A Rogue's Tale

Escape Clause: Part 3

I know this is a Rogue and Gambit story but this part is all about Tara. There will be more Tara scenes throughout the story.

Tara awoke on the floor in front of her mirror sometime later when she heard her mother's voice calling her from the stairs. She managed to make it to a sitting position and looked in the mirror and saw that what she thought was a nightmare was actually real. She picked herself up off the floor even though she was still weak. Still hearing her mother's shrieks, she had to come up with some excuse so she would not find out what was going on with her. Her mother freaked out enough and after the whole mess with Rogue and was even more paranoid about anything slightly out of the ordinary.

She had been told many times by her parents, her mother in particular, that no child of hers was going to end up being a mutant. She thought it was something silly to say, but being a mutant wasn't a choice and it was happening to her. "I'll be right there!" she called out, but as she stood up her wings spread. "Oh, shit," she said in a whisper. "Please, go down so I can hide you."

She concentrated hard hoping that would somehow fold up into her back. She was standing there in her bra and sweatpants freaking out every second those damned wings wouldn't do what she wanted.

"Tara, it's your turn to fix dinner!" her mother shouted again. "Now, get down here."

"I'm coming!" Tara shouted back. "I just have to change." The last part was more than true. "Retract, damn it!" her voice was a whisper, but her wings then folded into her back. They were still visible but she would be able to cover them with a top as long as they decided not to come out on their own. Ever since she was little, she always wanted to be a fairy, and it seems that now she got her wish.

She put on a sweat shirt over her tank top hoping to conceal her wings, but they were still poking out a little, so she added her light denim jacket and looked in the mirror. The bulky clothes hid the fact that there were two wings sticking out of her back. It would be easier to explain why she was wearing a jacket indoors than have to explain the real reason.

She came downstairs and her mother looked at her strangely but barely spoke as she passed by. "Tara, is anything wrong?" she asked.

"What could be wrong?" Tara asked but she had that guilty look on her face. She could still feel her wings underneath her clothes and she thought that as long as she stayed calm her family wouldn't find out.

"Why are you wearing a jacket?" her mother asked.

"I'm cold," she said, and it was the only explanation she was going to give.

Her mother didn't press her any further about the situation. "Your father's working late again tonight, so it's just the three of us... again." Tara was about the say something, but her mother beat her to it. "Don't you think of inviting that boy over." Tara knew she was talking about Bruno, her long time steady of more than a year.

"I wasn't going to, besides he's working at the garage tonight," Tara said and she entered the kitchen.

She was going to make meatloaf tonight from a recipe she downloaded off the internet. Her mother hated meatloaf, and she wasn't wild about it but it seemed she would do anything to annoy her mom. On the plus side, her little sister loved it for some weird reason. She always knew Sasha was a weird kid, and even at eight years old she seemed like a mini adult.

Sasha was the opposite of Tara in looks and attitude. Tara was a wild and crazy girl who liked to go out and party with her friends, while her blond haired blue-eyed little sister was rather a stay-at-home type who liked to make crafts. The weirdest thing was that she enjoyed housework and home decorating. Sasha was a tiny girl and even at eight years old she looked more like five. That could have been because she was born premature at two months early, weighing barely three pounds, unlike Tara who was nearly a month late, so much so the doctor had to induce labor and she was born at a whopping eight ponds six ounces, and even at sixteen she was well developed and looked to be a full-grown woman and not merely a teenager.

Even with this knowledge, her mother still treated her like a kid, and her father was basically mister invisible. He wouldn't come home until late at night from working all day, and he would be out the door before she got up in the morning. She was lucky if she saw him briefly during the weekends. It was like not having a father at all.

Dinner was pretty much silent, and Sasha was in charge of the dishes that night. Tara wanted nothing more than to return to her room and be alone for a while, but it seemed her mother was adamant about talking with her. "What is going on with you?"

"Nothing," Tara said. "I just have studying to do, so I'll be up in my room if you need me." She stomped up the stairs trying to get away from her mother as quickly as possible.

She closed her door, but in her haste forgot to lock it. She took her jacket and sweatshirt off and tore her tank top down until her upper back was exposed. The wings were still there, but they were no longer causing her any pain. She looked at them in the mirror and saw that they were moving, but this time she wanted them to move. She smiled for the first time thinking that they were the most beautiful things she had ever seen, and they were a part of her. In some ways, she always knew this would happen. She always knew she was different and somehow unique, and now she had proof that was true. She just feared what the rest of the world would do when they found out.

"Tara, I need to...." she turned to see her mother standing in the doorway. Damn, she forgot to lock the door. Her mother stopped in mid-sentence and screamed while backing into the hallway.

"Mom!' she shouted and stood in the doorway. She tried to calm her down be she just kept screaming.

"Get away!" her mother screamed. She saw her little sister come down the hall. She looked in awe but not frightened of what Tara had become.

"Please, just let me explain," Tara pleaded. She tried to retract her wings but her emotions were too high, and she felt the only thing she could do was get away. She felt the insatiable need to fly and grabbed her black leather jacket and her travel bag and ran to the window.

"Tara, don't go," Sasha called out.

With a tear in her eye, she jumped out the window. She dropped down to a few feet, but then something lifted her right before she was to hit the ground, and she gained some altitude. She swooped into the air and looked back at her window only to see Sasha's tear-stained face. She couldn't go back, not after the look of terror on her mother's face. Instead she flew off into the night leaving her family... perhaps forever.

To Be Continued...

There's more coming in the next scene when Remy returns and finds Rogue is gone and his apartment trashed. Will he be able to find her before it's too late? Find out next time.