[pain, restraining, battle, blood, injuries]

Getting out of the Inner Circle Headquarters may not be as easy as it seems.


Caitlin finishes tying an emergency tourniquet around Lorna's arm when Marcos joins her beside John.

"Fade is dead," he says.

Lorna closes her eyes in dismay and grief.

"John−" Marcos starts, his heart going to his throat at the sight of his friend lying listlessly on the table.

"I don't know," Lorna says. "He jumped when I touched him, but nothing else."

"Can you get him free?"

Lorna shakes her head. "It's not metal," she says. "It's some kind of technology Reeva had installed. The computer can simulate about any material."

"Sage?"

Lorna nods up to Sage, just starting to sit up on the floor of the control room. "Not quickly enough," she says.

"I'll try," Marcos says. He approaches the table, where John still isn't reacting to his presence.

The material heats up similarly to metal at first, but it's not conductive. It also doesn't catch fire. Marcos shakes his head.

"I could keep heating it up, but it's going to become dangerous for John. And it will take more light than I have to burn through it all."

"Then what?" Lorna asks.

"Lauren," Caitlin says. "Maybe even Andy."

"Can they do it?" Marcos asks, looking at the children, still struggling to stay sitting up against the wall.

"Only one way to know."

Marcos watches her go back to her children with some admiration. She just got them back, after a truly harrowing week, no one knows if they will be okay, but Caitlin doesn't lose sight of the goal.

She helps Lauren stand up and supports her up to John.

"How is he?" Lauren asks weakly.

"We don't really know," Marcos says. "He's not responding."

Caitlin gestures to him to take over with Lauren. "He has a fever," she says, feeling John's brow. John shivers at the touch. "I can't see if the wounds are infected with those things," Caitlin points at the restraints.

"Can you cut through them?" Lorna asks Lauren.

"I can try. But I don't have enough control of the cutting shields right now, I'm going to hurt him."

"Do what you can. Right now it's more important that we get him out before Reeva arrives."

"Okay."

Lauren concentrates, and Marcos adjusts his grip on her, getting behind her so she can rest on him fully. "Don't worry about falling," he says in her ear. "I've got you."

"Thanks," Lauren murmurs, letting go of her efforts to stay standing.

Her first shield sizzles out before it reaches John. The second try cuts through the restraint at John's ankles like butter, but John tenses and moans when it also cuts right through his shoes and leaves a bloody mark on his foot.

"Sorry," Lauren winces, though John still doesn't seem to hear her. "It's so hard to focus."

"Keep going," Lorna says, though the pain in her voice makes it clear how much she hates this.

The third shield is much more precise and doesn't reach John's skin. Lauren slowly goes up one side of John's legs, then starts on the other side, having to cut through each strap twice to be able to remove it.

"Don't move, brother," Marcos murmurs, when John is finally free from the knees down. He's starting to get agitated, moving his legs, and Lauren is cutting through his skin more and more often. Marcos doesn't want to imagine what her shields would do to someone who doesn't have tissues twice as dense as normal.

Caitlin puts an arm over John's legs, trying to restrain them as gently as possible. He stills.

"He's reacting to touch and pain," she says. "I think he can't hear or see."

"What? How?"

"Reeva," Lorna says darkly. "Her screams turn our powers against us, right? John's power is tracking."

"Oh God," Marcos mutters.

"Reeva could be here any minute," Lorna remarks.

"It's taking too long," Lauren says. "Andy, I could really use some help here," she turns to her brother.

"Are you two−" Marcos asks.

"We've had a lot of time to talk," Lauren answers.

Andy is beside them a few seconds later, leaning on Reed, who seems to have canalized his power for now.

Lauren reaches out a hand to him. "You remember how it felt, in the Purifiers' compound?" she asks. "How synchronized we were?"

Andy nods.

"We need to do that again. We need to get John free."

"Okay," Andy says uncertainly. "It's gonna be messy, though."

"We don't have time for anything else," Marcos decides. "Do it."

