Who Needs Superheroes?

Chapter 8: No Pain, No Gain

My eyes snapped open and I gasped for air. My breathing was quick, uncontrolled and I awoke to find myself sitting on my bed, back in my own room. Slowly, yet surely, I regained my breathing and managed to calm down. The room was darkened, filled with the light of a setting sun. I had lost track of all sense of time and had no clue what day it even was.

"The f*cking prick!" I screamed into my empty bedroom. As soon as the words slipped out of my mouth, a murderous headache slammed into my mind. Usually, I got them in a small section of my brain, but this time, it hurt all over. My eyes screwed shut as I tried to regain control of my nerve-endings. When I thought that the pain had sub-sided slightly, I cautiously cracked one eye open to test my condition out. The jab was still there, but it no longer felt like someone was compressing my brain.

He was going to pay. There was no way he could manipulate me as freely as he did.

Rolling off my bed, I stretched my sore muscles and felt a chill roll down my spine. I headed to grab my jacket, but tripped over myself as soon as I had risen. Catching myself just before I fell flat on my face, I stuck my hand out to grab hold of the bed so I would not fall again. Eyes wide, I noticed that the world around me was spinning. Taking several deep, desperate breaths, I straightened myself up and took a few lethargic steps over to where my jacket lay.

Damn drugs, I cursed as I recollected the events. Fear had tricked me yet again. I was still not sure what to think of him. He had a point, I should not trust him, but I could not help but feel secure in his presence. Those dark eyes sometimes had a stronger hold on me than those muscular arms...

No! I needed to keep my anger. What he did to me was not right, muscular arms or not. To him, I was his toy that he played with whenever he chose. I refused to stand for it any longer. Can't a girl go on a date without being interrupted by a psychopath?

There was no way in hell he was going to control me like a puppet. Only I-and Danny- could tell me what to do.

A plan, maybe not my smartest, slipped into my mind.

And right now, I was going to do exactly what I wanted.

I was going to pay Battlesword a visit.

~*~

I still had not gotten my car fixed. For all I knew, it could have gotten towed. This meant that I had no form of transportation.

If only I could fly.. I let the thought escape before I slammed down on my mental brakes. I was not going to think of anything related to Fear. I needed to find Battlesword.

There were not many places in town where one could stay off the grid. After pondering possible locations where a fallen superhero might hang out at, I was enlightened. There were no places in Justice to hide, but what about somewhere outside of Justice? Justice was a small town after all, so it took no more than twenty minutes to drive through it. What if Battlesword was hiding somewhere just outside of Justice?

There was an old car factory just outside the city limits. It used to make custom, all-American cars called Caballos. It closed down about thirty years ago when it was suspected to have been a drug cartel post. I had driven past there quite a few times in my life, back when Mom and Dad were still alive.

We used to go out to a conservation area past the city limits. The park was beautiful, the definition of wild. A single human trail traversed the park, but even that was covered in vegetation due to the lack of human visitors. We would all go together on the weekends and go hiking. Danny and I would run ahead of Mom and Dad and they would shout for us to not wander off too far, but we did anyways. From time to time, we would find ourselves in a sticky situation whether it be falling in the creek that ran through the wilderness, or getting ourselves a bad case of poisen ivy. Yet despite these incidents, it was our all-time favorite place to go. During the week, Mom and Dad worked, while Danny and I went to school, always too busy to sit and spend time together. But on the weekends, we would all go hiking and not only enjoy the scenery, but the presence of life.