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thejusticelounge2013-07-06 10:53 am
bossymarmalade) wrote in thejusticelounge2013-07-06 10:53 am
all of the lights
“Prisoner 50234. Your ride is here.”
Squinting against the bright light streaming in from the barred windows, Kyle looked up at the muscled guard in front of him. All white clothes, a protective mask, polish-slick boots. Standard wear for a man who spent each and every day guarding the most dangerous criminals on the planet. Kyle’s eyes drifted to the power nullifier on his belt, constantly pulsing a bright blue against the crisp white uniform.
“I thought,” he coughed, voice scratchy from lack of use, “I thought not for a few more hours?”
The guard shrugged, already entering access codes into the door. The sound of soft grinding and clicking as the gears in the door unlocked filled the room and Kyle tried to remember what fresh air tasted like. He stood up, looking down at his jumpsuit, at the deep creases and folds of a costume he had worn for…mierda…how long?
The lost years coming back to him in a wave were almost enough to keep him from noticing when the guard entered and took the handcuffs off his wrists. Only when he felt the subtle weight removed, when his hands fell to his sides without pulling against one another, did he realize he was free. He shuffled behind the guard as they made their way to the check-out station, looking down at the handcuffs still around his ankles, trying to remember what it was like to not take half-steps. The receptionist at the check-out handed him a small stack of paperwork and the guard retrieved his check-in property, holding it out at arm’s length like the paper-thin clothes might burn. ‘Or bite,’ Kyle thought as he signed the last paper, an image of circular teeth and an extended jaw shooting through his brain violently. He took his clothes wordlessly, trying to push out the image of blood-spattered walls and the Watchtower crashing to Earth, and changed as quickly as possible.
When the perimeter guards opened the final set of chained gates for him to exit, the intense shine of desert sun kept him from being able to see anything. He covered his eyes with a hand in vain, blinking rapidly in the hopes that his vision would darken again so he could actually see the world he had been released back into. But when his vision did come back, he was surprised at what he actually saw.
Kyle wasn’t sure who would come get him. He had notions and high hopes but no clear answer, but when he saw Mar’i leaning against the door of a dark car he couldn’t even fathom why it would be her. Nevertheless, a friendly face was a friendly face and his unshaved jaw broke out into a wide grin. He threw one hand up in the air, waving wildly as he approached the car. Bright desert sunlight hit its hood from what seemed like every angle and the shots of lights off it made him cover his eyes again. The woman against the car smiled, but her eyes were hidden underneath dark sunglasses.
“I can’t believe—you came even though—look great ay dios I never thought— ” The words fell from his mouth with no real rhyme or reason, and he finally settled for rubbing his jaw awkwardly. Mar’i’s smile deepened and she opened her car door.
“Good to know some things stay the same. Get in, we’ll catch up when we’re not sitting out in 110 degree weather.”
Kyle grinned and followed suit, sinking into the car’s dark leather seats without a second thought. The leather was too warm for comfort but after all those years of solitary on a hard cot he was not about to complain, instead pushing harder against the seatback to make himself comfortable. “This is the—I can’t even begin—chica, you are a—this seat is so great,” he continued, looking over at Mar’i as she removed her sunglasses and pressed the key into the ignition. His goofy smile faded slightly when he saw dark pupils against the white of her eyes. She caught his look and they locked eyes, all the guilt and shame Kyle had thought he stopped remembering flooding back into him. He looked away quickly as the engine roared to life, his fingers gently stroking the door lock to distract himself.
He would have been content to spend the rest of this car ride not talking, just trying to give her the space he was sure she needed. But soon after they pulled out from the prison’s parking lot, she glanced over at him, a smile on her lips.
“You’re just like you were,” she said, before looking back to the long interstate in front of them. “X’Hal, that’s good to know.”
Kyle swallowed thickly and turned his head again, looking at the curve of her cheekbones against the light coming in from the windshield. He felt the sides of his mouth coming up again, against his own volition. “Me too, chiquita,” he said hoarsely, “I still can’t believe you came.”
