<<< Chapter Six >>>
Clark opened the door to Rebecca’s hospital room and cautiously peeked in. “Is everybody decent this time?”
Both Rebecca and the nurse laughed. “Yes, Mr. Kent,” answered the nurse, “we’re all decently covered.”
“Good,” he sighed dramatically. “I wouldn’t want to be arrested for being a Peeping Tom.”
“Or a Peeping Clark,” added Rebecca.
The nurse patted her hand. “You’re doing very well, Ms. Connors. I think you’ll be able to leave tomorrow or the next day, but of course that’s the doctor’s decision, not mine. Do you have some place to go where you’ll have some in-home care for a few days, or should I make some calls for you?”
Rebecca gestured toward Clark. “He insists he’s going to take care of me. And my employer has already arranged for a nurse and therapist.”
“Well, that’s just fine, Mr. Kent. Do you know what all you’ll need to do?”
He smiled and nodded. “I think so, yes. Assuming she’s released tomorrow, when will she be able to travel?”
The nurse’s smile faded. “Travel? Oh, no, Mr. Kent! She won’t be able to sit up long enough for a car trip for some time, and flying is completely out of the question, what with the changes in air pressure and her limited mobility and – “
“Ultra Woman has volunteered to fly her to a place where she can rest and recuperate, assuming the doctor clears her to go. And she’ll have twenty-four hour care from the start and a qualified physical therapist, I promise.”
“Oh.” The nurse apparently didn’t know how to process that information. “Well – I’ll have to inform Dr. Gaddis. This may change what he plans to prescribe for Ms. Connors.”
Clark smiled and nodded again. “I understand. I promise that she won’t do anything the doctor tells her not to do.”
“Hey!” Rebecca snapped. “I’m right here! Don’t talk about me like I’m a piece of meat, okay? Besides, I’ve been in this bed for five days, and I’m ready to look at some different walls.”
Clark tried to muffle a laugh but only snorted. “That reminds me of something. Do you know what Oscar Wilde’s last words were?”
Rebecca frowned. “Oscar Wilde, the English Victorian playwright? Got in lots of legal trouble for his dissipated lifestyle?”
“That’s the one. He was sick and broke at the end of his life, and he was lying in bed in a cheap apartment in Paris, France, when he sat up and told the landlady, ‘Either that wallpaper goes or I do.’ He died later that day.”
“Last words.” Rebecca growled under her breath. “I’m in the hospital recovering from a gunshot wound and he’s giving me somebody’s last words.” She lifted her hands in helpless amazement “Thank you so much for that encouragement, Clark, my dearest. I hope you don’t trip on your own hyper-inflated wit.”
The nurse raised her hands, palms out, and stepped away from the bed. “You two can fight as long as Ms. Connors stays in bed. I have other patients to look in on, so if you need someone just buzz the nurses’ station.”
Clark waited until the nurse left the room before he laughed softly and sat on the edge of the bed. “Come on, Rebecca, I was just making conversation.”
She crossed her arms over her chest and frowned at him. “Oh, really? Well, then, I hope I come up with some really pithy, profound, and meaningful last words when I’m on my deathbed. And I hope you’re there to record them for posterity.”
He ducked his head and looked sheepish for a long moment, then said, “Do you want to know what Pancho Villa, the Mexican bandit leader, said just before he died of an infection?”
“No.” She glared at his protruding lower lip and puppy-dog eyes gazing at her over his glasses until she finally dropped her hands to her sides and said, “Oh, for – Fine! Stop pouting and tell me what he said.”
“He said, ‘Don’t let it end like this! Tell them I said something.’”
Her eyes bugged and her jaw dropped. “That’s it?” He nodded. “Those really were his last words?”
“Well, I wasn’t there, but that’s what the history book says about it.”
She snorted. Then she chortled. Then she laughed aloud and pressed one hand to the bandage still covering the surgery site on her belly. “Oh, thank you, Clark! That makes up for the first one.”
“I’m glad to hear it.”
She glanced at the open door and lowered her voice. “Hey, are you, um, all better now?”
“You mean – “ he made a wavy motion with one hand “ – am I feeling super again?”
“Yes. Are you?”
He smiled. “I’m back to normal. That’s why I’ve been sitting by the window. The sunlight helps me get better.”
“Huh. I wish it would help me like that.”