Both teenagers hold out their hands toward John, in perfect unison. It's something to see, their powers used together. It's not the combined force that pulverized the Atlanta station, that Marcos has yet to see, but they seem to work in perfect harmony, as if they could read each other's thoughts.

It is messy, though. The table under John sizzles and bends and cracks, as shields methodically cut through the rest of the restraints. John opens his mouth as if to scream as his arms start bleeding, but no sound comes out. Marcos wants nothing more than to tell them to stop, but it's over before he has time to say a word.

The table falls sideways, and John rolls away.

He reacts to finally being free, weakly attempting to sit up. His body and torn clothes are covered in blood, both dry and fresh, and he doesn't even manage to raises his head on his own.

Marcos hands Lauren over to Caitlin. "John," he approaches, careful not to startle his friend into a fight or flight response.

John's eyes move, never settling on anything. It's looking more and more like Caitlin is right, he can't see or hear them. Marcos draws a breath. Behind him, Lauren and Andy collapse, exhausted.

John freezes when Marcos touches his arm. He stays immobile for a moment, his body tensing as if expecting pain, then his lips move, but no sound comes out.

He clears his throat. "Who?" he asks in a low, raw voice, hoarse from screaming.

"It's Marcos," Marcos says, though it seems to be useless. He tries to think of another way to communicate with John, but he comes up blank.

Lorna kneels beside him. With her good hand, she grabs John's and turns it so it's palm up. John lets her, frowning and tense.

"What are you doing?" Marcos murmurs.

Lorna doesn't answer, instead concentrating. Marcos tilts his head to see what she's doing, and understands. She's tracing letters in John's hand.

They both know John has figured it out when he starts mouthing the letters along.

"L-O-R−No!" he exclaims, too loudly. "Lorna's gone!"

"I'm here," Lorna says, but John doesn't react. She writes her name again, then starts on Marcos's.

"No," John repeats, now sounding desperate. "You can't be here."

There are tears running down his cheeks. He raises a hand to wipe them, and the water mixes with blood from his wounds, marking his face.

"We don't have time for this," Reed says.

Marcos hates that he's right, his heart breaking. John doesn't even know who they are, that his friends have come for him. After days of torture, he must be hurting and confused, and now they can't even communicate with him.

But they have to get out of here before Reeva comes back.


Lorna sees Clarice blanch more and more through Marcos's narrative. She bites her nails to the blood, horrified, but she doesn't interrupt. Everyone is listening in fascination, immobile in the middle of the busy room. It feels like time has stopped somehow.

Except that it hasn't. Lorna is starting to feel it in her injured arm, since the last painkillers she took were hours ago. And they can't stay down here for much longer.

They're nearing the end of their story, but they still need to convince Clarice. Even as upset as she seems now, will she be willing to do what's needed? What if they've come for nothing?

"John...I can't imagine..." Clarice murmurs, tears running down her face.

At her tone, Lorna knows they've won her over. She cares, more than Lorna thought after she left so suddenly. But then she knows what that's like, to do what you think is right despite how much it hurts the people you leave behind.

But Lorna made a mistake, and she thinks that Clarice has too. Her leaving didn't protect John, just like Lorna going to the Inner Circle didn't protect Dawn. And they'll have to live with that.

"Did you make it out? I mean, obviously you did, but−"

Did you all make it out alive? is the unspoken question in Clarice's eyes.

"Yes," Lorna says. "It wasn't easy, but we made it out."


John doesn't put up a fight when Marcos and Lorna pull him upright. Lorna puts one of his arms around her shoulders, on her uninjured side. His weight is almost too much to walk, but she'll carry him if she has to. They have to get him out of here.

Marcos takes John's other side, and the weight lifts partially. John doesn't even react, he just lets them move him until he's situated between them. He's pretty much a dead weight, his legs too weak to carry him. He winces in pain multiple time during the first step they take, but he doesn't protest, like he doesn't even care about hurting anymore.

Lorna blinks back tears again and tries to get that thought out of her head.

She looks up to see Sage has joined them, still walking gingerly but ready with her tablet to drop the security system. Lauren and Andy are each leaning on one of their parents.