Mar’i tilted her head just enough to glance at him, the carefree happy expression he had seen her make so many times long ago crawling back onto her face. “Of course I came. I would never leave a friend.”
It was a simple statement, but something about the way she said it made his chest go tight. For a long time they sat there quietly, Mar’i looking straight ahead at the road and Kyle staring out his window into the landscape. But then he turned to look straight at her, eyes lingering on her lips then drawing down to where her t-shirt came to a low v over her breasts, and swallowed loudly.
Her head tilted imperceptibly and her eyes shot down to his pants for a moment, watching the fabric over his pelvis tighten, before she hit the brakes gently and pulled over to the side of the road. Sliding the car into park, she twisted her entire upper body to face him, an arm hooking around his seat. “Do you want to…?”
Kyle nodded before she even finished, years of confinement and a healthy imagination already urging him forward. The small curious smile on her lips twisted into a smirk and she leaned over, pointedly exposing a little more cleavage, to pop open the glove box. Distracted by the soft sway of her breasts, he could only blink in confusion when she tossed a condom at him and crawled into the backseat. For a few seconds, he looked down at the foil package in some strange mix of awe and confusion before the reality of the situation hit him and he scrambled into the backseat as well.
As soon as he had moved into position, Mar’i’s hands began grinding and rubbing at him through his blue jeans. Kyle could only squeak at the pressure and bumped his hips up even more into her palms, his head pressing back into the window glass. His own hands brushed against hers as he clumsily unbuttoned his pants and pushed at them. She paused in her movements to help him in the endeavor, and together they pushed his pants and underwear down in a single movement around the middle of his thighs. His fingers trembled as he tried to open the condom, but her own hands were calm and focused as they began stroking his member with long and smooth movements.
When he finally managed to get the condom out with a combination of tooth and nail, she pulled her hands away, letting him slide the rubber over his cock while she sat up on her knees more and pushing her skirt up a little. Kyle thumbed at her underwear then moved his hands to her hips, squeezing and pinching the space where her ass met her hipbones. The presence of clothing meant nothing to either of them, as Mar’i reached down and pushed the bottom of her panties to the side, exposing a small patch of dark hair and rose pink folds already slick with moisture.
One of Kyle’s hand continued rubbing her hip through her thin skirt, while the other ventured down to lightly press into her wet core. Mar’i gasped lightly, pelvis hitching up in surprise at his cool fingers before settling back down onto them. For a moment he teased and rubbed against the slippery folds, occasionally grazing her entrance but never fully entering, before finally pulling his wet hand away, settling it back onto her hip, and bringing her down onto him.
Mar’i’s little cry of surprise as his cock pushed her open rang through the car, and Kyle followed it up with a strained groan as he buried himself inside her. It was taking everything he had not to finish right then and there, sheathed in the hottest part of her core, and Mar’i’s hips were already swaying a rhythm of their own around him. He gathered her closer to him, arms wrapping fully around her waist as he began thrusting hard and fast into her, causing her to nearly squeal in response. Immediately her slower rhythm switched to his faster and together they moved. The noises of their coupling combined with the squeak of the car as it moved with each thrust was so loud Kyle didn’t even hear Mar’i say she was coming. Only when she let out a high-pitched gasp and shoved down on him with all her strength, every muscle of her inner walls undulating and tightening around him, did he realize. But that movement deep inside her, the clenching of everything around his cock and the pull of her walls dragging against his own thrust, caused his own cries to pitch and he pressed his forehead against her t-shirt tightly as his dick pulsed thickly and shot out into the condom wrapped around it.
