12. What could it mean, the number 12. It loomed over Vela's head in a menacing manner. This was Vela's power. She saw numbers over people's heads. These numbers counted down to something bad, always. It wasn't always something catastrophic. Vela once saw the number 5 flash over her father's head and 5 minutes later he got a paper cut. Sometimes, though, it was dangerous, like when she saw a 10 over a stranger's head on the street and exactly 10 seconds later that man was hit by a car.

The current time was 9:52 AM on May 1, 2018. She had to jot down the information quickly because the number above her head would disappear soon and she needed to get the time that the number was in reference to. This was Agnes's worst problem. She always saw the numbers but never saw a unit of time.

You can't just walk up to someone and say that something will happen to them in 10. 10 what? They always want to know. Is is 10 seconds, hours, years, decades? They'd be dead of old age by then anyway so why should they care. Vela had tried going the hero route when she first discovered her power, but it didn't work out. She realized quickly that it was better to just ignore the numbers.

Vela couldn't, however, ignore a number that flashed above her own head. Especially since this was the first time she had seen a number a above her own head. Seconds was ruled out. Vela had already spent more than 12 seconds thinking about this problem, and nothing bad happened. The next to rule out is minutes. 12 minutes would make the time of the incident 10:04 AM.

A knock came suddenly ad Vela's front door. She checked her watch instinctively. It was a high tech digital watch that told her the date and time down to the millisecond. It could switch between times in four different time zones. The current time was 9:57 AM so whatever or whoever was waiting for her on the other side of the door would not hurt her, at least not immediately.

She walked up to the door and checked the peephole first. It was the cops, dang. It was possible that in the next 7 minutes they would find a reason to arrest or taser her. Both of those options were better than death so she opened the door.

"Vela Thomas?" A tall cop with a too bushy mustache and a not deep enough voice asked. Vela was all of a sudden hyper aware of the gun at his waist. There was still a possibility of this moment ending in her dead in 6 minutes and 52 seconds.

"That's me." A shaky voice came out as Vela answered. She glanced once more at the gun at the cop's waist and gulped loudly.

"Would you mind accompanying us down to the station? We have some questions for you." The cop replied, his stern face never wavering.

"How long does it take to get there?" Vela asked as she checked her watch once more. A surprised expression flashed across the cop's face before it quickly returned to stern.

"10, 15 minutes at the most." He said. Vela looked out past the cop. In her front yard was one police car with a cop leaning on the hood. Neither of the cops had numbers over their heads. This meant that either nothing would happen when she was with them, or they were going to get into some sort of accident where she was the only one injured. Either way, she couldn't really say no to the request of a police officer.

"Let's go..... Officer Harrington." She said as she finally looked down at the cop's name tag. She stepped out of her house and flinched as Officer Harrington put his hand on her shoulder. 5 minutes left.

Vela sat in the back of the cop car with her vigilant eye on everything. The car doors didn't open from the inside and there was a glass pane between her and the cops up front. It was probably bullet proof glass. If they crashed right now, the cops could easily escape, leaving Vela for dead.

"Please drive safely." Vela said to the cop behind the wheel, Harrington's partner.

"I'm a police officer." He said as if that would calm Vela's worries. She didn't reply. Instead, she checked her watch again. 4 minutes left.

"Do you have somewhere to be?" Officer Harrington asked. He turned around and stared at Vela as if she were on thin ice.

"No. Of course not." Vela replied. She checked her watch once more very quickly. 3 minutes and 13 seconds until possibly something horrible happened.

The cop turned back in his seat to face the front and Veal was left to contemplate in silence. She stared at her watch and counted each second as it went by. It was excruciating. At the 10 second mark, Vela's head shot up. She was vigilant for any possible dangers. In the next lane, there was a city bus full of passengers. The driver had his mouth open in a large yawn.

He was sleepy, too sleepy. He could nod off and the bus could go careening into the intersection causing a 20 car pile up that Vela could get trapped in. Frantically, Vela looked at each person on the bus. A couple of them had numbers over their heads.

