Panting panting panting trying to hide where to hide go left slide duck under safest under there…
Angie nearly sobbed as she curled herself into the dark below the secretary's desk. She'd managed to avoid them so far by a combination of luck and her mutant ability, sensing probabilities. Now the girl huddled under the table, hoping that somehow, she would remain beneath notice.
Black low heeled shoes entered the room. Her panic increased. She didn't know Miss Rothwell's position on mutants, but given the administration's efforts to capture her, she was sure it must be bad.
"Miss Rothwell." The speaker on the desk blared suddenly, and Angie nearly knocked herself out, jerking with fright at the sudden loud noise.
The woman's long, slim calves appeared before Angie, and Miss Rothwell spoke. "Yes, Mr. Turner."
She shivered, trying to calm down, nerves honed to a desperate edge.
"The mutant has not yet been found."
Pause. The secretary lifted her right leg and flexed a little. "So I need to dispatch the cavalry?"
"No. Get the cage ready. She's only a girl. Everyone's looking for her, and we already contacted the parents. She has nowhere to go."
Angie let out a small whimper before she could control it. Miss Rothwell's shoe came down hard. "Very well."
Miss Rothwell opened a desk drawer, took out a key ring, and walked to the door of her office. She held the door open, then spoke back into the room. "No one's at the front door, and the police haven't arrived yet." Then she closed the door and walked away.
Angie bolted out of the office, a tear running down her face, wild with fear and crazy hope.
She was trying to remember that day at the school now that they had captured her. The elderly man before her nodded regally and asked, "Any last words before you become what you despise?"
Blonde. Her hair had been blonde.
She swallowed. "I'm … I never have been your enemy. Really. I've always tried to keep an open mind…"He laughed. "Touching. Most touching." He bent closer to her stunned face. "Now you will have no choice. If you survive, you must join our cause; if you die, it's a good day for the dogs."
He gave the order, and hot, throbbing pain began spreading through her arm where she had been injected. She tried to remember the day she decided to let the poor, frightened mutant under her desk go. "Mutants aren't all evil."
She tried to believe it as Magneto's serum scorched away at her body, but she felt her belief wavering as the unending pain spread.