[Kiran Wagner]

The hotel room was smoky, and gradually growing smokier as Kiran puffed at her cigarette.

"Please let me go," said a voice from the other bed.

Kiran glanced over. The hotel room was done in blue and green, overlooking a low-lying part of San Francisco. In the other bed lay a thin, balding man in his early 40s with a thin layer of beard covering his face. One of his wrists was chained to the bedpost with a pair of handcuffs. "An' why should I do that?" asked Kiran.

"I'm married," said the man. "See?" He held up a finger, showing his ring. "I have a daughter. She's about your age."

Kiran was expressionless.

"Please! You're making me spend so much money. I can't afford it." Kiran only stared. The man's voice climbed higher. "At least take us to a cheaper hotel!"

"Nah," said Kiran, turning away.

"I can help you," said the man. "I'd have given you money if you'd just asked. Or found you a shelter, or anything. Just stop this. Please."

"Don't want a shelter," mumbled Kiran. She turned to him with a look of spite. "Doin' fine on my own." She rolled under the covers, snubbed out her cigarette and switched off the light. "Also, go f*** yourself."

----

She woke up with her belly empty and her head full of plans. She'd have room service brought in for breakfast and after that- well, it didn't matter what she did after that, did it? That was the whole point. She was free as a bird to do whatever she wanted. No schedules, no rules, no house mother breathing down her neck. The only decision she had to make was what to have for breakfast.

Her stomach rumbled. Maybe she'd get an omelette- the menu had had several. She turned towards the other bed and frowned. The man's wallet was gone from where she'd left it on the table the previous night.

"Looking for this?" said the man. In his free hand he held his wallet. "I was able to reach it with my foot." His hand went down next to him, and he tossed a handfull of jagged plastic chips in her direction. One struck her face. She looked down at her feet where they'd fallen. Credit cars fragments.

"I tore up all my cards," said the man. "I can't make you free me, but I can stop you from spending more of my money." His voice was equal parts bitter and triumphant. "Now let me go. You wanted me for my money, and now I don't have that. I can't help you. Let me go."

For a long moment Kiran stood staring at him, jaw set, fists clenched. When she said nothing the man went on, more carefully. "Believe it or not, this doesn't mean I don't care about you. It's clear you need a lot of help, so let's talk, and I can-"

His mouth snapped shut with a click of teeth.

"Bastard," ground out Kiran. The man gave her the finger and she took control of the rest of him, making him flop down on the bed, limp, unable to move. She moved forward, coming up to the side of the bed, and brought her heel down on his groin. He tensed, an automatic reaction she couldn't completely suppress, but no noise, she was stopping that.

"Stupid f***," said Kiran. "I'm gonna make you regret that. I'm gonna make you regret it for a long, long time."

She drew the handcuff key from around her neck and unlocked him. He was fully in hand now and she had nothing to fear from him. She made him sit on the bed and found one of his dirty socks and stuffed his mouth with it. Then she took a roll of duct tape and covered his mouth with that as well. She made him strip, then lay down again and cuff both hands around one of the bedposts.

"Everyone in this hotel saw you get a room with an underage female, you sick bastard," said Kiran. "Have fun explaining how you ended up like that."

A slight squeal- very slight- a widening of the eyes and his heels pounding silently into the edge of the bed. Kiran closed the door. On her way down the hall she dropped the handcuff key into a trash can.

She stepped outside and looked up and down the sidewalk, momomentarily unsure about her next move. She was in an unfamiliar part of town, drawn in by a hotel she had selected for the amenities and without a long-term plan. On the other hand, her short-term plan was obvious.

It was not yet the time of morning where the sidewalks would be packed, but there were still more than a few people visible. Not ideal for what Kiran had to do. Picking a direction at random, she began walking, choosing her turns without much thought, only watching for whatever opportunities might arrive.

When she had walked a few blocks she suddenly found herself on a relatively empty stretch of sidewalk with a bus shelter in the middle of it. Kiran's eye immediately fastened on the figure in the bus shelter: a lone man, wearing a brown suede jacket.

Kiran looked left, then right. Nobody. She approached the shelter at a slow walk and stopped to glance at the sign listing bus arrivals. There was enough time. She looked at the man. Nothing obviously wrong with him. No better candidates in sight.

No better plan. Best to get it over with. Kiran walked into the bus shelter, found a spot next to the man, reached out-

-and the man spun, snagging her wrist where she extended it. For a moment she only stared, wide-eyed, at the man who had suddenly and unexpectedly caught her off guard.



Then she realized- it was still bare skin on bare skin. And she pulled.

Will Chase

[Will Chase]

Will hadn't slept in almost 2 days that morning, so it was not particularly surprising that he was so very nearly caught completely off guard, and even less surprising that his reaction was far from enough to properly protect himself. The tiredness had left him slow witted, his mind sluggish and his power even more ephemeral than usual, lacking in the focus he normally prided himself on. Hell, he hadn't even noticed that the girl was approaching until she was less than 20 feet away. He normally tried to avoid reading even the surface thoughts of people so as to avoid invading their privacy, but that took focus that he was sorely lacking in his current state - while Will himself was conscious of social mores, and of the negative consequences he could suffer if he drew on too many minds too much at once, his power itself seemingly had no such knowledge. His lack of focus meant that the girl's surface thoughts stood out like headlights at night, and Will stiffened instinctively. She was planning something to do with him, but he didn't have time to delve into what she was thinking; she'd already reached him after all, closing to within touching distance and reaching out for his hand. Will forced his mind into gear and twisted, snatching her arm at the wrist and meeting her wide, stunned eyes with his own, brown on blue. In that instant, aided by her shock and her proximity, he was able to glean what she had been planning and Will realised he'd fucked up. He went to let go of her wrist, to put as much space as possible between her skin and has, to avoid what was coming. He was too slow. There was pain, and a feeling like he was being drained through that tiny little bit of skin contact. Will could't move, couldn't do anything to stop what was happening. Well, nothing physically. Using the pain to focus his previously scattered attention, Will dived into the girl's head. The place was a mess. Stubborness, anger, pain, and above it all the looming shadow of insecurity. He told himself he didn't feel sorry for her, deliberately focussing on what he could draw of her previous crimes - glimpses of a man trapped in a hotel room, naked, gagged and handcuffed to a bedpost, featured predominantly in his efforts to view her as a threat; after all, that could very well be his fate if he couldn't talk her down somehow. He found her name at least. Kiran Wagner. He'd only done this a few times, but what better time to experiment than when your bank account and reputation hung in the balance. If he could've Will would've closed his eyes, but that wasn't exactly an option right now. He would have to do this without the help. It was difficult to explain what exactly Will was about to do - it was something straight out of the comic books so far as telepathy went, but not something he could really explain with words. Telepathy, or Will's at least, was far more complicated than it always appeared in fiction. He couldn't just 'broadcast' his thoughts and have them appear in another person's mind, he had to imprint his mind on theirs, twist their own thoughts to turn what he wanted to say into stimuli. It was a complex and personal process, something that worked differently for every person. It was also practically his only hope of getting out of this intact. "How about you let go of me for a little while and we talk properly Miss Wagner? I swear I won't try to hurt you, or run away." One thing I've learned: you can know anything, it's all there, you just have to find it. Will Chase 615 Words