There was a toddler licking an ice-cream cone with a 7 over her head. Vela imagined that in 7 minutes the toddler would drop her ice-cream and be utterly inconsolable.

An old man sitting behind the toddler had a 2 over his head. Numbers over the heads of old people always made Vela think of death.

Seeing numbers over only some of the bus passenger's heads calmed her worries of a bus crash. Vela went back to watching her watch.

5, 4, 3, 2, 1 the cop car glided through the intersection without consequence as the 12 minutes ended. Vela breathed a sigh of relief.

If it wasn't 12 seconds or 12 minutes, then Vela needed to watch out for a disaster in 12 hours. The number initially showed up at 9:52 AM so 12 hours would be 9:52 pm.

By the time the cop car pulled up to the police station, Vela had forgotten they were even headed there. She was too busy deciding if she should hide in the her house for the rest of the day or not.

"Come with us." Officer Harrington said as he opened the car door for Vela. Now that the threat of danger was safely 11 hours and 45 minutes away, Vela could focus on why she was brought to the police station. She had never broken the law, to her knowledge.

Vela was escorted into an interrogation room with three walls covered in mirrors. Vela assumed they were 2 way.

"Do you recognize this man?" Officer Harrington's partner slid a picture of a man with his eyes closed toward Vela.

"Is he dead?" Vela asked, shocked and confused.

"His name was Brad Fallow. Ring any bells?" Officer Harrington asked. It did not ring any bells for Vela. She shook her head.

"Really? Because according to his fiancé, you told him he would die in 4 years and that was exactly 4 years ago." Now Vela remembered. She looked at the picture one more time to make sure. It was definitely him.

Vela met this man 4 years ago. It was when her power was new. Back then she thought the numbers marked people for death. At the time, she also stupidly believed that the numbers indicated years left of life. So, in an effort to be a good person, she warned the man in the picture that he would die in 4 years. Apparently she had been right. It was a lucky guess.

"How did he die?" Vela asked.

"We were hoping you could tell us that." Harrington's partner glared at Vela with an acidic gaze.

"Am I under arrest?" Vela asked nervously. She eyed the door behind her in the only wall that was not a mirror.

"Should you be?" Harrington asked.

"Of course not!" Vela exclaimed. She stood from her chair angrily and pounded her fist on the table.

"You need to calm down." Harrington said sternly. His partner's hand flew to his belt where his gun was holstered. Vela wasn't scared. She had already passed the 12 second and 12 minute mark and the 12 hour mark was some hours off. Nothing was going to happen to her yet.

"I want to leave." Vela said with her courage overflowing.

"What?" Harrington asked. His partner dropped his hand from near his gun and looked at her quizzically.

"If I'm not under arrest then I don't want to stay. You can't hold me here right?" Vela asked. Officer Harrington looked at the 2 way mirror on Vela's left. Two swift taps sounded on the mirror, obviously from the other side.

"You may leave." Harrington said as he nodded toward the 2 way mirror.

Vela didn't want to give anyone time to change their minds. She lunged for the door and pulled it open before anyone could say otherwise.

"Hold it!" Harrington's partner began, "Don't leave town."

Vela stared back him with wide eyes. That was the most cliché thing she had ever heard, but it was also horribly intimidating.

She turned and speed walked away from the two officers in the interrogation room. To make sure she wasn't being followed, she looked back at the interrogation room. While her head was turned back, her legs continued forward and she barreled into another person.

"Hey! Watch it!" The man yelled. Vela looked at him and took a step back out of shock. The man was much much taller than Vela and scowling down at her intensely. This was not what scared her, however. What scared Vela at this moment were the numbers above the man's head. That's right, there were numbers, plural.

When she first looked, Vela saw a 2 over the man's head. It stayed for about a second then it changed to a 4. The 4 quickie became a 7 and then a 1.