“Sorry, can’t help you there.” He leaned over and kissed the tip of her nose. “But let me tell you the plans for the next few days. Everything’s ready to go, pending your approval. I won’t do anything unless you tell me it’s okay with you.”
Her eyes clouded and she looked away. “Are you sure your parents won’t mind having me around? I mean, they don’t know me from Eve’s puppy dog.”
He smiled and touched her hand. “They’ll love you just like I do, Becca. I promise. Why wouldn’t they?”
As Clark began describing his plans for the next three weeks of her life in Smallville, she tried not to think about the fact that Clark’s love for her didn’t appear to include their future beyond that time. He’d never spoken of them being together a year, five years, twenty years into the future, only the length of time her recovery might take.
She didn’t know if that was a good thing or a bad thing. And it frightened her more than anything she’d ever experienced.
But there was no way she’d let Clark know how she felt.
*****
Lois flew slowly over the city and smiled to herself. She was low enough for people to see her – a number of them pointed and more than a few waved – but they couldn’t see her expression. There was no reason to let everyone in Metropolis know that Ultra Woman enjoyed flying so much. She’d just pretend that she was flying because it was time for her early evening patrol.
As she passed over the northern quadrant, where the more affluent but not rich citizens tended to live, she heard what sounded like cries of pain. Her hearing focused on the sounds and she flew in a decreasing spiral pattern until she located the source. Then she heard what sounded like a single gunshot.
As she landed softly on a perfect driveway lined with beautiful roses and an ideally manicured lawn, she heard what sounded like a body crashing into and through a sheetrock wall. She swept the house from the far side to the center until she found two men in the living room brandishing shotguns. A man was lying face-down on the carpet near a smashed-in wall. Blood pooled from his chest on the floor. A woman was struggling in the grip of a third man who was pulling off her shirt and pawing at her breasts.
That was all it took.
Ultra Woman smashed through the front door and sped through the room. The two men who’d been holding the shotguns suddenly found their hands empty. One pulled a revolver from behind his pants and pulled back the hammer, but before he could fire Ultra Woman’s heat vision super-heated the grip. The man cried out in pain, dropped the revolver to the floor, and fell back cradling his burned hand. The weapon’s rubber grips melted and dripped onto the carpet.
The other man who’d lost a shotgun jumped into a flying side kick but never connected. Ultra Woman stepped to one side and jabbed him in the back with her elbow. The dent he made in the sheetrock across the room was impressive, especially where his upper thighs struck a horizontal wall stud. He fell to the floor, silent and unmoving.
The third man threw the woman in his arms to one side and snarled, “Come and get it, baby! You ain’t good enough to take me!”
Instead of answering, Ultra Woman grasped a shotgun in each hand, one by the breech and one by the joint of the stock just behind the trigger. She held them up in front of him, both muzzles pointing at the ceiling.
Then she squeezed.
A shell burst in one of the guns as the barrel slowly fell to one side. The other gun fell to the floor in pieces.
The man paled and held his hands up. “Okay, honey, you win. Let me give you my gun.”
As he reached behind his back, she dropped the fragments she still held. “You need not bother.”
A ‘whoosh’ of air and she stood in front of him, holding a huge automatic. “What caliber is this weapon? It is quite large.”
The man blinked, then said, “Uh, it’s, uh, it’s a fifty-caliber semi-auto. Cost me almost a grand.”
“Has it seen much use?”
“Yeah. I mean, yeah, at the practice range – “
He spun on his toes and lunged for the front door. Just before he stepped outside, he bounced off Ultra Woman and fell back with a thud.
“Were I in a mood to advise you, I would advise you to be silent and await your attorney.”
He put a hand to his chest and groaned. “Ow! Felt like I ran into a wall.”
“You might have damaged a wall. You cannot damage me. Now be seated beside your cohorts before I decide to lose my temper.”
His eyes widened and he crab-walked backwards to the living room. As she followed him, she grabbed the unconscious would-be Chuck Norris by the collar and dragged him behind her.
“Remain here. And that is not a request.”
The two conscious men didn’t answer. Ultra Woman turned to the woman on the floor and knelt beside her. “You are safe now,” she said softly. “I will not allow them to injure you further.”
The woman took Ultra Woman’s hand and sat up, holding her torn shirt closed with the other hand. She pointed to the man lying against the wall. “My – my brother,” she stuttered. “They – they shot him!”
