Day 6 - Night 2/2

Katherine stood beneath a painted window and looked down at eight women having tea.

The gallery portrait occupied most of the wall. Its subjects wore clothing from different centuries, gathered around a garden table beneath flowering vines. One chair remained empty. Above them, framed by the open window of a stone house, a ninth woman watched the conversation without joining it.

She had the best view in the painting.

“Your first dossier enjoys an excellent viewpoint,” Katherine murmured.

The frame lifted cleanly from its hooks.

A shallow recess waited behind it, exactly wide enough for a document folder.

Katherine’s pulse quickened. She reached inside and found cool painted plaster, a narrow brass plate, and nothing else.

PLEASE RETURN EXHIBITS TO THEIR ASSIGNED LOCATIONS.

She checked the recess for seams anyway. The brass plate did not move. Neither did the back panel.

The folder had not been there, or it had not remained there.

Katherine replaced the portrait and stepped back.

She had abandoned towers and balconies after the movie. Verena had not said the dossier occupied the highest place in the Hotel. She had said it enjoyed a viewpoint. Screens, portraits, observation stations, cameras—places built to watch rather than be watched.

That had led Katherine from the screening room to the gallery. It had also produced one empty hole in a wall and thirty-seven minutes of increasingly decorative failure.

A gold clock appeared beside the exit.

The minute hand touched the upper mark.

Gallery lights narrowed into pale strips along the floor. Somewhere beyond the room, a lock settled into place.

Her extra hour was over.

Katherine left the portrait chamber and turned away from the nearest dormitory route. The Van-droids knew the obvious paths, and the Hotel knew every path she had ever used. Tonight she chose a narrow passage behind a reading lounge, crossed an empty tea room, and slipped between two columns into a service corridor that curved toward the residential wing.

No red eyes appeared at the far end. She slowed before the next junction out of caution.

The machines normally announced themselves. Heavy feet. Sudden movement. Enough noise to turn pursuit into spectacle, but the corridor remained quiet. Katherine moved again, one hand near the pouch at her hip.

Blonde twin tails bounced around the corner ahead of her. Alpha walked into view as though they had arranged to meet for coffee.

“There you are.” Her smile widened. “I was beginning to think I’d have to search the entire gallery.”

Katherine stopped outside arm’s reach. “Where are the guards?”

“They’re busy. I’m sure you'd prefer to get pursued by Van-droids, but I'm your escort tonight.”

Alpha turned toward the dormitories without waiting for agreement. After a moment, Katherine followed.

The trainer kept an easy pace, though with more bounce in her step than Katherine was used to. Her hands swung freely at her sides. She didn’t bother to ask where Katherine had searched.

“You’re getting closer,” Alpha said.

Katherine watched the intersections ahead. “That sounds like an attempt to influence my search.”

“It was encouragement.” She held her hands upright in front of her. “Honest!”

“From a representative of the facility.”

“An enthusiastic representative,” Alpha corrected her. “More of a cheerleader, really.”

Katherine gave her a brief glance.

Alpha laughed. “Fine. I’ll behave.”

They passed the dark entrance to the training complex. Alpha managed almost twenty seconds of silence before breaking.

“I could give you a hint,” she said.

“No.” Katherine’s denial didn’t leave room for much debate.

“The rule forbids assistance from another contestant or Master Van. It doesn’t mention staff.” A lewd smile crossed her face. “And I assure you, I am entirely invested in the staff at the Hotel.”

“The rule also promises punishment if I fail to find it myself. We all saw Naomi's punishment. I am not trusting my body to a loophole you found amusing.”

Alpha clasped her hands behind her back. “You make punishment transformations sound so grim. Some of them can be more fun than the regular ones.”

Katherine kept walking.

They reached the door Katherine shared with Naomi. Katherine put her hand on the latch, then looked at Alpha.

The android’s expression remained bright, but she had stopped rocking on her heels.

“Why did you really come to see me?” Katherine was shrewd; she knew something was on the trainer’s mind.

“I want what is best for Master Van.” Alpha’s eyes moved over Katherine with open, almost clinical appreciation. “And you have a great deal to offer him.” She waggled her eyebrows suggestively. “Once things take off around here, that is.”

“What exactly does that mean?” Katherine asked evenly.

Alpha waved and walked back the way they had come. “Good night, Katherine.”

Katherine watched until the twin tails vanished beyond the arch. Then she entered the dormitory and locked the door behind her.

—---------------------------------

Moonlight crossed the bed in a pale band.

Lizzy lay facing the wall. Van rested several feet behind her, awake and still beneath the blanket.

She rolled onto her back.

He turned at the same moment.

