In a world torn between heroes and villains, it can be a dangerous and hostile place. Some take comfort in the Gifted that stand up against those who would use their powers for greed and chaos. While others choose to hide away, fearful of the day...
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"Well, hello there, warden. Come to mingle with the prisoners?"
Elaina tore out another page of the book she was flipping through, gathering it with the others into a neat stack on top of the quaint little coffee table that sat next to a small, but sturdy, full size bed. The only jail cell she'd ever been in was the one she had created in her own head, so she had nothing to compare it to, but she thought it was safe to say that her accommodations, though not ideal, were rather comfortable nonetheless.
"I've come..." He paused, his brow pinching as he observed her pile of pages. "Mir, what are you doing exactly?"
"Why don't you call me Rage?" She tossed the book onto the floor and turned away from her little project, so she faced him from her seated position on the bed. "It is the shortened version I provided you."
"Why don't you call me Dominic? That's my real name. No one calls me Cat."
"Too many syllables, you know the rules."
"Then how about Dom?"
"Out of the two of us, you are not the dom in this relationship."
He sighed and massaged his brow.
"I'm just going to call you Elaina, then."
She pushed herself from the bed, letting the blanket that had covered her fall to the floor as she marched over to him. Heels no longer provided her a height advantage and her dress barely covered her top half, but that didn't mean she couldn't feel confident and powerful. She was in that cell because she chose to be, not because he could restrain her.
"No one calls me Elaina. Understood?"
With her neck stretched to an uncomfortable length and her lips sore from the way they pinched together, it was hard to maintain her resolution while he deliberated her declaration.
"Then," he said with some hesitation in his voice, "what did the people in town call you?"
"Hmph," she replied with a smirk that caused her captor to inhale sharply. "They called me Mirage."
"Bull shit."
"I'm not lying to you," she said with a dismissive wave of her hand as she retracted herself from her attack position. "I never have."
"What about you being Gifted?"
"First off, I don't label myself Gifted. Cursed is more accurate. And second, you never asked. And since it's not a trait, I'm at all proud of, I don't go around, slipping it into casual conversation."
"Fine," he growled, rubbing his hands against his scalp and mussing his hazel locks. Elaina tried not to remember how his hair felt slipping through her fingers. "Mirage, can I call you Mirage?"
"I'll allow it." She turned away and sauntered over to a water cooler that had been provided with a few plastic cups. She filled one of them halfway and returned to her flustered companion with the water held as an offering. "You should take a seat and rest your feet. It's been a long night and I want you to feel welcome in my new home."
