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“You read her Pinocchio.”
Sarah was startled awake by a voice, a male voice. For an adrenaline-filled moment, she thought it was Rice, Rice overriding her door again to come terrorize her in the middle of the night, with that sick expression of his, the one that told her he knew about her past.
Then the words reached her brain. They knew.
They knew she was treating X-23 as a child, as her child, reading stories to her instead of just war treatises. They knew, and they’d come to silence her.
No… The door was closed. There was no shouting, no bright light in her face, no interrogations. Just darkness and a still darker silhouette, standing by her desk.
It wasn’t Rice. Rice would have said something else by now, would have threatened her. So it was someone else, but no one should be able to just enter her room. Rice, obviously, the bastard, but this wasn’t him.
She knew it wasn’t.
“Identify yourself,” she said, sitting up. This was just an attempt to scare her. It was someone who had discovered her, someone with security clearance, someone who wanted something from her. Never show her fear. She’d learnt that lesson well.
She could bargain.
“No, I don’t think so.” The man spoke slowly, methodically. “And we both know you won’t call security, not with these books in your possession.” There was a rustling of turned pages. “Stupid, to leave them so in the open.”
Sarah cursed inwardly. “You can’t prove I read them to her.”
“Can’t I?” A faint trace of amusement, perhaps. “Let’s assume I can.” The chair was dragged out from under the desk and the man sat upon it. “Why do you read stories to the weapon, Doctor Kinney?”
She’s just a girl, her mind protested, like it often did. Just a little girl. God, what have we done? What have I done?
She didn’t answer. She wouldn’t incriminate herself further. She wouldn’t give this man more ammunition. She had to keep her position here… for X-23. To help her.
“I think you fancy yourself a little heroine, working quietly against the system,” the man said, nailing her to the bed with his voice. “I think you’ve managed to convince yourself that what you’re doing is enough. Tell me if I’m wrong,” he added genially, conversationally.
Sarah shivered.
“You brought her to term, if I’m not mistaken. And animal instincts kicked in, and now you view yourself as her mother. You feel a kinship for her. You want her to know that she’s a real girl.”
Damn him, damn him and his mocking voice. Oh, how she hated him!
“Just say what you want from me,” she snarled.
Nothing, nothing could have prepared her for what the man said next.
“I want you to help me burn this place to the ground.”
Sarah was on edge.
Any man she passed by in the corridors could be the man that had come to her room that night. The man that wanted to destroy this place - but not X-23. And if Sarah cooperated, she’d be safe too.
“I was tasked with killing Weapon X’s clone and everyone involved, and I so would have loved to do that,” he’d said, his voice showing some emotion other than the amused boredom he’d displayed up until that moment. He’d seemed angry for a moment, so angry. It had made bile rise up her throat. “But it’s a little girl. And I don’t like what you’re doing to her, Doctor Kinney. I don’t like it one bit.”
She should tell someone… she should warn Sutter. But a few things stopped her.
The man was right. She’d been telling herself that what she did was enough, as if reading a few stories to a traumatized kid could help her cope with what they were doing to her. Torturing her, dehumanizing her, making a weapon out of her.
Pinocchio wasn’t enough. And she’d been a fool to think it was. Worse, a hypocrite and a coward.
No one was a saint in the facility. They were all complicit in an abominable, monstrous thing. She counted herself among them. The thought that the men and women she worked with could die made her want to retch, but all of them had let money - so much money - sway them from their morals. Many of them had no morals to begin with. Many were sadists; Rice certainly was. He was driven by vengeance, yes, he made no mystery of it, but he was dangerously heading towards insanity, and Sutter was blind to it. Sarah saw how he looked at X-23: like a predator.
She knew predators.
This facility was hell. And she’d let her child be swallowed by it.
This man... he offered salvation. She wasn’t stupid, he could simply want to take a hold of X-23 and use her himself; the story he’d concocted could be just that, a story to make her compliant.
But there were likelier stories he could have chosen, than a one-man mission to kill everyone. It was so fantastical, so absurd: just one man? Alone?
It was more likely that he was an employee like her, someone who’d realized that what they did was wrong. He’d said he had almost all pieces in place and that he’d need Sarah to simply handle the girl - that’s what he called her, ‘the girl’, never X-23 - as they left.
He certainly wasn’t Kevin; she’d recognize his voice.
He could be Tanaka, the elderly sensei that taught martial arts to X-23. Sarah had never heard him speak English, so she couldn’t know. But he certainly treated X-23 with respect, and always seemed a bit tortured, too tortured for his own good: his continued employment was often discussed.