♛

[Kiran Wagner]

He'd guessed, or known, somehow. The thought rippled through Kiran's mind as a knell of warning yet she was already committed, already acting and in another second her power took effect and she couldn't think of anything else.

Pleasure washed through her, a deep, bone-shaking pleasure that hurled her onto a tsunami if ecstasy. She could feel herself growing stronger with every second of contact. The strength buoyed her, leaving her to revel, exalt in the feeling of power. She'd somehow been careless and let him guess she was up to something, but it didn't matter. Once she touched someone, they were hers. All she needed was just a few more minutes before she had-

A voice, breaking in on her thoughts. Her own voice, speaking to her suddenly in the man's words. But not her thoughts, not her words, not speaking at her will or desire. Her own internal voice, hijacked in the service of someone else. It shocked her. With a scream she yanked her wrist back, breaking the contact. Her eyes were wide with horror.

"You," she gasped hoarsely. "Y-y-y-you-"

It was as far as she got. Another wave of feeling shook her, this one of indignation. Of fury at being distracted, outwitted, caught off guard. No. She wasn't weak, she wasn't stupid, and she darn well wasn't going to let this bastard get the better of her. Whatever he'd just done, she'd make him explain, and then she'd make him regret it for a long, long time.

She flung both her hands forward and charged him, grasping for any inch of bare skin.

Will Chase

[Will Chase]

The pain abated, and Will very nearly let loose a sigh of relief. He took a step away from the girl, putting some distance between them so that she couldn't just reach out and snatch away his life like she had been doing. In his appreciation of his new freedom, however, he had missed a crucial detail; Kiran Wagner had not reacted particularly well to what he had just done. He probably should've seen it coming honestly, and most likely would have had he not been just barely avoiding panic. He felt the fury as it rose up in her mind in a great wave and suddenly she was throwing herself at him, both arms outstretched. If she touched him, if she managed to lay even a single finger on his bare skin, Will knew he was done for. He had surprised her, and she had only let go of him because of her shock and her fear. She wouldn't be surprised the second time. If she got her hands on him again, she was going to do far worse to him than she'd done to that poor man she'd left in the hotel room. Call Will what you like, but that was not a fate he wanted to experience. He backed away as Kiran lunged for him, twisting to the side so that she'd go past him. "Hey, calm down. Miss Wagner, Kiran, I'm not going to hurt you." All the while he was desperately scanning through her head, looking for something, anything he could use to get her to stop. He could feel the migraine building, like a storm on the horizon - even with the adrenaline, the tiredness hadn't gone away entirely, and he was pushing himself to scan her mind and avoid her charge at the same time. Why had she reacted like that? She wasn't the first person Will had communicated with telepathically, and he'd never seen anyone so terrified even when he'd been looking for that reaction, which he most certainly had not when he'd done it to her. He finally found a glimpse of what he'd been looking for, and felt a wave of revulsion tear through his mind. He wished he hadn't gone looking. This...this was something that should've been buried deep. Something that had been brought to the forefront by his interaction with her. By her lack of understanding of what he'd done, and therefore her loss of control. Of course she wasn't going to believe that he had no intention of hurting her. He needed some way to prevent this from going any further than it already had. Will stopped backing away from Kiran's grasping hands, instead stepping towards them and snatching at her clothed forearms. "Kiran," he said, his voice soft. "I need you to listen to me, so I'm going to give you control. You can touch my hand and I won't do anything to threaten you, but I need you to let me talk. Just for a little while. If you don't like what you hear, you'll be able to use your ability on me and shut me up. Okay? Let's just talk for a little while." Slowly, carefully, Will let go of Kiran's arms and held his right hand towards her. One thing I've learned: you can know anything, it's all there, you just have to find it. Will Chase 551 Words

♛

[Kiran Wagner]

The man dodged her charge and she stumbled, hands swinging and passing through empty air. Panic rose in her. No! She'd never had this happen before. One touch, that's all it always taken. One touch and they were hers. She swung at him again, missing.

She had to touch him!

In the race of the moment she had no time for thought. She only had time for fear. The fear of what would happen if she was caught, if she couldn't get her hands around this strange for another minute. The terror of being alone and not having the absolute control her power gave. To rule and control wasn't a want, it was a need. The need to keep herself safe, protected, strong. All she needed was a touch. He kept moving back, forcing her to stumble forward. His legs were longer and his arms too.

He caught her wrists. He had done that before but it was different now: his hands locked over her sleeves and her eyes went wide as she realized she was suddenly trapped, trapped, trapped. She struggled; it was useless. Anger at her own weakness. Terror made her heart start to pound. She angled her fingers to reach for his skin and caught only air; she aimed a kick at his shins but the angle and her balance was wrong; the blow was weak. She was caught, pinned like a bug on a card. She raised her face to her captor, fear and defiance evident in her features. Her fingers still clawed for purchase. Useless.

