I HELPED CARRY OUT THE DISHES. Larry and I brought the plates of various food items to the table in the dining room while the others got seated. Helping out in the kitchen was reminiscent of my time with Alfred at Wayne Manor.
Larry's personality and general attitude did remind me a bit of Alfred—if Alfred had been a little younger, of course. The last dishes were placed on the table and Larry and I took our seats.
Cliff and Larry sat across the table on one side while Rachel, Gar, and I sat on the opposite side in that order. "Alright, then," Larry said, sitting in his seat.
"Let's eat," Gar beamed.
The others at the table immediately began to devour their dinners, but I was slow in pushing around my salad. I had every confidence that Dick would be able to locate Rachel and I. Though, a seed of worry had been planted the moment the sun set.
It made me wonder just why it'd been so long. If we would ever be found here. If Rachel even wanted to be found. And if Rachel did not want to be found, would my body force me to stay here with her for as long as she stayed?
Larry, the kind soul, was the first to notice my stillness. "I would be offended but, well, you were the one who finished the salad," he commented, making a lighthearted joke.
My eyes lifted from my plate then as I inhaled, breathing reality back into my thought-consumed bones, "Oh. I'm sorry. I just have...a lot on my mind."
"Do you wanna talk about it?" Larry offered.
It drew everyone's eyes to my position. But, never the less, it was a kind offer with purely good intentions. "I'm not so sure you'd want to be eating with me if I did," I gave a small shake of my head.
"Oh, come on," Larry sat back in his chair. "We're all basket cases here, there's no need to feel self-conscious about it."
My eyes snapped to my immediate left as they caught movement. It was Gar, leaning toward me in his seat, lowering his voice as he spoke to me, "It's okay, you don't have to if you don't want to."
I appreciated his empathy for the situation, though I felt myself leaning toward speaking regardless. These people were hidden from the world for a reason. To whom, exactly, would they spill my secrets? They would have no choice but to keep them.
As sadistic as that sounded, it was something enticing to me. "Well...sometimes I...get these weird visions. Sometimes memories, sometimes predictions," I spoke up, however cautiously. "I had one today of my mother—I thought I'd never met her, but..."
"But what?" Larry asked, intrigued.
Slowly, I shook my head in confusion of my own thoughts, "This vision was a memory—I know that for sure. But my mother was there, when I was at least six years old. According to my father, everyone who knew her, and her headstone, she died when I was less than a year old."
A tense hush fell over the dining room. That was to be expected. In the quiet, Gar's hesitant voice arose with a question. "Well...maybe it wasn't a real memory? You know, like, something you wanted to see but it wasn't really there?" he purposed.
I thought about it for a quiet minute. It was not common for my body to show me things that were not real in some way. Nothing in the future had been wrong—why would the past be any different?
"I don't think so…" I shook my head, then shrugged. "Though, I suppose anything's possible."
"Tell us about yourself, Beverly. We know what you can do, but what are some things you like? Hobbies, interests?" Larry changed the subject, lighthearted in tone.
I inhaled sharply, "Whiskey—hobby and interest."
"My kind of girl," Cliff commented, in approval.
"I'm pretty good at throwing knives," I continued, to which I received many intrigued hums. "You already know I listen to Metallica. My favorite color is red—ironically, crimson. I like dancing. I used to take ballet when I was a kid."
"I loved dancing!" Cliff said, his torso moving with his head in his effort to look downward. "I loved to eat, to swim, to dance..."
"Why can't you dance?" Rachel asked him, curiously.
"Oh, forget it. You're young. Nobody's dancing with this," Cliff tapped his metal head with his knuckles.
A bubble of something indistinguishable popped inside my chest, coating the walls in a heavy bittersweetness. Instinctively, I pushed back my chair and stood. "What are you doing?" Gar asked, giving me a puzzled look.
I stepped around the back of his chair, walking toward the end of the table. "Come on, get up," I gestured for Cliff to stand, reaching the end. "You can't make a statement like that and get away with it."
"Uh oh. You better get up, Cliff," Larry commented, humored.
Cliff's machinery made whirring sounds, "You're kidding, right?"
"Get your metal ass out of your chair. Now," I told him, gesturing again.