That’s what they discussed. Not Rice’s obsession, bordering on mania, his sadism towards X-23. No, Rice was untouchable, Sutter’s surrogate son.
They discussed how to better dehumanize X-23, instead. How to make her the perfect weapon. It was a miracle that Sarah was still invited to those meetings.
The man could also be delusional.
She had to consider that possibility, too. Driven mad by what they were doing, he could have snapped with the need to do something, to atone. If Sarah helped a crazy man and nothing came of it, she could end up dead, and who’d help X-23 then?
But… she had to try. She had to do something. She had to save her daughter from this hell.
They’d do it tonight.
He’d come to her room again, the night before. He’d told her to be ready at 2 a.m. He said that the security feed would be taken care of.
She asked where they would go.
He said that after tonight she’d be dead to the world, and that she couldn’t certainly take X-23 to Debbie.
He knew that Sarah had gotten a call from Debbie, that she’d agreed to let little Megan send her things. He knew something like that. She had to believe that it meant that he had resources. She had to trust him.
“You’ll be on the move for a while,” he’d said. “Eventually, I have a destination in mind.”
“Where?” It didn’t escape her notice that he hadn’t included himself in their moving around.
“You’ll see.”
And that was final.
A duffel bag was ready in her room. She waited in the lab, occupying herself with nothing, surveying her colleagues. They could all be dead by morning. She didn’t feel a thing.
What did that make her?
Did it make her the animal that Rice kept calling X-23 when he thought no one could hear?
Perhaps.
Kevin burst into the room. Not even the prospect of his death touched her. She was a cold thing; she must be, for her child. “Sarah!”
“What is it?”
“Tanaka cut his lesson short. Rice took X-23 -”
Where? Why hadn’t Sarah been informed? She flew to Sutter’s office, Kevin behind her, a couple of security guards following close.
She barged into Sutter’s office, ignoring Rachel’s protests, demanding explanations.
The words that came out of the man’s mouth then, made her blood run cold. He didn’t care. Oh, she knew that he only saw X-23 as a weapon to profit from, but he didn’t care that a child suffered in the process.
Rice was going to activate X-23’s X-gene. With radiation poisoning.
Sarah rushed to the operating theater, Rice’s domain, hoping it wasn’t too late. Hoping she could reason with Rice. But she knew she wouldn’t be able to. Oh, it wasn’t fair! So close to salvation, so close to that night’s rescue attempt! Why hadn’t the man wanted to give her his identity? Now she could have attempted to contact him, to prevent this, and instead she was alone!
X-23 was already strapped to a table. The doors were closing, Rice donning anti-radiation glasses, the only one not wearing protective gear.
“What are you doing?!?” she asked, grabbing his arm.
He was smiling! “Shh! You’re ruining the show.”
The doors closed. Sarah turned to them, helpless, her fists raised -
“Turn that off.”
She gasped. The man’s voice! He was here. She whirled around, wide-eyed.
One of the security guards had his weapon trained on Rice. The other guard was falling to the floor as she turned.
Rice didn’t lose composure. “Sound the alarm -”
Shouts from behind her, from where the technicians were gathered. The weapon had a silencer; the man, the savior, trained it on Rice again after shooting whoever had been about to obey Rice. “I won’t ask again.”
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing -”
Rice screamed, falling to his knees. The man had shot his leg.
“If I hear even a single scream come from the girl,” the man said conversationally, “none of you will die quietly.”
“It’s off! It’s off!” came from the technicians.
Sarah’s heart soared with relief. X-23 was safe! But she didn’t dare turn away from the scene. She plastered herself to the doors as the man - quickly, methodically, without breaking stride as he walked as if with no care in the world - shot dead everyone in the room save for her, Rice, and Kevin.
Kevin was dumbstruck, stock-still, his face grey, his eyes fixed on the man. At last his lips parted to emit a tremulous whisper. “John -?”
“Not quite my name, baby, no matter how hard you screamed it,” the man said off-handedly. He reached Rice, that was screaming like the pig he was, trying to make a tourniquet, and he yanked him up by his hair. “So. A show, you said?”
“Kevin!” Sarah grabbed Kevin’s arm, pulling him towards the computers. They had to free X-23, and they had to do it fast. Her brain was struggling to catch up - the man had slept with Kevin, the man had just killed everyone, this wasn’t going according to the plan, they weren’t ready - but there was an imperative seared in her brain: get X-23 out of there.
Her fingers flew on the keyboards, Kevin standing like a ghost beside her, and finally the doors opened, revealing X-23 strapped to that damn contraption. Sarah ran to her, sparing only a passing glance for the pathetic spectacle of Rice pinned to a wall, bleeding copiously. He was struggling weakly, trying to punch the man holding him up.