"Let's go," she says, wondering again how she became the de facto leader of their party. It's John's job. But John is not in any state to do it.

They make it back to the elevator without trouble, and Lorna chomps at the bit as it goes down, slower than she ever remembers it being.

Lorna's heart goes to her mouth when the elevator doors open to reveal Reeva's form, because she knows it means they've lost. Reeva briefly looks as surprised as them, but she opens her mouth and the scream, the one that tears at their guts and vibrates through their whole beings, starts resonating in the garage.

But she's alone. She went to see Benedict Ryan again today, Lorna surmised from the unmarked appointment Sage showed her in Reeva's hacked schedule, and she didn't take a body guard. And even without counting John, who is still leaning heavily on Marcos and Lorna's shoulders, between them they have five offensive powers and a gun.

And Reeva's scream is not as effective when she's trying to affect several people at once.

It is said that there is strength in number.

John lets out a whimper, a scared, high-pitched thing that Lorna would never have imagined hearing from him. He makes a move to clamp his hands over his ears, and she wonders if he can hear the scream. He can feel it, at the very least.

Lorna grabs hold of Reeva's earrings, tearing her ear lobes in the process, and manages to hold on, to stab Reeva with them to distract her, despite the sudden weakness in her limbs, the sick feeling in her stomach. Marcos's lights waver and don't heat up enough to burn, but they go straight into Reeva's eyes, blinding her enough that she has to take a step back and turn her head away.

That's enough time for the Struckers to join the dance. A bullet grazes Reeva's arm and she lets out a strangled cry, her scream evaporating. It comes back straight away, but by then Lauren and Andy, still leaning on their parents, have each raised a hand toward her. She's suddenly ejected, a force field sending her into a car.

"That's for Lauren," Andy murmurs.

"For you too," Lauren whispers back.

Lorna gives the signal to run toward their cars. Reeva is already moving, standing up, and they don't have time to hesitate. The scream starts again, but it's weaker, and they're already far enough along that they reach the cars before their legs start giving out under them.

They either need to take out Reeva for good, or buy themselves some time, Lorna realizes. As she reaches the car door, she hands John over to Marcos fully so he can get him into the passenger seat and she struggles back toward Reeva, twisting a hand to move the car behind her. It hits Reeva strongly enough to make her fall again, giving them a brief respite Marcos and Reed use to start the cars. John and the children are safely in, and Sage is frantically typing on her tablet to get the gate open.

Lorna meets Caitlin's eyes, once they're the only ones still out in the open. Killing Reeva might not be an option, not with her power so strong and incapacitating, but they can do their goddamn best to keep their families safe.

"Marcos, go!" Lorna shouts just before Reeva opens her mouth again, advancing on them.

Caitlin raises her gun with weak arms, but Reeva's power doesn't seem to work as well on humans as it does on mutants. Caitlin has no power to be turned against her. Her face deforms in a grimace as she fights the fog and the nausea, but she holds onto the gun.

Her aim is off, but Lorna takes hold of the bullets as soon as they're out of the chamber. She's on her knees, with one arm useless, but her power only requires her mind. She screams as she feels her strength dwindle out, forcing through to give the necessary momentum to the bullet.

It only takes one bullet, going into Reeva's side. It won't kill her, but she falls, hands going to put pressure on the wound, and it gives them the time they need. Caitlin hoists Lorna back up and supports her as they run to Marcos's car. Their piling up in the back is not elegant, but Marcos speeds through the exit as soon as the door is closed, and Sage shuts the automatic gate behind them.

They've made it out.

Lorna looks at John, motionless but tense in the passenger seat, his eyes staring at nothing, the blood that seems to cover him everywhere she looks, and she wonders if he's really made it out with them, or if a part of him, the part that makes him him, stayed behind.


This was the last of the action-packed chapter, and of the second arc of this story. In the next chapter, we learn more about John's state, and Marcos and Lorna's story comes to an end. Third act: recovery, reunions, rebuilding.

I hope you liked this chapter! If you've read this far and enjoyed the story, don't hesitate to leave a (even very short) comment to tell me you're still reading :)