—

"And every demon want his pound of flesh."

"Just say it, Brenner!" Feeny huffed, struggling to catch his breath. "Gloat, and say I was wrong, and that I should've listened to you."

Brenner shakes his head and sighs, "Would you even care if I did?"

Knitting his eyebrows together, Feeny frowns at him. "What do you mean?"

"You may be the smartest person in the room, but you're not the only person in the room George." Brenner bites back. "Now, Maya has completely shut down and who knows if we'll be able to get her back. You don't know what you did because you don't even know the extent of her powers."

Feeny sat forward, straightening himself. "I did what I thought was best for Maya and her safety."

"You keep telling yourself that." Brenner gripes, running his hands through his hair.

Rolling his eyes, Feeny sounds exasperated when he retorts, "Brenner, if you have something to say, just say it."

"Fine." Turning to face him completely, Brenner sit his hands on his knees.

"Maya is strong, and so are her powers. If she gets the chance to properly practice her telepathy and telekinesis, she'd be a lot stronger. Even stronger than you. You're used to knowing you're the smartest, most powerful person in the room. You're a mutant with human emotions, George. Jealousy is one of those emotions."

Scoffing, Feeny rolled his eyes and looked away. "You're ridiculous."

"Maya Hart is a ticking time bomb, wrapped up in a hormonal teenage girl, dealing with death of her best friend." Brenner got to his feet, beginning to exit the room. "You just set her off. Are you telling me you didn't know what you were doing?"

"911, what's your emergency?"

Tears blurred Maya's eyes as she sat with Marnie's head in her lap. "My best friend just got hit by a car!" The scream in her voice mixed with the tears caught in her throat made her almost unintelligible, but she couldn't stop it. "She's dying!"

"Okay, ma'am, I need you to calm down and tell me your name." The words were somehow coming out too fast and too slow for Maya to process what was happening.

"Maya Hart, my friend's name is Marnie Nelson."

"Good Ms. Hart. Can you confirm your location for me? Crescent St and 31st in Astoria?"

Crying out a 'yes' Maya pulls a shaking hand away from Marnie's head, finding it covered in blood. "She's bleeding, her head is bleeding."

The operator sucked in a sharp breath, then spoke calmly to Maya. "Alright, Maya, listen to me. Do you have a belt or a scarf anything that you can wrap around the area where's she bleeding." Sobbing as the operator spoke, Maya pulled the scarf from around her neck and wrapped it around Marnie's bleeding head.

"I did it, it's around her head." Her phone died just as the operator began speaking again and Maya cried out in frustration.

Marnie was mumbling to her, but she could barely focus. She complained about the cold, and then began calling Maya beautiful. It was just like Marnie to talk, she would always talk, even if it was quite literally the last thing she ever did.

The sound of sirens grew as Maya laid a hand over Marnie's beating heart, counting. Once it started to slow down, Maya's own heart began racing.

"Marnie?" Pressing her hands harder against Marnie's chest and head, Maya sobbed even harder. "Marnie, no!"

Marnie's heart beat continued to get slower and slower, so Maya attempted to keep it going manually. Shifting, she began to preform CPR on Marnie, until a dull ache worked itself into her forearms.

Leaning down, she pressed her mouth down, giving her mouth to mouth. She wasn't actually sure if it was working, she just knew that she'd seen it movies a few times. Then, just as Maya breathed out into Marnie's mouth, she felt Marnie breath in one time.

Then her vision went blurry. She could feel her own heart beat slowing down in her chest. All of the sounds began drowning themselves out, and her limbs felt heavy like she was underwater. Her breathing came so much harder and she was struggling for air.

A fierce pain cut through the back of Maya's head as her eyes lost focus even more.

Maya tried to open her mouth to scream, but no sound came out. Slowly, she could count the minor, barely there beats of her own heart.

The muffled sounds of the sirens grew closer as Maya's body got heavy in the cold air. She finally exhausted herself, as she collapsed next to Marnie, the ambulance pulled up in front of them.

A few men and women in white shirts rushed around them and blocked the peripheral view she had of Marnie. Vaguely, she could tell the EMTs were calling out to her, but she couldn't respond. Her vision whited out completely. The barely there focus of her brain slipped as she could no longer hear the paramedics speaking to her. The feeling of hands pressing on Maya's chest numbed out, and she felt nothing.

She was dying.

When Maya opens her eyes, Asher's grey eyes are staring back into hers. Blinking and jumping back, Maya curses.

"What the hell?"

Asher pulls back, sitting back on the floor. "I've been trying to get your attention for the last 10 minutes, Maya."

She feels sick and woozy, like she's been on a rollercoaster. "What's going on?"

"Aside from the random shit blowing up in the hallway, the broken door, and the pulverized window, nothing much really." Asher's tone is flat and sarcastic but it draws Maya's attention to the destruction around her.

