Hidden: In the Dark

The Source

"So, we've routed the source to this building." Zip points to a location on his tablet. "We're gonna head out tomorrow morning."

"Wait, if it is in fact the cousins then it's probably best to keep Maze away." Emmy suggests. Zip thinks long and hard about it. "What if it's a trap though? If they know where we are, they might come here." 

"Half stay, half go. We'll stay in touch." 

"I'll go." Vera is the first to volunteer. "Let me go, they wouldn't hurt me." Steve says. Zip gives a look like 'You're serious?'

"Besides maybe I know enough to talk to them." Steve tries to make them consider it. "I say we go tonight. What if it's not there tomorrow?" Vera says.

~

"You into Spider-Man?" "I'm more of a DC person" Steve gives an estranged look to Vera. "Do you think you can still help them?" She asks to no answer, taking that as a 'yes'. "So, you're an optimist." "Even if they don't come through. Something will."

 "So, yes." Vera smirks. "Whatever." Steve looks away, not willing to admit it. 

They head inside the old crooked building. 

"Well you're earlier than I expected." Vera turns around to see Mitch standing there. "I went to find the rock you wanted, I figured I'd either tell you so you could come get it or deliver it to you myself but it was gone." He says, they must be after the same piece. Vera goes full defensive mode. "What are you doing? You are not going to include yourself in this!" 

"I'm trying to help you!"

"Here in some abandoned warehouse?! Do you not understand how creepy you've been?" Steve decides to just stay out of it, it's not any of his business, plus he's too shy to say anything meaningful, he doesn't know this guy.

"I talked to your parents; They want you to come home. I want you to come home."

"Like sh*t they do, like sh*t they even talked to you!" She's fed up. "How did you know what I was looking for? How did you know where we were?" Vera continues.

"As far as how I knew about the rock-"

"We thought it'd be a good idea to let him join us." Randolf comes from around the corner with his hands behind his back, Bert follows soon after. They've both changed their hair up, almost switched, with Randolf having a chopped up and short look while Bert grew it out into a lion mane of hair all combed back. "And how did you know where we were?" Randolf asks back. "What does he have to do with it?" Vera ignores his question. "He was going to help find you, looks like we don't need to now though." Vera steps back.

"I found a nice place near Mulholland drive online; Doesn't that seem outlandish? If you really don't want to go back, I won't make you, we could check it out, just cooperate." Mitch approaches as if he was approaching a lion, slow and calm. "That's all this is, for you to give me orders." She turns away from him. "And you-!" She points at the cousins.

"If you came all the way here, why do you want the Nexite?" Randolf asks. It's a trivial question. "To keep it from others, tyrants, we just met someone who was forced with it."

"So, you found somebody else that can use it? What do you think will happen if they're all in one place? Start a superhero army? What if there's a falling out or disagreement? I just want it to heal." Is that really his motive? "Then stop fighting us." Steve steps forward. "You know who we are now, so trust us."

Randolf pulls out a rope of barbed wire and slings it to his side like a whip. Luckily, he's wearing gloves or else his hands would be cut and blistered. "How can I trust someone who tracked me here?" Vera comes running at him, he strikes the wire on the concrete floor, causing her to dodge to the side. It was a fluke, he grabs a chair from behind him and holds it out in front of him, then slides the wire across the ground and grabbing the other end. He's put Vera in a circle without her even realizing it. He kicks the chair out in front of her, and pulls on the wire causing Vera to be trapped like prey from a cobra. He wraps it around her again as Mitch approaches. He grabs the end of the chair, trying to pull it away but Randolf pulls back using the wire, like a game of tug of war. "Don't hurt her!" The barbs start skidding across Vera's body as she kicks around helplessly, crying out in pain. 

Steve and Bert fire their guns at each other, it doesn't take long before he starts noticing Bert's rounds are bouncing, rubber bullets. One of them bounces and shatters the window near the others.

Vera flips herself over to stand up with the chair on her back, using it as a weapon, whipping it between Mitch and Randolf as they fight. Randolf grabs the whip and yanks, spinning Vera around, untangling her from the chair.

The cousins run into another room, closing this heavy sliding iron door behind them. Steve pulls and bangs on it, trying to get through but it's locked.

Mitch puts his hands on his hips like a job well done. Vera grabs him by the shirt, aggressively, and kisses him while walking forward towards the shattered window. "Stay away." She says before kicking him out of it. Glass shattering, more than it already has.

~

Back at the hotel. Steve checks in on Vera, to see her wrapping her stomach in a white gauze wrap. "You good?" She doesn't respond or even look at him, just tapes the bandage then scoots over. Steve takes the seat. "His name is Mitch Easton, he got me out of Albany." 

"But you ended up in Penbrook?" He doesn't believe that she went from somewhere big to somewhere small and boring like his home. "Well actually, Philadelphia...it was raining on the way out of Albany, we had a fight and he dropped me off in Philadelphia. I decided to take it as a sign, I went to college there, made friends, who you know, I learned to code, to fry fish...yeah, turned out I didn't 'need' someone after all...or so I thought." She gets flustered, thinking of the position she ended up putting herself in. "The point is, I didn't need him to leave, he was just my excuse." 

"I get it, my stepdad likes tanks so he was going to be a tank driver in the army but then when he got to the part where they told him he had to cut his hair, he didn't want to so he left and became a barber and now he collects model tanks. Make what you will of what you have."

"Sometimes I wish I could change my identity that way." Steve thinks about what role he's been given. "Trust me, it's not worth it." Vera's used multiple fake names before, it's all the same to her. "I guess whether you succeed or mess up, it should all fall to responsibility." Steve becomes content with her answer and leaves her room.

He opens the door to see a man standing in the hall. It's Mitch.