Stephanie had been missing for weeks, gone, fallen off SHIELD’s radar in the blink of an eye. Her apartment stayed quiet, collecting a thin sheet of dust unless someone she knew who had a key would come in a crash there. No one really knew where she had gone, whether she was dead or kidnapped. And attempts to locate her came back with nothing. She was a lost cause.
Yet just as suddenly as she had disappeared, the young woman turned up again. Last seen leaving one of many New York subway stations in a hurriedly fashion. And she stopped for nothing. Sprinting back towards the street where she resided from all the way across the city area. With the aching pains that were peppered over her body, it would take her awhile to find home, but she didn’t let that slow her down. Crossing busy streets and crowded walk ways, nearly getting hit by a taxi or two, and accidentally bumping into a man that made him spill his coffee. All of that before finally reaching the shared building doors and racing up the stairs to her own. Unlocked. Just the way she left it. Swiftly entering and locking it behind her, the woman ran around her home to lock and cover every window, shutting herself inside like a crazed person who was being followed. Was she? Her mind told her yes, over and over again as she asked the question inside.
Turning on the light above the kitchen sink and a lamp in the living room, the one farthest from the windows, she finally felt a small sense of relief. Even as she grabbed a gun from underneath the coffee table and put in in the back of her ragged shorts and covered the handle with the dirtied white tank-top. It wasn’t until she heard a sound from within or just outside her apartment that her mind snapped and she pulled out the weapon she had just picked up,”S-show yourself!”