For a moment, they heaved against each other while trying to catch their breaths, but instantly Mar’i was climbing off him, a hand slinking down to hold his condom in place while she pulled herself free of him. She adjusted her panties, fidgeted with her t-shirt, then crawled back to the driver’s seat, giving Kyle an accidentally perfect shot of her soaked panties underneath her skirt. He needed slightly longer to recover, and could only mutely nod in appreciation when she handed him a napkin to help clean up any mess as he pulled the warm condom off.
A few minutes later, he climbed back into the passenger seat, adjusting his shirt over his jeans and trying not to make direct eye contact until he was sufficiently done panting. Her voice broke out into a soft laugh and she started the car again, sliding it back out onto the deserted highway.
Nearly an hour later, Mar’i broke the silence. Kyle had been glancing at her out of the corner of his eye occasionally, trying to determine how awkward that experience had been for her in hindsight. It was only after a while that he realized it was pure pity motivating her, pity for a man who had nothing anymore. She saw him as nothing more than a broken man, and he saw her as someone who once meant everything to the loved ones he had destroyed. Mar’i looked over at him for a second before her hand came over to pull lightly on his grown-out facial hair. “Never thought I’d see you with a full beard.”
Laughing against the gentle tug of her fingers in his hair, Kyle couldn’t help but smile. “That’s coming from you, lil’ miss bob! I thought you had to jump through flaming hoops just to cut some of those Tamaranean locks…” he trailed off as he realized how quickly he had thrown himself into awkward territory. “Lo siento, I know—I didn’t mean—”
There was a brief silence before Mar’i finally spoke again. “It’s okay. I mean, it’s not okay, but I’m fine.” She paused, chewing her bottom lip slightly. “I’m fine,” she repeated, eyes shifting back to him momentarily.
He should’ve just stopped there, but Kyle knew the moment she said she was fine that he was going to make things worse. He couldn’t help it. It was like a trigger for bringing up all the bad stuff, trying to talk out things that he consciously knew should never be spoken of again. “You mean, you’re not…but so many of our friends…and your powers,” he blurted, watching her shoulders slightly tighten with each word. The next comment came to his mind and he begged himself not to say it, but he could already hear it slipping out on his tongue. “And then he—and your ba—”
The car went swerving to the side and Kyle smacked his head against his seat window. At first he thought she had taken them off the road in anger, but when he looked forward he saw they were just on an exit ramp. “Sorry,” she apologized, her voice tense. “We’ll have to stop and spend the night here. There’s not another town for 3 hours.” Her hand came out, tapping the glass on her dash with a fingernail. “We need gas, too.”
Kyle nodded mutely, thankful he hadn’t kept going. He didn’t want to reopen those scars for her any more than he already had. Instead, he turned his head, looking at the desert slowly turning to small houses and restaurants as they entered city limits. Mar’i pulled the car into a motel parking lot just as the sun began to sink behind the distant rock formations. The bright neon sign advertising vacancies and free cable blinked every imaginable color, but Kyle stared at it longest when it faded from a bright green to a sour yellow.
The room was dank and cool, coating in peeling wallpaper and sporting a large bed. Kyle stopped in the doorway, trying to remember what it was like to sleep in a real bed, while Mar’i tossed a duffel bag onto a nearby chair and flipped on the small television. Leaning over, her short bob spilling to one side as she pressed the channel buttons with mild interest, she was suddenly the only person in the world Kyle didn’t want to stay with. He would hurt her. He already had.
Music suddenly filled the room and Kyle closed the door behind him, watching the old TV running a faded version of some video. He looked it at for a moment before realizing he knew the song and took up a light hum. The lyrics escaped him, but the light, cheery tune lingering on his tongue. Kyle turned to smile at Mar’i for giving him this small moment of joy amongst all the tension, but his mouth couldn’t form the words when he saw her.
