Jacqueline hadn’t done much of anything while she was out. She brought home a share of groceries, sure, but that was only after she spent two and a half hours driving in circles across highways. The kind of thing only a mad woman would do.
She didn’t want to be as afraid of going back home as she was. And she shouldn’t have been either. A little early morning mania was something everyone got from time to time. Even more so for someone like Ben, who was very used to morning workouts and emergency calls.
There were about a million different ways she could look at this in, each one giving her a perfectly mundane, reasonable explanation. But no matter what she tried to convince herself with, her gut reaction was always the same.
Something felt wrong.
Something had to be wrong, her mind reasoned. Ben had gone into a cave wherein most people came out dead, and she inexplicably transformed into a woman. Now, she couldn’t be changed back.
Obviously Jacqueline wasn’t an expert on how magic worked, but she knew enough to know that being stuck in an altered form was never a good sign. The best case scenario was that Ben was under some kind of hex preventing her from transforming into anything else.
But that was something a machine that scanned every inch of your body and soul to check for curses would catch. And yet, according to those texts Ben had sent her yesterday, that machine cleared her. Nothing was wrong.
She didn’t believe it.
She even texted Geisinger about it. She’d gotten his phone number when Ben joined the S.I.D. This was the first time she ever used it.
When she pulled back into her driveway, a full four hours after she left, she checked her phone to see two new notifications on the messages app. The first being from Geisinger.
“I don’t trust the results either. I’ve been at the S.I.D. since last night trying to figure this out. No matter what I do, the computer displays everything as if Ben is perfectly normal. I tried asking it ‘why can’t Ben turn back into a man’. It didn’t even seem to understand the question. All it could say was ‘Ben is perfectly healthy’.
I’m checking the machine for malfunctions right now. I hope this is just a glitch and we can figure this out by Monday. I don’t want you to worry too much, but I understand the circumstances making that impossible. Still, I wouldn’t panic just yet. Definitely keep an eye on him though. Don’t let him wander off too much. And please tell me if something is seriously wrong.”
The long message had been hard to read because to Jacqueline, it proved that everything she was worried about was completely correct. She wanted so badly to be wrong. Being right would be terrifying.
She tried to reassure herself with the fact that Geisinger wasn’t panicking yet. After all, he knew more about this than anyone, and if he still had things under control, then surely it couldn’t be that bad.
Then she saw the second notification, from Ben.
“Jackie, I'm at the old warehouse down the road. You should come over. Have some stuff to show you and you’re gonna love it.”
Another hard to read message.
Before Jacqueline got too worked up, she shut her eyes, took a deep breath, and laid her phone face down on the passenger’s seat.
Okay, so Ben had gone over to the abandoned warehouse they lived near. She wanted to show her something. That could mean anything. Maybe someone left their blunt on the floor, or managed to carve something into the walls. Both were mildly interesting enough to catch your attention. Whatever it was, this was still Ben. She wasn’t going to hurt her.
Jacqueline opened the car door, not taking anything with her except her phone, and began heading to the warehouse before she had time to think it over.
The walk there was easily the longest minute of her entire life. Once she stepped foot into the warehouse and heard her steps reverberate around the building, she started to have second thoughts.
Where was Ben? She looked all around at the walls and ceiling but didn’t see her anywhere.
She did, however, see a chunk of metal wall missing. To the left, a few feet above the floor, a hole about the size of a human fist led to the outside. On the ceiling toward the back end was another hole, which looked large enough for someone to fit through. Neither of these holes were here before.
She took a couple steps forward, going deeper into the warehouse. Every second brought with it the same constant, repetitive sounds.
Step, step, step.
The echoes seemed to get louder each time her foot hit the floor. She took another look. Ben still wasn’t anywhere in sight.
Step, step, step.
A third look and again, the building was empty.
Step, step, step.
She looked behind her this time, checking the parts of the ceiling she missed. There was no trace of Ben anywhere. She just wasn’t there.
She stopped moving and took a slow breath out.
So Ben had left before she came home. Jacqueline wasn’t sure why she’d text her to come here then, but that was a mistake they could clear up, hopefully.
She turned around and began walking out, but once she passed the ray of sunshine coming down from the hole in the ceiling, she stopped. She felt the hairs on the back of her neck rise behind her long black locks.
