ”That's why I don't like psychics.” After a momentary pause, he gave a short 'heh' of a laugh, ”But they're all dead now, and I'm still here, I'm still..me.” Mostly. He still wasn't sure if he was still completely himself, not all the time at least. And they weren't all dead. Nicki hadn't screwed him over the same way the rest had, but her disappearance did hurt him just the same. Though he had given up hope of ever seeing her again, he refused to believe she was dead, and kept money flowing to certain people to keep their eyes, ears, and everything else open for any news or information regarding her.

His back straighten when he finally noticed her eyes. He had looked at her, looked in her direction, but he hadn't made eye contact with her the whole time they had been on the roof. The brain itch had stopped. His thoughts clicked into place. Words from the scuffle popped up from his memory.

“Don’t look her in the eyes!”

“Haha, funny. She *@#$ed with his brain, man. Again.”

Realization hit him. He had the pieces, but he hadn't put them together. Their words, and how the men acted, Baldy seeming to completely forget about Noel, No-fingers concerned more with Mr. Knife-in-my-neck. They had been there for Noel, had been ready for a fight. Neither of them going for their target like they should have.

He just put it together. She didn't just taste memories, she manipulated them somehow. Kaz opened his mouth to..

To...

To...

What?

Kaz's brows furrowed as he looked around.

”What the hell?” Kaz stood up, fast. Too fast. He began to fall over, head pounding. He caught himself, bracing his arm on something metal. They were on a roof somewhere. Where? He had no clue, he'd have to move around, go to the street to figure that out. But at least they had made good their escape from the gun wielding humans and the park.

”Ow!” A shock of light pain, made worse by surprise, shot up his arm. He shook it a little before he lifted it and looked at himself. He had quite a few small scratches all over his arm. Arms, he corrected himself when he looked to his other arm. 'And probably the rest of me too by the looks of it.' So he had shifted again, spread out the hurts, and the way his head felt, it had to have been recent. Which meant that however they got to the roof, they hadn't been there long. But why couldn't he remember? Had he taken that much of a beating that shifting made him black out and forget?

What about.. He turned and looked, finding her right away. ”Hey, you okay? Didn't get hit did...Your face is covered with blood, what happened?” He moved towards her. The blood didn't look like was coming from her head, head wounds would still be bleeding, no marks on her face, lips? He looked, still smooth and whole, so no split lip. ”You look like you could use a shower.” He laughed stupidly and looked at himself, seeing the blood on his shirt where No-fingers had sliced himself on the knife, ”Huh, so could I, I guess.”

Flopping down onto the rooftop, ”So...should we go somewhere else first, or can you tell me here, what that was all about?” He quirked a brow at her.

Her vision had narrowed down to one point.

Oh no.

> ”What the hell?”

She couldn't track him moving so fast, not right after a wipe. She couldn't decide if he sounded angry or just surprised so Noel made the effort to get to her feet in case it came to a fight. She had... no blade. Yes, phone. No on guns. A... stick? Every moment gave her vision time to expand out. She was hurt. They were up high.

Noel was missing time. She had a vague recollection of something important so she checked her phone.

If she didn't love that little bit of technology so very, very much, Noel would have thrown the whole phone as hard as she could just to shatter it.

> ”Hey, you okay? Didn't get hit did...Your face is covered with blood, what happened?”

The hit list! The hunters! Her eyes spasmed across the screen and the blood drained from her face. "NO!" She had lost it. The connection. Where? Who? Noel looked around. The blood! She stuffed her phone into her pocket and looked at her hands. The blood was all smudged around and had been contaminated by the rooftop when she'd helped herself to her feet. The best she could hope for was what had pooled under her nails and around the nail bed.

Or the clothes! She could maybe get a connection from the clothes still. Noel lifted her shirt as high as her aching ribs would allow. She couldn't get it to her mouth. With her muscles so tight and the bruising it just wasn't working. She didn't want to get it to her mouth. Her shirt made a wet sort of schleeerp and just barely exposed some of her bruising. One bruise was older, brilliantly blossomed and peppered with the drying blood from her shirt. The other was broader and new, definitely from a steel-toed boot.