“Does it turn you on, to torture little girls?” the man was saying, in a monotone. She wondered if his face, under the helmet, would show the same disinterest.
“It’s just an animal -!”
A pained shout.
Sarah reached X-23. Her baby was whimpering, huge eyes fixed on the scene. Sarah put herself between them.
“Don’t look,” Sarah told her, frantically looking for the controls. “I’m here, I promise, it’s going to be all right… Kevin! I need help!”
With Kevin’s help, her colleague moving as if treading water, she finally managed to free X-23. She gathered her child in her arms and turned.
The man was beating Rice to the floor.
If was methodical and unhurried. It was horrifying in its simplicity, as if the man was simply doing a chore, but it was also beautiful, scientific. And, oh, so well-deserved.
But they didn’t have time for this.
Hiding X-23’s face against her shoulder - she shouldn't look, she shouldn’t see such brutality, this was what Sarah herself had almost condemned her to - Sarah reached the man.
“We need to go,” she whispered. The man didn’t heed her, focused on the pulp on the floor. Rice. Rice was coughing blood. “John? We need to -”
“We have time,” the man said conversationally, as if they were chatting, as if he wasn't beating a man within an inch of his life, as if they weren't on a clock.
“You won’t make it out of here alive,” Rice wheezed. “You’ll be shot down -”
“By your pathetic army?” the man said, completely unbothered by the prospect. Sarah had to believe that there was still a plan in place, that the man knew what he was doing, that they were getting out of this alive. “You think you have the keys to the kingdom, but you’re just ants. You can’t rule the Earth, Zander.”
He punctuated the name, which he spat like an insult, with a punch that made Sarah hiss. She cradled X-23 in her arms, holding her tight. “We need to go,” she repeated.
Rice was right about one thing: the security was tight. By some miracle, or perhaps because they’d expected screaming to come from this room, the guards outside hadn’t come in yet. But they’d have to walk past them, and then…
“You can’t take it!” Rice struggled to sit up, too weak to, his features contorted into something inhuman, disfigured by hate. “It’s mine, it’s my revenge, you can’t take it!”
Blood-shot eyes zeroed in on X-23… The weapon. It. A thing. Sarah was overtaken by the wild urge to hit him as well.
“Awww.” The man that wasn’t John cradled Rice’s face - gently, like a lover, but somehow it was all wrong, mocking. “I do sympathize. But you should have picked someone who could fight back.”
“Weapon X ruined my life -” Rice was foaming at the mouth, still staring at X-23.
“Get in line,” the man said sharply, the other fist raised in front of Rice’s face, a promise of another punch even as he stroked Rice’s jaw with the other hand, even if Rice wasn't really paying attention. “If you fools want the Weapon X experience so badly, Zander, I will give it to you.”
And -
Oh God -
Claws came out of his raised fist, claws, like Weapon X’s. Like the ones that Rice had just tried to force X-23 to grow. Just two of them, and made of dark bone, but undeniably the same. Sarah gasped in shock, but Rice’s expression as he heard the slick sound and finally wrenched his wild gaze from X-23 and saw his nightmare come to life before him, a man grown whom he couldn’t torture, claws he must have nightmares about, almost made Sarah pity him.
Almost.
“Who - wha-” Rice’s eyes, wide with terror, turned to the side, to where the man was still cradling his face. No claws had come out of that hand, but the threat was there, so close. There was anticipation in this. The man was torturing Rice, just as Rice had tortured X-23.
Justice finally served.
Rice attempted to shrink away, but the man’s grip was strong. Not-John hummed. “Did you just piss yourself, you poor thing?”
“Noooo -” A moan of sheer, unadulterated terror. Sarah pressed a hand to the back of X-23’s head, making sure that she wasn't watching, but as for herself -
She couldn't look away.
“Do you see now? Do you see how inconsequential you are?” The man’s claws disappeared into his arm and he removed his helmet, revealing a handsome face, delicate features, bright blue eyes. Black hair styled into a mohawk. The geneticist in Sarah took note of everything, trying to discern his ancestry. Weapon X was born and bred Canadian, only European blood in him. This man was mixed-Asian. From Japan? Was he related to Weapon X? He must be, with this power set…
“No… No…” Rice whimpered, skidding against his own blood.
“Look at the bright side, little Zander,” the man said, his eyes cold, so terribly cold. Sarah shivered. “You get to die just like your daddy.”
His hand travelled from Rice’s jaw to under his chin, and closed into a fist, and then there was that sound again, the tip of the man’s claws jutting out of the top of Rice’s skull. Tears streaked the blood on Rice’s face.