She realized he was speaking. The soft tone of the words caught her off guard. For just a moment, she listened. And her anger rose again: he knew too much, had reached inside her head and plucked out things that were secret, that were hers, and now he spat them back at her like he had the right to know any of it.

Then she was free.

For a moment she stood, wide-eyed in disbelief, staring at her free wrists, his extended hand. The expression on his face, one that was surprisingly caring. For a second she stood like that, face shocked, meeting his eyes.

Then she lunged forward, seized his hand, and pulled.

It was another minute or two before she felt her control coallesce around him and released him. She made him open and close his fists, move his head back and forth while she stood in front of him with her hands on her hips.

Then she delivered a punishing slap across his cheek.

"That's for sticking yourself in my head, you creep," she said. She slapped him again, backhand across the other cheek.

"You do that again," she said through gritted teeth, "and I'll kill you."

She felt the part of her mind where her puppets normally resided and found to her surprise that the shape she felt was different. It had everything she expected, but there was something new there too, a diffuse kind of sensation that in her mind seemed to be near the top of his shape. That must be his power. Curling her lip she tried to shape it like she could the rest of him and found to her surprise that it responded. She pressed it, and felt it diminish, but not go away. Relief- he couldn't use that without her permission either.

Power. God. That means he's a metahuman, she thought. Like me. Like Paladin, part of her wanted to add, but she suppressed the thought. She stood and studied him for a moment, and her face became pensive. A metahuman was... a complication, but it also put feelings in her that she didn't understand. Thoughts of things like heroism. Like Paladin. She made herself push the emotion aside.

She reached into his pocket and took out his wallet, looking at his ID and comparing his face to it. William Chase? Seemed generic. There was some money in the wallet and she put that in one pocket and the wallet in another. In another pocket she founs some gum, which she helpes herself to and made a point of chewing noisily. In another pocket she found and relieved him of his keys. Finally she found his phone, an older model, but she tried his thumb on the scanner and found that it unlocked well. She used his thumb again to reset the password to something she knew ans moved them both to a bench in the bus stop while she paged through his apps and messages and internet history, snapping her gum as the urge hit her. After a minute she looked up at him.

"How's it feel, you bastard?" she asked, holding up the phone. "You feel embarrassed? Like your privacy's been invaded." She snorted. "Imagine that. Brain man doesn't like other people reading his private stuff."

She thumbed through his phone for a little while longer. She wasn't looking at anything in particular, but she wanted him to feel it, dammit. Wanted him to feel the totality of her control, send the message that she was the one with the power here, not him. A bus came and left. If anyone thought a man and a teen girl sitting on opposite sides of a bus stop bench were odd nobody mentioned it.

Finally she spun to face him. "All right," she said. "Fine. You can talk. But only talk, you get that? No shouting, no screaming, no yelling for help. You do any of that stuff and I'll make you regret it." She felt in her pocket and pulled out a cigarette, one of her last. She lit up and blew smoke, calm and liking the aura of maturity she felt it gave her.

"You're gonna buy me some cigarettes in a minute, but we'll get to that."

She freed his mouth and head, giving him control enough to turn his head and speak. His body she kept firmly in hand, hands folded in his lap as he sat on the bench.

"And... go."

Will Chase

[Will Chase]

Will had known what was coming when he gave Kiran an opening, but that didn't mean he was prepared for it, not really. He'd experienced her drain earlier of course, but that had only been a few seconds - while Kiran's own memories of draining people had been fairly prominent in her head, that was only from her end and not from theirs. Even mentally braced for it as he was, the sudden pain caught Will off guard and left him almost dazed, incapable of brushing it aside. He retained more than enough focus to retain control of the anger that flared up when she struck him about the face, even as he drifted through her mind, trying to take in as much information as possible. Then his power vanished. Well, not really. He could still feel it, could still sense Kiran's mind and the brief flashes that were others as they passed within his range and out again, but it was like trying to hear underwater. He could tell that there were sounds, thoughts, but not what they were. Will realised, with a sudden jolt of apprehension, that he may have miscalculated. He'd been operating under the assumption that he'd always have access to his ability, a get out of jail free card as it were. Something he could still use, even after Kiran took control. The loss of that left him in an extraordinarily precarious position. He daren't test it, for Kiran was the only person close enough for him to even try, but he was fairly sure he was now unable to project his thoughts as he had done earlier. He was trapped in his own body, incapable of resisting. Just like all the people Kiran had done this to before. Will's resolve, shaken by the sudden loss, hardened. He willed himself to remain calm, even as Kiran rifled through his pockets and took his phone. He marshalled the anger he was feeling, and pressed it down through sheer force of will. He had chosen this, to give her power over him. To be angered by what she did with it would be stupidity of the highest order. He'd known this was coming, that it felt worse in reality than it had as a hypothetical was of no surprise. Will's campaign against his own psyche was given a hell of a boost when Kiran pulled a cigarette out of her pocket and lit it; the anger quietened, replaced with disapproval, as well as a kind of fond amusement. A little out of place, seeing as this was a dangerous metahuman who had taken control over his body and not his little sister trying to look mature, but Will recognised the same thought process in Kiran as he had seen in hundreds of young idiots who thought smoking made them an adult. No telepathy was needed for that, 40 years of life experience would give any man a great deal of expertise in recognising teenage idiocy. Those emotions were as much of a problem as the anger would be to talking the girl down, however, so Will locked them away too. When Kiran finally returned control of his head and neck to him, Will turned his head to look her in the eyes seriously. Though she was little more than a child in age, Kiran had been matured by her experiences. She had been abused, but she had enough pride that to treat her cautiously would insult her and lose him this chance. He needed to treat her like an adult. No, not just like an adult. Like she had power here, like she was in control. It was perhaps unwise, but he needed to be honest with her. Fully, truly honest. "My name is Will Chase, though I'm sure you saw that in my wallet. I'm a telepath, which means I can read people's minds, manipulate their thoughts. I got these powers a few weeks before the Event, after a car crash; there were 5 other people who received their abilities at the same time. You know of some of them. Surge, and Paladin. Look in my phone, you'll see their numbers in the contacts - Dom, and Alice. If you let me, I can call one of them, have them confirm what I'm saying. I'm telling you this so that you know that when I tell you I can help you Kiran, you know I'm not treating you like a child, or an idiot. You have an amazing ability, the potential to be an amazing hero. There's an academy that trains people to use their powers, the Hero Program takes a keen interest in the students there." Will was very careful to call it an academy, rather than a school - call him paranoid, but he doubted a 14-year-old runaway had much patience for school. "Let me help you Kiran. Please." One thing I've learned: you can know anything, it's all there, you just have to find it. Will Chase 816 Words