For several breaths, neither moved. Lizzy’s hair spread across the pillow. The borrowed black shirt had gathered at her waist, revealing a band of pale flesh glowing under the moonlight.

“You’re awake,” she whispered.

“So are you.”

Her mouth opened, but the words didn’t arrive.

Van shifted onto one elbow. Lizzy moved toward him before the mattress finished lowering beneath his weight.

They stopped close enough to share breath.

Her fingers found the front of his shirt. His hand rose to her cheek.

The kiss began softly. It broke, returned, and deepened before either of them could turn the first attempt into a discussion.

Lizzy pulled him nearer. Van’s arm crossed her back, then paused when her breath caught.

She answered by sliding her hand beneath his shirt.

He lifted his arms. The fabric caught briefly around his face, and Lizzy smothered a laugh against his chest while she freed it. Her borrowed shirt followed. One sleeve trapped her wrist until Van eased it loose, both of them smiling too quietly to disturb the room.

The laughter faded when he saw the bright cotton bra cupping her small, firm breasts. His gaze burned across her exposed skin, and electric excitement flashed from her heart to her core.

Lizzy watched his face, reached behind herself, and missed the clasp once. Van’s hand covered hers. Together they found it.

The bra slipped between them, lost over the edge of the bed like it was tossed into a shadowed sea.

He leaned in and kissed her shoulder. Her pulse hammered in her throat. She drew him back to her mouth, the two clinging together.

The remaining clothes became a softer negotiation: a loosened drawstring, his hand stopping at her hip, her fingers closing over his and guiding. Each pause ended because one of them chose to cross it. Each piece removed was new territory for the other to claim. Kisses were planted like flags; they marked one another.

Bare skin met beneath the silvered window. The two young lovers felt hesitation melt under the twilight sky. They made a silent agreement there with shuddering exhalations and gently trailing fingertips.

Van lowered himself carefully, fearful of his size and strength. Lizzy relaxed beneath him, her certainty manifested by her body's acceptance of his intrusion. She exclaimed with a strangled cry, one hand at the back of his neck, the other pressed over his heart.

Their bodies pressed together —

Mara woke with a sharp breath, rising halfway from the mattress.

The dormitory room lay dark and quiet. Lizzy’s pillow remained empty beside her. The blankets had wound around Mara’s legs.

A translucent image hovered over the vacant half of the bed.

Two figures remained entwined in fading light. Mara caught the curve of a shoulder, fingers against a bare back, brown hair falling across a pillow.

The shapes loosened into pale ribbons and sank through the sheets. Mara touched the empty place beside her as they fell.

The dream retreated when she reached for it. It was an intense feeling of intimacy and need. She couldn't grasp the details, just a fading echo of those feelings.

“Lizzy?” she wondered. “Or me?”

Only the ventilation answered.

Mara lay back down. By the time her breathing steadied, she could no longer pretend there wasn't a longing in her—an unfulfilled need she had packed away years ago. She knew she didn't have time for that sort of relationship in her life. Professional heroes were overwhelmingly single. If they couldn't manage it, how could she?

Right?

—-----------------------------------

Van waited until Lizzy fell asleep, then he waited another thirty minutes to be sure.

At five minutes, her breathing had slowed. At ten, she rolled toward the center of the bed and gathered part of the blanket beneath one arm. At seventeen, she had not moved again.

At thirty, he slipped one foot to the floor. The mattress adjusted, and Van froze like a burglar expecting an alarm.

Lizzy tucked her face deeper into the pillow. The oversized shirt had twisted around her waist, but her eyes remained closed.

Van lowered his other foot and stood.

Martin watched from the dresser with his permanent scowl. Van carried the dragon to the bed and placed him beside Lizzy’s pillow. Then he left the room.

A dim line beneath the kitchen cabinets lit the apartment. The gaming-room monitors had gone black, reflecting the hall and a narrow slice of the living room.

Van crossed to the suite entrance and pressed down on the handle. It was locked.

He tested the upper latch, unlocked it, and locked it again. The light from the hall outside cast a thin line beneath the door. Nothing interrupted it.

The gaming-room window came next. Van closed the curtains, checked the latch, and pressed both palms against the frame.

The kitchen window was already locked. He tested it anyway and drew the curtains.

In the bathroom, he checked the frosted window, the cabinets, the shower enclosure, and the vent. The shade came down over the glass.

When he returned to the living room, the front door remained closed. Van gripped one end of the couch and lifted.

His back and shoulders protested after the day’s training. He carried it sideways in short steps until one wooden leg knocked against the floor.

Van stopped, listening carefully. Nothing changed in the bedroom.

He lowered the couch across the entrance and adjusted it until the back pressed against the door. Anyone forcing their way inside would have to move both.

