The sounds from the apartment above hers were the same she'd heard over and over again. When Sarah had arrived, she'd vowed to do everything to NOT reveal what she really was- though that was sort of a given, now that she'd had time to see human culture for what it really was. That being said, she could still pass as a human, albeit an unusually abnormal one.
"No, please, don-" SLAP!
"Shut up, you're my daughter! You do what I say, when I say it, and that's final!"
She'd resolved to not interfere with others' lives, after a few disastrous attempts at intervention. She still had the lightning-shaped scar on the left side of her throat from the knife the man had pulled on her. She'd been weaker, then, and had used her 'tazer' on him, and then lost it- at least, that's what she'd told the police. The story the mugger had told the police was much more farfetched, and had made a minor note in the tabloids, but that was it.
"Leave our daughter alone, Marcus!"
"You stay out of this- she's your daughter, you refuse to control her!"
"She came back thirty seconds past her curfew, because the bus was late!"
"Oh, so now you're taking her side!"
She flipped onto her other side, pressing pillows to her ears to try and drown out the sounds passing through the poorly insulated ceiling of her apartment. For the two months she'd lived here, the family above her had slowly gone from slightly bad to... well, what it was now. She gritted her teeth and mentally cursed her exceptionally acute hearing. Deciding that passively blocking out the sounds from above wasn't working, she got up, and dressed in her workout clothes, and began to practice kickboxing on her punching bag. WHAM! WHAM! WHAM!
"Deborah, get me a beer."
"Marcus, you're drunk."
"SO? I said, GET ME A FUCKING BEER!!"
KA-WHAM!! KA-WHAM!!
Not enough. She could still here them. Frustrated, she picked up the punching bag, stand and all, and hurled it at the ceiling, where it impacted loud enough to wake the dead, crashed to the floor, and left sizable dents in both places.
"Hey up there! Keep your goddamned dispute down, you're not the only people in the frik'n building!" Her voice was rough and coarse; the scar on her throat had originally dug deep enough to damage her vocal cords.
"Fuck you, you stupid bitch!" The man's voice echoed through the floor as he stomped twice and then went back to berating his family. That was the final straw. She concentrated and then stepped out of her apartment, clad in a navy blue sport bra and black Lycra shorts. Locking the door behind her, she walked sedately towards the stairwell. Halfway up the stairs to the eighth floor, the lights went out as the city went into a blackout when the power plants shut down.
Shouts and cries and curses echoed from all over the building. The drunken husband hadn't seemed to notice, and in the cover of darkness, she picked the lock on his apartment, silently opened the door, closed and locked it behind her, and walked into the living room, able to see easily through her optical cybronic implants. The power out ended as the power plants started up again at a silent mental command, and the husband yelled in drunken shock as the lights came on and a stranger was in is living room.
"I've tried to be patient. I've tried to ignore you. I've tried to simply hope you move out. But every day YOU" she pointed at Marcus "get more drunk, and more hateful, abusive, and you get LOUDER. That's the ONLY friggin' reason I'm here, right now, is because I'm tried of trying to get some sleep while you are still up at 1AM abusing your wife and child. Are you gonna shut up, or do I do that for you?"
"Fuck you, you stupid bitch!" Marcus had been a steel mill worker before he'd been laid off, and had owned an impressively muscular body. Since then, he'd degraded and had grown a beer gut, but could still throw a mean punch.
She, on the other hand was built like a bouncer's wet dream- muscular, lithe, and powerful. Standing at seven feet three inches, she cut an imposing figure- chalk white skin from head to toe, silver-white hair down to her shoulder blades, and eyes like lightning. And there was a major storm brewing in those eyes.
On the heels of Marcus' comment, the burly man was laboriously getting to his feet. She was already in motion, her fist moving at high velocity.
Her first punch was intended to warn the guy that he was outclassed, and landed in his ample stomach. With a loud grunt, Marcus fell back into his chair, blinking drunkenly.
"Stupid bitch, I'll have you arrested!" He tried to get back up. She let him, her blood was boiling with rage now, and she figured letting him get a punch in might shut him up. The drunk was on his feet, standing among a pile of beer cans, swaying slightly. He swung once, missed, but the second blow landed on her right cheek.
She let fly with a flurry of blows on his stomach, chest and two on his face. "Touch me again and you'll regret it."
Marcus snarled and leapt at her, missing by a good margin and crashing to the floor. She landed one blow on the back of is head and he passed out. She nodded to the woman standing in the doorway, who was looking nervously at the man lying prone on the living room floor.
"I'm sorry to have to bothered you, miss, but that bastard seems to think he's king of the world. I hope you'll forgive me for taking him down a few notches."
The trembling woman nodded slowly.
"I'll just let myself out, then." She walked to the door and then did let herself out. She walked back downstairs, into her apartment, and fell asleep.
The next day found her relaxing until her afternoon job. She worked as repair staff at the local community college.
She arrived with her usual promptness, and grabbed her tool belt and a list of things that needed doing, some of them were routine, and others were not. One of the desks in classroom 3B was rickety, and rather than shell out for a new one, he simply had maintenance fix it. Today she had bathroom duty as well, restocking the restrooms with the appropriate materials, and then she'd have to do the classrooms.
It was in the third floor restroom of the classroom building that she found the girl.
The third floor classrooms were rarely used, and as such, the restrooms even less. So she was both surprised and unsurprised to find someone hiding in the stall, trying to muffle her crying.
She poked her head into the stall. "Hey, you okay, kid?"
The girl looked 20-ish, and her face was blotchy and stained with tears. She hunkered down and reached out. "You okay?"
The girl sniffled. "What do you want?"
"I'm the maintenance crew, kid, I came in here to restock the TP and such, and as a result, I found you. Why are you sitting in here, crying?"
"M-my dad's total bastard- last night he lost it and started hitting mom when she tried to stop him hitting me- because I came back a few measly seconds after the clock chimed 1."
Her blood ran cold, her mind reviewing the previous night's events.
"You want to talk about it?"
"N-not really."
"Fair enough. What's your name?"
"Dana. Yours?"
"Me? I'm Sarah." Sarah smiled kindly; pulling a tissue from the roll she kept in her pocket for cleaning up minor spills. "Here ya go, dry your tears kiddo. Though I'm probably the same age as you, so I guess I don't have the right to call you that."
"How old are you, Sarah?"
"Me? 22."
"How come you're not in college?"
"It never came up- once I got outta high school, I had to do other stuff, and never really got around to going- plus it's so damned expensive. Even community college."
"So you're a janitor at the college?"
"Nah, that's part time- My full time job is... erm.. I'm a bouncer."
"Like, one of those guys that keeps people from misbehaving at a club?"
"Yeah."
"But... why not just work that job full time? Why take a second job?"