He sighed heavily—an action I still was unsure exactly how he could accomplish with only a human brain—and began to get up from his chair. Gar and Rachel were onlooking with wide grins of anticipation. I couldn't help grinning a bit myself.
Finally Cliff was on his feet, and he stepped around the corner of the table to join me. "Have you done much formal dancing?" I inquired of him.
"Uh...once or twice, I think," he replied, a little unsure.
"That's alright. We'll do a refresher. Put your right hand on my waist," I instructed, taking a step forward. I reached out and took his large, metal hand and eased it onto my waist in the proper place. "There. And your left goes in my right."
Hesitantly, he lifted his own left hand. I carefully placed my right hand in his open palm and his fingers gently closed around it. My left hand rested on his shoulder. Cliff was slightly hunched forward to better help with the height gap, though I was used to drastic height differences.
Most people in my life over the years had been taller than me by several inches. It was nothing new. But it was a kind gesture I appreciated. "Just follow my steps, nice and slowly," I again instructed.
"If I step on you, something's gonna break-"
"Cliff, the reason women aren't dancing with you is because of your pessimism—not your appearance," I told him, giving him a disapproving look that earned his seriousness. "You've got this."
The machinery made more whirring sounds as he looked down a moment. I took the initiative and moved my foot, encouraging him to follow along with a reassuring expression. After a second of pause, he did begin to participate, and I continued the steps.
I counted aloud quietly as we took the steps, a verbal guideline for him to follow as the steps repeated. Every movement was slow and methodical. But that was understandable and to be expected. So I was patient.
Larry let out a laugh of disbelief, clapping his bandaged hands together. "Well, I'll be!" he exclaimed, excitedly. "I didn't know you had it in you, Cliff."
"You're doing great," I told Cliff, encouragingly.
Cliff replied with a sarcastic question, "You dance with a lot of robots, huh?"
"No. But I wouldn't want to—it takes the shine out of it," I answered him.
He laughed a little, and a warmth spread through my chest at the display of humanity. It brought a certain feeling of security to my worried and withered mind that I was very grateful for. But the moment passed as a female voice cut right through it.
"Well, isn't this a lovely surprise?"
The dancing came to a halt as both of us turned our heads in the direction of the voice. It'd come from a woman with dark hair and thin features, wearing a vibrant red dress straight from a vintage store.
She was pretty, with a thin frame and a happiness that radiated off of her. "If I had known there was dancing, I would've gotten here sooner. Sorry I'm late," she said, taking steps toward the dinner table. "I was putting myself together—you know it takes me a while."
It seemed like a silent something passed between Cliff and I, indicating the next course of action was for both of us to return to our seats—so we did. I slid into my seat next to Gar, and he leaned toward me, speaking quietly, "That was really cool, Bev."
I was paused at the unauthorized nickname, but I decided to let it drop. Instead, I answered him, "What can I say? I have a thing for damaged men."
"It's so nice to have guests from outside," the new woman said, pulling a large steak onto her plate and topping it with spaghetti. Most of the food items on the table went somewhere on her plate. It was a miracle it didn't spill. "How exciting! I'm Rita."
"Rachel," Rachel introduced herself with a polite nod.
Rita's gaze shifted in my direction, prompting me to speak up next. "Beverly," I answered the silent question, before clearing my throat.
"Delighted to meet you both," she smiled wildly.
Her hands still put more and more food onto her plate, taking a moment longer before finally sitting at the head of the table with the mountain she'd created. The sight of all those different food items together gave my stomach a sour twinge.
So I averted my eyes to my plate. It was rude to stare anyway. "My condition requires a particularly high caloric intake," Rita said, calmly. "Can you pass the gravy, please?"
The thought was even more nauseating. I almost spoke up, but thought better of it. Eighty percent of my daily struggle typically involved keeping my mouth shut as it was. My eyes dared a glance up as Rita was emptying the gravy boat on her plate.
I sat back in my seat, head absentmindedly tilting as I watched her start to eat. It was the most curious thing. Watching her I wondered just what exactly would cause someone to eat that much in one sitting—and be able to keep it all down.
Rita sat back in her chair after a bite and dabbed her mouth with her napkin. "Well, this is absolutely delicious, Larry," she complimented.
