Continued from Might Not Be the Best Idea

It wasn’t like before—it wasn’t like when nobody cared for where he went, or what he did. Chase was terrified, and he had no inclination to run to Gemma, no inclination to tell her what he’d done. Chase’s only impulse was to run. He had to put distance between him and Locke. Between him and Xavier’s. He couldn’t stay. He couldn’t face what he’d done, what had happened.

He’d almost killed Locke—no, Rene almost killed Locke—but Chase had become Rene. They were the same. Therefore, by definition, Chase had become a killer. He was the killer. It was a sickening spot to be in. Chase changed into some of the newer clothes that Gemma had bought him, and he stuffed his backpack with things from the first time he had fled. He had to run, to leave, and he had to do it now. Chase cast his door open, running down the hall, down the stairs into the foyer, and out through the front door.

Only to stop on the front steps of Xavier’s, his gaze tilting skyward. It wasn’t like before. He had a mother, now. He had a family, however small and eclectic. Gemma cared about him, and where he was. Running wouldn’t solve anything. He was trapped. Chase looked around. That didn’t mean he couldn’t hide, though. He could still hide. Sit it out until things simmered down, wait until Locke forgot.

Realistically, Locke would probably never forget, but Chase could hope. The nine-year-old sniffled, mopping at fear-blackened eyes with his sleeve. He descended from the front steps, making a sharp right toward the green spaces surrounding the Mansion. He needed to find a place to hide. A good place, a place where only a small person could fit. A place like… the hedge maze!

Chase began to run again as the idea struck him, going full-speed towards the hedge maze. As it was in the early spring, it had yet to be trimmed back from its free-growing days of winter. Chase stepped through the entrance carefully, dodging branches that were clawing towards him, barring the entrance. Once within, he wove his way deeper, until the sounds from outside grew muffled—Chase could tell he was getting deeper, getting farther away from the entrance. It was as if he was running away, except he was still at Xavier’s. And, once Chase was somewhere near the center, he drew his hood, wriggled his way into a gap in the wall of shrubbery, and let himself begin to cry. He was safe, here.

How was he going to tell Gemma? How could Chase even apologize to Locke? He couldn’t. He’d probably be sent to jail, now. And Jorge would hate him. Chase felt his nose, which had been bleeding steadily and swollen ever since Locke had accidentally boxed him in the face. Chase held a handtowel to his nose, which was warm and damp, but not cold. He'd grabbed it on his way out, and he hadn't thought to grab ice cubes. The formerly blue towl was now a splotchy red.

“I hate my powers,” Chase spat, “I hate my mutation. I’m stupid.”

His nose was a testament to that. He should have listened to Locke. Chase was too stupid, though, and too curious. And so, the nine-year-old sat there and sulked.

Locke had assumed that when Chase ran off that the kid would go to his room. Not because he had done something wrong, which he had, and getting sent there was a basic form of punishment. It had always seemed to be a pointless endeavor. With television’s being manufactured smaller, thinner, and lighter a bedroom became equal to, or greater than the living room. You didn’t have to worry about sharing in your room unless you had a roommate, and Locke had seen how one sulking child could easily drive out another. Or maybe that was just because you don’t want to be seen near the one who got in trouble. But that was beside the point. Even without all the wonders of technology that you could keep in your bedroom it was still a place you should be happy to go. A bedroom is like your own private sanctuary. You modify the four walls to your choosing, adding to them what interests you. Anything that is exclusively yours can be kept in there, and when you just don’t want to deal with people you can shut them out.

At least that’s what Locke thought about his room. For years after the accident he had taken shelter in his bedroom, keeping the door closed and his music playing. When one of the twins cried he would come out of there, but the rest of the time he was hidden behind that wood door. Meals had been taken in there, homework was done in there, and he just didn’t bother with the TV. His room had been a safe haven when the world first ended. Right now he would like to head that way. Logic was nagging at him, saying that it wasn’t impossible for him to still have a mother. His dad had never mentioned her being dead, there were never any trips to a graveyard, no wedding ring that she might have left behind. People don’t just vanish when they die. Little things in their life are still around. Hugo had left behind the house of course, and it had everything that Locke had known his father by. The books he would read, an airplane impersonating computer tower, old glasses, checks from closed bank accounts. All Locke had was a photograph that was badly worn. It had been folded and unfolded so many times that the ink had rubbed away, dividing the image into four sections. Water had gotten on it, distorting some of the colors. Just one damaged photo for the life of a person.