In his cell he had often imagined what it would like to see someone naked again. He imagined it would be wonderful and stirring. But when he saw Mar’i’s bare skin, he wasn’t sure how to feel. With her back turned to him as she changed, he could see every single scar on her flesh. Her solar-based powers had always given her a subtle glow, a tint that could made her skin look flawless when it was really quite normal with blemishes and marks. Someone once told him that she could turn it off for a short while if she wanted, that she could reveal all of herself in such a personal and intimate way to someone she truly loved. Kyle remembered the smile on the man’s face when he said that, an inward smile of such intense happiness and love that Kyle had thought about it for days.
Now, she had no choice in the matter. This was no longer reserved for a person she loved, for someone she trusted. She was laid bare for all to see. This would had been fine, Kyle thought with considerable sadness, if her skin weren’t scarred from all the things that happened after she lost her powers. Deep scars, thinner ones, all etched across her skin as mementos of everything that had happened. Everything that he had helped cause. His hand came up, stroking his own scar underneath his clothing.
The motel room was situated facing the interstate and underneath the blinking vacancy sign, and every few seconds it was flooded with a different variation of headlights and neon colors. Mar’i was digging through the duffel for something, and when Kyle’s hand rested on her bare shoulder she jumped slightly. As she turned, the room around them went bright yellow, then purple. He nearly sobbed as he looked her front over, the thick masses of scars criss-crossing over her stomach and pelvis.
“Oh god,” he choked, not meeting her eyes, “it’s still inside me.” The words he had been thinking for so long being spoken aloud was like a dam bursting open. His fingers sunk into Mar’i’s shoulders and he pulled her close, sobbing into the curve of her neck. Something deep inside his head skittered in reaction to the fear in his chest, and he cringed against her skin. “They said it was gone, that I was…that they could let me go, but it’s not—I’m not…”
“I know.”
He pulled away, and Mar’i’s eyes glowed violet when they met his. Her voice came out scratchy and masculine and deeply, horribly wrong.
“A Tamaranean heart is meant to love,” Predator growled from inside her body, “she had lost love and found it many times over here. And you took it, Kyle Rayner. Parallax. You took it. Love does not disappear after death. Love burns even more strongly. It eats itself whole for others to come in and take over. And then it feeds on those who attacked it.”
Outside, the curtains of the motel room’s window burst with violet and yellow light.
Squinting against the bright light streaming in from the barred windows, Kyle looked up at the muscled guard in front of him. All white clothes, a protective mask, polish-slick boots. Standard wear for a man who spent each and every day guarding the most dangerous criminals on the planet. Kyle’s eyes drifted to the power nullifier on his belt, constantly pulsing a bright blue against the crisp white uniform.
“I thought,” he coughed, voice scratchy from lack of use, “I thought not for a few more hours?”
The guard shrugged, already entering access codes into the door. The sound of soft grinding and clicking as the gears in the door unlocked filled the room and Kyle tried to remember what fresh air tasted like. He stood up, looking down at his jumpsuit, at the deep creases and folds of a costume he had worn for…mierda…how long?
The lost years coming back to him in a wave were almost enough to keep him from noticing when the guard entered and took the handcuffs off his wrists. Only when he felt the subtle weight removed, when his hands fell to his sides without pulling against one another, did he realize he was free. He shuffled behind the guard as they made their way to the check-out station, looking down at the handcuffs still around his ankles, trying to remember what it was like to not take half-steps. The receptionist at the check-out handed him a small stack of paperwork and the guard retrieved his check-in property, holding it out at arm’s length like the paper-thin clothes might burn. ‘Or bite,’ Kyle thought as he signed the last paper, an image of circular teeth and an extended jaw shooting through his brain violently. He took his clothes wordlessly, trying to push out the image of blood-spattered walls and the Watchtower crashing to Earth, and changed as quickly as possible.
When the perimeter guards opened the final set of chained gates for him to exit, the intense shine of desert sun kept him from being able to see anything. He covered his eyes with a hand in vain, blinking rapidly in the hopes that his vision would darken again so he could actually see the world he had been released back into. But when his vision did come back, he was surprised at what he actually saw.
