Slowly, like through snow, my eyes flutter open, breaking the crust-lined around them with each bat. I must have been asleep long.

Yawning I try to recall what happened, The last thing I remember is…

It hits me, everything that would have happened if I passed out again. I jump out on my feet, drowsiness snapped out of me and take note of my surroundings.

Dark lit room, the smell of sweat and odd detergent, it’s the medic room at one of Rey’s mini-bases. It’s the one we came to when Vern got shot.

Neil...T.V...where’s Vern?

Shakily, with my head pounding, I navigate my way through the long and stuffy room out to the opening leading outside. It’s another underground base, except there aren’t any drugs or piles of unlaundered money laying around, just injured or sick allies.

Right into my first step out of the base I hear my name called, screamed more like it.

“Paige!!”

Startled I swirl and take a look, by look and voice the screamer is a burly, tall man. He’s hovering over a bed with one other person in his company besides Vern lying in the hospital bed.

At the sight of him, I gasp and start a sprint. I sprawl into the bed, into his arms. He grunts a bit but laughs, patting my head.

“Are you alright? What happened?” It pains me that I have to ask.

He hums, “Well, T.V made a bunch of noise and Lieutenant came in and saved me. I haven’t been able to use my powers but I’ll be able to once the meta suppressant in me passes out.”

“Meta suppressant?”

He nods, “It’s this thing the Suppressors use to capture metas faster, just shoot us with a power dampener, it’s in most of their bullets and absorbable.

I let out a sigh of relief, “So you’ll be fine?”

He nods again, “I’ll be fine.”

I leave his embrace and pay attention to Rex and Austin, “What’s going to happen now?”

The first attempt may have failed but I’m sure with the Lieutenant’s around, T.V won’t try anything and if he does then I’m sure the Lieutenant will be quick to retaliate...right?

Austin grimaces in response and Rex avoids my eye, getting to his feet, “Better Vern fill you in than we.” He coughs and walks past.

The two wander off outside and shutting the drapes that partition the makeshift rooms as they do.  “What are they talking about?”

His lips stay shut for a moment, a moment too long. Suspicion begins to grow within me, “Aren’t we going to try again? To leave?... Vern?”

With each question he seemed to sink into the bed, his name inciting the highest reaction.

He doesn’t keep me waiting any longer though, his head swirls to me and he gasps, “I had to do it, he wouldn’t have helped otherwise and I couldn’t leave you, I couldn’t leave you here alone and vulnerable.”

“What are you talking about?”

Swallowing, he breathes, “If I died you wouldn’t be safe, you wouldn’t be free. And I can’t have you dying on me either.”

I shake my head, “Vern, I can take care of myself, you don’t have to sacrifice anything to safeguard me, I’ve survived worse.”

He shudders and scoffs, “No, you can’t. You’re vulnerable, Paige and with Neil and T.V running around looking for me and the Police and maybe even the Suppressors after me, it might be best if we stay with Invincibill and Rey. They can protect us for now, they’re pretty much the only ones who can.”

This time, I persist, “You won’t leave Xoxia because you would much rather stay here and fight? And keep fighting?”

“What? No, I-”

“We can have a quiet life out there if we leave now, if we try again someday then we can start it all out there but you want to stay?”

He’s sprung up from his lying position and has his legs hanging over the bed now, brows wrinkled and lips pursed I know he’s about to say something hur-

“First of all, you can’t even stand the sight of a gun for extended periods, the sound of a shot has you jumping on your toes and you blackout if someone seems remotely threatening with a weapon!” He huffs, “And secondly I can’t exactly take back my decision, I can’t walk up to the Lieutenant and say I want out now, they’re the only ones willing to help us in any way, we don’t have these resources, what would we do? We have nothing left, Paige. And with the Lieutenant saving our lives, we now owe him.”

I stand there still and frozen, reeling from his words. None untrue and all the more hurtful. I can’t do any of those things, I don’t know what's wrong, I don’t know how to stop it, but now I know it’s got to go. It’s got to go if I want Vern out and away from this place.

The pounding in my head escalates, each beat following that of my heart and even faster. Flinching in pain I’m nodding in an understanding of his words when it happens.

With an audible crackle. A streak of blue light splinterings between us. In a zap of light and tremendous power, it knocks the wind out my pipes. A heavy scent of ozone, my body is whipped across the room and back.

Groaning in pain from being flung around, I struggle to get to my feet. Staring up at Vern I find his face awash with shock, eyes saucers and mouth ajar.

With the sudden activation of my powers, Vern and I share a gasp. Desperately, I reach for him but it happens again.

Zzzrapp!

My body is displaced through space and time then brought back again.

“Vern.” I gasp his name out, already I can see glimpses of my destination, the same place but in the future. People surround me there startled and fearful.

I need to tell him before I go.

“Vern, please, I can’t watch you hurt here. I can’t leave without you but I can’t stay here and watch you get hurt either. So I promise I'll get better!"

Stumbling out of bed, tripping on his feet he reaches for me, swiping for something of me to hold onto. But my matter has already begun to dissipate, streaks of lightning curve in and out of existence near me.

“Come back!” He screams, “I’ll make it safe here, please! I’ll make it perfect!”

I shake my head at him, his desperation for this. Make Xoxia safe? Maybe...maybe it could.

No, no I doubt it.

A surge of pain splits my head as all I'm made of, now all but coloured dust begins to fade away. Together we declare our final words.

“I’ll get stronger!”

“I love you!”

***

My ears. Working. I can hear the endless creaking of the ceiling fan, and I can see it as well so my eyes are working fine too.

Wiggling my toes and hugging myself, I get reassurance that I can walk out of here at any time. That I can still move. My arm has healed at last, but I may have a limp on my leg from the shot in the thigh.

