DICK KNELT BESIDE THE PORSCHE. The first aid kit lay open on the pavement beside him. My skin was prickled and pulled at, but I barely noticed it. Truly, I did not feel it. Dick's steady fingers worked a needle through my skin as I held my shirt up.

No, I did not feel the pain one would normally feel when their body was being tied together. My mind was far too occupied to be bothered by such trivial things. The pain of receiving the wound was far worse, anyway.

My eyes remained on Dick's, though he was concentrating on his task. Many things had gone through my mind on the drive to St. Paul's. Most of which involved what Dick had said at the roller rink. Not everyone could tell when death neared.

That was very true, and it brought to my attention just how oblivious these abilities tended to make me. Most times I did not see what was in front of my face because I was focused on something miles away. I did not feel what was begging to be felt, for I was feeling too much already.

It made it difficult to keep up with those around me. It often caused me to lack empathy for those I claimed to love. The pain I was starting to feel in my body had nothing to do with any stitches—no, it was the knife of complacency in my chest.

Dick's eyes flickered from the almost finished stitching project to my face curiously. "Have something to say?" he asked, rhetorically. "Just say it."

"I said I'd try not to make it about me, so I won't. What I did hurt you. It was thoughtless and reckless, and I shouldn't have done it the way I did," I said, finally. Again, he glanced up at me. This time his eyes were a little softer.

But it was not enough—it was not nearly enough. So I took in a breath and continued, "Nothing I say right now is going to accurately express how sorry I am. I didn't think about…well...I didn't think." Dick clipped off the final stitch and put the supplies atop the open lid of the kit.

"No, you didn't," Dick righted himself with a heavy exhale, and his shoulders trembled as they relaxed. "I worry about you, Savannah—a lot. Probably too much. But, damn it...you are the one thing I have left that I can't live without. You know, I...I see what you go through every day, and I just want to protect you from it. I want to keep all the bad things away and just keep you safe."

The back of my throat was beginning to pinch, indicating my proximity to blurred vision and mumbled words, but I carried on as best I could. "Dick, I-" I stopped myself, averting my eyes. Emotions were nothing I wanted to contend with.

It was always easiest doing my job alone. There was no one to interfere and worry for me, no one I could worry for and interfere. What I needed to do was clear and easy to understand. What I felt for Dick Grayson was not.

Finally, I inhaled sharply, and continued, "Months ago, I woke up in my apartment sobbing and I called you—do you remember, that night I called you while you were at the office late?"

"I remember," he nodded to prod me along, listening intently with eyes of curiosity.

"I'd had a premonition that night, in my dream. It was about you, Dick. And I just needed to hear your voice, to know you were okay. Yes, I know when people are going to die and therefore have assurance—but I would rather live my life not knowing than see you die every time I close my eyes."

Dick slowly shook his head, his eyes rounded and soften beyond compare. He pressed his palm into the side of the Porsche and leaned in, using a gentle voice, "Anna, why didn't you tell me?"

"Listen to me. My point is...I feel the same way. But these abilities have a mind of their own. I can't always control what I do or how I react. Sometimes what they make me feel is so strong, I feel like I'm going to literally burst if I don't comply," I desperately tried to explain.

"And that's what happened at the hospital," he said, knowingly.

I nodded and he sighed, before reaching down to the kit for a gauze pad. "This feeling I get with Rachel, the urge I have to protect her...it's stronger than anything I've ever felt," I said, tugging my shirt up away from the stitches. "It's like it takes control of me."

"What do you feel, when it's telling you to protect her?" Dick questioned, curiously. He opened the gauze pad and placed it against my skin, then reached for the medical tape.

"It's heat. Always heat. It comes from inside me somewhere—and I just have to move. Like if I stay I'll die. It's pure survival instinct," I haphazardly tried to explain it to him.

He broke off pieces of tape and secured the square of gauze to my skin, taping down all four sides, and I let my bloodied shirt hem fall when he was done. Dick packed up the first aid kit, rearranging its contents, but I could tell it was an excuse.

An excuse not to talk, an excuse not to feel, an excuse to escape. He slid the kit into the Porsche in the space by my feet. While he was still leaned in to do so, I reached forward and placed a hand on either side of his face.