Chase had headed towards his room, at a great pace as Locke made his way to his own room. Of course the teen was keeping an eye out for him. He had caused the whole mess by hiding the mail in his dictionary. If he had approached Ms. T right away she could have put a stop on his mail sooner. Less pictures for him to have to worry about, and that first one was really the only one that Locke had wanted to hold on to. He groaned, holding onto his head. That picture was just more evidence that Renee might possibly have told the truth, as psychotic as she was. Who would have taken the picture if his dad was in it too? It wasn’t like Hugo had been friends with Eaan’s dad yet. Locke didn’t even meet his best friend until he was well aware that there was no mommy around. His head was hurting him and the shaking of it wasn’t helping at all. Chase had turned back to normal, scared and hurt, but not threatening to Locke anymore, and the teen felt no uncontrollable rage towards him. Locke’s body was shaking worse than if he had run outside in just his boxers during the winter, and he couldn’t stop it from happening.

Once Locke got to his dorm room he noticed that Chase had reversed directions, this time traveling faster. That wasn’t all he noticed. He was pretty sure that it was Chase who he had felt run by. The person had just come from Chase’s room, and Locke was pretty certain that Chase had it to himself. What threw Locke of was the additional weight as the body ran past. It wasn’t as though a sumo wrestler had just charged past, but this didn’t feel like Chase’s normal weight. ”Oh shit,” he swore, tossing his backpack onto his bed. He knew that there was something called “fight or flight”. The fight portion had been Renee, who had a strange and sick fascination and hatred for Locke that he couldn’t even begin to fathom. That was Renee though, and the one who was fleeing was Chase. ”Shoulda known,” Locke berated himself. He grabbed his jacket.

What does a kid always do when they get caught doing something wrong? They try to hide it. No is a favorite word for toddlers to say because it is the easiest way to deny something. When he was Chase’s age Locke had always shoved a bad report card to the bottom of his backpack. Potty training Mai had been a nightmare because she would not say when she needed the bathroom. Chris once hid under the bathroom sink because he had ripped one of Locke’s baseball cards. The institute was large enough for Chase to find a different spot to hide every hour without repeats. If he went into the city that was all the more possibilities of places he could bunker down in and wait until the storm had passed.

Locke was going to chase after the kid and drag his bony butt back. There hadn’t been many times in which he had tried to run away from home. There were too many hills to have to climb up and down, some of which Locke still thought connected to the sky. But there had been a particularly bad day, one in which Locke’s temper had snapped and he lost it on his father. That day Locke had decided he didn’t want to be in that house one second longer. He wasn’t able to get very far, not just because of those hills but because it was a guarantee that Hugo never let Locke get more than a block away before going after him. On the day of the fight Hugo gave Locke the sharpest scolding in their time as a family. “We’re family. You’re stuck with me if you like it or not, so you better make the best of it.”

Family was one of the few things that Locke had faith in. His had fallen apart six years ago, and now was starting to repair. Chris and Mai had brought him out of his room, and things were better with Kendra. He wasn’t going to call her mom. Heck, he still couldn’t think of her as “step mom”. Kendra was Kendra, but there was now a mutual acceptance of each. Going after Chase on his own was the easy way. Without the Darth Vader shock, Locke could overpower Chase, drag him back inside. Chase could even turn into Locke and the teen would still have the advantage. Six years of practice being blind in one eye and understanding how different types of earth gave different signals. He could indeed drag Chase back inside.

But that didn’t address the why. Hugo did it because Locke had been angry at him. There had been nothing to fear from his father. Chase was running, and Locke would bet his entire Saw collection that the kid was scared. What had transpired in the library had been a traumatizing experience for all involved. Right now Locke couldn’t stop shaking, had a brain that was threatening to implode on him from this bombshell that was dropped, and the only color to his skin was the reddening of scratch marks on his face. How much more worse was Chase? The kid probably had never seen a horror movie, but his brain had been taken over by a stalking nut job. A violent stalking nut job! Right now Chase was going to need stability. Stability meant family.

Dad, how could you do this?[/I] Locke asked. It was one thought that managed to make its way through his mind. This headache was familiar, because it had happened six years before. Locke needed things to be the same. His dad had died, his eye was useless, his life had changed. Now he was handling his grief in a healthy way, but someone who was saying she was his mom wanted to kill him. When your life becomes unwoven there is no way to think. All that can happen in your head are emotions. Locke couldn’t handle emotions.

