You know what would be cool?

Well, there are lots of things that would be cool. For example, me winning the lottery, but except for receiving a million dollars, I could get paid in chicken nuggets and breadsticks. Sounds like a sweet deal right?

But that's not the coolest thing I could think of. No, the coolest thing would be superpowers. Imagine having any superpower in the world. No, wait. Not just one superpower. Imagine if you could have multiple superpowers. For example, imagine having the ability to fly and be a shapeshifter. Oh look, there goes Obama chasing a bird again.

Or being able to read people's minds. Yeah, I agree, that chick's shoes so totally does not go with her dress.

Or being able to transport anywhere in the world. I could go to Taco Bell...in Iceland.

But I think the coolest thing would be being indestructible. No one will ever be able to hurt you. In the emotional, mental, social, and physical form, imagine never being destroyed. From heartbreak, from bullets, from crazy axe-wielding serial killers, you survive it all. Imagine surviving a five hundred feet fall from the rooftop of a burning hospital building to land on nothing but the cold hard earth ground.

Of course, I wasn't thinking any of this when Cage and I were falling.

I wasn't thinking at all.

Before and after, I gave no thought to what might happen next. All I knew was that the wind was whipping past me and my eyes were closed. And when I opened them again, the first thing that came into view wasn't the glorious gates of Heaven but instead, the glorious white ceiling of a hospital room.

I sat up so fast, the blood rushing down from my head made me see stars for a few shocking moments.

I was in a hospital room. That much I could make sense of. IVs and needles dangled from my arm and connected to a rack full of liquids. Monitors blinked on and off. There was a steady beeping sound coming from my left. I was dressed in a white gown printed with light blue cartoon bunnies (it was actually kinda cute) and I was in a hospital bed with white sheets and a blanket over me. Propped up on white pillows, the flat screen TV was across from me and the door was on the right.

The white walls were covered in posters and encouraging quotes that gave me no courage whatsoever. What it did give me, however, was a lot of anxiety and a desperate need to get out of here. I hated hospitals. Didn't I just jump off one?

My whole body was numb. When I shoved the blankets off me, I could see several cuts and bruises on my legs. My elbows were all scratched up. Nothing hurt. I think I might've been too spiked up on medication to feel anything, and for that I was grateful. I reached up and touched my eyebrow, the one I burnt off. It had grown back now. Somehow, that small victory made me feel a lot better.

I wiggled my pinky finger. It had a little silver cast because I assumed, somehow through all of this, I'd broken it at one point. Dammit. Of all my fingers, I had to break my pinky. I loved pinky fingers. They were so cute and little. Little things were cute. Little puppies, little penises, little cupcakes. How adorable. Oh yes, I was definitely stoned.

Where was Cage?

That thought alone snapped me back to the cold hard truth. We jumped off the roof of a hospital building. I marvelled at the realization that I survived the fall. Or maybe I hadn't and I really was dead and this was all just a dream.

Wow. I thought the afterlife was gonna be a lot cooler than a hospital. But hey, no complaint on my part. I got free pajamas with bunnies on them and a flat screen TV to watch all my Netflix on. This was actually pretty nice. Just as I was about to settle back and enjoy never having to go to school again, the door slammed open.

In stormed none other than Fern.

"Yo, wazzup?" I made my fingers into a peace sign and grinned at Fern from between them.

She looked so cute, standing there in a pretty pink sweater and holding Diana in her arms. I love my sister.

Fern gasped and ran to me. She placed Diana carefully on the bed beside me, and then threw her arms around me. Her perfume made my nose tickle and I sneezed right into her shoulder. She didn't even notice, she was babbling on and on about something that I was too high to listen to. I patted her shoulder nicely, feeling bad about sneezing all over her. In fact, I think I might have cried about it a little bit but I wasn't too sure. Everything felt like a dream.

Fern let me go and picked Diana back up, tears in her eyes. "Oh my God, November! I thought you were dead! You have no idea how scared I was. The nurses wouldn't tell me anything except that you were unconscious. God, I thought I lost you forever-"

"You found me again!" I grinned.