It forced him to stop, to look at me. "Listen carefully," I spoke quietly, what with him being so close. "If I leave you somewhere...it's not because I want to. Promise me you'll remember that."

He nodded a little, eyes searching mine, "I promise."

The words came seconds before he pushed forward, moving up to catch my lips between his. At first, it seemed yet another excuse. Yet another way to avoid something hard. But then I felt it. I felt it in the way he kissed me.

In the gentle touch of his hand on the side of my ribs. He was feeling—he was feeling it all. The emotions crashed over me like tidal waves along with the push and pull of our lips. And for a moment I felt myself become lost in them.

Mouths opened, eyes tightly shut, hands on each other's skin. For him, I said all I could not speak. And for me, he did the same. Though, it did not last long without interruption. The grumbled clearing of one's throat gave enough startle to break us apart.

"Are you two going to be long?" Kory stood just beside the front of Porsche, eyeing us. "Rachel's asking for Beverly."

Dick sighed through his nose before standing. He held out his hand to me, sidestepping to allow space for me to climb out. I took his hand with one of mine, pushing against the dash with the other, and eased myself up out of the vehicle.

With my weight on my feet, the freshly sewn wound in my side was flared with a throbbing sting. I gritted my teeth as to avoid an outward reaction. The last thing I needed was to show weakness—especially in front of Kory, whom I did not trust yet.

She appeared thus far to have good intentions, though I was never one to jump into the arms of a stranger no matter how wide their smile. Before going into the convent, I swapped out my top with a random t-shirt from my duffel and my pants for a pair of jeans.

It would be safe to assume the nuns would not react well to blood smears. Changing seemed like the safest option. Then I was on my way to Rachel. Dick and I found her in the sanctuary. She sat in a pew close to the front.

My feet had not stepped foot in anything resembling a church in my whole life. Religion was never something pressed upon me when I was younger, and my abilities only made it harder to find faith understandable as I aged.

But I did not hesitate when walking into the sanctuary. I was not there for myself, I was there for Rachel—and that was something worth the unsettling. Dick hung back, staying at the first few pews, as I continued on ahead to Rachel.

I came to stand at the end of pew she sat in just as she was looking up to identify her guest, causing her lips to tug up into a closed-mouthed smile. "You get stitched back up?" she asked me.

"Yes," I nodded. Then, tilting my head, I asked, "How are you doing?"

"Can't you feel it?"

"Well, yes. But I'd like to here you explain it."

She sighed, but slid herself to the left, making a space wide enough for me to sit on the pew beside her. I stepped in between the pews and lowered myself to sit as she began to answer my previous question.

"I'm fine now, but...any minute that could change. This thing, whatever's inside me, is getting stronger. I can feel it. But I can't control it. I can't stop it," she vented, speaking quietly.

Slowly, I nodded through her statements. It was understandable to feel the way she felt—utterly helpless. I'd felt the very same when my abilities first began to show their ugly faces. Suddenly, Rachel turned to me, "Can I...ask you a personal question?"

"Alright," I nodded once.

"How did you get your powers?"

"I was born with them, I believe. My mother was murdered when I was a baby. When I was fifteen, I saw her body at my home," I answered, to which her eyes shot wide. "I didn't know it was her at the time—but that was the first time I ever felt anything like this."

Rachel sat back a little, "That must've been terrifying."

"At the time, yes, it was. It pales in comparison to what I've seen since then."

"When did you learn to control it, what you can do?" she asked, curiously.

There was obviously a point to her question. She did not want to know for my sake, she wanted to know for her own. To learn if there was anything she could do similar in order to control her inner demons.

With lips pressed thin in a line, I gave a slow shake of my head, "I didn't. Not yet."

"But-" Rachel sat forward, turning more toward me. "You're so in control—the way you can feel people's emotions, and tell where people are. It's incredible."

Instinctively, I reached for her hand, turning it over with mine to grip it tightly. Her gaze flickered to my hand and back to my face in an expression of curiosity and confusion. "Feel that?" I questioned, lifting a brow. "Feel the currents racing through my body, through the muscle and scar tissue?"

