Night has fallen, and I'm all alone.
Now is my last chance to think of a plan to escape from this hell on earth.
I know this glass case neutralizes my magnetic powers. No matter how hard I try, I can't move any of the metal around me outside of this thing.
I need to know what this stupid glass is made out of, or what it does to me. I walk around the perimeter of my cylinder prison cell, gliding my hand along the cool glass. Then I remember.
I've seen this glass before. It held the vile of the Substance in the transport truck that day. That vile must have been made out of this same glass, because it would have eroded through regular glass. And if I remember correctly, one thing stood out about that glass vile.
It shattered from a simple fall to the ground. It is highly breakable.
This cage is thicker than that vile, but I bet with the right amount of force I could blast it to pieces. A gun or a huge collision might do the trick. I just have to lure one of the guards in here.
Then I think of Loki, and my escape plan falls into place in my mind. I'll just have to do a little trickery of my own.
I sit down and hunch over to avoid suspicion, then I cup my pinky with my other hand so that I can see it but the cameras everywhere else can't. I close my eyes and pray that my invisibility still works, and I make my pinky hopefully go invisible. When I open my eyes, I have to suppress a smile of joy.
My invisibility still works. My pinky is gone.
I sit and wait until the right time to enact my plan arrives.
The next morning, after a sleepless night, the morning shift of guards file in and all of the fancy scientists in lab coats resume their examinations of me and their incessant typing on large computers.
Now is my chance. My last chance.
I jog around the circle a few times, picking up speed at every rotation. I hear one man shout, "What is she doing?" but I ignore it. I keep running until I'm going as fast as I can in this small space, and then I turn and run directly at the glass across from me, cutting straight through the center of the cage.
Right before I hit the glass, I do a little leap for show and then go completely invisible in mid air. I skid to a stop when I hit the ground, careful to make no noise and not hit the glass. Then I stop moving and I go silent.
"Where did she go?"
"Did she escape?"
"Impossible!"
"Well where is she?"
"Are you sure she's still in there?"
"It looked like she just jumped through the barrier!"
"Somebody go check, now!"
A chorus of voices and arguments erupt after my show, and I smile to myself. I'm determined now. How dare these grown men stand around me and decide that I am not worth keeping alive? That they have the right to kill me? Not today.
The outer door of my cage opens. An armed guard cautiously steps in. The inner door opens. He walks into the cage, looking around for any sign of me and reaching out with his hand like he's swiping the air for cob webs.
After he makes a few laps, he grows angry and raises his gun in a firing position. I seize the opportunity, running and jumping on to his back. I reach over to the gun he's holding and grab the trigger, pulling back on it as tightly as I can.
"Hey! She's on me!" The man screams, trying to toss me off.
Bullets fly out of the gun, first only making cracks in the glass but eventually shattering it. The glass of the cage rains down over us. It's like the weight of the world is lifted off of me, and I can finally breathe again.
My wounds start healing instantly, I can feel the aches and pains subsiding. My powers are back. I jump off of the man and push myself into the air, flying above the chaos as everyone runs around shouting and searching for signs of me. I stay invisible and fly towards the exit doors.
Before I leave, I turn around and send out a monster wave of magnetism that sends sparks flying and computers tumbling. I just fried their entire computer system down here. Good luck finding those notes they took about me as they were torturing me.
I see that the exit door is sealed shut and the alarm is blaring, and I smile to myself. Nice try. I blast open the doors with the wave of my hand, flying above people's heads and knocking guns out of their hands left and right.
A stampede of officers run towards me, so I slip down a side hallway and into what looks like some kind of break room, with tables and a little kitchen. Two scientists sit at the table in the corner. I stay quiet so I don't alert them of my presence.
"Well that's what Connors gets for trying to steal the substance from his own lab. I mean, really, a hijacking in broad daylight? Give me a break." One of them scoffs to the other, and they both laugh.
I stop in my tracks to listen. If what he just said is true, Mr. Connors was responsible for the hijacking all along. He staged it. And then blamed me for trying to help.
"Do you think they still want to steal and sell it? I heard Russia is offering in the billions for an ounce." The other scientist, a younger woman with pretty blonde hair, says to her male counterpart.
"Oh no. After seeing what it turned that girl into, this stuff will make armies of super-soldiers and weapons beyond America's wildest dreams. We'll rule the whole damn world." The man tells her.
"America will rule, or Connors and his lab rats will?" The girl snickers.
"Maybe both." The man laughs.
I think I've heard all I need to hear. Connors is a fraud, and he wanted to drain my blood for weapons. I feel sick.
I leave the room once I see a clear path down the hallway, and I fly as fast as I can. I see a bright red sign reading EXIT down the end of one side hallway, and bright morning light shining through its window.
