Security Threats, and Alien Immune Systems

now playing: Choke/I DON'T KNOW HOW BUT THEY FOUND ME

A/N: birthday update! Happy June 25. I can now buy the good stuff. Legally. I also get to write a midterm today (yay me!) Reviews would be... a really cool birthday present B)yknow if you want B)B)B)

Summary: The Decathlon rolls around, and events behind the scenes cause potential harm for Diana.

I woke up to a flash of light.

"Hnngh," I mumbled, blinking several times before seeing the picture in front of me. Nitara was at the end of my bed, pointing my Canon directly at my face. "Hey!"

Nitara laughed as I jumped up and scrambled across the sheets to grab my camera from her. "I knew that would get you up."

I didn't laugh as I recovered my camera, carefully shutting it off and wiping the sides on my shirt. "What time is it?"

"Eight-thirty," Nitara told me, and this time, I was fully awake. "Bus leaves in ten. I would get moving, if I were you."

I swore and jumped off my bed, putting the camera around my neck and grabbing today's clothes from my backpack. I chose a layered shirt, which was the closest thing I had to a jacket to protect me from Maryland's mid-October chill, seeing as Flash had made sure my regular one was still heavily damp, hanging from the bathroom hook with the rest of my clothes from last night.

We hadn't even stayed out that late, and I had slept in until eight-thirty. I never did set my alarm last night- I just trusted Nitara to, which was clearly something I should never do again. I couldn't remember the last time that I hadn't woken up to an alarm or had a full eight hours of sleep. Not at all a time this month, what with me running around as Nightmare, staying up to speed with school, yearbook, and working at the diner.

Lately, I had been too busy to even be exhausted. But this morning, it seemed to hit me like a truck.

I made sure to again grab the room key before heading out with Nitara on my heels. I took the stairs two, three at a time, until reaching the ground floor and hearing the voices of the Decathlon team being carried through the air from beyond the glass hotel doors. Beyond their small figures from down the corridor was a yellow bus on the pavement, awaiting us to board.

"Sorry, we're nearly late," I panted, running up with Nitara by my side, who was doubled over and breathing erratically. I thought about how I made her run across rooftops to the school with me, or to meet me on my own roof from Starbucks. This girl had serious problems with running.

Mr. Harrington waved his hand holding the attendance sheet in dismissal. "You two are fine. We're still waiting on Ned and Peter."

I looked around the group, and was surprised that Peter's absence wasn't the first thing I had noticed since arriving. All other signs pointed to that. Liz continually checked her watch while looking at the corridor doors in the lobby that Nitara and I had just run through, and Flash had a look of hope on his face. He looked hopeful to throw away his first alternate position.

Eight o'clock approached slow as molasses as we waited for Ned and Peter to show up. Five to eight, Mr. Harrington sent up a reluctant Flash to retrieve the two, but just as we were outside boarding the bus, Flash came outside with a disgruntled looking Ned and no sight of Peter. Flash, though, looked incredibly pleased with himself.

"Mr. Harrington! Ned here has been covering for Parker. Who, by the way, is nowhere to be found. He's skipping out, again."

A look of disappointment crossed the already sunken face of the Decathlon teacher. "Well. Flash, for now, you're taking his place on the team. Everybody board the bus."

As I stepped up the stairs of the bus, I heard Mr. Harrington pull out his phone and sigh, not again as he dialed a number.

Nitara waved me over from the back of the bus, and a moment later, Mr. Harrington got on, causing the doors to close, and the engine to start.

"Unbelievable," Nitara said, loud but inaudible to the people at the front due to the engine now running. The world outside started to move, and the hotel was soon out of sight as we cascaded onto the highway.

"At least Flash came along," I consoled. Those were five words I never thought I would say.

Nitara ignored my comment. "Yeah, thank god for Flash. Now we can lose with a full team present. I just don't get why Peter is always ditching us."

I shrugged. "Well, he's never been punctual. Plus, he's got the internship, he keeps straight A's in most of his classes, and photographs for Spider-Man. I don't blame him for not always being able to go places."

