*****Read ALPHA FORCE before you read this!!!!*****
A Different Side
"What are you talking about?" Dana asked while sipping her coffee.
"I'm talking about you, you're always drinking coffee and you're only like eighteen. What's the deal?" Dan asked and drank some of his Cherry Coke.
"Look mom, I just like it!" She said sarcastically. "Oh yeah and what's your deal?" She looked at his Cherry Coke.
"What? This?" He said while holding it up.
"Yeah, that! I think I stopped drinking that when I was eight!" She said and laughed.
"What? I've been drinking this stuff all my life!" He replied.
"You're a big time superhero now, shouldn't you be drinking, like Gatorade or something?" She asked a huge smile crossing her face depressing her dimples.
"I've been a "hero" for about a week and a half now, not enough time to be doing product endorsements. Now Sharkbat on the other hand." He said and began grinning.
They were sitting in the kitchen on opposite sides of the wooden table. He was in a t-shirt, jeans, and Reeboks. She was in a t-shirt, short blue jean shorts and bare feet.
"Well, seriously though. The other day was amazing." She said and took another sip of her coffee.
"It was something all right. Something..." He said and trailed off into thought.
The other day had definitely been interesting. A battle on top of the Zayne building had turned his life upside down. He realized how close he had come to dying... her too.
She looked at him. "Hello??" She said and waved her hand in front of his face.
"Sorry." He said. "Just thinking."
"Yeah. Me too. I can't believe what happened. Especially when Arrow blew his way into headquarters." She said.
"I've yet to ask you, what exactly happened when he kidnapped you?" Dan asked.
"Well, I was down in the living room..."
Dana sat with the TV remote in her hand. She could find nothing on to watch but refused to stop channel surfing. The past couple of days had been rough. First meeting up with the team then out of pure curiosity followed them to the Empire State building. Dangerous stuff. Hell, guys from the mob tried to kidnap her! But fortunately Active and the rest of the team got to her just in time.
She pulled her reddish brown hair back and secured it with an elastic holder. She looked down at her clothes and admired the Alpha Force tank top she had been given so she would have some clean clothes. She wore tan khaki pants and black boots also.
Once again she started surfing through the channels. Nothing. She turned the TV off and laid her head back on the soft leather chair. She started to nod off.
Suddenly alarms were going crazy. Screeching through the entire building. She popped up out of the chair and covered her ears with her hands to drown out some of the sound.
She knew the team was supposed to be gone, maybe they had come back? She ran out into the hallway and came up to a computer. She didn't exactly know what she was doing but she began tapping at it. Maybe there was a way to shut these damn alarms off.
She noticed an icon that said security; she tapped it and a program opened. Two choices; open security controls and cameras. She tried the security controls but could not guess the password so she went back to the "cameras" option, which had no password. Before her on the screen at least one hundred small windows popped up, each showing a room of the building.
She spotted what had set the alarms off, apparently there had been an explosion in the briefing room, smoke clouded the screen.
The first thing that entered her mind was whether or not someone(Active) had been hurt. She ran down to the elevator at the end of the hall and commanded it to take her to the War Room, which was attached to the Briefing Room.
The elevator slid open and smoke poured in. She covered her mouth and ran out into the room and hit, what felt like, a brick wall.
Two huge arms grabbed her up and pulled her into the briefing room where the smoke had mostly escaped into the War Room and out into the sky.
She looked up to see that she was being held by the throat by Arrow while a guy in black filmed with a camcorder. Arrow went through a speech about the ransom and periodically shook her. He shook her so hard that her head cracked back and forth violently.
After the camcorder had been turned off, Arrow punched her across the face and she lost consciousness.
"...And you basically know the rest!" She said, letting out a deep breath.
"You remember anything about them gagging you and restraining you to that chair?" Dan asked.
"Nope. I woke up as soon as that guy came flying through the wall." She said and sipped her coffee.
"Man, I had no idea that he hit you to knock you out." He said.
"Yeah." She said.
A few silent moments passed. They both stared down at their drinks.
Dan looked up; "At least you know my name now!"
She smiled. He moved to her side of the table and sat close to her. He threw an arm around her and she placed her head on his shoulder.
"I... I was scared." She said.
"I would have been too." He said.
She smiled and looked up at him. He ran his hand through her hair and consoled her.
The more she sat and thought about the other day, the more she realized how scared and how close to dying she was. A tear ran down her cheek. She felt comfort that he was there and deep down through all her tough attitude, she hoped he'd be with her for a while.