Ms. T could though. She told him a direction for his future right? Any guidance counselor could do that, but she had wanted to know what was wrong with him when his grades had slipped. Rather than just looking at the failing grades and seeing a student who didn’t care she wanted him to open up. Chase needed Ms. T the way that Locke had needed Kendra when the news of his dad was broken. For five years he had been trying to pull away from his stepmother, but when it mattered most, she had been sitting right at his side, holding onto his hand, trying to be an anchor.

This wasn’t the easy way out. Going to Ms. Taylor meant that Locke couldn’t sense where Chase was anymore. It meant that he was going to have to step down and give the reigns to someone else. There might not be blood connecting the kid with her, but blood didn’t have to mean everything. Hugo was blood, as were Chris and Mai, but by the same logic Renee, if she was indeed his dead mother, was as well.

The choice was made. Locke had run to Ms. Taylor’s office, and didn’t even bother to knock. Big Brother mode was still active, but it was version two point oh. “I’m over my head”. “Chase, running away,” he said, breathing heavy, his body still doing an imitation of a Chihuahua. He stumbled as he took another step closer, having to rely on his own sense of vision which, with his power turned off, was severely lacking. ”Outside.”

Locke burst in through the door without knocking. Gemma was, strangely enough, not used to that. She had a reputation that reminded kids to knock even when they were in a hurry. Just bursting in meant someone was in serious trouble.

>>“Chase, running away. Outside.”

Gemma dropped the paperwork she had been holding and crossed the room in two strides, grabbing Locke by the sleeve of his shirt, half to steady him and half to drag him along; she did not even slow down.

"What happened?"

Although the intention behind the grip on Locke's arm might have been to urge him into action, the teen was grateful for it for other reasons. He wasn't the affectionate type, constantly needing to hold his dad's hand as a child, or greet a friend not seen in a long time with a hug. His brief stint with a girlfriend failed because he had been too distant. Picking the twins up from daycare normally only meant the sacrifice of a few fingers. But when Locke felt the most adrift he needed human contact. By taking his arm Ms. Taylor was keeping Locke safe and balanced. She negated his sixth sense, which in turn meant that Locke's peripheral vision was cut in half and the world looked flat. Distances were wrong, so Locke couldn't be sure where it was safe for him to walk. She was to blame for his powers being turned off, but Ms. Taylor was taking actions to make things better. Having his powers turned off left Locke feeling defenseless, and, after the attack earlier, a little paranoid. With Ms. Taylor literally leading the way it was clear who was in charge of this situation. The thought that Locke had to yield to a higher authority was almost as frightening as having no powers. For years Locke had taken up the role of the one in charge. It had been up to him to make sure his dad got up off the computer and go outside. Kendra was perfectly capable of being a mother, and while Locke hated to admit it, she had been doing a good job with the twins. Still Locke had clung to his position, cooking meals, picking the twins up in the afternoon, and doing the laundry. Maybe it came from seeing how his dad had taken care of him, but Locke had a need inside of him to look after and take care of people, especially those younger than himself. To give that up meant that Locke couldn't be sure that the ones he wanted to protect were safe. It was better to know that if things went wrong he had been there, instead of wishing that he had and been able to prevent it. Only problem was that this time Locke was to blame for things going wrong, and he hadn't been able to prevent it. To make matters worse, matters got worse. Because Locke had given Chase a little space the kid now was trying to make it more.

Locke wanted to answer Ms. T's question. Obviously something had happened. You don't just rush in looking like you insulted a female guest on the Jerry Springer show to say hello, and kids don't run away unless there is something bothering them. He also knew that one of the first steps in handling kid crises is to gather as much information about what happened. If you know why the crying child is crying you can take steps to reverse it. Ms. T had to know why Chase was running away. A plate of warm oatmeal raisin cookies and a glass of cold milk was Locke's absolute final comforting technique. Anything less than that wasn't going to work to let Chase know things were alright. Cookies probably wouldn't work either. This was why Locke needed to go to college. There he could learn how to handle issues that hadn't been brought up by his siblings.

What would happen if he did tell Ms. T what had happened in the library? Not only would he be giving Chase the impression that he should behave because someone will snitch, but he'd only be able to say one side of the story. Locke couldn't say why Chase had to take those photos, or why he wouldn't listen and let them go. Ms. T was going to kill Locke for this. Yes Chase had been the one who had attacked, but Locke was older and should have known better than to let Chase get the pictures in the first place. Locke had exposed Chase to something so frightening that he no longer felt safe at the place more secure than Fort Knox. Forget about letting it slip to Chris that Santa Claus wasn't real, Locke had turned an innocent kid into a would be killer because he was too much of a coward to ask for help when he first got caught in over his head. Not to mention the fact that he had physically harmed a kid. Locke might be old-school when it came to some things, such as music, but one thing he had never advocated was striking a child. He might have broken the little guy's nose and why? To keep himself safe? What a jerk move.