♛

[Kiran Wagner]

Control. Toughness. Strength. Those were the attributes that Kiran wanted to project. The need to be seen as suave, mature, tough was always at the back of her mind, driving and motivating her actions. She responded to life's difficulties by putting up a hard outer shell, hiding any pain she felt begin her power and her cigarettes. Yet for all that, she was still a child, and she thought like a child at times. There was another voice that spoke in her mind, a quieter voice, one that she cherished even as she lacked times when it was applicable. A voice that told her she should be a superhero.

It was her dream. A superhero was the ultimate in confidence and control, really. Looked on and admired by others, different, special. Kiran wanted that. Wanted it badly. Even as Will spoke she felt a thrill in her heart. For a moment her face lost its forced tough expression and showed keen, wistful interest. Will had said exactly the right thing. She was listening. She wanted to believe it, and so none of the objections that might have come up surfaced in her mind- the objection that her power was probably not suited to hero work, that Paladin might object to Kiran taking control of her friend, that she might not be suited to hero work at all- none of these came up. When he mentioned Paladin her hungry gaze turned downright ravenous. “You know Paladin?” Just for a moment, the veneer was gone and genuine excitement had crept into her voice. She realized it a moment after she spoke. “Yeah, well, I'm sure that's neat,” she added hastily, feigning disinterest. It was a bad job of feigning. She was excited and doing a bad job of hiding it.

“Cool,” she said, pausing to stick out her chin and blow smoke. “Maybe I'll check it out sometime.” But she was already scrolling through his contacts. A moment later she found the contact marked Alice. Her finger hovered over it. She stared at Will with calculating eyes. An expression of hunger and trepidation passed over her face. She bit her lower lip, then pressed Alice and held the phone to her ear. Her heart pounded as it rang.

The phone rang for some time, before eventually being picked up. The voice of a woman answered , a clear San Francisco accent in her tone. The voice sounded surprised. "Will?"

"Are you Paladin?" Kiran's voice was husky with excitement.

There was an intake of breath on the other end of the phone. "Who is this? Will? What have you done with Will?"

"Will's fine. He just said you were Paladin. Are you Paladin?"

The tone of the voice hardened, "I want to talk to Will."

"Oh for crying out loud! Just-" Kiran grumbled as she set the phone to speaker. She seized Will again with her power and forced him to talk. "Sorry, Alice, she's fine. She's a big Paladin fan and got excited."

"Will? What's going on? Who is 'she'?"

"Uhhhh..." It took Kiran a moment to realize she'd said it with her own mouth, and that Alice would have heard. Fury surged in her. Why did nobody ever listen to her? Why couldn't she get a straight reply from anyone? "Hey, f*** you, lady! He said it's all right! Can't you answer a simple question? I don't want this secret identity s***!"

Alice sounded worried now. "Will, are you OK? Who are you?"

Kir was furious. This was not how it was supposed to go! For a moment she was too furious to form a reply, either from her own lips or Will's. But necessity finally won out and she managed to make Will say. "It's fine Alice. Sorry, it's a little weird over here. Listen, I'll call you later, okay? Everything's fine."

She hung up the phone. For a second she stood there with gritted teeth. Then she shouted, "F***!" She glared at Will. Her hold trembled for a moment, then settled again with his face and mouth free.

"You better have been lying about her being Paladin!"

Will Chase

[Will Chase]

Will knew it was going to go south the moment that Kiran pressed the screen to call Alice. He would've protested, told her that he needed to be the one to talk to Alice first so that he could convince her it was okay, but Kiran, paranoid as she was, had paralysed him as she went through the phone, so he could only watch in growing horror as Kiran dug herself a hole to bury him in. Alice reacted badly to a strange girl phoning her and calling her by her psuedonym, of course she did, she had friends to protect. Hell, she was living with Ash, Will would've been angry with her himself if she was going around telling everyone her real identity. That was a major reason why he didn't keep full names or addresses on his phone, sticking to first names; if his phone was ever stolen, or if, and he was just spitballing here, an unstable teenaged metahuman happened to take control of his body and render him unable to protect it, they wouldn't have access to sensitive information - Will kept all of that in his head. His own power was proof that even that wasn't totally foolproof, but it was certainly a damn sight more secure than a phone. While it may have prevented Kiran from showing up at Alice's doorstep however, it did nothing to protect Will himself from the now frustrated and hurt girl that he'd practically handed control of his body. Not for the first time, Will wondered what the hell he was doing with his life. He'd gone from a fairly successful PI, comfortably affording the rent on a small flat and an office, to being only one paycheck away from homelessness at any given moment. Gone from peaceful sleep and uneventful days, to regularly going days with less than an hour's nap. He knew why of course - the world was a much bigger place than it had been before, with a lot more going on that he had to keep track of. But damn it, sometimes he missed the quiet life. Control, limited though it was, returned to Will, and with it a certain measure of dread. He now had to talk Kiran down from giving up on her dream, without making her think he had lied to her and without angering her any more than her failure to communicate with Alice had already done. No pressure. "I didn't lie to you Kiran. I haven't lied to you yet, and I'm not planning on starting. Kiran, if I'm going to help you, I'm going to need you to trust me. Paladin reacted badly to your call because you don't know her yet, and forcing me to talk to her so brusquely was never going to convince her to trust you. She doesn't like me very much, but she knows me well enough to know I wouldn't just give her name out on a whim. She knows that I wouldn't hand her number off to just any fan of hers - she's got hundreds of thousands of them after all, and quite a few of them are the kind of people I wouldn't give my number to, let alone that of a friend. If we're going to do this Kiran, I need you to let me do the talking, at least at first." "I know these people, Paladin and Surge. I know them personally. I trust them, and they trust me. If you let me talk to them, I can convince them of your sincerity, that you're not a threat to them. That you're safe. But if you take control of the conversation like that again, it'll backfire again. They trust me, but they're both intelligent people. They know that there are people out there who can do things like what you're doing to me, and if I start acting out of character they'll realise." Will did his best to look trustworthy and friendly, though it was difficult when the only thing he had control over was his face, especially since he was far from in the mood for smiling. "Please Kiran, I want to help you, but if I'm going to do so you're going to have to trust me, at least a little. You'll still have control, if I say something you don't like you can still shut me up. You have my word that I won't try to betray you. Please Kiran." One thing I've learned: you can know anything, it's all there, you just have to find it. Will Chase 749 Words

