Power and Fury Pt.2
by demented20
Secrets are revealed; Heather plots revenge, and blood is spilled.

Continued...

Jan Caufield was starting to fit in at Livingston Academy. She didn't quite think she liked the school, but the girls there were not so bad. Alisha was good for several laughs a day and she was great at calculus and physics, two subjects Jan hated. Heather Brock was another story. She and her gang kept a watch on Jan, but they stayed away. Jan kept an eye out for them, but she guessed that they had learned their lesson from the last fight. She was wrong.

Heather Brock was not one to give up easily. She was going to make Jan Caufield pay and pay dearly. Her mind was working on scenarios both complex and simple to punish the one girl in school who didn't fall in line. Heather knew that you didn't have to beat up every girl in school to dominate. You just had to pick out some good examples and make sure they understood who the boss was. Jan Caufield refused to understand. Heather was glad that Jan didn't go around bragging about what had happened in the gym. That would have forced Heather to act more quickly and probably foolishly. With Jan keeping her mouth shut Heather had time to plan things perfectly. When everything was in place, Jan would understand.

Jan went on with her life at school while Heather plotted. On some days, Jan would start to think that the girls at Livingston were normal, but then she would remind herself for the hundredth time that Livingston was just an expensive reform school. Other days she would think that the other girls were worse off than she, but she reminded herself that she had secrets. Jan had secrets that she would rather tell and get off of her mind, but life was better with the secrets she judged. Jan had been at Livingston for nearly a month, and was sure that she could keep her secrets secret, spend eight more months in school, graduate and go to college.

Alisha had no long term plans. She had told Jan that on more than one occasion. On most nights Jan and Alisha talked about little more than nothing, but one night it got more serious.

"Jan?"

"Yeah"

"Do you ever wonder why some people are more fucked up than others?"

Jan could hear the seriousness in Alisha's voice. "I don't think about it much. Shit happens."

"I do. Some of the girls here try to act like what they do is normal. I don't try to hear that shit. I know I have some problems."

"I think you're a good person, Alisha. You're the nicest girl at the whole school."

Alisha laughed through tears that Jan couldn't see in the darkness, but could hear. "I've fucked 18 different boys and two girls since I was fourteen. And I don't mean once or twice. I mean a lot. I've been here for a year and a half. That's the only reason I haven't had more. When I go home in the summers, my parents actually hire a guard to make sure that I don't make a fool out of them and fuck someone important. I tried to get him back to my room, the guard they hired to watch me, but I think the old fucking man is a eunuch." Alisha laughed again. This one was weaker than the first.

Jan wondered what to say. This was so far out of her experience that she stayed quiet.

"I would just fuck and fuck and fuck. It's fuckin bad when you wear out a teenage boy."

Silence filled the room. "I don't know what to say", Jan admitted. "I always thought you were here for hacking or something. Did you ever think about diseases?"

"I never got caught hacking, not by the cops anyway. My parents found out, but no, my parents didn't give a shit about any of that. Just the sex. And yes I did think about diseases, but I didn't worry about them. I just had to do it. Couldn't stop."

"What about now?"

"I don't know. I might be different. I mean I'm not after you, right."

Jan laughed. "That's something."

"What about you? I know you have a secret or two."

Jan's heart seemed to freeze then she started to say something. She started to tell the truth, but she couldn't make herself. "Not tonight, Alisha. Some other time." Jan rolled over and tried to go to sleep, but her brain had too much information coursing through it for that. Jan sat up half the night in darkness.

Sara Hewitt and Jan Caufield were in the same French IV class. Sara wondered daily why she ever decided to take French, but it was too late to change now. Jan was good at French and a nice person. They had become friends although they were almost opposites. Jan was outgoing and willing to talk to almost anyone, while Sara was shy and had to be coaxed from her shell. It had taken Jan only a day to get Sara to open up to her. Sara and Jan were almost comical walking down the hall together though. Sara Hewitt was a wisp of a girl barely 5'2" weighing no more than 100 pounds soaked to the bone with rocks in her pockets. Jan thought it was funny to pat the shorter blond girl on the top of the head. Sara would normally have hated it, but when Jan did it Sara laughed along with everyone else.

