Chapter Three:

The city pulsed with life. In such an alien kingdom, birds still found solace. Conversations emanated along hollow walls. The wind whispered through a half open window. Time stirred, impatient, but sleep refused to surrender. Only a flickering remained, a flickering of a brilliant white light.

The brown, scratchy covers fell away. White sheets were pressed and stained. An impression kissed the pale pillow. A body rose, confused as sleep wrapped its arms around it, begging for one last dream, but there was no dream here. A nightmare was waiting from the corners of darkness, itching to stir, and it would stir.

"Mitch? Mitch?" She slowly rose from the bed. "It was a dream. Thank God! It was a dream." She gathered her clothing from a nearby drawer, taking one long look around the hotel room. "He's getting breakfast. That's what he's doing. Getting breakfast, and I need to shower. I need to wash that dream away, that man… That bullet."

The warm water on her skin was a blessing. She pulled and curled her long, brown hair. Of course, shampoo got into her big, brown eyes, but she washed that away as well. Her pale skin shimmered with water droplets as she sadly turned the water off, but she had wasted enough time. Time? Maybe, whatever this ability was, it was time to put it away.

As she exited the bathroom in a long, white robe, something slid under the door to the hotel room. She looked down at it for a long, quizzical moment. That couldn't be right. It couldn't be. How was it a month later? This couldn't be real, but the folded newspaper in her hands screamed that it was. This was real, and time? Time was a cruel bitch, or did it just save her life?

Mitch had paid for this room for three months in advance with the money they had won. It was in a perfect location. Nobody bothered them. Nobody questioned them. They came and went as they pleased, and if they never returned, nobody would care. The abandoned room would then become someone else's problem, but that didn't explain the missing chunk of time.

The front page screamed of some kind of tragedy. It was that night, that night when she was at Grand Central. There were so many dead, so many left in comas. There were stories about people with abilities, abilities like hers, so she wasn't the only one? Another page had a picture of all the dead, and one man stuck out from the rest. It was the one bent on killing her. "Good," she muttered. "I'm glad you're dead," and she continued to flip through the newspaper, almost as if it would tell her how she got here.

Toward the back was an obituary on a guy named Dr. Lee Rosen. It was an entire page. It spoke of how he was the first one to announce the Alpha Outbreak as they were calling it. Most people wrote it off as a joke, but since that night, amazing things had happened. Terrible things had happened. Now, people were scared, and they needed this guy more than ever. But he did not survive. There was mention of an organization, DCIS, but it was brief. Would this group, his group still exist, or did his death destroy them?

It didn't matter. All that mattered was that Mitch was dead. His body was left somewhere near that poker game. Maybe, the cops had already found him. She promised herself that she would tell the police what had happened, but that guy was dead too. And this was the mob that she was talking about. No matter how much it broke her heart, maybe she should leave this alone. Maybe, but she couldn't. At least, if she found his body still lying there nearby, she could lead the police to him and make sure that his mother got a chance to say goodbye.

She wanted to call her mother. Her mother always looked down at her in disappointment. Her brothers went on to college, graduated, and got married. What about her? College dropout, hooking up with this guy, Mitch, and racing to New York City like she would be king or queen of the world. She just wanted to have a little fun. She never had any fun. Her mother didn't let her. Instead, she did all the chores in the house like a good Cinderella.

The only thing that she knew about her father was that he was obsessed with watches. For awhile there, they were a happy family, but then the ticking started. He had to work day and night on any kind of watch to silence it. He needed to silence time like he was afraid of it, like it was going to do something to him, something like this. Maybe, he knew. Instead, he was locked away shortly after she was born, and a year later, he died of a massive stroke as if his head exploded. Was it the ticking? She hoped not, remembering that night at Grand Central.

Nobody in her family talked about him except for the good times. Her brothers refused to think that something was amiss. She believed that lie too, but the pressure of graduating high school, going to community college, and figuring out what to do with her life jumpstarted that ticking. At first, she thought that she would go crazy like her father. She was afraid to tell her mother or her brothers, but then that night after graduation happened.

That stupid boy pretended to like her. He took her to the all-night graduation party, but they never made it. He was already drunk, and they were fighting. They were fighting because he wanted to make out, and she didn't. And he was angry that she wouldn't put out, swerving madly about the road, and then she screamed. A car was coming straight toward them, and then it was like time had stopped. But it slowed down long enough for her to jump out of the car.

Nobody understood it. Nobody understood how she got out. The boy lived, but he was crippled. Some even blamed her, and that small town got even smaller. Then, she met Mitch, and he was the one to coax her into her ability. And she never suspected that it was to make him rich, and now he was dead. And she was here one month later, but why? Why was she here now?

"Doesn't matter." She finally put the newspaper down. Her fingers were stained black. "Doesn't matter. His body has to be found," and with that said, she started to get dressed. "What do I tell the police," she asked the empty room. "What should I tell them? I don't want another bullet with my name on it."

A few moments later, she was ready. She wore light blue jeans, a red shirt, and had on black sneakers. She lifted up the mattress and grabbed a few more hundred dollar bills, just in case. She shoved the bills into her pants pocket and surveyed the room one more time. She could hear it, that damn ticking, and there were no clocks or watches in this room. Something was wrong. Something was very wrong, but she would be damned, if she ended up like her father. And with that thought in mind, she left the room.