Innocence

Disclaimer: I do not own the X-Men.

Chapter 1

I lay silently in my bunk as the floor of the RV rocked gently beneath me as we drove along. It was dark outside and the RV stank from whatever Mama was cooking in her pot. We almost never stopped driving. Not unless it was to get food from a gas station or to stop by a casino or sometimes a supermarket. I wasn't sure why that was. It was just the way things were, I guess.

In the bunk beneath mine, I heard my brother, Danny, whimpering and I rolled over to look at him. Danny didn't look anything like me. He had red hair, big ears, and was covered in freckles. Sometimes I wondered if he really was my brother, but then I remembered the things we had in common: Our bright blue eyes and our secret, which wasn't a secret anymore.

Danny wasn't as good at hiding it as I was, so Mama had found out. She always said she was glad she had such good kids. She said she wouldn't put up with no kids who were different – like homosexual or something like that. Danny was different, though, and now she knew. And Boston said Danny had to go.

Boston wasn't my dad. He wasn't Danny's dad, either, but Mama said he loved us. Except he didn't love Danny anymore because he knew Danny had the scales now and was getting more every day.

I had tried to teach Danny to make the scales go away, even though I didn't have them myself, but he wouldn't listen and just kept saying over and over he couldn't make them go away. That's why Mama and Boston had found out.

They only knew about Danny, though.

I was still safe because I was good at hiding it.

"'Milla," Danny whimpered up at me from his bunk below mine.

"Would you kids shut up back there?" Mama barked at us from her place over the stove.

I looked from Mama to Danny and back again. Then I reached out from under the blanket and took Danny's hand in my own. Pale blue scales wound up his arms in tiny patches.

I smiled at him silently.

"I'm scared, 'Milla," Danny whispered to me. There were tears in his eyes.

I frowned and shook my head. There was no reason for him to be scared. Sure, Mama and Boston were mad now, but they'd get it over. Eventually. They had to. Mama especially. That's just what mamas did.

That's what all the ones on TV were like and so was ours. She wasn't exactly the same as the ones we watched in the shows every morning. But she loved us. She loved Danny.

Suddenly, the RV came to a halt and I sat up silently.

Mama turned off whatever she was cooking and began muttering something I couldn't hear.

I looked down at Danny and our blue eyes locked. "Stay," I whispered.

I jumped down from my bunk and ran over to the window. I couldn't see much in the dark. There weren't streetlights anywhere, but I could just barely make out the outline of a car. I thought there was someone out by the car, but I couldn't tell.

"Camilla!" Mama snapped at me as she pulled her coat on. "Would you get away from there?"

I turned away from the window and looked at her. "Who is out there, Mama?"

Mama glared at me. "None of your damn business," she told me angrily. "Now, go lay down."

I frowned at her. "But Mama –"

"You heard your mother," Boston called from the front of the RV. "Now, lay the hell down before I drag you back there by the hair on your fucking head!"

I bit my lip and nodded. I went back to my bunk and lay down. I looked down at Danny and whispered as quietly as I could, "Someone's out there."

Mama walked over to the bunks, carrying a plastic bag in her hand. She pulled open one of the plastic drawers in the small dresser beside the bunks and began to fill the bag.

"What are you doing, Mama?" I asked, watching her.

As soon the words left my mouth, Mama had straightened up and was standing over me with her hand raised. "It's none of your business what I'm doing," she said, grabbing me by the scruff of my shirt. "Now, go to fucking sleep!" She let go of me. Then she bent down and grabbed Danny by the arm and pulled him into a sitting position. "Get up," she told him. "Come on now. Get up."

Danny looked at her and shook his head. "I don't wanna," he said. "I'm tired. I want to sleep."

"I don't give a crap what you want," Mama said angrily. "I'm the parent. You do as I say and I say you get the hell up." She jerked him to his feet and he let out a loud cry.

I reached out to grab to Danny's hand as Mama pulled him away from me – his fingers were only a few inches from mine. I wasn't fast enough, though, and Danny was crying as Mama forced his shoes and coat on him.

"You better hurry up," Boston said over Danny's shrieks and cries. "This guy ain't gonna wait forever."

"I'm freaking hurrying," Mama snapped at him.

Danny was on the floor now, though, clawing at everything within arm's reach as Mama pulled him towards the door of the RV. "'Milla!" he screamed as she wrenched the door opened and dragged him outside by his legs.

The door swung shut and I jumped to my feet. I ran to the door with tears in my eyes as I tried to get some last glimpse of Danny as he screamed for me. I pressed the palm of my hand against the glass of the door and whispered quietly as I sobbed, "Danny -"

Within an instant Boston had grabbed me and thrown me against the hard, metal dining booth where we ate dinner every night. "Didn't I fucking tell you to get your ass to bed?!" he shouted at me. He grabbed me by my arm, pulled me to my feet, and half-dragged me back to the bunks. He threw me back into my bunk.

I looked up at him. "But Danny –"

"Danny's going away," Boston spat at me angrily. "And if you don't fucking behave, then you'll go away, too – you got that?"