Sarah hadn’t reacted at seeing the staff shot dead, but there was something intimate, sickening, about killing someone with weapons that then returned inside you. There was something wrong with it. It made her sick to see it. And the man’s cold eyes!
This was who she was counting on, to save X-23?
He looked at her and his gaze seared her, as if he knew everything about her. She was a specimen put under the microscope. He looked at her with contempt, no… with disinterest.
Then he let Rice fall to the ground, like a ragged doll. “We don’t have time for a lovers’ quarrel, Kevin.”
Sarah spun around. Kevin was pointing a gun at him with unsteady hands… he must have taken it from the dead guard. Sarah wanted to scream. They didn’t have time for this! They needed to go! Did Kevin think he had any chance against the man?
“Y-you lied to me,” Kevin said, with a shaky voice. “You used me!”
“As you people used the girl? I wonder how that feels.” Not-John raised to his feet with utter nonchalance, as if he couldn’t care less about being shot. If he had the same powers as Weapon X, that was likely.
“No, I -”
Kevin wasn't like that. He wasn’t a sadist. He was…
He was a scientist. Like Sarah. Too focused on whether they could create a clone, instead of wondering whether they should.
“Don’t protest your innocence, I don’t care.” The man turned his terrible eyes on Kevin. “You’re still alive because I saw that you care for the girl’s predicament. Are you going to be useful, or do I need to kill you?”
And he would do it, with no care at all for what had apparently transpired between them. But then again, it had been a ruse, no? A way to get information. Intel on Sarah herself, probably. Was this what X-23 would become, if she stayed here? Such a cold-blooded killer? Oh, Sarah couldn’t allow it.
“We need to go, Kevin,” she said urgently, holding X-23 close. “She can’t stay here. They’ll destroy her.”
Her child was limp in her arms. She held on to Sarah, her legs and her arms wrapped around Sarah, but it was just mechanical, to help Sarah support her. She wasn’t seeking comfort, she was acting like she should.
God, Sarah hoped she wasn’t too damaged already.
Kevin lowered the weapon. “You knew about him,” he pointed out, dejected.
“Not about his powers,” she gasped. “And not about you, Kevin. Listen, he has a plan…” She whirled towards the man. “God, tell me it can still work!”
“We’ll have to improvise.” The man had crouched by the dead guard, and he was taking their magazines. “I don’t have all the pieces in place.”
“You said you had -”
“Tonight I would have had everything ready. It’s still the day shift.”
Oh, shit. He had compromised someone, maybe in the surveillance room itself. But it was someone on the night shift.
Hours from now.
Kevin laughed hysterically. “We’re doomed!”
“Are you saying I should have let it play out? Because you’re right.”
The man’s voice didn’t hold malice, it was just a statement of fact. Yes, if they’d stuck to the plan, and let Rice hurt X-23, and they’d rescued her tonight, they would have had more chances of survival. But Rice would have hurt her. And Sarah was glad that the impassive murderer wasn’t so impassive after all, that he’d decided to risk it to avoid X-23 more pain.
Kevin deflated. “What are we going to do?”
The man rose from his crouch. “I assume you’re familiar with the layout?”
They both nodded. The man handed a gun to Sarah, which she took with some trepidation. She’d only ever shot at the range, not at a living person.
She’d made her choice already.
“I’m going to provide a distraction,” the man said. “When the guards outside vacate their post, you’ll head straight for the exit.”
“But security -” Kevin started. The man bared his teeth.
“They’ll be preoccupied. Once outside, head south-east. There will be a jeep just past the tree-line, with IDs and money, and an itinerary. Don’t stray from it.”
“I can fight,” X-23 mumbled. Sarah’s breath hitched. Oh, her child! She was twisting in Sarah’s arms to look at the man, her gaze stopping just for a moment on Rice’s body. “I’ll protect them.”
The man looked at her sharply, and his disquieting eyes met X-23’s. Sarah couldn’t pretend to understand what was happening, not really, the man’s identity and motives a mystery, but she thought there was a flicker of warmth in the man’s cold gaze.
“If you have to, girl. But I want you to follow them and do what your mother says, is that understood?”
X-23 shuddered when he addressed her thus. Girl. Your mother. She hadn’t been allowed even that. Sarah herself was shaken by the usage, by how flippantly he’d said it. As if it was a universal truth.
X-23 nodded. “Yes, sir.”
She hadn’t been sent on any missions yet, her physical training so far had only covered hand to hand combat, but she acted like a soldier. Instilled obedience. Oh, Sarah hoped she could be helped to unlearn all of it!
“J-John -” Kevin whimpered.
The man donned the helmet again, looking exactly like all the other guards outside. All the guards he would kill. “Not my name, baby. Just do as I say, and you might be able to live.”