"There was an accident," was the best Locke could offer as an explanation without betraying any small scrap of trust that Chase might still have in the teen. The distance between New York and California never felt so far as when Locke was hanging out with Kid Death. Because the kid was naive Locke could look past the years difference between him and the twins, and Chase became to him a surrogate little brother. There wasn't too much to tie him to San Francisco. The family home was the one he had lived in with his dad. In a year Eaan would be off at college, which left Kendra and the twins. They were his only ties to his hometown now. Chase reminded Locke of what he was leaving behind. It was painful, but almost a good sort of pain, like when he had stretched his leg out. "Something scared him." And that something was me.

He tried to remember the last location he could sense Chase in. The two had gone in different directions, which meant the closer Locke had gotten to Ms. T, the farther out of reach Chase was. Even if Ms. T hadn't been able to turn off Locke's powers once he stepped into her office Locke would have lost track of his young charge. Chase had vanished from his vision quite some time ago. Outside he was unable to spot Chase, and he couldn't even tell Ms. T what direction Chase had gone. If Chase had kept going the way he first did Locke might be of use, but if he changed directions they were flying blind. "Where would he go?"

>>"There was an accident. Something scared him. Where would he go?"

Dragging Locke along Gemma marched to the front lobby of the Mansion and stopped there to gather her thoughts. There was not much to go on with what Locke said, and she had a feeling he was keeping it intentionally vague. She also realized with growing dread she had no idea where Chase would go. The last time he bolted he went to a friend, but she had not seen that friend around ever since and Chase did not mention him again. He was also friends with Agnes, wich meant he might be in her room. Gemma hoped he would not leave the Mansion.

Turning back to Locke she decided she needed more information.

"What scared him?..." she looked at the kid "Look, Locke, I know this is awkward, but if we want to find Chase I need to know everything you know. He has run away before and I don't want it to happen again, so the sooner we find him the better. Tell me what happened. Please."

There is that moment when you realize what you have to do and you know that you are royally screwed either way. You might be playing solitaire and realize that the computer has dealt you a game that has no possible way of winning, or you just found out the person you are partnered up with on your class project knows the subject, but is a lazy bum. For Locke the damned if you do, damned if you don’t moment was right now. Ms. T had no clue where Chase might be hiding out, which meant that she needed him to give more than just “there was an accident”. Locke had really needed Ms. Taylor to know where Chase felt that he would be safe. She was his mother, so he thought she would have more insight into the workings of the nine year old’s mind. Then again Kendra had been living with Locke for years and she didn’t expect him to go to New York City. New York was one of the two major locations you went to try to become famous, which Locke had zero interest in. Actually if you paid money to pursue such an interest, then someone would owe the teen major moola. Rather than stand out in a crowd or see his name in lights Locke wanted to fade into the background, to be no more spectacular than anyone else. There really hadn’t been anything special about New York to draw him there, so Kendra had no reason to suspect that Locke would leave. Maybe parents didn’t always know what to expect of their kids. Logic dictated the actions the Californian took, but logic was a little different when you are young. He didn’t get why a cookie would spoil his dinner when he didn’t want to eat what was there anyways. Right now kid logic was saying that the school wasn’t a safe place because Locke was in the school. No, forget about the teen. He was frightening enough but Ms. Taylor was downright grade A horror movie monster potential. You do not want to make your parents angry, and although Locke had strove to do so, ticking off a legal guardian isn’t a good idea either. Moms, no matter what type, were not to be messed with.

Which reminded Locke, not that he had forgotten, about his own mother, or at least what was being presented to him as such. There wasn’t much room for hope in him. Hope requires believing in something that you can’t explain, something greater than yourself. Right now the small pockets of it that Locke had were pooling together in hopes that Renee really wasn’t his own mother. How sick and wrong was it that Locke would rather have his mother be dead than alive after all these years? He wanted his dad to be alive instead of dead, and his mom dead instead of alive. Awkward didn’t even to begin to sum things up. Awkward was having a spare pair of underpants fall out of your sweatpants in gym class or saying “cheese clamp” to a reasonably attractive girl. Disturbing, sickening, twisted and wrong were just a part of what had happened in the library. Right now he didn’t even want to think about Renee, but he wasn’t sure how to tell Ms. Taylor why Chase was afraid and running away without thinking about that. Locke pulled at the sleeves of his jacket, trying to draw some extra warmth into him. His jaw was starting to ache in trying to stop his shaking.

