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[b][i]5 Months Later…[/b][/i]

When my father sent me to run the Lost Haven division of Winstone International, he made it perfectly clear that it was because I had become a liability after my “accident.” My dad has always been image conscious, and strange abilities that I started developing after I was struck by that weird bolt of lightning.

After I woke up in the hospital, that is…after the power surge in the hospital brought me back from the brink of death, my father could barely stand to look at me. After weeks of test after test, and finally the most grueling physical therapy I could imagine, I was cleared with a clean bill of health. But that wasn’t good enough for my father. He watched as my powers manifested and grew. 

He watched in horror as I learned to siphon electricity from any source, and as I grew stronger, he grew more distant. Of course, he kept “our dirty little secret.” He paid off Dr. Ross and the medical staff at Cedars-Sinai, and forbid us from talking about it at all, even when we were alone at the house.

I had always been my father’s Princess, his baby girl who he would move mountains for. And now, I was nothing to him. He could not stand the thought that his daughter, who he had always been happy to parade around like some sort of goddamn show pony, had suddenly become “one of those freaks.” As far as he was concerned, his daughter died that day in the hospital. 
When he told me that he was sending me to Lost Haven, he told me that it was time for me to grow up and embrace the family business. But I was able to read between the lines. He was sending me away so that he didn’t have to look at me. 

“Aww Sis, Lost Haven gets cold. Real cold. It’s gonna be hell for you.” My brother Jack had joked when I told him the “good news.”

I never had any idea that it would be a [i]literal[/i] Hell.

I couldn’t take my eyes off the massive flaming gateway that had appeared over Sherman Square, even as the screams from the streets below echoed in my ears. I’ve never been a religious girl, but this looked very much like the end of the world. 

There were people dying everywhere, and there wasn’t much that anyone could do about it. Then I found myself asking myself…

[i]“Shouldn’t I try?”[/i]

I must have been given these powers for a reason, maybe this was it? 

[i]”No.”[/] I told myself. I didn’t know what I could do. I’ve never tested myself. I’ve spent all this time trying to suppress my abilities, that I don’t know how effective they’d be. 

However, my internal debate was interrupted by a snarling sound, and when I spun to face the doorway to my office, I found myself staring at the hideous faces of four horned beasts. Their skin was redder than an Irishman after a day at the beach. Their massive black claws dripped with blood. They grinned as they moved closer to me, exposing their gnarled fangs. 

Suddenly, the air crackled around me. There seemed to be a certain charge in the atmosphere for a moment, and then my body exploded, sending bolts of electricity racing throughout the room. At first, the demons seemed to be surprised by the sudden activity, but then, the expressions on their faces changed. No longer were they reveling in the hunt, the predator had become the prey, and they were terrified. 

The electricity that left my body soon began to course through theirs, and within moments, the creatures that had just been terrorizing Lost Haven…the monsters that had intended to make a meal out of me, were nothing more than smoking husks littering the floor of my office. 

I stood there for several beats, amazed by what I had just done. I tried, and failed to put a coherent thought together. Then, one thought had finally begun to emerge from the haze that was my mind.

[i]I can do this.[/i]

But I knew that I couldn’t go out into the streets and fight these…things dressed the way I was. I needed a disguise. So I went into the closet in my office and grabbed the black leather trench coat that I’d been saving for the right occasion and put it on. But I still needed something else…so I took grabbed one of my father’s ties that I hadn’t managed to box up and send to him just yet, and after cutting out holes for my eyes, tied it around my face. 

I caught a glance at my reflection in the window as I made my way out of my office, and I was pleasantly surprised.

“Not bad.” I thought to myself. “If I manage to survive this thing, I may be on to something.”