He made for the exit.
“Wait!” Sarah started towards him. “What… Just what are you going to do?”
He turned, and she saw herself reflected in his helmet. As if there was nothing behind it.
“Haven’t you seen footage of Weapon X’s escape, Doctor Kinney?”
It was chaos.
It didn't happen immediately. They waited, surrounded by corpses. Kevin was a muttering mess, white as a sheet. X-23 was standing at ease, ready to take off. She’d wanted to leave Sarah’s arms as soon as the man was gone, and Sarah hadn’t been able to comfort her. God, she hoped she could help her daughter. God, let them leave this place.
Sarah wasn’t religious. After what had happened… she couldn’t be. She’d turned to science, predictable, safe. But please, God, let her save her daughter.
Then came the shouts, the sounds of running people. The blare of alarms. Sarah pictured what she’d seen of Weapon X, what she’d seen this man do, and shivered. Kevin peered out of the door and gave the all clear. They took off, X-23 between them.
Outside, it was chaos. Their area was deserted but they could hear screams and faint sounds of explosions. They ran, hoping they could make it, hoping they wouldn’t have to use their guns.
The explosions seemed well-timed, distant, leading personnel far away from the exit. They must have been planted in the previous days. Thankfully they weren’t on a timer and the man had other means to control them.
A carnage was happening all around them, a carnage like the one Sutter had shown her, from when Weapon X managed to escape. The man - the man with Weapon X’s claws - was killing them all. Her coworkers, people she’d been seeing everyday for years now. Even Rachel.
Sarah didn’t care.
The only important thing, the only one, was that X-23 got out of here. And the exit was near, she knew it was -
A group of guards rounded a corner, weapons drawn. Sarah cursed and skidded to a halt, gesturing for X-23 to stay behind her.
“What are you doing?” demanded one of the guards.
“We’re securing the asset!” Kevin stammered. Kevin! God, Sarah could kiss him. “There’s someone, he’s killing everyone -”
“We know. All right, hand it over, we’ll take it from here.”
The bastards probably couldn’t believe their luck, that they now had an excuse to avoid the carnage.
They were trained men, mercenaries, trained to kill. Sarah and Kevin would never get past them.
But she couldn't let them take her daughter.
Her moment of hesitation gave them away. In an instant, the guards trained their weapons on them. They were doomed.
“Hand over the asset, Doctor Kinney.”
Her fist tightened around the gun, her finger on the trigger. She’d never make it. She could get one of them, maybe, but the others? She knew that Kevin felt her same hesitation. She’d thought she’d have to shoot a single guard, not a trained unit! Dammit!
Her daughter was behind her. She had to protect her.
A whirlwind of white ran past her and straight at the guards. Sarah took a step back, her hand searching for X-23, fearful that it was her, that her daughter had decided to protect them as she’d said she’d do. But X-23 was still there, behind her, and the white blur of motion was Tanaka.
He was graceful, relentless. They shot him - of course they did - but he didn't stop. Sarah grabbed her daughter’s hand and tried to run past them, looking for a path among the bodies. A guard attempted to shoot them but he was drop-kicked. The old man could move!
But he was one single old man. He stood alone in the end, victorious, but he was swaying slightly, bleeding.
“Sensei!” X-23 ran to him, expressing more emotion than Sarah had ever seen. He put a hand on her shoulder and smiled, and looked up at Sarah and Kevin.
“Leave this monstrous place,” he spoke in highly accented English. “I’ll hold off anyone that comes this way.”
“Iie!” X-23 protested. She fired off a string of Japanese words, fast. He shook his head. He spoke quietly in the same language; Sarah caught the word ‘gakusei’, student.
“This is my penance,” he said, returning to English. “For what I did to you. Go.”
Sarah tried to lay a hand on X-23’s shoulder but she was shouldered off, her daughter’s tears-filled eyes fixed on her teacher. Sarah’s heart ached at the sight but at least it meant that her daughter could feel. They hadn’t taken it from her yet.
They ran, leaving the old man to his penance. Sarah wondered if he’d chanced upon them or if he’d known where he’d find them. If someone had told him where they were headed.
An explosion, louder than the others. The alarms seemed to double. The exit was in sight.
A guard came into view, shouting. He was down before Sarah could even register that she was shooting.
She’d killed a man. She’d just killed a man!
Hands pulled her away. Kevin? They stumbled outside, cold air hitting them. X-23 was underdressed, still in the suit they put her into for the radiation exposure! Kevin shook off his jacket, managed to coax her into putting it on. It made her look even younger than what she was.
Oh, God, forgive them.
