I took two bites, smiled saccharine sweetness at him. "Better?"
    He went away eventually and left me to my misery. More time passed while I waited for something else horrible to happen. After a while of that I made an abrupt decision. Unhooked the IV (unpleasant) and began a search of the room.
    Nothing sharper than the clipboard's edge, and that wasn't worth the effort to try to work on one-handed. The bed was solid, as were the chair and the two bedside tables. If I could lift one and drop it I might be able to knock off a leg, but that didn't seem likely in my feeble, left-handed state. I went through the single drawer. Some loose paper without a letterhead. Nothing even as useful as a pencil.
    My right arm felt numb but didn't really hurt. I was almost—again, almost—certain it wasn't actually broken. I was entirely certain that, weak as I felt, I wasn't going to be able to break the cast. And if I tried, they'd have every reason to sedate me and strap me down again.
    I looked through the window, which appeared to be on the second story. It was about nine-thirty-ish by the sun. People moved around in a well-tended garden below. Seeing the contrail from a plane high above made me bite my lip to quash a sound. The window, somewhat to my surprise, could be opened. It was plastic or Plexiglas, not glass. I fumbled the locks open left-handed. The breeze smelled of May and newly cut grass and carried the sounds of distant conversation.
    And ever so slightly, for just a moment, pressurized air. My heart sped up. Imagination? Either way, if I could only be sure....
    The bars were far enough apart for me to slide my hand through, and there was no insect screen. I put a tentative hand out and touched the wall on the outside; it felt like sun-warmed brick.
    Leaning on the sill, I watched the clouds for a few moments, feeling defeated, scared, and almost sick with sheer tension, so it took a while before I really noticed what I was seeing. They were a little bit too regular, too perfect. Almost too much like clouds "ought" to look—somehow mathematical, as if they had been produced by computer program. And though it seemed as if they had looked like this the last time I looked out the window, it was of course impossible for me to tell for sure. Still nothing concrete, nothing I was willing to trust.
    I touched the silver chair, gingerly. It didn't move.
    The door opened and Dr. Ellis came in, saw me standing there and sighed. "Miss Banks, could you get back in bed?"
    "Why?"
    "Could you please just get back in bed? I have to rehook your IV... your parents are here to see you."
    "Oh. Okay." I did as he asked, trying to hide the fact that I was shaking while he cleaned up the blood from where I had taken out the needle.

[Perspective switch: Everyone Else]

    When I looked up at the door, there they were, Dr. Ellis looming genially behind them. I looked from one to the other a few times and opened my mouth, but nothing came out. I couldn't form a thought, let alone a sentence. Mom dashed to the bedside and hugged me, hard, tears running down her face. Dad, as usual, was a little more reserved at first, but settled on the other side of the bed and held my hand. There were more worry lines there than I remembered, and a look of long-held tension recently released. I was crying and I couldn't stop. Time blurred.

    Given another day to work in they would have had me; exhaustion if nothing else was sapping my ability to resist their version of the world. I have one request to make of the universe: when I catch up with these people, do not let me be alone. I have never tried deliberately to kill a human being, and I do not wish to, but I believe that with no one else present to stop me, or at least witness, I would do it.

    They wanted to know if I was all right, how I was feeling, if I was following the doctors' instructions; there was much "my poor baby!" from Mom. They both had questions, of course, which I couldn't answer. Trapped in a place where I didn't know if this was the happiest moment of my life or... not, helplessly aware that in some sense I was cracking but unable to tell where and how. Dr. Ellis gave them vaguely reassuring answers regarding my condition (relatively good) and the likelihood of a full recovery (they were cautiously optimistic), and suggested that perhaps they should continue the talk in his office when Dad wanted to know what sort of powers I might turn up with. They'd been so worried the last time I called, what with the blackouts and everything.... The only sentence I could put together was, "I'm sorry."
    After about an hour they left to confer with Ellis. Alone again, I still couldn't make the tears stop, and eventually fell into an exhausted but restless sleep.

[Perspective switch: Everyone Else]

    When I woke up, it felt as if it was some time later. I actually felt a little better after all that crying, as if it had had some cathartic effect despite the fact that I continued to find myself trapped in what were, one way or another, horrible circumstances. There was only one thing left that I could think of to try and hadn't had time for before Ellis had showed up. I unhooked the IV again, a little more neatly this time, feeling a peculiar hopeless determination.
    The window was still open. No sign of the gardeners or anyone else moving outside, and the clouds did not appear to have moved. I heard someone down the hall.
    I had the slim Hemingway novel in my hand, worked it through the bars and flung it as hard as I could. At this point I truly expected it to sail out onto the grass below, and that I would have some explaining to do with Tom. It was a nice hardcover edition, too.
    Instead it hit something invisible a yard away with a thud and slid down to land on—what?
    They were coming very quickly now. Elated despite the fact that they were probably going to kill me (and wondering in a tiny corner of my mind if this was another dream), I briefly considered trying to fake my out of this situation before admitting that it didn't have a chance in hell of working, then looked around the room for something, anything I could use. Picking up the IV stand took all my strength, but the base was a comforting weight. May as well go down fighting. It occurred to me that I had never actually hit someone before. First time for everything.
    The door opened and I swung hard, caught Reilly square. He went down. The two men behind him were not so inconvenienced. I had never seen them before, but they were dressed as orderlies. One grabbed me and threw me up against the wall. I tried to hit him with my encased right arm, to no effect whatsoever; he wrenched it back painfully, slammed it against the wall. He cracked the cast.
    And my powers came back.
    My shield came up without any conscious thought, shattered the cast and sent shards of plaster of paris and electronics spraying across the room. Another device such as the PITS team had used. Beyond that, I no longer felt nearly so weak as I had, and I could see the tattoo on my arm like a beacon for my sanity.
    The one who had me pinned against the wall was the first to go, and I'm still rather proud of my self-control in not hurting him. He staggered back and to his knees, stunned.
    I grinned somewhat ferally at the other one and thought You are all going to pay for this.

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