The Undaunted (Book Two) [ON HOLD]

Chapter Eleven: Getting Help

(Chapter Eleven: Getting Help)

Pepper, I'm sorry.

   All I could think of is her being strangled with that scared look on her face then got thrown out the window to a twenty-floor drop. All I did was watch her meet her death and let my body be taken over by a body-stealing mess of an experiment. Now, I have one of my friends dead because of me. It might not be me who threw her out but if I wasn't even there in their lives, that wouldn't have happen to her.

   I'm a hundred percent sure now that Tony doesn't ever want to see my face anymore after getting his soon-to-be wife killed. And I bet he's wishing that I'm dead now. But all I want to do wholeheartedly is to say sorry, even though that couldn't bring Pepper back.

   Something beneath me is a little soft and a little cold. I try to sit up and find the whole place dim-lighted I can barely see a thing. But I hear something swoosh, like a door sliding open. Pretty soon, the lights turn on but only into a minimal level. I can now see that I'm lying on a bench bed with a pillow underneath my head. The walls are made of glass, like the room I woke up in a week ago. The room is cylindrical as well and there's a kind of door on my far right.

   I look down and around my right wrist is a thick gray strap that kind of looks like a watch. Covering my body (except my head, my arms and my legs) is a white spandex suit with thick violet lines on the sides. My feet are bare.

   Now why do I feel like I should be wearing violet fingerless gloves and violet rubber shoes to get along with my costume?

   "How are you feeling, Ronica?" a male voice, Bruce's, greets but I cannot find him.

   Standing up as I look around, a small area of darkness gets lighted up and there is Bruce standing by a couple of computer screens. He starts typing stuff as soon as he got his glasses on and I answer his question with a question. "Does Tony wanna kill me?"

   "For what?"

   "For killing Pepper?"

   He shakes his head without talking his eyes off the screens. "No. Pepper's perfectly fine." I furrow my eyebrows in curiosity. "After Hemlock threw her out the window, the Tower's safety protocols activated. So, no. Tony doesn't wanna kill you. He already misses you, by the way. Both of them, actually."

   I feel the anvil on my chest getting lifted off and I start breathing comfortably. "Thank God," I murmur to myself, knowing that no one has still gotten on the edge of a cliff due to my condition. Touching my head, I ask, "where are we and how long was I out?"

   "We're somewhere classified. Even I am not informed of our location. You've been out for ten hours. Sorry for giving you a knock out gas, though. It was the only way to temporarily stop her."

   "No problem at all. I should thank you for that even." Pretty soon, I start to rub my fingers and ask him, "How'd you know it was gonna temporarily stop her?"

   He takes off his glasses and walks towards me, stopping only a few feet. "Remember those blood samples I took from you?" I nod. "Well, after running tests on your blood, the things I predicted came true and I made a temporary antidote that'll do exactly what it did to her when she took over you."

   Since it worked on me, I start to wonder why he didn't use it on him. "Why not try it to yourself? Since it temporarily stopped her, why not take a high dose of it and see if the Other Guy disappears?"

   "My condition's far worse than yours."

   "How about me? Why not give me a high dose of it?"