They ran, ran through the trees and then a jeep, there! They were safe!
Kevin flung the doors open and Sarah led X-23 into it. Her daughter immediately opened one of the briefcases inside; Sarah got a glimpse of money. Kevin started the car and there was an explosion that made the trees shake. Sarah whirled around, saw the thick curls of smoke coming from the direction of the facility.
“Sarah! Get in! We need to leave!”
“And leave him behind?” she asked, breathless. The man had saved her daughter. They had to wait for him!
“He’s dead!” Kevin sounded hysterical. “He’s dead, he’s dead!”
“Kevin, think! If he has Weapon X’s powers, he must have survived that explosion!”
“Someone’s going to come! They’ll kill us if they find us here! And what will happen to the girl then?”
Sarah turned to watch her daughter, wide-eyed, her daughter that surveyed them from the back seat with calm green eyes, Sara’s eyes. If someone found them, this was all for nothing. But the man? How could Sarah leave him there, after what he’d done, after he’d delivered her daughter’s freedom?
She could. She had to.
Sarah climbed into the passenger seat. “Go. Go!”
They drove fast, and they didn’t look back.
The instructions said to stick to crowded cities, and listed off addresses in all of them. Safe-houses, they realized at their first stop. Utterly anonymous. The itinerary that the man had drawn for them - she’d abandoned him there, she’d left him to die - ran all the way southeast to Westchester, to Charles Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters.
Kevin questioned it.
“Doctor Xavier’s a geneticist,” he said after X-23 was put to sleep in the only bedroom. Her own room. Her daughter would only have rooms of her own from now on. Sarah wondered if she’d manage to sleep. She’d looked so serious as they ate, non-responsive. She’d let Sarah dress her with clothes they found in the hood of the car - the man must have accounted for accidents. Sarah mourned the duffel bag that had been waiting in her room, the duffel bag that was probably burned down now. Her child had seemed to be drowning in the pants and hoodie made for an adult man. They needed to buy her clothes, but they’d only dared to buy food from one of the places whose leaflet lay by the door. It was close by, and Kevin had gone alone. “Sarah, what if we’re leading the girl into a trap? What if Doctor Xavier is like us, what if he works for an agency and -”
“He said that he’d been tasked to kill her. He changed his mind. He wanted to help her.”
“And you trusted him? John?” Kevin barked out a wild laughter. Sarah was reminded, suddenly, that they’d slept together, that he’d trusted the man. The man who they’d left to die.
“Kevin, are you all right?” she tried, unsure, but he brushed off her concerns by waving a hand.
“I’m the only one objective here. He lied, Sarah. What else did he lie about?”
“He could have stuck to the plan,” she pointed out. “Far easier. But he acted when my daughter was in danger, when they were about to hurt her.”
“He didn’t want to damage the goods,” Kevin said, not unkindly.
“No… no.” She clenched her jaw. “He related to her. He tortured Rice, for Chist’s sake! Some of the things he said, he -”
She broke off, hit by such a monumental thought that it left her breathless.
“Sarah?”
“He’s like her,” she whispered, staring into nothing. She glanced up at Kevin, who was looking at her as if she was mad. “He’s been weaponized. Like Weapon X! Maybe the people who made him wanted to get rid of the competition, but he saw her and -” What had he said? That he didn’t like what they’d been doing to her? Had he, perhaps, seen himself in her? “He wants her safe, just as I do. We can trust this information, Kevin.”
She pointed at the map on the table.
They followed the itinerary. They shopped at Walmart - clothes for all of them, instant food - and sold the jeep, and bought a used car. She and Kevin took turns driving. In the back seat, her daughter sat, studying the map, counting the money. She still hadn’t said a word, but that morning, coming out of the bedroom to have breakfast, she’d shyly rested her head in Sarah’s lap, like she used to do when Sarah read to her.
Sarah had stroked her hair, savoring the contact that they hadn’t been allowed at the facility.
“I don’t have our book,” she’d murmured, noticing that Kevin was busying himself with the bags, leaving them alone. “But I can sing to you, if you like?”
She’d never had a family. She’d never wanted it; her father had stripped her of that desire. He’d taken her childhood, her innocence, her life. And then Sarah had taken her daughter’s life, becoming what she’d hated and feared the most, turning her daughter into her victim.
But perhaps they could rise above it. It wasn’t too late. They could make it right. They could have a family, a real family, and she’d protect her daughter with her life, and cherish her. She thought about her sister, as they drove to the next city. She thought about her mother, about the fact that they’d never believed her. She thought about her sister, who’d called to make amends, to try and coax her back into the family. She thought about the drawings from her niece that she’d never receive. Debbie would think her dead. She’d mourn Sarah, and what they never had.