I stared up at him with tears on my cheeks, confused. I didn't know what to say as I watched him stomp back to the front of the RV. "But Danny's my brother," I said finally after what seemed like forever.

It was the only thing I could think to say. It was one of the few things that had always made sense in my life. Just like Mama was my mama and Boston wasn't my daddy, Danny was my brother. He didn't look like me, but he was and that was all that mattered.

Wasn't it?

"Danny isn't your brother no more, Camilla," Boston said as he sat down in the driver's seat of the RV. "He's in someone else's family now, got it?"

Three Years Later

It was dark inside the RV and out. All of the doors and windows were open to let the heat out. It was the first time in ages the place didn't stink.

Blazing candles formed the numbers one and three on a miniature cake that sat on the table in front of me. Mama and some nameless bleach-blond guy I had never seen before sat on the other side, smiling at me as they sang. Mama said that he was a friend and that he might come with us after we left Vegas.

Boston was gone. He had left about a year ago. I wasn't sure why. I just remembered him and Mama yelling a lot about money and stuff.

The song ended. "Happy birthday, 'Milla," Mama said to me.

I smiled at her and blew out the candles silently. Then I looked out the window as Mama began to cut the cake and go on about how happy she was and blah blah blah. From where we were parked, I could see the blinding lights of the Vegas Stripe perfectly. They lit up the night like some sort of gigantic, neon-colored fireflies and hurt my eyes to look at. It was still a comforting sight to look at, though.

Las Vegas had become the new constant in my life since Danny had left. It was the one place we kept coming back to, for some reason. Once when we were here for over a month, Mama even thought about enrolling me in a school – public, of course – but then she decided it would be better if I just stayed with the homeschooling. It was the only kind of school I'd ever been to, after all, so it sort of made since.

The area of the city we were in now, though, was not one I was familiar with. It was miles from the Stripe, but still bustling with people. There were lots of business buildings, and on the other side of the street was a bookstore with a newsstand set up out front and a small pawn shop beside it. I found it strange that Mama would pick a spot like this. With all the mutant talk that had been going on, she liked to stay as far away from the news as possible. I wasn't sure why.

I knew it brought up memories for me, but, mostly, it just made me grateful that I had been able to hide it. I had learned early on not to talk or think or wonder about Danny after he had left.

"Camilla, are you listening?"

I looked up to see Mama, reaching across the table with a box in her hand. I knew from the paper and bows that it was my present – I had only been getting these since Danny had gone. "Yes, Mama," I said, smiling at her.

Mama grinned. She knew I was lying, but she was just happy that I was obeying her rules. "Here then," she said, giving me the present. "And eat your cake, too." She pushed a plate of cake towards me as she stood up from the table.

"I hope you like it," Blondie smiled at me. "I helped pick it out." He gestured to the gift. "Your mama didn't know what to get you."

I nodded at him as I unwrapped it. "Thank you."

"You can't play with it tonight, though," Mama said from she where stood in the kitchen, crushing a little white pill into a fine powder. "I want you to hurry up and finish eating, so you can take your medicine and get to bed."

"Yes, Ma–" I fell silent as I finished unwrapping the gift and frowned down at it. It was one of those Pokemon games that were all over the internet right now. Normally, it would have been a great gift, but I didn't even have a system to play it on.

"What's the matter?" Mama asked, setting a down a glass of orange juice in front of me. "Don't you like it – did you like the other monster better?" She frowned at me.

I must have looked more disappointed than I thought. I smiled at her and shook my head. "No, I love it," I told her. "Thank you."

I'd be selling it at that pawn shop in the morning. She wouldn't know that, though.

"Good then," Mama said, sounding relieved. "Now, drink your juice, so you can go to bed – it's got your medicine in it."

I nodded silently and drank the juice. It tasted bitter from the pills. I had no idea what kind of medicine Mama gave me. All I knew was that I was sick and the medicine made me feel better. It made me sleep, though.

Usually, anyway.

I lay in bed silently. It was pitch black, but the noise from the city never ceased. The digital clock on the bunk below mine that Mama had managed to transform into a study area for me said that it was just past two in the morning. Sighing, I threw the blanket off and jumped down onto the cool, metal floor.

Mama and her friend had gone out somewhere. They'd probably be back soon. I didn't think most of the tourist spots even stayed open this late.

I walked to the little bathroom that was right beside my bed and closed the door behind me. I went over to the sink and turned the cold water on. I stood silently, letting the water run across my fingers. Then I scooped some water in my hands and splashed it on my face.

As soon as the water met my skin, the room filled with a loud crash and the sound of breaking glass. A small, round piece of concrete fell through the air and clattered noisily into the sink. Instinctively, I stumbled backwards into the shower and curled into a little ball on the tiled floor, holding my breath.

Seconds later, I heard the sounds of another window breaking. Outside, I could hear people – teenage boys, it sounded like – talking in drunken slurs, but I couldn't quite make out what they were saying. Then I heard the piercing sound of metal on metal as something collided over and over again with the door of the RV.

"Idiot!" I heard a muffled voice say. "Damn thing was already unlocked."

I froze as realization dawned on me: Those voices were much too close.

They were in the RV.