The noise would give him time.

He carried a dining chair into the hall and left it within reach of the bedroom. The door stayed open so he could see past it.

One entrance. One window. Lizzy between him and the wall.

Van moved the upholstered chair from the corner to her side of the bed. From there, he could watch the hall and the dark shape of the couch beyond it.

The chair creaked when he sat.

Lizzy shifted toward him without waking. One hand slid from beneath the pillow and rested near the mattress edge.

Van looked down the hall.

The apartment had seemed real when they entered. Two mugs. Two desks. Shoes beside the door in different sizes. A future assembled from predictions and guesses. A home he never imagined.

A home gave it somewhere to find him.

He listened to the refrigerator motor, the ventilation, Lizzy’s breathing, and the quiet tick of cooling metal from the computers.

No scrape came from the door. No shadow crossed the curtains.

When the Alter came, the couch would slow it. The chair in the hall could become a weapon. He would wake Lizzy before it reached the bed.

Van settled deeper into the seat without taking his eyes from the entrance.

He wasn't going to hide under anything. He promised himself. In the shadowed bedroom, he almost believed it.

—-----------------------

Cassie’s open hand landed across Fiona’s chest with careless weight.

Fiona caught her wrist before she was fully awake. Her other hand braced against the mattress. Her shoulders tightened for a strike that did not come.

Cassie slept on.

She had spread across the bed with the confidence of someone occupying undisputed territory. One leg lay outside the blanket. Her altered sleep shirt had climbed partway up her back. Her mouth hung open against the pillow.

A dark spot of drool marked the fabric beneath it.

Fiona gingerly lowered Cassie’s arm onto her own side of the bed.

“Contain yourself,” she whispered.

Cassie breathed through her open mouth and immediately flung the arm upward again. This time it missed Fiona’s face.

Fiona pulled the blanket over Cassie’s exposed leg, turned away, and closed her eyes.

Tomorrow waited ahead of them. One hour of training alone with Van on an unoccupied trail far from anyone else.

She would be alone with some unknown man they kept calling her Master. The System had not only given him a leash but also forbidden her from defending herself. She remembered trying to use her sonic powers on Verena and the headache that followed.

She had not even mussed the bitch's hair. The hostess had made her power explicit on many occasions, and more explicit still was the threat: Don’t try to harm the Master. Even if she could, Verena would turn her inside out or make her into a teapot or something.

The way the System protected this man's claim over them made her sick. It made her angry.

In the quiet dark of her bedroom, it made her feel thirteen again.

Winner’s Eye had measured Van during the strength contest and delivered its answer without pity. His technique was poor. His endurance had limits. He was stronger than she was.

He had beaten her. It shouldn't have been possible. She was certain she was stronger than him. The hostess must have lied about her transformation. The whole thing was a trap laid just for her. She wanted Fiona to feel like she had the upper hand, just so she could deliver her to a man she couldn't stop.

That thought refused to remain still. It dragged an uglier thought behind it: what the victory entitled him to ask for, what she might owe if he decided to push the next issue. Fiona's mind understood that the loser had earned a punishment. She knew that like she knew up from down, but something about the idea tickled.

Van had never acted as though she owed him anything. She knew better. She had to suffer her punishment and clear the slate between them before he asked for something revolting. The debt made her feel helpless.

Before Van, her father had been the last man whose strength made her feel helpless.

He had smelled of whiskey.

Fiona was thirteen. Rain tapped against the kitchen window, thin and steady, blurring the streetlamps beyond the glass.

After midnight, the front door slammed open, striking the wall. She woke beneath her blanket and listened to her father’s boots scrape along the hall. One step. A pause. Another. Something fell from the narrow table near the entrance.

Her mother left the bedroom before he reached it. She always tried to meet him first.

Their voices moved through the wall. Her mother spoke quietly. Her father answered too loudly. A cabinet opened in the kitchen. Glass struck the counter.

Then came the sharp crack of a hand against skin. Fiona threw off the blanket.

She reached the kitchen barefoot, wearing an old sleep shirt. Her mother stood beside the sink with one hand pressed to her mouth. Her father had twisted the front of her nightdress in his fist and pulled her close.

“You think I’m stupid?” he demanded.

“No.” Her voice was quiet with panic. “I swear.”

“You moved it!” He was red-faced and breathing too hard.

“I didn’t.” She tried to placate the man, to divert him. “Please, you'll wake the girls.”

He struck her again, drawing a choked sob from her mother as blood began to flow from between her teeth.

Fiona lunged forward, grabbing his arm with both hands.

“Let her go!” Her tiny voice was hot with anger and raw with fear.

