A/N: And I didn't keep you guys waiting on what happens to Cassie, okay? Thanks for the reviews! I can't wait to hear more of what you guys have to say.

DC Nation owns these characters, I do not.

Chapter 34:

Wednesday, 13 September 2013

3:48 AM

Cassie's POV:

At first she doesn't get it. There's a light. A harsh white light staring back at her. Cassie has no problem looking at it until it moves side to side and she squints raising her hand to shield her eyes only her hand doesn't come. The light shuts off. She turns her head to the side trying to escape the lingering bright spot in her vision. The movement hurts her head but something keeps her fingers from rubbing her temples. Her thoughts feel sluggish and the more she tries to think the more it hurts. Then she remembers – Get off the stairs! She's being held down but it isn't Slade on top of her, she isn't even outside anymore, instead she is tied down back in the boiler room. Angry she kicks out her uninjured right foot and feels the flesh of her ankle burn as something holding her in place tears at it. Cassie lifts her head and looks down at herself bound to a table by chains on her feet and handcuffs at her wrists. Seeing the bruised skin and bloody sports bra she finally gets it – she lost. She lets her head fall back onto the table and winces when it explodes with sharp pin-pricks.

"Careful," Cassie turns her head toward the sound and glares. Somehow it isn't very hard to act like she isn't afraid when all she feels is hate. "I slammed you into that stair case pretty good, wouldn't want you to knock yourself back out again." He leans on the wall next to the hatch that leads to her previous cell, "Might not wake back up." There's a smile in his voice.

"Somehow I don't think I'd be that lucky." She stares back at the ceiling pulling gently on the handcuff binding her right wrist. The muscles are sore and her elbow feels as though it is being repeatedly stabbed. The handcuff is sturdy, nothing seems to be catching in the chain and there is no room for her to move her hand at all without metal pinching the skin.

"You aren't getting out of those," Slade moves off the wall and comes toward her on the table, Cassie tries to slide away but she can only go so far with the handcuff digging into her arm, "Stop struggling you're just making yourself bleed." He steps behind her and Cassie hears him sifting through materials she can't see, some sound metallic and others plastic. She looks down at her right elbow, blood spilling from the cut she'd gotten at the fire. "Now that I know I haven't killed you I should probably stitch that up." He steps back into her sight placing what she recognizes as a suture kit down next to her right shoulder. He grips her elbow just below the blood and Cassie pulls it as best she can out of his grasp, she can't get out but she can make it hard for him to look at it. He lets go seemingly unaffected and pulls a tourniquet from the suture kit, tying it just below her bicep tighter than he probably has to.

"Don't touch me!" Cassie pulls as hard as she can on the handcuff circling her right hand but the only thing she accomplishes is to get up on her left elbow and rub her skin raw.

"I am trying to help you." Slade places his hands down on the edge of the table and cocks his head at her, posture that makes her feel like she's a child doing something amusing.

"Help me?" She's pushed her body to the left edge of the table all of the restraints on her right side pulling her back toward him, she yanks angrily at her right hand and the handcuff's edge draws blood. "If you want to help me then let me go!" Slade looks down at her wrist sitting in another small puddle and coldly surveys her struggle to get free. He sighs and moves back to where she couldn't see him before, but at this angle she can. He goes to a metal desk with several opaque plastic boxes on them, from one he pulls a small glass bottle, and from another smaller box he pulls a syringe. Cassie's heart rate picks up. She can feel it beating just above the tourniquet. She struggles harder.

"You know I really couldn't figure out why you hadn't tried to escape." He fills the syringe with whatever is in the bottle, makes sure there is no air in the needle's shaft and walks back to her right side. "Then I remembered you were smart." He waves the needle nonchalantly, "You don't just go charging blindly, you pick your battles." Cassie pulls at her right arm, it's going numb from the tourniquet. "Figured that out at the fire." She abruptly stops tugging at her arm, the fire at the mall? He twirls the syringe, Cassie remembers the day and that they never caught the mastermind behind it.

"It was you…" Her heart flutters, Slade was behind the fire. "You were the one that ran away." Cassie tries to pull away harder, "You were watching me." How long had he been there and she never knew?

"Of course it was me." He steps forward and clamps down on her arm dragging her back across the table, Cassie makes a sound somewhere between a yelp and groan. Slade sticks the needle into her with a quick sharp motion, "Had to make sure I knew you as well as I know your dad didn't I?" He pushes the plunger down, removes the needle, and loosens his grip but does not let go.

Her mind still reeling from the revelation that Slade was behind the fire, Cassie continues to struggle even though she knows its futile; whatever he shot her up with she can't fight. Each limb starts to mimic her right arm and feel heavy and numb. She leans into the support Slade's hand on her arm offers involuntarily. It feels wrong using him for support and she wants to stop but her body won't respond. He lays her back down on the table. Cassie thinks it's odd that he's so gentle. Maybe he is trying to help. She's vaguely aware of something pinching her right arm. Her body is so heavy she can't even turn her head to look and see what it is. Somehow she feels like she should already know, but her thoughts slip and slide over each other too fast for her sluggish brain to grasp. The only thing she can really process is that she desperately wants to move.