Anita slid across the floor into the large pool of blood forming around. She gently lifted his head into her lap. His eyes gazed up at her with adoration. Tears streamed down her face as she heard his voice in her head.  

“I love you...”  

Then his voice was gone. His eyes lost their focus. Anita heard a high-pitched keening sound and realized it was her voice. A hand slapped her across the face. She blinked and looked up. Delila sat next to her, arms across her bare chest. Anita could see her lips moving, her mouth working, but she heard nothing. Delila slapped her again.  

“Snap out of it, goddamnit!” Delila yelled at her. Anita blinked at her; anger started to swell within her. Why couldn’t Delila let her mourn?  

“Because he isn’t dead, you bitch!” Delila wailed in agony.   

“I can’t hear him anymore,” Delila cried. She could feel the scream of agony and rage building up within her. Tears filled her eyes.   

“He is still there, but you have to act fast. You have to save him. YOU!” Delila yelled.  

“I’m no healer. I don’t know what to do!”  

“You fucked him last! You fucked the shit out of him. I can smell it on you. I can see it in your eyes. I can see the images of it in your fucking head! You have his spark. You have his abilities. FUCKING USE THEM, YOU CUNT!”  

“I don’t know how,” Anita wailed.  

“Close your eyes. Feel his injuries. Then, imagine them closing. Make it real. DO IT NOW!” Delila yelled as tears started to well up in her eyes.  

Anita closed her eyes. She pictured the injuries on Jacque’s body in her lap. She could feel the raw edges of his wounds. She pictured them closing. The damaged organs are being repaired. She heard Delila gasp. Anita pictured Jacque’s lungs reinflating, his heart beating again. She could see his spine growing back together.   

Anita felt a weariness seeping into her body. Her arms and legs ached. She squeezed her eyes shut, focusing on the image of Jacque’s internal organs growing back into place. Then the muscle reconnecting across his stomach and back. Next, she pictured the skin repairing itself. The flawless flatness of his stomach she had so admired.  

Anita heard Delila congratulating her. It sounded far away. She opened her eyes and found it difficult to do so. The room was so bright that the lights dazzled her eyes. She blinked, looked down, and saw Jacques's flawless body. His breath was shallow, but his eyes were closed. Blood had splattered across his chin. Anita looked over at Delila and saw that the other woman was crying, holding Jacque’s hand. Delila met her eyes, and Anita heard her soft voice thanking her. Anita watched as the world went grey, then black.  

Delila saw Anita’s eyes slip closed. She started to slump over backward. Delila reached out and grabbed her arm. The movement threw her off balance, and she slipped in the blood pool, falling over. She slid towards Anita, cradling her body against her chest. Delila slid and scrambled, trying to keep Anita from hitting the ground. Delila found herself lying on her back, Anita’s body cradled against her chest.   

Delila tried to sit up and slid. She put her hands down and slipped in the blood. Delila finally managed to sit up, holding Anita against her. She cursed. Behind her, she heard movement. She looked over her shoulder and saw George walking towards her, a look of concern on his face.   

Panic boiled inside Delila. Fresh tears welled in her eyes. She looked over and saw George nearly within arm’s reach. She saw the meat dangling between her legs and could not suppress a shudder of revulsion.   

“Don’t touch me! Don’t you fucking touch me! Get away from me!” Delila shrieked at George. He stopped midstride. His eyes fell on Jacque and Anita. Then he turned and walked away. Delila could finally get control of her breathing. Her body was shaking with rage and disgust. She cradled Anita against her bosom and cried, burying her face in Anita’s hair.  

George froze. He watched Delila cradle the fallen woman against her chest. She looked familiar to him, but he could not place her. He looked around the room, wondering where they were. Everything felt familiar and strange at once. George was sure he was supposed to know what was going on, but his mind was filled with a haze that he could not shake. Something had happened. The last clear image in his head was that of the blonde woman on Jacque’s desk.   

George felt his cock twitch, his loins aching as he remembered the beautiful blonde. He could remember seeing her, walking over, and pulling her body against his. The feel of her skin in his hands was intoxicating. His fingers tingled with the memory of her touch. His dick throbbed and pulsed with the memory. He had fucked her. George could remember that. Then things got weird. He could not recall what happened after that.   

George stood there, only a few feet from Delila, clenching and unclenching his fists as he strained to recall what had happened. There had been a voice in his head. It had not been Delila’s. He knew what she sounded and felt like in his head. Like velvet sliding along his skin. Comforting. Exotic. Intoxicating. He loved her so much that his heart hurt. The other voice, though, had been different. That voice had been commanding. Ordering him to do things he did not want to do. But he could not resist those commands. His body had done what she wanted, no matter how much he had tried to fight it. George had tried. He could remember it. A feeling of helplessness had consumed him as he could not stop himself from doing the things that the voice had whispered to him.   

