My shirt got stained, and I am beginning to contemplate whether I truly needed to go this far to evade the man Austin determines to kill.

Seeing the look in his eye, I know there is little I can do about it, I know.

But still, this...I…

“Drop the weapon, you damn criminal fiend!”

My heart flies into my throat and my head whips over to the owner of the voice, it's the man. The very one Austin is so determined to kill, “How are you still able to move?”

Could he be a meta as well? Is that why he can move? Is that why Austin wants him dead so bad?

My once calm heart begins to race again as I am presented with a threat. The man has a weapon as well and he’s carelessly swinging it in my face.

“Drop the gun now or I swear to god!” he screams, the look in his eye says it all, he’s as scared as I am, I’ve seen that look before, I know exactly what he’s thinking.

He thinks I’m a genuine threat to his life, he thinks I’m not just a kid. Staring down at my crimson covered self I understand why this would be the case for anyone who must have been observing me shoot people in the knee.

And yet it sparks a tangible feeling of fright, fright of course at the unhinged man that stands unaffected by my powers. But also, also fright at myself.

“Agrhhh!!”

“Ahhh!!”

“What the fuck! Helpp! Someone help!”

I don’t know when but my control over my little bubble of frozen time slips up and now there’s chaos. Each one of my victims begins screaming out in agony. They find themselves crashing to the ground, their legs and arms rendered useless.

Many have already fallen unconscious. However, in my distraction I forget for a second that there is an armed man before me.

Bang!

My lungs flood with air as I take in, quick, violent and thirsty gasps of air. Finding myself on the floor with a world of pain torrenting my left side.

“Vern!” The voice I hear next is Austin's. Screaming out in a bloody rage, he starts shooting, executing the poorly organized policemen. They are like sitting ducks, easy pickings as they tried to attend to their fallen teammates.

Gulping, I try to get up, fighting against the splitting, aching pain of a bullet stuck in my chest. Barely succeeding I find myself staring up at the shocked policeman. His hand limply holding onto the weapon he shot me with.

“I...I...Did-”

“Get away from Vern you fucking-!” The sentence is left incomplete a balled up fist slams into the man's face. Actions speaking louder than words surely.

My saviour surprises me a bit, it’s none other than Rex, the man himself. He has a firm grip on his gun, he pulls back the hammer and points at the dazed policeman. “Fuck. You.”

Bang!

His shot misses entirely, but that much is understandable; his hand is rattling even more than a maracas.

The missed shot costs him. A group of officers charge at him, two tackling him to the ground and the others taking care of their injured captain.

“Retreaaattt!!” The captain screams out even as his officers drag him away. I pull out my gun and point at the two that are busy tussling with Rex and fire indiscriminately.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

At least two of my shots hit the intended targets. They reel off of Rex and stumble back, retreating as they’re ordered to.

Austin’s mad spray of his shotgun receives some callback as the officers, although retreating with what wounded they can take, fire back at him. With such little cover for him to hide behind, that being the van and the lumpy piles of snow, I fear the worst will happen.

Pause.

For the first time ever, time refuses to heed my call. Not one to give up I yell out, “Pause!”

And as I wish it to be, the world around me screeches into place. I stumble to my feet and look about me, the feeling of holding time in place pounds in the back of my head and my nose bleeds.

Rather than let go I hold on even tighter, reasserting my grip on my little bubble of frozen time and take out my gun.

Ready, I take shaky aim at all the active officers. Fortunately for me, I’d incapacitated the majority earlier and now all that remian are four angry, scared and even crying officers.

I try to steady my aim with my other hand, “Arrghh!” Time nearly slips away from me as I yowl out in pain. Achieving a steady aim proves to be impossible. The limb refuses to move into place without causing me striking pain and the pounding in my head only gets worse as each second passes.

“Fuck it.”

Holding onto my injured arm I run up close to my latest victims and fire straight into their knees, more out of habit than out of choice, a realization that makes me gag at myself.

Shooting people in the knee...a habit?

I only make two of them before the world starts spinning and I find myself on the ground again, time resumes and new screaming ensues. I’m not bothered by it, rather the high-pitched ringing and the faded voices of everyone else is what concerns me.

Rex spills his way over me, shouting out my name and calling for Austin.

I hear the captain yell out another order from the hovercraft carrying him away, “Leave it all, go! Go! Move damn it!”

“Vern! Vern!” I’m slapped violently in the face by Austin.

When did he get here? I wonder to myself.

“You’re going to be just fine, stay with us, stay awake!”

Awake? I’m going to disappoint you then. “Sorry, Austin.”

A tortured look befalls him at my words and I don’t have the luxury to console him any further.

***

“The search for the newest villainous meta-human continues amidst the Mayor's drive…”

“Could you please turn that off?” I groan, trying not to snap at the large man for the umpteenth time in the past days.

