Chapter 5: Revelations

                Bobby drove to Starlight. It was, as he expected, closed, but there had to be an employee entrance somewhere. He walked around the building until he saw a door ahead opening, and a man emerging from it. "Hey! Mister!" he hailed the man.

                Andover turned, to see a well-dressed young man hurrying toward him. "Yes?" he said. "The club is closed, son, won't open until nine o'clock tonight. Come back then."

                "No, no, I'm not here for the club. I'm looking for a friend of mine, actually, her name's Amy. She's got long black hair to her waist, and she'd blind, carries a white cane and wears dark glasses. Have you seen her? Someone at her apartment building told me she left in the company of the club's owner this morning, and she's not back yet. I really need to find her."

                Uh-oh. Andover looked the young man over. He hadn't realized Amy The Ice Queen had a lover. This could be problematic if he found out where she'd gone.

                "I haven't seen anyone like that today," he lied. "I just came here to pick up some papers for Mr. Andover. He's been in a business meeting uptown all morning. I'll tell him you stopped by, though." He got into the back of his waiting Lincoln, and the car pulled away from the curb.

                Bobby shook his head as he watched the car pull away. The guy had to be lying, he just knew it. Why? What had he done with Amy?

                He retraced his steps around the side of the building and got back to the van, sinking into its cool interior with a gasp of relief. It was so hot out there he thought he was going to fry! He had formed a thin coating of ice around himself while he was walking, but it melted away in the fierce heat too quickly to do anything but leave him with wet clothes. Still, the damp clothing did provide an air conditioning, of sorts, though it made walking difficult.

                He eased out into the evening traffic. Staying several cars behind the black Lincoln, he nevertheless managed to keep the car in sight as he followed it out of the club district and toward the business district.

                Traffic was bumper to bumper, and he was waiting for the light to change at one particularly busy intersection when he saw a flash of white out the corner of his eye. He turned his head slightly, and there, stumbling around the corner, leaning on her cane heavily, came Amy. Her head hung, and she looked like she was in the last stages of exhaustion. Now he knew why she had been gone; the clothes she wore looked like they belonged to a hooker. So her boss had talked her into prostituting herself. He gritted his teeth in anger, and debated whether he should help her or not. She had obviously made her own decision; she would have to live with it. He was about to drive away when she stopped in the shade of a doorway to ret, and a scrap of her torn shirt fell away from her back. He saw a livid black bruise that definitely hadn't been there the night before.

                He sprang out of the van, ignoring the honking horn behind him, and ran to her side. She shrieked as he touched her, but he called into her ear over the din of traffic, "Amy! It's me, Bobby! Come on, get in!" She didn't resist as he led her across the sidewalk and out into the street. He pushed her into the van, and she slid across the driver's seat to the front passenger seat as he got into the driver's side. He drove off.

                He didn't say a word until he got out of the rougher traffic and managed to find a parking lot where he could park. Turning off the engine, he turned to Amy.

                She had collapsed to a lying position across the front seat; Bobby was glad it had bench seats instead of bucket seats. He reached over and took the fluttering scrap of cloth, drawing it back carefully so he could see her back.

                "Amy," he breathed as he saw the livid bruises. "Amy, what happened?"

                Her glasses fell from her face as she raised her head weakly. Bobby was confronted with a pair of wide violet eyes that brought that feeling of déjà vu back stronger than ever. He had seen those eyes before, in this face, on this girl. He was certain of it; he just still couldn't place where. "Fisk," came the harsh croak. "He beat me...it hurt…"

                Bobby blinked. Did she just say 'Fisk'? The Kingpin? He thought. He leaned in. "Amy. Did you say 'Fisk'? As in The Kingpin?"

                Amy nodded weakly. "He…paid Mr. Andover…a thousand dollars…to have me for the day…I had to go. He beat me…oh, Bobby, help me, please, it hurts…I hurt…and he says he wants me back…I want to go home, Bobby, please take me home…"

                Bobby stared as her head dropped back to the seat. Fisk. The Kingpin. The master of the New York City underworld. Amy's place wasn't safe if he was looking for her. He had to get her out of the city. It would take longer to find her at Xavier's, and at least the X-Men could help him protect her.