"I'm missing time. I..." He'd said something. He'd said something really important. Noel looked around them at the roof top and felt like she could just almost remember. He had been standing just there... Her eyes freaked out and her head throbbed.

With some effort Noel touched the back of her head. It wasn't a typical place for her headaches to settle. There was blood there. A knot for sure. "I have head trauma." When had that happened? Probably about the same time her ribs were set on fire.

Noel was ready to just sit down and throw her hands up about the whole thing.

Kaz sort of flopped down. Noel studied his face, careful to avoid his eyes this time. She had erased something from him. On purpose? Probably not. By erasing Kaz, she'd forfeited her connection to whoever had that list in their head. Kaz's casual air seemed terribly at odds with how she felt.

>”So...should we go somewhere else first, or can you tell me here, what that was all about?” He quirked a brow at her.

"Would you believe I...?" don't remember? They'd done this whole song and dance already. How long had they been up here? How many times had they hashed this out already?

"I'm going to be sick." Noel sank down to sit and put her face in her hands. "There's a hit list. We're on it." Beyond that? Well... She'd swiss cheesed her whole day.

”NO!”

Kaz's head and body leaned away from the abruptness of the word. Kaz had no idea why she reacted so badly to his question. Sure, they had both taken a bit of a beating, and been shot at, though he was the only one to actually get shot, he was sure of that. Still, that situation didn't seem so bad. He was sure that they had been on the roof for some time, so shouldn't Noel have calmed down? Or...

”Oookaaaay. Sorry I asked? Have I asked that a few times already?” He was quite confused, his words tinted with a little sheepishness. He couldn't remember how they had gotten to the roof, but he had been conscious. He figured maybe he had been stuck in some sort of mental Groundhogs Day, repeating himself over and over, except he didn't remember that he had been recycling his thoughts and words, or whatever else. 'I hope I didn't say anything too stupid, embarrassing, or obnoxious...or inappropriate.'

Distraught. That was how she seemed. The word popped into Kaz's mind as he watched her pale and panic. He had no clue what she was thinking or doing, besides undressing? ”Wo~ah, uh, Noel, not that I'm complaining, but I don't think undressing is gonn-Damn.” Kaz leaned a bit closer, his attention obviously on her torso. Kaz voice was softer than it had been, ”That looks bad, and not all recent.” Another recent injury, just like that slice on her shoulder. ”What kinda crap do you get into?”

Kaz wasn't sure if she had heard him at all while was trying to pull her shirt up, but he laughed when she spoke, sounding a little lost, and maybe a bit defeated. ”I feel ya on that. Blows to the head'll do that.” He rubbed his own head where he had been hit. The actual damage was spread out now, but he still felt it as a dull ache.

Sitting on the rooftop shouldn't be odd to Kaz, he had spent hours and hours on his warehouse's roof, and many more hours on other roofs as well, but for some reason, sitting on this rooftop with Noel, he had the sense that something was off. Even though Kaz couldn't pinpoint the source of it, he knew there was a source, which could be as simple as his loss of memory, or not feeling like himself because he all but got his ass handed to him by a human.

After he asked his question Kaz pulled off his shirt and looked at it. He had thought to hand it to Noel so she could get out of her blood soaked shirt, but after holding it at arms length he saw that his was only marginally better. 'Must be from when I carried her. Oh well.' Instead of offering the shirt as it was, he reached down to his ankle and slipped a small knife from its sheath and began slicing the shirt into one long, continuous ribbon of cloth.

”Hmm? Would I believe what?” He asked in response as he continued his little project.

”I'm going to be sick.”

”Heh, yeah, I can believe that, but maybe wait if you can. I don't think that and blood are going to make a good combination.” Kaz had finished his work and was wrapping the cloth strip around his index and middle finger. Before he could begin to suggest that she should let him check her ribs and try to wrap them a little, she said something that gave him pause.