"What is that?" Rachel inquired, her forehead creasing in concentration as she held tighter.

"I have something inside of me, too. It may not be as volatile as what's inside of you, but it is wild and untameable. I don't control anything—I master living with it, and practice using it when I need it."

Rachel relaxed a little in her seat, her eyes averting as her features shifted into thoughtful positions. It was not the answer she wanted. It was not the answer she needed. And, visibly, she was disappointed. Given the nature of her abilities, it was only natural to feel hopeless.

But I was confident. There was in fact a way for her to live with these abilities—she only needed to find it and make her peace with it. We sat there like that for a while. Our bodies angled toward each other ever so slightly.

Our hands clasped firmly between us. Both lost in our own trails of thought. Then the sound of the door opening behind us caused my head to lift, neck turning to see whom had entered the sanctuary. It was one of the Sisters.

Not one I'd seen before. There was something in her eyes, the way she tipped her head—she was beckoning me. I found it odd, considering i'd never spoken to this woman before, but I also found it curious.

Too curious not to get up. "I'll be right back," I told Rachel. She nodded a little and released my hand as I stood. I sidestepped out from between the pews and walked up the aisle toward the door.

The Sister was holding the door open, only her upper body poking in. She whispered to me, "I'm sorry to bother you. But could you help me with something?"

We stepped just outside of the sanctuary, letting the door close behind us on its own, and I turned to the Sister with a confused but intrigued expression. "I suppose. What do you need help with, Sister?" I asked of her.

"Well, you see, we have a woman here who claims to…"

Her voice trailed off into a void as my eyes were pulled to a space over her shoulder. They were brought to the frame of a woman with long, dark hair. The features of her face were soft, the lines gentle, with clear and simple eyes.

My brow knitted, eyes narrowing just a little. In her hands she held a black bird. The creature was hugged to her lower chest, sitting still in her palms, as her thumb stroked its wing. Something tugged at my chest, physically pulling me forward.

I stepped around the Sister—the poor woman completely forgotten—and I took steps toward the woman holding the black bird. In my heart I knew it was not real. It could not be. For the woman holding the bird was my mother.

As I moved toward her, she slipped to the left, around a corner. I walked faster as an urgency the loss in sight of her caused began to grab hold of my lungs, constricting them until I laid eyes on her again. I rounded the corner quickly.

There she was, at the very end of a long hallway. It was unclear to me just what this escape was for. In it was no clear reasoning I could deduce. But still I played along. I hurried down the hallway as she began to take another turn—this time, to the right.

Her form disappeared into a room. I followed the long hall to the end and then turned right, taking steps into the room. As my feet crossed the threshold, I was given a pushed at my back, my body thrusted deep inside.

Inside the room were familiar walls. They were covered in deep crimson with a royal-esque pattern. A large bed was to my right, a desk to the left, and a closet straight on. At my back came in bright sunlight from an open glass door.

This was my bedroom. I took slow steps toward the room's door, across the room and to the right of the desk. Muffled voices filtered through, and I wondered briefly if those in the house could hear me, too. Surely, they could not.

But still I kept quiet, inching the door open far enough to slip into the hall. Down the hall was the large staircase into the foyer. Continuing along the hallway would lead you straight to my father's room. I reached the staircase, my hand rested on the top of the railing.

Standing in the foyer, near the base of the stairs, was my father. He was knelt before a little girl—her three-foot tall frame clothed in a blue dress, red hair tucked back in pigtails. I recognized her dress more than anything else in the room.

I knew what day this was. My father had recruited another caretaker for me. He was in the process of explaining it when the doorbell gave a hearty ring. Straightening himself, he stepped up to the door and pulled it open, plastering on a wide smile.

It was always about the show, about the appearance. My father was never truly happy when I was a child. You could see it in his eyes. Even when he looked at me, there was no happiness, no love. Part of me wondered if that was what drew us apart as I got older.

He pulled the door wide open as he took a step back, making way for the woman outside. I remembered this day vaguely. The dress on the little version of me was the strongest, though not much else was clear.