Ultra Woman turned and scanned the man with her x-ray vision and saw that the shotgun blast had hit him in the center of the chest. His heart and lungs were shredded and his spine was severed.
She doubted that he’d known what had happened to him.
“I – I am sorry,” she said to the woman. “There is nothing anyone can do for him.”
Tears filled the other woman’s eyes and she began sobbing. She leaned into Ultra Woman’s arms and dissolved into her shock and grief.
Ultra Woman looked over the victim’s shoulder and caught the gaze of the large man who’d bounced off her. It would be so easy to rid the world of three more vermin, she thought. It would save the jails time and money. Their cases wouldn’t tie up the courts for months. And they’d never invade a home and kill innocent people again.
She thought about it for a long moment.
Then she decided that Clark certainly wouldn’t do something like that. He might think about it for a microsecond, but he’d never actually do it.
So she wouldn’t either. It would be a mistake, not unlike the one Lex had made in trying to apprehend Arianna by himself, and she wouldn’t repeat his mistake. She wouldn’t take justice into her own hands. She’d help to keep the law, but she refused to be the law.
She lifted her head and saw the wall phone lying shattered and useless on the floor. So she reached into her belly pocket and pulled out a super-slim cell phone, then dialed it.
“Nine-one-one operator. What is your emergency?”
“This is Ultra Woman. I need police and ambulance at – one moment.” She turned her head and peeked outside at the street address on the mailbox, then gave it to the operator. “I have just captured three men in a home invasion. One male victim has been shot and another, a woman, has been assaulted.”
“I’m sorry, you said you were Ultra Woman?”
“Yes! Now send someone over here before I remove any need for your services!”
She heard a sharp intake of breath and looked at the invaders. The one whose hand had been burned by the revolver was shaking and crying. “Don’t kill me, lady! Please don’t kill me!”
Ultra Woman lowered the phone and snapped, “Then be silent and do not disturb me!”
The man sank to a fetal position, still cradling his burned hand. His sobs almost outdid those of the woman Ultra Woman still knelt beside.
She lifted the phone to her ear again. “This is Ultra Woman again. How close are those units?”
“They’re less than two minutes away, ma’am. Will you stay there until the officers arrive?”
“Of course I will.”
“Thank you. Can you tell me if the person who was shot needs immediate attention?”
Ultra Woman hesitated and glanced at the woman on the floor. “No,” she replied.
“Thank you. How about the alleged perpetrators?”
“Alleged!” Ultra Woman barely restrained herself from yelling back. She took a deep breath, then said, “They are all here, all three alive. One of them is unconscious and another has second-degree burns on his right hand. And your officers need to know that the third man is very large and very strong. They will need to take precautions with him.”
“I will advise them, ma’am. Thank you for the call and for your help.”
“You are welcome. Just tell them to – never mind, I can hear the sirens. Tell them that no one is armed and the scene is secure.”
“Yes, ma’am. Please stay on the line until the officers enter the room.”
Ultra Woman looked at the victim’s sister. The other woman had risen to her knees and had dropped her hands from her torn clothing, exposing both shoulders and one side of her chest. Her head turned slowly until she fixed her gaze on something on the floor behind Ultra Woman.
“Young woman, what is your name? Can you tell me your name?”
The woman’s voice was flat and hard. “Lillian.”
“Very well, Lillian. Hello. I am Ultra Woman.”
Lillian gave her a hard stare. “I kind of figured that out for myself.”
“Of course you did. That was silly of me. The police and the ambulance will be here very soon, so please – wait, where are you going?”
Lillian stood and stepped behind Ultra Woman, then leaned down.
Then Ultra Woman heard a click.
Lillian straightened and pointed the big automatic at the huge man who’d pawed her. “You’re first.”
Ultra Woman stood and moved in front of the muzzle. “No! Lillian, this is not the way to deal with this.”
Lillian’s voice was flat and hard. “Sure it is. I shoot them and the cops just take them to the morgue. It was self-defense, Officer. They got past Ultra Woman and tried to kill me.”
Ultra Woman shook her head. “That is not justice. That is revenge.”
“I deserve it! They deserve it! They killed Mitchell!”
“I know. And I thought about killing them myself. But I did not.”