                He took the turn that would take them back to the apartment, and tried to ease the van into a parking space in front of the building. Mama Tali must have been watching, because she came racing out the front before he'd even turned off the engine. "Amy!" she cried in alarm as she saw the semi-conscious figure slumped across the front seat. "Where you find her?"

                "Downtown." Bobby stopped the old lady as she started to try and get Amy out of the seat. "No. Mama Tali, can you watch her until I get back? And can I have the key to her apartment? She's not safe anymore. I'm going to take her with me."

                "What happen?"

                Bobby explained as briefly as he could. "Her boss sold her to The Kingpin. She got beaten badly. He may be out looking for her; I have to take her out of the city. I'm going to take her to where I live; he won't find her there. She'll be safe with me."

                Mama Tali handed him the key. "I stay with her. Just take her clothes and that fancy stuff you brought earlier. I take care of clearing everything else. When I done nobody gonna think she live there."

                "Thanks." Bobby wasted no more time.

                Disconnecting the generator was simpler than putting it in. And it was only a matter of a few minutes before the purifier was disconnected from the sink. He carried it all out of the building and put it in the back of the van where Charles' wheelchair usually went; then went back in. The electricity came back on as he hurried back into the apartment, and he thanked God silently as he hurried into her bedroom. He didn't pick up the boxes of fancy dresses; she wouldn't need them. He grabbed the box of underclothing and regular clothes, tossed her shoes on top of the pile, and carried them out.

                "Her books," Mama Tali said. "She love her books. Can't live without them. Take them too. If someone search my apartment I can't tell them they mine." Bobby ran in for one last trip, picking up the box of books, then swiped her toothbrush, toothpaste, and hairbrush from the bathroom on the way out.

                Dumping the last box into the back, he was about to climb into the drivers' seat when the enormous orange tabby sprang up into the front seat and lay down on Amy's lap. He shook his head. "Mama Tali, I can't take him." He reached over to push the cat off, and got the back of his hand raked by a set of sharp claws. Mama Tali tried to reach for him, and he fended her off too.

                Bobby sighed. "Okay, I guess he is coming. I don't have time to waste getting a stubborn cat out of the car. I don't know if I'll be able to bring her back here for a visit, Mama Tali, but I'll have her call."

*                                                              *                                                              *

                Hank was in the library looking for a book when he heard the sound of a vehicle door slamming. Going to the window, he frowned as he saw Bobby racing around the side of the van to the front passenger side door. He yanked it open and took the arm of a girl with long black hair. As Bobby pulled her out of the seat Hank realized the girl was barely moving. Abandoning the search for the book he wanted, he headed for the front door at a dead run.

                Bobby met him in the front foyer with an anxious, worried look on his face. "She's pretty badly bruised, Hank," he said grimly as Hank took Amy's other arm. Amy stumbled along between them, not knowing where she was going, and not caring. She hurt all over, and she was exhausted. The sleepless night and the early waking, combined with the beating and the long hours of wandering around the city trying to find the club had taken their toll on her body. She badly needed rest. Her back was a fiery mass of pain. Between her ankles, Carl mewed anxiously.

                The cool air of the mansion felt good against her skin, but she didn't have the energy to speak. She leaned against Bobby's comforting bulk and let him half-drag, half-carry her along. It seemed they would never get to their destination; but finally after what felt like miles Bobby's hands eased her down on something soft. A bed. She sank into it gratefully, and then cried aloud in shock as her bruised, welted back struck the soft surface. As soft as it was, it still hurt. The pressure of her shirt against her back caused a bone-deep, throbbing ache; a bed was worse.

                Bobby leaned over her, speaking gently as he turned her over to lie on her stomach. "Amy. You're going to be okay, you're with me in my home, this is my friend Hank, he'll help you feel better. Let me turn you over, so he can look at your back." Amy nodded, dropping her head down on the soft bulk of Carl snuggled under her chin. After a moment, she forced her hands up, and pulled off the dark glasses shading her eyes.