Austin looks back at me, cast arm swinging about carelessly he shakes his head, “Maybe listening to news about himself will wake him up for more than two seconds.”

Vern. Beside me he lies as he has for the past two days that have crawled by. There aren’t any beeping monitors, or comfortable bed or tubes running down his nose and mouth, it’s just him, lying there pale as the snow he fell in.

On that night—the same night I barged into Rey's place in search of him and Rex—I had to wait until Rey got a call from Austin. They wanted their medic and all the blood they could find.

Fortunately, the medic in question has been resourceful enough to land her hands on some Pixie Blood. Synthetic blood viable for all transfusions regardless of illness, species or something even as silly as blood type.

Which is fortunate really, because we couldn’t exactly begin to wake Vern up to ask what his blood type is. Although, I am quite embarrassed that I don’t even know that much about him.

“...Police Department rising star Captain Syrian Cord has spoken out against the metahuman he and his team encountered en route to foil a criminal cell he had this to say.”

“It was a massacre. Before either one of my subordinates had a chance to react to this...this man, this monster in the fur of a child, had seized control of our minds and frozen us in place, completely vulnerable to his whims.

He and his minions, he and his busboys have killed and maimed nearly half of my team with this single encounter. I am petitioning the public, beware of this person!”

The camera flutters as he attacks it with a poster of Vern, “We have managed to get this drawing of the child. Please, if you see him anywhere, call us and let us take him to justice! I am also petitioning the Mayor to increase the funding diverted to the police so that we may better withstand these sorts of vagrants, the streets...aren’t safe, thank you.”

“Well, that was fast.” Austin mutters.

I groan at the sound of his voice and the still playing news, “What is?”

“Syrian has never thought to call us out like that,” he starts, a concerned look on his face, “He’s tussled with us for quite a bit but...he’s never gone on the news and petitioned the public to keep an eye out for us.”

Now I’m concerned, “What do you think this means?”

He raises an eyebrow at me, “Isn’t it obvious? He’s not going to let Vern go, he’s not going to let him go scot free.”

He’s going to hunt Vern.

I look back at the pale, fragile pre-teen in question, and quickly resolve myself, There’s no way I’m letting that man get his hands on you. No way.

But first, you’re going to have to wake up, Vern. “Wake up.” I gently whisper and plant my head on his bed.

His injuries weren’t too terrible, he got his treatment quickly and is on a transfusion of Pixie Blood as well as the normal glucose, but he still doesn’t wake. Well, at least he looks significantly better than he did when he came in.

“I can’t let this Captain Syrian have Vern, I won’t let him. Once he wakes up we’re leaving this city, and you’re going to give us a way.” I tell Austin.

He doesn’t so much as flinch as I spit all this his way, rather he says, “I agree.” Which comes as a surprise, seeing as I was fully prepared to go down arguing why we deserve to be the ones they risk their necks out to for.

“You do?” I ask, doing poorly at not sounding surprised and pleased.

“I do. He doesn’t need this...no one does. I know he’s trying to protect you but there are other ways…” He shrugs, scratching the back of his head, “And maybe I think those can be found outside the city. Although, I’m sure I’ll never know, I think you two should find out, for us back here.”

I fall silent as I’d never truly considered Austin, the giant of a man, to be much more than the muscle of Rey’s crew. But now, now he’s making me realize that well...he’s human too, not just a heartless criminal wanted by the law.

“Ah, well, yes, yes I think we will.” I sputter out at last.

“I’ll let Rey know. I don’t have the contacts or the influence to pull off an escape, we’ll need his help and perhaps even that of other Captains.”

I nod as he leaves to do just that, thankfully switching off the annoying TV on his way out.

Just as he does my arm is pinched, albeit weakly. Gasping, I spin and find Vern looking up at me, his eyes puffy and swollen and his lips dry, “Oh!” I exclaim, jumping out of my shoes to reach for the water bottle in my bag.

“Here, have some.”

Stuffing the straw in his mouth he slowly sips out of the bottle, once done he pushes it away and mutters, “Could have gone with some cola.”

My eyebrows drop in disappointment, “You literally have sugar pumped into your veins, what more could cola do?”

Blankly and without hesitation he says, “Have taste.”

It doesn’t take a second longer for us to burst out laughing. I’m relieved.

He coughs a bit as he laughs so I have him drink some more water. He does so, but soon pushes it away and stares intently at me, “You’re trying to have us leave?”

I blink, caught off guard by the question, “You heard Austin and I?”

“I’m fine.”

“For now you are, but the entire city is out keeping a look out for you thanks to that Syrian Cord guy…” I pause, biting my lip and summoning the courage to ask him for answers to what I’ve dreaded to know, “Did you really do what the news said? Did you really...kill all those people?”