Corazón a Corazón

[Anna Fernandez]

The door of her room closed behind her, Anna sat on the end of her bed, feet flat on the floor. In her lap her hands clenched and unclenched, and when she heard the stairs squeaking as someone walked up them she put her face in hands.

The footsteps paused outside her room, and she said, "I am not in the mood for another lecture, Jacob." Her breath misted in the cold air, and frost started forming on the mirror above her dresser.

[Jacob Foley]

"Don't..."

He stopped himself. It wasn't worth it, he thought, no matter how much he hated being called Jacob. For a moment longer he remained stationary at the bedroom door, in the silence he winced and rubbed his aching head.

"Can I come in?" he asked suddenly, sounding quite irritable, for which he silently scolded himself.

[Anna Fernandez]

"Go ahead," she replied.

After a moment the door opened, and he walked in. Warm air followed him, and the door closed amid a cloud of mist. Anna kept her face in her hands, her voice a little muffled. "Me congeló, Jake, no sabía qué hacer hasta que fue demasiado tarde." She had to smile at the irony of her words, still hidden behind her hands.

"I made a mistake, and Jamie..." Her voice broke.

[Jacob Foley]

"Hey."

He approached the bed, his gait stiff from the cold, and sat down. His arm coiled around her shoulders but he kept his hand firmly hidden inside the sleeve of his jacket and out of the icy air.

"Jamie's fine. She's a brave kid," he gave her a gentle squeeze, "I'm worried about you."

[Anna Fernandez]

Anna sniffled, leaning into his hug. "I'm fine, you know I can take care of myself." A tear dripped off the end of her nose and splashed onto his shirt. Her face was bruising up from where the man had hit her. "I don' believe that violence is the answer, you know that. I just can't bear that I might teach the kids to be doormats, though. Yo sólo no saben qué hacer."

[Jacob Foley]

He listened intently to his sister's quavering voice and didn't immediately respond. The truth was he didn't have the answers but he at least had to pretend he did. What he wanted to tell her was that there was nothing to be afraid of, that he'd be violent for her, and that she could remain the example to these kids that he could never be, but that would only make her angry.

"We have to look out for each other," he said finally, "Now more than ever. These kids look up to you, Anna. I'm all for peace and love... but we can't be afraid to use the gifts we've been given to protect the ones we love. That's a human instinct. It has nothing to do with being a mutant..."

He cut himself off and grinned, "Am I lecturing you again?"

[Anna Fernandez]

Anna chuckled despite herself, a tear frozen on her cheek that she reached up to rub off. "Your nose is red," she said, and the temperature abruptly warmed around them as she sat up. "Yo sé, I know..."

She lightly punched him in the side. "I just don' want to... I don't want to hurt no body. There is too much anti-mutant sentiment around us, I do not intend to add to the hysteria." Anna held out a hand, and clenched it into a fist.

Frustration lined her face again, and the skin on her hand began to glisten a cold bluish tint. "A human instinct to protect, and I failed. I am human, or am I?" Her skin started to harden up her forearm and after a moment she appeared to be made of solid ice.

[Jacob Foley]

"Well, you are a bit of a monster in the kitchen," he said frankly.

The tired afternoon light cut through the blinds and glistened on her frozen figure slashing bright turquoise all over the room. Jake smiled with admiration, he didn't get to see that sight very often and explored her icy contours with curious eyes. He shook his head.

"I know you don't want to be violent but there are scumbags who do and they want to hurt us. You know, I get a feeling things are going to get worse..."

He'd held off the question for too long, he thought, and just came out with it:

"What happened back there?"

[Anna Fernandez]

"They told me to get rid of the mutant bastards from their neighborhood, before something bad happens to me or Jamie..." She frowned, her face growing more stern as she thought back. "I said we meant them no harm. That mutants are not their enemies."

She laughed bitterly, "They did not believe me, I think. You arrived very quickly." Anna squeezed his arm affectionately, and released him quickly as he winced. "Oh! Sorry!" Her skin returned to soft flesh, and she clapped her hand over her mouth.

"I forgot, again."

[Jacob Foley]

"It's okay," he said, trying to sound unconcerned.

The chill had penetrated his jacket instantaneously, the pain in his arm was sharp and he knew there must be a layer of skin stuck to the inside of his jacket where she had touched him. He dusted frost from his elbow, pleased to find the leather undamaged.

"No harm done," he muttered, then for the briefest of moments his eyes shut tight and his jaw clenched, the pain this time was not from the cold, and he caught his breath, "Besides, it looks like we're all having a bad day today - it must be the mutant time of the month."

