12
The files were sickening. She couldn't stop turning through their pages. Autopsy photographs, reports, testing records. Faces she had seen through Charles, had seen at the Academy. Faces she had loved, one she had loved more than any. Wondered if she would recognise the infant boy she denied if she saw his face here even as she stared at his father's bloody, lifeless demonic features. Was not even aware she had begun to cry.
Why had she come here? For proof of what she already knew. To justify her own plans perhaps. Raven wasn't a killer. Many things, many undesirable, but she had never taken a life. Perhaps she needed to assure herself that this life was worth taking, and that no other means would do. Glanced up at the painting that hung above the desk – an obvious homage to Jonas Salk, Trask's saviour complex in oils. There had to be more files somewhere, and Trask was just the sort of idiot to keep them hidden in some vault.
Where does the big villain hide his secrets? Why, behind a painting, of course. Raven watched James Bond like everyone else. As she pulled gently at the frame and saw it swing, she was satisfied that her assumption had paid off, manifesting Trask's thumbprint for the scanner and entering.
More files. More gruesome than before. That tear rolled down her cheek even as she heard a voice from out in the corridor.
"Dr Trask?"
"One second!" Raven called back, transformed as she turned, just in time to see a woman enter, hand her a few sheets of letterheaded paper.
"We added some names to the Paris meeting" the woman said pleasantly. Raven scanned the page. Saw nothing she did not already know. Smiled in thanks.
"And our new test subject's induction is proceeding well, you'll be pleased to know" the secretary told her. Raven, behind Trask's face, cringed at the devotion that shone hopefully out of her face, disgusted with her. "promising reports so far"
"I see," Raven told her, gave her another smile. The woman almost blushed, "could you pull all our documents on that subject? I want to go over them on the plane"
"Of course," she beamed. Turned back only briefly, "Is everything alright, Dr Trask?"
Raven swiped at the real tear cooling on her false face's cheek.
"Yes. Of course. The documents?"
It worked. Raven didn't have to wait long, stood around in Trask's office looking as if she belonged there, before that eager secretary had come to present her with another thin file. Good, Raven thought – not much yet, they can't have had this one long.
"Thank you" she said. Didn't look at the secretary gazing after her as she had swiftly slipped the papers into a briefcase and left.
Not an hour later, a red-haired businesswoman sat on the plane to Charles de Gaulle. Smiled at a boy beside her, gripping the arm of the seat tight as they took off. Took out the file and made a show of casually flipping through it as though it were some dull briefing. Looked at the pictures of a teen who looked younger than he should, scared and vulnerable. Read the lists of values and numbers that they had reduced his physical being to. Hoped that by doing what she was about to do, she would stop that boy becoming another face in the autopsy report file. She slipped the file away, closed her eyes. Dismissed his image from her mind. She couldn't afford to let herself become distracted by one boy in trouble when her job was to try, with one murder, to make sure no little Mutant teens would suffer again.
Erik wouldn't have done it this way, she thought as an announcement told them they could all unfasten their seatbelts now. If he had been in charge, they would have saved the boy. Not relied on taking Trask out of the equation, but gone to his aid themselves. With Erik by her, they had done some horrific, shocking, and heroic things – she'd been a real hero then. Now she was just a murderer in waiting.
Her mind went to him frequently. More so in the past two days when rumours had flown that a top-security prisoner had escaped the Pentagon, just knowing who that must be. Wondered if he would seek her out, or her him. If he would aid her or stop her. Raven teetered on the edge of a doze, wondering in that trancelike suspension which of the many possible futures would ultimately come to pass, and if it would be one in which she lived.
As she landed, she couldn't have known that not far away in a cheap hotel room, her old lover was currently advancing on a mutual friend with the threat of death if defied glittering in his eyes. Hank blinked at the glare, stuttered a little before he managed
"I'm sorry, you…? We need you here. We broke you out of jail to be here. And you…" the doctor laughed nervously, a little more bravely than he felt, "You want to go visit some old flame?"
Erik barely twitched, but a moment later Hank yelped as the left lens of his glasses shattered. Erik released his hold on the frame, smiled tightly
"And I'm very grateful to you, Hank. Your favour will of course be repaid. For now, however..." he held out one hand, beckoned, "the address"
Hank bristled. The slightest blue tinge appeared, flushing around his widening jawline, lowered his posture a little and growled back
"Your job here comes first"
Erik took a single step toward him, held his yellowing gaze, hissed quietly
"Mutants come first"
Another moment, and the two would surely have torn one another bloody, had it not been for Charles' voice – urgent, perhaps even a little scared – calling out from the adjoining room
"Hank!" he called, "I found her. I found Raven"
Hank pushed his feral self back under his skin, followed the voice
"She's here?"
Charles nodded, reached for the bottle of brandy on the table.
"And it's exactly as Logan said. She's going after Trask"
