Isabel hadn’t heard from her brother in almost six months. The first few days had her on edge. Daniel had made it a point to come and visit her whenever he could. Sometimes he’d be able to stay the entire day, and sometimes he could only manage to stay for an hour before needing to leave.

When she had first seen him she had thought that she was dreaming. She’d long ago lost hope of her family bothering to try to find her. When she had first runaway she did so because she no longer wanted to be part of a family that could not see their wrongs.

She had expected them to be worried, to file a police report, to send out some investigators, anything! But to her shock, it was as if she never disappeared at all. Feeling betrayed by the lack of response, the sought to make it on her own as a way of giving her family the finger.

How wrong she was to think that she’d have an easy time. She couldn’t get a job no matter how hard she looked, no one would accept a high school graduate with no college degree. She tried and tried and tried, but was running out of the money she had taken faster than she anticipated.

Her position was a dire one. She desperately wanted to go back but her pride wouldn’t let her. She couldn’t bear to let her father win. Stupid, she knew, but something she just couldn’t do.

Now that left the only option she had left for a woman living in the streets. She would just have to resort to eating from the trash and robbing drug dealers. Which she did successfully for the first year and a half.

It had been going good until the dealers had begun to look for her. She had pushed them too far and now they were beginning to push back. For months afterwards she barely left her hideaway. She had been careful to stock up on non-perishables hat people would mistakenly throw away.

But her luck ran out one day. She was followed back to her hideaway and given hell. When the dealers found her they tortured her for hours before she managed to break free and run as far as she could towards the police station.

They left her alone after that. She had been thankful they were content to only break her bones rather than breaking her spirit. Sexual assault was something that she would not have been able to handle. Not physically nor emotionally.

After that she moved closer to the police station and left only twice every three months. She lived like that until her brother had finally come to take her away from her hell.

 She didn’t know how long she had been gone for, but it was long enough for her little brother to turn into a man. She often relived her meeting with him in her dreams. Seeing him opening the door and walking up to her.

She knew exactly what kind of disgusting squalor she lived in and half expected him to leave before getting to her. When he found her she had been lying in her own mess, too weak to even move.

But he didn’t leave. He came closer and knelt down beside her. He waited and waited in her filth as she let out all of the sadness she had built up over the years. As she felt herself being picked up and carried, she felt small and ashamed.

She was a twenty-two year woman being carried by her little brother. As Daniel had lain her down in the back of what she assumed was his car, she began to fall asleep. The soft material of the seat had her entrapped in a blanket of soft, warmth she hadn’t felt in years.

Oh how she hoped and pleaded that this not be a dream. And her pleads were heard as she woke up in a white room with no clothes on surrounded by people in hazmat suits. Scared, she tried to get up and run away but found that she couldn’t move.

“Don’t be afraid dear. We’re friends of your brother Daniel. He wants us to take a look at you and make sure you’re okay. Do you understand?” The taller of the two, apparently a woman, had spoken in a calm, reassuring tone.

At the mention of Daniel Isabel calmed down. She hadn’t dreamt it after all. Her brother came for her. Her brother hadn’t let her down. She cried tears of joy as the morphine kicked in and put her to sleep.

It took several days for the Singers to wash all of the filth, grime, excrement and muck off of her body. She slept through all of it. Lucky too, for it would have been painful. They needed to scrub hard and with a chemical wash that burned like hell when applied to the skin.

It wasn’t until a week after Daniel had found her that she had woken up. As she opened her eyes she saw Daniel nodding off in a chair next to her bed. She stared at him for a long time before shaking him awake.

Daniel, who was only ever shaken out of his beloved sleep time by his sister, groaned and tried to meekly shoo her hand away. She chuckled at his attempts to stay sleeping. ‘The same habits even now that he’s all grown up. Kind of.’

After several attempts to wake him, he finally began to stir. “Hmmm. Izzy? That you?” The whites of his half open eyes were an intense shade of red. He was clearly not lucid. Even still.

“Hey there Dan-Dan.” He hated the nickname she had given him when he was younger. She had assumed that he wouldn’t be too opposed to it seeing as it had been several years since he’d heard it.

He grunted in displeasure as the nickname registered in his head. “I bet you were so happy to be rid of me, eh Dan-Dan?” She snorted in response to his mumblings of nonsense.

He slowly reached out and grabbed her hand. With a frown he muttered between tired breaths “I’m sorry Izzy…..I…should’ve…..found…..sooner…I’m….” he didn’t finish as he began to snore.

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She felt the tears threatening to spill. She felt the knot on her stomach coming undone. “Idiot. You little dork…thank you….” Nothing else was said for the rest of the night. Blissful silence reigned as Isabel laid back and reflected.

But about six months after he rescued her, Daniel stopped showing up. No word from him or anything. ‘The Singers hadn’t heard from him either so something must have happened’. That’s when she saw it. “DANIEL!!” Someone had posted a posted the video of a mangled Daniel at the scene of the bombings online.

The Singers didn’t like having television in their home so they didn’t hear about the bombings until a few hours after it happened. Even Isabel, with the phone Daniel had given her, didn’t use it for anything other than calling him. Which also meant none of them had seen him on the news.

Hearing their guest scream in absolute terror, the Singers came running into the dining hall to find Isabel hunched over her phone crying. Sherry being the first to reach her took the phone and felt her heart sink.