Yet, when the woman stepped inside, I knew for a fact that it was memory rather than hallucination. Her dark hair was pulled into tightly clipped curls beneath a dark green hat, the color an accent to her dark green coat and wool skirt of the same color.

My lungs inflated rapidly, their natural instinct to exhale being halted by the rush of adrenaline squirting into my veins. The lower half of my jaw remained farther down, causing my mouth to hang open as my widened eyes remained locked on the woman.

It was my mother. She appeared confident and outspoken, walking up to me and holding out her hand without even bending down to my level. "Mom?" I found myself questioning aloud. Then, a bit louder, I was firm, "Mom."

Nothing in what I saw before me changed with the voicing of my words. The little girl refused to shake her hand. Instead, she stared up at her a moment before walking toward the kitchen. And my heart screamed. Go back.

My veins raced as I began to take steps down the stair case. Mother had introduced herself as someone else—i'd never recognized the name. She turned to my father and they exchanged words I could not quite hear.

I walked faster, trotting down the remaining steps to the foyer. "Mom!" I all but shouted, desperate for her to hear. I'd kept walking, crossing the foyer, charging straight for her. As I had secretly anticipated, my body phased right through hers.

We did not touch. We did not collide. I simply had kept moving. A second after passing through, I stopped myself. The rapid movements of my lungs shook my body. Nothing made much sense to me anymore.

All of my thoughts swirled together in a pool in my mind, creating a cloud that was impossible to read. It was beginning to make me lightheaded. And then I felt it—a grasp on my arm.

My body jolted against the wall at my back, the first gasp of air to fill my lungs weighted down with smoke. It clouded the area surrounding me to the point of terrible visibility. But, directly in front of me, knelt Rachel.

Her face was smeared with ash, eyes wide with panic. "Savannah! Come on, we need to go—now!" she urged me to get up, pulling at my right arm. Somehow I'd managed to sit myself on the floor in the corner of a small room.

It was filled with smoke but otherwise untouched. My thoughts were swirling, only pure instinct clear enough to get me to my feet. "What happened?" I questioned, numbly. Using my voice, breathing in, caused a bark of a cough.

"I'll explain later- we just need to get out of here."

She answered me as she pulled me along behind her, exiting the room. We slipped into the hall, the long hall I'd seen my mother in, and walked rapidly toward the front of the building. The closer we got to an exit, the more it became clear—half the building was in flames.

Rachel's hand slipped from my arm, landing in my hand, and she held on tightly as she lead the way out. With the skin contact, I could feel it. Desperation, anxiety, terror. It filled my chest in one strong wave.

The front doors were just barely out of the line of fire. We pushed through them and escaped to the clear air of outside. When we got out, Rachel kept walking quickly from the building, and I didn't try to stop her. I kept going, too.

I was coughing the last of the smoke out of my legs and trying not to trip over my feet as Rachel tugged me quickly along behind her. A quick sweep of the driveway with my eyes showed no sign of Dick's Porsche or my Mustang.

Both vehicles were gone. I took that to mean Dick and Kory were not inside the building currently drowning in fire. But a part of me did worry. Though, it was quickly becoming hidden by the intense waves of emotions coming from Rachel.

Those emotions kept me on my feet, kept me moving, even when she started running. She had said something to me before picking up the pace, but I did not hear it. What I felt told me many things. I knew what had happened.

It was almost too difficult to distinguish the specific memories, though I knew enough to understand the gist of it all. The Sisters had locked Rachel in a room in the basement of the convent. To get out, Rachel embraced her darkness.

From a survival perspective, it was exactly what I would have encouraged her to do. But I was not too keen on the idea of harming any of the Sisters with no idea of this event. I'd had no premonitions concerning these women—yet some were surely dead.

I supposed I was too deep in my hallucination to feel such things in time. In fact, I was so deep inside my own mind I could not tell the building was going up in smoke.

Rachel and I ran. There was a large field at the back of the sanctuary we ran through, for on the other side was a plethora of trees. We made it to the trees before i'd let go of Rachel's hand. It was coming back to me slowly, my reality.

Finally, I could feel the weight of the damage to my lungs from the smoke. The pain ignited in my right side from running with a stitched wound. A throbbing in my skull almost powerful enough to force me off my feet.