Kyle wasn’t sure who would come get him. He had notions and high hopes but no clear answer, but when he saw Mar’i leaning against the door of a dark car he couldn’t even fathom why it would be her. Nevertheless, a friendly face was a friendly face and his unshaved jaw broke out into a wide grin. He threw one hand up in the air, waving wildly as he approached the car. Bright desert sunlight hit its hood from what seemed like every angle and the shots of lights off it made him cover his eyes again. The woman against the car smiled, but her eyes were hidden underneath dark sunglasses.
“I can’t believe—you came even though—look great ay dios I never thought— ” The words fell from his mouth with no real rhyme or reason, and he finally settled for rubbing his jaw awkwardly. Mar’i’s smile deepened and she opened her car door.
“Good to know some things stay the same. Get in, we’ll catch up when we’re not sitting out in 110 degree weather.”
Kyle grinned and followed suit, sinking into the car’s dark leather seats without a second thought. The leather was too warm for comfort but after all those years of solitary on a hard cot he was not about to complain, instead pushing harder against the seatback to make himself comfortable. “This is the—I can’t even begin—chica, you are a—this seat is so great,” he continued, looking over at Mar’i as she removed her sunglasses and pressed the key into the ignition. His goofy smile faded slightly when he saw dark pupils against the white of her eyes. She caught his look and they locked eyes, all the guilt and shame Kyle had thought he stopped remembering flooding back into him. He looked away quickly as the engine roared to life, his fingers gently stroking the door lock to distract himself.
He would have been content to spend the rest of this car ride not talking, just trying to give her the space he was sure she needed. But soon after they pulled out from the prison’s parking lot, she glanced over at him, a smile on her lips.
“You’re just like you were,” she said, before looking back to the long interstate in front of them. “X’Hal, that’s good to know.”
Kyle swallowed thickly and turned his head again, looking at the curve of her cheekbones against the light coming in from the windshield. He felt the sides of his mouth coming up again, against his own volition. “Me too, chiquita,” he said hoarsely, “I still can’t believe you came.”
Mar’i tilted her head just enough to glance at him, the carefree happy expression he had seen her make so many times long ago crawling back onto her face. “Of course I came. I would never leave a friend.”
It was a simple statement, but something about the way she said it made his chest go tight. For a long time they sat there quietly, Mar’i looking straight ahead at the road and Kyle staring out his window into the landscape. But then he turned to look straight at her, eyes lingering on her lips then drawing down to where her t-shirt came to a low v over her breasts, and swallowed loudly.
Her head tilted imperceptibly and her eyes shot down to his pants for a moment, watching the fabric over his pelvis tighten, before she hit the brakes gently and pulled over to the side of the road. Sliding the car into park, she twisted her entire upper body to face him, an arm hooking around his seat. “Do you want to…?”
Kyle nodded before she even finished, years of confinement and a healthy imagination already urging him forward. The small curious smile on her lips twisted into a smirk and she leaned over, pointedly exposing a little more cleavage, to pop open the glove box. Distracted by the soft sway of her breasts, he could only blink in confusion when she tossed a condom at him and crawled into the backseat. For a few seconds, he looked down at the foil package in some strange mix of awe and confusion before the reality of the situation hit him and he scrambled into the backseat as well.
As soon as he had moved into position, Mar’i’s hands began grinding and rubbing at him through his blue jeans. Kyle could only squeak at the pressure and bumped his hips up even more into her palms, his head pressing back into the window glass. His own hands brushed against hers as he clumsily unbuttoned his pants and pushed at them. She paused in her movements to help him in the endeavor, and together they pushed his pants and underwear down in a single movement around the middle of his thighs. His fingers trembled as he tried to open the condom, but her own hands were calm and focused as they began stroking his member with long and smooth movements.
