"Sir, are you okay?"

Dominic fell onto the chaise that sat across from the marble counter of the private bathroom. He gave Walt a nod before his loyal aide turned back to the door and beckoned to Bauhaus, who had been monitoring the many guards scattered around the hall. Now, the security chief's priority was guarding Dominic from any physical threat that might have triggered his employer's sudden fainting spell.

"Should I get Civic? She's just down the hall in one of the hotel's conference rooms if you need her. For publicity's sake, I think it would be best to have you walk over to the room, but if you can't..."

"I'm fine, Walt," groaned the tired tycoon, who placed his face into his hands so his fingers could massage his temples. "At least my body is fine."

"What do you need then, sir?"

Dominic looked up from his palms and gazed at his dutiful sidekick. Though Walt was two years older than himself, he had never stopped referring to his employer as sir. Dominic could convince him to go with Mr. Cramer instead, but it would only last a month before Walt slipped back into old habits.

Walter Iverson was born and raised to be the man behind the spotlight. A long line of butlers, housekeepers, bodyguards, and assassins filled his family tree. The Iversons lived to serve and once they found the person, they deemed to be their "master," only death could end their service. Dom often wondered if some Gifted talent was the source of the Iverson family's dogged loyalty, but he had no desire to pry the information from him. Despite Walt's eccentricities, he really couldn't have asked for a better companion, and nothing would change that.

"I need," he answered with a sigh and a shake of his head, "you to tell me she was dead."

"Who, sir?"

"Mir... Elaina Hart, the woman from the woods. The one, I..." Dom rose from his seat and walked over to the sink. He turned on the faucet and placed his hands on either side of the basin. An image crawled out from the dark depths of his memory, a corpse clawing its way forward, its face consumed by its lifeless eyes and its neck marred by a scarf of blood. For a moment, he felt a pull in his stomach as the alcohol and his meager dinner swirled together and frothed to a boiling point. He swallowed hard and dipped his cupped hands into the water. He splashed it onto his face, the ice-cold liquid shocking his skin. With water dripping from the tip of his nose, he slipped his hands back into the stream, this time raising them up to his lips so he could sip the chilling water and wash away the guilt threatening to burst from him.

"I know the lack of a police report from the town of Needle Ridge has vexed you these past months," continued Walt, who watched his employer with an unconcerned expression, "but I would surmise that the Fortress removed her when Shockwave returned to find your armor. They would have canvassed the area and searched for the single witness to the attack. I cannot be so bold as to assume why they felt the need to remove her, but..."

"But, did they?" asked the frantic tycoon, his voice pleading for reassurance. "Did they remove her or was she not dead to begin with? I...I know what I saw, but I..."

"Take comfort in what I saw then," added Walt as he handed Dom a plush hand towel. "She did not move during the entire time I was in that house. Not a flutter of her chest, not a gurgling gasp for air, or a twitch of her body. The only thing that moved was the pool of blood that grew beneath her."

"But the knife," recalled Dominic. He turned from the sink and threw the wet towel into a gilded laundry shoot before beginning a nervous pace around the small room. "The knife, Walt, what happened to the knife?"

"Sir, I wish I knew how to provide a proper apology for my failure in retrieving the murder weapon."

"Please don't call it that," he whined, though he knew it to be an accurate descriptor.

"My offer to resign stands and..."

"Your offer to resign includes the necessity of either myself killing you or you committing seppuku, and I won't have either of those circumstances coming to fruition. That's off the table." Dom stopped his pacing and turned to face Walt to ensure the severity of his statement was understood. "Walt, I order you to never offer resignation again. Is that understood?"

"Yes, sir." There was neither grief nor relief in his assistant's statement. It simply was. Dominic knew that matter, at least, was finished.

"Now, I think, no, I'm certain, that you did, in fact, retrieve my dagger. Or you had the impression, the memory set within you of retrieving the dagger. You have never failed me in these matters and I know with an unflinching resolve that you would have burned that house to the ground in order to find the knife before you would leave that crime scene empty handed. No, the question is how did it go missing or was it ever even really there."

Dominic paused. He turned his face to the floor, his eyes assessing the mineral veins casting intricate webs through the marble as if an answer lied somewhere within the twisted threads.

"I held it in my hand, sir. I remember thinking the weight of the knife felt lighter than I recalled it being before placing it in the bag."

"Lighter?" he muttered as his finger brushed his lower lip. "It felt normal to me, but I'm not sure I recall how it felt when I slit her throat." He swallowed again and considered another sip of cleansing water. "I'm not sure I even remember holding it. I just remember the pain of betrayal in her eyes." He took a deep breath and faced his companion. "It's the same pain I saw outside in the party, except this time she's pissed."

