“What did you just say?” Hana said, taking a step back in shock. Her eyes widened, and her teeth clenched.


    “Before we met in the Chateau, I saw a young man who called himself Ganymede get shot to death by an automated turret. I would have saved him, but he was surrounded by a mist that stopped me from using my telekinesis. I’m sorry.”


    Hana stepped away from me as if she could unspeak the news with her posture alone. She scanned my eyes, hoping to find evidence that I was telling some kind of cruel joke. With an unblinking gaze, I denied her that small hope. I would not leave until I knew she understood the severity of what had happened.


    “No, Jack,” she said, tears beginning to well up in her eyes. “Are you sure?”


    “I know death when I see it.”


    I clenched my teeth to prevent myself from saying something unwise. If I hadn’t been there, the prisoners might have not tried to pass the thick red line and break out of the prison. Though those thoughts were going through my mind, I knew they should not be expressed out loud.


    “If you want me to leave, I understand. I can find somewhere else to stay for the night.”


    “No,” Hana said in a trembling voice. “Stay. Tell me what happened.”


    I stepped into her room, and she closed the door behind me. The complicated light fixtures and posters of bands that didn’t exist in my world informed me that she had lived in that room for a while.


    A PC sat atop a table off to one corner of Hana’s room, and an ergonomic chair was pushed against the table. I sat on the chair, and Hana sat on the bed. With us sitting in that way, I explained exactly what had happened at the Chateau.


    The entire time I was recounting the events during the breakout, I was ready to knock the building’s wall down and escape into the darkened streets of New Kinsington. In hindsight, it probably would have been better to have this conversation on the first floor where my escape route was more direct.


    When I finished, Hana said nothing for more than a minute. She never broke down into tears, though I could tell her emotions were in turmoil.


    “He was like a brother to me,” Hana said, more to herself than to me. “But we all knew this was going to happen eventually. When he and Falcon fell in with the Torricellis, we knew it was only a matter of time before he was moved to a red threat rating, and one of us would have to kill him.”


    The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.


    “So, what?” I asked, surprised that her sorrow had not transformed into anger toward me. This was supposed to be the part of the story where the superheroes began infighting, and it would only stop when a much greater threat appeared. “Aren’t you going to shout and swear at me? It was partially my fault. If I hadn’t…”


    “Would you prefer that?” Hana said with a sad smile. “This isn’t the first time someone I knew from the orphanage has died; this is the fourth. There are a million causes to every effect. If Heroes broke down every time we could have saved a life if we did something different, we’d be crying all day. There are a million things I could have done to prevent Ganymede from ending up in the Chateau. His death isn’t my fault, and it isn’t your fault.”


    “Thanks,” I said, looking down. “Jesus! I’m supposed to be the one comforting you!”


    “Don’t worry about it,” Hana said, smiling and wiping tears out of her eyes. “For somebody that was born eight hours ago, you’re doing pretty well.”


    After a few more minutes of commiserating, I returned to my room. I planned to spend a while staring at the ceiling, thinking about my situation and what I wanted to do next. That was not in the cards, however, and I fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow. The fight with Electrozilla had taken more out of me than I expected.


    I was awoken by knocking on my door. Groggily, I opened my eyes and saw that the dim light of sunrise was just starting to color the sky. It was probably six or seven in the morning.


    I must have slept for more than eight hours, but I had to take a few seconds to shake off the remnants of sleep that hung over me like a shroud. When I opened the door to my room, I saw a man dressed in tactical gear with a pistol holstered at his hip and a rifle slung across his back. I jumped backwards, afraid that the man was there to arrest me, but I soon recognized the man as Frank.


    “Hey, Frank,” I said, my voice hoarse and quiet.


    “When I’m in costume, it’s Deadeye,” he said. “It’s your first day. Come on, let’s get to work.”


    “Just let me get dressed,” I said, yawning.


    “I’m leaving in fifteen minutes. When you come down, meet me at the back entrance.”


    “Sure, sure.”


    I ran some water over my body to wash off the sweat before putting my clothes from the day before back on. When I had some money, I would buy more than one set of clothes. Before seven minutes had passed, I was standing in the lobby of the apartment building. It took me another two minutes to find the rear entrance.


    Deadeye was standing in a hallway that was on the opposite side of the main entrance. There were no doors to be found, so I didn’t understand how this was the rear entrance. As I approached, Deadeye pressed down on a brick in the wall, and a hidden passageway opened up in the ground, revealing a long staircase heading downward.


    Wordlessly, he began walking down the staircase, and I followed him.