When he finally managed to get the condom out with a combination of tooth and nail, she pulled her hands away, letting him slide the rubber over his cock while she sat up on her knees more and pushing her skirt up a little. Kyle thumbed at her underwear then moved his hands to her hips, squeezing and pinching the space where her ass met her hipbones. The presence of clothing meant nothing to either of them, as Mar’i reached down and pushed the bottom of her panties to the side, exposing a small patch of dark hair and rose pink folds already slick with moisture.
One of Kyle’s hand continued rubbing her hip through her thin skirt, while the other ventured down to lightly press into her wet core. Mar’i gasped lightly, pelvis hitching up in surprise at his cool fingers before settling back down onto them. For a moment he teased and rubbed against the slippery folds, occasionally grazing her entrance but never fully entering, before finally pulling his wet hand away, settling it back onto her hip, and bringing her down onto him.
Mar’i’s little cry of surprise as his cock pushed her open rang through the car, and Kyle followed it up with a strained groan as he buried himself inside her. It was taking everything he had not to finish right then and there, sheathed in the hottest part of her core, and Mar’i’s hips were already swaying a rhythm of their own around him. He gathered her closer to him, arms wrapping fully around her waist as he began thrusting hard and fast into her, causing her to nearly squeal in response. Immediately her slower rhythm switched to his faster and together they moved. The noises of their coupling combined with the squeak of the car as it moved with each thrust was so loud Kyle didn’t even hear Mar’i say she was coming. Only when she let out a high-pitched gasp and shoved down on him with all her strength, every muscle of her inner walls undulating and tightening around him, did he realize. But that movement deep inside her, the clenching of everything around his cock and the pull of her walls dragging against his own thrust, caused his own cries to pitch and he pressed his forehead against her t-shirt tightly as his dick pulsed thickly and shot out into the condom wrapped around it.
For a moment, they heaved against each other while trying to catch their breaths, but instantly Mar’i was climbing off him, a hand slinking down to hold his condom in place while she pulled herself free of him. She adjusted her panties, fidgeted with her t-shirt, then crawled back to the driver’s seat, giving Kyle an accidentally perfect shot of her soaked panties underneath her skirt. He needed slightly longer to recover, and could only mutely nod in appreciation when she handed him a napkin to help clean up any mess as he pulled the warm condom off.
A few minutes later, he climbed back into the passenger seat, adjusting his shirt over his jeans and trying not to make direct eye contact until he was sufficiently done panting. Her voice broke out into a soft laugh and she started the car again, sliding it back out onto the deserted highway.
Nearly an hour later, Mar’i broke the silence. Kyle had been glancing at her out of the corner of his eye occasionally, trying to determine how awkward that experience had been for her in hindsight. It was only after a while that he realized it was pure pity motivating her, pity for a man who had nothing anymore. She saw him as nothing more than a broken man, and he saw her as someone who once meant everything to the loved ones he had destroyed. Mar’i looked over at him for a second before her hand came over to pull lightly on his grown-out facial hair. “Never thought I’d see you with a full beard.”
Laughing against the gentle tug of her fingers in his hair, Kyle couldn’t help but smile. “That’s coming from you, lil’ miss bob! I thought you had to jump through flaming hoops just to cut some of those Tamaranean locks…” he trailed off as he realized how quickly he had thrown himself into awkward territory. “Lo siento, I know—I didn’t mean—”
There was a brief silence before Mar’i finally spoke again. “It’s okay. I mean, it’s not okay, but I’m fine.” She paused, chewing her bottom lip slightly. “I’m fine,” she repeated, eyes shifting back to him momentarily.
He should’ve just stopped there, but Kyle knew the moment she said she was fine that he was going to make things worse. He couldn’t help it. It was like a trigger for bringing up all the bad stuff, trying to talk out things that he consciously knew should never be spoken of again. “You mean, you’re not…but so many of our friends…and your powers,” he blurted, watching her shoulders slightly tighten with each word. The next comment came to his mind and he begged himself not to say it, but he could already hear it slipping out on his tongue. “And then he—and your ba—”
The car went swerving to the side and Kyle smacked his head against his seat window. At first he thought she had taken them off the road in anger, but when he looked forward he saw they were just on an exit ramp. “Sorry,” she apologized, her voice tense. “We’ll have to stop and spend the night here. There’s not another town for 3 hours.” Her hand came out, tapping the glass on her dash with a fingernail. “We need gas, too.”