"Someone kiss the cook," Larry said. Rita began laughing and Larry continued, glancing around the table, "Anyone- I'll take it from anyone. Anybody? Alright, no takers. Alright."
Everyone at the table at least laughed a little at his humor, though I only displayed a closed-mouthed smile. I could feel it—a shift in the room. A drastic change in a vibration, lowering the temperature in the depths of my chest.
Instinctively my head turned, eyes landing straight on Rita. She had paused amongst the leftover chuckling. Her features were pulled tight in discomfort, hand clutching her fork so tight it trembled. Then the right side of her face shifted.
The skin bubbled with a grumbled noise, her cheek expanding and drooping from her face. "Are you okay?" Rachel asked her, concerned. Immediately, Rita dropped her fork, her hand instead flying up to cover the drooped side of her face.
"I, um…I should've stayed in bed," Rita spoke quietly, eyes downcast.
Rachel scooted closer in her chair, and I knew what she was going to do. I opened my mouth to speak, sitting forward in my seat, but Rachel reached forward before a word could be uttered. As her hand touched Rita's, a heat sparked at the base of my skull.
It flared out and intensified, encasing my whole head with warmth, as thoughts flooded in. Thoughts and memories consisting of screaming and hysterical laughter in a padded room. At that moment I wanted out.
I knew the scenery all too well. Rita was in a mental institution. That much was clear. And to a place like that was the very last place on this planet I would ever want to return. The memories let go of me, flooding out of my mind.
They left behind a dull throbbing in what felt like the center of my brain. I reached up a hand and massaged my right temple, sitting back in my seat with a grimace, as the echos of Rita's screams fought to keep from dying out.
"It's okay," Rachel told Rita, speaking softly. "I'm not afraid of you."
The cold that had shifted the vibration was slowly heating. But all in the room was interrupted when the doors on the other side of the table flew open. In stepped an older man with gray hair and a matching mustache.
He wore a dirty trench coat and a displeased expression. "Who are they?" he blandly questioned. In with him flooded a tight, rigid frequency that pinched at my nerves. It was uncomfortable.
"Uh, Chief, I can explain," Gar piped up, nervously.
"Later. I have a new patient," Chief said. With the sound of those words, all at the table but me and Rachel abruptly shot up from their chairs to follow the man back out of the room.
As the others flooded out of the room, Rachel quickly got up from her seat and scurried around the table to follow them. "Rachel, No!" I called after her, getting up. She didn't listen, as expected, and disappeared through the door. "Shit."
I hurried around the end of the table and ran through the doors after Rachel. There was no way I was letting her go anywhere alone with these people, not when the Chief was with them. The vibrations from him were too wrong.
My feet carried me rapidly down the hall, not too far behind Rachel and the others. Rachel was directed into another hallway up ahead, so I didn't bother turning off with the others—I simply continued after Rachel.
Finally, I caught up with her. When I did we were standing on a kind of viewing platform. A second level spot with a railing and a spiral staircase of metal leading down into the lab-like room below us. I was instantly enthralled in the action below.
Though, not for the same reasons as Rachel. I was watching for the purpose of gathering more intelligence on these people. The Chief did not feel right. These people were all a little off.
Now they were trying to treat a woman whom had been—according to Chief—engulfed in liquid nitrogen. Her body emitted the white clouds of frost as though she herself was liquid nitrogen, and she just might have been.
The Chief's great plan was inject some kind of serum into her IV. My eyes were narrowed, brows knitted, as I watched carefully for a reaction. This reaction, however, was not good. Her body temperature dropped, the machines wailed as all other vital signs flat-lined.
Chief called for blankets, and the others scrambled to get them. Rachel turned to go down the stairs and I did not stop her. There was no harm to her trying. After all, nothing concerning this woman had entered my mind.
As of yet, she was not to die. They started to drape blankets over her but she was waking up. She began to thrash, shouting in panic. I recognized the language she spoke as Vietnamese.
Gar held tightly to her legs to stop her from kicking while Rita and Larry held down her torso. Rachel marched quickly across the room and shoved her way into the mess. She immediately grabbed the girl's hand, holding it tightly between hers.
