Without A Trace (Open Novella Contest) [Completed]

Chapter 4: Because you're the kind of best friend everyone deserves.

They let me take a shower. It felt nice to finally be able to feel warm water gliding over my skin again. They even let me shave. It felt like being home. In a weird sense, it felt like I was finally myself again. The madness dissipated. As I had expected it would. That shower had fundamentally altered my personality. I now valued freedom. It was weird but I did. I liked how freedom made me feel. I understood the price of freedom. Freedom didn't come easy.

I was given a fresh set of clothes. I'm pretty sure they're Dave's. They looked like they belonged to him. Gray socks. A great pair of jeans. A full sleeved t-shirt. And a pair of clean boxers.

I loved how it all smelled like freedom. Ah, I've been locked up too long.

"How do you feel now?" Dave asked as he walked into the interrogation room I was now being held in.

"Better. You?"

"Not like shit." He nodded. This was going to be fun I guess? The kind of fun I had been waiting for.

"Tell me about your powers." He said.

I smirked. This had to be fun.

"It's what everyone wants, isn't it? The power to know, to just know without really being able to explain how they know. To know the future, to know how it affects the past."

"Cut the crap. I know you're not that powerful." He was right. I was so much more powerful than that. I could change the course of the future. I could change the present. And yet this place somehow managed to keep me locked up for a week.

"Why do superpowers not work here?"

"Next question: What do you know about Lemon Sherbet's explosives? Can you build them? Do you know how she structured them? Do you know where she hid her last shipment of--"

"You didn't answer my question." I interrupted him.

"I don't have to." He said coolly. His eyes flicked to my hands before flicking back to my face.

"You know the problem with a chamber that doesn't allow superpowers is that you're stuck in a room, powerless, with a normal guy who has some severe anger issues, Dave." I had convinced myself that I could fight Dave off. I was bored anyway. Yes, it's a bad idea and I probably won't follow through because I perfectly understand the implications of starting a fight.

"You would never." His confidence made me want to prove him wrong. Just to see the utter disbelief on his face. But I held it in. I held my mind together.

I was in control.

"Tell me about yourself, Arthur." He said, leaning back in his seat. He was trying to look relaxed. But his twitching fingers betrayed him. His eyes were fixed on me firmly. But it took almost all of his self control to not look away.

"I was born on my birthday, somewhere in the middle of somewhere, I went to school, had a crush on my teacher, that didn't work out. Ever since, my love life has kind of been a mess. I've had trouble holding on to people. I suppose it's because I can't really show anyone who I am. Who I truly am. My band broke up because of me. I was just not the right fit and that's kind of a problem when you're the lead vocalist and songwriter. So yeah, that's why I have no friends, first I was the kid in the not very good band and then I was the kid who broke up the not very good band, not a great impression--" My favorite part of making up stuff was the look on Dave's face. He was in more pain than I could have caused him by using my fists.

"You're not going to talk, are you?" He sighed. His hopes and dreams for a look at the freedom I was experiencing, had been shattered.

"Oh, but I am talking. Dave, I haven't been to therapy in over a week, I have to let this out."