She couldn’t explain where the feeling came from or what it meant, but suddenly, she felt like she was being watched. But not by a person. More like by a malevolent force. Something that didn’t have her best intentions, and was waiting for the right moment to strike.
“Ben?” She called out. “Are you there?”
She didn’t get an answer.
“Ben, seriously.” She tried again. “Are you in here?”
No response, the entire warehouse remained eerily silent.
She was about to shake this all off as her just being paranoid. Her mind playing tricks on her and making her imagine a threat.
But then, she heard something. A sound like someone landing on the floor right behind her. She jerked her head back and gasped.
She saw Ben, wearing a wide, mad grin stretching from cheek to cheek and standing so close she could feel the breath on her face.
On instinct, she pushed her back.
“Get away from me!”
Her sudden force shocked the grin off Ben’s face. “God Jackie calm down.”
“You scared the shit out of me!”
“I wasn’t trying to be scary.”
“Well what were you doing?” Jacqueline squinted her eyes at what Ben was wearing. “Wait, is that my sports bra?”
Ben crossed her arms over her chest, as if that would hide it. “I was uncomfortable. My-”
“You know what? Stop, I don’t care.” Jacqueline interrupted. “So… were you on the fucking ceiling?”
“On the roof.” Ben corrected.
“How did you get on the roof!? Why are there holes in here!? What the hell is going on!?”
Ben smirked, in spite of Jacqueline’s freak out. “This is what I wanted to show you.” She said. “I’m a meta now.”
Jacqueline hadn’t really understood what she meant by that. “Meta as in… you have superpowers?”
“Yep! Look at this.”
Ben sidestepped over to the metal wall, keeping her eyes locked on Jacqueline, then she turned and punched it. The echoes were deafeningly loud, as if the building itself was crying out in pain. Three quick successions was all it took to break through.
Ben stepped back and smiled appraisingly. She turned back to Jacqueline like she was showing off one of her creations.
“Pretty cool.” She said simply.
Jacqueline’s eyes were fixated on the newly created hole. She barely registered Ben’s comment.
“That’s…” She tried to start. “…Do you have any other powers?”
Ben motioned toward the ceiling. “Watch this.”
She ran toward the middle of the floor. Once she was a good ten or so feet away from Jacqueline, she jumped, reaching her hands out above her. She shot up through the air so fast it didn’t even look real.
Ben’s head hit the ceiling with a sickening THUD, before she grabbed onto the metal bar below it.
“Jesus Ben, your head! Doesn’t that hurt?”
Ben took a hand off the bar and rubbed over where she hit her head. “Nope!” She yelled down. “Think the ceiling was more damaged!”
She pointed up to a very visible dent on the ceiling above her. It was hard to see from where Jacqueline was standing, but she swore there was a small hole in the middle.
Ben let go of the bar and let herself fall to the floor.
“So what do you think?” She asked when she was down. “I think it’s cool as hell.”
“I think it’s insane. It’s not healthy to bash your head against solid metal.”
Ben chuckled. “You’re right, it’s not. If you did it, your head would crack open. If I did it yesterday, MY head would crack open. That’s what’s so great about superpowers. You don’t have to follow the rules.”
Ben’s utter lack of concern stunned Jacqueline so much it scared her. “You’re really not worried are you?” She asked. “What happened to you? Yesterday you were terrified.”
“Yesterday I didn’t understand what I was becoming. This is not something to be afraid of. No, THIS-” She spread her arms out, “is something to be proud of.”
Jacqueline was nearly at a loss for words. “No, I don’t like this.” She said. “I don’t like this at all.”
“Jackie, please calm down.”
“I don’t think I’m the one who needs to calm down.”
Ben sighed, walking up to her and trying to put her hand on her shoulder. It was swatted away.
“Jackie?”
Jacqueline slowly stepped back.
“Jackie, what’s wrong?”
She sprinted out of the warehouse, Ben’s cries for her being left unanswered.
***
Jacqueline had never run so fast in her life. She didn’t look back once, she didn’t want to know how fast Ben was now.
She immediately shut and locked the bedroom door once she got in the house. Not that it would do her any good, of course. Ben could literally punch through metal, the door wasn’t going to stop her.
Jacqueline backed away from the door and sat on the bed, bracing herself for when Ben would inevitably knock.
When she did, she only knocked once. Jacqueline didn’t hear anything else after it. Undoubtedly, Ben was trying to think of something to say, but couldn’t settle on anything.
