Humans. Monsters. Heroes. Villains.

Chapter 9: Overnight Shipping

There are only three types of citizenship: hero, villain, nobody.
- Toba Beta

Adrienne's POV
After just about the worst day at work I had ever had - ever - I dragged myself out to my car, flopped into the driver's seat, and resisted the urge to fall asleep right then and there and just spend the night in the parking lot.

Unfortunately, I couldn't do that for two reasons. Reason number one, I had a meeting with Milo in an hour and I wasn't going to blow him off. And reason number two, I'm pretty sure that's illegal. Or at least prohibited by the Asylum.

I was kind of worried about what might happen if I tried to drive, but I started the car up and pulled out of the parking lot anyways. I had a very bad feeling that I was going to hit someone and not even notice until I got home and saw blood all over my car, but I drove as carefully as I could and made sure not to hit anyone. Or crash.

Still, when I got home, I checked the front of my car to make sure there were no severed body parts or blood stuck to it. Thankfully, there were not.

After that I managed to make it inside and to the couch before collapsing in a dead sleep. It felt so good. I didn't dream at all. It was possibly the most peaceful, deep sleep I had ever experienced in my life.

Of course, it didn't last.

I woke up less than an hour later to Milo gently shaking my shoulder.

"Adrienne...Addy...wake up..."

Groaning, not registering that it was him at first, I rolled over. "Go away."

He sighed. "Adrienne, please wake up. I know you're tired, but this is important."

I pressed my face into the cushions and shook my head, still half asleep. "Come back later. Like twelve hours later."

"There's no time. This is urgent. Please, Addy."

"Go away or I'll kill you."

"I'm not the Chimera, Adrienne. It's me, Milo."

"I don't care. I'm tired and I want to sleep and go away."

There was another sigh, then the sound of him walking away. For a moment I felt relieved, thinking this intruder was gone, and I could go back to sleep.

A moment later, the footsteps were back, this time followed by a cold splash of water that hit me directly in the face.

I gave a furious yell and toppled off the couch, now wide awake and seething with anger. That was freaking freezing! What was he trying to do, kill me?

I stood up and attempted to shake some of the icy-cold water off of myself.

"Why," I hissed, advancing slowly towards him, "did you do that?"

Milo, being used to my temper, didn't look the least bit intimidated as I stared him down. There was also the fact that he was taller than me, which probably made me a lot less scary-looking. My height was usually a helpful factor when I was angry, but not with him.

"You weren't getting up," he replied calmly. "I figured cold water would probably wake you up, unless you're some kind of mutant who's immune to cold. And water."

I squeezed a gush of freezing liquid from my long, sopping hair. "You could have done that without freezing me half to death!"

He shrugged. "This way was more fun."

Yeah, sure. Fun for him. He wasn't the one who had practically been turned into a popsicle by a bucketful of probably-below-zero water.

Having blinked the water out of my eyes, I could now see that he was smothering a laugh. Okay, yeah, it was pretty funny. If it had been me dumping water all over him, I would probably be rolling around on the floor in hysterics at this point.