"Creak, creak..."
The wind rattled the battered door, its piercing squeal disturbing sweet dreams. When Bruce opened his eyes, morning light shone through a windowpane missing one corner.
He had just tried to push himself up from the floor when a sharp pain shot through the junction of his neck and shoulder. Bruce clutched his neck and let out a short, low groan.
Clark, sleeping beside him, woke at the sound and looked at Bruce blear-eyed. The next second, he was fully awake. He looked at Bruce with concern and asked, "What's wrong? Did your wound split open again?"
Bruce gently shook his head, lay back down, and said, "I think I slept wrong."
Clark sat up and sighed. He got to his feet and walked to the door, making some room for Bruce before reaching out to pull him up.
The room they were in was a guest room at an old roadside inn, but there was no bed. There was only a row of wooden frames about a fist high, the kind of slatted racks placed beneath cargo crates. A battered mattress lay on top, with springs poking out from the sides and snagging threads from Clark's clothes.
Diana was staying next door. Her room did have a bed, but it was not that the two men had gallantly given it to her. Quite the opposite: Diana had given the room with the mattress to Bruce, the ordinary human.
Diana's own room had only a bed frame and no mattress. She had to draw on the skills she had learned living in the Amazon, making herself a hammock from plastic sheeting just to get through the night.
Latin America was not actually as backward as many imagined. There were still quite a few respectable major cities.
But the