In the end, he had surrendered to it. George had stopped fighting when he realized he could not win. He was not strong enough. Then, he had felt pleasure. The pleasure had wiped away everything else. It had been so intensely powerful that it had been like a drug he could not get enough of. He would have done anything for another taste. George had done anything asked of him, even though he could not recall what he had done.  

George turned from Delila. He could hear the soft sobs as she held the other woman to her chest. George’s heart ached to hear that sound. He knew he had been responsible in some way for it. He wanted to help her, but she had made it clear she wanted nothing to do with him. Turning his back on her, he looked up the black stone steps of the dais in the center of the room.  

Two men lay tangled on the steps. They were naked and unconscious—nothing remarkable about them. George walked towards them. They looked as though they had been thrown into each other, and neither appeared to be injured. George shrugged and continued up the steps.   

As he neared the top of the dais, George saw a naked young woman sitting on her knees. Her hands were pressed to her face, and her long blonde hair hung over her face and down in front of her large breasts. She was crying softly into her hands. He furrowed his brows. There was something achingly familiar about this woman.   

George climbed the last few steps and walked towards her. She turned and looked at him, her eyes meeting his. George’s heart pounded in his chest. He recognized her. The blonde from Jacque’s office! There was something different about her. She was somehow less than she was. There was a haunted look in her eyes, full of doubts and experiences. She looked him over, her eyes lingering between his legs at his flaccid cock, then she met his eyes. George felt his heart beat a little faster. The look in her eyes spoke of knowledge of him in an intimate way that he had only ever seen on Delila’s face. The blonde woman extended her right hand to him. George took her hand and sat down next to her.  

“Oh, George,” The woman moaned mournfully, “He took it all away from me.”  

The woman leaned into George and pulled his arm around her shoulders. She huddled against him, leaning her head against his chest.   

“Who? Who took what from you?” George asked.  

The woman looked up at him, her eyes welling with fresh tears. “Your brother. He took you from me, too.”  

“I remember you from Jacque’s office,” George said with a shy grin on his face. He frowned, trying to remember what happened after that moment. “Everything after is kind of a haze, though.”  

The woman reached up and gently caressed George’s cheek.  

“Oh, George, the things we did together,” she said softly. Her cheeks flushed, and her breath became shallow as a shudder ran through her body. “Nobody has ever filled me the way you did.”  

George blushed and turned away for a moment. Afraid to meet her eyes. When he looked back and met her gaze, he felt heat in his cheeks and lower. The look in her eyes spoke of a hunger for him in a way few women had ever looked at him. Delila hungered for him, but not like this. He had slept with other women. He and Jacque had had some fun escapades together. This woman, though, felt so familiar. The touch of her skin against his tugged at his memories. It was like the shadow of a dream that slipped from his grasp every time he reached for it.  

George turned back to the woman. He saw longing in her eyes and wished he knew what she wanted and how to give it to her.  

“I’m sorry,” George said softly, “I just don’t remember.”  

Tears spilled down her cheeks. Her piercing blue eyes seemed to peer into George’s soul. He suppressed a shiver but felt the weight of her gaze on him.   

“You changed my world,” she whispered. George scrunched his eyebrows. He was “The Shadow.” Nobody looked at him. Nobody paid him any mind until it was too late. But this woman saw him. Not only that, but she wanted something from him.   

“You may not remember,” she continued to whisper. George leaned closer to her to hear better. “But I remember.   

“I hated men. My father was a bastard. My mother always called him a dog. Said all men were dogs who only wanted one thing. When my powers awakened, they made her curse the truth. But not you.” She met George’s gaze. There was something desperate and painful in her eyes. “You surrendered to me like no one ever had before. When I asked you to do something, you didn't question it; you just did it. I asked you to kill your brother, and you tried, but he ran. When you failed, you did not ask for forgiveness; you just came back to me and asked what was next.  

“When you made love to me. Your powers filled me.” The woman’s eyes closed as she shivered. When she opened her eyes, the tears trickled down her cheeks. “I had never felt anything like it. I felt our powers merging somehow and becoming something more. I let you use me however you wanted. And you did. Oh God, you did.”  

George stared at this woman. His heart thumped heavily in his chest. He felt the muscles of his lower body tightening. He took a shaky breath. His jaw was working, but no sound would come out. The woman reached up and placed her hand on his face, tenderly cupping his cheek.  

