by Drucilla
Author's Note: Eckhart, Emma, etc are Not mine. Angelique mine. For me, not for you. Two chapters left! Still trying to figure out what to do about the sequel and whether or not to kill Angelique off.
Angelique woke up strapped to a bed. And not in the good way, either, she thought ruefully to herself. She didn't look around and try to figure out where she was; she knew where she was. She knew who had put her there, even if he hadn't fired the tranquilizers, and she had a fair idea of what was going on. An IV pumped fluids and nutrients into her, electrodes were stuck to her body, and monitors beeped quietly nearby. Her restraints were plastic and steel; nothing organic was in the room for her to work with, and the materials that were there were so difficult as to be impossible in the time allotted. There was a form in a chair just barely out of her vision, in the shadows at the other end of the room. She knew who that was, too.
"Mason," she said softly.
He didn't seem to hear. He didn't seem to notice that she was awake, although she could tell by the bio-rhythms her powers allowed her to see that he was. She tried to sit up a little, and found she couldn't even do that. Her movement, though, attracted his attention. He came forward.
"You know, if you wanted to play kinky sex games, all you had to do was ask." Sarcasm and hurt laced deeply through her voice. As Mason came into the light she saw him flinch. He looked paler than he had since the last time she'd seen him, and his eyes looked more sunken. She frowned. "Go to bed, man. You look like the walking dead."
He smiled slightly, though it didn't reach his eyes. "Still mothering. Even when you're a prisoner in the institute you used to work for. Some things never change, do they."
"I was hoping," she said dryly, looking pointedly at her bonds and then at him. "Prisoner?"
He didn't answer. He looked away, even, if only for a brief second. Then he looked back at her, and there was a sick sort of desperation in his eyes that made her wonder just what had changed him. Had he changed? Had she just not seen it when she had seen him so long ago? "You're not going to leave this facility, Angelique. I'm sorry."
"Sorry. You don't look sorry. You look like the pampered albino Persian cat that ate the canary. That doesn't look like sorry, that looks like …" she paused. "That looks like the expression of a little boy who's finally gotten the bike he wanted that his so-called friend didn't, and now he's going to sit and gloat over it." She was surprised at the bitterness in her voice, and then she was surprised at her surprise. "Keep your sorry."
Mason looked slightly shocked. Perhaps he, too, was surprised at her bitterness. "Angelique, you can't think that I…"
"Oh, please," she rolled her eyes. "Don't give me that line of limp-wristed plausible-deniability crap."
"…meant for this to happen," he finished.
"Yes you did," she said quietly.
The air burned between their gazes for a long while. Emotions too raw for her to comprehend without feeling embarrassed flickered through his eyes like data scrolling through a small window. Fear; anger; desire of a sort so acute, not physical, purely emotional. She was mildly flattered that he still felt secure enough with her to be so open, but then it wasn't as though she was going to be allowed to tell anyone about his moment of vulnerability. She, herself, was oddly calm, as though something in her was telling her that he hadn't changed as much as she was seeing.
"I missed you," she said abruptly, having the sudden feeling that openness should be met with openness. "I thought for a long time about coming back to see you."
Mason blinked, as though such a thought was incomprehensible to him. Perhaps it was. "Why?"
"I don't know," she shrugged as best she could. "I made lots of excuses to myself, but that's all they were. Sometimes I looked you up, saw what you were doing, and thought about stopping by, or phoning. Something. I guess I just told myself after a while that you…" she paused, thought, and then said it anyway. "I guess I eventually figured out that you just didn't care."
If it affected him at all, Mason gave no sign. He leaned back in the chair, almost pensive. "You should have told me," he said after a bit.
"About…?"
"The experiment. The…" he gestured at her, and suddenly Angelique knew what he meant.
"I should have. Now I'm rather glad I didn't," she stared evenly at him. "Would you have done anything but lock me up if I had told you? These," she rattled her restraints, "Don't exactly inspire trust, Mason. I thought you were better than this."
Now Mason did grimace, out of anger or out of guilt. "You wouldn't come to us voluntarily," he turned back on her, "Instead you chose…"
"Chose what?" she cried. "Chose to live on a farm in the back woods with my horses and my kids and keep to myself? Exactly what is there about my lifestyle that is illegal or illicit, Mr. Eckhart?" It was the first time she had addressed him so formally, and he flinched from that, too.
