From now on, the story will be told in a process of the years she spends with the team, until she turns seventeen.
{The First Year}
{January}
"Ow!" she hissed, jerking away from the needle that poked into her skin. "That hurts!"
"Suck it up, kid," he growled, trying to stitch up the marks Victor embedded into her shoulder blade. They were deep, all the way to the bone, and even the bone was marked, too, he'd seen the marks of bone-on-bone when he opened the wounds to clean them. He didn't even know why he was doing this, damnit. She was a stubborn little bitch, and whiny, too. And if she lived long enough, she'd bring boys into the base and cause trouble and drink his beer.
Why the hell Stryker made him her mentor, he didn't know, but if his predictions turned out to be true, there was going to be hell to pay. Mainly because no one drank his beer.
"You're not the one getting the stitches!" she said as she winced, sitting on the floor. He was leaning over her back, sitting in a recliner in the rec room. Zero was sitting across from them, polishing his guns. The fact that they were pointed in her general direction did nothing to calm Cassie down, which only made Jimmy's job harder seeing as her skin shimmered and flickered every time she heard the gun click or saw it move. Bolt sat next to Zero, watching the pair fight in amusement.
"Maybe not," Jimmy said, and then gave a hard pull at the string, making her hiss, "but I'm the one fixing them. I wouldn't bitch at the man who was tending to your wounds if I was you, kid."
"He's right you know, Half-pint," Bolt noted, smirking as she pouted childishly. Next to Jimmy, Bolt was probably the only other man on the team to get on Cassandra's good side, or at least, the only other man on the team who Cassandra wasn't afraid of or hated. Plus, he was the only one she was able to borrow clothes from when she ran out of clean ones. Even with Bolt at a small-stature of 5'8, she looked swamped in his clothes. His black sweats had been rolled up several times to meet her middle shins as she sat there, clad in nothing else but a thin strapped tank top. His hoodie was on the floor next to her. It went to her knees when she wore it.
"I'm not a kid," she defended indignitly, crossing her arms. Wade snorted as he walked by, taking a deep chug of beer.
"And I'm the freaking fairy princess," he declared, raising his bottle in the air in a gesture close to a cheers and then leaning on the back of Jimmy's chair, staring at her intently. "You really should be careful what you say around here, Half-pint," he warned, using her ever-famous nickname. Three days. Three days of living with them, and they already found the most annoying nickname ever.
He grinned. "We might just send Creed after you again," he threatened, smiling. Her back instantly stiffened, Jimmy noticed, and she shut up. When she started to shake as Wade laughed, Jimmy had to hold both her shoulders to keep her still. He narrowed his eyes. God damnit. Bolt looked at her and then instantly glared at Wade. Zero did nothing.
"Wade, get out of here," Jimmy ordered.
"What? I'm just putting Half-pint in her place-"
"Get. Out." Jimmy bit out, sending Wade a death glare as he took his hands off of Cassie's shoulders. She was still shaking. When Wade noticed, he left immediately. The beer bottle in his hand shattered to pieces in his hand once the door shut behind him.
"Fuck."
{March}
"You're getting better, kid," Jimmy tormented as they sparred. So far, they'd only covered hand-to-hand, and she fought dirty: a good quality to have in a hell pit like the one they were in. She was weak, mainly because she was growing like a weed, but also because she never ate much, so her muscle strength wasn't so good. But she was a quick little bitch, just like the first day he'd met her, and she was bony as hell. Her hipbones were visible in the gap between her tank top and the sweatpants she'd stolen from Bolt, when she elbowed you, the bruise stayed for a couple of hours, even with his healing. That part was definitely impressive.
"I try," she admitted, aiming to knee him in the gut. He fell for the trap, going to deflect it. She broke his nose with her elbow instead, but got a good hard punch to the stomach in return. Jimmy went easy on her because she was twelve and a girl, but he didn't go that easy on her. After all, she needed to know what a real fight would be like if she was going to work for Stryker. Her angry rock music was blasting in the sparring room, and it seemed to help her gain confidence. He told her she couldn't use invisibility because she might end up in a situation where she wouldn't be able to use it and have to fight. Both of them knew that was total bullshit, but she followed his orders nonetheless. She wasn't exactly in a position to cause trouble, at least not yet. Stryker watched her like a hawk, and if she disobeyed Jimmy once, it was a week in the cage.
