Lydia was on a rooftop again. The same exact one from her daydream, with the same view of the city. The sun was shining and a warm shower sprayed her face, darkening the gray roof beneath her feet. The water soothed her as it had in the shower, and her weary body became one with the cascading water, sliding and flowing freely with whatever came.
Angry storm clouds appeared from thin air and began to drench her. The water was no longer cool and refreshing, but burning to the touch, like the chemicals at Rooke Pharmaceuticals. She tried to escape, but there was no cover on the roof. The rain poured down and she writhed on the ground, twisting and contorting into a variety of poses. Her skin bubbled and her bones stretched and receded. Her innards clambered to burst through the skin, stretching her like rubber.
Distant laughter grew steadily. It was familiar. “Useless waste of space,” it taunted as a chorus of chortles erupted from the sky. “Freak!”
The pain and laughter built, fighting for dominance of her senses. She tried to crawl away to somewhere safe, but there was only the edge of the roof. A horrifyingly loud horn announced the approach of something new. Lydia barely caught sight of the gigantic bus and its massive headlights heading for her, before it smashed into her body.
Lydia jolted awake and nearly rolled out of bed. Her bed? No, it didn’t feel like it, but it was familiar. It took her bleary eyes a few moments to recognize the white walls, and she coughed at the strong scent of disinfectant. The EKG was running beside her. She was at the hospital. Again. Or had she never moved and everything between this moment and the accident at the storage room been a dream?
Dariela was at her side. Lydia looked down and saw her bandaged left arm wrapped in a cast, held in a cloth tied around her neck. It hadn’t been a dream. Her mangled fingers, no longer covered with gloves, were wrapped up in clean cloth bandages. The light of the mid-afternoon sun through the window made the pounding in her skull worse. She turned away from it and from her friend to rest her eyes upon a barrel-chested man in a frayed burgundy trench coat and black leather gloves. His wavy red hair bounced with every movement and his pale face was dotted with freckles. He was standing near her bed, holding her camera, and smirking wryly as he clicked through the pictures. His form kept splitting into three and returning to one. Lydia shut her eyes tightly several times, bringing her view back under control.
“You’re quite the photographer, Ms. Penner,” he said, now only one person. His voice was calm and calculating.
“Who are you?” Lydia asked. “What am I doing here? Where am I?”
“You don’t remember? You got hit by the bus,” Dariela told her. “We’re at Hunter Memorial. The doctor said you were very lucky. You only fractured your upper arm and got a mild concussion.” Lydia touched her head gingerly. “He’s been here the whole time,” Dariela said, looking at the man. “Rode with us on the ambulance, too.”
“That was a brave thing you did, saving that girl from certain death,” the man added.
“I wasn’t going to kill her,” Lydia said to him. “I already have enough problems without being called a murderer.”
“Be that as it may, you did the right thing.” Was his smile genuine? “How are you feeling? Head hurt?”
“I’m fine. So who are you?” Lydia repeated.
“First things first,” he said. He pointed a long finger at Dariela. “Out.”
“I’m not leaving!” Dariela managed to say before he grabbed her by the scruff of her shirt and shoved her out the door. She hurled several insults at him, but he locked the door behind her.
“Now, as I was saying,” he said, grabbing a chair and sitting beside her bed. “Nice pictures. I like this one. Looks like some martial arts movie poster.” He turned the camera around to show her a picture. In it, Lydia was punching through another door. The camera showed the shards of wood flying away from her fist’s impact. “Or perhaps like a book or a comic cover. Oh, wait—a graphic novel.”
“So what do you want? Plan to hire me to take pictures or something?” Lydia asked. “Why did you kick Dariela out?”
“Because what I have to say is for your ears only.” He crossed one leg over the other and held it with his hands firmly clasped together. “I’m here to help you.”
“With?”
“Controlling yourself,” he frowned, holding up the camera to show that he was deleting the pictures. “You’ve been very busy lately. Crushing cars, knocking out kids, and rescuing people. All in a day’s work. That’s very impressive, but you need to be more discreet with your strength. After all, the public can be very dangerous. Unusual displays such as yours may cause a panic as easily as it can awe. I can help you.”
“How? Can you get rid of my problem?” She lifted her arms.
“We can try,” he said. “If not, we can help you learn to live with it.”
“I don’t want to ‘learn to live with it,’ ” Lydia said through gritted teeth. “I want it gone.”
“Like I said, we’ll try to get rid of it.” He stood up and crossed his hands over his stomach. “In the meantime, we’ll help you the best that we can. We have already been studying your particular case and, to some extent, know the effects of the chemicals better than the doctors do here. There will be more time to explain when we arrive.”
“Arrive where?”
“Arrive at your new home. You’ll be living at our facility until such time as I determine you are ready to leave.”
Lydia’s pulse raced and the EKG screen showed a rise in her heartbeat. New home? Facility? The visions of her being experimented on played in her mind’s eye. She struggled to sit up, hissing when she put any weight on her damaged arm. “No! I’m going back to my house. Help!” she called for Dariela. “Dar, help me!”
The man slapped his hand over her mouth and stared at her intensely. “We don’t have time for this. I was already late finding you, and an undesirable party may be on the way to snatch you away. Now, stop screaming.”
When he released his hand, Lydia bared her teeth at him. “I’m not going with you.”
He tilted his head curiously. “I don’t ever recall saying you had a choice.”