He heard the click, that most sickening noise, and he knew trouble hadn’t yet left the room. There was swimming in his mouth, a faint aroma of burning, and his thoughts were warped like an injection of twisted metal. It had all gone so horribly wrong, and now it had come to this: a half-hearted explanation that it wasn’t really what it had seemed. Something about B-12, he had mumbled. “I can tell you’re lying,” the perpetrator sneered, “because your lips are moving.” His mind ached, reaching for the answer to the question that bit with a shark’s ferocity. What do you want? “Revenge. Always and only.” Still? Hadn’t it been long enough? It would probably be pretty good to assume those are dumb questions. But now that the heavy machinery was in play, it was best not to ask. He wanted so desperately go to back 24 hours and do things differently. He wouldn’t have taunted that French maid. He would have had the steak, not the chicken. And he would have brought at least one more heavy hitter with him into the brawl instead of conceding the power to a rival. But he had been cocky, a sure cover for fear. And he had lost when he should have won. This was no time for hindsight, though. It was all about looking forward and figuring out a way out of all this. The sun peeked through the window, a surprise to everyone. Sweet mercy, this already? The rays temporarily blinded his foe, and in that instant he launched himself at the piece and in one swoop turned the tide. It was a stunning reversal, and he now had a choice. What to do with this power? Let it corrupt him? Should he now have mercy? He felt the shadow, the untamed heat from the mouth. But he was not a killer. “Get out of here,” he said. “I never want to see you again. And tell your pal Fasolamatt to keep those links coming if he knows what’s good for him!”

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