"I'm sorry, sir. Are you stating you saw Ms. Hart at the party?"

"That's exactly, what I'm saying. She is alive, and she's come to collect." A shaky breath rattled his frame as he looked over his shoulder at the door that protected him from what was waiting to pounce. "Thing is, I don't know what she hopes to take from me."

"Is it possible you saw a relation? Someone who might have made the connection between Ms. Hart's death and you?"

"Except, as far as we can tell, no one has discovered she's even dead!"

Walt maintained his composed demeanor, but cast a wary eye to the door. Dom trusted his security team, but he tried to recall that a horde of gossip hungry socialites and elitists waited for him outside, eager to know why he quit his sparring match with Shockwave so suddenly.

"Besides," the billionaire vigilante continued, his voice low, but shaky, "she doesn't have family. Reports show that she ran away from home after her younger sister committed suicide. Her mother has lived at a psychiatric hospital ever since and her father has been MIA since before her sister was born. All the extended relatives have either willfully or unwilfully forgotten that she exists."

He shook his head and took a seat on the chaise.

"No, Walt, I'm telling you she is alive, somehow, and she is out there right now, probably waiting to..."

An unearthly sound, a roaring screech that fluctuated and mutated into a piercing cry, pulled the breath from Dominic. The screams of terror that followed had him flying from his seat and racing for the door.

"Walt, prepare my new suit," he called, before grasping the door handle, "I have a feeling I'm going to..." He pushed against the door, but met resistance. Not from a lock, but from something large and heavy pushing back against his efforts to leave.

"Let me out! What's going on?" Dominic shouted while hammering the side of his fist against the heavy wood. Another terrifying shriek sounded from within the hall. This time, the noise pierced his eardrums and his hands clamped over his ears out of instinct.

"Walt, are you getting anything from security?" he asked once he deemed it safe to remove his palms from the sides of his head.

"It's hard to get a clear response from them. The most distinct reply is from Rococo." Dom watched Walt press his ear piece deeper within his canal as the cries of panic grew outside. "She's telling Bauhaus to keep you inside. The rest are asking if Shockwave will be enough."

"Whatever it is, it isn't worth calling the Fortress over. I'm not having anymore Gifted crashing my party." He returned his attentions to the bathroom door and pounded another heavy fist against the wood. "Bauhaus, I'm overriding Rococo's command, you are to let me out immediately."

"But sir, you don't understand. It's...it's... I can't explain... I..." And then there was a scream. A wail of inexplicable pain that was punctuated by the sound of a heavy body writhing and tossing against the door.

"Bauhaus!"

"Sir, I don't believe opening that door is wise."

"Whatever is out there is going to come in here, eventually. We are wasting time hiding when we could be sizing up our enemy." Using his good shoulder, he pushed against the resistance still fighting the door. However, after a moment or two, the weight holding him back rolled out of the way and he fell to the floor as the door swung out from beneath him.

The fall reignited the pain around his ribcage and jostled his mending shoulder. With a groan, he planted his hands on the cool marble and turned to find a mass of feet scrambling down the hallway, cowering in the corner, and fighting to push their way through an exit. Tilting his head towards the ceiling, he noticed Shockwave zipping through the air, now free of his jacket and shoes. Dominic didn't have long to savor the deliciously troubled expression twisting Shockwave's cocky countenance. Instead, his eyes caught the floating mass of writhing tentacles that swirled around a cluster of bloodshot eyes, which floated over the chaos. Shockwave sent blast after blast at the creature, only for the wave of force to be batted away like a fly by the many fleshy limbs that flicked and snapped through the air. Then the alien mound rotated to reveal a gaping maw of long needle-like teeth that emitted another ear-shattering cry.

"Walt!" shouted Dom as he pressed himself off the ground and turned to face the bathroom he had just exited. In doing so, he glimpsed Bauhaus, who flopped like a fish beside the door, his hands slapping away the flames that engulfed his body.

"Walt?" he muttered, afraid of what he might find when he turned to face the restroom. However, to his surprise, he found his righthand man as calm as ever, despite the uncertainty darkening his honey-colored eyes. Following his assistant's gaze, Dom looked to the spot just behind him.

"Good evening, Cat," said the ghost of his savior, her eyes darkened by smudged mascara and her lush lips fighting to conceal a deep and damaged frown. "I would have met you sooner, but there was a fly that needed swatting."

She contorted her trembling lips into a devious smile as the monster conjured a portal and disappeared into oblivion. For a moment, the world stood still before cries of relief rang through the hall. By the time Shockwave thought to check on his rival's whereabouts, Dom had already disappeared, with Walt and Mirage in tow.