Sara was leaving her afternoon AP English class when Heather Brock walked by. Sara made sure she kept her distance from Heather. Heather was bad news and Sara wanted to stay off her radar screen, but today something was different. As Heather strode past, Sara felt a chill. A bead of sweat rolled down Sara's temple. "My God", she whispered to herself. Sara had made a promise to herself when she came to Livingston. Sara was going to live like everyone else lived. She was going to live with only her five senses and her brain like everyone else did, but the chill she got from Heather made her afraid.

'Maybe just a little bit of snooping', Sara told herself, breaking her promise to herself. She backed up against the wall and closed her eyes and let loose the bonds she had built for herself. Her mind expanded like an blossoming flower. Heather had no idea what was happening when her head started swimming. It lasted an instant. Heather shook her big head and kept walking, only to get dizzy again a moment later. This spell lasted for no more than three seconds then it was gone. She needed food she told herself and continued.

In the hall Sara's face had gone ashen and her hands gripped her books until her little knuckles were white. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She had to find Jan quickly. She almost let her mind loose again, but this time she shook her head. 'No', she told herself. Once was enough. She knew where Jan would be. Sara closed her mind and let it fold back in on itself before running down the hall and to the stairs.

Jan sat in her room thinking about how much she liked woodworking. She had started doing crafts at her former high school, but now she really liked woodworking. She realized that she had a knack for it. It must have been some sort of psychological response to the things she had destroyed in her past. Jan had taken a project to build a trunk and chair in one. She picked three good two by fours and got to work. Alisha had been supportive until she had learned that the trunk/chair was going to be built in the dorm room. Alisha liked her music, but she didn't like noise. To Jan, Alisha's music was noise.

"I do have to study tonight", Alisha informed Jan.

"Come on! I'm not making that much noise."

Alisha had to raise her voice to be heard over the sound of the hammer. "Yes, you are."

"I'm sorry. Just let me finish this cross brace."

Alisha huffed and plopped on her bed. Jan miss hit the nail and bent it against the wood.

"Well that's just great. This was going to be stained."

"You know, Jan, you've been acting weird. Like you're just better than everyone else."

"What? Where the hell is that coming from? I'm acting the same as I always do."

"Like why the hell are you here?"

"I told you", Jan began, "I will talk about that later."

"That's not fucking fair. I've told you about my secrets why don't you me yours?"

"You want to know my secret?", Jan demanded, anger beginning to well.

"Yeah!"

"Fine!", Jan yelled and slammed her left hand down on the top of her work table. She took up the hammer in her right hand and raised it high over her head. In a blur she brought it down. The hollow sound that filled the room told Alisha that what she had heard matched what she had seen. She quickly looked at Jan's face in time to see the pain pass in her eyes and her face begin to redden.

"What the fuck?", Alisha yelled jumping back.

"That's my secret." Jan pulled the hammer off her left index finger slowly. The fibers of the wood beneath her finger had been compressed, but only a thin imprint of the hammer head showed on her index finger. Jan raised her hand and bent her fingers. Her nail was not even broken.

"That's my secret, Alisha."

"That you're a fucking sadist!"

Jan smiled. "No, I'm indestructible, or near enough."

"What?"

"I can't injure myself."

Alisha sat down on her bed, suddenly drained of energy. Her mind was taking it all in trying to comprehend what she had just witnessed.

"So you like to hurt yourself?"

"No not at all." Jan dropped the hammer and sat down on her bed. "I'll tell you a story. Everything in it is true.

"When I was six we used to live on this quiet street. Not too many cars. I was playing in the front yard and the ball hit my knee and rolled out into the middle of the street. I was young and stupid and ran out to get it. I remember bending over to get the ball. I didn't see the car in time. I didn't even hear it. It was going too fast, like it was on the interstate. It must have been going fifty or sixty miles an hour. I remember bending down more and getting ready to get hit. I can still feel the impact. My mother rushed me to the hospital. I was treated for three deep bruises, on my shoulder, hip, and thigh. The guy driving the car spent three days in critical condition. I've seen pictures. The car looked like it hit a tree or a boulder or something, but it didn't. It only hit me", Jan's voice trailed off.

"By the time I was eight or nine, I realized that I couldn't really damage myself. Pain is an auto-immune response that tells a person when they are doing damage to their bodies. I learned that I couldn't damage myself. I used to stand by the garage and wave good-bye to my parents when they went of to work. I would wear sandals or be barefoot just so I could feel the car roll over my toes. I would bash my head against brick and stone walls. One time I put my head through a wall. I tore my sweater, but that was it. My parents thought that I just liked pain. That wasn't it at all. I just knew that I couldn't damage myself, but some things hurt like hell."