“Why not?” asked Lillian. “You could fly them out to the middle of the Pacific and let the sharks snack on them. You could snap their necks and drop them in the middle of the desert. You could throw their bodies into the sun. They’d never be seen again. No one would ever know.”
Ultra Woman slowly moved forward and touched the pistol’s muzzle. “I would know.”
“Yeah, well – they’d never hurt anyone again!”
“That is true, they would not. But I am not the one to say what happens to them. I cannot be.”
“You’re strong enough! I saw what you did to them and you weren’t even trying hard!”
Ultra Woman nodded. “What you say is true. But let us say I decide that these men need to die and that I need to make that happen. What next? Whom do I execute next? Another accused murderer? A rapist? A kidnapper? A car thief? A burglar? Perhaps a jaywalker or two? Where would I stop?”
Lillian’s hand began to shake. “I – who cares about the next time? I want these men dead!”
Ultra Woman slid her hand along the action of the pistol and rested it on Lillian’s wrist. “I understand your feelings, Lillian. Believe me, I do. But I am not their judge.” She gently pressed the wrist down. “And neither are you.”
Lillian locked eyes with the heroine for a long moment. Then she let her arm fall to the side. Ultra Woman grasped the pistol as Lillian let her hand melt away from it and fell to her knees again.
Ultra Woman spared a glance over her shoulder at the three men on the floor. The one who’d tried to kick her had finally opened his eyes, but they weren’t focused yet. The man with the burned hand hadn’t moved except to wipe the tears from his eyes. And the big man was pale enough to faint.
Her teeth ground together and her free hand shook. Just being around these vermin was hard, much less having to say the things to Lillian that she’d said. Those things were true. And she believed them.
But she didn’t have to like them.
She heard cars screech to a stop outside and saw the flashing lights. She lifted the phone to her ear and said, “The officers have arrived.”
“Thank you. We’re in communication with them. You can hang up now.”
Ultra Woman closed the phone, then picked up a small blanket from a nearby chair and draped it around Lillian’s shoulders as the first officer entered with his weapon drawn.
“Hey!” called the cop. “Everybody just be calm and stay still, okay?”
Ultra Woman slowly put the big automatic down on the floor in front of the cop and lifted her hands as she straightened up. “No one here has a weapon in hand, Officer. I am Ultra Woman.”
The officer tilted his head and frowned. “Yeah. I recognize your eyes. But you look different. Did you change your outfit?”
Then she recognized him from the ceremony when she’d announced her affiliation with the Superman Foundation. “You are Officer Michael Torrance, are you not?”
He nodded and holstered his pistol. “That’s me. Want to introduce me around?”
She lowered her hand to Lillian’s hair. “This is Lillian. She needs an EMT, preferably a female one if there is one available.”
Torrance lifted the microphone clipped to his shoulder. “Rhonda, we need you in here right now.” He released the button and softly asked, “Was she assaulted?”
Ultra Woman nodded. “I believe so. And her brother is over there against the wall. His name is – was – Mitchell.”
He turned and signaled to the two officers behind him. The older one moved to check Mitchell’s body while the younger one pointed his weapon at the three men on the floor behind Ultra Woman. A fourth officer entered the room and nodded to Torrance, then moved behind the three suspects and fastened handcuffs on each one. By the grunts they made, he wasn’t very gentle with them.
Ultra Woman knelt beside Lillian again. “These officers will take good care of you, Lillian. I must leave now.” She put her hand on the older woman’s forearm. “I am sorry about your brother.”
Lillian slowly lifted bleary eyes to Ultra Woman’s. “Thank you,” she whispered. “Thank you for my life.”
It was too much. Ultra Woman all but leaped to her feet and strode out the door, then launched herself into the air. She had to get away from the scene of death and of lives ruined.
She didn’t know if Mitchell had a family. She didn’t know if Lillian had a husband or boyfriend who might blame her for being assaulted or children who wouldn’t understand what had happened to Mommy and Uncle Mitch. She didn’t know how many other homes the three criminals had invaded, how many other lives they’d ruined or taken, before she’d happened upon them and stopped them.
And at the moment she couldn’t handle thinking about it. She had to get away.
She needed solitude. And she knew just where to find it.
*****
Clark gently closed the door to Rebecca’s hospital room. She’d fallen asleep without the aid of painkillers or sleeping pills for the first time, and he didn’t want to disturb her should Superman be needed. Besides, he had the feeling that she’d gotten tired of his jokes.