With the awakening of my nerves, I stumbled to a stop a ways inside the trees, causing Rachel to stop just ahead. My hand pressed firmly to the gauze covering my wound, over my shirt. "This is ridiculous," I heaved, my voice graveled. "Where are we even going?"

"Anywhere but back there," Rachel breathed heavily as well, shaking her head quickly.

A faint warmth touched the bones of my chest seconds before a deep, throaty sound filled my ear canals, the sound reminiscent of a growl. It drew my attention to the right almost instantly. Rachel startled, though I showed no other outward reaction than the turn of my head.

It was not like me to react so strongly unless prompted by my abilities. To the right of me by a few feet was a large, green tiger. For a second, ever so briefly, I wondered if I'd truly woken up from my previous hallucination.

Then the tiger took steps to walk around me, growling quietly, and I moved forward to stand by Rachel. I kept my eyes on the beast, but I did not feel any fear. Instead, I felt a light vibration in my hands. One accompanied by warmth.

It trotted off into the foliage and mess of fallen tree limbs on the other side of our path. Rachel held onto my arm, coming closer to me. "Was that a tiger?" she asked, mostly rhetorical.

"So, you saw it, too?"

Rachel did not get to respond. Instead, an airy sound of exhalation took its place as a head of green hair popped up above the foliage where the tiger had disappeared. It was not hard to recognize the boy who emerged from the bushes.

He was the one that approached us at the pinball machine in the roller rink. "It's okay, I don't bite," he assured, as he joined us on the path. He was pulling a back pack up onto his shoulder.

"Gar, right?" I asked, as Rachel finally let go of me.

"Yeah, that's me," he smiled, exhaling. Then he gestured with a hand as he took a step away, "Come on. I know a place to hide."

My eyes moved to meet Rachel's. She was already looking at me. I could see in her eyes the want to follow him, to want to continue farther away from the convent. After all she'd been through I could not blame her. So I nodded.

XXX

Rachel and I followed Gar a long ways through the woods, then eventually out into an open plain of snow. In the plain sat a single house. A fairly large one—not unlike the house I grew up in.

He lead the way toward the house. A few yards from it was a stairway down to a bottom level. We stopped at the top as Rachel asked, "We're going down there?"

"Yeah. Cool, huh?" Gar beamed.

The boy all but skipped down the concrete steps to the door at the bottom. Nothing had come to me as harmful thus far—there was no reason not to trust this was a safe place. So I took the first steps down toward the door.

Rachel followed cautiously behind me, slower than my pace, reasonably so. Gar opened the door and held it, waiting patiently as both of us women made our way inside. The room was complete darkness.

"What is this place?" Rachel questioned, curiously

"I call it..." Gar flipped a switch by the door, and everything in the room lit up. A mini bar in the left corner with a fully stocked soda case, pinball and other arcade machines to the right across the room, with vintage posters and memorabilia covering the walls. He finished, "Nirvana."

"Holy shit," Rachel said, under her breath.

"I should tell you to watch your mouth," I said, stepping deeper inside the room. "But 'holy shit' is far too accurate."

Gar split to dive into the bar area, "You want a pop? I've got everything. Root beer? Orange Crush? Grape Crush?"

"Grape," Rachel replied.

I found myself unable to respond to the offer. My feet came to a stop as my eyes landed on a vintage poster on the wall, propped up above a large television. Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein.

It was vaguely familiar to me. My subconscious mind finally recognized it, as Rachel came to my side. I had in fact seen the movie, though I was too young to remember much about it. One of my caretakers thought I'd like it, I remembered.

Which caretaker was uncertain. But I wondered if it might be my mother. "That's an original. Nineteen forty-eight. You ever see it?" Gar asked, from back in the bar area.

"Yes," I answered. Then, I turned to see Gar as he hurried around the furniture toward us. "Though, I'm afraid I was too young to enjoy it."

"You must have pretty cool parents," Gar commented, with an airy chuckle.

He handed Rachel a glass-bottled soda and she thanked him. "Well, my father wasn't very 'cool'. But, from what I've heard, my mother was fairly interesting," I replied to his comment. Gar paused, eyeing me with a blank but curious expression.