"So you can't be hurt at all?"

"I can be hurt, just not injured", Jan stated matter of factly.

"You can't be cut or anything?", Alisha asked almost blankly.

Jan laughed. "I got a razor one time and cut myself on my left arm all the way to the bone. I almost peed myself it hurt so bad. It took me five minutes to cut about an inch deep. It dulled the blade so bad that it would barely cut anything when I was finished with it. I worried all day about how to tell my parents that I needed stitches on my arm. But it had sealed itself up by the end of the day. I don't even have a scar now."

Jan held out her arm palm up. The flawless skin didn't show any scars.

"I haven't seen you try to hurt yourself. Well not until a minute ago."

"I don't do that anymore, I broke myself from it. About a year ago, I tried to jump from one building to another. I tried to make the fifteen foot distance, but mistimed my jump. I fell about thirty feet. My head hit a dump truck. I put a big ass dent in that truck bed. I had a headache for nearly a week. That didn't do it though. My family went on vacation. I got the idea to jump from the top of the hotel into the swimming pool. So I got to the top of the roof in my bathing suit and jumped."

"Did you jump into the pool?"

"Hell no!", Jan laughed. "I missed and landed on the deck feet first. It hurt me so bad you don't even want to know."

"How tall was the hotel?"

"Fifteen stories."

"You jumped from a hundred and fifty fucking feet!"

Jan laughed quickly. "Yeah. I was three inches shorter for a long time. Like I said, that more or less broke me from hurting myself. I figured that if jumping from the top of a building didn't kill me, I didn't want to feel anything worse. I think I had some internal injuries from that for a while."

Alisha went quiet.

"Come on, say something. You can say I'm a freak. I am."

"I'm just trying to figure out if you're lying, crazy, or what?"

"I'm not crazy. And I'm not lying. See look!" Jan pulled up her left pant leg to show that there was no scar from Heather's blow torch torture.

Alisha leaned in and looked. Jan had taken to wearing longer socks with her uniform and pants when not in uniform. Alisha had guessed that it had been to hide the sore, but now she saw that it was exact opposite.

"Alisha, say something please." Jan reached up and grabbed her hammer. "Here hit me."

"Come on."

"No really. I can take the pain. Here hit me." Jan held up the hammer.

"I'm not going to fucking hit you."

"Suit yourself. Don't say I didn't offer."

"How do you live like this?"

"Without fear mostly. I've done pretty much what I wanted. I mean I bought a junker car one time just so I could run it into a guard rail on the interstate. My parents didn't know anything about it."

"Are you sure you're not crazy?"

"I'm pretty sure. I mean it was never really about the pain. I just wanted to be normal. I wanted to be like everyone else. I just wanted to hurt myself to prove that I could do it, you know." Jan opened her mouth and nothing came out. Her weeping began suddenly.

Alisha went over to her friend and put her arm around her shoulder.

"I don't know why I'm like this. I didn't want it. I don't want it!"

"Like you said, shit happens. This is kinda cool though. Have you ever looked at the bright side of this?"

Jan looked up with her tear streaked face. "I think I've experienced just about every way someone can try to hurt themselves."

"I think I got to see some of that temper you told me about."

"That was only the tip of the iceberg." Jan started wiping her tears.

"So that's the reason your parents sent you here?", Alisha asked.

"Well, my secret has two parts." Jan stood up and went over to the project. "I get some other abilities when I get angry." Jan stared at the bent nail on the side of her project and reached out with her thumb and index finger. Alisha saw the anger come back to her friend's face. Then she saw Jan squeeze the nail and begin to straighten it. Veins stood out on Jan's forearm as she squeezed the nail harder. After the nail straightened, Jan pulled her hand back away from the now straight nail and with smooth force, she began to push it in. Her triceps flared with power as the nail bit into the wood. Jan pushed the nail all the way in with a final grunt of effort.

Alisha could not say anything. Her mouth did not hang open only because she consciously kept it shut. Jan took several deep breaths as she let the anger wash away.

"So you're super strong too?", Alisha finally managed to ask.

"Not most of the time. Only when I get mad or really really concentrate. So you don't ever have to worry about me accidentally crushing anything, or hurting anyone."

"But your parents were."