But regardless, I can move.

I breathe in, checking for life, for oxygen and I get confirmation that I am indeed alive and that I smell, the strong scent of antisceptics is pervasive. There’s little surprise in this discovery, I haven’t moved out of this room in days, not bothered to have a bath or even pursue a meal if it isn’t given.

This isn’t to say I haven’t been prodded out of here, there have been attempts. Attempts taken mostly by Rex, Austin, and I know it gets serious when Rey comes down for me.

For the most part, Rey only comes down to see me for selfish reasons, the Lieutenant has stayed up there with them, monitoring my recovery. And now that I have recovered enough to have a conversation with, he waits.

And I’m keeping him waiting.

It’s obvious what he wants to speak to me about and I know the fact that I’m keeping him waiting is only by his courtesy. If he wanted could have had me dragged out and thrown in front of him like a lump of meat.

This courtesy though, I’m not sure if it’s only because of what my answer might be, or how my powers make him and everyone else in the room vulnerable. I am not sure if he’s doing this out of respect to my name as a wanted, powerful meta-villain or if he’s only giving me the space I need after what happened.

It’s much harder to keep the sudden birth of an atmosphere in the basement when the Lieutenant is around a secret than it is to keep him waiting.

Fortunately for me, Austin was present so I wasn’t drilled too hard. Not any harder than I’d drilled myself into a mess of sobs and wails.

Holding onto the large man I told them all about it, all about Paige and her powers, all about our trust in one another.

And though I’ve long since run out of tears, I’m not done processing exactly what happened. She never mentioned it, she never even got the first sign did she?

And if she did get the sign and not tell me about it, what does that say? Why would she choose now of all times to hide the truth about what's happening? Because of me. It has to be. Because I put us in trouble. Because she knew I killed?

Shaking my head away from the thought for the hundredth time, I know it can’t be because of any of that. If she knew from the beginning what I’ve been up to, what I’d been doing to safeguard our security and safety here in Xoxia then she would have confronted me about it. Just like she did when she heard the news.

But it wasn’t even a secret I was keeping in the first place. She would understand that I got too preoccupied to tell her. And the truth is, I did get too preoccupied to confess my activities, but I get the sense that it doesn’t matter as much as the fact that I did them in the first place.

Ugh! This is getting away from me. Nothing makes sense!

But there’s the thought, the one thought that keeps me paralysed in bed.

What if...What if she never got any signs? What if that was the first?

I’ve given myself many reassurances even if this were the case, but it doesn’t hold up to what I observed. If that were the first sign it wouldn’t be so powerful, it wouldn’t crack the air, turn oxygen into ozone and streaks of lightning wouldn’t be present.

No, I’m sure of it. That moment, that was her jump to the future. Whatever time in the future that is, I’m in a hurry to meet her again.

But will I? If she had no signs before jumping then that would mean...she was running away from me.

Like she ran away from the war sixty years ago.

The only thing keeping me from running mad with anger now on that line of thought are her last words to me before the jump.

‘I’ll get stronger.’

I have little clue what she means by this, but it does sound like she isn’t running away from me. And as Austin suggested, it could mean she wants to protect me, protect me from…

I don’t need any of that. I just need her here with me, safe, sound, protected and in peace.

And to do that, I’m going to need my powers.

I still can’t put a vice on the flow of time around me, but at least now I know the reason. It’s something the Lieutenant foresaw simply from the newscasts and on meeting Austin and Rey to hear them talk about me.

On the news, the Captain’s initial address mentions that I’d gotten shot but still managed to overpower them. Unbeknownst to me or anyone around me at the time, that bullet was a delivery system for a gene manipulating chemical.

Specifically made for meta-humans. It’s the reason the world isn’t ruled by meta’s in brutal anarchy where power means all.

The Meta-gene Suppressant.

It’s classified intel on how exactly it works so all we know is that... well, it works. It makes some sense that a Captain heading an advanced squad like that would have it on hand.

The Lieutenant must have come here knowing that my powers would are suppressed and I’d be vulnerable. A good time to talk to someone you know to be cautious of.

Only he met Austin and Rey but no sign of my presence. As such, he chased after the potential powerhouse he could recruit for his gang in hopes of preventing me from leaving.

T.V must have had the same line of thought about the inactivity of my powers. Perhaps not, but for now, I can only thank the Lieutenant's greed for saving me.

I have to decide what to do next.

A familiar string of footsteps echoes through the basement. I can tell easily that Austin is coming down those steps, but I don’t predict the tall, lanky man with a cane to descend as well.

The Lieutenant.

Flanked beside him are the immediate subordinates, Rey and Austin. The man has his head facing the ceiling and a mask on as always.

The three approach me, a path is made among the injured within the basement. And like that, he’s upon me.

“Vern Braxwood.” He chimes coarsely, “I have waited enough for you to come to me, a shame that I must come to you now.”

What does that mean? A shame?

“I’m sorry.”

He raises a hand, “No, do not apologize, anyone who has something they hold dear would be sympathetic to your...loss.”

“She isn’t dead.”

He shrugs, “Oh well, the point is, I am patient, but now I must be self-serving and ask for your answer once again, what will it be, Vern Braxwood?”

Vern Braxwood. The way he utters my name….what will it be huh?

I receive no support in figuring out my answer from Rey and Austin, their faces straight and stoic. But it doesn’t matter what they think, all that matters is how I can make this place better for Paige when she comes back.

I’m not sure he can see me, but I nod. To my surprise, he answered as he would have if he had eyes on me, “Marvelous, you will need to meet with him then.”

“Him?”

Letting out a dry chuckle as he turns and walks away, he utters a single name, “Invincibill.”