[Anna Fernandez]

Anna looked at Jake with immediate concern, lightly touching his hair. "A bad day again?" She hugged him tightly. "You should have said so," she said in a scolding tone, glad to have something other than herself to talk about.

He wiggled in her hug, and she released him. He didn't want to make a big deal, as usual, but Anna quickly got to her feet, tying her hair up into a ponytail. "I'll make your favorite dinner, why don' you jus' descansar y ver la televisión..."

She surreptitiously wiped her nose, using her forearm to clean the frost off of her mirror.

[Jacob Foley]

"Hang on a minute!"

He had been pinching the bridge of his nose, his eyes still closed, when he turned to Anna with a no-nonsense expression on his face. He put his hands on her arms and wrestled her back onto the bed, despite her protests that the mirror needed her attention; he stood over her while she sat, arms folded impatiently, looking up at him.

"Let's get one thing straight, Fernandez," he said, pointing at the space between her eyes, "I wasn't the one who was jumped by thugs today. You were and you're forbidden to do any cooking today. I'll take care of everything."

Of course it meant take-away but he'd order the best, now he folded his arms.

"Them's the rules, woman. Yeh dig?"

[Anna Fernandez]

Anna looked up at him, pouting. "Okay, okay." They hadn't had Chinese food in a while, anyway. "Tell Mr. Wong to include fortune cookies, you know I love them."

She looked down at her hands, and added, "Tell Jamie I'll be down to talk to her en un minuto. I didn't mean to... well anyway, I need to talk to her. Make sure she is okay too."

[Jacob Foley]

"Alright..."

He nodded and stood around for an awkward length of time, glancing from his sister to the window. There was nothing else to say so he leaned forward and kissed her where her hair parted. She still uses the same shampoo as Mom, he thought.

"Everything will be fine. I promise."

And with that, he left the room.

[Anna Fernandez]

Todo estará bien, te lo prometo.

Talk is cheap! Anna leaned back on the bed, lying down and rolling up in her comforter as she listened to Jake's footsteps on the stairs going down.

[Aidan Fox]

Aidan Fox let himself through the back door with a plastic grocery bag in one hand and a six-pack of Dos Equis in the other. He found a place in the crowded fridge for the carton of eggs he'd bought at Jamie's behest and buried the beer somewhere near the back, but not before liberating one sweaty bottle from the pack.

The house was oddly quiet, so Aidan walked to the living room, turned on the TV, and dropped into the overstuffed couch massaging one temple with the cold bottle.

"--urging the Los Angeles Police Department to step up its enforcement of mutant registration laws. Richard Delaney, chairperson of the city's Genetic Diversity Council, expressed his concerns that pockets of Los Angeles may be harboring significant populations of unregistered mutants."

The TV always took a few seconds to clear up, and now it showed an avuncular middle-aged man in a perfectly-kept suit talking earnestly with the reporter.

"These are often underprivileged areas where people don't have access to the kind of medical care mutation may require, or the kinds of education programs that have been so successful in helping individuals to control their mutations. I don't think it's any coincidence that these neighborhoods are hotspots for mutant-related violence, both by and against mutants."

Aidan wrapped his hand around the bottlecap. His hand glowed blue, and the metal cap deformed in his grip and popped off easily. He took a mouthful of beer and let it settle in his mouth before swallowing.

"Critics of the Mutant Registration Act claim it strips away the right to privacy and exposes mutants to genetic profiling," the voiceover continued. "But Delaney disagrees."

"Mutant registration is harmless and completely confidential, and at this critical point in our nation's history, it is absolutely vital. If we don't have the tools to study mutation, how are we ever going to learn to control it?"

Aidan snorted in contempt and took another swig of his beer.

[Jacob Foley]

Jake appeared in the doorway and leaned against it. The news report caught his attention, while he watched it he spoke absently to Aidan.

"What do you want from Wong's, man?"

[Aidan Fox]

"The Schezuan beef," Aidan replied. "Tell 'em to make it a five."

"It's not too much to ask," another expert talking head opined. "We already require all firearms to be registered, and it's well documented that some mutations are far more dangerous than an ordinary handgun. It's like handing a weapon to a teenager - without proper training and supervision, they're going to be a danger to themselves and everyone around them."

Aidan gestured over his shoulder with the bottle. "There's more beer in the fridge if you want it."

[Jacob Foley]

"Yeah, thanks..."

His attention had been divided between the dinner order and the television, he snapped out of it, and looked at Aidan.

"Didn't Jamie tell you what happened today?"

[Aidan Fox]

Aidan looked over his shoulder. Something on Jake's face told him he'd better brace for bad news. "No."