”I. See.” He didn't make a show of it, but he also didn't put the knife away casually, the way he had pulled it out. ”So, meeting me in the park wasn't an accident.” His eyes and voice were flat, ”Since you knew me already, what did you want with me? Get me to be your body guard or something? Trick me into taking the heat for both of us?” Huffing out a sigh Kaz's jaw jutted out and to the side a little as he tsk'd. His voice wasn't as flat and annoyed, but it come out a bit exasperated as he spoke, ”If you knew you needed help, you could have just told me who and what you are and asked. I would've helped you, and I would have been on guard.”

”Let me check your ribs and see if I can wrap'em a bit, might do some good, might not.” Of course Kaz wasn't a doctor, but he had had enough broken bones, including ribs, as a kid, that he remembered how they had checked him before they X-Ray'd him, and he remembered how they would wrap his chest. Granted he'd probably need more than what he had to do it right, but if she let him, he'd use what he had.

Noel was fully aware that she was making this worse, but couldn’t seem to stop. Knowing might be half the battle, but she was losing the war. Kaz had been in good humor until she’d touched on the hit list.

”Sorry.” She mumbled through her fingers. If she had sunglasses this would be easier. Ugh. She hated the mutation talk. People always hated her after they found out. She wouldn’t lie, but for now? She wasn’t opposed to putting it off…

Okay. Okay . She could do this.

”By all means, if you can make this suck any less, do it.”

Noel tried to keep the wincing down to a minimum since she was already feeling like a failure today. Noel pulled the cloth of her shirt the rest of the way down her incredibly long braid and piled it on her knee. She intended to use that again. It should be easier to to do now that it was off.

He’d asked her what kind of crap she got into? She addressed his chin as calmly as she could. ”I used to do bodyguard work. Security.” So there was, literally, no way in hell she would have run off to con someone into taking a hit for her.

Sitting down, the expanse of her stomach wasn’t nearly as great looking as it had been while standing, but… well, that hadn’t been her aim there, original or otherwise. Noel often would run without a shirt on those hot, hot summer days. What difference had it been to let Kaz help her out of her tank top? Especially since he had offered to help.

She was tan all the way down to the tops of her shorts.

She had scars: a deep puncture at her spine, another lay a hands width from her hip, a few knobs of calcium deposits from mended bones, a bullet starburst scar or two. Weirdly enough, she had memories of other scars almost like they’d all been rearranged at one point or another.

She had tattoos: the words wrapping around her shoulder and upper arm and her name at her wrist. She had dreams of more decorative ones once. Wings, maybe.

She had bruises: the older of the large bruises on her torso was clearly made from a chain since the individual links could be picked out in perfect spacing. The whole bruise curled around from back to front a clean hit to her side. The fresher bruising overlaid the old. The old stuff had been healed enough to go running through. Now it was just hurt laid on top of hurt.

Noel was no stranger to pain, but seeing the bruises brought back memories of the fight. The bar fight at Vaterland. Only… it wasn’t from her point of view. She closed her eyes to keep from getting a double image of both the bar fight and the present.

”I wasn’t stalking you and I had no idea they were there.” It was hard to prove a negative, though. Noel moved as Kaz directed. She was in his hands, literally, now. ”So if you need to hit me to get it out of your system so we can be friends, I’d rather you do it now.”

She was a little surprised to find it true that they were friends. At least, she’d thought they were. Now, here, in the sun with her eyes closed and the damp shirt off, the day’s events were really starting to drag at Noel.

Kaz moved to Noel and knelt down in front of her, with her shirt off he could see her torso clearly. He realized the bruising was much worse than he had originally thought. ”This is probably going to hurt and I'll need you to tell me if it hurts in one place more than another.” Kaz had her raise her arms away from her body a little as focused his attention on his sense of touch. Not being a doctor or having the training for what he was going to do, he tried to compensate by being able to use superior senses and her own reaction to show him where to bind her.

Gently at first he ran his fingers along her ribs where the bruising was worse, when he couldn't find anything, he moved his hands below her ribcage. He paid attention to each move and twitch, and to anything she said. After checking her over once he frowned, ”I'm gonna have to press a little harder...sorry.” He spoke with a visible wince, remembering his own broken ribs as a kid. After checking her over again he grabbed the rolled cloth he had made from his shirt. ”I can't tell if anything is broken or cracked, but hopefully this will help.”