”It was Renee,” Locke said. The attack on Locke had been caused by Renee, who might or might not be related to him, but it wasn’t Chase’s fault. Chase wasn’t aware of just how dangerous a mind could be, or maybe he had no idea what his limitations were. Locke had more maturity, perhaps more than the normal team, but that came with age and his life experiences. He knew when his body felt like all the moisture in him was sucked away that he had to stop. Maybe it wasn’t that Chase didn’t know how to stop, maybe it was that he couldn’t. Locke’s power depended upon his mental strength and his will. If he wasn’t stubborn with the soil it wouldn’t do what he wanted it to, and if his mind was weak Fluffy wouldn’t even move at all. Earth sense worked best after he had some time to wake up in the morning, once the brain fuzzes had cleared. ”She said she was my mom.”

Locke’s voice spoke more of his confusion than his face could. To be honest he was in shock. Not the “oh you threw me a birthday party!” shock, but rather the “seek medical attention” shock. While the ground didn’t try to hurt Locke, the teen felt as though he was buried up to his neck in the dirt, tightly packed in there. ”She wanted to kill me. Chase was just trying to help.” Ms. T had to understand that Chase hadn’t meant to do something wrong. It was safe to say that Locke’s stalker was dangerous, the same way one might say that quicksand was dangerous. You could get hurt, or die if you weren’t smart and avoided it. Then again the road to hell is paved with good intentions, and the nine year old might as well have been holding a trowel and some cement. ”So he took the pictures.”

>>”It was Renee... She said she was my mom... She wanted to kill me. Chase was just trying to help... So he took the pictures.”

Locke was still not making much sense, but the beginnings of the story were starting to unfold. His stalker... had something to do with Chase's diappearance. And she claimed to be his mother?... Gemma cursed silently at herself for being so out of the loop. This matter needed to be dealt with once and for all. Mother or no mother, trying to kill a Mansion student was something she was responsible for stopping.

Stopping outside the front door, she turned to look at Locke.

"Okay. Calm down. Take a breath." she said, trying to keep her own voice calm. She was good at that. "Chase took the pictures... of you? The ones you showed me?... What happened next?"

Step by step. There was something in there tha would tell her where Chase might be. Hopefully.

Why on Earth was Ms. T still asking Locke questions about what happened? Did she want to know exactly what they said at every second, what Renee looked like? He had told her enough, at least in his mind, for them to take action. Rarely did Locke want to rush head first into things. It was better he thought to take the time to think things through before making an action. Board games that put you up against a timer where annoying to him because Locke couldn’t make his mind move fast enough to be able to draw penguins. This was a different situation though. Within seconds a kid could wander off. This had been more than a few seconds, and the longer that Ms. Taylor wanted to delay them, the farther away that Chase could get, if the boy was still on the move. Wandering off in a grocery store is different from running away. Ms. T had taken Locke seriously when he had told her that Chase was running away, for which he was thankful, but she was just wasting valuable time now, trying to find additional information that Locke couldn’t provide.

”Yes, those pictures,”, Locke said, taking a breath like Ms. T had told him to do. He took a couple of steps away from her, trying to sense out Kid Death, but there still was nothing out of the left side of his body. ”I told him that Detective Cervantes was looking in to it and Chase got the idea that he could just turn into my stalker. He was trying to help, really.” Locke didn’t want to tell more than that. Both he and Chase were going down with this one. Punishment usually was worse for the older person involved. Not that Locke could think of anything Ms. T could do that topped how Renee said hello. That was another reason why he didn’t want to tell Ms. T more of the details. With just the knowledge of what happened in the library being between the two involved Locke could argue away the events. Dealing with someone else’s issues was a hell of a lot easier than having to face the messed up ones in his life. Not a comforting thought when you consider that insanity is hereditary. Coupled with the stories that Hugo could have told about the violent tantrums that Locke was entirely capable of throwing when younger, the future looked bleak for the teen.

