Crouched deep in the closet corner, spandex clad knees shook with anticipation beneath his calloused hands. He couldn't believe he was hiding in a closet dressed in his Comic Con superhero costume. If any of his friends saw him dressed like this today... he shook his head at the thought.

Only she could talk him into wearing this costume on a normal day. Of course, she was the only one who knew the truth about him.

She thought he was a real superhero. Hmpf! What did she know? She was only eight years old.

He could hear her soft footsteps approaching. He'd grown to love her so much this past six months. She was so innocent, so delicate, so in need of someone to protect her. She'd become the little sister he never knew.

As he squatted there, waiting for her to pull the door open, listening to her last few approaching steps, her high-pitched scream startled him from his hiding place. He burst from the closet, panic creasing his masked face.

No! No!

Not now!

His body shook with rage; his jaw muscles swelled as his teeth clenched. Every step became the longest sprint of his life, yet his stride seemed to slow down.

Her scream muffled, grew distant, silenced.

No! The word flourished deeply within and then rose in crescendo.

He wasn't going to make it.

Not this time.

By the time he made it to the other room, she would be dead, just like all of the other times.

He couldn't save her.

She thought he was a superhero.

The door creaked after he turned the brass knob. She lay there, on the floor of her room, motionless, breathless, colorless. Flames licked the walls, circled the room, concealed her from his view. From the center of the flames, he heard it, the laughter, the taunting, the voice of the faceless man.

As the tears blurred the roaring flames, he relented to his grief. He couldn't fight it any longer. He wanted to give up. When he finally consigned himself to the thought, another voice called to him, the voice of a girl, "Unite, Gifted Ones!" and he peered through the watery flames for her face, for some hope, and there she was across from him.

***

The storm grew stronger as he woke from the nightmare, the Juniper tree above him little protection from the heavy drops. A puddle formed beneath his left side. Water trickled into his right ear through the needled branches, a tiny waterfall winding its way over the auricle into the canal. He could feel the cool November rain building, seeping through the black spandex covering his body. The cape served well to protect him from the cold wind, but did nothing to keep the water away from his skin.

What he wouldn't give for a rain slicker!

 On the plus side, the racing drops masked the tears trailing over his nose.

Whenever the nightmare brought him to the ledge of lunacy, her face loomed before him. That sincere, hopeful look was the only image that refocused his life.

He rolled out from under the evergreen and sat upright, allowing the hard rain to wash dirt, leaves and wet needles from his costume.

Through the panes of rushing water forcing their way down both sides of his forward bent face, lightning flashed, followed by a roll of thunder so near him the ground vibrated his crossed ankles.

Silently he wished the seeking arms of light in the storm would find him, strike him down, and end this nightmare.

In spite of the rogue raindrops racing over his cheeks, he wiped away hidden tears.

They had left him in charge of her.

They had trusted him with her life.

Worse, he had trusted them... both of them.

He closed his eyes to the images of the last time he'd seen the only other people he'd loved since his own family.

Never again would he trust anyone, love anyone.

Long strands of sable hair clung to the floating face so full of hope. The wavering image pushed through the depression, grief, anger all calling him to end it. "Don't give up," her voice fell softly into his thoughts through the drumming rain. "You are a hero," her opaque image smiled, a bittersweet lift at the corners of her mouth.

He scoffed, a harsh, ironic chuckle escaping his throat as he scanned the Comic Con costume he dawned, the outfit he'd worn the day he fled.

"Who are you?" he cried to the brown-haired girl, sobs disabling his sanity as he threw back his head to the drenching rains and screamed.