I could feel it, the physical pull in my gut. My fingers gripped tightly to the metal railing to ground myself as I continued to only watch. Getting involved, with my track record, was no plausible plan. But Rachel could actually help.
She spoke to the woman in English, but she appeared to understand what Rachel was saying, calming enough for her vitals to begin rising to normal levels again. And finally, she calmed enough to sleep.
Rachel took a step back from the girl, "She needs to rest."
My eyes focused on the way Chief looked at Rachel. There was something unreadable in his features—but it was something, whatever it was, that threatened to boil my blood. It was a protective snake coiling around my neck.
Just then, Rachel glanced up at me on the second level, almost as though she could sense the strong emotions flooding my veins. The strong emotions I was vehemently sure were a warning.
They sedated the woman on the table and then it seemed as though everything was as it were before Chief arrived. All were in cheerful, jovial spirits. Larry went to the kitchen to ready dessert. Chief pulled Gar aside for a chat.
Rita and Cliff sat with Rachel and I at the dinner table. I hadn't realized, once again, what my body had decided to do at such an inopportune time. Not until Rachel suddenly turned to me, eyes wide, speaking quietly, "You're bleeding again."
The notion had prompted me to look down and, sure enough, I'd bled through yet another shirt. "Ah, fuck," I mumbled, under my breath, as I peeled the blood-soaked fabric from my skin.
It was stuck to me like a wet bandage. The fabric was weighted, but it easily held when I folded it up, out of the way. "Would you happen to have a suture kit?" I asked, looking up at Rita and Cliff.
Rita looked a little worried by my sudden display of an active injury. But she calmly stated there was one in the lab area we'd come from and hurried to go retrieve it. "Who'd you piss of to get that shiner?" Cliff questioned, sarcastically curious.
I peeled the gauze from my abdomen as I replied, "Some psycho in D.C. The asshole used my knife to do it."
"Well, that's gotta sting."
The dry sarcasm dripping from the comment elicited a humorless laugh deep within my subconscious. Rita hurried back into the dinning room with a small kit in hand, and she got the kit to me. "Here, let me help you with that," she offered, opening up the kit.
"No, that's alright. I have a thing about…people touching me," I told her, as she set the kit on the table between us. "It causes my abilities to act up."
"Oh...alright, then."
She nodded a little, righting herself, then slowly made her way back to her seat. From the look of it, though I was a bloody mess, i'd only broken through two or three stitches. That was easily fixed.
I threaded the medical grade needle inside the kit and leaned back in my chair, one hand holding the skin together while the other stabbed the needle through it. Just as I was tying off the first suture, Chief and Gar returned.
They walked in the room from the entrance behind my chair. And for a moment they did not notice. Then Gar sat in his chair and immediately stiffened, before turning to face me. In doing so, his eyes fell down to the bloody mess. "Oh my god, Bev, what happened?" he turned fully toward me on his chair, speaking quickly.
I shook my head, shoving the needle into my skin again, "Flesh wound. I'm fine."
"Flesh wound? You're bleeding quite a lot for that to be a flesh wound."
"Do not argue with me, Garfield."
"Do not bleed out in my dinning room!"
I sighed heavily, "I'm not going to bleed out."
"Good! That would get really messy," he said, coming down from his momentarily panicked high. He turned straight on in his chair, but I could still feel his eyes on me as I continued working.
Chief spoke up next, confused, "Someone has had an injury?"
"It's a stab wound," Cliff replied, nonchalantly. "She's taking care of it."
"If you would like, we have things to help with the pain— and antiseptic, bandages-" Chief spoke calmly, pleasantly. But it was not hard to immediately reject his offer.
I clipped off the final suture and shook my head, looking up at him from the wound with a newfound spiteful ignition, "No. That's alright."
Chief's eyes lingered on mine as he held his interrupted position, unmoving as he searched me quizzically. I held my position until the bitter end, until I needed to look away to finish fixing my yet again damaged wound.
Larry brought out dessert and a new energy filled the room. Though, I kept Chief's stare in the back of my mind. He was a man of science. Always thinking, always concocting, always wondering what else he could do that he hadn't before.