Nitara's face was still grim. "I couldn't care less that he's busy. It only becomes an issue when he says he'll do something but backs out because he's got something else all of a sudden. I get that you have a big fat crush on the dude, but at this rate, he's not even going to show up at your wedding."

I couldn't stop the rush of red that filled my cheeks. "Shut up. I'm sure he's got his reasons."

Nitara smirked. "Is that what you'll tell Madison at the alter?"

The ride to the Decathlon was relatively short, and we pulled into the Decathlon parking lot after about fifteen minutes in the bus. It was an older building, and the interior was decorated in a theatre-style. The lobby was huge, but felt cramped with the number of students from other schools that were gathered around.

"This isn't even everybody," Mt. Harrington disclosed, speaking to the whole group. "These few teams are just finishing up their round. Our division is up after them."

Soon enough, the lobby was drained of the excess students, and I said goodbye to Nitara, who looked as if she were about to throw up on her way to the stage. I ducked around to the seats, and took one in the fourth row. The theatre was practically empty, except for two or three adults that I supposed were supervising members of the other team.

I took a fair amount of pictures at the beginning, then opted to sit, watch and guess some answers, since nothing about the view had changed. The lighting was actually pretty decent, and there wasn't anybody sitting in the rows above me, so the frame wasn't disrupted by anybody or anything.

The room itself was near silent save the questions, answers and pencils scribbling at the front of the room. Or, at least, it was silent until my phone started to buzz against the seat in my pocket.

I received a dirty look from an older woman who sat a few columns to my right. I returned it, because it was not at all my fault somebody called me during the Decathlon.

Nevertheless, I hopped out of my seat and dashed to the back of the room. It was probably Madison, freaking out that I hadn't given her a daily update of my whereabouts. I sighed, and pulled the phone out of my pocket and looked at the caller ID.

Peter?!

Why was he calling me? And why now?

I answered once I was sure I was far enough from the spectators to be rendered inaudible. "Peter, what the hell? Where are you?"

I was met with nothing but static.

"Peter! Are you okay? Mr. Harrington was kind of freaking out, and Ned didn't say where you really ran off to, I'm just-"

"-ana? Are you with Ned?"

I diverted my gaze to Ned on the stage, furiously writing alongside Nitara and Michelle. "Sort of? I think it's about to go to sudden death. What do you need?"

Peter's voice was near frantic on the other side of the line. "Ned has-"

The line crackled over Peter's words, and even with my insane hearing, I couldn't make out any of it.

"Peter, you're breaking up," I said exasperated, though I wasn't sure he could even hear me.

"…You can't let-!"

The line went dead.

I stared at my phone, bewildered. What on earth was Peter going on about? And where was he even calling from? His phone could have died, but that didn't explain the less than satisfactory connection from before then. Meaning he was somewhere with next to no cell service. But where…

My only thought was that Peter had gone underground, or something. But that made absolutely no sense. I racked my mind. Did Washington have a subway system?

"Zero," Michelle said from the stage, and she got an approval from the director.

The Midtown team erupted with cheers, and I ran back down the steps, forgetting about Peter and his weird phone call as I fumbled with my camera. There was no way I was missing the moment I came on this trip to capture.

As it turned out, I got some pretty good shots. Flash looked a little too enthusiastic, seeing as he hardly contributed, and Michelle was shying away from all the congratulating hands. Liz warmly accepted the trophy from the director, and Mr. Harrington just looked relieved. It was classic Decathlon style, and it was going in the yearbook.

I met with Nitara outside the lobby. She looked even giddier than she had the night that she and Harry picked me up to go to the OSCORP tower. Before I even saw it coming, she wrapped her arms around me. "We won, bitch!"

I sucked in a gulp of air. "Yeah, you did- I told you not to worry."

Nitara let me go. "Honestly, I thought I was going to blank out. But you know how they say, there's always that one person who's worse than you, no matter how bad you are?"

I sent Nitara a puzzled look. "Sort of."