He understood. He’d gotten a little tired of them too.
But the reason he’d kept telling them had been to keep other subjects at bay, such as whether or not he returned her professed love for him. He’d steered the conversation toward her recuperation in Smallville – which he had, of course, cleared with his parents – and toward her vague plan to resign from LexCorp and focus on her studies once she was up and about again, but not about the future beyond that.
She wanted to talk about that future. But he didn’t know if they had one together. He didn’t want to lead her on or fill her with false hopes about their relationship.
Yet he also didn’t want to abandon her in her time of need. As uncomfortable as she made him feel at times, he knew he would have felt far worse had he put too much distance between them. Had he told her at this difficult time that he wasn’t interested in a life with her, he would have disappointed her and made himself feel like a complete heel.
As he strode out into the early evening sunset, he thought about calling Lois to see if she wanted to grab a bite to eat or –
*< >*
That was Lois.
Lois was in trouble. Or was she?
There were no words coming over the link, just an overflow of deep pain and despair. He tried to call to her over the link, but the strength of the incoming signal blocked his outgoing one. He almost chuckled to himself as he realized that he’d described the situation in the way Jimmy might have described a computer communications problem.
And that thought gave him his next move. The link didn’t give him her location, and he couldn’t talk to Lois, but like Jimmy tracing a signal source on a computer, he could trace the signal and find her.
She felt like she needed a friend.
*****
Ultra Woman’s sleek outfit didn’t seem appropriate for Clark’s Fortress of Solitude, so she spun into jeans and T-shirt as she landed on the ground beside the tree. She climbed the ladder and nearly fell on the floor, then leaned her elbows on her crossed legs and put her face in her hands. The old wooden platform with its rough bench and low wooden railing seemed to call to her.
But she couldn’t hear it. All she could hear was Lillian’s wailing for her brother and for the violation the three thugs had visited upon her. All she could feel was the pain the woman had shown on her face and in her posture.
Lois thought about what she’d do if someone killed Lucy, or her parents, or Lex, or somehow succeeded in killing Clark. She sobbed as she visualized herself pulling that person’s arms off, or burning that person from the feet up with her heat vision, or slowly putting more and more pressure on that person’s skull until the cranium shattered and brain matter oozed out and she could exert the necessary four hundred pounds of force without blinking –
And suddenly there were strong arms around her, arms which held her from behind but didn’t confine her, arms which all but begged to take away the pain and make it all better.
Without speaking, without looking, she knew it was Clark.
Not Superman. Clark. Not blue spandex but flannel shirt and jeans.
Not the superhero but the man.
She wriggled in torment for a moment and lurched to one side, but he gently held her upright and pulled her back against his rock-solid chest. She grabbed his hands, intending at first to yank them away, but instead she held on and squeezed with all her might.
His mouth pressed against her ear and he whispered, “I’m here, Lois. Let me help. Please.”
The words pushed over the fractured tatters of her emotional dam and she melted against him, weeping almost frantically. All her fear and horror and pain came crashing out all at once. Tears flooded her face and drowned out any words she might have tried to say.
Lex. Lex’ broken plan and the deaths it had caused. Nigel. Being shot in the hand. Rebecca bleeding on her as they flew from the boat to Metropolis. Rebecca passing out just before Lois landed with her at the emergency room and the terror that her friend would die in her arms. Arianna Carlin. Nigel having Kryptonite. Nigel pistol-whipping Clark. Rebecca saying that she loved Clark. Lex hinting that he loved Lois. Wishing for Momma. Missing Lucy. Begging to see Daddy once more, hoping he’d finally tell her he was proud of her. The people who’d died in the lab when she’d somehow received her powers. Desperately hoping that she lived up to Perry’s expectations. Lillian. Mitchell. The officers who’d had to deal with the aftermath. The other victims of the three home invaders.
Needing Clark more than she’d ever thought possible.
She almost turned and told him. She almost said the words. She very nearly unlocked the link and sent her feelings to him in a torrent.
Then she remembered Lana and how much Clark had loved her and how her losing her had nearly crushed him. He didn’t need some needy twenty-something throwing herself at him. He was already dealing with Rebecca and her stated love for him. The last thing he needed was another complication in his life.
So she held on and accepted his deep friendship and started rebuilding the fortress around her heart.