And trust me, she did not enjoy the cage.
"Alright," Jimmy said, just a bit winded. She was panting. "We should move on to guns. You'll probably be using those the most," he informed her. She nodded, then cracked her knuckles before she followed him out into the hallway. The concrete was incredibly cold against her bare feet, but after a month of living in the base (she'd learned it was a military base not too long ago, thanks to Bolt's weakness for fried chicken, about the only thing she could cook and one of the few things she ate), she'd gotten used to it. He lead her downstairs into the armory, handed her a pair of headphones as he put his on.
She raised her eyebrows at him. She was virtually a human silencer. He rolled his eyes and put the headphones back.
"Okay, you know how to hold a gun, right?" he asked, grabbing one for himself and tossing her one. She caught it, terrified.
He let her have a low-alcohol beer, only one for the weekend, when she came over to visit. She was smart enough never to tell her mom or the D.A.R.E officers at her school. It wasn't cool, it wasn't uncool. It was just what she and her father did on his Saturday's off.
And then that man came.
"Um, yeah. Sure. I used to watch Starsky and Hutch," she said, unsure. She held the gun in one hand, not properly, just too look at it. A simple hand gun. Not something with a lot of fire power, but she wasn't expecting to get a Tommy-gun on her first time.
"You owe us money, Jimmy," he said. His voice was horrible and scratchy and driven by anger.
She clutched it tightly in her palm. Jimmy taught her how to load it without saying much. She followed what he said, but she wasn't really listening.
"Cassie, honey?... Why don't you go upstairs?... Go upstairs!"
She took a deep breath and shook her head quickly, trying to get the thoughts from playing in her head as she got ready to shoot the target.
She could hear her father begging downstairs, but she wasn't sure what he was begging for. Either way, it was horrible, degrading, and scary. No child should ever hear their father beg another man.
She rammed the rounds into the gun, hands shaking. Sweat rolled down the side of her face and her vision swam. Jimmy was shooting already, the sounds of the shots echoing in her head, replaying the very moment she heard her father get shot over. And over. And over...
"Get a grip," she said, but she felt the panic attack whizz through her system. Breathing was difficult and her vision swan and darkened.
The gun hit the floor only seconds before she did. After that, Jimmy managed to convince Stryker to make her wear mandatory ear plugs during situations involving fire arms.
{June}
"This," Wraith declared, "should not be possible."
"Tell me about it," Zero muttered, taking off his watch and throwing it on the table. Wraith ran a dark hand over an equally dark face and sighed. Jimmy was chewing on his cigar angrily, glaring at his cards with an intensity that should have set them aflame. Victor just glared at her specifically, something that would have bothered her if it wasn't for Bolt and Jimmy being in the same room. Dukes was staring at his cards dumbly, completely stupefied at the very idea of a twelve-year-old being able to do this. Bolt, who was usually amused by Cassie, found himself forking over his last item to bet with: his pants.
"There is no way in hell I'm giving up my babies!" Wade declared, arguing with Cassie, who was sitting across the table from him enjoying herself immensly. Wade was hugging his swords to his torso. There was no way in hell Cassie was kicking his ass in poker. For God's sake, she was winning against seven full grown men trained since adolesence to void of any emotion and to show no mercy. And she wasn't just winning, either. She was handing their asses to them on a silver platter.
"It's the last thing you have to bet," she said nonchalantly, not really caring if she got them or not. After all, she had most of the mens' watches, Bolt's pants, a tracking system, two guns, a five pack of beer, another of Jimmy's flannel shirts, Wade's wife beater, and five hundred bucks on the table. "But if you don't want to, you can just take the blow to your pride and admit that an adolescent girl served your ass to you-"
"No. Way. In. Hell," Wade spat. He loved his babies, but his love was not as big as his ego. He gave in, putting them gently on the table. "How the hell are you even winning? YOU'VE GOT A FIVE PACK ON THE TABLE AND YOU'RE NOT EVEN LEGAL TO DRINK!"
"Blame Victor. He was the one who put it on the table." she said, jerking her thumb over a few seats to the seething cat-like man. "And in any case, I've been drinking alcohol since infancy."