♛

[Kiran Wagner]

The truth was, Kiran was upset with herself. As Will spoke, it began to dawn on her how stupid it had been to try and call Paladin like that. Of course Paladin wouldn't just reveal herself to anyone. There were bad guys out that that her identity had to be kept safe from! A flush of red crossed her face as it became clear she had made an error. Not that she was going to admit that in front of Will, of course. Frustration mingled with self-loathing inside her. She was such garbage sometimes.

But in front of Will all she did was study him after he finished speaking and then snort, “Hmph,” before turning away. She looked at the chart of bus routes and schedules before turning back to Will.

“Right, well since you'll be taking care of me for a bit we better go and pick up a few things. Where were you going? Anywhere they'll miss you?” She pulled out his phone, checking his calendar and emails and texts for any sign of where he was headed. After a while a bus pulled up and Kiran, Will's body in tow, got into the bus.

She held him firmly- or almost firmly- in her power for the entire trip. Keeping someone held in her power was rather like keeping something held in her fist: it wasn't difficult, exactly, but it did require a conscious effort to maintain it. She had the perception of a shape that she held in a mental hand, moving his body by changing the shape with mental pressure. In the mode of perception, his power was another shape on top of the normal human shape, one she could move with the same pressure but that produced results she didn't understand. It scared her, somewhat. She wanted to experiment but had no guide for what using her power on that extra shape might cause.

It was also harder to hold on to than his physical self, as if it was made of goo that slipped through her fingers. Many times throughout the bus ride she realized her control on his power had slipped and given Will free use of it for the past several minutes before she clamped it down firmly again. After the third time of this she gave Will a murderous glance. She didn't like the extra complication that his power provided. But he knows Paladin! A contemplative look came into her eyes. She imagined meeting Paladin, imagined fighting at Paladin's side. Imagined Paladin leading her, teaching her, being there for her. Loving her. The anticipation of the idea almost made her tremble.

(And just for a moment, some part of her wondered if Paladin would think it was so wonderful that Kiran had taken control of her friend like this- but she shut that line of thought down quickly. Paladin wasn't like that. Wasn't like the others. Paladin would understand...)

They arrived at a shopping center, where Kiran took them to the hardware store (buying, with Will's credit card, screws, rope, padlocks, hammer, nails, electric drill, chain) and then to the grocery store (buying, again with Will's credit card, frozen pizzas, frozen cinnamon rolls, pop-tarts, cookies, and assorted other junk food). Her mind through all this was mostly focused on fear. Fear of discovery, feeling the need to make Will move just so so that he looked natural, every second wondering if someone would see something odd in the way the teenage girl led the grown man around the store. She wished that looked more alike. She wasn't sure they could pass as father and daughter under any kind of close examination. She had a vast, nebulous fear of being caught, after which they would- well, she didn't know, except that it would be bad. Every so often she would realize she had let Will's power slip and would grab it again after a burst of anger, then spend the next few minutes berating herself for being so careless. Who knew what he would do if she didn't keep him on a leash?

But in the end nobody seemed to notice anything odd about them. They finished shopping and ended up on the sidewalk, where Kiran used Will's phone to summon an uber. As they stood waiting, she stared up at the sky, her thoughts turning again to Paladin. In her imagination, Paladin ran across rooftops with another figure beside her, a figure whose uniform echoed the blue of Paladin's but set it on a background of black. A new hero, she of the deadly touch, one who called herself... Silencer. Bits of pieces of Silencer's adventures floated before her mind, mostly taken from movies (though she didn't realize it). The part where Silencer and Paladin meet. The part where Paladin gives Silencer Important Life Advice. The part where Silencer saves the city. The part where Paladin praises Silencer. Always coming back to that. The part where Paladin praises Silencer. It loomed large in her mind, a centerpiece, a desperate wish. Praised by Paladin. She was hungry for that. Ravenous for it. She would do anything, anything-

She realized she had let Will's power slip again. Angrily she tamped it back down.

Their uber arrived and took them to the address Kiran had found on Will's driver's license. Inside the apartment, Kiran left Will pinned by the door while she performed a quick inspection before coming back. She locked the door and stood in front of Will with her arms crossed, smiling almost sweetly.

“You're lucky,” she said, pointing to her door. “You have the kind that needs a key to unlock inside and out.” She jangled the keys she had taken in front of him. “Which means I don't need to hold you all the time. You're stuck in here as long as I have these.” She jangled the keys again.

“Now go make me dinner,” she said, dropping on to the couch, and releasing all of her control at once.

