"I'm not saying you didn't save me--I'm saying that because you left, I got hit in the face with a wrench and zapped in the gut with one of those Tesla coil baton things."
"And I'm saying you should be lucky that's all they had time to do," The Afterdark rebutted. He took a beer out of the fridge for himself and offered one to Nell.
"We went through this the other day. You always forget how young I am," she declined.
"And I told you then: No, I don't forget. Although I probably shouldn't offer you any if there's the possibility of you having some kind of bleeding problems or internal injury."
She nodded in agreement and the two sat down simultaneously at the kitchen table. The girl looked around uncomfortably before saying, "You don't have too many friends, huh?"
"Nope."
"What do you do all the time?"
"Social networking," he said with a smirk. "But seriously, I do a lot of mindreading in public places. I rob banks. I kill people in their sleep. I watch television.
"Speaking of which, there was something about your robot on the news this morning."
"Ben?!"
"Yeah. They found it and took it apart."
Nell didn't respond, but put her head down on the table. "Ben never hurt anyone."