Every time Vela looked at this man the number above his head changed. Either he was going to have a lot of bad things happen to him or the one bad thing that was meant to happen couldn't decide on when it would happen.

Vela had never seen something like this before. She had seen many a number above people's heads. But those numbers showed up one at a time, stayed for a few seconds, and the left. This man had multiple numbers at once. Vela needed to know what these multiple numbers meant. If a dangerous situation could be changed or postponed in any way, Vela was very interested.

"Can I get a ride?" Vela asked in a voice that blurted out of her mouth a little too loudly. The man looked at her with surprise.

"Didn't your mother teach you not to get in cars with strange men?" He asked her. For a second he turned his back to her and talked to a female officer behind a window. The officer handed the man a plastic bag containing a wallet, some car keys, and a baseball cap.

It was obvious to Vela now that this man was getting out of lockup. Her mother had told her not to get in cars with strangers, but her mother wasn't here right now.

"I need a ride." Vela reiterated. The man, with plastic bag in hand, shrugged his shoulder and walked out of the police station. Vela took this action as an invitation and she followed him.

The man walked across the street to the park adjacent to the police station. He climbed into the front part of an 18 wheeler truck. Vela climbed into the passenger seat.

"The name's Ted." The man said as he started up the truck.

"Vela." Vela replied.

"Where to, Vela?"

"I'm not sure yet."

Ted shut off the engine.

"How can you not be sure?"

"Have you ever been accused of murder, Ted?"

"Excuse me?"

"I was implicated in a murder and I need to talk with the person who pointed the finger at me." Vela said this calmly but Ted still looked at her like he wanted to jump out of the truck and run away screaming.

"Look kid, I got nabbed on a drunk and disorderly in the park last night and earned myself a night in the clink so if you think that I'm into dangerous stuff you're dead wrong." Ted said as he leaned away from Vela as far as he could.

"I'm not in to anything crazy either. I just need to get this figured out in the next," Vela checked her watch, "10 hours."

Ted was tense as he looked at Vela's small frame and intense eyes. Finally, he relaxed and started the car again.

"Fine, but I'm only offering a ride. Once you're out of my truck, you're off my conscience." He said sternly.

"1717 North Lane." Vela replied.

"What?"

"That's the address where we need to go."

"How did you find it?" Ted asked, shocked.

"Google." Vela replied nonchalantly. Ted shook his head in disgust.

"Google is going to take over the world soon." Ted said with an exasperated sigh.

They spent the entire ride in silence. When they finally reached their destination, Vela realized something very disappointing. She didn't have a plan. So far she had been running off of the adrenaline she got from climbing into a car with a stranger and the fear she felt when thinking about the number 12. There was no real thought put into this entire situation. 

Vela took a deep breath and opened the car door. She forgot it was the front cab of an 18 wheeler and she didn't adjust for the extra space between the bottom of the truck and the ground.  Immediately, she face planted to the ground. It hurt, a lot.

"Are you ok?" Ted asked from inside the truck. Vela picked herself up off the ground, brushed some rocks off of her face and forearms, and looked up at Ted. The numbers continued to flash above him. 8, 2, 9, 7, 6; in fact the were beginning to flash faster. It was almost hypnotizing for Vela. 

"Yeah, I'm fine." Vela replied as she broke herself out of the number trance and stood up. 

"You have a plan for this right?" Ted asked curiously.

"I'm out of the truck so I'm not your problem anymore." Vela said as she stalked up to the door.

"Right........ But do you have a plan?" Ted asked, craning his neck out of the window to continue watching her.

"Yep. The plan is to not die." Vela said as she reached the front door of 1717 North Lane. She raised her fist to knock on the door.

"Wait!" Ted yelled. He hopped down from the truck and stood next to Vela at the front door.

"What happened to 'not in my truck, not on my conscience'?" Vela asked in a mocking tone. 

"Trying not to die is the worst plan I've ever heard. If I see you on the news tomorrow, dead, after leaving you here alone, I won't be able to live with myself." Ted said.