Will Chase

[Will Chase]

Will kept a firm grip on his emotions, on the anger and the fear that threatened to break his control even as Kiran moved him around like a puppet. With his ability dampened as it was that was even more difficult, for not only was he left unable to read her thoughts and therefore predict her actions, but he was also bereft of any method by which he could free himself from her control - not that he had even the first idea as to how he would go about doing so, but at least having options would’ve been appreciated. The relief that flooded him when suddenly his ability flared back to life during the bus ride was no surprise. Immediately he reached for Kiran, gliding through her thoughts as subtly as he possibly could. Her lack of awareness at his sudden freedom was a little worrying - he had no way of telling how she would react when she noticed. At the very least he was able to learn a little more about how her power functioned, or at least how she thought it functioned, as well as the always welcome reassurance that she wasn’t yet planning to murder him and dump him in a ditch somewhere. He saw in her mind the exact moment when she realised his freedom, and braced himself for some variety of punishment; fortunately, all Kiran did was shut him back down - though it was obviously possible that she was merely waiting till they were somewhere private, the impulsiveness that had so characterised her actions so far told Will that was unlikely, and that she did not yet have any real intention of hurting him. His glimpses of her mind had told him as such, but extra evidence of it was always reassuring. Her control slipped multiple times over the course of the bus journey, and each time Will skimmed as much information as he could before she shut him back down. By the time they got off, he had a fairly solid hold of Kiran’s history, or at least the parts she considered most important - far from a complete picture, but much better than the rough scraps he had been working with before. The drain on his already meagre finances was something Will could’ve lived without. He particularly disliked the trip to the hardware store, primarily because much of what Kiran bought he already had, or at least knew someone who could lend it to him. He also could’ve lived without being angrily shut down by Kiran every time she realised she’d lost her hold on his power; while the sensation wasn’t painful as such, it was growing increasingly disruptive to his thought processes - every time her hold slipped and his awareness expanded it took him quite some time to adjust, and the repeated compression of his mind left him feeling dazed and slow-witted right at the time when he needed to be most aware. Kiran’s fear of him was disquieting but unsurprising. After all, she was a girl who’d never had control of her own life until recently and now, after she’d finally managed to pull herself together at least somewhat, along came someone with an ability she didn’t understand and which she wasn’t doing particularly well at controlling, in her own mind at least. Will couldn’t even really say her apprehension was unjustified either - though he had no intention of harming her, Will was under no illusions as to his ability to do so. He could break her, if he wanted to. Kiran’s mental state was a fragile thing, and his power had let him learn all the buttons he’d need to push to shatter it. Finally out on the sidewalk, Will felt Kiran’s control slip again and immediately dived into her mind, as he had done every time before. This time he was left greatly saddened by what he saw, and his commitment to helping Kiran was reaffirmed: dreams of heroism were nothing new, Will saw them in the mind of every child; dreams of success were old-hat by now, the kind of thing everyone had. But rarely had Will met anyone who dreamed so painfully of mattering. Oh, people talked about it all the time, but Will hadn’t seen more than perhaps 10 minds who would really understand Kiran’s desperate longing. The observation left him solemn, and he withdrew from Kiran’s mind even before she noticed his freedom and shut him down again. He’d seen a glimpse of something deeply private to the young girl, something even she herself didn’t really understand. He would do his best to avoid seeing such a thing again without permission, permission that he doubted he would ever get. The arrival at his home angered Will, as it would any person. Kiran was invading his space, and puppeting him like a toy at the same time. He controlled the anger though, stamping it down as he had many times before. He couldn’t afford to lose his temper and lash out, not if he wanted any chance of talking Kiran down and rehabilitating her, at least as much as he could. He was given hope by her misguided assumption that having his keys and phone left him incapable of escaping a locked door. Not only was his gun still in a drawer in his desk and therefore within easy reach, but the door itself was fairly flimsy, the kind of thing he could probably bust open even without the firearm. He wasn’t about to go smashing up his own apartment any time soon, but the fact that he had an escape route at all was reassuring. Nor was the phone she was holding his only one; Will had recently gotten in the habit of keeping a burner phone - a paranoid relic of the revelations of the past year. Another reassurance. Neither realisations were nearly as reassuring as her sudden release of her control over him was however. It wasn’t partial like her earlier lapses had been, but rather total freedom, giving Will back control of his whole body. He knew Kiran could take back control at any time she pleased, but the freedom still gave him options. He had no intention of taking any real advantage of them yet however - any such attempt would shatter any hope he had of building a rapport with Kiran and talking her down, and Will had no intention of giving up on her yet. He was about to say something but thought better of it, instead taking the bags of shopping through to his small kitchen, taking advantage of Kiran’s spending spree to have a full kitchen for the first time in months. Kind of pathetic honestly, but then, as a single man with a small appetite it wasn’t like Will consumed much food - in any other circumstance, a full fridge and cupboards would’ve just meant a lot of expired food a few weeks down the line. Fortunately, or perhaps unfortunately would be the more suitable word, Will was going to be feeding two for the foreseeable future. He contemplated going all out and cooking something properly, but decided against it. Not only was Will far from a stellar cook, but he’d had a rather strenuous day. He also wasn’t in the mood to sit around for 30 minutes waiting for his old oven to struggle to life, especially considering that Kiran was unlikely to be appreciative of waiting so long for her food. An omelet it was - something he could get over and done with in less than ten minutes, and with the advantage of finally using the last six eggs in that pack that was going to go off in a few days. He whipped it up and presented a plate to Kiran, taking the other for himself. “Glad to see you’ve made yourself comfortable,” he added sardonically, casting an eye over her. “I hope my home is to your liking, though I’m sure you’ve seen better.” One thing I've learned: you can know anything, it's all there, you just have to find it. Will Chase 1332 Words

♛

[Kiran Wagner]

The apartment was small, of course, and not exceptionally elegant: functional, but not beautiful. Kiran had seen better, of course, had spent her most recent days in better. Here's the secret, though: when you have no home, any home is satisfying. In the end, while she might complain about the small apartment, some part of her was always going to be secretly grateful for it, even if she had acquired it by less than scrupulous means.