It was almost as though I could see the debate of whether or not to ask about it within his eyes. I simply stared back at him, in a kind of dare. Daring him to speak up and ask if he had a question. He visibly swallowed, before clearing his throat.

And finally, he spoke up, "Um...heard?"

"I never knew my mother—she died when I was a baby," I answered his question honestly, as a reward for his bravery.

Gar nodded slowly, his stare still a bit intense in thought. "So, uh...where are you from?" he asked, obviously trying to form small talk to lighten the load of his previous question.

"Originally, Gotham City."

"Gotham? No way," he suddenly lit up, eyes brightening as his smile widened in a stark display of teeth. "Have you met Batman?"

I opened my mouth to speak, but a much deeper voice spoke over me in an echo through a door in the far right corner of the room from us. "Gar? Gar! You down there?!"

"Uh, you guys need to hide," Gar's face suddenly turned panicked as he surged forward, shoving both Rachel and I toward the door the sound was coming from. "Just, uh, hang out in the closet for a sec."

"Don't touch me!" I hissed, lurching away from Gar.

He took a step back, his hands coming up and flailing a little, as though he touched something hot. But his panic was too much for him to freeze up. Instead he focused on ushering Rachel toward the closet, while I went willingly on my own.

Gar opened the closet door and pushed Rachel inside. He stepped back, gesturing a hand toward the closet with a smile—though the smile was covered with his nervousness. I tucked myself into the small space beside Rachel and Gar closed us in.

Increasingly heavy and loud footsteps gave the floor vibration seconds before the door beside the closet burst open. "Gar! Gar!" the now clear, metallic voice from before shouted.

"Hey, Cliff. What's up, dude?" Gar asked, nonchalantly.

"Who were you talking to?" the voice responded.

"Uh...myself," Gar answered, as though it should be obvious to whomever else was in the room. Then, quieter, Gar said, "Come on, Gar. You beat Super Mario World, you can beat this."

I didn't bother looking through the slats, but Rachel's face was all but plastered to them in a desperate search for answers. "Oh. Where were you today?" the voice asked Gar.

"Down here. Duh."

"Bullshit. You went to town again."

Gar cleared his throat, "Look, my controller broke and I had to get a new one. Okay? I knew I could get there and back before Chief came home."

"Oh, shit. Kid!"

"Relax. No one followed me. Kept a low profile."

"You want to keep a low profile, you wear a hat."

"Ha! Funny. That's a good joke. You know, I heard another good joke. Why was the robot mad? 'Cause someone kept pushing his buttons."

A metallic laugh dripped with sarcasm, "Keep pushing 'em. There'll be a green tiger-skin rug in my bedroom. Dinner, one hour. Come tell Larry what you want, brat."

"Alright. I'll be up in a minute."

"I was not put on this Earth to babysit," the voice said, as the sounds of heavy footsteps echoed away. The footsteps continued to echo for a moment. Then Gar sighed with relief.

"Phwew! That was close," he sighed.

Not a second after he spoke, the closet door was ripped open, and a metal face was put in its place. My head recoiled in a startle and Rachel shrieked loudly, partially deafening me. "Gotcha!" it said, with the same voice that was arguing with Gar.

My nose wrinkled, eyes narrowing in confusion, "What the fuck even-"

"Come on, both of you," the metal being reached a hand in and grabbed Rachel's arm, giving her tug to pull her from the closet. Rachel stumbled forward on her feet with a sound of discomfort.

Instinctively, I lurched forward, shoving my palms into the metal man's chest, "Hands off, asshole!"

He grunted, shuffling backward on his metal feet in a teeter. Gar was shot up from his chair, watching with wide eyes already, but his lower jaw dropped three inches when the metal man moved.

It was clear that was not an expected reaction. My fingers wrapped around Rachel's arm and I quickly pulled her back, tucking her safely behind me. Odd sounds whirred and clicked as the metal man's head moved forward to glance down, then look back up.

Though, his whole upper body moved with his head, causing louder mechanical noises. "What the fuck?" he questioned, bewildered.

