"I can't say I feel great about this."
"Please, Anna. Don't even try to play that 'I'm an angel and would never listen in on other people's business' card. I know what you get up to."
"Okay, first of all, Kitty-cat, how would you know what I do, and do not, get up to? Second," Anna gestured at Jean's closed door, her fingertips just grazing its smooth grain. "Breaking into someone's room is a helluva lot different from listening in on a conversation regarding your future."
"Well, first of all," Kitty rolled her eyes while mocking Anna's accent. "I know everything. Second, breaking in is only listening but with our eyes and someone's stuff. It's not like we are taking anything. I do it all the time."
"Well, first of all," Anna put her hands on her hips, "you didn't know about Jean and the drugs, did you? Second, you doing this all the time doesn't exactly give me comfort!"
"First of all, I know most of everything then. Second, you know if you had my power, you would too. If it makes you feel better, I don't do it with your stuff."
"We share a room. How would you break in to look at my stuff?"
"See? That's why I don't do it."
Anna rubbed her forehead, "Jesus Christ."
Kitty crossed her arms. "Enough taking your lord and savior's name in vain. Are we doing this or not?"
Anna stared at the painted white wood of the door. Never had she stood so close to the other Jean's door. "Are we sure she's not home?"
"Don't hear the freaking tapping on her keyboard, do you?"
"I'm not talking about in her room, Jerk-off, I'm talking about somewhere in the mansion."
"Pretty sure she's doing one of her bajillion after-school thingies. It's likely why she wasn't at her usual spot near the cliff and why she wasn't at practice."
"Yeah, funny how we all have to be at Danger Room practice, yet for some reason, there is always an exception found for the princess, huh?"
Kitty rolled her eyes and tisked. "God, I swear Xavier must be up her butt just as much as Scott is. Like, I know she's got stuff going on but - dude. You notice how she wasn't at dinner for, like, 3 nights in a row last week? Xavier would have my butt flayed for being a minute late. Not that I would be a minute late for dinner. Wolverine's ribs are to actually die for."
"Kitty, focus."
"Hmm? Oh, right. Breaking and entering."
"Please don't say it like that."
"Whatever. Grab my hand." Anna interlaced her gloved fingers with Kitty's and allowed herself to be pulled through the door by Kitty's surprising strength. Despite moving through a solid door, Anna felt nothing as they then appeared on the other side in a nearly pitch-black room. "Crap!" Kitty hissed. Anna felt the other girl let go of her hand. "I hit my foot on something!"
"How? You were transparent, or whatever what you do is called."
"I don't know! Sometimes it does what it wants. Shoot that stings! Man, why did I decide to wear sandals when doing this crud?"
Anna tapped her watch and a flashlight bolt fired out the tip of her wrist. The strength of the light illuminated a desk with a computer monitor resting on top and a chair parked in front. Behind the computer was a drawn black-out curtain where only small branches of daylight leaked out from its edges. Skipping her flashlight around the large room, Anna found a four-poster bed with bright pink sheets and blankets fallen to the wayside and onto the ground. The walls were covered in strange posters that Anna eventually put together were for Broadway plays and a couple of old-looking movies. She cast the light towards the floor and found it scattered with clothes, the gray carpet beneath barely visible. Next to Kitty, who was still rubbing her toe, was a single massive brown boot caked with mud.
"Looks like a hiking boot."
"Feels like a freaking hammer forged in Mount Doom!" Kitty flexed her foot one last time, then activated her own flashlight. "Cool posters. Aww, hey this one has a little otter on it!" Kitty ran over to a smaller poster closer to the bedside table. "Monterey Bay Aquarium," she read out loud.
Anna crossed the bedroom toward a desk where she was surprised not to find a computer keyboard but an electric piano keyboard. It was slim but long enough to take up the length of the desk. She tapped one of the keys and found they sounded exactly like the incessant tapping she and everyone else in the house had gotten used to hearing pouring from Jean's room. A computer monitor sat catty-corner on the desk roused to her touch and prompted her with a user login in front of a background filled with little sea horses. "Whoops."
