One would think riding in an ambulance would have prepared me for the fact we were traveling to a hospital. That would have been reasonable, however. No, the full depth of where I was going didn't hit me until the back doors opened up to the sight of one Bayside General Hospital.

I might have had a minor freakout. Only a minor one though.

"Nononononono—" I fumbled with the straps holding me into the gurney, my hands shaking. "Let me go! I can't! I can't!"

The ER tech said something—shouted something, really—but what caught my attention was the hand on my wrist and the woman it was attached to. "Alexia? What's wrong?"

"No insurance! I can't go in there!"

"You don't…? Of course y—" She winced, looking away. "Dammit, I can't keep…"

"Ma'am, you need to get checked out," the tech lectured me when she trailed off, but I paid him no mind, my attention resting solely on the woman still holding onto my wrist.

"It's okay. I can— I'll call some people I know, and they'll waive the cost." Her hand let go, and only once it was gone did I notice just how soft her skin was. My wrist felt cold in its absence. "They won't charge you a dime, okay?"

I know it's a lie. A pretty one—only half as pretty as her—but a lie all the same. There are people who have that kind of power, but nobody like that would use it for me. But I can figure out a way to sneak out later, and being checked in under my fake ID meant there was no way to tie the bill to the real me—to Junko. And so with a sense of doomed resignation, I allowed myself to be whisked away into the emergency room and from there to a small room with nothing but a flimsy, off-white curtain for a door and a hospital gown to protect me from the prying eyes of the staff.

I was far more concerned with her eyes.

Elena, as she belatedly introduced herself once she realized she had yet to do so, stayed with me after the police were done questioning us both. Though she took advantage of the staff's offer to shower the blood out of her hair, she returned not long after to my room for my mandated overnight stay. We were both too charged from the evening's events and too uncomfortable from the accommodations to sleep, so it was inevitable that one of us eventually talked.

"So, uh— I wanted to… Uh…"

Well. For a definition of 'talked.'

"Elena?" I interrupted. She startled, seemingly not having expected me to speak. She is really fucking pretty when she blushes. "You have no idea how to talk to women, do you?"

"What are you saying? I talk to women all the—!" she began to insist only to stop when I began laughing. She looked frustrated for a moment, but that quickly vanished, a small chuckle escaping her. "I guess that is a pretty terrible rebuttal."

"What's terrible is you just unironically used the word 'rebuttal.' Who the fuck actually says that?"

"My Father," she countered, before her face pinched into a grimace.

"Parents are the worst," I agreed, my head flopping back onto the too thin mattress of the propped up hospital bed. I was in for a hell of a lecture when I finally got home, no matter that I was only living with them until I had enough saved up for a down payment on an apartment. Especially if they saw my ruined clothes. It was probably for the best the police had taken them into evidence.

"No, it's not… I mean, yes, but what I'm trying to say is…" She floundered for a moment. "Look, I should— no, I need to be straight with you. My family, we're— they're Empire."

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

I waited for the rest, but after several long seconds, I realized nothing more was coming. "Okay, I'll bite: What empire?"

Elena's jaw dropped. "You don't know what the Empire is."

"I mean, are you trying to say you're part of some empire's royal lineage or something?"

"Oh my god."

"Because claiming you're a long lost princess would've been a waaay more interesting pickup line than 'Do you come here often.'"

That shocked a laugh out of her, though there was a somewhat worrying hysterical edge to it. "The Empire Eighty-Eight is a gang here in Brockton Bay, where I assume you are not from."

Oh. Oops. "Yeah. Just moved up from New York."

"The Empire, they're…" She took a deep breath. "They're neo-nazis."

I don't know what, exactly, I expected her to say, but that was definitely not it. "Nazis hate gay people," I slowly explained, not quite sure whether I was explaining this to her or reassuring myself I hadn't stepped sideways into Earth Aleph or something. Fuck if I knew how the tech Haywire's tech worked. Might be plausible. "You were hitting on me at the bar. You are a lesbian."

She was blushing fiercely again, but I was a mite too distracted to appreciate it. "Well, I… I was…"

Was… she not? The thought made my blood run cold. "Were you scouting me?" I hissed, pressing backwards into the cheap hospital mattress in a vain attempt to put distance between us. I slowly pushed my hand towards the nurse button, afraid of what she might do if she saw. "Were those guys in the alley with you?!"

"What? No! No!!"

"You left the bar ten minutes before I did! You expect me to believe you just happened upon me?!" My fingers wrapped around the call button, my thumb poised to summon the nurse, when a horrible thought occurred. Would something in the room alert her when I pressed it?

"I came back to apologize, not hurt you!"

Fuck. Fuck. Should I risk it? "Prove it!"

"Prove it?! Goddammit, Alexia, if I was with them, then why did I kill them?!"

She tensed as her words caught up with her, her whole body tightly wound like a coil ready to spring. I froze, struck dumb by her inadvertently admission. Neither of us said a word. Saying something would have meant acknowledging what had just happened, that Elena had just admitted to murdering two men with powers. There was no other explanation. How else could she have decapitated a man? And killed my other would-be rapist like— like—!

I shivered. We might have stayed there, frozen for god only knows how long, but the silence was eventually shattered when a nurse poked her head in. "Is everything okay in here? I thought I heard shouting."

Elena looked to me with pleading, fearful eyes. Clearly begging me to keep her secret.

I forced myself to give the woman a smile. One that was probably brittle and obviously faked, but that would only support the lie I was about to weave. "Nightmare. I… I thought…"

"Oh, you poor thing!" she cooed. "I'll speak with the doctor about something to help you sleep soundly, okay? Be right back."

She bustled off, leaving us alone again. And the quiet descended on us again for a time, leaving only the background noise of the hospital around us. This time it was Elena who shattered it with a whisper so quiet I almost thought I had imagined it. "Father would send me to the Gesellschaft if he ever found out. I know what they do to people like me. They'll hollow me out, carve away me. Make me a mindless murderer or a trophy wife for some bastard to fuck full of babies to fill out the Empire's powered ranks. Maybe both.

"I can't do it. I can't. I'd rather die, but I don't want to die." She shuddered with repressed sobs, glistening tears crawling down her cheeks as she twisted her skirt so tightly the wrinkles might never leave it. "I don't want to die."

'I don't want to die,' echoed in my thoughts, digging in and refusing to leave. It might all have been an act. The world's best actress, come to spin me a story to justify getting close. But if I reconsidered her actions both in the bar and after… they suddenly made sense .

"I don't want to die." Had she said it again, or was I still hearing those words, reverberating in my skull? "I don't want to die."

The nurse came back and shot something into my IV that left me feeling loose. If she noticed the tense atmosphere of the room or Elena's distressed state, then she didn't comment, instead flitting right back out the way she came.

"Hey 'Lena," I slurred. She looked up with bloodshot eyes, her cheeks stained from the tears that were only just beginning to stop. Her mouth moved as if to speak, but no words came. I didn't need them to recognize the fear in her eyes—to realize I held her heart in my hands.

I was pretty sure I should never be allowed to have that kind of power, much less while high on whatever drug I'd just had injected straight into my goddamn veins, but oh well here we go. "You wanna catch a movie after this?"

Whatever response she gave washed over me as I drifted away.