People like that were the worst kind of people. The only reason I escaped Arkham was because of an unforeseen transfer. My father had decided to trust the word of a conniving medical scientist such as the Chief who had promised him a cure.
A cure for me, for whatever I'd become. I was full of disgusting drugs from the Arkham doctors but I still saw my only real chance for escape. And I took it.
Now, looking at the Chief, I only saw a man who wanted to exploit the misery of other beings for his own personal gain. For the sake of his own blood-lust like curiosity. I would not let Rachel become another Cliff, another Larry, another Rita, or another Gar.
I couldn't stomach anything if I tried, so I sat out on dessert, but I stayed at the table. I'd redressed the wound in my abdomen before everyone had started eating. Gar offered to lend me a shirt, and I could not decline or accept before he disappeared to get one.
He was so eager, so desperate to help me in some way that I most likely would have let him get one for me out of pity anyway. When Gar returned, he gave me the shirt as I stepped out of the room to change.
It was a cotton, long-sleeved shirt with a Star Trek logo on the chest. But I wouldn't have expected anything less from him. Once I'd eased myself out of the bloodied shirt and into the new one, I returned to the dinning room.
When I reentered, Chief was talking to Rachel about his experiments. The words that alarmed me were the ones he uttered as I reached my seat—I can help you, too.
My fingers gripped tightly to the back of the chair—so tightly my knuckles turned paper white—and the protective beast inside me roared without much consent from my conscious mind. "Don't you dare lay a hand on her, Doctor Octopus," I hissed.
Gar physically startled from the tone of my voice, being so close to my position when I spoke. Chief's head snapped up almost immediately, his eyes finding mine again, this time with a glossed effect. A hush had, reasonably, fallen over the room once again.
"What makes you think you get to make decisions on behalf of someone else?" Chief calmly asked me, gesturing a hand toward Rachel.
"Because she's a fucking child and she is under my protection, my responsibility," my voice rose with every word, my feet moving in slow steps toward the head of the table where he sat. "You think it's your right to play God as long as you say it's for science?"
Chief sat back in his chair, looking up at me with a puzzled expression as I finally reached the end of the table, "What i'm doing here is helping people—I saved their lives-"
"You destroyed their lives! Look at Cliff—does he look happy to you? What quality of life is that?" I questioned, aggressively, as I leaned down to rest my palm against the corner of the table top.
"Beverly-" Rachel tried to stop me. But I kept going.
"What about Rita? She's fucking terrified of losing her shape forever, you can see it in her face," I said, standing upright again. "And Larry is, what- stuck in those wraps for the rest of eternity? You think this is helping people?! This is a perversion and people are suffering!"
Wood against tile shrieked like nails against a chalkboard, seconds before Gar's voice pierced through the intensity of the rage in my blood, getting closer by the second. "Okay, that's enough," he spoke quietly, arriving at my side. "Come on—you need to cool off."
He wrapped an arm around my front to tug me back, to tug me away from Chief's chair before I could inflict any kind of physical damage. My eyes seared marks into Chief's despite my willingness to backpedal along with Gar.
The man, the monster, stared back at me—his face soaked in a cocktail of disgust and offense as though I'd mixed the drink myself and thrown it on him. And I was proud. I was spitefully proud of the things I'd said, because they were true.
There was no quality to the lives he'd saved. Sure, they were alive. But for what purpose? To what end? Being his slaves until he dies? These people had all been touched by death. It was truly a perversion of nature to destroy fate's timeline.
In this way, for these reasons—any and all intents and purposes were abominations. When people are marked to die, that is how it's supposed to be. If I saved everyone meant to die since the beginning, the world would have spiraled into apocalypse.
There were to many variables. And who was to say the person you saved would not end up dying anyway, but from something completely different? If it's meant to happen, it will find a way to happen. That was not simply a catch phrase from a movie.
It was reality. Gar dragged me from the dinning room as I seethed, the only one brave enough to dare attempt removing me from the situation. "What's going on with you?" he questioned, as the doors were shut behind us.
He let go of me and I took steps away from him, pacing away a few feet before walking back. Clenching and releasing fists at my sides as I breathed heavily. It was a kind of rage I had not felt for many years—pure and untameable.