"Hey!" Kitty whispered hoarsely. "Look, don't touch! Geez, it's like you never snooped around before."
"Says the person who destroyed her toe on a boot not two seconds into this shit-fest." Anna felt for an off switch on the monitor and clicked it off. The desk was filled to bursting with hardback books, textbooks, and scattered papers. She focused in on the top book whose laminated paperback cover was worn to the point its edges curled. She straightened out the cover. "LSAT Prep." She read out loud. "What the hell is an LSAT?"
"Hang on." She heard Kitty tap away on her phone. "Law School Administration Test. I guess Jeanie wants to be a lawyer or something."
Anna glanced along the spines of the other half-haphazardly stacked books. "Understanding Criminal Law, The Rules of Law, Standards of Law - God, Jean, we get it." She looked closer at a different stack of books. "Two different editions of Frankenstein, Interview with a Vampire, and a load of Stephen King." She picked up a dogeared edition of Carrie. "Didn't know Jean was so goth."
"Check this out." Anna looked over and saw Kitty lighting up a 'Phantom of the Opera' snow globe. "Even snow globes? That play really has all the merch."
"If you say so. Plays have never been my thing. I only know about that show from people talking about it." Anna looked at the snow globe next to it. "Golden Gate Bridge."
"Yeah. Jeanie is from San-Fran I think." Kitty spotted something from across the room. "Oh hey! It's her weird earrings! I've never seen them off of her." Anna followed her to a little table coated with cup-shaped sweat rings adjacent to the computer desk. Kitty prodded at the turquoise earring monstrosities with her finger. "Oh man, they are even uglier up close. Why would someone as fashion-conscious as Jean…" she trailed off.
"Kitty?"
"That's weird. These earrings, they're plugged into the wall."
"Let me see." Anna switched positions in the cramped space with Kitty and, sure enough, spotted one black wire for each earring winding down the back of the little table into a socket in the wall. She picked one earring up and turned it till the barely visible charging port was facing her. "It's like they're wireless headphones, but they don't have a speaker or anything." She pulled the cord free of the earring.
"Hey, what did I say about touching!"
"This is important." Anna examined the tacky-looking thing more closely, found the earring to be a clip-on, and fastened it to her own ear.
Kitty looked at her with wide eyes. "So? Feel… weird or anything?"
"It feels really freaking heavy. Man, how does she go all day with this thing." Anna ran her thumb and index finger across the front and back of the earring respectively. "I don't feel a switch or anything, and I sure don't feel any different. Don't feel any aliens trying to read my thoughts at least." She unclasped the earring, plugged the charging cable back in, and laid it back to rest next to its sister.
"That's so freaking weird."
"It's weird, but it's still no drugs." Anna looked at Kitty. "Come on, dude. You know, the whole reason we're doing this?"
"Oh, right - right." Kitty placed her hands on her hips. "If I were an illicit substance, where would I be?"
"Well, I think you'd first not call yourself an 'illicit substance.'" Anna air-quoted. "Freaking nark."
If Kitty heard her, she didn't show it. Instead, Kitty got on all fours and started looking under the furniture. "Taped under the dresser for sure." She stuffed her face under the narrow gap between the floor and the base of the dresser, her long brown curly hair sweeping the floor. "Right, no - too obvious. Inside the dresser. Probably under the socks." Kitty rocked back onto her feet and started throwing open random drawers and pushing clothes out of the way. "Gezz Jean, you don't skimp on nice underwear do you?"
"Kitty, please, I don't want to go on a panty-raid through Jean's stuff."
"I'm not - I'm not! Just making an observation. She likes the color pink a lot. Game respects game." Kitty shoved all the open drawers shut and gave the room another scan. "Bed. Under the bed for sure."
