"Sorry, Dad," I said hoarsely when he thrust open the light blue, inoffensively dull curtain encircling my hospital bed hours later, trailed by Adrian and Alexia. "I survived, so you're going to have to return whatever life insurance you took out on me."
"That's not funny." In a flash, arms stretched out and snatched me into a suffocating embrace. I allowed myself to sink into it, to accept feeling safe for the first time in I didn't know how long, and let my eyelids rest for just a moment.
"I'm not trying to be funny."
It was true. I'd been poked and prodded at like a pin cushion for what felt like an eternity, leaving me in an understandably foul mood. Every time I thought my trials were over, something else reared it's ugly head. Get away from the villain that kidnapped you? Congratulations, you are now stranded in the woods. Finally find a water source? Lucky you, you have been found again by the very villain you just escaped. Make it to the city and think you're finally safe and sound? Nope, your reward for survival is a full medical work up where hospital staff draw more blood than Shade ever did.
Not a dream.
Not a dream.
"Lily?"
I clenched my fist into his checkered, navy blue t-shirt, steadying myself with the physical proof of his presence before me. My eyes could lie, as could my ears, but the feel of his rough hewn clothes and the smell of musky after shave couldn't be faked. Not a dream.
"Lily! Answer me, are you alright?" My dad pulled back to catch a glimpse of my face, incorrectly assuming I could carry my own weight. "How are you here?"
"I'm fine." I managed a quivering smile that I hoped looked more reassuring than it felt, followed by a half hearted shrug. "Hard to kill, I guess."
"I bet you annoyed Nightshade into releasing you." Adrian's obvious attempt at humor fell flat, largely because he looked and sounded slightly shell-shocked by my sudden return.
"That's actually not a terrible theory." After a shared look of concern between my parents, I said more forcefully, "Really! I'm fine!"
"You need a shower," my step-sister said, coming up to the side of my hospital bed and wrinkling her nose. "You smell worse than Moose does after a day at the park."
"We'll see how good you smell if you get dropped into a forest without access to running water for a couple days," I retorted in the tone reserved solely for older siblings to bully their younger counterparts. "I'm sure I could arrange that."
"How long do you believe you've been gone?" my father asked, brows pinched in mild puzzlement.
"Long enough that I think a coma would make for a fantastic nap," I said, smothering a yawn.
"Lily-" Dad started, and faltered, conflicted. Finally, he finished, "Lily, it's already July."
The math resolved in itself easily in my head. I graduated on the sixteenth, of the previous month, so if we had indeed passed into July, at least fifteen days had been swallowed by those woods.
I pressed my palms into my closed eyes, letting the pressure and reinforced darkness do it's best to provide a shred of comfort. "Please tell me it's the first of the month."
"The third, actually," Alexia said in her chipper tone.
I didn't know whether to be relieved or devastated. When he said July, I feared the worst, yet the mere fact that over two weeks had passed seemed impossible. "How is that possible?"
No one answered, because no one had answers. What could they say? They couldn't begin to understand what I'd gone through. Maybe nobody could. Eventually, I would be forced to share my experience, to relive it, and then they'd have an idea, but I didn't want that. They'd suffered enough from worry, so to make them suffer twice from knowledge seemed cruel.
The IV sticking out of my arm seemed to weigh me down. I felt... heavy in a way difficult to describe, and it greatly reduced my mobility, although I didn't mind that part so much. I had no plans to move in the next five to seven business days, and then maybe a few weeks after that. I was thoroughly drained. Depleted. Used, abused, and ready to plant roots in the ground beneath my feet if it meant no one could drag me elsewhere.
I cocked my head to the side, looking past my dad to narrow my eyes at my step-father, in his scrubs, given he technically was still in the middle of his shift at another hospital. "You know..." I began, "it seems a little, shall I say, heartless, that you would go back to work so soon after your poor step-daughter got kidnapped. Possibly murdered. Potentially tortured and fed alive to sharks. I really think two weeks of mandatory mourning isn't asking for much."
He rolled his eyes, the concern therein promptly evaporating. "If you can complain, you're fine."
