Flying Blind Ch. 03

"Yes?"

"This is Edgar and guest. Can we come in."

There was debate on the other side of the door. It got more and more heated until Heda could almost make out Madison's grumbling. She smiled. That grumbling had a special cadence which just made her smile for some reason. Then she sighed.

"Madison, please? I'm sorry for being a bitch."

More grumbling, then the deadbolt slid clear. Billy opened the door, sighed, then thrust Heda inside while he stepped outside with Edgar. Heda felt the door groan under their weight as they leaned against it. She wondered if she should warn them that the door opened inward. Instead, she turned to Madison, who was sitting nervously on her bed. The braille sheets with her instructions from Reichert were scattered on the bed and one of them looked like it had been used to blow her nose.

"I hope that wasn't important," Heda said, trying to lighten the mood.

Madison picked it up and let her echolocation scan all the bumps. "Instructions about making sure to read all the other pages," she said at last. "It was expendable." She didn't turn the sonar on again, but felt the bed creak as Heda sat down. "What did I do?" she asked plaintively. "I thought that I was doing everything right."

"You didn't do anything wrong. I . . . The last couple of days have gone from weird to worse. I wanted to talk to you about something yesterday and didn't, and then today . . . I freaked out. I went and saw the images of the second victim when he was found, and I hurled. It was humiliating, you know? I'm supposed to be the big new bird in town and I'm trying to follow in my mother's warrior footsteps, and I threw up in public. Then for Alvin to rub it in . . . it was almost as if I used the cheap shot at my mother as an excuse. I wanted to hit him and I lost my cool, and now I get to explain to this warrior hero why her daughter is starting fights at school."

Madison chewed on her bottom lip. "What was it you wanted to tell me yesterday? I mean, I can't help you deal with your mother. Hell if I would know what to say. But what did you want to say to me?"

Heda took a deep breath, and then recounted her conversation with Reichert, which painted a slightly different picture of his conflict with Madison and his reasoning. "I mean, he still should have done more to physically protect you, but I just started to wonder. Then that made me feel like a bitch because I'm supposed to be on your side, but --"

"But you listened to another point of view and then things weren't so simple." Madison sighed. "I never went to the writing center because I knew that one of the girls in Alvin's posse worked there. I knew no one would care if I complained, but I should have at least tried. But I really did think that he was being unfair. At least at the time I did."

"Maybe Reichert isn't the enemy we thought he was. Can you handle that maybe I don't want to really hate him but still like you better?"

"I have no right to tell you who you can and can't like. Unless you decide you like Alvin, then you can just get the hell out."

"Not much chance of that. I've got a scar on my leg that's going to take a while to heal," she said, feeling the tender spot. She was thankful that shifting between forms helped close up wounds. "And I did some damage to his face and ribs."

"Maybe he won't be able to open his mouth," Madison muttered. "That would be a nice change. Do you want to go to the medical center? Seriously, you should get that checked out."

"Too many questions and too many cops over there right now. That's where they found the second victim. Remember that guy who checked you out? Detrius I think? He's the one who found the guy."

"Was it bad?" Madison asked, almost fearing the answer.

"Yeah. A lot worse than Carla."

"What --"

"I don't want to tell you," Heda said. "I want at least one of us to be able to get some sleep tonight." She took Madison's hand. "I am so very, very sorry about earlier. I guess I'm not as grown up as I thought."

"Yeah, and you're nineteen. You should be totally mature and have everything figured out by now," Madison replied. Then she smiled. "You're nineteen. I'm older than you."

"Really?"

"Yep. I'm twenty. Never thought I'd go for younger women, but hey."

Heda let out a small laugh. It was not much, but it felt so good. "Have you decided if you're moving in with us? Considering what a psycho I am?"

"I DID try to kick you in the head the first time we met, so you don't have the psycho market cornered."

"Actually, the first time we met, you accused my of being a spy. The second time we met, you accused me of being a spy and THEN tried to kick me in the head."

"I stand corrected." Madison liked the warmth of Heda's hand. It was another kind of intimacy that she wanted to experience more of. "I'm just so afraid that if I move in that . . . that it will turn out like before. I know that you and Joanna and the others aren't Trojan Horses, but I still keep waiting for that shoe to drop. You know, where everyone says, 'Ha, joke's on you'?"