Shaking my head slowly, I turned around to pace again, "I've felt this insane need to protect Rachel since before I'd even met her. It makes me do things I normally wouldn't—but this anger inside me right now is completely me. My body not does like Chief and, well, you just heard why."
"But he is saving people," Gar pointed out, optimistically confused.
"People that aren't supposed to be saved."
"So...if you saw me when I was sick and dying...you would've let me die?"
His words caused my heart to sink to my toes with a bitter reality. It was in my nature to allow the universe to do as it pleases. If I am told one must die, they die. If they are to live, I show restraint. I am merely an instrument of order.
Yet, when posed this question, I began to rethink my very livelihood. In all reality, the answer would be yes. My body would not allow me to do anything to help him no matter how much I wanted to. But the purely, innocently human parts of me answered no.
I stared at the floor for a long bout of silence. Finally, my eyes flicked up, straight to Gar's face. His face had dropped drastically, relaxing to the point of falling right into sadness, the lights above causing a shimmer to befall his eyes.
He was genuinely about to cry. And in the anxious turmoil his question had given me, along with the guilt at causing this boy any pain at all, my first instinct was to pull him into my arms. "What's inside me makes me do things...I don't want to do," I said, my arms securely around his neck. "I'm so sorry."
"It's okay...I understand," Gar nodded against my shoulder, despite his voice.
I'd felt terrible. Once again what I thought made me a peacemaker, someone justifying humanity's wrongs for the good of the innocent, in reality only made me a monster. A monster no better than the Chief, or any murderer I killed.
I took a step back from him, placing my hands firmly on his shoulders, "Listen to me, Garfield. Chief did right when he saved you. But the others weren't so fortunate, and it's unfair to them. What's inside Rachel is too much for him to use as a Guinea pig. If he 'helps' her, she will suffer."
Gar slowly nodded, seemingly beginning to understand my point. "He wouldn't hurt her, though," he said. "I mean, if she refused, he wouldn't force her or anything."
"He better not—I'm not exactly playing Devil's advocate today," I replied, retracting my hands.
As the appendages relaxed at my sides, my fingertips were touched by a deathly familiar vibration, my chest warming. Dick was close by. The revelation widened my eyes, causing my tired nerves to come alive. "We need to get Rachel," I told Gar, quickly.
"Uh, okay. Why?" he asked, curiously.
I quickly walked through the dinning room door, the soft sounds of Gar following behind me like a lost puppy echoing in my ears. When I reentered the room my eyes went straight to the last place I had seen the girl—her chair.
The piece of furniture was empty. My eyes instinctively shifted to the right, to the Chief's equally empty chairs, and I let out an anger and utter worry filled exhale. "Where's Rachel?" I questioned, looking to the others at the table.
Larry was the only one willing to speak, it seemed. "She went with Chief to the lab," he answered me. "He's going to run a few tests."
My blood was boiling. Though, Gar placed a hand on my shoulder as he stepped up beside me, about to walk right by me. "Come on, I'll take you there," he said, urging me to follow him with a facial expression of importance.
I nodded and followed him through the dinning room, out the other side into the hall. We hurried down the halls to the place we'd been earlier in the night. The place where Rachel had helped the freezing woman.
Rachel was strapped to the reclined chair with thick, leather buckles when we arrived. She squirmed against them, declining the tests after all. "No. No, I don't want this anymore," she shook her head quickly. "Let me up."
"This is for your own good, my child. I promise," Chief spoke calmly, drawing purple liquid into a large syringe.
"What the hell are you doing?" I questioned, walking fast toward them.
The Chief looked up instantly, his posture changing to one of defense as I approached. Gar was right behind me, throaty growls rumbling from him. Chief's hand lurched to a space hidden by the chair, then pulled it back to reveal some kind of weapon.
He aimed it at Gar, firing a green dart into Gar's shoulder. It was obviously a tranquilizer. That's what my body told me as I continued forward, sidestepping to miss a dart aimed for me, and walked right up to the chair.
A third dart shot from the gun and I bent far to the right to miss it, quickly righting myself as my hand shot out. My fingers wrapped around the weapon and pulled forcefully, yanking it from his hands, before quickly connecting it with the side of his face.
