"He kicked me, and then all I remember is tumbling down the stairs, and then…nothing but black."

"And that's how you broke your collar bone?"

"Yes ma'am." Anna nodded, careful to be respectful to her lawyer, Miranda Giles.

"Anna, who did that to you?" Miranda had been coaching Anna for months now on how to answer, with the truth and only the truth.

"My father." Replied Anna quietly as she looked away. She couldn't bear how horrible it sounded, especially when she was forced to say it out loud.

"Thank you Anna, no further questions."

Anthony Taylor, the defense attorney for her father stood and buttoned the middle button of his suit jacket.

"Miss Serona."

"Anna." She was never going to use that name again.

"Very well, Anna, are you sure that he pushed you down the stairs, couldn't you have fallen?"

Anna paused for a moment and looked over at her father, who still had very visible burns on his body from Warren's attack three months prior and the sight made her smile to herself on the inside.

"Well, if I did fall, it's only because my father beat me so badly before that I couldn't keep my balance." Her words cut through the courtroom like a knife, shattering the perfect picture that she made.

She was wearing her church clothes. A simple, blue dress that covered her arms and hit just above the knee, black pumps on her feet and simple makeup. She looked like the girl next door but as she waged on in her many horror stories the pretty picture began to fall away and she had never felt so naked in her life.

"I see. Anna, do you love your father?"

She paused again before answering; she wasn't so sure she had an answer to that.

"I will never forgive him for what he did to me or my baby sister, but yes, a part of me still loves him."

"Then why are you doing this to him?"

"I'm not doing anything to him, he brought this on himself the day he started hitting me."

Her answer was cold and calculating and everyone could hear the drastic difference in her voice.

"Anna, just one last question. Is it possible that you are fabricating events to get some attention?"

She resisted the urge to slap him across his smug little face.

"No."

Her answer was short and simple, but one glance at the jury and she knew that she had convinced them.

"No further questions, your honor." Apparently, Mr. Taylor knew defeat.

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Anna had never been so nervous in all her life. She had been told that the jury might take a while to deliberate but it had been an hour already and she was starting to get nervous. What if they didn't believe her? What if they ignored the physical evidence and accept the sob story her father had told? That she wanted money he wouldn't give her. That she was doing this for attention, acting out because her mother was gone.

Warren squeezed her hand gently, watching as her knee bounced up and down in jitters. Some bruises still lingered on her lower extremities from her father kicking her in that alleyway, and she had physical therapy to get full range motion in her arm that had been pulled from its socket. She still had a cast on three of her fingers and her face was just now back to its original color and size.

"What if they don't think he's guilty?" she asked aloud, not really expecting an answer, she just needed to get the idea off her chest and out of her mind.

"They won't." replied Warren quickly, knowing if she thought about it for too long she would start to panic, and her lungs weren't strong enough for that.

"Anna?" it was Miranda Giles, "Honey, they're ready."

Anna nodded and stood on her own feet slowly. She smoothed out her skirt and walked towards the courtroom door and her lawyer with a confidence that she didn't feel, leaving Warren behind to pray.

She entered the courtroom and sat in the first row behind her lawyer, trembling like a leaf now that she was off her feet.

Miranda looked behind her and smiled reassuringly, but Anna couldn't banish the fear that threatened to overwhelm her. She wasn't sure what the jury had decided; it had taken them much longer to decide than she thought it should if they thought he was guilty.

"Has the jury reached a verdict?"

"We have your honor." Nodded the foreman, his gray hair receding.

Anna crossed her fingers in her lap and kept her head down, afraid to look at anyone.

"On the first count of the indictment, assault in the third degree, how do you find?"

"We find the defendant, Joshua Serona, guilty."

A breath escaped her lungs.

"On the second count of the indictment, attempted murder in the first degree, how do you find?"

"We find the defendant, guilty."

The rest of her breath, along with any feeling in her body, escaped. She sat there in her seat, limp as a rag doll, not quite believing what she had just heard. She was free. She and Charlotte were free to live their lives.

Of course the case had been in the paper and almost everyone in Maxville knew about what her father had done to her but she didn't care. She was free.

She slowly stood on shaky legs and shook Miranda's hand.

"Thank you so much."

"You are very welcome."

"What happens now?"

"The judge will sentence him to his jail time, and he will stay there for a very long time, I promise."

Anna nodded, a smile starting to spread its way across her face.

"You can go home now Anna, get some rest, and don't worry, your father won't be bothering you ever again."

Anna nodded again, her smile growing bigger and she started towards the door, once she reached it, she broke into a run. Warren stood a ways down the hall and turned to watch her as she came running towards him. He judged her smile and gave her one of his own as she launched herself into his arms.

He wrapped his muscular arms around her and picked her up off the ground, spinning her around, her feet tucked up.

"We did it Warren, we did it, guilty on both counts, I'm free!" her voice was strong, breathless, happy, scared and nervous all at the same time but he knew that she was going to be okay. He was going to be there after all.

"C'mon, we should go home, celebrate." He suggested, but she just kept hugging him. He smiled as he ran his fingers through her hair and kissed her temple.

"Home sounds good." She managed as she stepped back from his embrace and the pair of them left the courthouse, wide smiles on their faces that no one was going to be able to steal away.

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Anna and Charlotte had been free several months. Anna and Warren both graduated with high honors from Sky High, Anna becoming their class valedictorian.

Her speech was one for the history books.

"I myself have never felt beautiful, never felt loved or wanted. So I came here with a bleak attitude on life. A bleak attitude on everything, because I didn't believe that I was worth it. I didn't believe that I was worth the time to be made happy. But now I know differently. I know that I deserve a good life, and as long as it took me to get here, I made it. You can make it too. I know for some of us this day felt as though it would never come, but now that it is here, we wish we could go back, relive everything in the past couple of years, commit it all to memory again.

I know that life is supposed to go on, and that we are supposed to move on. And you should. Go on, mature, physically, emotionally, mentally, whatever way you need, but always remember that here is where it started. Here is where you learned that having powers doesn't make you a hero, that not having powers doesn't make you a sidekick and that combining the force of both saves the world.

Not all of you will get the chance to save the world. May all of you care enough to try. May you remember the past but don't be ruled by it. Let it shape you but not define who you are, and learn from it, so that your future is the best one for you.

May you keep in touch with your old friends, make new ones, and be able to keep them all. Survive the unsurvivable, love the unlovable, and wish on every star you see.

Congratulations, graduating class of 2000, may you inspire the world."

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Hey guys, that is it! The end! Yeah! I so love this story, and some of you may be disappointed that there wasn't an actual romantic relationship between Warren and Anna, but not to worry my lovelies, there is a sequel coming very soon, so keep your eyes out for it. The first chapter should be posted within the next week or so.

Thank you all for sticking with me, inspiring me with your ideas and laughing at my corny jokes. Understanding my foreshadowing and not being too put off by the fact that this is rather mature content that could upset quite a few people.

I love you all, stay with me through the sequel!

Andrew's Slinky