A/N: I hope anyone still reading is enjoying this! I lost my second job today (cutbacks) so I'm a little bummed, and I hope that doesn't affect my writing too much. I hope this all still makes sense.
/
Cole trotted down the haunted streets. There was hardly anyone else out now, but far more bodies. It made Cole feel sick every time he saw the victims of this disaster. There were more car wrecks and trash. The whole city was starting to smell like an open sewer. Guilt and fear formed a twisted knot in his stomach at the sight of this place. Guilt over what he still felt responsible for, and fear for what had possibly happened to his friend in this terrifying city.
Stampton Bridge was free of bodies. There was no tiny blonde girl anywhere in sight. He'd shouted for her and gotten no answer. Cole kept running. He kept hoping he'd hear Sam's voice in his ear, but no such luck..
He rounded a corner and ran into a group of slightly familiar faces, the hobos whose fire he had shared one cold, lonely night.
"Hey!" Cole said, skidding to a halt near them, but not too close. Their smell was still kind of worse than the trash.
"Hey buddy," the bushy eyebrow guy said. "Thought you'd kicked the bucket."
"No, sorry to disappoint," Cole gasped, clutching a stitch in his side. The group hacked and coughed as they laughed. The toothless old man motioned for Cole to come gather around their flaming garbage can. Cole approached, somewhat against his better judgment, but he needed to ask them something. The bushy eyebrow guy reached in his pocket, pulled out a stained scarf and offered it to Cole.
"You look like you could use this," he said. Cole eyed it warily. Thoughts of lice and crabs raced through his mind at light speed.
"Um, no thanks, you keep it," Cole said. The guy shrugged.
"Suit yourself," he said, stuffing it back in his pocket. Cole seized the moment.
"Have you seen a girl around here? She's really skinny and has spiky blonde hair," he blurted out as fast as possible. He'd wasted too much time on his fruitless search for Shane already. The bushy eyebrow guy raised the giant hairy caterpillars on his face.
"I thought your girlfriend threw you out, kid?" he asked.
My girlfriend is dead. And now this girl, this beautiful girl who cared about me... she might be dead too, and I'll have lost all my friends.
Cole swallowed hard. He couldn't afford to get all emotional now. He still had a job to do, namely rescuing his last shred of hope for the future.
"This... this is someone else. She's my friend and she... she disappeared. Have you seen her?" Cole could hear the desperate note in his voice, but he didn't care.
There was silence for a moment. Then one of the hobos on the other side of the fire shifted in his seat. His enormous mustache and beard twitched.
"I saw a girl," he said gruffly. "Tiny thing. Blonde. Woke me up this morning. Came stumbling down the alley like the devil was chasing after her, yelling for help... but there wasn't anyone after her."
"What?" Cole said incredulously. The hobo grunted.
"Ain't that unusual, kid," he said. "Lots of people coming unglued lately. Anyway, right when she passed me I caught a glimpse of her. Tiny and blonde, like I said. She kept looking over her shoulder like she could see someone."
Why would Shane be running down the street, screaming for help? Someone must have been after her... the homeless man must have not seen whoever was after her.
I knew there must have been a reason she wasn't home!
He felt his hands clenching themselves into fists. Someone must have hurt her...
"So... where did she go?" he asked after a minute.
"Got up to go see if she was alright, and she was gone," the guy said. "But she was heading towards the bay before she... vanished," the guy finished, suddenly looking unnerved, like he was just now realizing how strange it was that the screaming girl in the alley had just disappeared in an instant.
Finally, a lead! It wasn't much, but it was something... Shane had been heading towards the bay. But... what the hell was she doing down by the docks?
"Thanks... thank you!" he said bolting down the sidewalk. He needed to find Shane fast. It was getting dark... and cold. Cold wind was blowing in off the bay. He spent another frustrating hour searching the wharves by the water for Shane. During that time the sun sank even further, and snow flurries started drifting gently from the sky. Cole cursed, wishing he had remembered his gloves. He really needed to hurry, if Shane was out here she would probably freeze to death if he didn't find her soon.