The Chief stumbled to the left, the syringe fumbling from his hands and shattering against the hard tile flooring. Rachel's back arched off the chair, fighting the restraints in a sudden burst of dark vibrations that rippled up my spine.
They rippled up my spine and to the base of my skull where they turned into a dizzying combination of anger and pain and the adrenaline from both. It rapidly increased my pulse, quickening my lungs' pace, causing the lightheadedness.
Another wave of vibrations hit me hard as Rachel did it again, this time loosing an inky substance from her mouth. The substance drifted up into a whirl as a strong wind carried it, the power surge causing the lights in the room to immediately become powerless.
I stumbled backward against the winds and the pain in my skull, my fingernails digging into my scalp. It felt like a razor blade had been surgically implanted in my brain. The sharp metal moved freely, carving through the tissue.
It sent strong bolts of pain and electricity through the nerves in my skin, pulsing in my muscles, and every organ inside of me. The pain was almost unbearable. Yet still, I did my best to look up. The inky substance swirled high in the air.
Something about it almost looked peaceful. But the things it was making me feel were terrifying. Suddenly the ink lunged downward, wrapping a tentacle of black around the Chief's torso. "Rachel!" I shouted into the wind. "That's enough! Stop this!"
The girl remained unmoving. However, the black lifted Chief off the ground, raising him high into the air, and shot from left to right. Its movements cracked like a whip. Chief hollered in terror as he was thrashed about.
I moved forward as quickly as I could, stumbling in every which direction on my way. My hand stretched out before my body had arrived at my destination, fingers wrapping around Rachel's arm. The contact sent a charge through my body.
It started in my palm—rocketing up through the veins and tissue in my arm, then flaring out as it reached my shoulder. When it reached my chest, all in a matter of milliseconds, something electric burst within my rib cage.
My body was thrusted backward, vaulted briefly into the air before thudding against the hard flooring on my back several feet away. A strangled cry escaped me from the sharp burning in my spine due to the rough landing.
Still, I was desperate to get Rachel's attention. I'd told her that I mastered living with my abilities. This was not even a first step. I threw my weight to the left, rolling onto my side in order to press my palms into the floor, pushing myself up a bit.
Chief was flung in a sudden snap, his body hitting the wall with a dense thud. He fell to the floor, unconscious, and the black retracted. Suddenly Rachel arched off the table again—this time with a metallic, echoed scream—and the leather straps broke.
With a pang of panic in my chest, I pulled my body backward rapidly across the floor, gritting my teeth against the screams of protest from my throbbing muscles.
I didn't stop until my back hit the door frame. Once I'd made it I pulled myself to my feet and stumbled from the room, desperate for an escape. Desperate for a reprieve. The whole ordeal caused much pain. But it also left a burning in my lungs.
It left a certain anxiousness I'd felt only once or twice in my lifetime. I wanted to scream. Scream from the pain, scream from the horror of it all, and scream from the incredible surge of energy filling my veins so much it hurt.
I almost felt as though I was a grenade whose pin had been long pulled and, any moment now, there was sure to be a devastating explosion. My right hand stayed against the wall as I stumbled along the hallway as quickly as I could without tripping over myself.
My left hand pressed firmly against the bandaged wound in my side, one that was most likely in need of another new set of stitches. Once I'd made it out to the main hall, I turned left. The above lights were fluttering on and off.
It made it increasingly difficult to see, and to stay upright with its dizzying effect. With the lights fluctuating I could not help but miss the incoming body. I collided with the oncoming traffic.
Our fronts thudded together, frantic arms tangling a startled mess. But the second we hit I felt a sense of calm warm the chill of my anxious bones, and I knew. It was Dick. The lights flickered on for a split second, only lending credence to my instinct.
"Savannah?" Dick asked, in surprise, his grip on my shoulders the only thing holding me upright.
My body flooded with a bit of relief, "Oh, thank God! Rachel's losing it! I can't get close to her and she's not listening."
"Alright—are you okay?" he questioned. His eyes quickly scanned my face before moving downward, checking my side wound the best he could in the terrible lighting.
Against my head's wishes, I nodded, "I'm fine. I am."
"Where's Rachel?"
"This way."