"Suit yourself." Vela replied as she knocked on the door.

Vela thought the door would open slowly. She thought a mild mannered almost-widow would open the door. The last thing she expected was to end up with a double barrel shotgun in her face. 

"Whoa, whoa! Let's all just calm down." Ted said with his hands up in the air.

"I see my fiance's murderer walking up to my front door with some extra muscle by her side and you expect me to not hold her at gunpoint!?" The woman who answered the door replied.

"Cynthia Whitby?" Vela asked in a surprisingly calm tone. She still had 9 hours to spare until whatever was supposed to happen would happen. 

"I'm Cynthia." The woman replied. Her shotgun never wavered from its aim at Vela's forehead. 

"I didn't kill you fiancé and you know it! I haven't seen either of you in 4 years!" Vela exclaimed. 

"Get in the house!" Cynthia hissed, gesturing with her shotgun. Ted and Vela did as they were told. They didn't have much of a choice otherwise. 

"How could I have killed him? I didn't even know his name until now!" Vela yelled.

"I wouldn't be so cocky in the face of a gun?" Ted whispered. Vela ignored him. 

"I've got 8 hours and 49 minutes." Vela said loud enough to confuse everyone in the room.

"You are an evil sorceress! 4 years ago you came out of nowhere, looked my man in the eye, and told him that he would die on the exact day that he did die. You cursed him!" Cynthia exclaimed. At this point her gun did tremble and it made Vela a little nervous. It was too late for nerves now, however. The words 'evil sorceress' were hanging heavily in the air. 

"Evil sorceress? That's insane." Vela said with a chuckle, an awkward chuckle but a chuckle nonetheless. 

"You walked up to us on a sunny Sunday and dropped a deadly death bomb on us. Do you know what happens when you tell someone how much time they have left in life? It's one of two things. They either get scared and refuse to leave the house for fear of death or, knowing the date of their demise, they become reckless. My Brad was the latter. After meeting you, he took up sky diving and BASE jumping. He went swam with sharks and hunted wild game. One day he went out with his friends on another adventure and never returned." Cynthia said as tears began to stream down her face. She leaned against the sofa behind her and lowered the shotgun. 

"Sounds like your fiance's death was just an accident, a thrill seeking accident." Ted said absentmindedly, forgetting about the gun.

"You're wrong! He wouldn't have ended up this way if it wasn't for her. He was a good man, a gentle man! But the looming fear of death drove him mad! I told him to forget about it. I told him she was crazy and knew nothing of the future but he just couldn't let it go! He said her eyes were too honest!" Cynthia screamed as she raised the shotgun once more. This time, however, the gun was aimed at Ted's face instead of Vela's forehead. Vela followed to gun barrel to Ted's head where she saw another number over his head. This time the number didn't change. Above Teds head was a large, red, blinking 0. 

Whatever was supposed to happen to Ted was happening now and Vela could not allow it. The psychedelic number show that had happened above his head had given Vela hope. Now, she was pretty sure that her own selfish decisions had caused the flashing 0 to appear over his head now.

"No!" Vela exclaimed as she jumped up. Without much thought, she bum rushed Cynthia and knocked the gun away from Ted's face. Cynthia, however, was not ready to give up without a fight. She held on to the gun and fought back against Vela. With both hands firmly on the gun, Cynthia knocked Vela to the ground and pressed the shotgun horizontally against Vela's throat. Vela kicked frantically against the gun's pressure but the other woman had the upper hand and Vela's severe lack of oxygen due to being choked by a gun left her lacking in the strength department.

"I still have 7 hours." Vela said as she could feel her consciousness slipping away. Although her vision was starting to dim without oxygen, she still had enough sight to see Ted run up behind Cynthia and smash a porcelain vase over her head.

Cynthia was successfully knocked out by the vase but not before her fingers, which were wrapped around the trigger, tightened. The gun fired and buckshot sprayed out all over the room. Most of the spray flew into, and got stuck in, the adjacent wall. A small spattering flew upward and hit Ted in the shoulder, causing him to let out a blood curdling scream.