"Bullshit," Wraith stated. She shook her head.
"No joke. Dad used to put Jack Daniel's with my milk when I couldn't sleep. I'm bound to die of liver failure at age twenty," she said simply, like the thought really didn't bother her at the moment. "And besides, I'm gonna share my winnings."
"With who?!" Wade asked excitedly. She looked at him like he was stupid.
"Do you really need an answer to that?"
"Yes! I wanna know!" Wade said childishly. She rolled her eyes.
"I'll give you a guess. I'm wearing his pants and his shirt," she said, pointing to the objects in order of recognition. She was sitting at the table, legs pulled up to her chest and feet resting on the same chair she was sitting on. She wore flip flops, baggy black sweats, a white camisole, and an open flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled up to her bony elbows. Jimmy and Bolt grinned cockily, while the rest of the men groaned as the girl showed her cards. She gathered up her earnings, folding the clothes and tucking the money into her pocket. She opened a beer by hitting the top against the edge of the table, stretching her legs and propping them up on the table, sending the cap flying, before she passed it to Jimmy. She opened one for Bolt, too, and then finally, one for herself. They clinked bottles and took a swig simultaneously. Wade glared at her.
How the hell had he lost at poker? He usually kicked ass at poker! His glare intensified when she twirled the sword in her hand carelessly and clumsily, almost slicing off Jimmy's nose. She blushed, but laughed, and Jimmy ruffled her hair. Then she noticed Wade's glare and gave him the swords back catiously.
She didn't say anything when she handed them to him, and it was more of a scared side note than a nice gesture. Just as he was about to say thank you, she was already talking with Jimmy about training the next day.
Wade stayed angry at himself for weeks.
{July}
She'd grown three inches in the past eighty days; Stryker was keeping track, so yes, Jimmy would know about it. Not to mention the fact that she got bonnier every single day, it seemed.
And not just because getting kneed or elbowed by her hurt like a bitch. It was because the girl didn't eat anything. And if she did, it was at normal eating hours.
"Do you ever eat at a normal time for humans?" Jimmy mused as he walked into the base's kitchen. She was sitting on a counter top, shovelling down cereal with milk. She gave him a small smile, swallowing.
"Bad dream," she explained quietly. Jimmy frowned, so she went into a little more detail. "It's nothing major. Just about my dad. It happens almost every night. A bowl of cereal and I'll be fine," she swore, wiping her eyes, trying not to sniffle but failing. He didn't buy it for a second. She looked shaken, almost like when Wade threatened to sick Victor on her.
"You're shaking. If you're fine and dandy I'm a star in Dukes of Hazard, kid," Jimmy scoffed, seeing how red and wet her eyes were. His frown deepened. "You want to talk about it?"
"No, no, I'm fine," she insisted stubbornly, wiping her nose on her sleeve and taking another spoonful of the Lucky Charms that Stryker kept on base solely for her, another one of his bribes to get her to cooperate.
Admittedly, it worked, but it was a bribe nonetheless.
"At least let me walk you back to your room. The last thing you need is another panic attack," Jimmy said, just as stubborn as she was. She frowned, narrowing her eyes.
"That only happened when I held a gun," she said defensively. "And that was months ago."
"How long ago did your father die?" Jimmy asked as she got down from the counter. She stopped for a minute, barely breathing.
"When Stryker captured me, it had only been two months. Eight months?" she said, trying not to think about it.
"What about your mom?"
"You know what happened to my parents!" she shot. "I don't have to tell you information you already know."
"You don't have to act so tough, kid," Jimmy said, trying to offer advice. She snorted.
"I just really don't want to talk about, okay, Jimmy?" she explained, voice back to being quiet and scared as she washed the dishes in the sink. The dish clattered in the sink, breaking, when she said 'Jimmy'. Her dad's name had been Jimmy.
"Kid, you're going to have another panic attack if you don't fucking breathe," Jimmy scolded, walking over to her. She gave a sad smile.
"My dad's name was Jimmy..."
{August}
"Now, Cassandra," Stryker said calmly, through the loud speaker. "These are only tests to see what your capable of. Don't feel pressured. This is only so we can understand what you can accomplish when I send you on missions with the team. Say something if you feel uncomfortable of if the test is difficult for you. Understood?"
