There were a set of rules Erin survived by.
Don’t get complacent. Always stay on your toes.
No technology. No phones, no laptops, no tablets. Nothing that can be tracked or hacked.
No social media. Keep your face offline.
Have one weapon at all times, even if it’s as simple as a sharp key.
Never use your powers in public.
Keep all identifying marks hidden.
She followed the rules like Christians followed the Bible. Whereas Christians believed following the rules written in the Bible would allow them into Heaven, Erin’s rules would allow her to simply stay alive and free. It wasn’t pleasant, and it was tiring, but Erin knew no other way of life. If she wanted to survive, if she didn’t want to be captured and used again, she had to stay on alert and keep her head down.
Occasionally, she tried to get a job, but there were too many pieces of information she couldn’t provide. Where did she live? She’s likely squatting in an abandoned house or hotel. What’s her education level? Hell if she knows the answer to that one, given her…unorthodox upbringing. What’s her job history? Nothing that wouldn’t get her turned into the police, regardless of her being forced to do them.
She tried that once, before she escaped. Getting caught by the police. Left a little bit too much evidence behind, moved a little bit too slow. Surely if the authorities caught her, it was better than the life she was currently living, if it could be called a life. She wouldn’t even fight interrogation, if it meant her boss would be taken down. She was almost caught. Then he sent back up and extracted her from the scene before the cuffs could be put on. The next four nights were full of punishment for her defiance.
Most nights, she didn’t sleep. Either the nightmares woke her or the memories kept her awake. If she had one thing to be thankful for, it was for being raised to function on little to no sleep. So the hard nights didn’t bother her schedule much and her body could take the physical toll sleep deprivation came with. The emotional aspect? A little harder, but she’d learned the benefits of compartmentalization at a young age. All the bad memories, all the anger and grief that came with them, she shoved down into the basement of her mind, where they couldn’t get in the way. Sometimes, on the harder nights, they crept out. Those nights, Erin forcibly worked herself into the ground and pummeled them into submission, back to the basement, where they wouldn’t bother her.
The thing that slowed her the most though was the pain.
Whenever the weather changed, whether it was a thunderstorm or a warm front blowing through, all of her old injuries acted up. Her wrists ached with every movement. Her back cried when she laid on it, forcing her to lay on her stomach to avoid angering the old wounds on her sides. She could feel every joint in each of her fingers, pulsating with agony.
On her worst days, all Erin could do was secure wherever she was living from intruders and lay down until it passed. Most of the time though, she worked through it. Pain was nothing new in her existence. It lived with her, and she with it. It made her hands difficult to use somedays, yes, but it didn’t stop her. As long as the pain was below a nine on her scale of one-to-ten, she could function. Not always happily, and not always easily, but she could function. Ibuprofen and Tylenol were godsends, honestly, and helped whenever she found it was time to move again unless she wanted to be re-captured.
Erin would die before she let herself be taken back.
Maybe that’s why she found herself making a frankly horrible decision.
So far, everywhere she’d gone, they’d started to find her and come after her. They were actively looking for her, she knew, and they kept getting uncomfortably close. She’d tried rural towns, the countryside, burying herself in the hustle and bustle of a city. Places she could easily disappear. It wasn’t working. Which meant she needed to change her strategy - go somewhere they wouldn’t expect her to. Everywhere she’d gone so far had either been only a pinprick on a map or big enough to get lost in, places she’d thought she wouldn’t be easily found. Obviously, that wasn’t working anymore, if it ever was. But, she couldn’t do the opposite and go somewhere that’d draw attention to herself, or they’d find her just as quickly if not faster. But, luckily for Erin, there was more than one way to defy expectations. Unluckily for Erin, it was a very stupid route of action. Stupid, reckless, and dangerous. But…also genius, in a sense.
After all, who’d expect someone like her to hide in a city with an established superhero?