She spent a few minutes looking around the place, opening doors and checking closets. It wasn't quite a thorough search; she was constantly glancing over her shoulder to make sure Will wasn't there. She had an idea he might charge her with a knife and mentally held her power at the ready. Her explorations were idle curiosity, mostly, not the inspections a professional might have done. She hadn't exactly gone to school for this, after all. So she had no idea about Will's backup plans, the phone or the gun, and indeed, the idea of them hadn't even crossed her mind. She was secure in her ability, confident of her power to put him under her thumb at a moment's notice, and, in the end, not quite as cunning as she thought she was.

She had seated herself at the table, imperious, like a queen awaiting her courtiers, and a few minutes later Will appeared with the food, setting a plate in front of her. She didn't move, but Will did, picking up the plate he'd set in front of her, leaving the one he'd kept for himself, and sitting at the other end of the table from her.

“Yeah, I'm not falling for that trick,” said Kiran, picking up her fork and affecting a disinterested stare. In reality she was anything but. “Eh, it'll do,” she said when he mentioned his home. She took a bite. It was good. She was too stubborn it admit it openly but the look that flashed across her face must have shown something, and the speed at which she finished it showed either immense enjoyment or immense hunger.

She set her fork down and leveled her gaze at Will, eyes narrowing as she studied him. He looked like most of the others so far- angry, violated, but suppressing it after the realization that resistance was useless. She was beginning to realize that bringing him to his own home was more dangerous than keeping someone in a hotel room. There would be more ways for someone to try and hurt her here. Suppose he kept rat poison under the kitchen sink, or even some sort of cleaner. Suppose he tried something stupid with that. Obviously she'd be able to stop him (she never dared, even for a moment, to ponder the consequences of not winning such an encounter), but it would be a lot of trouble if that happened.

She was in control, of course (always, she was always in control), but it might pay to be careful.

“Do you hate me?” she said abruptly.

Will Chase

[Will Chase]

That Kiran had released her control over him made Will much more confident, though that confidence was of course tempered by her presence in his home. It was, after all, a double violation, of both his home and his body. Though he disliked doing so, Will returned those violations with one altogether more horrifying to most, that of her mind; with her released control, his power came roaring back and he slipped into Kiran’s mind. It was tempting, as it always was, to go further. To delve deeply into the mind of this criminal, this person who had ruined so many lives, and to tweak them. Just a little. Will was no mind controller, he could not change who a person was on a whim, but even the smallest of suggestions could have far reaching consequences. He stopped himself, iron-clad discipline freezing the idea in its tracks. He would never step over that line. As deep in Kiran’s consciousness as he was, her question was one he had already seen coming quite a while before she asked it. That didn’t, however, make it any less surprising. Will had been viewing Kiran as entirely impulsive, with little or no regard for the potential negative consequences of her actions; her sudden concern for what he might be able to do was out of character considering what he’d seen so far, though perhaps not so much when taking into account what had happened to her before. Still, even with his foreknowledge, it took him some time to think about what she’d said. Did he hate Kiran? He was certainly angry at her, frustrated by her, perhaps even scared of her. She had a great deal of power, with none of the self control he would want. She was impulsive, unpredictable, and even cruel - he’d seen enough of her previous victims to be certain of that. But she was also a young girl, scared and alone. A child who’d been let down by everyone, who’d never had anyone to depend on. A victim herself, as much as a perpetrator. Someone who’d had their control ripped away from them, and had spent their life since desperately trying to reclaim it. He couldn’t hate her. “No Kiran, I don’t hate you. I hate what you’re doing, what you’ve already done, what you may yet do if I displease you. But I don’t hate you.” He stood, collecting his and her plates and taking them through to the small kitchen, putting them in the sink and turning the tap. He spoke loudly, so that his voice would carry back into the other room, over the sound of the rushing water. “The real question, Kiran, is what you intend to do now? I have no intention of harming you, not now nor later. I’d much rather help you, but I can only do that if you let me.” One thing I've learned: you can know anything, it's all there, you just have to find it. Will Chase 480 Words

♛

[Kiran Wagner]

She sat in her seat, hands twisting knots into Will's tablecloth, as he answered and took the plates and called to her from the kitchen. Her jaw set stubbornly as she listened. She was never going to be tied down again, not by anyone, she knew that. She was in charge of herself now, and always would be. But Will had struck at the weakness in her plan, a niggling doubt that had sometimes poked its nose out in the back of her mind. The truth was, she had no long-term plans. Five years from now looked exactly like today: moving from house to house, place to place, using her ability to take what she wanted, moving on. She knew, on some level, that wasn't a sustainable plan, that even with her power her luck would one day run out. But to do anything else was to submit to the system. The system that had betrayed her. That had let her be hurt. She would never be a part of that again. Running was the only option she could stomach.

Except for one thing, maybe. If you became a superhero, you didn't have to be part of all of that. You could soar high above it, secure in your own strength and power, doing one task at a time to straighten a crooked world. You didn't have to jump through hoops or let bad people go unpunished. If you were a hero, nobody could trap you, nobody could hurt you... and the best hero was Paladin.

All that passed through her mind when Will asked what she intended to do now, when he offered her help. There was an uncomfortable edge to the question, but she pushed the feeling away. Paladin didn't need anybody's help, and neither did Kiran. Will had talked about a hero academy earlier, but Kiran figured that was just bullsh*t- she doubted such a place existed, and if it did... it was probably the sort of place where they locked you up at night, and she wasn't interested in that. No way.

“Help me, huh?” she said. “No, what you really want is some social worker to come here and put me in a car and take me somewhere I'm not bothering you.” Her voice took on a mocking tone. “Everyone says 'help' but they always mean 'get out of my hair'. Well I'm here and I'm not leaving. Stop pretending like you care.” She stood up. “And wash the dishes, slave.” He was doing that already, but whatever.