Gar quickly stepped forward, "Uh- um- I- Cliff, I can explain-"

"All three of you, out—now."

The metal man, Cliff, moved toward us with outstretched arms to shoo us toward the open door beside the closet. Sighing, I grabbed Rachel's arms and turned her in that direction before pushing, guiding her through the doorway.

Gar followed quickly behind us, the loud sounds of Cliff's heavy footsteps trailing along. We were herded to what appeared to be a main room of the house. All the furniture looked old, antique. Out of time. It was in high contrast to the robot man following us.

Cliff, as he was called, got us into the main room and stopped, allowing for us to stop as well. I took the opportunity to turn around and face him. There was something odd about him. Obviously, there was some kind of intelligent consciousness inside.

But I did not feel anything human. Tilting my head an inch, I narrowed my eyes, "So...you're a robot-"

"Here we go," Cliff sighed heavily.

"He's a robot man," Gar smiled excitedly at me.

"Oh, fuck me," Cliff said, turning his torso to look at Gar beside him.

"Cliff was a race car driver. A pretty famous one, too. He got into a bad accident. His body was pretty much kaput. Chief managed to save his brain-" Gar explained, before tapping his knuckles against the side of Cliff's head.

Cliff turned to him quickly, "Knock it off."

"-What little there was left of it."

"I'm sorry to interrupt the lovely discussion," I spoke up, gaining both Gar's and Cliff's attentions. But I looked only at Cliff as I took a shuffling step forward. "Do you mind if I…?"

I gestured vaguely in the direction of his head, and I could tell the look he was giving me was confusion based on his posture. "What?"

"Humor me, please."

My feet carried me to a space just in front of Cliff, and I reached up despite his and Gar's mumbling of confusion. I needed to see it for myself. Curiosity and a vaguely anxious urge in my chest begged me to do it so strongly I could not refuse.

The very instant my palms touched the metal on either side of his head, my muscles flooded with a dry chill. "Hey, what are you-!" Cliff stopped himself, a whirring sound taking place instead of whatever he was going to throw at me.

He leaned forward a little, allowing my heels to flatten against the flooring. With the cold that encased my body, a rush of vibrations and warmth began to follow through, melting away the stiffness my appendages were starting to exhibit.

I was filled with thoughts—they collected in a pool in the center of my conscious mind, before shooting out and hitting the backs of my eyelids. They played like an old film reel on a projector.

It was Cliff. Moments from his life, good and bad. Seeing the various memories through the veil of bittersweet nostalgia he'd covered them with brought a vibrative warmth to the center of my chest cavity. There was in fact life inside the metal.

After a quick moment, I pulled myself away, forcing my body to shuffle back from the metal man many steps. He righted himself slowly, held still from whatever he'd seen on his side. "Okay...what just happened?" Gar questioned, breaking the silence with cluelessness.

"You saw all that...didn't you?" Cliff asked me, rhetorically.

I nodded a little, though I was still seeing small snippets of life every second that I blinked. With the stillness of a noticeable absence, I turned my head to the left, and my eyes settled on an empty space. The space where Rachel once stood.

"Fuck," my shoulders dropped.

"Ah, shit," Cliff groaned. He shoved Gar forward by his shoulder. "Find her, you dumbass."

Gar mumbled something i'm sure was unpleasant as he hurried by me, into a hall. I followed quickly after him, though Cliff did not sound happy. With what I'd seen, it made sense to me—his coldness, the nature of his words.

If I had that kind of life, a life I loved, only to be dissected and never allowed to have it again, I would be angry and sad and lonely as well. The feeling I should have stayed dead would haunt me, too.

A faint echo of music somewhere near by traveled through my ears as Gar and I made our way down the hall. "Kitchen! Let's check the kitchen," he said, quickly diving in front of me to go to the right.

I nearly tripped over him, swearing under my breath as I righted myself. Cliff's heavy footsteps were not too far behind as I followed Gar into the kitchen. Sure enough, Rachel was just inside. Amongst the loud noise of fryers and hot pans was a roaring AC/DC song.

