Pain. She was in lots of pain.

[You really think she'll listen to Stryker?]

[You did, didn't you?]

She sat up, her left shoulder singing in pain. She reached her right arm back, feeling slightly damp gauze and deep gorges in her skin underneath. She winced at the memory of the man called Victor Creed, the one with sharp nails and canine teeth and just this overall vibe that radiated 'not the type of guy you want to lock dental braces with'.

Then again, she mused, there were very few people who radiated 'the type of guy you do want to lock dental braces with'.

[It was either this or ballroom dancing, and guess which one you can actually make a living at?]

[God, shut up, Wilson.]

She pushed herself off the cement floor she was lying on, but fell back down. Everything either hurt or was numb. She settled on just lying there and looked around. The scary room from before was gone, replaced by an equally creepy environment. A harsh metal cage bolted into the cement floor. There were cameras all around her, in every corner of the cage, and the door looked thick, bolted, and impossible to penetrate. She tried to think if the place she'd been in before was worse. Which was worse? Being caged like an animal or being in a room full of the type of chair you only saw in the lethal injection room in prisons?

[It was this job, if you were wonder- hey, she's awake. And she's not screaming bloody murder. What do you know?]

She stretched, hissing in pain and considering running again for a minute. She might be able to turn invisible and break the lock if she killed the sound. She doubted herself, though. She'd never been good at picking locks. One time she and her friends had tried to break into the local store after it closed. It was when she was with her dad, so it was in the less-nice neighborhood of Phili. There'd been bars on the windows. She'd been using a bobby pin that her friend had flattened with a stone against the brick wall of the adjacent building. They'd been in a dark alleyway, wearing all black because they're were eleven-year-olds trying to be twenty-year-old criminals living on the edge because they had nothing better to do.

She had sent of the alarm within two minutes. The scare had made her heart skip and jump, and for a faint second, it sounded like some one had muted the alarm, just for a faint second. But as soon as the brief moment of silence had come, and it had gone, and she was bolting down the street with her friends trying not to fall as they all laughed to the point of tears.

[She's just staring off into space. I think you might have given her just a little too much of that stuff, Wilson.]

She smiled sadly at the memory. It had barely been more than a year ago, but it seemed so far away. She sighed, fought back the tears that threatened to emerge as the scene of her father's murder and the pictures of her mother's filled in the gap between that attempted break-in and the present.

[If I did, at least it was the happy stuff. I'd hate to give her the really nasty stuff.]

She wanted to get out of here, there was no doubt about that. She didn't know where she was, she had been attacked twice, and as far as she knew, some weirdo named Stryker wanted her for her mutation. The last part was a guess, but let's face it, why else would you kidnap a twelve-year-old girl and place her in what seemed to be a high security area? There was no other reason, that much she knew.

Maybe this was why people called her a smart kid. After all, she sure did some stupid things in her life if landed her here of all places in the world.

[Be on guard. I'm going into the cage.]

[Yes, sir.]

Wade watched as Stryker made his way down the cement hallway towards the girl's cage. She perked up at the sound of footsteps, and pushed herself up, grimacing in pain. She bit her lip and put a hand on her shoulder blade. The action made Wade a bit pissed off. She wouldn't be in pain if Creed had kept his hands to himself instead of marking her with his claws. The thought made something in Wade swell and spread, like an angry mob in his bloodstream. He crossed his arms, gripping his biceps to keep from unsheething his beloved katanas and just taking the bastard out on the spot. The fact that Victor was standing right next to him smiling like a sadist idiot did nothing to help Wade's control, either. Then again, neither did the fact that he had no idea why he was being like this.

For fuck's sake, he killed for a living. He was in it for the money, nothing else. He took human life away like people reposed TV's and couches and houses and cars. Efficiently, unfeeling, easily. His job was rarely a challenge, especially an emotional one.

So what made this girl different? What about her made him act this way?

[Creed, if you don't stop smiling like that-]

[What you gonna do about it, Wilson? Get your little girlfriend to scream at me?]

Wade gripped his arms and said nothing.

Looked like Victor just found a way to make Wade shut up.