And if Renee had been his mother, there was obviously some sort of mental imbalance. Suppose that it was something that was hereditary. Since Locke was the only child of his father and his mother he was facing a fifty-fifty chance that he was going to get the crazy gene. Factor in his inability to express emotions like a normal human being and the odds were less in his favor. Not only was Renee a threat to Locke’s past, the lie of his family that he had convinced himself was truth, but his present and future. Clearly she wanted him dead. Stalker part aside that was a threat on his existence. Why was she doing this to him now? She had to have known where he lived prior to New York. The family home had been the same no matter what family members came and went. Locke didn’t even know how many years his mother had been out of the picture. His memories of her were so faint that he wasn’t even clear on what had happened and what he might have imagined. Why was she so focused in on him now?

”If she is.. I don’t,” Locke struggled and strained. It took tremendous effort to get words to come out of his mouth at all when all his lungs wanted to do was collapse in on themselves. His eyebrows drew closer together as his eye grew more focused and a frown took over his mouth. Words were there behind his lips, and maybe in his brain he could have stood a chance of putting them together if it didn’t feel like someone had injected his skull with Novocain. This is where his tantrums came from when he was younger, and where much of Locke’s frustration as a teen came from. Whenever it was critical that he express emotions or thoughts on the subject he just couldn’t get the words to come out. ”His nose got hit and he ran off.” Locke managed to say instead. There was a desire for him to tell Ms. Taylor that it was his mom who had been trying to hurt him, but once he had mentioned it already he couldn’t get himself to repeat it. Heck, he couldn’t quite get himself to start believing it.

>>”Yes, those pictures. I told him that Detective Cervantes was looking in to it and Chase got the idea that he could just turn into my stalker. He was trying to help, really.”

Locke was obviously struggling with remembering, or telling her what happened. She knew he trusted her, at least most of the time, but this felt like something else. guilt? Hesitation? Confusion?
Gemma nodded as she listened. Chase turning into someone else did have mental side-effects, she knew that much, although the extent of his powers was not clear since henever used them around her. But if the stalker person was something who scared Locke that much, she could piece the rest together.

>>”If she is.. I don’t. His nose got hit and he ran off.”

Gemma sighed. There it was. She nodded, letting Locke know it was all good.

"Did he shift back when he ran?..." she looked around, and ntoed that Locke stepped back "Can you sense him outside my aura?..."

Telling Ms. T about hitting Chase's nose seemed to be the key in getting her to want to move again, but it was one thing that Locke had really not wanted to let her know about. As if the mental deep fry wasn't enough reason to throw the book at Locke, along with the great risk to both the health of Chase and the teen, Locke had actually harmed Chase. Nature was cruel and liked to put an extremely vulnerable spot where it would get hit. It didn't take much to knock someone out by hitting their nose, and just a little more than that could put them in the black permanently. They had been lucky that Locke's elbow hadn't made enough contact to do such damage, but giving the kid a bloody nose wasn't a good thing to tell his mom. It had been an accident. All Locke wanted to do at the time was to get Renee off of him and get Chase back. Neither one was skilled at grappling, even though Locke would occasionally wrestle with Fluffy, so some awkward and potentially painful outcomes should have been expected. Still, he had hurt a kid. Well, at the time Chase hadn't been a kid, but still. What college would want him to take classes in working with kids when he hurt one of them? More importantly would anyone let him near kids with that information. Plus the insanity thing. Oh sure, Locke could declare that he had been acting in self defense, but that almost made the entire situation worse.

What Locke had wanted to ask Ms. T before he couldn't even think of. What he wanted was someone to tell him the truth of the morning. No, scratch that. The truth was inky right now, inky and frightening. Instead of the truth, which could be almost anything, Locke wanted to be told that he was right. His dad had loved his mom, his mom had died, and it was too painful to talk about. No insane mother, nobody trying to get in contact with him after all these years, not now when his life was starting to be good. He didn't want to, and wasn't entirely sure, he could handle having to start his life over yet again. Renee was a reset button that had been pushed in, but not yet released so that the program is frozen in time.

Did Chase shift back into himself? Ms. T wanted to know, but Locke wasn't looking at her. His head was turned in the other direction, as if by staring that way he could a: avoid having to discuss the matter further, and b: see where Chase might have gone. Like so many questions that Kendra had posed, Locke simply ignored it. If he did not wish to answer it was easy enough for him to gloss over it and pretend he hadn't heard it. He did hear her ask if Locke could sense Chase outside of her aura. At last, she was taking action in locating the kid. Not prone to feel rushed, Locke didn't like this ants in the pants sensation of being forced to wait. Even his mutation worked in reaction rather than action itself. What was that saying about drawing the sword first?