Snow began coming down in earnest. It was freeze dried, dusty snow, accumulating in heavy drifts in corners. The wind wasn't helping matters by making the snow wash across the streets as if it were water. Cole started to shiver, thinking longingly of the hobo's flaming garbage can (and that was just sad). He lit up his arms with blue sparks to light the darkness, but the electricity did nothing to warm him. Part of him wanted to go back, but he couldn't just leave Shane out here to die.
Even as he thought that, he spotted a body laying on the ground, partially covered in snow. His heart had a spasm in his chest.. It was Shane, it had to be... The body was so tiny. Lying on the pavement, she looked like a child's discarded rag doll.
He skidded a little on a patch of ice as he came to a halt. Brushing the debris off the tiny figure, he lifted Shane out of the snow drift that she was half buried in. He touched his hand to her cheek. She was cold as death.
Please don't be dead...
"Hey," he said, unzipping his coat to try and nestle her inside. He needed to warm her up. "What the hell are you doing out here? Are you insane?"
He hadn't expected an answer, but the girl rolled over in his lap, moaning softly. Her lips were blue and her spiky hair was frosted with ice. She clutched at his arm, her eyes attempting to focus on his face. For a moment, Cole thought he saw a flash of recognition there.
"No," she mumbled as snow blew across their bodies. "No, please... I don't..." Then she went completely limp, collapsing in his arms. What was that about?
"I have to get you someplace warm," he said aloud, in case she could still hear him. Unfortunately, the only place he could think of was her apartment, and that was quite a ways away. Well, those hobos were still nearby...
Cole heaved a sigh. He tucked Shane inside his coat, wrapping her limps arms around his neck, and set off back towards the homeless guys. He sure knew how to show a girl a good time... freezing to death in the snow, hanging out with smelly hobos... how could it get any worse? The snow swirled viciously about him as he finally spotted the hobo's fire. They had moved it under an awning to provide some shelter from the wind and snow. He rushed forward without invitation, bringing Shane as close to the fire as he dared.
"That her?" the man who'd seen her earlier asked. Cole nodded.
The hobos grinned at him. The bushy eyebrow guy waggled his eyebrows suggestively.
"That's a right pretty one you got there, kid," he said, elbowing Cole in the side gently. Cole could feel his face burning, and he was pretty sure it wasn't from the heat of the fire. Her body felt really good up against his...
"She's my friend," was all he said. The hobo burst out laughing.
"Must be a darn good friend for you to rush out in the middle of a snow storm to pick her up, eh?" he said, his brown teeth bared in a wide grin.
Cole said nothing. He was too busy noticing some disturbing details about Shane's appearance that he hadn't picked up on in the dark. Her jaw was bloody and shredded, like it had gone through a grinder. There was congealed blood under her fingernails. The back of her army jacket was all dark red and riddled with little holes almost like... bullet holes. But that was impossible...
Anger boiled up inside him. No way were these injuries from just wandering around in the snow. His arms tensed around the skinny girl. He had to work very hard to keep himself from electrocuting her by accident. Somebody had attacked Shane, hurt her... possibly multiple someones. That thought just made him even more pissed off, and also somewhat ashamed of himself. He never should have let her wander off alone.
His mind went into overdrive... who would have just attacked her and then left her to die in the snow? The Reapers would have just killed her outright. Bandits, as they had tried to do before, would probably have tried to keep her as a prize...
Cole looked up, suddenly aware of all the hobos gawking at him.
"What happened to her, then?" one guy asked, scooting his chair a little closer so he could get a better look at Shane.
"I don't know," Cole said in a hushed voice. He hugged the slender girl close to his chest, trying to lend her what little warmth he had to offer. "I've got to get her out of this city..."