Jan paused at the words for a moment. "Yeah. Like I said, my temper gets pretty bad. I've kicked the car door off one time, and I put a hole in the wall of our house once. One time I broke our deck off its foundations. My parents began to worry that I might turn my anger towards them. I never even had a thought." Jan started crying again. "You would think that they knew that I wouldn't ever hurt them. Have they ever heard of love?"

Alisha rubbed her friend's shoulder. "Did you ever tell them that?"

Jan wiped tears back over her cheek. "No, I mean I do get mad at them, but ... Maybe I should have. I don't know if they would have listened anyway."

Alisha rubbed Jan's shoulder a while longer not knowing what to say. Finally she stood up. "I don't think of you any differently than I did before. I mean, I knew you were fucking weird. This just confirms it. If I was fucking invincible, I would be a fucking terror. Nobody could tell me a damn thing. School!?! Fuck that! I wouldn't even be here. Your parents should thank God everyday that you're as normal as you are."

Jan nodded her head and looked up from the ground. "Thanks, Alisha. You're the only person I've really told my whole story to. Most of my friends back home think that I have some form of CIPA and can't feel pain as much."

Alisha laughed. "I'm fucking honored!"

Jan reached down and picked up her hammer. "Are you sure you don't want to hit me, just to get it over with?"

"What? I thought we fucking talked about this already."

"You'll always be wondering, because after this I'm not going to do any of this shit again. I just want you to get it over with so you won't be wondering."

Alisha took the hammer in her hand. "Are you sure? This is fucking weird feeling. I mean I don't normally hit people with hammers."

"You might like it, just don't like it too much." Jan laughed.

Alisha shrugged her shoulders. "What the hell. Where do you want me to hit you?"

"Right here and don't waste it." Jan pointed to a spot on the side of her head.

Alisha couldn't believe that she was doing this. Her roommate sat on the edge of the bed opposite her project calmly waiting to be hit with a hammer. Alisha raised the hammer. Jan didn't look straight at Alisha, instead she looked off at the far wall. Alisha saw a spot on the side of Jan's head and without another thought, she brought the hammer down on that spot. The hammer struck Jan on the side of her head near the temple. Alisha felt the hammer hit home and felt the resistance from Jan's head for an instant before it jerked back away from the force of the blow. The hollow thump filled the room in the instant before Jan's arms flailed in the air getting near her head, but never reaching it. A sharp yelp came from Jan's mouth. She fell forward from the bed to the floor pulling her other tools down on top of her. Jan hit the floor face first and did not move.

Alisha dropped the hammer and stood stunned. "Jan!" She rushed over where her head had hit the floor. "Oh my God. I fucking knew it! That finger thing was a fucking a joke. Oh my God! I can't believe it!" Alisha started to tear up and sob. She put her face in her hands and sank down to her knees. She said Jan's name over and over again as she sobbed.

"Oh, Jan, I'm so sorry!"

"For what?", Jan asked as she pushed herself up to her knees. "I'm fine."

"You fucking bitch! I can't believe you did that to me!"

Jan stood up. "I had to. I couldn't help myself."

"That was mean!" Alisha smiled and wiped tears at the same time. She stood up herself.

"I told you that I can't be injured. Now wasn't that fun?"

Alisha slapped Jan on the shoulder. "No! I can't believe I did it in the first place."

Jan laughed. "You did. Now, can you help me pick all this stuff up?"

Jan told Alisha more stories of the things she had done to herself and tried to answer all of Alisha's questions. Alisha was the best friend Jan had ever had and now that she had told her secret, Jan wanted to make sure she kept her as a friend.

After more than an hour of talking. "You want to get a snack?", Jan asked.

"Are you sure you have to eat?", Alisha asked with a smile.

Jan shook her head. "I've never tried to starve myself, but yeah I'm pretty sure I need to eat."

"Just kidding."

Sara caught Jan and Alisha as they headed back to their room from buying their snack. Sara was winded and her uniform had a smudge of dirt on it like she had fallen. Her usually pretty blond hair was sweat stuck to the side of her head. Jan spoke first.

"Sara, what the hell?"

"Jan, I need to talk to you!", she nearly shouted with her proper Mississippi accent.

Jan took Sara by the shoulders to steady her. Alisha took Sara's books and waited with concern to hear what was so important.

Sara looked up at Jan then over to Alisha before speaking. She had wanted to talk to Jan alone, but this concerned Alisha too. She took a deep breath before speaking. "Heather Brock has it out for you, Jan. She wants to hurt you."