Locke chewed on his lip, dangerous given the state his body was in, and tried to curl into himself. Ideally he should take more space up on the ground, lay down or something. The more contact with the earth the teen made the farther he could sense things and the more information he could gather. That was part of the reason why he didn't get rid of his thin soled shoes. It had taken him hours of walking, running, movement, sometimes at great pain, to wear down the high tops soles this much. Thicker soles made things harder to sense. Socks could be an issue too, depending upon the material. He took another step away and tried to sense out Chase. "Dunno. He's hard to pick up sometimes, especially if he's changing. And if he's gotten too far away from us already, or if we go in the wrong way...

>>"Dunno. He's hard to pick up sometimes, especially if he's changing. And if he's gotten too far away from us already, or if we go in the wrong way...

Gemma took a few steps back to make sure Locke was out of her aura, then nodded.

"It's okay, we'll find him. We'll start on the Mansion grounds, and hope he did not get further. If we don't find him, I have a few ideas where he might have run. But for now, just try to look around here. Let's go."

She looked; she did not have a sixth sense, but that did not mean she could not search. But before she started, she turned back to look at Locke.

"None of this is your fault. Just so you know. Come on, let's find Chase."

There was always such a sense of relief when Locke was outside of Ms. T’s range. He would admit that he depended upon his earth sense way too much, but he didn’t want to try to function without it. Part of the mending from the car crash involved him having to learn Braille. Locke had learned the alphabet, so as long as things were spelled out, letter by letter, he was able to read it. However this did nothing for him if the different contractions were used. In other words, he was stuck on Cat in the Hat when the world was reading War and Peace. There hadn’t been a need for him to get a service dog or start walking with a cane, but Locke substituted that with his powers. For Ms. T to back away enough that Locke’s powers were turned back on was important. Not only because Locke felt more comfortable, something that he didn’t feel since he had been attacked in the library, but also because it meant that finding Chase would be that much more easier.

Not that it was easy to pick up on Chase. If it had been one of the twins Locke could find them instantaneously. The longer he knew someone, the more familiar he was with how they picked up on. Other factors helped to make it easier, or harder. When Locke worked with a golem his earth sense increased dramatically. A good solid rock, or a when there was a layer of frost, Locke could ‘see’ almost as well as if he were to be sitting on the ground. Sand made everything fuzzy, while the carpet on the concrete floors muted the vibes. Glass and certain metals spoke to the teen, however the former was too brittle to work with and the latter too heavily modified. Wooden floors were the bane of his existence, much like adapts were. Should he kick his shoes off and lay on the ground in hopes of picking up the elusive changeling? It would seem that he didn’t have to. Although incredibly faint, Locke was picking up on someone. Locke found himself doubting what his powers were telling him. For one thing the person was far enough away that they just barely registered to him. They were like a blur that’s just behind the corner of your eye, or the word that rests in your mouth but not in your brain. To be honest Locke wasn’t even sure that what he felt was human. There wasn’t any height given to what he sensed, only the knowledge that something was resting against the vibes he sensed. Still, it was the best that he had to go on, and he pointed in the direction, his arm trembling, but unaware he was trying to get them to go to one of his worst nightmares.

Ms. Taylor insisted that this wasn’t his fault. Perhaps Locke was just cynical, which he was, but there was no way on earth that this could not be his fault. Who was the one with the stalker sending creepy photos? Oh yeah, that’d be me. And who had stuck the pictures into the dictionary? Yup, me again. Now, does anyone know who didn’t hand those ones to the detective investigating the case? I’m starting to see a trend here. Renee’s words haunted Locke. ”If Mommy can’t have you, nobody can.” What had he done in the past to make his mom, if Renee was his mom, to drive her to this. Kids change their parents, be it in subtle ways like a few gray hairs or a fondness for Disney songs, or drastic measures. While he had no children of his own, taking care of the twins had gotten Locke to actually step out of his room and go back to a more normal sort of life. Had he been able to deal with the pressure that loomed over his head, who knows. Maybe then Locke wouldn’t be as grim as he was these days. Even if he hadn’t done anything to Renee it was something. The absence of him sure didn’t seem to make her happy. She wanted to own him, which you can’t do if someone is already yours. On the whole, the concept of owning someone was antiquated, but Locke could understand it. Although he might have been more athletic, there was no denying that he was his father’s son, a part of his dad that still was running around. Where was the part that belonged to Renee.