*****
He held on to her for dear life, not letting her break away and not letting her fake being okay. He didn’t know exactly what was wrong, but he knew that she’d been pushed beyond her endurance. And as strong as she was, whatever had triggered this storm had to have been a terrible thing.
As she wound down, he shifted her slightly in his arms to what he hoped was a more comfortable position and scooted closer. She didn’t seem to mind, so he stayed there.
And then he realized just how well she fit in the circle of his arms.
Lana, for the most part, had fit against him very well. If he made the effort, he could recall how good it had been to hold her close, how nicely she molded herself against his broad chest. There had always been a few irregularities between them, places where they hadn’t quite fit completely, but the good places always overcame the shortcomings they’d had together. And they had kept working on smoothing out the irregular places together.
Lois didn’t feel like she had any irregular places.
Rebecca fit against him fairly well, but sometimes she seemed to be trying to mold him to fit against her. Even on the boat, the night before Nigel had come, their kisses had been off-center almost as often as they’d made solid contact. Sometimes he felt as if she wanted him to be her ideal version of Clark Kent and not who he really was.
Lois, he already knew, fully accepted him for who and what he was. She knew everything about him and nothing about him put her off.
But she was involved with Lex Luthor, a man he couldn’t compete with except on the basis of his powers, and that comparison would be so unfair as to be off the charts. Clark wasn’t poor by any means, but he was pretty sure that he’d never be rich like Luthor. And he couldn’t come close to the man’s charisma and his ability to charm people into doing what he wanted them to do.
And he had to admit, the man was a snappy dancer.
So he drove a stake into the ground in a corner of his mind and tied his nascent feelings for Lois to it. Lois was a good friend, one who needed him as a friend and not as competition for her heart. She didn’t need that kind of complication, especially not now with whatever was tearing her up so badly.
Somehow it felt wrong, even though he knew it had to be the right decision.
She chose that moment to lean away and wipe her face with her hands. She sniffed and said, “Yikes. I must look awful.”
He almost said, You could never look awful because you’re so beautiful. But he pulled it back at the last microsecond and instead told her, “No. You just look like something very bad happened.”
She glanced at him for a moment, then turned her head away and described the home invasion scene she’d walked in on. By the time she’d finished, he understood why she was where she was and why she’d reacted as she had.
They’d moved apart slightly as she spoke but he still held her hand in his. As she finished, he gave her shoulder a gentle squeeze. “You did everything you could have, Lois, and everything you should have. I can’t think of anything you might have done differently.”
“I know. But I can’t help feeling this way. That home invasion was just the – the arsenic icing on the cyanide cake, y’know? It’s like all the nastiness I’ve seen in the past few months just came crashing down on me.”
He nodded. “Yeah, it can get you down. And when it does, you have some choices. You can always come here and let it out. You can talk to my parents. They’re great listeners. Dr. Friskin is still in town and I know she’d be glad to talk with you. And – “ He hesitated, then continued. “And you can always talk to me. I’ll always listen.”
She turned to him in the growing moonlight and for a moment he thought he’d never seen any woman as gorgeous as she was at that moment. She sat there glowing with beauty and power and he thought he’d pass out if she didn’t speak.
Then she said, “Thank you, Clark. You’re probably the world’s finest friend.”
It was the perfect thing for her to say. It might have been the only words that she could have spoken to keep him from making a complete jackass of himself. He smiled back and sat there, unable to speak, knowing that he didn’t have the strength to keep from saying the wrong thing.
He hoped she understood somehow.
*****
He was right there. He was close enough to touch. He was close enough to kiss. And he was close enough for her to see just how incredibly handsome he was, how massive his heart was, how much he had to give.
Somehow she grabbed the reins of her heart and hauled back with all her strength, all of her power, all of her determination.
It was barely enough.
And she managed to tell him the best thing she could have said under the circumstances.
“Thank you, Clark. You’re probably the world’s finest friend.”
It was also the hardest thing she could have done at that moment.
Then she marshaled all of her super-strength and stood up. “Guess I’d better get home. Thank you again.”
She saw him nod and heard him say, “See you at the hospital tomorrow morning. Hope you don’t mind carrying the luggage.”
She managed a smile. “Not at all. I’m sure Rebecca would prefer your arms to mine any day.”
She floated up into the air, spun into her new outfit, and stretched toward the stars.
Maybe she could leave her pain and confusion up there.
