"With great power comes great responsibility."

whoever coined that term was a fucking genius.

with him locked away in the bathroom, isla had a chance to sit down and break down. it was one thing to get lost in the throes of euphoria, a rift giving way to the simple act of making up and making love. it was humiliating that a power she didn't know she possessed shattered the moment, giving way to destruction in every corner of the bedroom. glass shards peppered the floor, the furniture, and there was a blood stain on her white comforter. curtains blew in the wind and cold air poured in through the the spaces between the half closed blinds. of all the times to discover this sort of power, it had to be in the winter.

her eyes were fixed on the blood stain, a sign of the damaged she'd caused. the sound of him yelling 'I can't fuckin' hear!' played over and over and over again and she shuddered at the thought of his hearing never returning. an inappropriate helen keller joke came to mind and she giggled, but was quickly humbled by how entirely not funny it actually was. he was hurt. he was hurt because of her and her lack of control. it wasn't all her fault, though. this was something she'd never experienced.

well...there was that one time in the car a while back. somehow that felt more comical than this. this was scary. this was her home, the place she felt safest and in turn, hoped he felt safe, too. but it was clear he wasn't safe there, or with her at all. after days of salty attempts at talking it out, the two had finally reached a sort of stalemate. and after the very brief attempt at making up, she ruined it once again and it sent him packing.

sighing, she picked up a piece of glass on the ground and stared at it blankly. her ears were trained on the closed bathroom door, hoping to hear him come out, but he didn't. before too long, she found herself getting dressed and putting as much distance between the two of them as she could. even now, at the epicenter of it all, isla knew she couldn't look nathan in the eye. not now. not yet.

once he was out of the house and she found herself alone, isla wandered down to the wine cellar to get a bottle, and then into a room full of large monitors that were used primarily as a security system. this wasn't her doing, but she knew what it was. just like she knew that what she had done earlier was called a canary cry. there was a thick book filled with notes on the desk, and she took a seat in front of it. the weeks isla took a back seat in her own body to make way for dinah lance, she relied on this book to keep her up to date with what it all meant.

there was no mention in the book about the likelihood of scrambling her lovers brain mid-coitus, but she supposed there were some things that were better left to the imagination. the bottle was opened, a glass was poured, and she settled into her chair to read more. if she was stuck with that metagene, as it was labeled, she had to figure out a way to control it. self-control was something dinah had in droves, but isla wasn't as well versed in that sort of restraint.

by the time most of the bottle had been emptied into her stomach, isla had a better understanding of the problem at hand. there were lengthy descriptions about the canary cry and how it could mimic other sounds, and how it could be strong and loud enough to shatter metal. even if a person wasn't the target of the attack, a cry at 300 decibels could severely injure them. to avoid a future disaster, isla was going to have to learn how to control it, not only for her own wellbeing, but those around her as well.

if she hadn't had almost an entire bottle of wine at this point, it wouldn't have seemed like a good idea. but one test of the cry turned into two, which turned into three, and so on. first the goal was to shatter a glass, which wasn't a goal easily met, knowing not how to control it or summon up the cry. after a series of what seemed like random screams and sounds of either pure terror or frustration, isla conjured up a scream so loud, that it threw her back against the chair. this wasn't the place to learn how to control it, but she didn't know where else to go. the monitors cracked, glass shattered around her, and the lights flickered and burnt out against their will.

when she was done, the only thing left in one piece was the book. there was red wine staining the floor, and glass littering all areas of what was left of what dinah and helena dubbed 'the clocktower.' it was gone, crumbling behind her as she climbed the stairs into her cold house.

mabel shook upon isla's return, the commotion below over the last hour of her bellowing certain to have scared her senseless. isla stooped and pet her head, vowing not to put her through that again. she was going to have to learn some self control if having this power was now a part of her. for the sake of everyone around her, both two legged and four.