I gestured lightly with a tilt of my head and pulled away from him to walk back in the direction of the lab. Again I held to the wall to stay up, but I was able to move much faster with the less chaotic vibrations I received from Dick.
We made it to the doorway of the lab. Rachel was standing across the room in front of an upright, purple circle that only seemed to fuel the hectic mess of black swirling in the air. The winds had picked up and become more aggressive.
Dick didn't hesitate to enter the room, however careful his steps may be. He waded into the swirls of black and I remained at the entrance, propped against the doorway. There was no way I would be able to muster the strength to go in.
Not after the last time I tried to get close to her. "Rachel! Rachel!" Dick called to her, his voice getting lost in the loud winds. He grabbed her arm and turned her around, forcing her to focus on something other than the purple circle.
"You're going to die," Rachel's voice was metallic and echoed. Then, more emotional, more human, she continued, "You need to leave. Before it's too late!"
"I'm not leaving you!" Dick shook his head.
"You have to go. I don't wanna hurt you."
"Rachel, listen to me! You're not alone. Okay? I was wrong. You're not alone—you have me. I'm not going anywhere," Dick told Rachel.
He moved forward and boldly wrapped his arms around her, bringing her into a secure hug. The moment they embraced was the moment the black began to fade out. Inky swirls disappeared into the purple as it rapidly closed.
And, when it was closed, it vanished. A haunting calm fell over the war-torn room in the chaos's absence. The pressure between my eyes ceased, the tension from my body drained away—and finally, I could relax.
Still, there was pain. But I did not feel anything out of the ordinary associated with this mess. Movement and the sound of footsteps drew my eyes upward to the second floor viewing area. Kory had come to the railing.
Behind her were Rita, Larry, and Cliff. "You okay down there?" Kory asked, with an empathetic grimace as she noticed my stance against the doorway.
"I'll survive," I replied, taking deep breaths to calm down.
"Did I hurt you?"
My attention was pulled back to the ground floor at the sound of Rachel's voice. She had come to stand a few feet from me, visibly hesitant in coming any closer. I shook my head, "Nothing an ice pack won't fix."
"I'm so sorry," Rachel shook her head slowly, features ridden with guilt. "I don't know what came over me-"
I pushed off the doorway and shuffled across the space between us. As I reached her, I wrapped my right arm around her, pulling her into me in the best hug I could manage with my side wound.
Her arms wrapped tightly around my middle, and I spoke quietly to her, "Never blame yourself for something you cannot control. Learn from it, and do better. Okay?"
"Okay," Rachel nodded, pulling away from me.
Larry and Rita tended to the Chief while Cliff and Gar went with the rest of us to the front room of the house. Gar explained to Dick and Kory the nature of this group of misfits while we waited for the others.
I stood slightly hunched, arm still wrapped tightly around my middle. Noticing this, Dick slid off his jacket and pulled it over my shoulders, this time putting an arm around me to keep me at his side.
With the wild whiplash of the day, I did not blame him. In fact it was comforting to be close to him again. I found myself curling into his chest, resting the side of my head against his shoulder as the others conversed, and Dick wrapped his other arm around my frame.
It wasn't too long before Larry and Rita joined us in the front room, and then it was time for us to leave. We walked out the front of the house to the driveway, where the Porsche sat waiting. Kory opened the passenger side door and gestured for Rachel to get in.
Dick let go of me only to allow for me to also head to the passenger side of the vehicle. Before I got there completely, a tug in the pit of my stomach forced me to stop, turning around on my heels. "You could come with us, you know," I said, looking to Gar.
He stood in front of the group of misfits sending us off. "Oh, uh..." he looked down and away, obviously trying to think of a way to decline—even when he wanted to come along.
Cliff gave Gar's shoulder a shove, pushing him forward, "Go with them."
"W-what about you guys?" Gar questioned, turning to face them all.
"Chief's back is broken again. We'll take care of him," Larry answered.
"He helped us, Gar," Rita added. "We owe it to Chief to help him now."
"Well...maybe you guys can come? I mean, you don't have to hide anymore," Gar tried.
Cliff sighed, "It is what it is, kid."
"Buy you..." Rita stepped forward and pulled the zipper up on Gar's jacket, before handing him his backpack. "Can have more than us."