If one were to operate under the assumption that it wasn’t Locke’s fault he had a stalker, which was how Ms. T was going about this, he still was to blame for Chase’s running away. It had been his elbow that had given the kid a bloody nose, nobody else’s. At the time there had been more concern on Locke’s part for his own safety than that of the child. That on it’s own could possibly be waived off as basic human survival. He was being threatened and needed to defend himself. When you factored in Locke’s emotions though, that was where the guilt laid. Not the sense of it, but the actual judgment. In the end Locke hadn’t taken the pictures away from Chase the second the kid laid eyes on them. Not because Locke was focused on his homework, not because he had trusted that Chase would listen to him, but because that part of himself that he so despised had wanted Chase to take them. A large and dark part of Locke wanted to know who had sent him the photos and didn’t mind using the kid to find out. One thing Locke knew, really knew, was earthquakes. The problem with them isn‘t always the quake itself, because there are ways to live through it. The problem was the after effects of it. Food spoiled, water mains break, dust released into the air, and the damages invite all manner of dangerous creatures to find a new shelter. His stalker was up there on the Richter‘s scale, but these after shocks were nothing to scoff at.”You keep saying this isn’t my fault, but some how I keep ending up being the epicenter.”

>>”You keep saying this isn’t my fault, but some how I keep ending up being the epicenter.”

"That does not mean it is your fault" Gemma noted, walking in the direction Locke poitned without questioning his decision or asking how he knew; a faint clue was all she needed right now.

"Sometimes we cannot help but end up in the center of trouble" she added, looking around, hoping to catch a glimpse of Chase "And this is a school of mutants. All of us are aware of the risks of having a bunch of people in a small place who can't always control their powers. I knew this when I signed up for it, and it is my responsibility to keep all of you safe. So, let's go find Chase, and all will be okay. I promise you I am not blaming you for any of this. Or Chase."

She kept walking in the direction Locke had pointed. She hoped it was the right choice.

"Chase?..."

Never the sort to joke about, Locke had been serious as a heart attack about him being an epicenter. His screensaver showed where earthquakes had hit, how far out their damage stretched. Every day he worked with the earth, sensed how it moved and shifted on its own. Earthquakes were caused from plates pressing against each other, then moving unexpectedly.
She was right though, Locke wasn't an epicenter. That is just what you see on the surface. No, Locke was more like the hypocenter. What caused this related to him, but it was so far back in his past that he was unable to see it.

Right now Locke was having problems seeing how all this could be ok. His family history was, to say the least, messed up. He knew that you shouldn't get stuck in the past, at least that's what every shrink that he had to talk to told him. Did they understand that sometimes there's no way to avoid it? Whatever had happened prior to today that caused Renee to have such an unhealthy fixation on him was going to have to be addressed. Two mothers contending over one child was going to be like a nuclear fallout. But it wasn't just Locke having to face Renee that did not bode well in the teen. Chase was trying to run away because of him, didn't Ms. T get that? The kid needed to be found, but Locke was the last person on earth that the kid wanted to see. He had to look like some sort of monster to the little guy.

Locke had no doubts as to what direction Chase was in now that he had a moment to look with his powers. Chase's impression on the earth was always strange, given that he could shift from one person to another, and he was so young still that he hardly made an imprint. However the boy was making more contact with the ground than usual, and it felt strange enough to confirm to Locke he had picked the right way. He sprinted ahead of Ms. T, sort of like a scent hound.

A scent hound however will continue to hunt it's quarry. Locke had to pull up short when he realized where Chase was. The teen pivoted, looking at Ms. Taylor, a sick look in his face. "He's in the maze," he told her. With the way that he said it you'd have thought that Locke witnessed the kid get run over by a bus. This was something that Locke could not bring himself to do. Riding in a car could be tolerated, provided that he sat in the backseat in the middle. Even then Locke's hands were kept clenched tightly on his jean's knees. "I can't go in there."

Locke ran ahead, and she followed him, also running. She hoped his powers would be enough to find Chase, but her mind was already working on other possibilities.
They stopped short at the maze, and Locke looked alarmed.

>>"He's in the maze... I can't go in there."

"That's okay" she said calmly. Whatever the reason, they could talk about that later "Thank you, Locke. I can take it from here. I'll see you inside, okay? You're gonna be fine."

With that, she walked into the maze, trying to catch a glimpse on Chase in any shape or form.

"Chase?... Chase, honey, it's me. Are you there?..."