I fly down the hallway and blast open the doors again, but what I see stops me in my tracks. Dylan. He stands outside of the door, gun raised and pointed at the doorway.
"Enough!" He screams angrily, "Enough of this Cassidy! Show yourself!"
I don't move. I'm not sure if I even breathe. My Dylan. My Dylan with a gun raised at my head.
I don't know how this happened to us. We've certainly fallen far. He's now standing here threatening me with a gun, when a few weeks ago the worst thing he ever did to me was forget to invite me over for dinner. Or love someone else.
"If you don't show yourself in five seconds, I'm going to start shooting. Everywhere." He says, eyes scanning the doorway for me because even though he can't see me he knows I'm still there. He knows I could never just leave him.
"You would really shoot me Dylan?" I ask, still not going visible.
He pauses for a few seconds.
"That's five." He presses down on the trigger and shoots at every possible spot he thinks I could be. The wave of bullets finally pass over me, stopping in mid air only inches from my skin.
I phase back in, and his eyes widen. He stops shooting as one of his bullets stops right before it hits me in the forehead. A perfect kill shot.
I lower myself to the ground and the bullets drop, clattering on the floor. With the swipe of my hand, I knock his gun over and onto the ground where it lands with a metal thud.
His expression is unreadable. Mine is a mixture of rage and pure heartbreak.
I am betrayed.
I walk right past him, and he says nothing.
Before I can start crying, I phase back out, going invisible, and then I push myself off of the ground. I won't give Dylan the satisfaction of seeing and hearing me cry. My friend is gone.
I fly as fast as I can, and I must make it through all of upstate New York in twenty minutes. Then I see the compound, Tony's compound.
I see dumpsters full of rubble and crews working on fixing the parts of the place that I destroyed everywhere. In the backyard, I see Tony himself pacing around and talking on the phone, pausing to yell at the cleaning crew every now and again.
As relief courses through me, fatigue kicks in and I phase in, sputtering and stumbling to the ground. I land on wobbly legs, falling to my knees in front of Tony.
He drops the phone in shock. He kneels down in front of me. He lunges towards me, pulling my frame into his arms for what feels like the tightest hug I've ever been given.
I let myself sink into him, crying and sobbing as loud as I want to. His warm chest against my cheek feels better than I could have imagined. I don't know how it happened, but Tony Stark somehow became my home.
I love him like I love my own family. I need him that much too. I wrap my arms around him, never wanting to let go.
After at least five minutes of silence and clinging to one another, he pulls away ever so slightly to look at my face.
"Are you hurt? What do you need? FRIDAY, run every test you can. Vitals, minerals, nutrients, I don't care. Is she okay?" He commands his program, which appears like a hologram from his watch and begins scanning me.
I smile at him through my tears.
"I'm sorry, Tony." I cry.
"Kid, don't ever do that to me again." He breathes out, pulling me back into him and shaking his head.
He helps me to my feet after a second long hug, and practically carries me inside the smaller compound to our right that I didn't destroy.
"I'm sorry I broke...everything." I tell him.
"I'm sorry I wasn't there to see it." He jokes at first, before adding, "I mean it. I'm sorry I wasn't there for you. I promised I would be. From now on I will be."
Tony leads me to take a seat in the living room and I thank him quietly.
"What happened to you, kid?" He asks me finally. I cringe.
I tell him everything, and I don't hold back.
I tell him about the flash drive. I tell him about the cage, and about the torture. I tell him about my escape, and the plans I heard Connors had for the Substance and for my blood.
I don't tell him about Dylan though. I hate myself for it, but I still can't help but protect him.
"I'm gonna kill those bastards. Starting with Connors." He says angrily, standing up. I reach out a hand to grab his arm.
"No! You can't hurt them. You'll tell the others what happened, and you'll all promise not to touch them. Please, Tony." I beg and he sits back down slowly and sighs.
"What do you need, kid?" He asks again.
"I just want to go home." I whisper. He nods.
"Then that's where you'll go. I'll have Happy drive you now." He says, and I'm shocked he allows this so easily.
"Thank you." I tell him.
"Don't thank me. I promised I would teach you and then get this stuff out of you. I've done neither. If you want to leave you have every right to." Tony replies.
"You taught me a lot, Tony. You taught me how to be who I am, whether I liked it or not." I tell him and he smiles sadly. We both stand and he hugs me once again.
"I'm gonna miss having you around here, kid." He sighs.
"I'll miss you, too." I reply.
Then just like that, Tony hands me my things that they collected from my old room here, and I'm on my way. I know this is for the best, and I need time at home away from all of this, but I didn't expect it to hurt so much.
I'm just so drained. I need peace. I need to recharge.
I need my mom.