Chapter 3

Friday, December 21^st 2012, 3:41 PM

It had been a good day for May Landrell. She woke up to her parents singing Happy Birthday and a red velvet cake with vanilla frosting. Best of all, Paul completely ignored her for the first time since her eighth birthday. At some point during the day Paul had just disappeared and May almost cried at how nice things were when he wasn't around to torment her. Her parents worked swing shift at the paper mill an hour away, and both started the night shift that very afternoon which didn't bother May much until Paul showed up an hour after they had left. He was sitting in the living room with three men she had never seen before. One of them was setting up a video camera and some lights around the couch. The cake May ate that morning tried to come back up.

"Do you remember what I gave you when you turned eight?" Paul asked quietly, the other men were eyeing her and snickering. May's head bobbed in a jerky nod and Paul's eyes narrowed. "Say it."

"A fffat cccock for mmmy slut holes..." She tried not to stutter but she was so scared and starting to cry. The three men started laughing.

"That's right, baby sister, a fat cock for your slut holes. Now I tried to think of something special for your Sweet Sixteen! So for old time's sake, I'm going to fuck all your slut holes and then for your special present, these fine gentlemen are going to fuck your holes till you can't talk, walk or shit right for at least a week. The best part is it'll all be on video so we can watch it whenever we want. Or sell copies. Yeah, I could use a little extra money. Now strip."

And she did exactly as he said, because that's what he trained her to do. Over the next four hours, Paul made sure those three men did exactly what he said they would. They might have even raped her to death if her parents hadn't come home early because of massive equipment failure all over the plant. Of course, if her parents hadn't come home early, May wouldn't have had to see her father's head bashed in or watch Paul beat her mother's face in as he raped her too. She also wouldn't have been in the backseat of her parent's car, sandwiched between their corpses when the accident happened.

Thursday, 9:40 PM

"Hey, Mikey, I got dinner!" Jimmy Addleson called as he shut and locked the door. He was thinking about seeing Blake, and how he thought things might turn violent. Again. But everyone had played it cool and nothing got destroyed. Jimmy could admit to himself that he missed Blake; best friends for twenty years was hard to turn your back on. After the accident, when Blake quit collections for Stanley, things changed. Maybe tonight was the start of fence-mending.

"Did I get onion rings?" Michael Addleson was sixteen, painfully skinny, with lanky black hair and deep hollows around his eyes. Years of antipsychotics, antidepressants, uppers, downers, beta blockers and so many different types of meds made him look like little more than a walking corpse.

"You sure did, buddy!" Jimmy smiled and held them up. A happy smile stretched across Michael's sunken face for all of three seconds before his eyes rolled back in his head and he slumped straight down to the floor. Jimmy's smile faded into a defeated frown as he turned his back on Michael, and moved into the kitchen to set out plates for himself and whoever showed up this time.

"Hi, James." Jimmy turned at the voice, and saw what Michael would look like if he was a normal, healthy teenager. "Sure smells good."

"Is there any chance I'll get to have dinner with Mikey for once?" Jimmy snarled at the grinning teen.

"Hmmmm," the young man struck an exaggerated, thoughtful stance, "it seems really unlikely, James, but if you prefer I could send one of the others out ... maybe, Crawler?"

"God, no!" Jimmy gasped. Of all the personalities in his brother's head, Crawler was visually the creepiest thing he had ever seen. "Just ... don't eat all of his onion rings this time, okay?"

"Okay, James, I'll save his onion rings for him."

"Why are you even out or awake or whatever you call it?" Jimmy growled as he bit into his meatball sub and glared at the personality called Caine.

"Michael was happy, and I am the protector of his happiness." Caine said as he took a bite of his own sandwich. "Blame your father for my existence, James, not me."

Sighing, Jimmy pushed his food away; the thought of Big James Addleson always made him lose his appetite.

Friday, April 17^th 2015, 1:15 AM

"I'm really sorry I ran out like that. My neighbor called and said he saw thick smoke coming out of my apartment," Blake said into his cellphone. It had been hours since he left Vickie and Maggie's apartment, but he felt he should answer the four voicemails and six texts from Vickie. "It was mostly a false alarm, a towel on a curling iron, but the girls were in their rooms with the doors shut and completely oblivious!"