"I swear that I will never do that to you," Heda replied, meaning it. "I like being around you. I think it would be great if we both had our own spaces, but if those spaces were just a thirty feet away from each other --"

"It would be kind of . . . Wait, I don't even own a bed!" Madison's brain just took a mental leap.

"We'll find you something. Maybe a futon. Or you could just sleep upside down in your closet."

Madison shook her head. "Sure, go with the bat jokes. Those never get old."

Heda stroked the back of Madison's hand. Despite having a "productive" year of sexual exploration in Europe, having a relationship with a girl was a little new to her. What was she supposed to say or do? "Are we okay?" she asked at last.

"Yeah. I'm sorry about how your day went."

Heda grimaced. "It's not over yet. I still need to call Mom."

"Go ahead, before it gets too late." Madison got up and opened the door, letting Edgar and Billy both stumble in after they had been listening at the door.

"She needs to make more noise when she walks," Edgar said, picking himself up off the ground.

"Okay boys, Heda needs to make a phone call." Madison looked at her friend. "You can stay in here, and we'll wait outside. You need privacy, but we can't just let you go wandering around outside alone now can we? Sweet, delicate flower such as yourself --"

"Now you're just being snotty," Heda replied.

Madison handed her the "instruction" sheet. "No, this is snotty."

"You are so very very gross." Heda waited until the snot paper had been tossed and her friends went outside before making the call that she dreaded.

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The next weekend . . .

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"Sweet!" Joanna shrieked as she raced into the house that she would now be sharing with her friends. Peter's uncle had moved quickly on the property, including having a top-notch security system installed. The bodacious blond was now in direct competition with her fellow shifters for finding the best bedrooms, the whole notion of "fliers upstairs and ground shifters downstairs" completely abandoned. Basically, Madison had been given the basement and that was the only thing settled. Well, that and Kevin and Peter were already trying to figure out how to wire the entire house so that Madison could pump the tunes anywhere within its walls. Bill and Sasha were actually going to cohabitate in a first-floor room, so they picked a large one. No one minded, since they were collectively taking up less space than if they each had a bedroom.

Madison opened what might easily be construed as a closet door between the kitchen and the lobby and descended the stairs into her cave. Heda had basically wanted to claim the attic, meaning she would be on the opposite side of the building, but it was still very close. Heda could not be there that day because she had a practice game against the University of New Mexico, but she would be back that evening.

"You're excited about this aren't you?" Edgar asked from behind her. With Heda gone, he had become her de facto protector and escort. Billy still filled the role sometimes, but Edgar seemed to have developed an interest in this woman who had gotten under his sister's skin a bit.

"Yeah, I guess. Kinda. Sure. Can you tell?" she said, turning around to face where his voice was coming from.

"You're undressing the room with your eyes. So just go ahead and let it out. What do you want to do with your room?"

Madison just stood there, calm and casual. Then her face got really excited and she started pointing out exactly where everything she had would go. Her music systems, including an eight-track player, a reel-to-reel player, a turntable, a phonograph, and of course her laptop and DJ equipment. The closet in the basement was not very big, but she also did not have many clothes.

"So you need a bed and what . . . a dresser maybe?"

"I really can't afford anything though."

"So you were planning on making a nest of dirty clothes and sleeping there."

"Nests are for the birds."

Edgar slapped his face. "I walked into that didn't I."

"Just a bit." Madison smiled. "Is everyone in your family so easy to talk to?" she blurted, then wished she had not. She was sounding like a goober.

"Our family likes to talk," Ed replied. "It's kind of a blessing, kind of a curse. Our folks were really big on education. Pissed 'em off when I didn't go to college. But family dinners were kind of like meetings of the debating society for as long as I could remember. You had to learn to think and talk at roughly the same speed, which didn't always work well for me. Heda's a lot better at it than me. Dad's the master of nonverbal communication . . . grunting, dirty looks, and that sort of thing. You'll understand soon enough."

Madison paused. "Huh?"

"Parent day? Next week?"

"Heda didn't mention that your parents are coming."

Ed grinned. "I may have forgotten to mention it to her. And Mom was probably way too pissed to think of it the last time they talked."