"Yes, sir," she said, standing in a room like the ones she woke up in when she first 'arrived' at Stryker's base, minus the scary dental chair. She tugged the sleeve's of Jimmy's flannel shirt over her hands nervously. She had always hated tests when she went to a real school, especially in math class. But something told her that this test was pretty far from math. Sure, she had education here at the base, but it was all relative to her job, and her job was to work with Stryker's military team. The literature was stuff like the English translation of Mien Kampf, a few Shakespeare's and maybe, if Stryker was really feeling happy, John Stienbeck was always a popular choice. Anything else she wanted to read, she had to read by herself on her own time.
She would never tell Strkyer that Jimmy let her read instead of doing the math assignments he gave her. Jimmy's outlook on it was that, while the Pathagarean Theorem came in handy when you knew all the measurements of the place you were trying to get out of or to in a military situation, ass-kicking helped you way more than any stupid math equation ever would.
She was really starting to love Jimmy.
"Okay, Cassandra, if you could please turn invisible, but keep the sound on," Stryker ordered. She nodded, and her image flickered and sputtered away. She'd found that she could change how she disappeared not too long ago. She always turned invisible when Victor was close and Jimmy or Bolt weren't around. At first, it was always the simplistic way to go invisible: all at once. But then she started experimenting as her control grew. Now she could fade like a mirage, flicker like she was on a screen, sputter like she was made of oil and being heated, and wisp away like smoke, much to her enjoyment. She was still working on becoming visible, though. That seemed a bit harder to control.
"Good. Can you turn invisible any other way?" Stryker asked, meaning that she had to answer and would probably have to show him the four other ways.
"Yes, sir."
"Let's see them then."
[She has more way than one?]
[Apparently so. Tape these things, damnit. What are you just standing around for?]
[Yes, sir.]
She came back all at once, then faded out. She came back all at once, and went out all at once. She came back all at once, and then sputtered away. She came back all at once, and then withered and whisked away like smoke. Stryker stopped her then.
"How do you do that one, Cassandra?"
"I just picture smoke, sir," she replied. It sounded so stupid, but it was what she did.
"That one was good. Excellent in fact."
"Thank you, sir."
[Amazing. It was like her entire body turned into smoke and got blown away by wind. Incredible.]
[Yes, and now we know it isn't her skin that's turning invisible. Stop the chemical tests. This has something to do with light waves.]
[Yes, sir.]
"Alright, Cassandra. Now, stay invisible."
She faded out again.
"Now we're going to tape you with a heat vision camera. I want you to try and be invisible on that, but still stay undetectable on the normal one. Understood?"
"Crystal, sir," she said, nodding even though he couldn't see that. A green light came on the other side of the room, which she could assume meant that the heat camera was on. She stood there, unsure of what to do. How was she supposed to become invisible to that? Becoming invisible just kind of came naturally to her, when she was being watched. She bit her lip and tried to concentrate on that, watching the green light and imagining it to be some one looking for her.
[She's flickering, sir.]
[Good.]
It was hard to stay invisible both ways. It felt like she was tuned to two different radio stations, and it was very tiring. But she did it.
"Brilliant, Cassandra. You may stop now," Stryker ordered. She came back flickering and fading, tired. The attempt draining her, and she felt dizzy.
"Sir?"
"Yes?"
"I feel dizzy, sir. Permission to stop for the day, sir?"
"Accepted. Go rest."
"Yes, sir."
--
It was the twenty-eighth day of testing. She had barely gotten to see Jimmy for more than an hour a day for math. But she was doing amazing things. Stryker's experiments proved to be extremely educational. She got control of becoming visible, and she could now manage being undetectable by a normal camera and heat vision for a full hour before passing out.
"Today, we're going to try a different test," Stryker said. "Wade's going to come in. I want you to turn the both of you invisible, but I want you to be visible to each other. And turn the sound off, but be able to hear him."
"Okay," she said, nodding. Wade walked in and stood a few feet away. Within a second, there was short, low sound, like a heavy load had been dropped on the ground, and the image of their bodies evaporated, like an atom bomb disintegrated them, their ashes blown away by an imaginary wind.
[She's getting good, sir.]
[She likes to show off from time to time, yes.]