The two young women being talked about at that moment glared at their father, who just shrugged at them, then turned his back to speak quietly. "I had a good time tonight, right up until I got that call, and I want to go out with you again."

"But..." she sighed.

"The fact you know there's a but should tell you something." Blake laughed.

"I like you ... but I don't want to hurt her!" Blake could only shake his head at the woman's indecisiveness.

"Okay, you two need to work that out and then tell me." Vickie agreed and said her goodbyes. As Blake hung up he figured that was the last he would hear from those two.

"You blamed us?!" Abigale shouted from two feet away.

"I guess I could have told her a guy in a mask and his superpowered S&M girlfriend tried to kidnap you. I'm sure that wouldn't have started a round of uncomfortable questions." Blake replied dryly, looking his youngest in the eye.

She started to speak several times, opening and closing her mouth, before settling into a pout and grumbling, "You could have said it was Carla's fault, she's the ditz."

Blake glanced over at Carla. She was still giving him that hurt, angry, betrayed look that started the second they came out of the safe room and saw him as Blastwave. At least she was acknowledging him. She wouldn't even look at Allen, who had been trying to get her to talk for an hour. "Well, Carla is mad enough already..."

"Sorry, dad," Abbie looked at her sister and winced at the glare she received. "I think she's mad at me too."

"So you knew, huh?" Blake was proud of his daughter for figuring it out but he was angry with himself for not hiding it better. "How long?"

"Pretty much right after you started calling yourself Blastwave, I was the one that called you that." She grinned at him and he remembered the first newscast with him and Allen, and how she said his power was like a wave after each blast. "And before the powers I knew you did ... stuff..."

"And I don't do that stuff anymore," he pointed out, wishing she didn't know what a piece of shit he was.

"I know, now you just rob banks and throw down in the street with superheroes." She had an evil smile that reminded him so much of their mother it physically hurt.

"I'm a terrible parent." He sighed heavily and sat on the floor beside her.

"Mom told me you were a bad man, but not an evil person." Her smile was a little wan.

"Your mother was a damn smart woman who knew me well."

Shaking his head he levered himself back to his feet and walked slowly toward the 'containment cell' and looked at the woman lying flat on her back on the pallet they put there for her. They had quickly discovered that the physical restraints weren't going to work, so Blake had wrapped his arms around her and just held on, which wasn't hard since she stopped struggling almost immediately, and just stared at his eyes until Allen came running in with his 'neural disruptor'. The theory was really simple; it blocked the brain's ability to send movement commands to the extremities. Luckily he tested it on rats long before he tricked Blake into trying it. When they put it around her neck, Blake was positive she smiled a little bit.

"Are you going to ... kill her?" Abbie looked more than a little green asking that question.

"I really don't know, sweetie," he hedged, while watching the woman watch him. "What do you remember?"

"Ummm ... he knocked on the door and told us to open it like he thought we would just do what he said!" Abbie snorted like she thought the guy was a moron.

"He was a controller, Blake. He told me to freeze and I did." Allen said from a few feet away. "Then he told her to kill me. I did snap out of it but she was close and almost got me."

"Yeah, he said something like 'open the door' and she was kicking the he ... ck out of it." She grinned really big at her dad's raised eyebrow over her almost swear slip. "When she got the door open she just stood there looking at us until he told her to get us. Prey! He called her prey, but it sounded like a name. Like Prey, not prey, ya know?"

"Yeah, he said 'kill him, Prey' but I didn't think anything about it, I was busy." Allen had the same sour look on his face since Blake had gotten home and he kept mumbling things about suits and weapons and security.

"Why does that sound familiar?" The question was directed at himself, since it tickled an unpleasant memory from several years before. When it finally came to him, Blake wanted nothing more than to puke. Whipping out his cellphone he found the number he wanted, that he hadn't dialed in years.

"Holy shit, Bman, I didn't thi..." Jimmy answered on the second ring, but Blake cut him off.

"Did you send them?" he snarled into the phone.