It was easily recognizable as Thunderstruck. "There you are," Gar said, causing Rachel to turn around in a startle. She relaxed when she saw us. Movement over her shoulder caught my eye, and I looked up to find another person in the kitchen.

It was a man, covered in skin tight bandages, while wearing a pair of sunglasses. He quickly turned off his music upon noticing us in the kitchen, just as Cliff arrived. "Nice music," I commented, pointing a finger at the stereo on the counter. "I'm more of a Highway To Hell girl myself."

"Really? You look like a Metallica fan to me," the man in bandages said, resting his hands on his hips.

Given the nature of his being, it was difficult to gather any social cues from him. But his voice sounded kind and casual. "Enter Sandman to the grave. Thank my boyfriend for that one," I shrugged, tilting my head in an expression.

The man chuckled, nodding, "Well, at least he's got good taste. Who might you two ladies be?"

"That's Beverly," Gar said, jutting a thumb at me. Then, pointing to Rachel, he added, "That's Rachel."

"I was just showing them out," Cliff spoke up from behind me.

The man in bandages cocked his head, "Out?"

"Before Chief gets back," Cliff clarified.

The bandaged man made a pfft sound and turned back to the pans on the stove, pushing something around with a spatula. "How do you two like your steaks?" he asked. "Unless your vegans, which would break my heart."

"They're not staying for dinner, Larry," Cliff protested.

Larry waved him away, "It'll be fine. Chief is gone until tomorrow. And even with Rita, we have plenty of food."

"And I am hungry," Rachel piped up beside me.

"And she is hungry," Larry told Cliff. "Let's take a vote."

Larry held up his hand, and immediately Gar's shot into the air. Cliff was easily and quickly outnumbered. "Really?" he sighed, ruefully.

"Great. Gar, go set the table," Larry said, as he turned back to the loud pans behind him.

Gar took Rachel with him to the dining room, per my suggestion. I did not like the idea of Rachel being around so many strangers with abilities. Sending her to the dining room with Gar was the safest option, though they were all lacking.

Cliff would be fuming, I was sure, if he were able to. The idea didn't set well with him for reasonable concerns, it seemed. I took steps toward Larry, exhaling, "Do you need any help?"

"Well, I've got most of this under control. But you know what you could do? I've got some bell peppers that need chopping right over there for the salad," Larry turned to see me as I stepped up beside him, pointing to a cutting station on the other side of the stove as he spoke.

"Great."

I nodded once and started around the end of the stove top's counter. Larry glanced up at me from his pans once I'd reached the other side. "Do you have culinary experience?" he inquired, curiously.

"Some. A friend of mine—a rich one—had a butler that was pretty good. He taught me a few things about cooking," I answered, knotting my hair at the back of my head before plucking the knife from the cutting board.

He hummed thoughtfully, "Interesting. So, what can you do?"

"I'm sorry?"

"Obviously you're here because you can do something other people can't," Larry clarified, as he hurried around the kitchen to another station. "What is it that you do?"

"She's a mind reader," Cliff piped up.

Larry sounded intrigued, "Really?"

"Well, no, it's not that simple," I shook my head, keeping my eyes on the rapidly moving blade in my hand. "Every living thing has a vibrative frequency—I can feel those frequencies and from there determine locations or emotions. The frequencies tell me when someone will die and how."

The kitchen quieted a bit. "No shit," Cliff commented, a reactionary comment of surprise and bewilderment.

"Sometimes I feel death vibrations from objects, or I see it happening through visions and dreams. When I touch people, I can read their vibrations for emotions. But if they've died-"

"You can see their memories," Cliff finished, knowingly.

I nodded, scooping up bits of pepper and dumping them into the large bowl Larry had filled with other salad ingredients. Larry chuckled once, airy and full of awe, "Wow! That's definitely unique."

"It's funny, I've never...heard anyone call it that before, like it was a good thing," I said, stopping to turn toward Larry.

"Well, everyone's got good things and bad things—they come as a package deal. Right, Cliff?" Larry replied, turning the steaks.

Cliff only grunted, turning away. I looked on at the metal man, eyes weighted with sadness. Though I was not made of metal, I felt like I could relate to the man's struggles. I, too, missed my former life dearly. And I also can never get it back.