"What do you know? There goes my ass," Wade said, looking at the 'dust' that floated behind him. He looked at his hands. "Huh. So much for being invisible."
"Look at the screen," Cassie told him. He looked to the television in the corner.
"Holy shit!" Wade said, waving his hands around but still seeing nothing on the screen. "How'd you do that?"
"Just my mutation. Hell if I know the scientific reason. I'm twelve."
"And I'm a high school drop out. We're pretty much even," Wade mused.
"Good job, Cassandra. We can't see or hear a damned thing, even with the heat vision," Stryker said proudly. "You can come back now."
They flickered back into vision on screen. Wade looked at her.
"Heat vision, too, huh?"
"Yes," she said, feeling incredibly ill. "Sir, permission to stop for the day?"
"Go on out. Wade, make sure she doesn't pass out on the floor. Every time she does she almost has a damn concussion."
"Yes, sir. May I say that your voice is incredibly smooth and honey-covered today? It really turns me on-" Wade started. Cassie shook her head.
"Go, Wilson!"
"Are you sure? I'm offering! But then again, getting involved with the boss does present some problems, doesn't i-"
"GO!"
Wade heard Cassie laugh and he smirked, walking from the testing room.
He made her laugh.
{September}
"I'm just happy he's done with the testing," Cassie said as she sparred with Jimmy, kicking him in the face before he grabbed her ankle and tossed her over his shoulder. She landed on the mat on feet and hands, and went straight to launching herself at him, tackling him with her entire body weight behind her. It didn't do much, though. Honestly, she really couldn't expect it to accomplish anything she hoped for; her body mass index was puny compared to most people her age. 5'5 and 104 pounds. Skin and bone, Jimmy teased her.
"You seemed drained," Jimmy said, a bit worried. It was funny, though, mainly because he was worrying about her as he kicked her across the room.
"It was tough. Hiding Wade, Bolt, You, Victor, Dukes, Zero, and Wraith was anything but easy," she admitted, panting as she got up. "Seriously. Dukes is a big guy. It took a good effort to make him invisible to the camera. He kept flickering in and out!"
"You had Victor in the room with you, you were nervous," Jimmy sympathized. She rolled her eyes. Out of all the men in the base, it was her fighting mentor who was sympathetic. The irony killed her.
{November (16th)}
She snuck out of her room and down the hall, her image disappearing in a wisp of smoke. She shuddered, her footsteps making no sound against the floors. Her nightmare came back again. She needed Lucky Charms, and she needed them before she had a panic attack.
She walked into the kitchen, her image flickering back, as she poured a bowl of cereal. She was just about to pour too much milk into it, like she always did, when his voice made her stop in his tracks.
"What you doin' out here all by yourself, little girl?" Victor said, then laughed sadistically. She set the milk down, put the cap on. It was stupid of her to worry about spilling it, but she did anyways.
"N-nothing," she said, biting her lip because she hated how she sounded weak. She felt him get closer and she froze. He was right behind her, and she had nowhere to run to.
"Doesn't look like nothin'," Victor growled before he slammed her against the wall, nails scraping into the scars she had from their last encounter and also the shoulder blade that hadn't suffered damage. "Lying's a bad thing, little girl, and Jimmy won't always be around to protect you."
She could only whimper in pain as blood ran down her back, face pressed roughly into the concrete. Then he whirled her around, slamming her back into the wall. She cried out in pain. He grinned.
"You're nothing but a weak little girl, and nobody loves you. I bet your father hated your guts," he spat, slapping her across the face. Tears started to pour down her face.
Her father...
"You pathetic little bitch-"
"Hey what's going o-?!" Wade strolled into the room in shorts, nothing else. Then he saw what was going on. "Victor! Get off of her!" he ordered, rage soaring through his system. Victor smirked.
"What is it, Wilson? Am I hurting your little girlfriend?" Victor taunted, scraping a nail down her neck and drawing blood.
"Get off of her before I kill you, you sadistic son-of-a-bitch!" Wade shouted. Victor rolled his eyes.
"Like you could without your swords-"
Victor spoke too soon, because before he could even finish his sentence, a butcher knife embedded itself in his neck, cutting the spinal cord. Victor fell to the ground, paralyzed but livid with animistic rage. Wade kicked him repeatedly, stomped on him for good measure. The sickening crack of ribs splitting through Victor's skin made Cassie cringe. Within a few seconds of Wade kicking him in the head, Victor was out cold. Wade stomped his foot into his face for God knew what reason, and then he looked to Cassie.