"Oh my God." Fern breathed. Her eyes and nose were red, like she had been crying. She pulled up a chair from nearby up to the bed and sat down, taking deep breaths. "I was so worried."

I became serious when I saw how serious she was. The drugs were affecting my ability to function, but worry crawled its terrible little way into my heart. I had more questions than I had time to speak, but I decided to try and come at this in a rational way. There hadn't been much rationality in my life ever since Cage Vickers invited his pretty face into it.

I picked at the cast on my finger. "Where's Cage?"

"What were you thinking, November?" Fern asked angrily, completely disregarding my question. I understood where her frustration was coming from. I wasn't going to win any 'Best Sister of the Year Award' anytime soon. But there were so many things I couldn't tell Fern. She clutched a sleeping Diana protectively and and fixed me with a desperate glare. "Please, just explain to me what you were thinking when you jumped off a goddamn roof with a criminal the entire world's been searching for."

"Fern-" I felt the sniffles coming on and I tried to shove them back, but my emotions took over. They always did and it was one of my biggest flaws. I better work on fixing that before it got me killed. After all, it was those stupid emotions that almost ruined my life. "-where is Cage? And Nick and Heath? What happened to them?"

Fern fell silent. She was quiet for so long that I began to fear the worst. Fern watched me carefully from where she sat. "I don't know, November. Ugh, it was all so sudden. I don't know half of what happened and I'm probably the last person to ask. But I do know that Nick and Heath are safe. I saw them last night at Polly Heights. They were a little roughed up but they're okay."

My panic increased. "And Cage? Is he..."

"I don't know, November." Fern repeated. "He's...not here."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that Cage Vickers is not here." Her voice was soft and wary of my reactions. "After you both jumped, the firefighters managed to put out a net just before you guys hit the ground. Except you landed half on the net and half on the ground, which explains all those bruises. And Cage...I don't think he was too badly hurt. As soon as he landed, he took off. The cops recognized him and they went after him. I guess someone tipped them off."

I cringed. I guess my plan hadn't worked after all. "I did. I called them before I went after Romeo with a burner phone that Cage gave me to call you. They had snipers watching Romeo from neighboring buildings. So I didn't exactly rush in to this without precaution, Fern. I was safe when I was up there. Except Cage got involved and the whole thing went sideways."

"Wow." Fern sounded impressed. "Nice work."

"Thanks."

"But that's why you both survived." She said. "The firefighters caught you both before you went splat on the ground. Heath tried explaining to me what happened but even he had no clue what was going on. All we heard was that Cage and you jumped off the roof of the Chicago Medical building which was on fire. And Heath...he also explained to me what happened to our parents and how Romeo tied into all of this."

I stared hard at the blankets, trying hard not to cry. "I wanted to tell you, Fern. I was going to, but I never found the right time. How do you even explain something like that?"

"I understand, November." Fern's voice cracked. She paused for a second, trying to maintain her composure just as much as I was. "Mom and Dad lived a secret life and it got the best of them in the end. We can't change the past."

"And Romeo? What happened to Romeo?"

"Well, Heath said that he got back on his helicopter and flew away before anyone could do anything." She said. "Heath said he was going after him after they found Cage. They took off after Cage disappeared. Last night was the last time I saw them. I don't know what happened after that."

I stared at the needles taped to my arm. The sight made me physically ill. "So Romeo's gone, Cage disappeared, and I'm alive."

"Why?" The anger in Fern seemed to come back. "That's my question. Why the hell did you jump off a building, November? And without any protection. You could have died!"

''Romeo's men filled the hospital with gunpowder. It was gonna explode." I sighed as if this type of thing happened every day. "Either way, we were going to die. Cage just decided that jumping off would be safer than staying up there. He was right, Fern. We survived."

"Barely, November." Fern whispered. "Look at yourself. Look at what Cage did to you. This is all his fault. He put your life at risk just to save his own. He's dangerous and an animal. He's a criminal, for goodness sake. Cage's got half the world looking for him. I'll kill him when I get the chance. I don't know why you haven't done the job yourself."

"What, kill him?" I asked in surprise.

"Yes! I would have."