Jan smiled. "Yeah, I know. We had a fight in the gym a week or so ago."

Sara shook her head hard. "No, worse. She wants to use Alisha against you to get you to go into a trap. No towels, no theater, no chance. She wants to get all her people together with bats and beat you literally until they get tired and then torture you with all kinds of things, knives, razors, even pliers and scissors, car batteries. Jan its terrible." Sara hung her head with tears in her eyes.

Jan looked at Alisha who smiled.

"When does she plan to do all this?", Jan asked.

"This evening after dinner. She already has the location picked out and the tools laid out." Sara had steadied herself, but she looked more worried than Jan did.

"How do you know about all this?"

Sara's eyes opened wider as she was about to tell her first lie of the conversation. "You overhear a lot of things when people don't even pay enough attention to you to notice when you are in the room. Story of my life."

Jan looked at Sara right in the face, but said nothing.

"What are you going to do?", Alisha asked.

Jan stood up straight. "I'm going to do what I normally would do. When Heather gets ready to do her thing. I'll be ready. I'm not afraid of her, but she might be afraid of me after tonight. And, Sara, thanks for the warning. Go back to your room and get cleaned up. I'll take care of this."

"Are you sure you don't want me to call the cops or at least the administration?"

Jan smiled and shook her head. "No, Heather'll find out that I kept my cool when we fought the last time. This time she wants to hurt my friends too. I don't think so. I'll take care of it."

Heather wanted to be there when Jan came out of the dining hall, but it would have been too obvious. She wanted to be there when Jan and her little whore friend were taken to the spot behind the old chapel, a spot where no one went. The maintenance men didn't even go back there often. Heather was going to leave them there when she was finished, if they lived after she was finished.

Jan had asked, then ordered, but finally begged Alisha to stay in the dining hall while Jan herself walked out. Jan reminded her friend that there was nothing Alisha could do that she hadn't already done to herself at one time or another. Alisha finally stopped arguing. Alisha looked at Jan's face and into her perfect blue eyes. Alisha studied Jan's face for a moment. She knew Jan enough to know that while Jan seemed calm, her eyes told another story. She was holding back a tide of anger and rage that wanted to get out. Alisha had a thought of sympathy for Heather, but the thought died quickly.

Jan didn't eat much, she mostly drank some water and waited about twenty minutes before pushing away from the table to leave.

Heather had three girls waiting for Jan and Alisha, but it became clear that Alisha wasn't coming, but it didn't matter. They knew that Jan was the target anyway. Deedee came out of the shadows first from in front of Jan. She blocked the walkway. Another girl, Erica came from the left side, a building blocked her right side. Jan turned to go the way she had come, but didn't get a chance to turn all the way around. She felt a knife press against the middle of her back.

"Walk, if you don't want me to slip this knife between your ribs. I've done it before", Donna told Jan.

Jan started walking. She wanted to smile, but that wouldn't have done. She tried to look scared, but she couldn't do that either. She just stared at the ground while they lead her.

"Where's your girlfriend? You two leave together every night."

"Not this time", Jan answered dryly. Erica slapped Jan in the back of the head.

Heather had made a fire behind the old chapel. They marched Jan directly towards the fire. It was the only light around. It ruined her night vision. That was part of Heather's plan too. Jan continued towards the fire. Instead of looking directly at the fire, she looked down at the leaf covered ground. Heather finally walked out of the shadows. Jan looked up and saw her with a bat in her hand. That was the cue. Girls rushed at Jan from all directions. Before Jan could even turn, Donna took her knife and jabbed nearly an inch of it into Jan's back. She tired to jab it further, but it was harder to push in than she thought.

Jan whipped around, but Donna had already run off into the shadows. The knife was sticking out of her back in a place she couldn't even reach. The first girl with a bat came at her then. The swing came right for her head. Jan brought her arm up and the bat struck her forearm with a crack. The next swing was for her stomach. She tensed her super hard abs and took the blow. She was waiting. There must have been ten girls. The blows were starting to come faster than Jan could see or block. She blocked her head only after the first second or two. A blow came at her head again. The blow struck Jan's left arm, but she was able to reach around with her right hand and grab the head of the bat. Her huge hand wrapped all the way around the barrel and Jan pulled it with all her strength. The girl holding it left the ground before she let go. It was Jan's turn now.