After what had to be at least a full minute of silence, Jacqueline heard her say “I’m sorry for scaring you”.
She didn’t respond. She just sat there.
“Is there something I could do to make you feel better?”
Jacqueline hadn’t considered that question before. She’d been in such a rush to get away from Ben, she didn’t make the connection that she didn’t feel safe around her right now. Her new powers, the sudden mania, her just… acting wrong. It all activated her fight or flight response without her realizing.
“Would you feel better if I made an appointment with a magic doctor?” Ben suggested.
That time, she did respond. “Ben… that’s something you should do for you, not me.”
“Would it make you feel better?”
“I don’t know.”
Jacqueline didn’t hear anything on the other end for a while, until it sounded like Ben pulled something out of her pocket.
“Hello?” She heard her say. “Yes, I’d like to schedule an appointment… Benjamin Cross… yes I know it’s a man’s name, it’s a long story… I, uh, seem to have some powers now… oh, not much, just some super strength and agility, basic stuff… yeah I think I have some invulnerability too… yeah I can do Tuesday… alright, thank you, bye.”
Jacqueline heard her put the phone back in her pocket.
“Does that make you feel better?”
She didn’t know if it did. She’d have to see Ben’s face to say.
Jacqueline slowly rose up from the bed, opening the door to see Ben, still in a sports bra and male gym shorts.
“Can you promise me you’ll be more careful?” Jacqueline asked. “And that you’ll take it easy?”
Ben nodded. “I promise.”
Jacqueline smiled back at her. “Thank you. Now, let’s get to my car. There are some groceries we need to bring in.”
***
True to her word, Ben did take it easy. For the rest of the day, she stayed indoors and mostly sifted through old books in their basement. Her and Jacqueline’s collection wasn’t close to as wide-ranging as the one in the S.I.D. library, but she still wondered if anything here could shed some insight on what was happening to her.
She wasn’t able to find anything that matched. Later on, she went back upstairs and turned to her computer. A lot of websites and books about the supernatural weren’t publicly available, a practice she always found stupid, so she wasn’t surprised when her search yielded nothing.
The best place she could think to look was, well, the S.I.D. library. As a member, she had access to an online database which had every single book in it. She could read any of them whenever she wanted.
Maybe the answer was in there somewhere, but she doubted she’d ever find it. She didn’t know exactly how many books the library had, but she believed it was somewhere around five hundred thousand. She tried searching for books on specific topics related to her… condition? She didn’t want to call it a disease so she went with that. Unfortunately her symptoms were all so vague she came up with close to ten thousand results.
She shut off her computer. She refused to deal with this headache.
She glanced out the window and saw the sun beginning to come down. For about half the day her body had been screaming at her to go and let out some energy. It was hard to sit still. Frequently she found herself growing restless.
She had to go outside and catch some fresh air before nightfall.
She went through their house’s back door and stared out into the horizon. She had a bit of a wistful smile as she did. There were so many forests out there she wanted to go and see. So many animals she wanted to watch. So many caves to explore. She found herself wishing she could be a part of it all…
She made it halfway across her yard before she even realized she was running.
She smiled. It felt cathartic to finally run like that. She had so much pent up energy inside her that had been begging for release.
And she still had a little more she needed to get out.
She started running again, to the very end of the yard. Before she stopped, she jumped and flipped through the air. She landed on her feet perfectly.
She saw the sun halfway down the mountains. The sky would go dark in a few minutes.
She almost wanted to stay and sleep here for the night, but she turned and ran back to the house. She didn’t want to indulge this side of her too much, for Jacqueline’s sake. She made a promise to her that she didn’t want to break.
But she hoped eventually, they could see eye to eye on this.
***
Ben’s energy had thankfully calmed down enough so that she could lay in bed. Once she and Jacqueline were laying together, Ben stroked her hair, running the many strands through her fingers. It was something she did a lot as a man, and it didn’t feel any different as a woman.
She was mainly doing it because Jacqueline still looked a little on edge before she went to bed. She wanted to calm her down, remind her that she was still the same person, even as she now was.
Seeing as she was now asleep, Ben let go of her hair, reaching her head up and kissing her.
“Good night, my love.”
She turned over to her side of the bed, asleep within minutes.
She didn’t notice the drop of drool that fell on Jacqueline’s cheek.
It left a burn on her skin.