There is a small person inside all of us; always younger than we are, always more reckless, always more temperamental. They act with the impulsive energy that you, a cautious and wise person, suppress. Unfortunately, their release will often feel cathartic--as if they have strained against their leash to the point that your arms ache from holding on, and release frees you both. Unfortunately. It is unfortunate because their release results in the rash actions that your sobered and healthy and more mature mind refuses to indulge in. And the more you release them, the harder it is to reign them in.

Gambling, for example, thrills the young person though it wearies the host. Drinking that extra glass of liquor, smoking a cigarette, or scratching your name on a picnic table. Burning your writing when it wasn't good enough for you, or choosing to swim in your clothes on a cold day without having a spare change. That young person embodies the most wicked of impulses.

Tobias subconsciously grew wary of his young person, pulling so forcefully on his leash to get out that it made the man physically stagger. Tobias threw Mrs. Jones's gun far into the water where it could not tempt his hand. Something had come over him for an instant; a morbid curiosity.

For a moment after the gun's splash flattened over the grey-green Central Benediction bay, he felt a deep and conflicting regret. What would it have felt like to fire it? What if seeing Mrs. Jones bleed could have thrown Benjamin Jones into a greater turmoil? What if it made him feel powerful?

Tobias held the boat's wheel with one hand and ran his fingers through his blonde crop with the other. His scalp itched. But, it was broad daylight and fisherman were about. Uncovering his mutilated face would draw eyes. In agonizing discomfort, Tobias slumped both elbows over the wheel so that he could grab fistfuls of the silicon mask with both hands. He moaned.

I need you to stay sane, Doc. Dizzy had said it, but he needed it, too. Now more than ever. His unfeeling half felt particularly cold in the salty wind. The plumes of black smoke and shimmers of heat in the air drew sweat from his left side, as welcoming and comforting as a spa, but did nothing for his right.

Every call from a seabird stiffened his spine, every knock of a wave against the hull drew his frenetic eyes. He inhaled a long breath and straightened over the helm, locking his eyes ahead. The reek of dead fish and sulfur lingered in his throat; an offense so strong that he could not restrain a cough. Alas, no matter how many times he coughed, and no matter how forceful those coughs were, the stench could not be escaped and the taste only strengthened in flavor. Black waters, blanketed in ashes, parted around the bow with swirling, oily patterns that twirled along the hulls and fought in the wake. A tail of white and blue and black wavered behind.

Tobias frowned over his shoulder. I lost the gun in blue water. It wasn't deep. Perhaps I could... A loud thud jarred him from these thoughts and, wide-eyed, he ogled the fusiform white shape of a fish as the wake of the boat carried it away.

"Steel yourself, Tobias," he mumbled through a clenched jaw. Uneasiness--or was it excitement?--slithered up his nape as soon as his attention wandered away from the lost weapon to the found one. Tall, imposing, volatile, and intoxicating. He rolled his shoulders at the crawling feel, lost in its deciphering. The young person, the impulsive person, within him grew stronger with it, while it withered his sanity and weakened his stance like an arctic wind. A shiver wrung his person like a shockwave despite the warmth of the early sun, the engine fumes, and most notably, the sweltering streams of red, orange, and yellow shifting not far away.

Tobias raised his nose to the sky, then pushed up his sleeve to peer at his watch. It took a few blinks to focus, to take his mind off the volcano for just a moment.

He was making good time. If conditions continued to favor him, the boat could berth in the lair's sea cave within a half hour, which meant he would have half an hour remaining to prepare for the beginning of Team Defiance's shift.

His eyes closed and the tiny screens flooding his vision ordered themselves. With a little focus, almost an offhanded amount compared to what the late hero Chance used to muster, clarity came. The future became clear, the likeliest outcomes arranging in the forefront of it all.

Red eyes and white hair when the boat rammed against the docks.

Tobias soured instantly and his eyes flew open. The future changed without delay. Red eyes appeared much sooner.

"Cherry King!" he barked, gripping the steering wheel tighter. "Come out this instant."

Nothing but the wind and waves sounded in response. The angry whistles of the breeze over the deathly waters filled his ears. Beneath the silicon, he felt his remaining ear turn red.

"Don't make me come and get you, Cherry," he growled. "I will lift you by the scruff of your neck if you don't get your disobedient, reckless, foolhardy, inflated head out here by the time I count to five. One... two...three..."

The anchor locker at the bow flew open with a cry of, "All right!"

