The limo arrives back at The Lady’s new headquarters a lot more quickly than we showed up at my apartment. Of course Pink was enjoying my company so I’m sure we weren’t in any hurry, but we were really booking it. It was very professional driving and I’m sure the six or so extra pedals under my lovely driver’s sleek heels had something to do with that.

Driving recklessly solo feels a lot better than being driven recklessly. When I’m driving my shining steed through the street like a moonbeam desperate to touch the earth before the sun rises at least I’m the one in control. Maybe I’m finally starting to learn to appreciate being in control of my own life.

No one is there waiting for us when I step out. There’s no alarm when I walk through the door. Everything looks like business proceeding disturbingly close to usual.

No one cares that I look like a trashy whore wandering in from her street corner, but that’s about the only thing that doesn’t feel normal. Besides, with some of the costumes supers try to get away with they could just think I was going for a look if they weren’t being manipulated by Jesse. As it is I’m not sure they would notice or care if I wasn’t dressed much more than the chauffer.

Another good thing occurs to me as I approach the stairs up to Her office: no one seems to care or notice that Pink isn’t coming with me. In a few minutes they might notice there weren’t any passengers besides me, but by then I hope to be in a very important meeting not to be disturbed.

It might make the way out a lot harder than the way in, but that’s about par for the course. Maybe I’ll pull a birdie instead of landing in the sand trap for once.

When I was on Aurora duty some nights I would wake up with her and watch the Golf Channel. It was really good at boring the both of us right back to sleep. Aurora . . . If Pink hadn’t tried to toss my baby aside then I would probably be carrying Dust up these stairs instead of the hope for justice. It makes me feel dirty, but at the same time thankful that at least my parental instincts kicked in.

I hardly believe it when the door to her office opens without a hitch. Sure, I was supposed to come back, but didn’t I take a little long considering how good I used to be at this? Tanda was even better.

Have I been overestimating The Lady all these years, or has she just gotten sloppy?

“Tanda, did it go well?” Jesse looks up from behind her desk and pushes a long strand of blonde hair from her face. As soon as she’s looked up long enough to see me she looks right back down and rummages through what sounds like paper and metal. Not taking the time to change and get rid of this goddess awful makeup was at least good for something – she doesn’t suspect sweet little Tanda is not nearly as melted as she was when she left.

Sighing, I snap my fingers and flick my wrist towards her. Before she can even react a spark floats in front of each of her eyes and just in front of her nose. “You never, ever, ever got my name right. My name is Sarah Lucia LaSilvas. When I’m cleaning up the darker element of Midas . . . you can call me Silver Girl.”

“Sarah. Sarah, Sarah . . .” Unfazed by the sight of the sparks The Lady’s right hand slowly comes into view. Her hand isn’t remarkable, not anywhere near as gorgeous as her long slender legs still sweetly visible from under her desk, but the gun she holds up to her own head most definitely is. “Now, I know you, and you don’t want to be a murderer. Your sparks have a nasty habit of making people jerk, don’t they?”

Something deep within her dark eyes is cold that’s never been cold in my direction before. It’s as if something behind them just burnt out or shrouded itself in a thick layer of ice. Is this who She really is underneath everything else? Have I really been in love with that for all this time?

“How long do I have before they come . . . or did you even bother telling anyone what’s going on?” Her voice isn’t full of spite or disgust, it’s just completely devoid of warmth. I wonder if she ever found out the full story behind Chronos’s exposure. Does she think I did it to hurt her? Does she think I fought past her programming or that it was dragged out of me? I can’t imagine she asked Jade, much less had Mind Bore ask Nightshade.

If she even had a hint that Jade was the reason for Chronos being taken down I have the feeling she’d send her far more than a cold stare. I might just want to check up on her next.

For now . . . I did not see this coming. It makes sense that a woman like her would keep a pistol in her desk, but normally the villain doesn’t aim the gun at herself. Damn it. I should have just sparked her hands, sparked her eyes a little . . . She wouldn’t be out of commission, but it would be a lot harder for her to be holding a gun. “Damn you Jesse . . .”

Sighing again I snap my fingers and the sparks just burst in bright little displays of light that startle her just as much as their initial appearance. This feels so close, but so far away from the first time I tried to stop The Lady in her own office.

Money? You’re . . . You’re going to use me, and the others, to get more people, get more money to use them . . . But you wouldn’t tell me this if those forms hadn’t sealed something, or you just haven’t noticed that I’m coming into my prime.

What do you mean, coming into your prime?

It’s hard to ignore her legs, harder knowing who she is, but at least my mind is screwed on a little tighter. “I don’t even know when my backup will be here. Apparently everyone besides me already figured out what you were up to, or at least they were all a step ahead of me. People being a step ahead of me seems just another fact of life. Dust was already moved in on Olivia by the time I showed up. Pink was all ready to set up Aurora in an orphanage . . . But Mind Bore? Nightshade gave her one through the gut.”