“I know,” she whispered, “you don’t remember. But I do. I remember everything. I remember you merging with the entire building. Your powers grew with mine. We offered everyone in this building a choice. To join us or leave peacefully. We did not force anyone to do anything they did not want to do. I felt you enter so many of those women. Filling their bodies with what you had to offer. What we could offer them. Peace. Tranquility. Ecstasy.”  

The woman turned to George; her large breasts brushed his knee. A shiver ran down his back as he gazed at her beautiful body. Her creamy white skin was flawless. She reached out with her left hand and cupped his balls, gently squeezing them. Then she wrapped her fingers around his cock and gently squeezed. George closed his eyes. Her touch was tender and confident. Her eyes stayed locked with his as she squeezed and stroked her manhood. He watched her bite her lip as she gently stroked him.  

“I remember this, too,” she purred as she continued stroking him. “Only it was larger—the largest I have ever seen. I thought you were going to rip me apart, but when your powers merged with mine, I could heal. I begged you to give me as much as you could.”  

Her eyes glazed over, her body shuddering at the memory of the experience. George felt his cock throbbing with need. He wished he could remember. He had always dreamed of doing what she described. It was his secret dark fantasy. George had never voiced it. Never dared to think about it, afraid Delila would sense those thoughts and be disgusted with him. To think that not only had this woman convinced him to tell her about it, but that she had let him. A shudder of desire ran through his body.   

George opened his eyes, not realizing he had been squeezing them shut, as she continued to stroke him. He met her gaze. Her eyes were full of the knowledge of what they had done. He could see it there, staring back at him. She licked her lips and smiled at him. That smile sent a thrill from the top of his head down to the bottoms of his feet.   

“Yes,” she whispered. “I want you to take me like that again. I want to feel you filling my entire body with yours. I want everything you can give me. I don’t care if it kills me.”  

George gulped. “I care.”  

George paused and looked towards the open doors leading into the room. The woman before him turned her head and looked in the same direction. She heard it too—the sounds of boots in the hall. The doors burst open. A half-dozen men in body armor carrying semi-automatic rifles burst in. They looked towards where George kneeled and raised their weapons.   

On instinct, George stood, reaching his hand out to them. The ground before them rumbled, and a wall grew up between them. The sounds of gunfire erupted, shattering the silence of the room. George concentrated on the wall, wrapping it around the men, preventing any of their shots from coming into the room. He imagined the outer surface of the wall as soft and porous, stopping the bullets and preventing them from ricocheting around the room.   

When the gunfire stopped, George dropped the wall back into the floor. The spent rounds pooled along the floor, inert. The SWAT team stared around the room in shock. Their weapons were no longer pointed at George and the woman.  

George looked at the beautiful woman before him. She showed no signs of fear. She met his calm gaze. He could see a yearning hunger in those eyes.  

“I’m sorry, I forgot your name,” George whispered.  

“You never asked,” she responded. She took a deep breath, which hitched softly with some powerful emotion. “Natalie. Natalie Wood, but you can call me Nat.”  

George cocked his head to one side. That name sounded familiar to him. “Natalie. A beautiful name for a beautiful woman.”  

Nat chuckled softly. “Are you flirting with me?”  

George shook his head and slowly stood. Very conscious of the SWAT team with their weapons still pointed at the floor. He had no wish to spook them. Not that he could not stop them, more that he did not want to have to. George offered his hand to her. She took it, and George felt a spark of something pass up his arm as their skin touched.   

Nat turned into George, wrapping her arms around his waist. She used her body to conceal his rather large erection. As it pressed against her skin, she shuddered at the feel of it. Nat tried to keep her eyes glued to his face, studying his reaction, but she could not stop a small involuntary flicker down to the meat pressed against her. George watched her, then looked at the six men standing in the doorway. They eyed him nervously.  

“Officers,” George called out to them, “There is no threat here. My brother needs medical assistance. Can you help him?”  

“There is a medical team on their way,” One of the men replied. George nodded as he wrapped his arms around Nat and pulled her against his body. She exhaled sharply in surprise but leaned into him, enjoying the feel of his body against hers. George felt his cock throb against her body. The press of her chest against his made him ache for her. He fought for self-control and won.   

A few minutes later, another team of people came into the room. They swarmed over Delila, Anita, and Jacque. Delila was crying as she asked them for help. George observed her, holding Nat in his arms. His eyes burned. He wanted to hold her and help her, but the few times she looked his way, he could see the rage on her face. George knew she would not tolerate his help. They brought in two stretchers and carried out Jacque and Anita. Delila followed, huddled in a blanket. She shot baleful glares at George.  

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