When Cassandra awoke, her vision was still blurred, the yellow of the fading sun all that was clear at first. After vision came feeling, largely that one of her feet was elevated over the other and wrapped tight. With feeling came soreness all over her body and the lingering toll from the battle. Hunger and dehydration followed until all of her being hurt.

"You're finally awake."

Cassandra rolled to the side opposite the window. She felt better, if only a little. Bruce was standing in the doorway, arms crossed and dressed in an old sweater and some slacks.

"Dad." Speaking made her throat hurt even more, and as she looked around and realized she was laying in her bedroom, she noted a glass of water on her nightstand. Cassandra grabbed ahold of the cup and drank it. As she set the glass down, the tiny happiness within faded. Bruce wore a stern look on his face.

"How are you feeling?" From his voice Cassandra knew he cared deeply, but there was a more pressing matter he was desperate to get to.

"I don't know," she said.

"Do you remember what happened?" He stepped into the room and drew in closer.

Cassandra turned away enough that Bruce only appeared in her periphery. "We fought. In the bunker."

"You approached the Odmience in the cell. He broke your foot," Bruce said. "Alfred and I took the measurements, we're having a cast made, but he could have done much worse if he had cared to." When Cassandra said nothing, he continued. "He escaped on one of the bikes we had in for repairs."

Cassandra looked down, bit her lip and fought tears. "I let him go."

"Tim and Stephanie have already heard plenty from me about the state they left that bunker of theirs in, but I need an answer from you. Why did you go in to face him?"

"He was fight, kicking, crying… Felt sorry. Thought he was like me. Raised like me."

Bruce pinched the bridge of his nose. "I understand why you did it, but you let your compassion get the better of you."

"I know."

"You're going to need some time for that to heal."

"I know."

"The police found the bike crashed, but they didn't see any sign of a driver. I don't know if Lipov prepared him for this, but he's surely looking for a way back."

"Dad," Cassandra spoke with an emphasis caught between sadness and anger, "I know."

Bruce was quiet for a minute. Both of them exchanged looks with one another, the window and elsewhere. Cassandra observed it was a quarter after four PM.

Bruce resumed with, "We still have Tim's scans, we're studying everything we can, but is there anything you can tell me?"

"He is afraid. I saw in his body, in his face. Very afraid." As she spoke, the last image of the Odmience looking down on her returned to the front of her mind. "Or I thought so."

Bruce nodded. "Anything else?"

Cassandra pulled up her comforter and clutched it tight. "Sadie left me."

Bruce sighed. "I'm sorry." He struggled with his expression for a moment and waited just long enough it was clear he had to make a decision about his next question. "Do you need to talk about it?"

Cassandra shook her head. "Not now."

"We have plenty of other things that we need to address. Needless to say that's going to take some time to heal, you'll be out of the uniform for a few weeks at least."

Cassandra dug her head deeper into the pillow. "Fine."

"I have some other work to do. I'll have Alfred bring you something to eat, if you're hungry."

"Thank you."

"Focus on your recovery." Bruce stepped close enough to pat her on the back once. "I have a lot on my mind, I'm sure you do too. But I'm glad you're safe."

Cassandra's smile was the most pathetic but most genuine she could manage. "You too."

Bruce stepped out of the room and left her alone in bed. For a few minutes, Cassandra stared at the ceiling, too beaten to think on anything else. All she knew, in that moment, was she was too rested to fall back asleep, and she was waiting for food anyway. With a little fumbling she got ahold of the remote control for her radio. The batteries may have been dying or something of the sort, because it took a few tries to even switch it on.

"Phil, I could go on and on about this one, we've become a society that's so terrified of pain we fail to realize that suffering is a gift from God."

Cassandra felt around on the remote. She was suffering quite enough without Cameron Gram's commentary on the matter.

"If you think you can break man's law and not face some kind of consequence, you're just wrong. And if you think that you can defy God's law and not face God's consequences, you're even more wrong."

"You think God inflicts suffering on us to teach us things?" His cohost asked.

"I don't think God likes to punish us, but yes. I think that's the only way we learn. And apparently there are people who, no matter how many times they touch the stove, won't believe it's hot."

In spite of mashing at the buttons on her remote, Cassandra couldn't change the station. Her radio could be annoying like that, sometimes the remote only worked from just the right angle.

"Phil, I get plenty of callers asking me where all this came from. Kids weren't attacking schools, they weren't engaging in dangerous practices and they weren't hurting themselves when we were growing up. But today's parents are raising the most socialist and godless generation in American history."

Cassandra pulled her pillow over her head in an attempt to blot him out.

"You look to what they're learning about. That God is no longer necessary to the creation of the universe. That pornography and masturbation are normal and healthy. That homosexuals aren't hurting family fundamentals to their very core. Our children are suffering the way they are because God is trying desperately to put them back on the right path. We've become too afraid to punish what's gone wrong, but our lord isn't afraid of anything."

Cassandra gave up on fighting her pillow and clutched herself tight as she sobbed into her mattress.

"But the great thing about God, the great thing about our lord Jesus, is that he heals the sick. He is here to support and aid the suffering. Maybe if the young people of America could just look past their social media and this notion that they have all the answers for a few minutes, they could realize what pain they're in and just ask for some help. One of Christ's greatest gifts is his forgiveness. Maybe not right away, but God can heal what we hurt. The first thing we have to do is acknowledge that problem and just ask for that help."

The rest of Gram's words seemed to fade away as Cassandra choked and cried. She thought she'd found love, but it was ripped from her hands for following her faith. She went to save her father and didn't even know what had become of him. She had shown an opponent mercy, empathy even, and he could have killed her for it.

"We've stopped shaping ourselves to fit God's plan and started bending God to suit our plans. That's acting in a way we all, as baptized Christians, know is wrong. That's heresy."

Please God… I don't want to hurt anymore.