"You might have used your powers to influence someone. A person with abilities as powerful and as well-designed as yours," It was a backhanded compliment, in a way, "might have set herself up as some sort of messiah. A great and magical healer…"
"Right. I could have set myself up as the Wizard of bloody Oz. I thought you knew me better than that." She knew him better than to think he actually believed what he was saying, though.
"You didn't trust me," he said, and that did hurt. She looked down.
"I was scared. You and Adam… when the project was completed and we finally knew it worked, you two were already coming to blows. Over the projects, over… over everything. I didn't want to be fought over any more than I already was. So I didn't tell either of you, because I didn't want to give either of you another reason to be fighting."
Mason looked down. They shared a brief moment of alikeness, of understanding. Neither of them wanted to be around when people they cared about fought violently, tooth and claw. And they both remembered it from childhood. "I see," was all he said.
Angelique sighed deeply. Suddenly she was too tired to care if she lived or died, and too saddened by Mason's betrayal. "I should just give you syphilis and take my chances with your GSAgents," she said wryly with some last vestiges of humor. Mason stared at her with an extremely startled expression. "Kidding. Mostly. Oh, what the hell, go on, Mason. Kill me, drug me, do whatever the hell you want to me. I'm too tired to care anymore." She turned her head away and closed her eyes, not wanting to see any more.
Mason tucked a blanket around her, for all the world like a parent with a child (or, her mind told her cruelly, like she had done to him all the times he'd fallen asleep at his desk or in the staff rooms). She feigned sleepiness, not opening her eyes. She didn't know what his expression would be and she didn't want to know. There were too many mistakes, hurt feelings, bad judgment calls, obsessions, and broken dreams between the two (three) of them for her to want to see any more. He turned the light off. She could tell by the lack of artificial brightness against her eyes. The door closed with a faint click behind him. Now she could allow the tears to fall.
Emma was practically skipping on her way to the stables the next day. Adam had given her use of
one of the SUVs, designating it for 'horse trips.' So they wouldn't make all the other vehicles
smell like horse-sweat and saddle-soap, he said with a smile. Emma was practically grinning. For
once, everything was going pretty well for a change. She had found a new friend to whom she could
tell the whole story, and who wasn't a GSA agent in disguise, a member of a mercenary band, a
crazy scientist with a super-powerful drug or virus or whatever, or anything else detrimental to
the well-being of Mutant X.
Hell. No one was around to see. Emma grinned gleefully and started skipping up the path towards the house. Life was going so well. A new friend, and Brennan didn't seem to mind her putting the moves on him. She grinned even more broadly as her heart and her libido gave a little pitter-pat. That was another thing that was going to be nice about having Angelique around. Shalimar was good company, but they both needed an older woman they could go talk to about things. Talking to Adam about dating techniques just… didn't feel right.
Neither did the look of the wide-eyed horse that ran past her and froze her in her tracks in the middle of the road. Emma watched Big Red run past as though wolves were after him, the same saddle on that Jesse had had the other day. Angelique wouldn't have had Red running around saddled, much less free range. Maybe someone had fallen off or… Emma started running. No one had fallen off that horse. Something had happened.
Her suspicions were confirmed with the racket that met her ears and eyes when she got up to the two stables. The farther barn, with the unregistered horses, was making much more noise than the one with the blacks. Tiny Dancer and Sister Moon were standing at the edge of the barn, as though waiting for someone. Big Red she had just seen and the other horse they had had out yesterday, Samwise, were gone.
Emma looked around. Dancer and Moon walked calmly up to her and began nosing her shoulder, as though they knew something bad had happened and wanted her to do something about it. Emma patted their necks absently. She didn't know what to do, but she knew who would.
"Adam," she said finally, activating her commlink.
"Emma?" Adam sounded surprised, as well he might. "What's wrong? I thought you were supposed to be riding?"
"Supposed to be being the operative words," she said wryly. "Angelique's gone. The horses we had yesterday are loose, and it doesn't look like she went of her own free will. Stop it, Dancer," she absently shoved the horse's nose away from her shoulder. "I don't know what happened, but I can make some very good guesses."
"Eckhart," Adam said in affirmation, and he sounded pissed. "Damn that man. I didn't think…" Emma heard him sigh, and wondered what he was thinking. Although she had a pretty good idea of what it was Adam hadn't thought of, given the conversations with Angelique the other day and the ones with Adam the day before that. "We'll be out there soon. Take a look around, see if you can figure out anything."
"Okay," she said, staring oddly at Moon who had begun pawing at the dirt in front of a stall. Adam signed off, and Emma went over to where Moon was standing and knelt down. "What's up, girl?" she asked, rubbing a foreleg the way she'd seen Angelique do. And then she saw it, a glint of metal and plastic against the packed-dirt stable floor.