Dizzy tumbled out of the cramped space, unfurling as if her limbs were loaded with springs. The locker slammed shut after her with a bounce of the boat and Dizzy fell forward onto her knees. She gagged. "P.U!"

Their eyes met through the plexiglass window separating the helm from the spray off the bow. She crouched closer to the deck as the bow jumped into the air, pulling her clothes and hair towards the darkening sky.

Water splashed over her jacket as the bow dove downwards once more and she shouted out and scrabbled to her feet. Soggy-socked, her tennis shoes squeaked and slipped like rubber ducks in a desperate stagger around the bump of the cabin in the middle of the deck. She shook herself in the way I like to wave white flags: frantically; then stood with him in the dry beneath the canopy. Dizzy shuddered and flung water droplets from her hands, then leaned against his side with chattering teeth. "Hey, Doc."

He glared down at her with a tepid mixture of fury and disappointment; a blend of two evils so far from one another on the scale that they canceled into an expression almost deadpan, yet unmistakably disapproving. A slight pinch of thinned lips, a certain hardness of the eyes.

Dizzy swallowed and gave him a sheepish grin, flicking water from her tufty hair. She staggered a few steps, then latched onto his arm to hold herself steady. "I kind of wondered how long it would take before you noticed."

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"I don't have the time to return you to land. Do you understand that?" Tobias quipped, ignoring her. His nose burned under the silicon. "The volcano is soon to erupt and—you've been using your powers? I have not seen you use your powers before."

"How would you know?" She shrugged off her jacket, peeling the damp from her skin. "You can't detect x-rays."

"Because that is why they call you "Dizzy"." He sucked on the inside of his cheek, studying the odd shifting of her eyes as they adjusted and adjusted in the search of focus. He steadied her with a hand to her shoulder. "Sit down before you fall over."

She sat and squinted up at him. A flake of ash landed on her nose, another on her cheek. "You're not going to shout at me?"

"Oh, what's the point?" Tobias shook his head to the sky, as if seeking advice from the gods or the odd passing seaplane pilot. "You don't listen."

Another fish pounded against the hull. A handful of them clunked idly and bobbed away to where a flurry of screeching seabirds dived for pickings.

The low growl of the volcano filled the silence between the heroes. Tobias checked his watch, a tic in his eye. He bit his lip and squeezed his eyes shut. Oh, the things that futures showed him.

"You have a knife," he stated, staring ahead. The window was blackening as the ash-fall grew denser. "For me."

"For—well—I mean..." She bit her lip. "Can't really keep a secret from Doctor Chance, can I?"

Tobias bit his lip harder. "No."

"Look, take it personally. I won't lie. You kidnapped a woman, who has a child, and you almost hurt her multiple times," Dizzy explained to the forest green and gold Chance patch of her jacket. His voice came, outraged, but unintelligible, and she cut him off. "You speak to yourself when you think you're alone, and when you sleep, and it's always to tell yourself to be calm or be patient or stop and think—but you wouldn't have to tell yourself that if you weren't always on the verge of doing something bad, right? The knife was in case Chance," she gestured to his left side, "wasn't there to tell the Doctor," she gestured to his right, "to stop."

Tobias recoiled, releasing the steering wheel inadvertently. The little motorboat veered left sharply and he shouted out as he fell forward and barely avoided missing the teenager on the floor. Dizzy yelped and jumped away, then sprang over him to grab the wheel and return the boat to its course.

Tobias lay on the floor, breathing heavy, staring at the side of the boat. The pink strip of flesh along his middle stung calmingly. His and her voices bounced in the recesses of his mind. He wanted so badly to shout at her, but knew better than anyone that it would do no good. It wouldn't even be satisfying. Not to him, or the younger person within him—though that younger person, "the Doctor", according to Dizzy, might take some pleasure in the glimpse of fear on her smug face if he let impulse and anger reign free and called her by her loathed birth name.

Instead, Tobias shakily grabbed onto the aluminum that raised up the steering wheel and began the walls of the inner cabin. He climbed up with his hands, pulling his stupid, inadequate prosthetic underneath his weight. "You do think I've gone powermad," he murmured, staring at his ugly black hand. "You said you didn't."

"You haven't gone powermad, but maybe you could be going? You don't want to kill anyone, though, right?" Dizzy looked uneasily into the cabin. It was too dark to see, but both aboard knew of the woman within. "Right?"