The hobos looked puzzled, like they were sure they'd heard him wrong.
"Ain't no way out," the old man said, shaking his head. "We've looked. You just take that girl home now, there's a good lad..."
That was when Kessler's voice boomed out into the night. Cole jumped, clutching Shane to his chest.
"Well, well, Mr. MacGrath... forming plans to escape, are you?" Kessler said, his voice coming from every direction. How the hell was he doing that? Cole looked around, trying to see where it was coming from, but outside the light of the fire it was pitch black.
"I'm so sorry to disappoint you, Cole... But there is no escape," the madman said tauntingly.
"I'll figure something out, you fucking asshole!" Cole bellowed. Shane twitched in his arms. "You can't keep us here!"
"You will not leave this city until I say so," Kessler continued. "You really should have realized this by now... but I own you, Cole MacGrath. I made you what you are with my own two hands. Your future will be what I have predicted. There is no escaping it."
"Well your future can go to hell, because I'm not going to be part of it, you hear me?!" Cole snarled. The hobos were all staring at him fearfully now.
"You're the Demon?" the old man asked, backing away.
"I..." Cole began uncertainly.
"We don't want no trouble, Demon," the eyebrow guy said, but he sounded nervous.
Cole clutched Shane to his chest. Great, more people who thought he was a murderer... He could see the fear in their faces. Would they turn on him? Cole wasn't about to chance it... he turned his back on them and ran back out into the storm.
"Where do you think you're going?" Kessler's voice said coldly. "I'm not finished with you."
"Leave us alone!" Cole screamed into the wind.
"Oh, I'll leave you be Cole, for the moment... but the girl, on the other hand..."
Cole tensed up, glancing down at the beaten and battered girl in his arms. What did Kessler want with Shane?
"It's so hard to find good help these days, wouldn't you say, Cole?" Kessler continued. "Honestly, I ask for one simple task to be done..."
Cole kept running, hoping to lose the booming voice that was following them... Snow swirled angrily around their bodies. It was starting to become so thick, Cole could barely see where he was going...
"I want that girl, MacGrath," Kessler said eventually.
Cole blinked down at the tiny girl he was attempting to shelter inside his coat. Even broken as she was, she was still so lovely... But why did Kessler care about her?
"Set her down on the ground now, and walk away... and we won't have a problem," Kessler said, his voice almost lost in the howling wind.
Why do you want her? Why?
"Not gonna happen!" Cole screamed into the night. He ran past an electronics store and he thought he saw the madman's dead, hollow eyes watching him from a TV screen...
"Oh, I think I can persuade you..." Kessler's voice said tauntingly. "I bet you don't know what you have there, do you?"
Cole kept running for the docks. No more waiting around. He'd find them a boat and sneak by the military during this snow storm. Yeah the water would be rough, but this horrible weather might actually be a blessing if they could find a working boat... A monotonous monologue followed him.
"Let's see, that is a Miss Shannon Ariana Hunter, originally from Orlando, Florida. Age twenty two. Sixty-four inches tall and one hundred and two pounds. Allergic to penicillin. Associates in Medical Technology, employed at Bayview Medical Center. No immediate family. One restraining order against a male by the name of David Thaler, now deceased... An ordinary girl, wouldn't you say? Except for one little thing..."
Cole rounded a corner and his heart sank into his gut. In that moment, his hopes of escape were crushed into the dust. The docks were burning... every single boat, or anything that might have been used as a boat, was lit up in a blaze. Flames higher than the buildings around him licked the sky. Smoke and snow swirled together in the air. The smell of gasoline filled his nose even from where he was standing.
Fuck fuck fuck! How are we going to get out of here?!
Cole squinted through the snow. He thought he could see figures weaving through the flames... men wearing gas masks and long brown coats. Men carrying guns. Those weren't riot police...
"Yes, now do you see? You are not leaving this place until I say so," Kessler's voice followed him. "This will go so much easier if you just cooperate... now set down that girl, and step back. Isn't that simple?"