"Are you oka- God damnit!" he almost shouted as he saw the blood on her neck and on the wall and how her face was swelling and the tears in her eyes. He pulled her away from the wall gently and picked her up just as Jimmy and Bolt ran into the room.
"I smell blood, what the hell is-?!" Jimmy had started, but then he saw Cassie being held by a shirtless and blood-covered Wade, the blood on the wall, Victor barely coming to on floor, and the butcher knife sticking out of his neck. When he saw the hand mark across Cassie's cheek his eyes went wide.
"What the fuck happened?" Bolt whispered. Wade, seething with rage, shoved past them.
"Victor happened. Her marked her. Again. Other shoulder," Wade said as Bolt followed, leaving Jimmy to handle Victor. Bolt saw her shoulder blade and cringed. She was going to need stitches again. Bolt patted her hair, but she was shaking, crying, absolutely terrified of everything that moved. Wade looked down at her, angry at her for going alone and angry at Jimmy for not being there and angry at Victor for being such a sadistic bastard and angry at himself for not being there sooner.
"Why were you alone?" Wade demanded as he made his way to the infirmary.
"I-I was just hungry," she said. "Usually Jimmy's down there. He knows what days I usually go down at night."
"From now on, you go anywhere, you tell Jimmy or I, got that, Half-pint?" Wade ordered. She nodded her head, burying her face in the crook of his neck as tears ran down her face and down the back of his neck and down his arm, leaving a trail of water through the blood that stained his skin. Bolt kept patting her hair and telling her that it was going to be alright.
If you ignored the fact that bolt was there, Wade noted, this was totally deja vu.
[Sir, Cassie was attacked.]
[Where, and by who?]
[The kitchen, Victor.]
[How bad, Wilson?]
[She's bleeding all over the place. He marked up her other shoulder blade, smacked her across the face, cut her neck a little, sir.]
[Where is he now? Are you bringing her to the infirmary?]
[He's in the kitchen with a butcher's knife sticking out of his neck. And, yes, sir.]
[Damnit. Alright. Get her there ASAP.]
[Yes, sir.]
[...]
[One question, sir.]
[Yes, Wilson?]
[Permission to kill Victor, sir?]
[Denied.]
Wade had never wanted to kill the man who paid him before. But then he guessed there was a first time for everything.
The worst part was that it was her birthday that day, but no one figured that out until later.
{December}
"I thought you'd be happier today," Jimmy noted as she walked into the kitchen at an actually decent hour. Roughly eight in the morning. She'd taken a shower already, and wore his shirt over a camisole and a pair of jeans that he'd gotten her when he figured out that her birthday had been the day she'd gotten attacked. They'd been hell to find. The girl was too damn tall for her tiny weight.
"Why would that be?" she asked, getting out her Lucky Charms, a bowl, a spoon, and the milk. Jimmy smirked.
"It's Christmas morning, kid," Jimmy said matter-o-factly. She shrugged.
"Joy."
"Joy?"
"Just not that ecstatic about it. Sorry," she said quietly. Jimmy frowned. It was probably because of the fact that Christmas was normally spent with family, which she really didn't have anymore. He watched her as she looked at her empty bowl for a second before she put it away. Instead, she raided the fridge, coming out with two beers. She tossed on to him and opened one for herself, taking a good long swig that a twelve-year-old should not be able to do without choking. Jimmy raised his eyebrows.
"Turning to alcohol, kid?"
"You're the one who always sets the example, dearest mentor. Plus if you rat on me I'll tell Stryker that you never make me do my math homework."
"Black mail? Where'd you learn that one from?" Jimmy asked, laughing. She rolled her eyes.
"Wade. Who else?"
"True. But you really shouldn't be drinking. Not a whole beer when you're barely over 100 pounds at least..."
"Think of it as my Christmas present."
The kid was good, Jimmy mused. He stared at her for a minute, smirking, before he caved and clinked bottles with her over the counter.
"Merry fucking Christmas," he said. She grinned, then took another swig.
"Amen."
