(#2) Girl By Day, Villain By Night,

Chapter 11

How dare you make yourself matter to me and then leave, because now I am forced to live a life without you, which I do not wish to do.~ Anonymous

Dedication: To the wonder DarkenedDays for the very enthusiastic comments you've been leaving on my books. I'm so glad you enjoyed them!

Dylan

Sometimes, things happen for a reason we can never begin to comprehend. Things often work in ways we don't understand. Science, maybe, or maybe fate messing with us, that omnipotent being that has been said to beat even gods. Things don't really work the way I wanted them to, they never do. If things did, Jake would not have died, Siena wouldn't have left, I wouldn't have lost my entire support system in the span of 6 months.

I've often wondered what made Fate so powerful. People who don't believe in God may believe in Fate, and I never got that. Why was Fate so immensely powerful? Why was it able to control so much? Why did we place so much belief in something we could not even see? There are things that have power, and then there are things that only have power should we give it to them. Fate is unimportant, until we started assigning importance to it. It drew its power from us believing in it, not power of its own. And despite knowing this, I am always going to wonder whether Fate had a hand in how things played out.

Things were getting even worse around the city, the disease spreading like crazy. I had quarantined the park off, had the CDC craving to sweep it like crazy, but I wouldn't let anyone near the area but me. This villain, Epidemic, she was odd, Rather than hit the entire city, she preferred to target her victims randomly. One day, there would be five victims from the Bronx, and then on who lived on the Upper East Side. They had nothing in common, and that wasn't very good for me. She popped from place to place spreading panic and fear, terror running rampant. The people had faith in me, but now they were beginning to lose it. And that was the worst thing.

The real blow came later that afternoon. I received a call from Zoe. "Dylan, I'm coming over. We need to talk." The girl did not wait for me, simply put the phone down as I stared at it in shock. Fifteen minutes later, she walked in, along with Michael and Emma. Zoe did not look like she usually did, calm, collected, put together. Her hair was strewn all over her face, tangled, and her eyes were red and puffy, lip trembling. "Dylan," she took a shaky breath before continuing. "We lost the first person to the virus."

A cold feeling spread through my heart, moving through my body until I was frozen to the floor, paralyzed. Oh my god.

"Who?" I managed to croak out.

Zoe took a seat on my couch and slumped forward. She wouldn't meet my eyes. "The little boy, first victim. Nathan." The whole seemed to wash out at that moment. I knew, I knew this boy was sick, so why hadn't I done anything. Why hadn't I held Epidemic and forced her into giving up the cure? How could I be so careless, so unable to protect the citizens of my own city? And now two parents were left childless. The world a little darker.

I took a seat on my couch, and stared at the ground, pure sadness washing over me. Emma sat down next to me, putting an arm around my waist and letting me lean into her body as tears leaked out of my face. "I can't protect them. I can't save them." This was my worst nightmare come true, me unable to save the innocent people who lived in my home. These deaths would forever be a burden on my shoulders, something that would haunt me for the rest of my life.

Emma shushed me, her warmth comforting, and exactly what I needed. As much as I loved Siena, right now, Emma was the one here for me, and I couldn't hate her for that. She was my best friend, had stepped up and taken that role upon her shoulders after I had lost the others. And she was doing amazing. I stayed there for fifteen more minutes, finding myself physically unable to tear myself away from Emma's warm grip. Warm tears hit my hands, but I knew they weren't mine. I lifted my head to find them making their way down Emma's face silently, and she shook her head, pressing her lips to my cheek. "It's not your fault."