                Hank was busy cutting away the shreds of the shirt. She wore no bra, and it was easy to see the livid rainbow of bruises decorating her back. He drew in a breath. The bruises were ugly, and he felt helpless, knowing there was nothing he could do to heal them. They would have to fade with time. He could, however, give her something for the pain. And her skin was hot, and dry, so she could probably use fluids too. He got an IV ready, slid the shunt under the sunburned skin of one unresisting arm, then readied another syringe and injected a painkiller into the IV tube. The girl tensed as the anesthetic filled her vein, then sighed in relief as the medicine took effect and the pain receded. She propped herself up on her elbows, turned her sightless eyes in the direction that Hank's voice had come from, and croaked weakly, "If it's not too much trouble, I'm really thirsty…"

                Hank never heard her words. He froze at the sight of that face. "My dear…your name…"

                "I'm Amy," she said softly. "Amy McCarly."

                Bobby heard her last name, and it all clicked. Amy!

                "Amy, oh my God, it's you, Amy…Oh, Jesus, how could I have forgotten…" Bobby stared at her in shock.  "Hank…could you get Charles…"

                Amy's head came up sharply. "Do I know you?"

                "Yes…" Bobby said slowly, still reeling in shock. "Amy, I'm Bobby Drake. It's us, Amy, we're the X-Men. Don't you remember?"

                Amy froze. Yes, she remembered. She had spent six years in prison dwelling on every detail she could remember of her so-brief stay at the mansion. "Yes," she said. "Yes, I remember." She pulled herself up off the bed, painfully, and said, "Take these things out of me and let me go."

                Bobby froze again. "Amy, why?"

                She opened her mouth to answer, but never got the chance. The door to the medlabs opened, and Xavier came gliding in on his hoverchair—and froze when he saw the girl sitting on the bed.

*                                                              *                                                              *

                Charles stared at the girl. In one moment, the events of six years ago came rushing back, as clearly as if it had been yesterday. The violet eyes were the same, the long dark hair was the same, the sweet voice was the same, although it now held the slightly deeper tones of a woman's voice, instead of the high pitch of a girl's voice. She would be, what, twenty-two now? He brushed the thought aside for now.

                She still looked the same; her hair was the same. But there were lines etched into that small face now, lines that hadn't been there, or had only just started to form when he had last seen her. And most startling of all was those blank, glazed, sightless eyes. "Amy," he whispered, shocked. "What happened?"

                Her face turned in the direction of his voice, and tears started filling those eyes. "What do you care?" and the bitterness in that voice shocked him. "You never cared before."

                "What?" his brow creased in puzzlement, and he felt the girl's despair as those tears fell unheeded down the sunburned cheeks.

                "You don't even remember."

                Xavier bit his lip. What was it that was so important that she remembered, and he had forgotten? "Forgive me, Amy," he said as gently as he could. "I don't remember; it was a long time ago. Can you tell me?"

                "A long time. Yes, it's been a long time. Seven years and eight months, it's been, since I last saw you. And four months since I last saw anything." The voice was soft, but the bitterness was still painful to hear. Xavier swallowed hard. What had happened to her?

                Amy laced her fingers tightly in her lap to stop them from shaking. "You promised. You promised to come visit me. Do you remember, now?"

                And Xavier suddenly remembered. "Yes," he whispered. "Oh, Amy, I'm so sorry…" but she cut him off.

                "I was a fifteen year old in Mount Haven for murder. The inmates might all be mutants, but it doesn't mean that the same thing doesn't happen there that happens in all prisons." Xavier drew in a breath, shocked, as Amy rushed on. "The inmates and the guards took interest in me right away. They wanted me to do the most horrible things with them, like the stuff Greg Gilmore wanted me to do. I told them that they had better not hurt me, that you had promised to visit me and I would tell you everything they did to me, and you'd make them stop. So they left me alone.