Kyle nodded mutely, thankful he hadn’t kept going. He didn’t want to reopen those scars for her any more than he already had. Instead, he turned his head, looking at the desert slowly turning to small houses and restaurants as they entered city limits. Mar’i pulled the car into a motel parking lot just as the sun began to sink behind the distant rock formations. The bright neon sign advertising vacancies and free cable blinked every imaginable color, but Kyle stared at it longest when it faded from a bright green to a sour yellow.
The room was dank and cool, coating in peeling wallpaper and sporting a large bed. Kyle stopped in the doorway, trying to remember what it was like to sleep in a real bed, while Mar’i tossed a duffel bag onto a nearby chair and flipped on the small television. Leaning over, her short bob spilling to one side as she pressed the channel buttons with mild interest, she was suddenly the only person in the world Kyle didn’t want to stay with. He would hurt her. He already had.
Music suddenly filled the room and Kyle closed the door behind him, watching the old TV running a faded version of some video. He looked it at for a moment before realizing he knew the song and took up a light hum. The lyrics escaped him, but the light, cheery tune lingering on his tongue. Kyle turned to smile at Mar’i for giving him this small moment of joy amongst all the tension, but his mouth couldn’t form the words when he saw her.
In his cell he had often imagined what it would like to see someone naked again. He imagined it would be wonderful and stirring. But when he saw Mar’i’s bare skin, he wasn’t sure how to feel. With her back turned to him as she changed, he could see every single scar on her flesh. Her solar-based powers had always given her a subtle glow, a tint that could made her skin look flawless when it was really quite normal with blemishes and marks. Someone once told him that she could turn it off for a short while if she wanted, that she could reveal all of herself in such a personal and intimate way to someone she truly loved. Kyle remembered the smile on the man’s face when he said that, an inward smile of such intense happiness and love that Kyle had thought about it for days.
Now, she had no choice in the matter. This was no longer reserved for a person she loved, for someone she trusted. She was laid bare for all to see. This would had been fine, Kyle thought with considerable sadness, if her skin weren’t scarred from all the things that happened after she lost her powers. Deep scars, thinner ones, all etched across her skin as mementos of everything that had happened. Everything that he had helped cause. His hand came up, stroking his own scar underneath his clothing.
The motel room was situated facing the interstate and underneath the blinking vacancy sign, and every few seconds it was flooded with a different variation of headlights and neon colors. Mar’i was digging through the duffel for something, and when Kyle’s hand rested on her bare shoulder she jumped slightly. As she turned, the room around them went bright yellow, then purple. He nearly sobbed as he looked her front over, the thick masses of scars criss-crossing over her stomach and pelvis.
“Oh god,” he choked, not meeting her eyes, “it’s still inside me.” The words he had been thinking for so long being spoken aloud was like a dam bursting open. His fingers sunk into Mar’i’s shoulders and he pulled her close, sobbing into the curve of her neck. Something deep inside his head skittered in reaction to the fear in his chest, and he cringed against her skin. “They said it was gone, that I was…that they could let me go, but it’s not—I’m not…”
“I know.”
He pulled away, and Mar’i’s eyes glowed violet when they met his. Her voice came out scratchy and masculine and deeply, horribly wrong.
“A Tamaranean heart is meant to love,” Predator growled from inside her body, “she had lost love and found it many times over here. And you took it, Kyle Rayner. Parallax. You took it. Love does not disappear after death. Love burns even more strongly. It eats itself whole for others to come in and take over. And then it feeds on those who attacked it.”
Outside, the curtains of the motel room’s window burst with violet and yellow light.