"You can't have her, you bastard! I'll die first!"
"Now, now... Let's be reasonable," Kessler voice boomed out, following Cole as he ran from the scene. "Is a girl you barely know, a girl who's been lying to you, really worth so much trouble?"
Lying to me?
"Yes, Cole, that's right... Lying right to your face," Kessler said viciously. "You think you know her? You haven't the faintest idea..."
Shane was beginning to stir in his arms. He'd already had a feeling she'd been hiding things from him... But was that enough of a reason to leave her on the ground, at the whims of a madman? Hell no. Since Trish was gone, she was all he had now.
"Cole..." she mumbled. "He's right. Just put me... put me down."
Cole looked down into her wide blue eyes. She still seemed a little bit out of it, like she was drunk or something, but she managed to look him in the eye.
"I'm not leaving you here," he said to her, barely able to hear himself over the wind. Was Sam here, making the wind ridiculously rough? No, she wouldn't do that. "But..."
Shane laughed, but it wasn't a happy laugh... it was the laugh of somebody who had just reached the end of their rope. She pressed her face into his neck.
"But what, Cole?" she murmured. "What have I been lying about?"
She pulled away, looking back into his eyes with a different expression on her face now... Cole really wished he was better at reading people, because he couldn't place this look at all... A moment ago, she looked like someone who had just reached the end of her rope... but now she seemed like she didn't care.
She was almost as white as the snow billowing around them...
"You asked me to come back," she said simply, her voice barely audible over the wind. "Well, here I am... And I'm sorry I lied to you, I just... I didn't know what else to do, you know?"
She touched a hand to his cheek. Or at least, she tried to. Her hand went right through his head. The rest of her started getting fuzzy... A moment later, his arms were empty. Shane Hunter had just flickered out of existence... leaving a solitary male figure standing alone in a snow storm.
Cole could feel his heart pounding against his ribs. Of course, it couldn't be that simple... would anything ever be simple for him again?
Have I always been so stupid? How could I not have known?
Because now... now all the pieces were falling into place. Cole stood, his limbs frozen, as his mind arranged the pieces of the puzzle. How could he have been so blind? All the evidence was right there... maybe he just hadn't wanted to believe it...
Random thoughts rattled around in his brain, swirling like the storm around him.
An appointment right in the middle of the blast.
A girl who was never where she should be.
A voice that saved me by using the wind.
That blast gave me powers... What if it gave her powers too? Power over the wind...
That was the answer he'd been desperately grasping for all this time... Sam and Shane were the same person, and she was no ghost... She was the same girl he'd seen die right in front of him the day of the blast. That was how he knew her... he'd met her that day. And then they'd both died.
You think you know her? ... Well, he did, he did know her...
He should have been able to put the pieces together this morning, but he'd been too stunned, like he was now. He'd been too freaked out to look at Sam's face for long, but now that he thought about it... she looked exactly like Shane, except for the hair and the clothes.
Why did you want to help me? You saved me even after I got you killed... sort of.
Then an even more painful thought hit him... That must be why Kessler wanted her! She was powerful too...
"Goodness, did you let her get away, Cole?" Kessler voice oozed over the air. "How unfortunate. Never mind, I'm sure we'll find her."
"Why do you want her? What are you going to do with her?!" Cole howled into the wind, snowflakes going down his throat.
There was silence for a moment. Cole, who was unsure of where to go or what to do, simply stood there, letting the elements do their worst. Shadows of men moved in the darkness beyond his sight.
"We are both slaves, Cole," Kessler said eventually. "We are bound to our power. You don't understand yet, but you will... you don't control this power. It controls you. You have no choice."
Cole didn't respond. He wanted to shout back that that was completely insane... but in his heart, he knew Kessler was right. When he'd been blacked out after the blast, he'd felt it. Electricity rooting itself in his heart, anchoring itself in his soul. Electricity was part of him now. It was everything he was... just the thought of giving it up for a few hours was like thinking about cutting off one of his arms. How would he live without it?
