Gracelyn took a deep breath staring across the street as the cars passed by. Her heart ticked beats off as she stuffed her hands deeper into her pockets. Anymore, it took so much effort to keep this much control. Her head was pounding. Gracelyn closed her eyes for a moment and fumbled trying to pull the cigarette from her jean pocket. It took three clicks of the lighter before she got it. The flame lit and she inhaled deeply. Control. Control. Control. She couldn't lose it here; not with all these people. She knew it had been a bad idea to come out. She knew that putting herself around this many people was wrong. She'd been so hungry. Normally, Gracelyn went for large store trips and loaded everything she could so that she could stay indoors away from people. She worked at home from her computer for a small insurance firm hacking and tracking their clients businesses. The less people, the better. A car horn sounded near the curb and a cabbie leaned out the window yelling at someone to Gracie's left. She took a step back. Someone shoved her making a noise about how she'd bumped into them.

"I'm sorry." She whispered putting a hand up. The smoke from her cigarette swirled up around her eyes making everything hazy. Control. She quickly waved the smoke out of view and pulled her jacket tighter setting for to cross the street.

Gracie pushed the doors open to the small run down corner market at the end of the street. It wasn't much, and the owner was a foreign man with three children, but she liked this place. He didn't ask her questions and she knew he was armed. If anyone in here ever tried to pull a robbery, he'd handle it. She made her way down the first isle past a small rack of crinkled chips that had seen their better days. She reached for gummie worms and soda from the shelf. She didn't need those but god how she wanted something with sugar. Her usual list consisted of soup, beans, water, and cigarettes. Hacking didn't pay well when you didn't really have a birth certificate. Gracie sighed as her hand closed around another can of tomato soup. At some point she'd have to figure out a way to make herself into a real person again. According to Oscorp records her job had been terminated during an accident and she was dead. Gracelyn Savage no longer existed. If Oscrop ever got wind of her being alive…things wouldn't go so well.

"Eveyrbody get down!" a man yelled slamming open the front door. Gracelyn was jerked from her thoughts dropping the can to the floor. She took a step back ducking just enough behind the shelf that he couldn't immediately see her. The store owner started yelling at him to put the weapon down. He reached under the counter. Gracie froze as a shot went off. The owner, his name was Ozzy, gasped clutching his side. He fumbled for the counter before sliding down. Her eyes got wide. Not here. Not now. Shit.

"Yo! Little girl! Get out here!" the guy snapped waving his gun in her direction. He'd caught a glimpse of her hair. Shit.

"I said get out here now!" a shot was fired in her general direction. She felt the pressure in the back of her head building up. Her hands started to shake. Anytime something scared her or was a threat this happened. Gracelyn tried to control it. Her heart raced thumping in her chest. The pressure drummed like pounding lights behind her eyes.

"I said get out here!" The guy came around the isle corner and started towards her. He reached out, his grimy strung out hand swiping or her arm, and she lost it.

That strange power that surged from her chest and tingled down her arms; it was like a small explosion ready to burst out of her body.

"Get away from me!" she tried to tell him. She tried to take a step back. Her eyes were wide with worry and fear. The man's fingers closed around her yanking her forward when it happened.

There was a powerful blast of blue and orange light that emanated from her body. It started from her chest and surged outward like a cloud, even jutting from her fingers. The wave shot through the man. Gracelyn felt her eyes change, consumed with the power in her body. They went from white and green to a flat glowing orange. She shook. The man stumbled back shaking. Shelves fell backwards sliding along the floor from the blast. Chips, bottles, cans…they scattered over the tiles in all directions.

"Oh god…" the words died on Gracelyn's lips as slowly the man fell to his knees. The radiation from her blast was already infecting him. He'd been too close. His veins started to turn black, the infected blood spreading, until he gasped choking. He reached up to his neck as blood started dripping from his nose.

"No…" she took another step back. Not again. The man hit the floor twitching as his body was shutting down. She felt tears well up in her eyes. She had to leave. Sirens. She heard police sirens. They couldn't find her here. Not here. She swiped for her backpack and quickly stuffed random things off the floor into it. She caught sight of her hand as she snatched a water off the floor. Traces of orange and blue were still bubbling through her veins under the skin. She couldn't run anywhere like this. She was a glowing street sign. She groaned and jacked a hoodie off a rack pulling it on. She hated stealing. She hated being this person. She would have given anything to go back to being an intern at Oscorp. She made a break for the door but stopped panicking. Her eyes were still completely consumed with energy. Sunglasses, she needed shades. There was a rotating rack near the counter. She bit her lip grabbing the first pair and made a break for it. Three cop cars were racing up the street with their lights blaring. Gracie sprinted, feet hitting the pavement, as fast as she could. She didn't look back.

-(Later at the scene)-

Peter hung from the blind of a shop near the alley mouth watching as police filtered in and out of the store that had been robbed. He'd caught wind that there had been something different about the scene. He'd not made it around in time, but the aftermath was roped off and being locked down. He watched as two men suited in Hazmat gear walked into the convenient shop. Why on earth would they need that? He lowered himself just a fraction, barely letting his web down, to overhear the cops below.

"They said there's Plutonium in there. All over the damn place." One said rubbing his whiskered chin.

"How did Plutonium get inside there? The shop owner didn't see anything?" the other shook his head.

"They said it might have been a testing for a bomb. Stolen Plutonium…they were going to set it off somewhere else but some idiot tried to rob the place." He shrugged.

"You mean the idiot that's laying in there rotting from exposure?" the other guy snapped sarcastically. "Guess they didn't need the cops for that one."

"I guess everything will be on high alert for a while." He nodded to his friend as the men in hazmat came out carrying a body bag.

"Whatever's going on, it's not good."

Peter narrowed his eyes. Plutonium? There was Plutonium that had exploded all over the inside of that building? It didn't make any sense. He sighed. This was going to be a whole other level of crap that he didn't need right now.

Gracelyn slammed her apartment door, which was three floors up in a shit hole complex, and slid down the wall. Her hands were still shaking as the glasses slid off her face. Her chest hurt. Everything hurt. It always hurt after she lost control. Right after the initial release, there was pain; so much pain that she usually knocked herself out with drugs or alcohol to deal with it. She thought about it. She wanted to get up and swig back a couple of pills but that wasn't going to work. She couldn't walk. Her legs had barely gotten her home and she was still glowing like a freaking party light. She unsteadily held up a hand to examine it. The veins under her skin surged blue and orange like a mixture of a glow stick. The pressure behind her eyes still ached mildly. She let out a breath and put her head on her knees. This wasn't going to work. She'd killed someone. She'd killed another person. That made six. Five of the scientists that had been in the containment cell with her…and that guy. She was a walking time bomb. There was no way she could go out in public again. This was it. She'd have to find another place to live that was so far away from people there wouldn't be a chance. She barely made enough money to get by and her savings had been seized when she'd died. The only hope she had of getting out was taking a foreign hacking job which came along rarely. She'd have to bide her time until then. She was a walking freak of nature and a danger to everyone she knew.

A tear slid down her cheek. Gracelyn twitched sucking in a breath between her teeth hissing. She quickly wiped the tear away immediately rubbing the hand on her shirt. Chemicals in her tears from the Plutonium burned her skin. There was now a red line that would heal shortly down the side of her face. She sighed. She was even a danger to herself. There was no telling how infected she was. She could barely remember the number of times they'd injected her with that stuff. She let her head fall back hitting the wall.

"I've got to get out of here…" she said to herself. "Before I kill someone else or they kill me…"