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HYPNOTIC, VOL I!
TWELVE, "IF I COULD HOLD YOU"
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Steve's vision is a kaleidoscope of colors, distorted and swirling quickly, and moving far too rapidly for him to keep up. Everything seemed to ripple and bend, as if he was looking through water, each movement around him exaggerated and dizzying from the unknown injection they'd forced on him back in that basement. How long ago was that? Minutes? Hours? He can't tell anymore. His sense of time had been stripped away along with everything else, his perception fraying around the edges like a fading photograph. His left eye is nothing but a hazy, pulsing blur, and there is a persistent roaring in his left ear, a sound that beats in time with his heart.
He stumbles as he and Robin burst out of the cinema, swaying like a ship at sea. Everything feels distant, dreamlike, like he's walking through molasses or breathing underwater. He stretches out his hand, and the shapes in front of him seem to shift and shimmer — small orbs of light that float just out of reach. If he could just stretch his fingers a little farther, he could hold one in his palm, lull it to sleep, and feel its warmth in his hands.
Who do you work for? Who do you work for? Whodoyouworkfor? Over and over and over and over, a broken record looping in his mind. Scoop's Ahoy, he'd said. I work for Scoop's Ahoy! Over and over and overandover.
He can still feel the pain of their fists and the sharp press of metal against his skin, pain that slices through every answer, pain that echoes in his chest now, pulling him back into the fog of the present.
The room is spinning around him, but even in the blur, he sees her. Violet. She is a fixed point in the storm — an anchor. Her name pulses through his mind, beating like a mantra: Violet, Violet, Violet...
There she is, standing at the ticket booth, her back turned to him, sweeping up spilled popcorn and completely unaware of the chaos he's dragging in behind him. She's so clear, her form etched in sharp lines even though everything else around him is distorted entirely. Just looking at her seems to rip him from the fog, if only for a moment. His heart leaps, steadying itself against the disorienting high. She's so crisp and defined in his vision. His body leans to the right, threatening to topple over, and he reaches out, clutching the counter to stop the floor from sliding away beneath him.