Jan jabbed the end of the bat at the girl in front of her and swung at another. Three swings took down three girls with howls of pain. Jan ducked and moved avoiding all but glancing blows. She could see her attackers better. Her gorgeous face was twisted into a animal's snarl as she attacked her attackers. Two more swings took down two more girls, but one girl got behind her. Instead of taking a swing, the girl lunged forward and pushed the knife into Jan's back, only the hilt stopped it from going in further. The sharp pain stopped Jan in mid swing. Her arms lost strength and she fell to one knee. Jan started to rise after the initial pain, but a bat to base of her skull knocked her to the ground and made everything slow down. The bat fell from her hand and she fell over onto the ground face first. The blows came in as fast and as hard as the girls could manage.

"Bring her over!", Heather ordered after a time.

Jan's head hung limp as two girls dragged her closer to the bonfire.

"Is she dead?", one of them asked.

Heather leaned in close and saw that Jan was still breathing. "No, she's not dead. Good job. She's going to fucking wish she was dead in about five minutes!" All the girls laughed. "Come on over, time to get paid." Heather reached into her pocket and pulled out 10 hundred dollar bills. She had hired some help to deal with Jan. Heather kept her own people back and let the hired help subdue Jan. Heather had known that Jan wasn't going to go down easy. The five or six girls Jan had hit with the bat walked away wondering if the $100 in their hands was worth getting hit with a baseball bat by that big amazon girl laid out now.

Heather's gang propped Jan up against a low wall across from the fire. They tied Jan's arms with leather belts they had looped through holes in the old wall. They fanned out when finished. Heather leaned and put her foot on Jan's chest. She reached down and pulled at Jan's blouse. It tore at the neck and Heather ripped it the rest of the way off. Even bruised Heather wanted to see Jan's body one more time before Heather made sure it never looked like that again.

"RJ!", Heather yelled after admiring Jan for a time. "You said this bitch broke your arm in the gym. Come up here and get yourself some!"

Jan's eyes were just beginning to focus again as RJ came closer to get her revenge. Jan kept her head down, but she looked up as much as she could. She didn't see what was in RJ's hand until she felt the swing come down against her right arm. The blow from the full sized crow bar caused Jan's body to spasm in pain. Jan bit her lip not to scream.

"Fuck! It didn't break! Hit it again!", Heather yelled.

RJ jumped up and down in the excitement. The girls pushed her as she stood back in front of Jan for another swing. She raised the crowbar and brought it down. No crack. She swung again.

Tears welled in Jan's eyes as RJ hit the same spot for the third time. She was still dazed from the hit to the back of her head, but at the third hit her mind snapped awake. Her body reacted too. Her body tensed hard. She pulled against the leather straps, but the old leather was hard and strong. Her pecs flexed hard as she tried to pull her arms free. Her biceps jumped to attention as she tried to pull away. RJ hesitated as Jan's glorious body began to display what it hid most of the time. RJ brought the crowbar down again. She brought the bar up again for another swing. Jan's body flexed hard. Striations fanned out from the center of her rock hard pecs as the leather creaked, but did not give. The old wall did. Jan's right arm pulled the old stones of the wall down upon themselves. Dirt and dust flew as Jan brought her right arm across her body. RJ was still swinging down. The crowbar hit Jan's big hand and stopped. Jan ripped the bar from RJ's hand, and with a grunt she pulled her other arm free. The stones tumbled and fell as Jan jumped to her feet. She tossed the crowbar to the side. Her arm looked a mess from the blows with the 9 pound bar, but it worked fine. RJ backed up. "You hit like a bitch!", Jan yelled at her.

Everyone hesitated for a moment not knowing what to do. Heather and her gang had not planned for Jan getting loose. They thought the hard part was over, now they had to think fast. They didn't think fast enough. Jan hesitated not knowing who to attack first. Heather was in range and she was the ring leader, but RJ was closer and RJ was the one who had hit her with a crowbar.

Jan lunged. RJ tried to back up, but it was too late. Jan's long legs covered the distance too fast. RJ tried to turn to run, but Jan grabbed her and spun her. RJ punched at Jan with her uninjured arm and Jan knew then what she was going to do. She caught RJ's arm with her left hand and using only her thumb as a fulcrum and with the superhuman strength in her hands broke RJ's ulna cleanly. The snap echoed off the back of the old chapel. RJ fell to the ground cradling one damaged arm with another.