"I don't know. I'm starting to wonder if she would even keep -"
Kitty appeared from under the other side of the bed, holding a black box between her hands. "Boo-yah!" She dropped it on the sheets with a silent plop.
"Well, you found a safe. Now what?"
Kitty looked up at her from beneath her brow. "Seriously? It's like you don't even know me and my sweet skills. Watch. This." She raised her hand with a flourish and dove it deep into the box as if there was no lid. When her hand reappeared, a single photo was clasped between her fingers. "Oh," She looked at it. "Whoops."
"What is it?" Anna walked over to take a look. She spotted a young red-headed boy smiling wide next to an old lady at an aquarium.
"Not drugs, but I felt a lot of stuff in there. Hang on." Kitty pushed the photo back in then pulled her hand back out with a roll of film in it. "Dang it. Hang on." In went her hand again, and when she pulled it out, she had a notebook. "Oh. A journal maybe? Oh, now this could be interesting."
"Hey? What happened to that whole 'not touching' thing?"
"Not sure if you've been paying attention, but I've been doing nothing but touching for, like, the past five minutes. We might as well go all the way." Kitty flipped open the notebook to a random page. "Wow. Jeanie has really nice handwriting."
Anna reached over and put her hand over the page. She hung her head on her shoulders and sighed. "Okay… I'm not the biggest fan of this girl, but even I have to say reading her journal is kinda messed up."
Kitty's shoulders went slack. "Yeah… you're right. That's pretty screwy." Kitty closed the notebook and was about to put it back in the safe when she paused. "What if, we just skim the last few pages? Just for anything about drugs."
Anna looked back at her. "Just skimming, no reading- okay? This isn't as flexible as the 'no touching' rule, right?"
Kitty held up two fingers. "Scouts honor."
Anna shrugged with her hands. "Alright, fine."
Kitty was a little too fast to open up the ringed notebook to its last few pages and skim for the latest entry. Suddenly her brow furrowed and the eager features of her face eroded away. Before Anna could ask, Kitty started reading. "Heard some yelling from down the hall in the girl's room earlier. I didn't think much of it at the time, God knows one of them is always yelling about something or another, till I remembered I forgot my blade in the bathroom. When I went back for it, it was gone. Not going to lie, I'm having a low-key panic attack right now. From the sounds of it though, if one of the girls found it, they are probably blaming each other."
Kitty paused. "There is a change in the pressure she's using on the page when she writes from here on or something. It looks a little different." She then continues. "I don't know what to do about all this right now, but there is no use in worrying about it. It is what it is. If it comes down to it, I'll do what is necessary.
"But when is it necessary? Xavier has taught me, prepped me, and coached me through all this, but the thought of actually using it. And using it on the girls? Imagine if he found out I tried anything. What am I saying? What if I hurt the girls?
"God Jean get a grip. This is fine. It's always worked out. We'll handle this like we've always done it, like an adult. Like a professional. Nothing will come of this. It will work out. It always works out. It has to."
Kitty looked up at Anna. "Stops there."
"She sounds like she's losing it there at the end."
"Yeah. Then there is that stuff about Xavier. He's 'taught' her a lot, 'prepped' her, but then 'the thought of actually using it?' What the heck does any of that mean?"
Anna stared at the journal in Kitty's hand like it was a live gun. "…I don't know. It sounded like she was considering doing something to us though."
Kitty rubbed her chest with her hand. "Yeah… I remember that part. Whatever it is, sounds like she not for doing it."
"Isn't that comforting."
"Well, either way, that blade is definitely hers. She basically confesses to it in here."
"She sounds kinda coked out too while she's writing that."
Kitty slowly closed the notebook. "Um, I think I want to leave now."
"Me too."
Kitty gently placed the notebook back in the safe and eased it back into the spot she found it under the bed. The pair gave each other a look before linking hands again and stepping through the bedroom door.