She grinned and shrugged her shoulders in the direction of Flash. "Well…"

Her smile was contagious. "I see."

Nitara pulled me over to the larger part of the group. "You know, Diana, you wouldn't be so bad on the Decathlon, yourself."

Liz turned around from her conversation with Mr. Harrington, trophy in hand. "Yeah. You know, I won't be here next year. There's going to be room on the team, and it's never too early to start practising."

"Diana, you do have the potential to be on the team," Mr. Harrington added. "Although it would be unfortunate to lose our photographer."

I shrugged and looked at Nitara. "Harry kind of showed an interest in photography last month in yearbook."

Nitara slung her arm around my shoulder. "Perfect! You're on the team."

I shied away from my best friend's grasp. "Isn't there some kind of formal audition?"

Nitara looked at Mr. Harrington. "I don't know. I mean, when Peter left, I just kind of showed up."

Mr. Harrington nodded. "True. Diana, if you're as good as Nitara here, then I don't have much to worry about."

Nitara crossed her arms proudly. "Sir, on the way here, D was the one puzzling me."

Mr. Harrington clapped me on the back. "Welcome to the team, Diana."

I stared at the teacher, bemused, as he walked into the middle of the formation the our team had made. "Folks! We're heading to the Washington Monument next across the street. Then we'll take a celebratory lunch and take some more time visiting the city. We'll be on the road by three, and hopefully have you all back by dark. Vamoose, champions!"

I along with the rest of the team pretended not to hear the last part as we followed behind Mr. Harrington to the Washington Monument across the street.

There was no way Madison wouldn't let me join the Decathlon. This was what she wanted. Me joining clubs and meeting new people. That certainly wasn't the reason I wanted to do Decathlon, because I liked the aspect of answering questions more than making small talk with teammates, but she didn't have to know that. If my sister thought I was hanging out with the people on the Decathlon, there was no way she would suspect me of doing drugs, much less of being Nightmare.

I walked into the Washington Monument feeling pretty satisfied with myself.

We got into a line before security and I did a head count of the team. "Where's Michelle?"

Nitara turned to look out the glass doors outside. "She's staying behind. Did you know this place was actually built by-"

"-Slaves?" I finished.

Nitara smiled at me. "You know, you really do belong on the Decathlon."

The security line stopped moving, and I looked ahead to see the hold up. Liz was in front of the scanners, ranting on the phone. "…you flake!"

I turned to Nitara. "What's with her?"

Liz must have heard me, because she turned around and covered the speaker with her hands. "Peter called Ned. Can you believe him? He is so lucky we won."

The security guard tapped on Liz's shoulder, and she placed the phone on the x-ray scanner before going through the main scanner.

Nitara was next, and I put my phone with hers before going through the scanner myself, which blinked red as I walked underneath it.

What?

"Over here, ma'am," one of the security guards said, gently pressing a hand on my back over to the wall. "Do you have any concealed items?"

Before I could answer, the guard began to pat me down anyway. "No."

I could feel my palms start to sweat in my gloves. Why did I make the scanner go off? My phone and camera, as I could see, were safely in Nitara's grasp as she watched with curiosity as I was rendered a security threat.

The guard finished. "We just need to do an extra scan. Right over there."

He pointed to another scanner in between the wall and the x-ray machine, and I stood in the middle of it, worrying profusely that this would somehow show up as Nightmare. That was impossible though, right? I didn't know what the source of either of my powers were, but I was pretty sure they weren't metallic or viewable in an x-ray.

The more I thought about the chemical foundations of my powers, the more I wanted to know how they really were made up. I mean, I was hit with a space gun and burned by some more space goo. There could be entirely different periodic elements, for all I knew, from the solar system that the material had come from.

"Just put your hands behind your head," the guard said, and I did so, and felt a pulse go through my entire body. The guard looked at a tablet he was holding, then waved me out. "You're all clear."

I let out a breath. Did that mean they couldn't see anything with the advanced scanner?

"Thanks," I said, brushing by the guard to meet up with the Decathlon group again. "That felt weird."