On the screen was the video that was causing uproar all across the country. This single image of Daniel, aside from the worry and heartache it gave his family and friends, acted as the face of the up and coming anti-terror movement.

And it was this same image that people all around the world used as a reminder of the threats they face.

-

Juliana was coming back from a quick trip to the lobby to pick up the Chinese food that she had ordered. As she walked down the hall with their food in her arms she heard the sound of furniture being thrown around and glass shattering.

Placing the bags on the ground she ran up to the door, fumbled with her keys, and managed to open the door.

As she looked around she could see the couch and nearby table on their back and side, the vases and frames on the shelves thrown across the room, and the mirrors smashed to hell. Worried that this might be a break in, she went to the closet where her gun was.

She pulled out her phone and dialed 911 before stopping. The door was still locked when she got there. So how could anyone have broken in?

…..Daniel!

Running towards his room she burst through the door only to find the machines on the floor and the room empty. Running through her home she called out desperately for her son, terrified of what he may have done to himself.

She had him tied down for a reason. He started to move around so aggressively in his comatose state after she gave him the formula, she had no other choice in the matter. Not a good sign, but definitely something. Enough for her to cling to.

When it came down to it, Daniel was her favorite. The one who didn’t disappoint her. He didn’t run away from her, he didn’t act cold and unloving towards her, he didn’t require 24/7 attention and maintenance, and he was there for her when no one else was.

Now don’t get any funny ideas. Their relationship is strictly platonic, but that doesn’t stop Juliana from being as close to her son as possible. The cold truth of the matter is she would, without a moments hesitation, give away any one of her other children if only to appeases her beloved son. However, she has yet to realize that.

Finding Daniel in the bathroom had allowed her to release the breath she’d been holding in. But that moment of relief had been exactly that. A moment. She found herself under the scrutinizing glare of her son.

She felt intimidated and slightly scared of what he might do. He just looked so angry. His body was tense and his breath ragged, the Daniel she knew was nowhere to be found. Yet even with all of his outward signs and displays of obvious rage, she saw through it.

His mother saw the hurt in his eyes. The panic that was quickly fading with her appearance was slowly being replaced with said outward anger. ‘My poor Daniel. He woke up alone and to machines. No one there to help him understand.’

“Daniel, sweetie?” He took a step toward her. With each step forward she shrunk into herself just a little bit more. And eventually there he was, towering over her. Much taller than she remembered him being.

What could she do? She couldn’t run- wouldn’t run from him. Never from Daniel. Closing her eyes she prepared for the worst. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d been beaten by a West. A slap to the back of the head, a titty twister with serious intent to harm, and even the occasional punch to the stomach/back.

But she didn’t receive any such beating. Instead she felt a pair of arms wrap around her. Being drawn into his chest and held tightly. The two of them stood there in a silent embrace. Nothing needed to be said. Nothing worth saying, at least.

-

Daniel stared at himself in the mirror. ‘I look good. I feel good. I wonder what’s happening to me. This can’t be normal, can it?’ So many thoughts and questions began to cloud Daniel’s brain that he almost didn’t hear his mother standing in the doorway.

Suddenly the anger and frustration came back. ‘Where were you? You were gone for so damn long! You left me alone and hooked up to those fucking machines!’ So many things he wanted to say and ask.

But nothing came out. His queries died in his throat as he saw his mother’s demeanor. She was scared, both for and of him. Looking at her, she seemed so small and fragile. As if the slightest touch from him and she’d be dust in the wind.

‘What the hell is wrong with me?’

Slowly feeling his anger melt away he stepped forward and cringed internally as his mother ever so slightly flinched at his movement. Something that he wouldn’t have seen previously. Any possible chance at remaining angry turned to nil.

He kept his pace until he finally had her wrapped in his arms. The shame he felt when he smelled the Chinese food on her. She had only left to get food and he threw a tantrum that resulted in a trashed house. He felt like kicking himself.

An hour later the mother and son duo sat at the kitchen counter enjoying their food and talking about what had happened. He was filled in on everything from the explosion to the coma. It was the next part that had him trembling.

He had just found out the lengths his mother had gone to save him. Killing another person and wasting years of work on him based on a longshot chance of it working. Never had he imagined his mother going to such large lengths for him.

At first he struggled to understand why she would even tell him any of this. But he soon figured it out. The answer was hidden in Juliana’s new look. From the moment she finished talking, her body was sending out little signals and indicators of a weight being lifted.

‘I couldn’t even imagine carrying something like that all to myself for years on end. I’d probably go crazy.’ And not surprisingly, that’s what happened to his mother. Not ‘there’s a monster tearing apart the side of the plane’ crazy, but enough to develop an ‘unhealthy’ obsession with her son.

Now comes the harder situation to deal with. What does he do about his newfound abilities? Several times since he’s woke up, Daniel’s been taking notice of things that haven’t been present before the injection.

His sense of smell has improved so much so that he can still smell the eggs that were cooked earlier in the morning, a good eleven hours beforehand. His body has also been showing signs of unnatural healing abilities.

It seems that his mother was too enthralled in his safety and rehabilitation to realize that he had no wounds from the tubes that were recently in him. An unnoticed detail that would be a contributing factor to events yet to unfold.