The shadows were still moving around out there... Just for a moment, he thought he heard a familiar voice.
"Go, Cole!" Shane's voice rushed past him like a bullet. "Run! RUN!"
He lit up his arms to try and see who was approaching. He immediately wished he hadn't. Those men wearing gas masks were surrounding him. As soon as the light appeared, they crept back to where he could no longer make them out clearly. But he knew they were there.
Where could he run to?
"Yes... no choice, Cole," Kessler continued. "None at all. I have seen many things... Past, present, and future. I also have no choice, I must make the future I have seen. And the future I have seen sadly doesn't include your new lady friend..."
"Don't you dare touch her!" Cole screamed, turning in circle. Because now he knew where this conversation was heading... And now those men were on every side. No matter where he tried to go, they'd be blocking him. And he had a feeling they weren't as stupid and crazy as the Reapers...
"The girl left me with no other option, I'm afraid. It is curious why she would be so attached to you... She is young, but..."
There was more silence except for the howling wind.
"Ah, I see it now... A simple act of kindness, how sweet... You really should be more careful with that, Cole... Isn't that why you became so enamored with her as well?"
"Fuck you!" Cole screamed, letting his power start to fill out every part of his body. If he was a slave to electricity, then fine! He just wanted to kill these assholes who thought they had some right to fuck with him like this... Cole didn't care what this madman said. He'd use this power, one way or another...
"Well, our time grows short, and we have some business to attend to... It is time for another check on your progress, Mr. MacGrath."
Cole could hear the sound of guns being readied. Great... He'd have to kill them before they shot him full of holes. He had to find Shane before Kessler did, and it wasn't like he hadn't killed his fair share of people already.
"Show me your power!"
Cole clenched his fists.
"I will if you leave Shane out of this!"
"Leave her out of this?" Kessler said, sounding surprised. Kessler laughed then, a dry laugh that sounded like he'd been gargling with gravel. And Cole thought his voice was rough...
"You still don't understand, do you? She was not meant to exist! So when I find that little mistake of yours, I am going to take away whatever power she has. It will be akin to... ripping out her heart," Kessler said viciously. "She will die instantly."
"No!" Cole screamed desperately, and he wasn't surprised to hear the heart wrenching despair in his voice.
What kind of fucked up future do you even see?! Why do you have to kill Shane? Why do I have to be a weapon?
"Now, enough stalling! You are a weapon, so show me your power!"
Gunshots rang out, bullets slicing through the air. Two shots hit him in the arm... Cole blasted bolts of lightning in all different directions, but it didn't slow the hail of bullets now raining down on him... This wasn't working... Cole wanted to run, but he'd let these people surround him... He grasped the side of a building and started to climb, ignoring the pain in his arm. Up was the only way out, and he didn't want to give Kessler the satisfaction of giving in to his demands.
"Running away? That's not very sporting of you, Cole..."
He had barely gotten a third of the way up the side of the building when an excruciating pain erupted all over his back. Cole lost his grip and slid back down the brick wall. As soon as his feet hit the ground, he crumpled to the pavement.
Lying on his back, Cole could feel his lungs filling with liquid... He was suffocating, he couldn't breathe...
Panic flared to life inside him. He couldn't die now... No no no... Not an option... He rolled over onto his side and coughed, splattering the fresh, white snow with blood.
Power coursed through his body, pulsating in his tissues. His fingers tingled. But everything else was numb... His vision was blurring, he could see ghosts yet again... Was he about to become one of them at last?
Stay away from me! I have to live... I have to...
Electricity surged through him even more strongly. It was taking him over...
"The future is bright, Cole MacGrath!" Kessler's voice boomed one last time. "Our new dawn approaches!"
His body was no longer in his control. He drew one last labored breath, and...