Naturalist wakes up in a cold, dark room and asks, “Where am I?”

  “He’s awake,” a feminine voice says over a speaker.

  “Answer my question!”

  “That’s not how this works,” a second voice says through the same speaker. “You’re supposed to answer our questions. You’re the prisoner.”

  “Why you!” He tries to get up but when his muscles begin to tense a zap of electricity is sent through him. He slums and stays limp for longer than when he’s hit by Intelegnat’s stun gun.

  “Now that we have confirmation that it works, may I leave?” the second person says.

  “Yes, well done, Leo.”

  “What’s working?” Naturalist asks.

  “Since you’ve almost escaped all the restraints we tried, I had to make something new,” The first voice says once Leo exits the room.

  "Why am I still alive? What do you want from me?" Naturalist demands.

  "For now we just want answers. Do you have any family with inhuman abilities?”

  "I’m not telling you that; now where am I!?"

  "I don’t think we’ll get any answers out of him," a third voice says. "We should put him in a coma until we have his girlfriend."

  "What?! You can't do that," the hero responds.

  "I wasn't talking to you!" The third voice says.

  "Calm down," the feminine voice. "He’ll answer us in no time, that is if he doesn’t want us accidentally killing Intelegant instead of bringing her in.”

  “You’ll never catch her!” Naturalist barks; obviously panicked.

  “They caught you, and every other super they’ve gone after,” the third person responds.

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  “What does that mean?”

  …

  The feminine voice does not respond.

  “Did you just leave!?” he barks.

  …

  Click.

  A door opens behind Naturalist.

  Light fills the room; first, he notices the IV bag attached to him, then the rest of the room. Throughout it, there are large metal instruments. While Naturalist does not recognize most of them, he has seen something similar to one before, a metal frame with straps attached to a wheel; it’s a torture device called the rack. All the other instruments have the same purpose, to torture.

  Creak; a door opening.

  Click; the same door closing.

  Click; the sound of the room's fluorescent lights turning on.

  Click, click, click, go her boots on the tile floor.

  She stops in front of Naturalist.

  She's tall, almost six feet of lean muscle. She's wearing a plastic apron over her clothes and gloves over her hands. Dyed brown hair with gray roots sits in a bun atop her head, and stray hairs fall around a sharp face. She has a jawline that could cut steel and brown eyes with circles under them.

  "This is your only chance to willingly answer my questions," she warns.

  "You think you can hurt me?" He laughs. "I'm superhuman!"

  "Not right now."

  “I always have my powers.” Naturalist’s confused.

  “There’s a drug that makes you powerless in there.” She pokes the IV bag pumping fluids into him.

  “That’s impossible.”

  “You’ll see.”

  "..." He watches her instead of responding as she begins looking at the torture devices.

  "Do you have any family with inhuman abilities?"

  "I didn’t tell you the first time you asked and I'm not telling you now."

  "You will change your tone soon enough," she says as she brandishes a knife.

  "You can’t do much with that.”

  “Oh, yes I can.”

  "So I'm not the first person you've kidnapped and hurt."

  She laughs hollowly. "Of course not!"

  "Just how many times have you done this?" He’s starting to get scared

  She ignores the question. "Do you have any family with similar powers?"

  "I'm not answering any of your questions!"

  "Fine." She walks up to Naturalist, knife in hand. "I'll stop when you answer my question."