The guard appeared discombobulated. "It shouldn't have felt like anything. It was only a backscatter."

I stared at the guard, perplexed and very much wanting our conversation to end. "Oh."

I rushed over to Nitara as our group boarded the elevator. Flash smirked at me, just before the doors closed. "What's up, Bennet? Trying to blow up the Washington Monument?"

I shot Flash a look after checking to make sure the tour guide hadn't heard him. "Don't say that out loud!"

Flash simply laughed as the elevator began to rise.

The tour guide began her speech about the Washington monument, and she spoke about as slow as the elevator began to rise, but her words began to simply flow through my ear and out the other. At some point, I stopped focusing on her and merely stared straight ahead.

"…Bennet!" Flash said, snapping his fingers in my face. "Stop staring at me like a creep!"

I blinked. "What?"

Nitara turned to our commotion. "D, no offense, but you were kind of staring at him. Here." She grabbed my arm, but let go at once. "Shit!"

I faced Nitara, who all of a sudden, there were two of in my vision. "D, you're hot!"

I stared at her again. What was she talking about? "What?"

Nitara shook both of her heads. "I said, you're hot." She lifted her hands over to me, and touched my forehead. "Jesus, D, how long have you been sick for?"

Since never, I thought. I wasn't sick. I was perfectly fine, all through the long bus ride to Washington, to taking pictures of the Decathlon team winning, to swimming at night.

Nitara's hard gaze still met my eyes. "Well?"

"Since never," I repeated, but my words slurred a bit. I wasn't the one with problems. Nitara was the one who needed me to repeat myself.

Nitara pulled me into the corner of the elevator, away from a now curious Flash. "You and I both know that's a lie, genius. What's up with you? All of a sudden you have an extreme fever? You were just fine before. Is this a… bird thing?"

I narrowed my eyes at my friend. "Birds?"

Nitara gave my shoulders a light shake. "Bird thing! You know who!" She looked around to be sure no one was paying us any attention, and then lowered her voice. "Nightmare?"

I laughed and held my hand up to her lips, effectively shutting Nitara up. "Hello! Don't you know what a secret is? You're horrible at keeping them."

Nitara shoved my hand away. "Yeah, well, I've made it this far. What the hell is wrong with you?"

I shrugged. "Dude, I don't have a clue. I feel fine."

And with that, my knees gave out and I collapsed to the elevator floor.

It felt like I had just taken a really long blink, but when I opened my eyes, nearly everybody was shouting at each other.

Why, was my first thought, and then I realised I was looking up at everybody from the ground. Nitara was the closest, and her head hung above mine, and I assumed that the hands that were latched underneath my arms were her own. Although, through all of the commotion, she seemed to be the only one focused on me.

I began to clue in on my surroundings. There were some sparks coming from above both Nitara and my heads, and the elevator was shaking like me talking to an authority figure. There was a blazing orange jagged line that ran along the sides of the elevator, like someone had taken a white-hot knife and carved a line with their non-dominant hand and eyes closed.

"D! Can you hear me? Do you understand me?"

"Shut up," I mumbled, barely audible among the chaos and commotion of the unconventionally malleable elevator. "You're loud."

Nitara laughed in a voice laced with relief, then turned to speak to another figure that was hovering above me, too close for comfort. "She should be fine, Mr. Harrington," my best friend said. "Ever since we were kids, D has had this irrational fear of heights. I don't know why she didn't just stay on the ground. Right, D?"

"Yeah," I said, having no idea what I was agreeing to. Heights? I loved heights. I was more than eager to go back up the OSCORP tower with Peter, which reminded me, I hadn't even asked Harry if that was okay.

Shit. I hated forgetting important things to the last minute. But with all that was going on lately, with Nightmare this and Diana that, I could hardly keep track of it all. I suppose I could get a calendar for my room to hang up with any tip money I could scrape up.

"-w are you feeling?" Nitara's head bobbed above mine once again. "Don't worry. We'll get out of here in one piece. They have all sorts of safety measures."

I closed my eyes. "You know. It sounds like you're saying that to reassure yourself."