Sarah wanted something different for her daughter.
The next safehouse was exactly like the first one. They ate, and she put her daughter to sleep - a name, she needed a name - and then she returned to the other room. Kevin had dug out the map again. They’d reach Westchester the next morning. They didn’t speak; they’d said all they needed to say the night before. He took first watch.
She was woken up by a light touch, Kevin’s hand. The room was dark. He brought a finger to his lips, the gun in his other hand pointed at the door. There was a sound of keys. Her breath hitched.
The door was opened, a dark silhouette standing in the doorway. Kevin cried out, the gun falling from his hand. The man was on them in a moment, preternaturally fast, stopping the gun from hitting the floor and firing a shot.
“Careful with that, baby.”
He was alive. The man was alive. She’d expected it, of course; she’d pointed out that he might have Weapon X’s powers, his super-healing. But still, knowing it and seeing him were different things entirely.
“Don’t call me baby!” Kevin shrieked.
The man chuckled. “All right, all right. Don’t get your knickers in a twist.” He rose to his feet, moved around, and flicked on the lights. Sarah’s gaze immediately went to the bedroom door, firmly shut, then she returned it to the man.
He was by the fridge; he was downing a bottle of water in one go, the muscles of his throat moving enticingly. He held loosely the gun he’d taken from Kevin. He dressed casually, but smartly. He was very fit; a fine specimen. A far cry from Weapon X. Beautiful in a deadly way. Sarah could see the appeal, could understand why Kevin had fallen for him. But she looked at the man and she saw someone that had been used, she saw the dark ghost of what her daughter could have become... could still become. They weren’t safe yet.
The man caught her gaze and winked. Beside her, Kevin swallowed audibly.
“At least you were smart enough to get another car,” the man said, putting down the bottle. “I wasn’t sure you’d both survive.”
He was utterly untouched by the explosion, his perfect skin unmarred. Sarah felt marginally better for leaving him behind.
Still, they had abandoned him.
“I’m sorry -” she began, but he held up a hand.
“The last bomb was wired to explode when you turned on the car.”
Oh. Oh. She put her hands in her lap. “Still.”
“I didn’t think you had morals, Doctor Kinney. Don’t fret,” he said when she opened her mouth to answer - to say what, to defend herself? He was right. “I couldn’t care less.”
“Did they all die?” Kevin asked quietly.
Of course they’d died. All of them. Hundreds of people that they’d lived with for years. Sarah didn't feel a thing, but they’d do well to remember that this man was a real killer. What the facility had tried to turn her daughter into.
Kevin was having trouble with all this.
Not-John turned towards Kevin with eyes that said: ‘This man’s an idiot.’ “I certainly hope so. There was this nasty bitch... impenetrable skin. If she’s still alive, she’ll give chase.”
Sarah’s blood ran cold. A superpowered woman? Sarah hadn’t known there was one in the facility. A ‘nasty bitch’ who would give chase? “You risked leading her straight to us?”
“You’ve got nerve, Doctor Kinney.” The man looked irritated. “I wasn’t followed. Still, you need to get to Xavier’s. You’ll be safe there.”
“Why?” Kevin breathed, finding some backbone. “How can another geneticist help us? What’s really going on?”
Sarah sat up straighter. If the man decided they were a nuisance, then they were done for. If there was an ulterior motive, a different endgame, it would be revealed now. But she had to believe that this man, this killer, had her daughter’s best interest in mind.
“The ‘gifted youngsters’ the school houses,” the man said, looking at Sarah, “they’re young mutants. The school is a front for the X-Men.”
The X-Men? Sarah could only gape. In a school?
The perfect hiding place. Her thoughts raced. Her daughter would be safe, surrounded by power-houses. In fact, it was the safest place she could bring her daughter to.
“Doctor Xavier -” Kevin exhaled.
“Also a mutant.” The man crossed his arms. “He’ll take you in. They help young mutants in need, and the girl certainly qualifies.”
He shivered so minutely that Sarah could almost convince herself that she’d seen wrong.
“But if the X-Men are there,” she mused out loud. “That means -”
“Weapon X will be there.” The man turned, giving his back to them. Browsing the food on the counter. “Your daughter will be safe. He likes girls.”
Sarah froze. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
She watched the man select an instant rice dish and put it in the microwave, every movement so casual. His voice, when he spoke, was casual too, almost studiously so. “It simply means that Weapon X is a hypocrite. He fancies himself a protector of mutant girls.”
Whereas he didn’t like mutant boys…?
What was this man’s identity, his history with Weapon X? He wasn’t a clone - was he Weapon X’s son? Had he been abandoned? And then collected by a facility like the one they’d worked for, trained, abused?