Settling himself to get started he held the end of the cloth in one hand and began letting it out as he leaned close, his face getting closer to her chest as he did. He stopped mid-motion, made a small coughing 'uhmm' and changed his position, to sit behind her, legs crossed, and began again. Kaz felt mildly embarrassed as he wound the cloth around her torso. Sure he had already put his hands all over her torso, but he had avoided her chest. Even if he was trying to help, and being this close was personal, he felt that that would have been crossing a line, so when he had moved to reach around her and came close to her chest, he felt like has pushing the boundaries a little too much. Sitting behind her felt less intrusive to him and, he realized, would make it easier for him.

It also afforded him a view of her back and the various scars it sported. As he looked, he made sure to keep the wrapping tight, even if it didn't overlap itself the way a proper wrap would, he didn't have enough to do that. ”I doubted you when you said it, but seeing these,” Kaz paused in the wrapping, held it in place with one hand while he lightly touched the depression near her spine and hip, ”I'm inclined to believe you about the bodyguard work. Why'd you use the past tense?”

Kaz didn't have any clips to hold the end of the strip to the rest of the cloth, so he undid the last couple passes and redid them in a way that allowed him to tie the ends together on the side of her body, but out of the way of her arm when she put it down. ”There. Best I can do.” He said as he moved away, sat down and put his legs out in front of him.

”I don't need to hit'ya. It wouldn't make sense if you knew they'd be there and still let yourself walk right into it. Though I'm not sure I can call someone I've known for only a couple hours a friend, but I'd call this a start.” Kaz gave her a brief, lopsided smile before it faded away and he sighed, ”How do you know we're on a hit list? Maybe a better question is who's hit list is it?”

> ”This is probably going to hurt and I'll need you to tell me if it hurts in one place more than another.”

She nodded and determined to not make a sound if she could help it. Guys were weird about hurt girls. Or maybe she should just stop at "guys are weird."

It was an invasion of her personal space. Allowing it and enduring it were two different things. Kaz ran his fingers over her gently at first. She had to roll her lips together to keep from making pain noises when he pressed his way around the second time. Was there a place that hurt worst? Not enough to break her resolve. Noel let out the breath she'd been holding once all the touching was done.

Oh wait. Wrapping. That would be fun. Noel dabbed at the small amount of sweat that'd popped up even just from the pressure of his fingers. There wasn't really a choice but to get through it.

"Do it." She was more careful with her eyes this time, only opening them when he was absorbed in his task or once he'd moved behind her. She kept thinking of opportunities to tell him she'd wiped his memory, that she was a synesthetic psychometric. She found and discarded those moments. It was unusual for her to try and conceal anything. Even this small omission wore at her.

> ”I doubted  you when you said it, but seeing these... I'm inclined to believe you about the bodyguard work. Why'd you use the past tense?”

"Fired. Well... Could've stayed on in a less than legal way." Her voice was tight from a sudden wash of unfiltered, heart hammering fear. God, why'd he have to touch them? Both of them? She saw sleek black chiton and more teeth than even a predator needed. Her whole body responded most helpfully with a cold sweat, throat tightening, and panic. At least her eyes were already closed. "Don't... Not the big scars. "

There were no bats. This was no church. No fear-inducing mutant was stabbing her over trying to do her job. Noel loosened and tightened her grip over and over until she got some kind of calm. He'd said something else, but she'd missed it. Probably about being done, since she didn't feel his touch any more.

> ”How do you know we're on a hit list? Maybe a better question is who's hit list is it?”

Noel obediently fished her phone from her pocket and checked. She had to clear a calendar pop up first: Don't forget to eat.

"Trying to piece that together, actually."

She held the phone out to Kaz with one hand. If she let go it would lock.

"Do they do rooftop pizza deliveries?" Because, all she'd had to eat today was an apple and that was hours ago.