I tsked, dripping disappointed condescension. "You didn't know that at the time, did you? I'm just saying, it's suspicious. Did you even wait until I was out of sight before you started breaking out the bottles of champagne? Tell the truth, you were secretly relieved I was gone, right?"
"You. Are. Fine," he repeated, sounding wonderfully exasperated.
I infused deep despair into my responding sigh. "At least someone thinks so."
Adrian lingered by the spot from which he'd entered, like a sentry, or more likely contemplating an escape. "Now that you mention it, I'm starting to miss how quiet things have been these last couple weeks," he mused, his pointed meaning not at all lost on me. "How peaceful, even. I wonder what the common denominator could be... What could possibly be stealing my peace?"
"It was indeed rather peaceful where I've been, too," I said, smiling brightly, before dropping my lips into a scowl, "starving to death."
"You know, I've really missed these little conversations," Adrian said in a way that could have been mistaken for earnest, but I knew to be otherwise. My DNA may have been from my dad, but my personality definitely came as a result of proximity to my step father.
"Keep it down." My dad flipped back the curtain to peer anxiously out into the waiting room.
His unease didn't make sense, until Alexia made a running leap into my bed, cupping her hands to too-loud whisper in my ear, "They're here!"
I pulled back to see her cherubic face, and her evident excitement made me automatically weary. "Who's here?"
"Knock knock," came a light, pleasant voice, and the curtain pulled back to reveal two figures, both men.
Ugh. The amount of testosterone in the small space was enough to smother. I hugged Alexia closer to counteract any lingering effect of the masculine hormone in the air. Peering past them, I noted the sudden absence of patients and staff, evidently clearing out in the short time since Adrian, my dad, and I had been talking.
"Not ominous at all," I murmured, side-eyeing my dad to see what he made of the occurrence, but he schooled his expression into one of polite fatherly concern and went to stand near my pillow, a hand resting casually on my shoulder.
Or rather, that was how it probably appeared to unwitting observers, for there was nothing casual about how his fingers squeezed around the flesh of my collar bone in clear warning, but what was he trying to warn me about?
I turned to the two Supers in our midst, only mildly self conscious about my disheveled state — a rather generous description of my appearance, if you asked me. Nearing three weeks without a bath, no clothing changes, no brush. You do the math.
"Tell me the truth," I said, playing at irreverence. "You thought I'd be dead by now, didn't you? Don't lie, a nurse showed me the press conference footage. I didn't need to be a telepath to read your doom and gloom expressions while you reassured the public that you had no reason to believe I was hurt." I laughed, an unpretty, snorting sound. I desperately needed another nap before embarrassing myself further. "In this instance, you might have been right, but seriously?" Another laugh. "You couldn't think of any reason why I might have been injured?"
No one else joined in my merriment. Slowly, I sobered down to match the temperament of those around me.
Awkward.
Tempest compromised with a pitying smile that fell just short of his eyes. He looked... troubled.
"We remained hopeful for your safe return," he replied, and though I couldn't really make out his eyes beneath his mask, the subtle dip of his chin told me he was scanning me for defects. "I'm glad to say we had nothing to worry about."
I shifted, the bed creaking beneath me as I adjusted my hold on Alexia. "I wouldn't say 'nothing', per se." Pressure on my shoulder alerted me to my father's ire and, fighting to roll my eyes, I added, "The mountains were a bit cold, and my legs are cramping just thinking about how many miles I walked."
"Yes, about that," the other man said, placing a rectangular device on the bed beside my covered foot, "where — you don't mind if I record this, do you? — where were those mountains located? If you don't know the exact mountain range, a direction should suffice for now."
He far overestimated my intelligence if he thought I could tell even that much. "Genuinely, I have no clue where I was, other than the fact that it was no where near any place I know."
He grunted in response, contemplative, then shook his head. His slick, jelled back hair, I noted, did not flinch at the movement.
"Just start from the beginning," he said. "From when the villain first took you."
"Here?" I looked around us, skeptical. "You want to do this here?"
All I wanted to do was sleep. Couldn't they see that?