“Will you be coming with us?” she asked, unable to stop herself. Beside her, Kevin jumped.
The man turned to watch her, an eyebrow raised. “Whyever would I do that?”
“You have all this intel about the school,” she expounded, “Your people will know that we’re there. That you didn't… comply with the orders.”
No, she didn’t imagine the tremor that took him, even if the next moment he was taking the food out of the microwave and eating with steady hands, watching her with his cold eyes. He was putting himself on the line for her daughter.
“Don’t think too hard, Doctor Kinney,” he hissed. “You’ll give yourself a headache.”
“Are you like me?”
The thin voice of her daughter - she was finally speaking! She was awake? How much had she heard? - startled Sarah and she whirled around. The bedroom door was ajar, and her daughter stood there, her eyes fixed on the man.
“No,” the man said, eating calmly. “You’re a little girl.”
There was no inflection at all in his voice.
“I am a real girl?”
Sarah’s chest clenched painfully. She got up from the couch and reached her, and knelt, and spread her arms. “You’re a real girl. You’re my daughter. You’re real, and I love you.”
She couldn't expect her daughter to step into her embrace, she didn't dare to, but her daughter did so - timidly, and she stepped away immediately, but she did. Sarah’s heart soared. Oh, her daughter!
“May I see them?” her daughter asked, looking away from her. At the man.
There was that slick, terrible sound, the sound of nightmares, and Kevin whimpered, and Sarah turned to see the man’s extended claws. He stood relaxed, leaning against the counter, his cold eyes regarding her daughter. And her daughter, small and quiet, walking slowly, reached the man, and touched a claw.
Sarah stood up, wary, knowing that she couldn’t do anything to intervene. This was a baring of souls. There was an affinity, there, that she couldn't begin to understand. But oh, God, she hoped her daughter wouldn’t turn into him. She hoped to spare her that agony.
He looked down at her daughter with an expression that Sarah couldn’t quite read. Did he feel for her? He must, or else he’d have gone through with his assignment.
The man stiffened slightly. He said something in Japanese. Her daughter lowered her hand from his claw, and spoke quietly.
“Hai,” she said. ‘Yes’. Sarah wondered what he had just told her daughter.
The man looked up at Sarah. “You need to take the fire escape and leave now.”
Sarah’s blood ran cold. “What? Why?”
He ignored her. “You should get there at dawn. Don’t leave the map here.”
Kevin was already on the move, putting things in the duffel bag they’d gotten at Walmart. Sarah ran to her daughter, pulled her away from the man.
“Who’s coming?”
“Leave now, Doctor Kinney.” The man grabbed a bag from the door; he must have come in with it. Something inside it clanged. Weapons?
Of course, weapons.
“You said you weren’t followed!”
“You won’t be followed,” he said calmly, taking guns out of the bag. “Go.”
Once again, Kevin, the voice of reason, made her move. Once again, she abandoned her daughter’s savior. Her daughter went quietly, throwing just a quick glance at the window as they went down the fire escape, Kevin in the front, Sarah behind her. Quick, quick, quick. Who had come? That woman from the facility, the one he’d called nasty? Other people related to the facility? Or his own people?
Was she leaving him there to die?
No matter. It couldn’t matter. The important thing, the only important thing, was to get her daughter to safety.
Once out of the city, Kevin drove fast. Sarah sat in the back with her daughter, staring out of the back window, half-expecting for vans and helicopters to come after them. Her daughter took her hand unprompted.
“It’s going to be all right,” she said, mimicking Sarah’s comforting tone. Sarah squeezed her hand, hoping it was true.
“Yes,” she said, searching Kevin’s gaze in the rearview mirror. He nodded at her. She’d been ungenerous; despite the shock he must be feeling, he’d been steadfast in helping them. Sarah didn’t know if she would have gotten far without him.
And Tanaka, and the man without a name. All coming together, to help her little girl escape that hell.
“What did he tell you?” she asked as dawn approached, pink hues in the sky, salvation near.
Her daughter looked straight ahead, at the road leading to the school. “He said to keep close to you.”
Sarah exchanged a glance with Kevin. “He did?”
“Close to my mother.” Her daughter raised her eyes at her, filled with life Sarah hadn’t dared hoping to see. “I think he meant you. He called you that before. Are you my mother?”
“Yes, dear. My child.” A lump in her throat, Sarah held her daughter as Kevin parked in front of the school. She let him deal with ringing the bell, with the inevitable questions. “I’m your mother.”
Her daughter was safe now. She’d live and grow and be happy. She’d be a normal girl.
They were safe now.