"Send ... what?" Jimmy sounded confused, but Blake had known and worked with the man for years. All that time together taught Blake an important lesson about Jimmy; the man was a consummate liar.

"Do not fuck with me, Jimmy! They came for my girls!" He growled, trying to keep his anger in check lest he crush the phone.

"What?! Who came for them?!" Blake felt a little better. The mixture of anger and hysteria seemed genuine, but it didn't change the fact Jimmy might know something about it.

"Do you remember that little creep who hung around Stanley's sex clubs, dressed in all black with the mask?" He asked.

"You mean that sicko with his sex toy Barbie? He called himself Predator and called her Prey. He was a sick little twist, man." Blake could almost hear Jimmy shuddering through the phone.

"Well, sex toy Barbie is still here. He took off."

"Sonuvabitch, Blake! He's a fucking vocal controller. All he has to do is tell you to do something and if you can hear it you'll do it." Jimmy was shouting, and sounded mad enough to chew nails. "I'll check with the boys and see if anyone's heard anything and get back to you. Watch your ass, Bman!"

Blake snapped the cellphone shut and stared at the woman lying on the pallet, who was staring calmly back at him.

Friday, 1:17 AM

"He said to let him know when we get us worked out..." Vickie sagged dejectedly and Maggie laughed until her sides hurt. Vickie glared at her and grumbled, "What's so damn funny?"

"We'll never talk to him again!" Maggie gasped and roared with laughter at her roommate's panicked expression. After ten minutes she finally had the laughter under control. She patted Vickie's thigh comfortingly. "We've been trying to 'work us out' since puberty. Do you really think we'll get it figured out before he's tired of it?"

"But I like him!" Vickie whined.

"Then tell him that!" Maggie exclaimed.

"I did!"

"Then what's the problem?!" Maggie asked, starting to get confused as hell.

"You like him too!" Vickie exclaimed, throwing her hands up.

"This again? Really?" Maggie demanded, starting to actually get angry with her best friend.

"But I don't want to hurt..." Vickie started, and stopped as Maggie made an angry slashing gesture.

"Don't bring me into this. Either you like him or you don't!" To emphasize her point, Maggie stamped her foot. "If you like him that much, I can fucking deal with it!"

Vickie's eyebrows were hidden in her hairline. She couldn't remember seeing Maggie that mad in years.

"Well, say something!" Maggie growled.

"You said a bad word," Vickie whispered, then yelped as her friend's small fist bounced off her thigh.

"You know that didn't hurt." Maggie glared, but couldn't hold it for long. "What are you going to do?"

"I ... I'm going to call him tomorrow and ask him out again," Vickie stated, though she looked none too sure about the outcome.

"Good!" Maggie was all smiles and congratulations on the outside. Inside was a different story; she had secretly hoped Vickie would forego the intriguing Blake Wallens.

Friday, 2:45 AM

May couldn't move. It really wasn't that uncommon for Paul to order her to stillness, but this time was different. The big man had held her so tight and then he put the collar on her and she couldn't move below the neck. She always hated being helpless when Paul tied or chained her. She never knew what he would do or let someone else do to her. Her ears hurt too. They hurt really bad and she couldn't hear anything, not even when she could see the man and one of the girls from the picture talking. He was also the big man with the changing face. The gadgetman that had hurt her, had stopped her, was coming back in the room with some strange looking tools. He was talking to her but it was like he was talking through a pillow from the far end of a long tunnel.

The big man came into the room and was talking to the gadgetman, pointing at the side of her head. Her ear maybe? Yes, the gadgetman picked up one of the strange tools and she could feel him messing with her ear. The face he made as he moved back did not fill May with confidence, but it didn't actually upset her either; if she couldn't hear Paul anymore then she wouldn't have to do what he said. That thought made her smile.

Friday, 2:48 AM

"I think her eardrum's are..." Allen trailed off as the smile spread across the girl's bruised face. "Jesus that's creepy."

"A little bit. So ... any idea what we should do with her?" Blake ignored her smile because it was by far not the weirdest thing he had experienced that day.

"You're the boss, boss!" Allen made a pushing gesture, like he was making sure that decision was securely in Blake's lap.