Tempest, who was being uncharacteristically quiet compared to our previous interactions, answered before the other man got the chance. "We have people stationed in front of all the exits so no one accidentally walks in and overhears. We're also trying to help you keep your location a low profile, because if no one sees you then they can't spread the information to somewhere Shade might hear."
"This is keeping a low profile?" I asked, arching a brow to let them know what I thought of the questionable execution of their plan. "You don't think locking down a whole section of the hospital might raise a few red flags? This is the Emergency Department for fucks sake. What if there's, I don't know, an emergency?"
"Lily!" My dad admonished, censure plain in his tone.
"Alexia's heard worse," I defended.
"She has?" came Adrian's warning growl, and I felt his glare like lasers shooting through the side of my head, and I made an effort to look elsewhere.
"Leigh says a lot of bad words," Alexia giggled on cue, her whole body shaking in my arms with mirth.
Adrian opened his mouth to say something else — nothing good, no doubt, especially about his mortal enemy and my best friend — but the second man cut in, tired of the distractions from our main discussion. "Ambulances have been instructed to reroute to other nearby hospitals for the time being. After we have you moved to a more secure location, the order will be rescinded and things here will go back to how they were."
Caught on the words, my dad repeated sharply, "A more secure location?"
Adrian came to stand by my father and pulled himself up to his fullest height, a not inconsiderable stature that towered over the rest of us. When he spoke, it came out low, daring a challenge, despite knowing emphatically that at least one of the two men before us could steal the air from our lungs or whisk us away to impossible heights and drop us to our deaths if he so wished. The number of ways we stood to lose against Tempest alone was countless, let alone whatever mystery powers the second man may have possessed. While he dressed like a normal, powerless person, lacking in mask and suit, appearances could be deceiving.
"You are not taking her anywhere without our consent," Adrian said.
I huffed, the more annoyed alternative to rolling my eyes again. "I'm an adult. I'm not going anywhere without my own consent."
"That goes without saying," Tempest hurried to intervene. "We merely thought getting her to a safe location ought to be a priority, given Shade's..." he searched for a proper word, "preoccupation with her. Until we know what he's after, we'll never be sure if she's safe from another attack. I think it's become clear to all of us that the number of times they've interacted has gone far beyond the realm of coincidence, and the odds seem to indicate he will be after her again in the near future."
There came a beat of silence where my dads shared a heated glance that communicated far more than I could easily read. Being left out of discussions on my own safety was really beginning to wear on my nerves.
When no responses seemed immediately forthcoming, Tempest hedged, "I'm sure we can come to an agreement that will satisfy everyone."
Another shared glance. "We'll discuss this later," my dad relented, reverting from protective papa bear back to his usual role of peacemaker. "She still has quite a bit of recuperation to be done in the hospital before she can be moved."
"Of course," Tempest was quick to agree.
"In the meantime," the second Guild man pressed on, "back to when you first got abducted. Tell us everything you remember. Spare no details."
I did just that, carefully avoiding everyone's gazes as my voice grew fraught from over-use after so long barely using it at all. Even without glancing up, I felt the heat of Tempest's silent scrutiny. His presence added no great benefit that I could tell beyond being a familiar face, so I wondered if the Guild sent him for the sole purpose of putting me at ease.
After I got to the point where I awoke in front of the hospital, my interrogator flipped closed his notepad with a sense of finality and stuck his pen back into his front shirt pocket.
"Until the doctor signs off on her being moved elsewhere, Tempest here will stay nearby, just in case." It took no leap of imagination to imagine what 'just in case', meant, so no one asked for him to elaborate. "I'll report back to the Guild, share with them the new information and all that. They'll probably send me back in a few days to discuss her future arrangements and verify a few details."
I didn't think I liked the sound of that.
"My future arrangements are school," I piped up, lest they have any delusions. "University."
The corner of Tempest's mouth twitched up at a memory we both shared. "By the beach somewhere, your student loans paid off by revealing my secret identity to the highest bidding tabloid. That's the uni, right?"
I matched his grin. "Exactly."
"The protective arrangement can be as temporary as you like, but we'll discuss at a later date," the Guild man said, and made his exit with a halfhearted wave that rather looked like he was swatting off a fly.