“Mommy, can you stop making the furniture fly around.” Dura snuggled closer to her mother, trying to force her hair back into a bun instead of it floating around like her head like octopus arms. She didn’t like it when her mother got like this.

Usually Emmie Feor lost control when the rent was due. Not when it was bedtime for Dura. She put her arms frantically around her daughter as the bed sheets fitted around them like a vice.

“Please, I have school tomorrow. I just wanted to hear the rabbit story again.” Dura pulled out the picture book she knew her mother found so boring she would literally snore after a couple pages.

“I just don’t want what happened to me to happen to you. What if they take me away from you? I don’t want you to be given to an institution. The Council is merciless when it comes to those in their direct control. I won’t let that . . . I won’t . . . it can’t happen to you. They will never find out about us here.”

“Mom please, I’m scared. Do we have to leave again? If we leave again then I have to be by myself again--”

Emmie shushed her daughter and cuddled her closer. Then the movement that had alarmed her mother’s quicker senses reached Dura. The front door to their apartment had a lock that was broken and someone had come inside. The creaking noise was silenced as the intruder noticed it. Emmie heaved Dura into her arms and backed out towards the bedroom window. There were a row of stuffed bunny animals that she pushed aside before singing softly. She was singing the rhyme from the book which Dura found relaxing so she eased into her mother’s shoulder.

The doorknob to the bedroom rattled and Emmie jumped backwards. The glass shattered as the pair broke through. The glass was suspended by Emmie for a brief moment where she was in control, but then she saw the ground approaching quickly her mind went blank and she tried to collect herself by drawing a hundred daggers of glass like a shield around her.

=//=

Destruct, the thought danced in her mind as she fell, almost as if she was flying. She reached deep within herself and did so.

=//=

In a half hour there was a sheet covering the two bodies as an ambulance was called with police already on the scene. Stu stood with a stern expression as the brevity of the situation hit him.

“You’re doing really well considering this is a murder scene.”

Alia’s expression was tight lipped “You’re really excited even though this is a crime scene. I was listening to the coroner and he was saying that the woman who was pushed out and she was an unregistered Super. How could she be in Charm City--”

“There are certain Supers who have abilities that are hard to control so they’re segregated from society. They are undesirable as they can cause harm, even in Sky City to every person in the vicinity. The mother was registered as having no abilities, but the daughter was promising. Right now we’re going to launch an investigation into their social worker to see how the family evaded the authority checks for so long.”

“I’ve never heard of undesirable supers. I just thought they would lump those kind of abilities with villains.”

“Well you’re almost Super now, so you get that kind of information. The Council trusts you.”

The paramedics had arrived and slipped back the sheet. Alia could see that although they both had second degree burns, the mother had scar tissue completely covering her face. The child, on the other hand did not so the medics rushed her unto a stretcher first.