Persecuted and Over-Powered

[Gifted]

She nodded. "When it happened. Mom, Scarlett, Crimson and I were all in Mom's room, because she had that collection of knives on her wall and Mom and Scarlett wanted easy access to the weapons, and Mom wanted to keep Crimson close. Scarlett caught sight of you leaving out the window. She was really mad. Then the police came in, and I darted out the door while the other three were fighting the police."

[Raven]

Garnet nodded. She couldn't help but hope they were okay, even though she knew they probably weren't and she knew they were bad people. "Oh. Well, I'm glad you're okay, Flare. You didn't deserve to get stuck with them."

[Gifted]

"Yeah, I made it out just fine. Nobody pays attention to the seven year old when the bullets are flying."

[Raven]

"That makes sense," Garnet said, smiling. She ran her fingers through the bottom of Flare's hair. "We can be a family now. For real."

[Gifted]

"Now that we both know what a real family is like." She agreed, smiling. "I used you as my moral center for years after, you know."

[Raven]

Garnet glanced at her. "Really?" she asked.

[Gifted]

Flare nodded. "It wasn't an easy transition, going from being controlled by Scarlett in that family to being allowed to be a normal person. You have someone messing with your mind that consistently for that long it starts to stick with you. Which was the point, I guess. It took me years to mostly get rid of it. The other kids at the juvenile detention center were scared to death of me because they could tell." She shook her head, smiling at the memory. "Normal adults watching me helped but like, normal adults get mad at lots of things. The fact that the people who ran the detention center got mad at me doesn't tell me if I was like, normal kid doing something wrong, or if it was something I should be worried about." She laughed. "But whenever I got in trouble, or something happened and I wasn't sure, I used to imagine going up to you and tellingyou what Idid. If you weren't smiling, I could be pretty sure I'd screwed it up."

[Raven]

Garnet smiled at that. "I'm glad I could help, even if I wasn't there."

[Gifted]

"Well, you're here now." She grinned. "I don't know if I'd want you to see me trying to juggle that balancing act while going through puberty. Talk about an awkward adolescence."

[Raven]

Garnet giggled. "Well, I'll be here from now on. I promise."

[Gifted]

Kailen and Stephanie had been walking through the quiet forest for quiet some time without seeing a single soul.
"I've never seen a forest this big." Stephanie noted. "Without a camera or a phone line or anything. It's so wild." Sudeenly, she heard some deep groans from a distance. "What was that?"

[Raven]

Kailen looked around. "I'm not sure," he said. "It sounds like something living..." He hesitantly moved towards the sound, prepared to bolt if something bad happened.

[Gifted]

At the base of the tree he saw a man nearing forty, dressed in an older, baggy shirt and sleek black pants leaning up against a tree. There was a large red stain on the side of his shirt and he was pressing on it,trying to keep pressure there. He didn't seem to have realized someone had come up behind him.

[Raven]

Kailen breathed. "Sir?" he said, trying not to startle him, but not sure what else to do. "What happened?"

[Gifted]

"Agent shot me." He looked up. "You're not one o' them, are you?"
"No of course not!" Stephanie rushed to his side.
"You're - augh - gifteds too?"