Emma picked up the dart and turned it over in her hands. The feathering had come off, but it looked like the kind of tranquilizer darts people used on large animals. She had no idea what the normal dosage was for one of those things, and she wondered how much it would take to kill a human. Eckhart couldn't be that cruel… could he?
Emma sighed, leaving it where it was for now and standing up. "Well, I guess we'd better get you guys back into your stalls," she said, taking hold of Moon's bridle and tugging her towards her empty stall. She had no idea what to do with the saddle, but Angelique probably had lists of emergency phone numbers in the house. She could call someone and tell him or her to come look after the horses. With Moon safely locked away in her stall, she went over to Dancer. Dancer shied, and backed away.
"Hey, you," she said, frowning. "You know me. What's up? C'mon, time to go back…" she trailed off as Dancer wheeled and galloped away. Emma shook her head, knowing better than to try and follow. "Crazy horse."
Adam, Brennan, and Shalimar came up the road at that point. Emma ran down to meet them. Adam and Shalimar looked pissed, Brennan, worried. "Show me," was all Adam said.
Emma led him up to where she'd found the tranq dart. "That bastard!" Shalimar said vehemently. "How can he do this to her?" Emma tried not to laugh at how her friend had changed her mind about Angelique so easily.
"He's a psycho," Brennan said firmly. "Who knows what he's thinking?"
"He's not a psycho," Emma said, unconsciously echoing her new mentor, "He's obsessive and intelligent and … those are two really bad things," she trailed off. Pounding hoof-beats made her look up.
"Speaking of intelligent," Adam smiled slightly. Dancer was somehow managing to herd the other two panicked horses up to the barn. Emma blinked, and Shalimar and Brennan gaped. "I guess she was more successful with the experiment than any of us thought," he continued as the black horse stopped the other two in front of the four humans with well placed bites and kicks.
"Uh…" Emma said, "I guess we'd better…" she started to lead the horses into the stalls. Then, glancing back at Dancer, she had an idea. "Dancer?" she asked gently, pulling the horse to where she had last seen Angelique with him. "Dancer, baby… what happened?" She made as if to clip the tie lines to Dancer's bridle, and then started pretending to comb the horse. "What happened? What happened to Angelique?"
The horse's ears pricked up at her name, as though it understood. "What happened?" Emma kept asking. The other three stared at her as though she was crazy. Emma sighed and dropped her hands, wondering if this was going to work. She shooed Brennan, Adam, and Shalimar back a little ways and tried again, miming the clipping of the tie lines and then brushing the horse. "What happened, Dancer?"
And then suddenly she was being shouldered out of the way by the huge black horse. Dancer nuzzled… something in the air where he had been, and then suddenly reared up with an equine scream that sent all the other horses into a panic. And then he fell backwards and lay as if dead.
"What the hell was that?" Brennan asked, unnerved and sounding panicked. Not that Emma could blame him; that had been possibly the most disturbing noise she'd ever heard from anything on four legs. The horse was still lying there. Emma started to kneel and check if he was all right… and then Dancer opened his eyes and rolled to his feet, looking almost pleased with himself.
"That…" Adam swallowed. "Was a very intelligent horse." He walked up and rubbed Dancer's neck, and the horse started pushing him backwards. "Wha…"
"Go with it," Emma said suddenly, her eyes lighting up. "I think I know…"
Dancer pushed him back to the edge of the barn, and then a few feet beyond. Then he started pushing Brennan. And then, when he'd gotten the young man where he wanted him, he started pushing Shalimar.
"Whoa, there, horsie," she said, looking at the horse as though she wasn't sure whether to hurt it or avoid it. It looked back at her, slightly afraid of her but stubborn in its wishes.
"Go with it," Emma repeated, and Shalimar did. When the horse had her in place it stopped, and looked at them all as if to say 'Well? I did my part.'
"Three…" Adam said, staring at the horse as though it was a minor miracle. "Three people. Shot her with tranquilizers and carried her off…"
"To the GSA," Emma nodded. "Three people and a getaway man sounds like a GSA team. But why? I thought he cared about her…" Adam stared at the ground, dismayed. "He probably found out she was a mutant, somehow. I don't know if that … I don't know what that would do to him, but…" He shook his head, "Either way, we've got to get her out of there. GenomeX is bad enough for most mutants, for her there's no real telling what Eckhart would do. He could get very nasty."