"Damn."

Everything in her room has been ripped apart, it looks like a tornado had blown through. Her clothes were thrown across the room. The glass from the shattered window was on her floor. Half of her door was still hanging on the hinges, and random paintings in the hallway were shredded.

Asher chuckled, "You really go all out, huh, Hart?"

Despite herself, Maya still laughs a little. "It's all I know how to do. Harts don't shit halfway."

There's an awkward beat before he's pressing her with questions.

"What happened?"

She thinks back to Feeny's office, to the complete loss of power she felt. She thinks back to how she was lied to and betrayed. The anger from before bubbles up low in her stomach again and it's hard for her squash the feelings. Maya remembers the intense hate that burned for Feeny even in the back of her mind. The Phoenix still sat low beneath the surface, waiting for Maya to go off again.

"Period cramps." She lies.

It's almost a joke, and Asher doesn't push it. He doesn't question her more, he doesn't even fake a look of disbelief. He only nods and shrugs. "You should probably take something for that."

The light fixture in her bathroom crackles and shatters on the floor.

She shudders and drops her head into her hands. "I've made such a huge mess of everything."

"It's not your fault." Asher smiles, despite the destruction they're sitting in. "Everyone has a little meltdown every now and then. You just gotta brush it off and move on." He gives her another reassuring smile and gets to his feet, preparing to leave.

"How do you do it?" Maya calls out, just as he steps back into the hallway. Asher leans back into her room, looking down at her. "Knowing what you are and what you can do and how dangerous it is? How do you get out of bed and be okay and not breakdown every second?"

Looking around her, she gets choked up. "How do you not crawl into the ground and just stay there? Because I've been trying so damn hard to be good and make this work and not be afraid of myself and my powers, but every time-"

Pausing as she gets overwhelmed for a second and something implodes down the hall, Maya lets a few errant tears slip out. "Every single time I try something like this happens and reminds me that I can't control it. I can't control myself. I can't control anything. It's ridiculous how I have these stupid powers and I still feel so..."

"Powerless." Asher finishes for her, leaning against the wall in her room.

Nodding, Maya shrugged. "How ironic."

Asher clears a spot on the floor next to her, shoving away the broken glass, shreds of clothing, and ruined wood. "Some days suck. There's no getting around that. Some days are the absolute worst. You get up and you hate that you have these powers, you just wish you were born normal. You wish that you weren't so destructive, that everything and everyone you touched didn't turn to dust."

Maya tugs her fingers through the long waves of hair falling down her shoulders as he speaks.

"But, not everyday is going to be like that. Some days, you'll realize that your powers can do some pretty cool shit. And yeah, 'great power, great responsibility' and all that crap, but you're a teenager. You have time to do crazy shit and have fun with this thing you can do that nobody else can. Maybe it's a blessing, maybe it's a curse, either way, you have it."

"Nobody can control their emotions all the time. That's bullshit. You've just got to acknowledge how you're feeling. None of that 'conceal it, don't feel it' crap. If you're angry, say you're angry, acknowledge it and move on. If you're happy, be happy."

Detangling the mess of hair on her head, Maya lets the rest of her tears fall. "Thank you."

"Any time, Red."

She cries for a few minutes and Asher just sits there while she does. He doesn't hush her or try to comfort her. He simply waits for it to pass and then waits for her to collect herself again.

"Feel like helping me clean up?"

They spend a few minutes cleaning in silence. Asher sweeps up the broken glass while Maya examines what's left of her clothes on the floor.

But, something starts nagging at her and it won't stop.

So, Maya looks up at him, and stares up at Asher until he notices. When he finally does, Maya opens her mouth and then closes it again. Asher looks at her quizzically, waiting for her to say something.

"How did you know to come find me?" Maya finally questions, eyes filled with confusion.

Asher looks nervous then sheepish before responding, "I heard everything breaking, so I figured I came to find out what's going on." His answer is too shaky and Maya pulls at the thread.

"Why isn't anyone else here? Did you send them away?"

Wiping his palms on his jacket, Asher shrugs. "No. I don't know, maybe they came and saw that I already handled this."

Maya isn't pleased with his answer, she's spent so much of her recent life not speaking that she knows what she's hearing. Right now, she's not hearing the truth. "Ash, we both know that's not what happened. Somebody else would've come to help."

He stays silent for too long and Maya's stare hardens. "Tell me, Asher."

Sighing, he sits on the edge of her bed, next to the pile of her clothes. "If I tell you, I'll sound crazy."

There's something familiar about his tone, something that reminds her of herself or somebody she knows. She's not sure. But, it means she doesn't immediately dismiss him as a dirty. She sits at her desk chair, and pulls it closer to him. "Tell me. Please. I want to know."

"What do you know about the Phoenix?"