[Jacob Foley]

"They were jumped," he said frankly, sounding quite tired. He crossed the room and took a seat opposite Aidan.

"Her and Anna, by a gang of anti-mutant fuckers. Jamie wasn't hurt but I saw one of them punch Anna..."

[Aidan Fox]

"The hell?"

Aidan furrowed his brow with outrage. "Jamie said they forgot to get eggs at Ralph's. You mean it was on the way...?"

Jake nodded. "Damn it," Aidan said, "I told her she needs to take the truck when she goes shopping, even if it's just down the street. Is she all right?"

[Jacob Foley]

"She's okay. Having a lie down or... polishing her mirror," he mused.

"She was afraid to use her powers in front of Jamie, she didn't want to set a bad example but then it was too late. Those scumbags don't care about her morals or the kids she takes in."

[Aidan Fox]

Aidan was about to fire something back - something about setting an example for thugs like the Three-Elevens - but then he realized Jake had probably already had that conversation with her. If he knew Anna, she was beating herself over the incident worse than any crackhead thug ever could.

"So what are we going to do about it?" Aidan asked. They were way past should we.

[Jacob Foley]

"Aidan, things are going to get worse around here. For us. We need to be ready for it, man."

He sat, hunched forward, rubbing his palms against each other while he contemplated what he said next. He sunk into his chair and spoke with resolve.

"We can't expect these kids to fight off the gangs of LA everytime they to go to school or catch a movie. We need help."

He watched Aidan intently, "I was thinking of going to see Vic Morricone."

[Aidan Fox]

Aidan lofted an eyebrow. "Well, I know what Anna would say. So I'm guessing you're not planning on telling her?"

It hardly needed to be asked. Aidan drummed his fingers on the side of his beer bottle.

"So, what's a Mafia reject going to do for us? Even if he is a mutant?"

[Jacob Foley]

"I think he will be almost as happy as us to see the back of mutant-hating scum like them. For his business if nothing else."

Neither of them spoke after that, it was a proposition even Jake was uncomfortable with but he knew, as he was sure Aidan did, that there were limited civil ways of dealing with the unruly and the violent.

"I don't know, man, the least we can do is speak to the guy. The sooner the better."

[Aidan Fox]

Aidan shook his head. "No," he said. "We speak to the guy, we're already committed. Even letting him know we're concerned gives him leverage."

The ceiling creaked as someone upstairs moved from a bedroom to the bathroom. Aidan waited until the door closed and the fan went on before he spoke again.

"So that means we either go all-in, ready to deal, or we look for another option."

[Jacob Foley]

"Yeah..." he said, deflated.

Aidan was right, there was no way they could deal with a man like Vic Morricone unprepared. It frustrated him to no end and he got the sense that around every corner lurked a kid with a gun, waiting, and they were closing in on his home. He kicked the coffee table out of his way and stood abruptly.

"What then? What other option do we have?"

He strode across the room and made a beeline for the fridge and beer inside.

[Aidan Fox]

Aidan sat in thought, mulling his options - well, one option in particular. Then he reached for the remote, turned off the TV, and walked over to the doorway between the living room and the kitchen.

"I know a guy," he said, leaning in the threshold. "I don't know if he's part of Morricone's network, but he's local. He's not a big operation, but he's got a dozen, maybe twenty people. All mutants."

The look in his eye said he didn't really want to say how he knew this guy.

"I haven't talked to him in... well, I've never talked to him," he amended. "But I know they're hitting hard times right now. We'd have a lot more pull with someone like him, a lot less risk he'd back us into a corner."

[Jacob Foley]

Jake fell back against the breakfast bar, sucking on a cold bottle of beer. His eyes were closed but he listened to Aidan, his curiosity piqued. It took a lot to get him to surrender nuggets of information like this about his past and this told Jake something important; he could see no other option. When he finished speaking, Jake simply pulled the bottle from his lips, and said:

"Let's go see him."

[Aidan Fox]

Aidan held up a staying hand. "You realize what it is we're doing, right? We're stepping into gang business here. We'll do everything possible to keep Anna and the kids out of it, but there's no way you and I are coming out with our noses clean. Are you okay with that?"

[Jacob Foley]

"I will do anything to make sure what happened today never happens again," he answered.

The half empty bottle clinked on the table as he put it down, indicating he was ready to go.

[Aidan Fox]

Aidan nodded and pulled a set of jangling keys from his pocket. "Let's go, then."

Five minutes later, the old Toyota pick-up truck rumbled out of the driveway of Redención House and turned down Banyon Street toward Los Santos gang territory.