It was the middle of the night and she was still laying outside next to the bonfire. Something was partially underneath her, and moving. A big black snake had curled up to her for warmth.
Betty panicked and jumped to her feet. She moved to a safe distance as the sleepy reptile slithered into the tall dead grass unharmed. She didn't know if it was poisonous or not but the situation was unsettling. Her father once told her the same thing happened to cowboys who slept on the open plains. She just thought he was telling tales and trying to keep her in the house at night. Her father warned her about sleeping with snakes. He said nothing good could come from it. She decided to sleep in the big black car for the rest of the night.
It may have been the safest place in the world.
Betty seemed somber when she requested time off from work at the hospital. She didn’t give much notice. The nurses and nuns she worked with were worried. When asked, Sister Hazel told the interested ladies about the odd conversation she had with the young nurse only one day before. At the time, she didn't think anything about it, but with this new insight, all wondered if the events were connected. Some of the older nurses who had seen soldiers from the great war told stories of men who seemed fine one day, then years later they would be struck down by melancholia. Traumatic memories would seize them without warning.
Betty was always quiet and kept to herself. She always seemed tired. They all knew Betty’s life story. She had endured much more bad luck in a short period than most people would over the course of a lifetime. Plus her mom was a little twitchy. The more they talked about it amongst themselves, the more their fears grew. One warned. "She might have done something drastic!"
They tried calling her several times, but the phone just rang and rang. Then using the address in her personal file, they visited her tiny apartment in Citadel City. They were shocked when the landlord told them she hadn't lived there for months. She had disappeared for the time being. All they could do was hope for the best and wait for her return. There was no one else close to her to contact. She was alone in the world.
She may have been on her own, but she had met many people in Citadel City. They often wondered about the mysterious girl who touched their lives and made them better.
The Gypsy, Alfonzo Beznik, missed having the unnamed guest to share his love of transformation. He missed having someone to play with who seemed to understand.
Officer Mahoney couldn't sleep on the night desk anymore. He worried he would miss a call from the phantom voice on the radio.
Her instructor, Isamu Katana, remembered young Pandora every free moment he spent with his children instead of working.
Her institutionalized mother had a strange moment of clarity when a new nurse came in and brushed her long wild hair just like her daughter used to do so many years ago.
The Anvil was curious who else Little Lila, the Terror of Murdock’s Gym, had clobbered with her amazing fighting skills. He told the story of how she fought a ring full of men, to everyone who listened. The tale grew taller with each retelling.
Professor Leo Langley wondered if he would ever see Witness X again. Since the trial, the world outside didn't seem so scary to him anymore.
The fans of Raven missed their powerful mistress and longed for her return.
And every time Carson the President of the Citadel bank violated a new receptionist in his office, he thought of Jewel.
It had been a long day at the bank for Carson. He was headed home via taxi. Work became incredibly stressful and he needed distractions. The Board of Directors watched his every move. His lawyers fended off appeals and struggled to close the Schadenfreude case for good.
The Paragon building reconstruction project was facing delay after delay due to equipment sabotage executed by its former tenants. If it were up to Carson, he would wipe out that entire section of town if he could, and turn it into something he could tolerate looking at.
The cab turned into the brick driveway of his city mansion.
He thought, “The tenants were taking more extreme measures. They didn’t know who they were dealing with. Something needed to be done about them. Another example needed to be made. Another one of them needed to die to keep the project on schedule. At this point I would do whatever it took to put an end to their interference. The damned niggers and wops and Jews were all getting in my way. They were like mosquitoes that needed to be swatted. The building was already gone. They lost. What were they still fighting for? To get the press on their side, I guess? The whole economic mess was the perfect setting for stories about little guys throwing stones and defeating those of wealth. They were just fantasies that never came true, not in the long run. We, the elite, always won!”