I pried open one eye to see Nitara's face flush. "I'm not, dummy. I'm saying it for you. Since you're freaking out so much about the elevator falling."

"I'm not," I said, as I processed the rest of my best friend's words. The elevator falling? Was that why it was shaking? It didn't feel like it was falling at all. As far as I could tell, we were dormant in the air. "I'm not."

Nitara glanced at Mr. Harrington, and I closed my eyes again. Keeping them open was like trying to take Nitara's phone from her hands. In the end, it was easier to just give in.

"She's just saying that," Nitara said, presumably to the teacher. "She likes to act tough."

"I am tough," I muttered, insulted by Nitara downplaying me in front of Mr. Harrington. "I'm literally N-"

I felt a hand slap over my mouth again. "You must have hit your head, or something, because you don't know what you're saying. Mr. Harrington, it's fine, I can take it from here."

Mr. Harrington must have had more important things to attend to, because I heard him groan as he stood up and conversed with the tour guide. "Don't worry," the guide droned. "Here they come to get us out."

I heard glass shards sprinkle down the elevator, and I assumed they had opened a door or roof or something, because more voices were carried through the air into the compartment. Then, one by one, I felt weight leave the elevator. People must have been getting out.

I blinked again. Mr. Harrington was in the tour guide's place by the wall, who was now gone, and Nitara was still gripping onto the upper half of my body. I let my head fall back into her lap as I looked up at her. She was shaking, for some reason.

"Are we there yet?" I asked, and coughed on the last word. Nitara's features contorted with even more worry than had been there before.

"Not quite," she said, looking directly above us. "Soon."

I heard a commotion above us, and saw Flash exiting the elevator from the roof. There was a sizeable hole he was climbing out of, and before I could deduce where it had come from, my heart jumped to my throat as the elevator started to fall.

People were screaming. Everybody was, I believe. Except for me. I wasn't sure what had happened from the time I was standing up versus on the ground in Nitara's arms, but it didn't seem like too much time had passed. We couldn't be that high up in the air.

With a jolt, the elevator stopped falling, and the screaming died down. I tried to look up again, to see what had caused us to stop, but nothing was there.

"Nitara," I said. "What-"

The elevator began to fall again, and screaming ensued.

"Shutup," I slurred, trying to cover both my eyes and ears with my hands. "Shut up."

The descent only lasted a few seconds before we came to an abrupt stop. It felt like the time I was in the back seat the first time Madison was learning to drive with our mother, and she kept hitting the breaks every time she accelerated. Except this time, I was more confused than I was worried about the situation. In fact, I was rather unfocused until Spider-Man fell through the roof to the floor of the elevator, right in front of me. Madison started to accelerate again.

"What the hell," I uttered to no one in particular, but Nitara squeezed my hand. Did that mean she saw him too? Was I hallucinating? Because if not, what the hell was Spider-Man doing in Washington?

My heart stopped. What if Peter knew about him being here? But the only link Spider-Man would have to find Vulture in Washington was… Liz. Was that why Peter came last minute?

Did they connect Liz to Vulture?

Spider-Man jumped into action once the elevator began to fall again, and planted his feet on the roof while he shot a web up and out of the top of the elevator to stop the drop.

"He's not here," I said, looking at Nitara. "It's just Liz. He's not here."

"You shut up," Nitara said, seemingly infuriated. "Seriously, D, don't talk. You have to be quiet."

Why? Spider-Man was here. I could just ask him now what his deal was with Liz before he left. Obviously, he needed something to do with Liz, because Vulture was nowhere to be found. What if Spider-Man was going to use her to get to Vulture? What if he was going to take her and bargain with Vulture?

It was a diabolical plan. One that if I were Spider-Man, I would totally do.

"Liz," I mumbled. Liz was fixated on Spider-Man. "Liz. You're in danger."

Liz, who was already in a frenzy, shook her head at me. "I know that, Diana. We all are. Nitara, are you sure she's okay?"

