No Tea

                                    

                                          

Whoever was knocking at the door deserved to be dragged out into the street and shot point blank.
It was her day off. She was told to stay home and relax after the incident at the hospital. She didn't fight it. She was glad to have a day to recover. Her head was still hurting from the night before. Somehow, by some miracle, she hadn't ended up with a concussion. But she was still dead exhausted, her body felt like lead, and she had bruises forming on her aching arms.
Two in the afternoon. It would have been a sensible time to go out and go food shopping. But there was no way she was changing out of her comfy blue flannel sweatpants. So whoever was at the door was about to feel the wrath of an angry, tired woman. She stormed across the living room. Glared at her annoying cat--who was back to lying on the couch after attacking the television-- and opened the front door.
"Hi." She mumbled grumpily.
"Can I come in?"
She looked up and saw Jake standing there. He had his black windbreaker draped over one arm. There was a good amount of sunlight coming down behind him, and the air coming in felt pleasantly warm.
"Why?" She asked.
"It's sort of urgent."
"Like, Evanesce urgent?"
"Kinda."
"Ugggh. Come in. I guess."
She stepped away from the door and let him walk in. With a yawn, she wandered through to the kitchen, put the kettle on the stovetop. Turned up the dial. Pulled a white mug out of one of the cabinets and set it on the counter. She pulled open the drawer in front of her and looked at the assortment of teas that Jake had given her, so he'd have something to drink whenever he came over. He drank almost nothing but tea.
"What do you want? Lemon? Black? Green?" She called out.
"Neither," he replied.
Her eyes snapped wide open and she slammed the drawer closed. She turned around and looked over the breakfast counter into the living room.
"No tea? Who died?"
He used his jacket to sweep Cola off the back of the couch, and then he laid the jacket down on it. Walked into the kitchen, and stayed just at the threshold.
"Well, in a way, I think Jordan has," he began.
She tilted her head in question.
He sat in one of the little white chairs at the table and gestured for her to sit.
She pulled out the chair across from him and settled into it, with her legs out to the side in preparation to get up again.
"Let me explain," Jake said, "For a little while now I've kind of suspected something was wrong with him. He couldn't stop popping Tylenol, remember? Always complaining about headaches. He ignored my nagging to see a doctor about it because of 'insurance reasons'. I was just worried about him. Then he came through the door of the trailer one night muttering about how he tied in a competition. He changed the subject so it sounded like he'd tied in a parkour competition, but I realised his injuries were very familiar. I realised the injuries weren't from a parkour thing, but something else, then I saw this sort of... electrical flicker in his eyes. Almost to confirm my suspicions. When I looked to Mason, he just looked away from me and pretended like he knew nothing at all."
She put her hand up to stop him.
"Ok, Mr Rambly, where are you going with this?" She asked.
"Liv, last night Megabyte attacked you at the hospital and went missing. I swung by the trailer earlier today, and it turns out Jordan is also missing. You see what I'm getting at?"
A cloud of fog had seeped into her brain. Made it hard to even compute what he was saying. Her eyes were heavy. Then all the tiredness began to fade, as the realization came to light. Oh, my, gosh. Nooooooo.
"You can't be serious..." She said. "You really think that he's... that Megabyte..."
"Megabyte is Jordan. Has to be. It just all lines up."
"What about Mason?"
"I'm certain he knows about it, in fact, I think he might be someone we hate even more."
"Hate even more-- Living Weapon?! No! Mason can't be... The Living Weapon! That's ridiculous! How would we get along so well with Mason yet hate The Living Weapon?"
"Simple, our super-selves are different from our real selves, right? And the territory problems alone fueled most of our hatred."
Her mouth hung open, and she stuck her hands to her head. She let out a long shaky breath. Didn't respond for a long time. That's... I can't believe it! I really hope somehow it's not true, but it does make sense! Oh gosh, I've... lain with my sworn enemy! What is this, a Greek play?!
"Um, wow. So what now? Do we tell him we know? And do we tell him who we are?"
"That's kind of why I came here. I was going to pick you up so we could head over to Mason's place and talk it all over. He's in a bad mood right now, but I don't think we should wait." He replied.
The kettle started to whistle.
She stood up and went to it. This is insane. She grabbed the handle of the kettle and set it on the back burner. Knew there was going to be no use for it. Neither of them were going to be drinking tea today. Aw man, I have to get out of my pajamas? Oh well. The safety of the city is more important. If Jordan... Megabyte has gone insane, it's my job to protect people from him!
"I guess I'll go get dressed." She said without turning around.