He barely noticed. At thirteen, Fiona couldn’t even close her fingers around his wrist. She pulled until pain ran through her shoulders. He shoved her aside without releasing her mother.

Fiona hit the floor beside the table.

Her mother said his name in the careful voice she used when trying to remind him who he used to be.

His fist rose anyway. Shame and anger warred on his face; anger won.

Fiona got up and ran at him.

Her hands struck his ribs and back. She hit him again, then harder, each blow too small to matter. He turned, caught her by the shoulder, and threw her against the cupboards.

A plate slipped from the counter and shattered near her bare foot.

“Stay there, Fi. I’ll fix your attitude next.”

Her mother was crying. “I’m sorry,” she told him. “I’ll do better.”

He faced her again.

Fiona crouched beside the cupboards. Blood marked the corner of her mother’s mouth. One side of her face had begun to swell. She held her hands near her chest, folding inward while the fist rose above her.

Pain, anger, and exhaustion pooled together inside the young girl. She screamed, and the sound changed inside her.

Pressure filled her ribs and climbed through her chest. The kitchen lights flickered. Cutlery trembled in the drying rack.

Her father started to turn, confusion pressing through the anger briefly.

Fiona compressed her will around whatever the strange feeling was. She squeezed the sensation together and released everything she had.

The kitchen window exploded outward.

Glass, rain, and broken wood streamed outward from the shattered frame. Her father leaned against the force briefly but lost his footing. He was lifted by the force of her power and blown backwards into the yard.

Silence returned too quickly, slamming down like the door to a tomb.

Fiona remained beside the cupboards with both hands clamped over her mouth.

Her mother lay against the wall beside her. The blast had shoved her out of its way to strike her father. Broken dishes covered the floor around her.

Outside, her father groaned, sprawled beneath the falling rain.

Fiona didn’t move her hands until after the police arrived. EMTs and firemen rushed around with strange tools and rushed commands. An ambulance screamed to a stop just beyond her driveway.

At the hospital, they were separated immediately, each carried to a separate bed.

Doctors examined her throat, lungs, hearing, blood, and eyes. They asked when the power had first appeared and whether she could repeat it.

Fiona wouldn’t speak. She wrote her name once for a nurse. After that, she even refused the pen.

Her father needed surgery for glass wounds and broken bones. Her mother had a concussion and bruises across her face and torso.

They told the police Fiona had caused all of it.

A frightened child had Empowered during a family argument. Such accidents were rare but understood. Powers arrived without warning. People nearest the child were often hurt.

Her mother confirmed the story with a clenched jaw and an apologetic glance at Fiona’s bed.

Fiona heard her from behind a hospital curtain. Some of the bruises were older than the shattered window. Someone must have noticed. The accident was still the easiest story to accept. They needed as many Empowered as they could find, after all.

Her father returned home the next day with one arm supported in a sling. He suddenly spoke to Fiona from doorways. He now asked before entering her room. Whenever she raised her voice, he lowered his.

It wasn’t long before he started talking about money.

Hero programs paid stipends. Companies paid for appearances. Training, interviews, contracts—he listed possibilities across the kitchen table while her mother washed dishes behind him.

He planned to quit his job so he could manage everything.

Fiona stared at him. Every morning before the window broke, his car had disappeared down the street shortly after seven. The house changed when the engine faded. Her mother sometimes sang. Breakfast did not require silence. They could breathe more freely until evening.

“Please don’t,” Fiona said, contradicting him for the first time she could remember.

Her father stopped speaking. He searched her face and watched her jaw carefully.

The smile that followed assembled itself carefully. He explained that she was young, that contracts were complicated, that he was only trying to help.

Fiona barely heard him. A ringing noise was building in her head. A realization blossomed. For the first time, her father was afraid of her.

Cassie snored softly beside her.

Fiona opened her eyes to the dormitory wall.

After that night, force had never been her only answer. She learned how much sound was too much. Later she discovered how little sound it took to make someone hesitate, release a hostage, or obey before he understood why.

There had always been another lever until the System made both of her options off-limits. Tomorrow, the Hotel expected her to walk into a closed room with a stronger man and suffer whatever fate he had in store for her.

Van had not threatened her. He apologized for taking up space. He blushed when women looked at him for too long. There was the whole panic thing with the Alters.

Fiona knew all of that. She also remembered her father’s hand closing around her mother’s nightdress.

Cassie shifted closer. Her arm slid across the pillow and stopped just short of Fiona’s shoulder. A wet little breath escaped her open mouth.

Fiona curled one hand beneath the blanket. If Van tried anything, she would use her voice.

She would put him through the wall if she had to.

The Hotel could just punish her afterward.