The last of the buckshot, in an unusual and unfortunate series of events, hit and bounced off of the leg of a brass coffee table. The change in trajectory had the buckshot headed straight for Vela who, due to a lack of oxygen, could not even try to move out of the way. Her eyes took the brunt of the blow. She wanted to scream but she hadn't regained enough oxygen to do so. Instead, she closed her paining eyes and let her ears do the rest of the work.

Ted had only been shot in the left shoulder. That wasn't even his dominant side. He used his good arm to hook under Vela's relatively limp body and pull her out of the house before Cynthia had time to wake up and reload.

Ted managed to pull Cynthia into the truck. Once safely locked in, he remembered to call 911. Upon pulling his phone out of his pocket, he found it full of buckshot holes. If they were going to get the help that they definitely needed at this time, Ted would have to drive them there.

He took a deep breath and started the engine of his truck. There was blood streaming from Vela's eyes. Ted saw it but couldn't do anything about it. He needed his one good arm for driving and shifting gears. He had no way to hold pressure on his bleeding wounds.

Thanks to his adrenaline, Ted didn't notice that his own wounds were bleeding just as much as hers. As he weaved through traffic to get to the nearest hospital, the amount of blood streaming from his shoulder wounds increased as his heart rate did the same.

The human body can lose 60% of its blood before it shuts down. Loss of consciousness is a defense mechanism. If you're standing, losing too much blood, and you pass out then you will most likely fall down. The act of going from vertical to horizontal makes it easier for you straining heart to pump blood to your brain.

About a block away from Northside Mercy Hospital, their final destination, Ted had lost the 60% of his blood he needed to stay conscious. He fought hard to continue to stay alert. He was, after all, behind the wheel of a motor vehicle. He really did try to stay awake, but his body was stronger than his mind.

Vela could still hear what was going on around her. The sounds, however, did not make much sense to her inhibited mind. There was moaning and rustling and then a large bang. Right after the bang, Vela's body was jostled off of the seat and onto the floor of the truck. Pain followed next. It was pure, excruciating pain. 

Vela didn't stay in pain for long. She was moved, taken up and away from somewhere to somewhere else. Then it all stopped. The pain, the noises, the movements; everything stopped. Vela was knocked out.

When Vela finally woke up, she was in what felt like a bed. Around her things were beeping at an annoyingly high pitched tone.

"Vela? Vela are you awake?" A voice called to her from somewhere close.

"Who's there? Vela asked. She moved her her head from side to side, still not seeing the person who had called to her.

"It's me, Ted." He walked up to her side and grabbed her hand for comfort.

"What happened?" Vela asked.

"We got shot. Crazy Cynthia freaked out and pulled the trigger on her gun. Good news is that she came to her senses pretty soon after and told the cops that there was no way you were involved in her fiancé's death. The cops no longer suspect you of anything." Ted replied. He squeezed her hand for comfort.

"What time is it?" Vela asked frantically. She tried to look at her watch but couldn't. "Where's my watch?"

"Calm down. The docs took your stuff off before you went into surgery. I can ask a nurse about it for you." Ted says. He tried to let go of Vela's hand in order to go ask but she held on.

"What time is it?" She asked loudly as she gripped his hand for dear life. 

"It's 10 pm." Ted answered in a slightly annoyed tone. The 12 hour mark had passed. So many bad things had happened to Vela that she couldn't be sure if THE thing had happened. The uncertainty of it made her hyperventilate.

"Whoa, whoa Vela get a grip. Why are you so concerned about time all of the..... Time?" Ted asked.

"If I tell you a secret will you promise not to freak out or tell anyone else?" Vela asked nervously. 

"You do realize that we just met each other today right?" Ted asked. He was looking at Vela as if she had lost her mind.

"Just let me tell you my secret!" Vela exclaimed. 

"Fine, fine let's hear it." Ted replied. He sat back down and waited patiently.