"No, I don't want to kill anyone!" Tobias cried, nose sweeping to point in every direction. Water. Water. Water. Like a cage! Suddenly, he wanted more than anything to walk away or put a door between them. Calm down, calm down! Oh, how it wounded to doubt his own morals; and oh, how it scarred to be doubted by a friend.

Perhaps, he thought to himself, a prison cell would be right for me. It would be quieter, his mind wouldn't have to hear a cacophony of unfiltered voices which more often felt like a curse than a gift as of late. He leaned his back against the aluminum and clawed at his mask. It was sweltering beneath it. His chest flooded with droplets like acid. It felt as if his face were drowning in lava.

Dizzy's red gaze on him burned like the volcano's center. The man struggled in frustration to heave the thick silicon layer out from his collar and scrunched it carelessly under his chin, his elbows flailing with a furious effort. Less efficient, more erratic, more distressing. It was hot. It was so hot.

As he peeled the false face away, skin went with it. Black skin, red skin, pink skin. The ribbon of rawness that separated his two halves brightened and prickled with fresh crimson.

Tobias threw the mask to the floor with a cry of anguish that was much quieter than it felt, and grabbed tight handfuls of his hair, feeling his scalp scream. His shoulders buckled around his ears and he fell to his knees again.

The last time he'd seen so many possible futures had been the first day he had landed on the nearing godforsaken crag of land. No, this time there were more. So many more. The volcano was threatening to erupt anytime within the hour, more and more likely as time progressed. He wished he could pinpoint when, but everything was uncertain. "The hero lobby," he wheezed, slowly unclenching his fingers, "is compromised, but unlikely to collapse. I think..."

"Let go of your hair, Doc." Dizzy's heel landed on his back in some effort of comfort, hands preoccupied with the wheel. "Take a deep breath. In and out. In, out."

Tobias gasped and shuddered, gasped and shuddered. He straightened out just enough to get her shoe to leave his sore spine, then crossed his legs and sat forwards with his elbows on his knees and his palms against his temples. "I think..." He blinked hard and felt something wet on his left cheek. "I think my stamina is failing. I see black. Heavens, I'm so hot. It's so hot."

"What do you mean, 'you see black'?"

"I mean, I'm bound to go unconscious in the middle of everything. Fifty-percent chance." Tobias struggled to draw breath, grabbing a fistful of his shirt and using it to fan himself. Hot air. Too hot.

"Oh. Um..." Dizzy held onto the wheel with one hand and stretched to pat his shoulder with the other. "Try, uh, to take it easy. Relax. Come on, I'm here. We can share a load. But—"

Tobias jolted upright, giving her a wild look. "What do you mean she's awake? How long have you known that she's awake? Mrs. Jones!"

Dizzy, taken aback, dropped the wheel for a second. After a quick jerk to one side, she dove at it again, then stared back at him with her mouth open. She blinked a few times. "I didn't say anything about that."

"Yet," Tobias hissed and stumbled to his feet. His peg wobbled and he grabbed onto the aluminum beside the wheel. "Never mind, she'll stay put. Everything is fine. Everything is fine. Everything is just fine."

The teen's face scrunched skeptically, taking him in from top to bottom. "You sure?"

He crumpled and pressed his knuckles against his lips. Blood wet his hand. It was molten. In his mind's crazed eye it bubbled with heat. "Oh no. If she's awake, then she's been listening, and when Benjamin and her both survive—which they will—then she'll tell him all about what she's heard today. How long has she been awake?

"What's she heard today? Your highly incriminating mental breakdown?" One dark eyebrow quirked. "Seriously, Doc, if you think you're going to pass out in the future, the best thing you can do is calm down, have a seat, have some water and regulate. She's been awake for about half an hour, give or take a few minutes. Just sitting there. I watched you and her both from the anchor locker."

Tobias dragged his hands over his face and flicked away copious amounts of ashy sweat. Panting, he stared up at the volcano. I'm safe. I'm safe. I planned everything to be safe. He started fanning himself with his hands and lowered himself to the floor once again. "Dock us. Please. It's too hot. I'm too hot."

Dizzy's lips drew into a thin line, worry brimming in her gaze. Though she glanced ahead through the blackening plexiglass, her attention remained mainly on him. She held out her hand and waited and waited until he gave her his. She put it on the lower end of the wheel and ducked inside the cabin.

Tobias panicked for a moment, but before he could move, Dizzy was back. She took the wheel and tossed her cold, wet jacket over the top of him.

Cold. Tobias swelled with relief and silently began to weep.

Beneath the chill his troubles seemed to steam away.