"She will be," Nitara quipped. "Temporary confusion is common in mild head injuries. We'll be just fine if we get out of here."

"I don't have a head injury," I seethed. "I never even hit my head. But Liz. You gotta run."

Nitara ran her free hand through my hair. "There's kind of a bump."

"I would know if there was a bump," I protested. "There isn't. You're a liar. I think I would remember if I hit my head."

"Actually, that's the funny part," Nitara said. "You probably wouldn't."

I groaned at her nonsense. "Nitaraaa. I didn't."

"You two are next," Mr. Harrington said, looking directly at Nitara and I. I searched the elevator to find that Ned was gone. When had he left?

"I'm gonna stand you up," Nitara said, and before I could respond, she yanked me up with her hands under my arms. My world tipped ninety degrees, and wouldn't stop tipping back and forth. "Woah there."

I was on my feet, but Nitara kept me from tripping to the side. I tried to balance myself, but it just didn't work. My legs felt like they weren't attached to my torso, and the rest of me felt like I was inside a freshly-shaken snowglobe. Everything but me was moving.

"Up," Nitara said, and part of me was lifted onto the shoulder of Mr. Harrington. My upper half stuck out of the elevator, and I could see even more hands reach out for me.

"Liz," I said, as hands wrapped around my upper arms, and I left the sanctuary of Nitara and Mr. Harrison's holds.

"Easy," a voice said, and I was pulled away from the doorway and over to a cluster of yellow jackets and bickering. I tried to count how many were there, but I either counted the same head more than once, or more than twice, or something, but I couldn't place what I had done wrong.

"Diana," said Ned, who I definitely had not counted before. "Why don't you sit down?"

"No," I said, grabbing onto Ned's sleeve. I knew for a fact that if I sat down again, I would not be getting up anytime soon. "Get Liz."

Ned looked at me in bewilderment. "They're getting everybody. Don't worry. What happened to you?"

I shrugged, not wanting to explain myself again, so I went with what Nitara was going on about. "…Heights."

Ned furrowed his brow. "I thought you were fine with heights."

I laughed. "So did I, man."

Nitara rushed up to us then, having come out of the elevator. I attached my other hand to her sleeve too. "It took you long enough."

Nitara nodded. "Yeah. Yeah, it did. Why don't we go to the corner? There's nobody there."

I slumped next to my two friends as we navigated over to the calmer side of the room. There was a window behind us, and as the view indicated, we were pretty high up. Were we even falling earlier? Otherwise, how did we even get this high up?

"Hey," I said. "It's Washington."

"Diana," Nitara said, dropping my nickname. "Hey there. Look at me. No, at my eyes. There you go. I need you to try to act normal until we get out of here, okay? Or else they're going to take you to a hospital. And they'll make you take off your gloves."

My eyes widened. "No. No. Don't. Don't let them."

I clasped Ned and Nitara's sleeves even tighter. How was I supposed to act normal? Wasn't that what I was doing now?

"Okay," Nitara said, and I relaxed my grip a little bit. "But you have to do what I say. Don't say anything unless I ask you the question, okay? And you have to forget about Spider-Man and Liz for now."

"But-"

"But nothing," Nitara said, staring me square in the eye. "I took care of it. Everybody is safe. You just have to do that for me, alright?"

I didn't know what was going on. I didn't have a clue, but Nitara seemed to. And, I had to admit, I trusted her judgement. Even though she could lose her head when she was passionate, she could handle emergencies well. At least, I assumed this was an emergency. My knowledge seemed to be limited.

"Okay," I said.

Ned gave a weary look to Nitara. "Ummm, are you positive that avoiding the hospital is the best thing for her? I mean, with what just happened-"

"I'm sure," Nitara said, cutting Ned off. I didn't say anything. "Trust me, Ned. I've got first-aide. I'm familiar with this. We've just got to get her lying down once we get out of here with some ice, and everything'll be fine."

The expression didn't leave Ned's face. "If you say so."