She went to the living room and opened the bags from the hardware store. After sizing up the situation, she took out the hammer and began lightly tapping along the wall until she found a stud. Using the electric drill, she screwed the chain to the wall in four places (it was clearly not her first time doing this), leaving the longest part of the length of chain to dangle across the couch. Once Will was done with the dishes she took control of him again and brought him out to the living room, where she wrapped the end of the chain around one of his ankles and secured it with the padlock. She forced him to pull and pry at the chain until she was satisfied it was sound.

She pulled up a chair and sat in front of him, holding out his phone where the contact for Alice was listed.

“Tell me how you know Paladin.”

Will Chase

[Will Chase]

Kiran’s reaction was not unexpected. The girl was unstable at best, and quite a few things had happened in the day to shake her already fragile self-control. That it was unsurprising did not, unfortunately, make it any less concerning. Will had known going in that Kiran was damaged, but the fundamental mental rejection of the very idea that someone might care for her, might want to help her. Here, Will’s own level of experience was a hindrance, rather than a benefit as it normally was; even as a detective, he’d almost never worked on cases of child abuse, which meant he had almost nothing to draw from. Not for the first time since this had started, he wondered if he hadn’t made the wrong decision. Sure, Kiran was volatile and potentially dangerous, but the girl needed serious help, of the kind that he wasn’t equipped to provide; for all his power, his knowledge and his intelligence, Will was no therapist. Any honest analysis would mark him as one who needed therapy, and it was only his prodigious talent at self-denial that had kept him from seeking it. It was a little late for that, however. If he’d turned her in right at the beginning, it might’ve worked, but doing anything of the sort now would prove her misanthropic view right, and shatter any hope of her recovering. Will’s focus had drifted, and his grasp on Kiran’s thoughts with it, so it came as a surprise when he heard the whine of the drill; a glimpse of her plan had Will very much tempted to reconsider his current course of action, but unfortunately his prior conclusion stood. He was too far gone at this point, he had to see this through to the end. This, of course, meant that when she took hold of him and he lost control of his body he didn’t panic. He grew nervous of course, but he kept a tight grasp on that and refused to release his control. The chains were excessive, certainly. Entirely unnecessary to be honest, considering that Will had already decided he would not be resisting Kiran’s plans, at least not in such a way that it would risk angering her and shattering what little progress he’d made unless she truly went too far. It also opened up the risk of Kiran falling into the habit of viewing him as lesser, much as she’d viewed many of her previous victims as worthless and unimportant. He needed her to stay interested, lest she move on and abandon him to face similar humiliation. The sight of his phone in her hand filled him with self-loathing. He had misjudged Kiran already on the matter of Paladin, Alice, and he knew he would have to go further if he wanted this to end well. At the same time, everything he told Kiran put Alice in greater danger - should Kiran convince herself to approach Alice as she was now, it would almost certainly end poorly, and facing anger or disgust from Paladin would destroy what little self-control Kiran had managed to scrape together. What could he tell her? Certainly not the rest of the survivors - he’d already given out Alice’s first name, and had no doubt that Kiran would do her best to memorise the phone number, if she hadn’t already managed it. So names were out, but events? “It was just before the Event. There was a major car crash just outside of the city, a lot of people were killed. Some of us survived though, we were saved by a very talented Doctor,” Will didn’t intend it, but there was a level of pointed emphasis on the last word. The Doctor had shattered Will’s world, the whole world in fact. She deserved the emphasis. “There were several of us who got powers after that, and Alice was one of them. We helped each other learn more, at least until the Event happened. We mostly lost contact at that point, and she went on to become the Paladin you know.” It was deliberately vague, but he couldn’t afford to reveal much. While Mason was gone, rest his soul, and Persephone was off doing god knows what, he knew for certain that Dom, Alice and Claire all had lives of their own, and he would not destroy those. Not if he could help it. One thing I've learned: you can know anything, it's all there, you just have to find it. Will Chase 731 Words

♛

[Kiran Wagner]

Will's story was short and ultimately disappointing. Kir's expression must have showed it. She had hoped for something exciting, a secret origin worthy of a comic book, and what she heard instead was mostly a minor accident. Even Will sounded bored when he told it. So he didn't know Paladin, not really. She hadn't gotten anywhere, and she'd exposed herself to someone who could read minds for nothing.

“So you don't actually know her,” said Kiran. “You just met her.” She frowned. “This is why I hate adults. They never just tell the truth. They always have to try and filter it for you because they think you can't handle it or whatever. It's all bull****, is what it is.” She stood up, putting her hands on her hips. “This is all your fault. You led me here talking about Surge and Paladin and the hero program, and it turns out you were just making it up. Figures.”

She stormed towards the kitchen, wanting to be by herself, but the size of Will's apartment meant there wasn't a lot of room for storming. She ended up in Will's bedroom, where she amused herself by opening drawers and looking in his closet. She really hadn't picked a good target this time, had she? She doubted this one had very deep pockets. She tried his computer but turned it off when it asked for a password. She'd find some way to make him give it up. She tried the bed and found it reasonably comfortable. She could stay for a few days, at least. She'd think of something to punish Will for lying to her and then she'd be away from him forever. There was another way to Paladin. There had to be.

She came back to the living room, seeing the TV remote and snatching it up. “You have Netflix, right?” Then she saw what was on the screen, and she froze.

“...and in local news. It sounds like a story out of a horror movie: a teenage girl who captures and tortures older men. But local businessman Kevin Cauthan says that's exactly what happened to him, and that he was the victim of a teenage girl assaulting him with a metahuman power.”

The screen showed the man she had left chained to a hotel bed that morning. “I... couldn't do anything,” he said, looking away from the camera. “Anything she wanted, she could make me do...”

“Police say that Cauthan is just one of several men who have made similar reports in the last month,” said the reporter. A black and white video image appeared on screen. It was Kiran. Fuzzy, but definitely Kiran. “This image, taken from hotel security footage, may be of the girl responsible. If you have any information, please call...”

Kiran said, “S***!”, and clapped her hands to her head. She glanced at Will. Her eyes were filled with terror. “F***!”

Will Chase