Allie was taken aback when the man said he knew. “What do you mean ‘you know’? How could you possibly know?” She asked as her fingers found the smooth skin that had been previously covered in a burn. How did he take her burn? So many questions flew through her mind and his words pulled her from her thoughts. She took the paper and held it between two fingers.
She stared at the man’s handwriting, and part of her wanted to ignore the man but she knew he was trying to help. She hated when people tried to help her. She was a grown woman, and she could take care of herself. “Why-” Allie started, wanting to ask why he was helping her, but stopped herself, accepting the help. “Thank you. For helping. I know you could have ignored me, but you didn’t. So…thanks.”
“Because you’re not the first person to worry about where your next meal is gonna come from, or how you’re going to stay warm and dry, or what you’ll do if you get hurt, and you won’t be the last.” Lucan fell silent, watching as she inspected her now-healed skin, clearly trying to understand what happened. “…It’s like the firethrower, only he can throw balls of fire and I can heal people.”
“It was my fault you got caught in the crossfire,” Lucan pointed out. He thought he was smart going down the alley, hoping to avoid putting anyone else in the path of the firethrower, not to mention there would be fewer witnesses. But he was wrong. She got hurt as a result of that, and it had been up to him to fix it. Still, he added with a brief nod of his head, ‘You’re welcome.”
As her fingers felt the burned edges of her pant leg, her head snapped up at his comment. “So you’re some sort of metahuman? Do you only heal who you want to heal? Why do you feel the need to take on other people’s wounds?” Her questions were rapid fire, one after the other. She stopped at three, though there were many others she could have thrown out there. She tilted her head up too look up at the man, as mysterious as he was.
“It was just an unfortunate coincidence, us both being in the alley at the same time,” Allie spoke in an attempt to pull some of the weight off his shoulders and onto her own. “You don’t have to carry this all on your own, you know,” she kicked off her shoes before standing up and crossing to the bathroom. She couldn’t remember the last time she showered, and she was going to take full advantage of warm running water. “I’m going to shower, wash all this grit and grime off. Just…please don’t leave me,” she said, her voice wavering as she shut the door behind her.
Cisco backup 