"You bitch!" Heather yelled as she lunged at Jan. Jan didn't see the hot poker in Heather's hand until it barely missed her face. The rest of the gang was on her now too. Jan grabbed Heather above the wrist, but didn't have leverage to do anything, but push her to the ground. Jan turned then and saw Keisha in front of her. She had one of the bats and had been hitting her in the back with it. Jan drew her arm back and swung. Keisha went flying to the ground. Jan dispatched the two of the other three girls as quickly. She was working on the last one, but Heather got to her first.

Heather saw the knife sticking out of Jan's back and went for it. She first thought to pull it out and stab Jan again, but instead she grasped the hilt and twisted the blade between Jan's ribs. Jan yelled as fresh pain from the knife wound went up and down her body. Blood began to drip from the larger wound. Heather kicked Jan in the back. Jan stumbled forward, but didn't fall. She recovered from the pain quicker this time. Heather's goon ran at Jan, but Jan saw her and backhanded her. The girl fell to the ground.

"Just you and me", Jan said just above a whisper.

Heather's face was streaked with blood and sweat just like Jan's. Her stringy blond hair clung to the side of her big head. "Bring in on!"

Jan lunged forward, but Heather was ready. She slipped Jan's punch and stuck her own leg out and pushed Jan back against it. Jan fell to the ground on top of the knife. She grimaced in pain, but didn't take her eyes off of Heather who was throwing kicks anywhere they would land. Jan grabbed her by the ankle and pulled Heather off her feet. Jan jumped up and then dropped to the ground behind a punch to Heather's face. Heather only caught a glancing blow from the punch. Heather reached down to her pocket and pulled out a straight razor. In a flash it was open. The steel bit into Jan's face at her cheek and sliced down near her chin.

Jan pulled her head back as the slice stopped. Her hand went to her face. Blood poured between her fingers. She could feel the hotness of the blood as it ran down her arm. She could also feel the strange sensation of the cool air on the inside of her flesh. Jan thought she had been angry, but now her temper erupted like a volcano. She stood up to her full height and stared at Heather. Heather had been smiling as Jan staggered bleeding. She thought that she had won the fight, but now she knew that she had made a mistake, a big mistake. Her mind told her that she had made perhaps the last mistake of her life.

Jan finally moved towards Heather. Heather brought up the razor to protect herself, but Jan grabbed the blade with her left hand while her right fist curled into a huge fist. Jan punched Heather in the sternum hard enough to make the girl slide on the ground several feet. Jan had the razor in her bleeding hand as she straddled Heather on the ground. Jan's knees were to Heather's sides. She leaned in close dripping blood from her gashed face on Heather's own face. Jan spoke in a whisper.

"This hurts, bitch!" Heather was terrified now. It was a feeling she had never really felt before. Some of her ribs were broken from the punch to the chest she could feel the bones at the wrong angles. She could only breath in short gasps.

Jan pulled Heather up by the collar. That almost made Heather black out, she was in so much pain.

"You're lucky", Jan hissed through clenched bloody teeth. "I'm not going to kill you, but if you ever mess with me or anyone I care about, I'll fucking break your neck." Jan picked up one of the stones that used to be in the wall. A solid piece of stone and wrapped her long fingers around it. Heather watched as Jan's arm tensed diamond hard. Her muscles were ripped and striated. Her forearm was a mass of cables as her fingers forced themselves closer. Without so much as a grunt of effort the rock shattered in Jan's right hand. Dust fell from her hand. Jan let it fall on Heather's face. She stood up then and grabbed what was left of her shirt. She wrapped the shirt around her body and ducked her head down as she hurried to her dorm and up the back stairs to her room.

Alisha was there waiting for her. Her eyes went wide as Jan came in. She almost didn't look like herself. Jan didn't say anything as she headed straight to the bathroom and closed the door behind her. She spit a mouthful of pure blood in the sink and washed the cut on her hand to get the blood and dirt off.

"Are you ok?", Alisha asked from the other side of the closed door. No answer. "Jan, are you all right?" She asked again. Alisha knocked on the door hard.

Jan opened the door to let her friend in. Alisha pushed the door open quickly. She saw Jan leaning against the sink smiling. Alisha smiled then.

"Of course I'm fine. Don't I look it?"

Alisha rushed to her. "My God, your face! It looks horrible. Are you sure?"