"I have a super power." Vela said matter-of-factly.

"A super power?" Ted asked.

"Yes, a super power." Vela replied. She took a deep breath and waited for his reply.

"Like flying or invisibility or something?" Ted said with a hint of laughter in his voice.

"Yes that's what I'm saying." Vela replied to him. 

"I don't believe you." 

"Why not?" 

"Three simple reasons. 1. There is no such thing as super powers. 2. There is no such thing as super powers. 3. On the off chance that super powers do exist and you have one of these existing  super powers and you didn't use that power to prevent us from getting shot by a grieving woman, then I will be forced to choke you out right this second." Ted said. His grip tightening too much on Vela's wrist.

"It's not that kind of super power." Vela replied, ripping her wrist out of Ted's grasp.

"All super powers are that kind of super power, or else they aren't super."

"Well then I guess I have a regular power then."

"What exactly is a regular power?" 

"I see numbers over people's heads. The numbers correspond to a bad thing that will happen to the person above whose head I've seen the number."

"What? So like you see 5 minutes over my head and then I die in 5 minutes?" Ted asked with a confused look on his face.

"Yes except without the minutes or the death. I mean it would be completely plausible that you die in 5 minutes but I wouldn't get all the information. I would see a 5 with no mention of minutes or death. It could be 5 seconds, 5 minutes, 5 years, or any unit of time really. It wouldn't necessarily be death either. It could be something as small as a bug bite or as big as losing a leg."

"That doesn't sound like a power." Ted replied as he slumped down in his chair.

"What do you mean?" Vela asked. She was a little perturbed that Ted was dismissing her power like this.

Suddenly, Ted grabbed Vela's arm and leaned in close.

"I can see it now, no I can feel it. Something bad is going to happen to you. The number 100 is coming to me. It could be 100 minutes or 100 years but something unfortunate will soon befall you." He said. 

"What are you talking about?" Vela asked.

"It's fortune teller 101. It's not any sort of power. Throwing out a random number and giving vague details is something anyone can do." 

"I don't just give a random number! I see the number above a person's head. It's not the same!" Vela stated as she began to get upset.

"If you're the only one who sees the number than its pretty much exactly the same. In fact, if you're the only one seeing the number than its more like a curse than a super power. I mean really bad things happen all the time. Seeing a number over someone's head doesn't change that." Ted replied incredulously.

"If I could see you right I would punch you."

"That reminds me! The docs wanted me to inform them when you woke up so they could take off your eye bandages. That buckshot got you pretty good." Ted said. Vela could hear him stand up and exit the room through a very creaky door. 

When Vela heard him return, he wasn't alone.

"Hello Vela." A female voice said.

"Hello?" Vela replied. She reached out her hands randomly.

"I'm Dr. Fess. I performed your surgery."

"Surgery!?" Vela asked as he heart rate shot through the roof. She had never had surgery before and she was starting to freak out.

"Yes," The doctor started as she grabbed Vela's wildly waving arms, "you were shot in the eyes. That's a serious thing." 

"Ok but can we just take the bandages off." Vela said as she touched the wrap over her eyes.

"That's why I'm here. Just relax." The doctor said. The cold metal of the scissors on Vela's skin made a shiver go down her spine. The bandages fell away from Vela's eyes and she felt like a great weight was lifted.

"How do you feel?" Dr. Fess asked as she pressed on Vela's eyes.

"I feel ok. But why can't I open my eyes?" Vela asked with a hint of nervousness in her voice. 

"What are you talking about? Your eyes are open." Ted said with a chuckle. 

"But it's dark. I can't see anything." Vela said loudly.

"What?" The doctor said in a slight panic. She shined a bright light in Vela's eyes but Vela couldn't see it. She couldn't see anything. Vela couldn't see anything, not Ted, not the doctor, and not the the room she was in. Most importantly Vela couldn't see any numbers over any heads. Vela, after realizing what the loss of her vision meant, smiled.