"Crap," Madison yelped, her eyes shooting open. "Next week is when the Council hears my case. Is Heda going to be able to make it?"

"Heda has no intention of missing it, and Mom wouldn't let her anyway. Civic responsibility is another big thing for Mom." He looked around. "Hey, back to the furniture thing, it sounded like the guys were going to an Aarons Rent-A-Center or something like that. I guess they're getting a washer and drier for the house. Why don't you go that route? Some of those places have a no payments and no interest for a year deal. You have any credit?"

Madison nodded. "One card. I put my DJ expenses and stuff on it, but that's it."

"Excellent. Just means that you've got a credit history. C'mon," he added, moving out of the way so that the girl could ascend the stairs. "I was going to look for something for Heda anyway. She likes nice, comfortable beds," he added knowingly.

"That's not the . . . seriously, if you really think that I'm going to buy a bed just because . . . okay, let's go."

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That evening . . .

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Sometimes Heda adored her older brother. She had gotten back from Albuquerque after a horrible trip where they had lost in five games. She was sore, disappointed in her performance, and had not been looking forward to packing and moving to the new place in the middle of the night. Her brother and roommates had done it all. Of course, they hadn't unpacked anything, but that was cool.

She had arrived at the new place to find that a party had already been thrown, albeit just for the new residents. Joanna was dancing to the tunes from a boom-box and was threatening to show off her chest, much to the delight of all. Carla and Anthony were making out on the stairwell, much to Heda's surprise. Paul and Edgar, who would be their guest for a while, were arm wrestling while Kevin could be located by a cloud of smoke outside the kitchen door. Sasha and Bill were curled up on a sofa that someone had managed to procure, watching the festivities and simply enjoying each other's presence. Heda waved to everyone and then ran upstairs to her room. Her brother had somehow gotten her a queen sized mattress but had left getting the base and headboards to her. Smart man. The bed did have clean sheets on it and, on top of the mattress, her own set of keys. She propped open one of the windows and looked out into the dark Southwestern sky.

"Nothing like it," she whispered to herself and the sky she loved to fly. Then she realized she had not seen Madison, so she headed back downstairs. 'Where the hell is the door to basement?' she wondered, embarrassed that she had forgotten. Then she grinned. Someone had put the Batman symbol on a door next to the kitchen. She knocked on the door, but could not hear any response over the noise. She opened the door. "Madison?"

"Down here!" came a reply, followed by, "as if that weren't blatantly obvious since that's where my voice is coming from."

Heda chuckled as she trundled down the stairs and plunged into darkness once the door at the top closed. "Hey, is there a light switch?"

"You know, I didn't bother to look. Not exactly necessary for me." There was a moment of silence while Madison scanned the room. "The switch is actually at the top of the stairs I think, 'cause I don't see one down here."

Heda opened her mouth, then stopped, then said, "You know, I was about to ask if you have a reading lamp, but that would be dumb too."

Madison laughed. "Just a bit."

Heda put her hand on the stairs and walked back up, flicking the light switch and then coming back down. "Nice!"

"Is it? Joanna picked out the colors, since I have no idea what a 'color' is anyway."

Joanna had gone with blacks and grays, which actually seemed to fit the whole "bat cave" motif. Her music players and gear were laid out along one wall on cheap but practical black track shelving. Near the closet was a small dresser, sans a mirror, and next to that was a mini-fridge.

"Sweet!"

"I splurged," Madison said. "I don't have any payments for a year, but I want to put in a little every month and then I'll pay them off completely with student loans in January. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be."

"Nice bed," Heda said approvingly. It was a full size bed with a wrought-iron frame and a gauzy canopy hanging from a single spot on the ceiling.

"Is it? I've pretty much slept on dorm mattress or something like them pretty much forever. I took a nap on it earlier, so I guess it's okay." Actually, it had been the most wonderful thing ever, but she was not going to sound like a spaz.

"I'll bet. Hey, why aren't you up partying with the rest? Damn, I just noticed how quiet it was down here."

"Yeah, hence how I was able to nap. They've been at it since we got the keys. I don't think anyone unpacked yet."

"You could've waited."

"I'll go up in a bit, but --"

"But what?"