"For many reasons, Fern!" I snapped. "I can't live with murder on my conscience. And another thing. Have you seen the size of Cage? He almost killed me on multiple occasions-"

"What?"

"-I can't take him on." I cringed as Fern's face got red. Trying to cover up my blunder, I babbled on. "Besides, Cage has more fighting skill in his pinky finger than I do in my whole body. And look, my pinky's broken." Pressing my lips together, I waited for Fern to speak. I couldn't risk telling her what really happened up on that roof and what transpired between us.

"Oh my God." Fern sighed deeply. "Listen, we'll talk about this later. Right now, I want you to get some rest. The police want to ask you some questions."

"No, thanks."

"Seriously, I don't think you have an option. They already know you have a connection to Cage. It's not gonna get any better. My advice to you would be to tell them everything. Don't dig your grave any deeper, November. Get out of this while you can."

"I don't want to talk about this anymore." I covered my face with my bandaged hands. The medication was wearing off the more I conversed with Fern. At this point, I wanted nothing more than a drug-induced bliss to take me out of the harsh reality. A little flower of pain blossomed up on the back of my head. What a mess I'd made. And all because of a stupid four letter word beginning with L.

"Then let's talk about something else." Fern said. "How are you feeling?"

"Happy!" I threw my arms up and smiled.

She all but rolled her eyes. "No, I mean, does anything hurt?"

"Nope."

"You look terrible."

"Thank you."

"At least your eyebrow grew back." Fern smiled.

"I know, right?" I glanced out the window. The shades were almost drawn so I could barely see out through the darkness, but there was about an inch of space that showed a part of a building. It was night out, almost 9 from what I saw on the alarm clock besides me. "Hey, how long was I out?"

"You slept for two days straight. The doctor thought you might have been going into a coma." Her voice was soft and filled with a concern I was all too familiar with. After our parents died, it was Fern who looked after me all these years. She had gained a protective instinct, one that was both useful and useless at times.

I straightened out the sheets over my legs. "And where are we?"

"We're on the second floor of the Collier Medical Center in Chicago." Fern replied.

"Hey, I've been wanting to ask this since I got back." I chewed my lower lip fretfully, trying to find the best way to approach this. It was a delicate subject and I had no desire to upset Fern again. "What happened to your husband Sam? The last time I saw him was a week before that night when I went out to get dinner and got myself kidnapped."

Fern looked taken aback for a moment. And then her face crumpled. She looked down at Diana, sleeping peacefully in her arms. "He's...gone. Sam left. He said that a baby was too much responsibility that he wasn't ready to have and he packed up and he left for Wisconsin to go back to his hometown. Sam was talking about seeing his parents again but really, it was just an excuse to leave me."

I frowned. "He abandoned you?"

Fern was slow to answer. She nodded, not meeting my eyes.

''It's okay." I swallowed back the lump in my throat. "Being around Cage, I picked up some useful murdering tips. I'll kill him for you."

Fern chuckled softly. "Thanks. I have something...else to tell you."

"Tupac's alive?"

"No."

I sat back, waiting for Fern to continue.

She looked embarrassed. "Heath...he...um, he....kissed me."

Picking up the glass of water on the table beside the bed, I took a sip. If I hadn't been so hopped up on medication, you bet your little butt I would have turned into the Hulk and started throwing things around. Or at least attempted to throw things around because even in my Hulk form, I was still probably weak as a newborn baby chick. It was a curse, really. Swallowing noisily, I said, "That's alright. I'll kill him, too."

"No, November." Fern's cheeks became even more flushed. "I-um...I...kinda liked it."

I noticed the packet of saltines laying beside the water. Picking it up, I tore it with my teeth and chewed it thoughtfully. Jumping off fifty floored buildings really gave you an appetite. With my mouth full, I smiled at Fern. "Is he your new baby daddy?"

"November!"

"I'll take that as a yes." I swallowed and then started coughing when the cracker got stuck halfway in my throat. Fern smirked and handed me the glass of water again. I took it gratefully. Just as I was about to take a sip, the door opened again.