"It will heal. I'm glad tomorrow is Saturday. I might need you to bring my meals for a couple of days."

"Of course!", Alisha yelled. She looked down at the ground. "What about", she couldn't say anymore.

"She won't bother us anymore", Jan answered with just a tinge of anger.

"Did you..."

"Kill her? Goodness no! The thought crossed my mind when she cut my face, but I mean kill her for what? She probably thinks this will permanent Her ribs will be broken longer than I'll remember this cut."

"I didn't think you would... you know kill her, but I had to ask. You looked pretty bad when you came in, I wasn't sure."

Jan nodded and smiled. Her smile looked strange with the gash in her face. Alisha could almost see Jan's teeth on both sides. Jan turned and got the shower started. "There is one thing I need you to help me with though."

Jan pulled her clothes off and stepped into the shower. "I need you to pull this knife out of my back."

"How?" Alisha jumped back at the sight. There was a knife handle sticking out of her friend's back. If not for the dried blood running in two lines from the wound it would have looked like a Halloween prop.

"Just grab it and pull it straight out. I think its partially in my lung, so pull it straight and slow."

Alisha stepped behind her friend. Her hands were shaking as she reached up to pull on the hilt. Jan knew she was nervous so she had to say something.

"I thought Sara would be here waiting for me."

"I made her leave. I figured you'd come back with some injury that would magically heal and you wouldn't want Sara to know about your little secret." Alisha pulled the blade out in one smooth motion. It almost made her vomit to feel the blade slide against her friend's skin. Dark blood poured from the wound for a second before stopping. Jan took a deep breath then finished her shower. Alisha threw the knife in the sink and waited on her bead.

Jan came out few minutes later.

"How do you feel?"

Jan smirked. "My arm is throbbing a million times a minute, I can count my pulse with my face and my back has sprung a leak. Speaking of which, I already have my hand and face done, but I need a gauze on my back."

Jan turned around and started wiping Jan's back with alcohol. "I was just thinking about Sara. I mean if she hadn't told us about Heather, I could have..."

"Alisha, I wouldn't have let anything happen to you. I mean secret or no secret I wouldn't have let them touch you."

"Still, I have to do something nice for Sara. She saved both of us a lot of trouble. She was worried about you too."

Jan rolled her shoulders as she laid down in her bed. "I should call her and tell her that I'm fine."

Alisha turned out the lights. "You can tell her in the morning."

Sara didn't wait for the morning. She laid in her bed with covers pulled up to her chin and let her mind loose breaking her promise for the third time. She didn't have to search much. She found Jan in her room. She was sleep and she must have been having good dreams. Sara smiled and fell asleep in less than a minute with a smile on her face.

Jan kept her perfect school attendance record intact after her fight with Heather's gang. There was still a red line going down her cheek, but other than that her body was pretty much back to normal. Heather and her gang was in the hospital not talking to cops who guessed that they had been on the bad end of a gang brawl. That was more or less true. Jan was a gang all to herself. By Monday evening the red line on her cheek was gone.

"Jan, you are almost too much for me to take.", Alisha told her roommate after dinner.

"How's that?', Jan asked without looking up from her laptop.

"A couple of days ago you were stabbed, your lung pierced, your cheek cut to the bone and your arm was swollen like a smurf was growing out of it."

"And?"

Alisha stood up and walked behind her friend. "And now, you're sitting there at your desk working like nothing ever happened."

Jan looked up then. "I don't know what to say. You wanted to know about my secret. I tell you and you're freaked out about it."

"Its just weird. I mean what kind of fucking super hero are you?'

Jan laughed. "I'm not a super hero"

"It's one thing to know that you can't be injured, but to see you come in like that. Its a lot to take. I mean you went to sleep looking like a trauma patient and now you look as perfect as ever."

"Thanks for the compliment, but I guess it can be a little awkward. I promise I'll try not to get stabbed, sliced, and hit with a crowbar again. Especially since it makes you feel uncomfortable."

Alisha laughed. "Its just a lot to get used to."

"This is new to me too. I've never been this open with anybody."

Alisha hugged her friend's shoulder's before going back to her own work feeling almost normal about sitting next someone was anything but.

To be continued...

This is my first attempt a real serial story.  Keep on the lookout!  Find out more about Jan and Sarah, their powers and the world they live in.

Comments welcome: dem2@hotmail.com