"It sounds stupid."

"What?"

Madison sighed. "I figured once I was set, it would be real. You know? It's my space now. I'm actually here."

Heda smiled, drawing Madison close and kissing her. "You certainly are. I'm surprised you managed to get everything over so fast."


"I packed everything in advance. A lot of the vinyl is kinda hard to replace, so I needed to make sure it was done right."

"Have they gotten the sound system up yet?"

"No, but they think they'll have it by next weekend. They got the priorities first. There's like eight televisions in this house, three of which are HD. Yippy skip," she muttered. "They have two Xbox 360s linked together in one room, and a Playstation 3, a Wii, and a Nintendo 64 in another."

"An N64?"

"It's Sasha's. She's addicted to Mario Cart."

Heda laughed, then kissed Madison again. "C'mon, let's go party. You don't have to get back to the station do you?"

"No, I finished up early today. I think I might be able to tie in from here if I can get the station's permission. I could actually do a show from here."

"You are the single coolest chick ever," Heda replied, hauling the girl up the stairs.

Madison could barely decide what to do with herself. She went from dancing with Joanna, Heda, Peter, and Sasha to talking music with Kevin while getting a friendly shoulder rub from Anthony. Carla was crashed on the couch with her head in Madison's lap, and Edgar and Billy were playing full contact Super Mario Kart. Apparently smacking your opponent on the back of the head to make them turn their animated little go-cart off the edge of a cliff was perfectly acceptable game etiquette.

Shifters were often a touchy-feely lot. Animals often used touch as a form of communication, and shifters kept that part of their animal selves. Madison had never had this. Sasha was human and Billy . . . well, Billy was a turtle. His totem animal tended to sit in a river and mind its own damn business. Madison was glad that the lights were dim, because she was so happy that she was on the verge of tears.

"Hey Madison," Kevin said, "wanna participate in an experiment?"

Madison scanned the room and saw that Kevin was holding up a rolled object about the size of a cigarette.

"Kevin!" Heda said, "you do NOT need to get her involved in that shit."

Madison scrunched her face. "Hey, YOU did it. Why can't I try?"

Heda was about to object, but the girl was right. "Are you sure?"

Kevin raised his right hand as if making a pledge. "I specially engineered this stuff to be mild and non-addictive. I would never give a newbie anything more serious."

Heda looked at Madison and shrugged. "It's up to you."

Madison gingerly took the "special" joint. Experimentation WAS part of the college experience.

An hour later, even Heda had to admit that a stoned Madison was pretty damn funny. The bat shifter coughed a lot at first, then was absolutely convinced that there was nothing going on. Then she got giggly. "Watching" Billy and Peter play their video game was the absolute funniest thing that she'd ever seen. She commented several times that Joanna had the nicest boobs she'd ever scanned, then apparently needed to confess to Sasha that she thought the whole naughty librarian thing was the best idea that Billy had ever had.

This had lead to Sasha chasing Billy all over the house in faux rage while everyone EXCEPT Madison laughed. Madison was confused why Sasha was annoyed. Then the bat shifter got hungry, and wound up being driven by Heda to one of the twenty-four hour grocery stores so that she could load up on Gummi-Worms. When they got back to the house, she wanted to shift into a bat and hunt the ferocious edible annelids, but Heda managed to talk her out of it. Kevin was simply amazed that her ability to create high-definition three-dimensional sonar images was apparently unaffected, though her interpretation of those images was more . . . colorful.

"Okay, time for Madison to go to bed," Heda said at last. "It's WAY past your bedtime."


"I'm a creature of the night," Madison said haughtily, pushing at Heda's shoulders, "so you can't tell me . . . you have nice shoulders," she continued, her train of thought derailing as she ran her hands over those very shoulders. She turned to where Joanna had been. "Doesn't she have great shoulders?"

"Magnificent."

"Her shoulders are like your boobs. Magnificent," Madison said with a determined nod of the head. "Hey!"

Heda had picked Madison up, slung her over her shoulder, and the proceeded to haul her cute butt back down to her bedroom. "C'mon."

"Don't wanna --" Madison grabbed the door frame in an attempt not to be carried down the stairs, but Heda was just a tad stronger than she was. "Okay, I'll go," she said at last.