Her dark, cold blue eyes don’t respond anymore than her lips. The hand holding her mortality on the edge of a cliff doesn’t shake either. Murdering is not something a heroine does. I’m not about to start now.

“If I were the one who’d started investigating your operation . . . there wouldn’t be anyone coming. Just you and me. I don’t need anyone else to stop you.” Of course, at the moment, I’m just out of ideas for how. Rushing her when she’s holding a gun sounds about as smart as sparking myself and begging forgiveness as a ruse.

Cotton pink legs.

Mmm . . . Nn . . . Damn it . . . Feels good . . .

Cotton pink legs, silver. Cotton. Pink. Legs.

Jesse’s lips slowly curve into a smirk. “Oh, I’m more resilient than you give me credit for . . .” From nowhere, touches start to ravish over my body, but I can’t see the source. Fingers twist and pull my nipples while hands knead and caress every inch of my breasts . . . hands kneading and squeezing my ass, fingers thrusting between my legs, tongues licking, fingers grasping, pinching –goddess! - every second there are more hands, more mouths, touching me everywhere just hard enough to feel perfect. “And I have very well placed panic buttons.”

I don’t fall to my knees – I’m pulled down. There’s nothing underneath me but I can feel something thrusting so deep inside of me when I fall and my scream feels like it could break glass. My eyelids feel like they’re being kissed and so do my lips, but it’s just so intense . . . I feel pulled in a million directions, filled . . .

“Nnnn . . . nnnnnaaa!” I try to rise up, but I can feel someone pushing me onto my hands and knees. Force wraps around my neck – that’s what it feels like, pure force, like a collar made out of solid air – and struggles to pull me down. It’s not choking me, not really, and when I struggle past the invisible chains grabbing at my wrists to try and tear the force away from my neck there’s nothing there but skin. “Fuckinggggg gyaaah!”

“Good little kinetic. Obedience over matter.”

You silly girl . . . What were you even planning to do?

Just . . . Want to . . . know what’s been happening . . . Brain hasn’t been . . . Mmm . . . Feeling quite right . . .

That’s because it’s my brain now.

It feels just like it used to feel when Jesse touched me: her lips touching over my body, her fingers clawing down my back, it’s just too good! It’s too familiar, it’s too . . . my eyes can’t look forward, I can’t . . . it’s so hard to . . .

I can hear them, in front of, me, vaguely see them when I struggle . . . Those balls, floating, clacking, a cacophony of them, a million, a thousand . . . goddess it makes me feel my uppercase crashing . . .

An unfamiliar voice moans to my left, and I take the only chance I see myself having. If these feelings don’t stop, I’m going to burst, and if I do that I know I won’t be able to stop. She’ll start clacking those balls on her desk again and I’ll lose it. Maybe if I’d taken the time to slide on some panties I could hold out longer, but . . .

My eyes open just long enough for me to see her. Brown hair, freckles, a nice rack, and she’s kneeling. Her hands are at her sides, but the intense gaze of her glassy eyes tells me all I need to know. I reach out a hand and desperately send out every last spark I can.

At once all of the touches stop and I hear her slump with a loud mewl. It’s hard to focus, very hard to focus, and it’s even harder to stand up. My eyes just want to roll back into my head, and I feel right on the edge . . . but I can hold out just a little longer. As soon as I stop her, I can go back home to Olivia, she might be awake, and then . . .

“Now, Sarah? Hands up.” As soon as my eyes can focus, the first thing they see is the barrel of The Lady’s gun trained on me. “I see a spark, and you won’t have any head to mind fuck anymore.”

Groaning, I slide my hands up over my head and sigh. I spark her, and she pulls the trigger. I don’t spark her and . . . The Kobayashi Maru looks like better odds at this point. At least that was just a simulation. “Right-o . . . Nice job on the panic button, by the way . . . Nice job on everything. So what happens now? Are you going to shoot me?”

“You know what, Sarah? I think I will.” Her telekinetic groans on the floor and twitches. She’s probably more than a little fried right now, but she’ll get better. I hope. Her thumb pulls back the hammer and one last flash of memory pulses before my eyes.

Tell me what you are, silver. Tell me exactly what you are.

I . . . I don’t know what I am . . .? I mean, I’m Silver, but . . .

You are silver. You are my silver. In your head you think of yourself with a capital first letter . . . but cotton pink legs now . . . Lower case that, you are silver when you are next to me. You may be Silver around others, but you are mine. You are here to make my desires fulfilled. That is what you do. That is your whole purpose.

I don’t have speed faster than a bullet. There’s no way I can use my sparks to get out of this one. My skin isn’t actually silver so I can’t take a bullet like Aureus can . . . but I can drop to the floor and send a volley of silver at her hand. It might make her fire and clench tight on that handle, but after it’s just as likely to make her drop the gun. All I need to do is disarm her, and this ends.

It happens in slow motion, like a dream or hallucination, but the sparks fire just before her muzzle flashes. I’ve already hit the ground, and a moment later the gun hits the ground too. She falls back into the chair and I stare with wide eyes.