A woman in pink scrubs with a white lab coat over it walked in. She had a stethoscope around her neck and held a clipboard. She was pretty, with brown hair and wrinkles around her eyes.

"Hello! I'm glad to see you're awake. My name is Dr. Fritz." She turned to Fern. "Are you her sister Fern Jones?"

"Yes." Fern nodded.

"Good. good." Dr. Fritz nodded back. I nodded too, just so I wouldn't feel left out. They both glanced at me but said nothing. She turned back to Fern. "Lovely to see you both. Fern, I'm afraid I am going to have to ask you to step outside for a minute. The Chicago Police Department has sent two officers out to talk to November, and they have requested to speak to her alone. Is that okay with you two?"

"Absolutely." Fern began to stand up.

Talking to the police was the last thing I wanted to do. I was going to be in as much trouble as Cage was, wherever he was right now. I had, after all, assisted them in hacking into the CIA database to retrieve the files from Jonah King. I had no idea what the sentence was for doing such a thing like that and I wasn't about to stick around to find out. As Fern closed the door behind her, the doctor turned to me.

"How are you feeling?" She asked.

"Fine."

"Good, good." Dr. Fritz said again. "Are you aware of what's happened? Do you think you are experiencing any memory loss? You didn't have quite the best landing from that roof, November."

"No, I think I'm good." I wiggled around like a worm for a second to show her that I was fine, but I think it might have given her more incentive to send me to a psychiatrist.

"Alright." Dr. Fritz walked around to the side of the bed to check something on the monitors. "I'm going to take off all of these-" She gestured to my arm full of needles. "-except for the IV. I'll have a nurse check on that later and if you are sure you're okay by then, we can take that out too. You've been unconscious for the last two days and that's been enough time for your body to heal properly. Also, the police might want you to check into the precinct as soon as possible and we don't want to keep them waiting."

I cringed as she began removing the tape that held the needles in place and began pulling them out. There were five on one arm and the IV in my other. It didn't hurt as much as I thought it would as she began pulling the needles out, but it was enough of an uncomfortable sensation that it made me squirm slightly. After Dr. Fritz had removed all of the needles, she checked the monitors again.

"Okay, I think you're good for now. In fact-" She leaned closer to the monitor and scribbled something down on her clipboard. "You might even be good enough to have that IV out. Is that okay with you or would you like for the nurse to take it out later?"

''No, you can do it now." I held out my arm to her.

"Okay." Dr. Fritz carefully peeled the tape off and pulled the needle out slowly. It was a fascinating thing to see, as gross as it was. She pulled the IV off the bag dripping liquid and placed it on the table. "If you're feeling good enough, you can get dressed." She pointed to a chair holding my clothes. "We will check up on you later, November. I'll send the officers up. Best of luck, my dear."

Dr. Fritz patted my shoulder nicely before leaving the room.

As soon as she was gone, I jumped out of bed. I couldn't wait for the police anymore. Keeping a watchful eye on the door, I yanked my clothes on. Dammit. That hospital gown was actually kind of cute. But hospital gowns with little blue bunnies weren't my problem now. My problem was getting out before the police came.

Evading law enforcement and sneaking out of the hospital I was supposed to be registered in because I jumped off a roof with a famous criminal was absolutely the worst idea in the world.

Which is exactly why I was doing it.

Pulling on my shoes, I crept to the door and peeked out the window. The hallway I was in was mostly empty except for the occasional nurse or visitor passing by. Opening the door, I slipped out. Dressed normally helped me blend in as I hurriedly made my way to the elevator. Just to be safe though, I ducked my head or pretended to be going the opposite direction whenever I saw anyone dressed in uniform.

Slipping into the elevator, I pressed for the first floor. Just as the doors were about to close, a man walked in.

I shuffled to the corner, my mouth dry. He pressed for the first floor as well. My arm was starting to ache a bit from all of the needles that had been in them. I tried to fix myself as best as I could, but it was hard. I hoped it wasn't obvious I was supposed to be a patient. The man glanced at me for a second and smiled.

The man had dark hair and wore a suit. He had a bit of what appeared to be white paint near the bottom of his ear.