                "Months and months went by, and you never came. Six months after I went in, the abuse started. They called me a liar. The guards punished me. Then the other inmates beat me. My glasses got broken, and I could barely see anything without them. The guards decided I wouldn't be a threat to any of them because I couldn't see, and they started having me spend nights with various people. They'd make me do all kinds of things to them, but they never raped me because the warden forbade them.

                "On my eighteenth birthday he came into my cell. Said he didn't condone underage sex, but now that I was legal they could do what they wanted, and he said he'd be the first. He started to pull my uniform off.

                "I couldn't let him do that to me. I fought. And I gave him a black eye and scratched his eyeball. It got an infection and took a long time to heal. It hurt. When he came back he dragged me into the courtyard, tied me to a bench and strapped my head down, then he taped my eyelids open. He just wanted to punish me, I think, but he left me there and forgot about me. The sun shone down on me for three hours. Three hours I lay there, while the lens in my eyes fried. Someone finally heard me screaming and brought me in. They threw me into The Coffin, as we all called the cells in the solitary confinement part of prison." She swallowed. "The cell walls and floor are concrete, five feet long, four feet tall, and three feet wide. There are no windows, no lights, no toilet facilities. There was just a hole in the middle of the cell to relieve myself, and a small slot in the door for them to shove food and stale water in once a day. I couldn't stretch out, I couldn't stand upright, I could barely lie down. It was cramped. I had no clothes, and the concrete rubbed my sunburned skin raw. It was always cold.

                "I was in The Coffin for a week. When I got out, I found that the unremitting blackness wasn't the cell, even though it didn't have light. It was my eyes. The sun had burned them, and I was blind. Permanently. The guards loved it. They loved watching me fumble around; hugging the walls, crawling on the floor. They would taunt me; they'd put a cup of water on the ground in the courtyard and make me crawl around looking for it while they hit me with stuff. The inmates molested me. It went on until a new warden came.

                "He put an end to all of it. He stopped the guards from hurting me, he put an end to the humiliation and the abuse and the pain. And when he reviewed my records, he decided I didn't need to be in prison anymore. I couldn't see anything; how could I use my powers? So he sought and got permission for my release, and he brought this blind man into the prison shortly before my release to teach me some basic stuff, like Braille. And when I was finally released, he gave me a pair of dark glasses and my white cane. I slept in a homeless shelter for a while before I found a job at a mom-and-pop grocery store bagging people's groceries. They went out of business, and I got a job as a server for a bed-and-breakfast place. The lady was nice, but the guy tried to rape me one night, and I ran away.

                "I went back out on the streets, sleeping in shelters and singing for money on street corners, and one day this man stopped and asked me if I wanted a job singing at the Starlight. With the money I made I was able to get my first apartment downtown. He kept telling me I could make more money if I did some 'horizontal work' in the back with the other strippers, but I couldn't do it. One night a customer asked for me, and I said no, and he got mad, and left. Mr. Andover cut my pay. I had to find a cheaper apartment, and the only one I could find was in Hell's Kitchen. I took it.

                "He kept pressing me to accept customers, but I kept refusing. Two weeks ago he cut my pay again. I'm having trouble affording what I have now. And this morning, he came to my apartment and said a customer had paid him a thousand dollars to have me for the day, and he wasn't going to let me refuse. He dragged me out to the club, dressed me in these clothes, and took me out to meet the customer." Amy took a deep breath. "It was Mr. Fisk."

                Xavier's blood went cold. The Kingpin was a powerful enemy to make. Amy wasn't safe in the city if he was looking for her. He understood now why Bobby had brought her here. "He made me sing for him." Amy's voice was barely above a whisper. "He made me sing and sing until my voice gave out, and then he punished me with a beating. That's how I got these bruises." And her head dropped, and she started to cry in earnest. "I was…so scared…no one cares about me…no one would miss me if he killed me…he could do it as easy as breathing…and I'd never see it coming…oh God…"

                Bobby sat down on the bed beside her, and Amy leaned her head on his shoulder, sobbing into his shirt. He held her, and shushed her, and let her cry as Xavier digested her story.