Getting out of there, it seemed, was a long and boring process, but I kept Nitara's bargain in the back of my mind. I shut up and stuck by her side, literally, while she sweet-talked Mr. Harrington. It was basically the same stuff that she said to Ned, who was no longer around. I didn't ask where he went. I didn't say anything.

"If she gets worse, she's got to get checked out," Mr. Harrington pressed. "That… that could be a lawsuit. Oh, God, this whole thing could have been a lawsuit. Oh…"

We didn't get to go on the bus until about half an hour after everybody was off the elevator. Mr. Harrington kept talking with a bunch of people in uniforms, and we couldn't board the bus until he finished. But when he finally did, Nitara and I reclaimed out seats in the back away from anybody else.

"Does this mean we're not going out for celebratory lunch?" I asked when Nitara leaned me back on the right-side seat.

"I think you're right. We've already had kind of a wild day, though. Are you doing better? Because the last thing I want to have happen is you pass out again and have to go to the hospital. Because they will find out about Nightmare if you do."

"No," I said for what felt like the fifth time today. "No. I mean, I don't feel awesome, but no one has to go anywhere. I'll be fine-"

I followed up my last sentence with a series of coughs.

Nitara crossed her legs on her own seat next to mine. "Good. Because then I'd be screwed for covering up for you. Although… you didn't seem too worried about talking about Nightmare back there in front of everybody."

I squeezed my eyes tight shut. My throat and stomach were burning, but I had to keep explaining to Nitara. "Dude, the last hour has been, like, a blur. I couldn't tell you what I said."

"But you're not going to say anything like that anymore."

"Hell no." I snorted in laughter. "I don't know what happened back there, but- hhgh-"

I covered my mouth with my sleeve and coughed again, but it wasn't a dry, empty cough like the last ones. Instead, I coughed up something distinctly wet and… metallic.

I opened my eyes to look at my sleeve at the same time Nitara looked over. "Jesus, Diana!"

A spurt of blood covered the sleeve of my shirt, and I could feel some dribbling down my chin. I began to speak to reply to Nitara, but I only coughed more.

Nitara fumbled through her bag and practically shoved a handful of tissues in my face. "Keep your head low, okay?"

I wanted to say, got it, but I knew if I did I would cough up blood like a fountain. So, I settled for ferociously nodding my head and shrinking below the seat as more people started to board the bus.

I didn't try to say anything more until the bus was once again moving, and the roar of the engine filled the air. "What… what did happen earlier?"

Nitara stared at me with wide, anxious eyes once again.

I brought my hand back to my face, but before I even touched my skin, I felt blood drip onto my lip from my nose.

I grabbed a tissue from the pile Nitara had supplied. Damn it. "What the hell is going on!"

Nitara was madly typing on her phone. "I though you would be the one able to tell me."

I watched as she stayed glued to he phone. Which wasn't unusual, but she was focused on whatever was on her screen more than usual. "What are you doing?"

Nitara didn't glance up. "Searching the internet for your symptoms… this says hemoptysis. But that doesn't account for you randomly passing out. Then there's situational syncope, but that doesn't account for the blood. Then there was that random ass fever that came out of nowhere. D, you're a medical anomaly if I've ever seen one."

I arched an eyebrow. "Have you ever seen one?"

Nitara continued. "Irrelevant. But that doesn't matter. I think this has something to do with… you know."

I tipped my head forward. "It makes sense. This wouldn't really happen to normal people. But I don't know why it's happening."

"You mentioned a while back that the scars hurt when you weren't using your trails," Nitara said. "Maybe if you use your powers, it'll go away. Or maybe it just means that you're susceptible to different kinds of illness now."

I sighed through blood and tissue. "Great. My immune system is up against alien viruses."

"Or maybe your alien immune system is up against regular viruses."

I was too exhausted to wrap my head around that one.

"I'm going to sleep for the rest of the ride back," I said, curling into myself. For the most part, the blood from my nose had staunched its flow. That said, this had begun with a fever, then me passing out, then delirium, and then blood going places it should not be going. Who knew what could happen next? I could fall asleep then never wake up.

It was a terrifying thought, but I was too tired to care.