Behind me, the hole in the wall is only an inch away from where my head was.

“I didn’t know you were such a good shot, Jesse . . .” Shuddering, I force myself to stand. My body isn’t shaking as much as I thought it would, and all of that helpless arousal from her slave’s attempted telerape drained away when I heard the gun fire. I send another spark into the girl on the floor as I step slowly towards The Lady.

Not giving up, she’s vainly trying to reach for the dropped gun. She can’t quite get her hand close enough to it, and I’m more than a little thankful. “I’m all right . . .”

I fire another spark at her hand, just enough for her to feel it – more as a warning – and lower down to grab the gun up first. A pitiful attempt or not, I am not looking forward to sharing something in common with the wall. “Part of me was thinking the gun had another surprise to it. Maybe I was just hoping.”

“Bullets work much better than anything else for getting people to stop bothering you for good . . .” She slumps further back into the chair with a sigh and lifts one of her legs up onto the desk. It’s such a transparently pitiful attempt I can see even she doesn’t buy it. “So now what?”

Holding the gun up in front of her I drop the ammo out and stare at the now harmless weapon. The Lady tried to shoot me. I never would have seen that coming in a million years. “Now . . .” I aim the gun at her, and slide several sparks into that empty barrel, more than enough to make it brightly shine. “I want you to tell me if I ever meant anything to you at all. I want you to tell me if you would have shot me after I brought you back Dust and Pink, if you knew this was going to happen. I want to know if I should feel stupid for laying awake at night and worrying about you.”

“Knew . . . this was going to happen? No . . . Shot you? No . . . Cared for you . . . Yes. Life turns out this way though, Sarah. We all make choices. I’ve made bad ones. I rather liked them . . . Up until they’ve gone so horribly.” She shrugs, looking so small and so weak melted back into her chair. It almost makes me feel sorry for her. “So the house of cards is falling down already? Well . . .”

“This doesn’t mean a lot now, but I never meant for it to turn out this way . . . I’m living a real life, I have a real family, and I’m finally learning who I am, but I don’t want to be pointing a gun at you. If you’d just . . . not done the same thing twice. However you broke out of prison? You should have just enjoyed it. Why’d you have to come back?” My hand stays steady, but the rest of me is shaking.

“But I’m not going to fry you. I’m not going to shoot you. I’m going to have you arrested. I always thought if I got a chance to talk to you, to really talk to you, I’d have so much to ask, but now . . .” With a flick of my wrist I throw the empty gun across the room and sigh. “What else would I have to say?”

She slowly stands and brushes down her skirt. It looks like such a normal gesture for the situation, and it almost makes me laugh. “Control . . . I like it. I thought I could do better this time . . . Sounds like I was just sloppy. I’m happy you have a life. I’m sorry I tried to take that away from you . . . but I don’t really apologize. I also don’t feel like going to jail.”

Just to make sure she doesn’t realize not frying her doesn’t mean I won’t spark her to stop her, I hold my hand out like a gun and sigh. “You didn’t care enough about me as me to really be trying to do anything . . . Anything besides make Jesse happy - and I don’t give a damn if you feel like it or not! You are going to jail and I am going to take you there.” My finger starts to sparkle and shine, and I have to swallow every other second. This is so much harder than it should be. She’s one of the bad guys. She doesn’t even feel any remorse.

“No, you’re not.” She slowly walks across the office and I can’t figure out why. There’s not a lot she can get away with at this point, so I don’t see the harm in it, until she stands in front of the large stained glass window. “But I do wish you all of the happiness in the world . . . Goodbye.”

“No!” She’s already rushing at the window, throwing herself against it before I can even start to run after her, but that doesn’t stop me. The platforms Pink strapped onto my feet don’t even slow me down as I give everything I have into one task: beating her to the ground. The glass shatters apart when her body crashes through, and I cover my eyes with my arms as I run through the hole her body made.

If The Domina could fly, then so can I. After coming this far, after all of the hardships, after all of the good times, it can’t end this way. I can’t let her die!

Her body looks so limp as she falls, like a rag doll made to look like The Lady, and I put everything I have into my sparks. I can feel every part of my body glowing and humming at once, and I can feel the speed kicking in as she stops getting farther and farther away and starts to get closer.

When my arms clasp around her I hold her tighter than life itself before trying to land. It’s not as easy as Olivia makes it look with her experience, but it’s a rush none the less. Jesse is heavy in my arms by the time we land, her eyes shut tight and her lips half open. Pieces of glass cover her, ruining the otherwise professional look she’s always had.

I press my lips to hers and give her one last spark to feel her muscles tense, and then go slack. I’d been saving this moment, my first public flight, just experimenting a little here and there, but I made sure no one would know about it until it was absolutely necessary. I told myself that anyway. Truth is it’s a lot scarier than it sounds to fly through the air, and my knees are sore from the landing.

Right on cue the cavalry shows up: police cars, ambulances and all. “I didn’t need anyone else to stop you, or save you Jesse . . . Your cotton pink legs are going to jail after all.”