A/N- Yay! Part 6! Sorry this is so short. When I was arranging chapters, this one got screwed over. Plus, it's not spectacular. Bear with me. The next two months are going to be hectic for me. Reviews are welcome as always. Much thanks to vega….

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Kerry!"

His heart leapt as he ran between the opening metal doors. She looked up at him, hands dropping from across her chest and against her chin. He covered the ground between them quickly and wrapped his arms around her tense shoulders, feeling the comfort from just being near her. "God, you're a sight for sore eyes."

Abruptly, she began to writhe in his embrace and violently shoved him off her. The soft light shining in between the slits of the wall beside them made horizontal lines across her expression. Her face was stern, her mouth curved into a slight frown, her eyes piercing with both aggression and disappointed disbelief. His stomach lurched with impending disaster.

"Mutant X?" each syllable hung in the air pointedly, "Mutant freaking X?"

"Ker--"

Her hand shoot up, palm out, motioning for him to stop. "No, I'm not even warmed up yet!" she cried, "I can't even begin to believe this! I took you in, dammit! I gave you a freakin' job! I gave you a place to train! You were so convincing that I actually trusted you! I don't trust anybody, Mickey!" She paused and scoffed maliciously. "Or is it Jesse?"

The last word made him wince. Her tone had expressed so much disgust and hatred. It sat on his brain, stewing in its own self-loathing and irrational anger. No one had said his name in such a way in years. It was that tone that had almost brought the razor to his psychological wrist. It made him hate himself.

Subconsciously, his fists began to tighten. "Don't say my name like that, Kerry."

"Like what? Like you're a liar? Like you're dirt? Well, sorry if I don't exactly feel the need to make you happy." Kerry spat back, turning on her heels. She began to walk down the back corridor.

He ran after her, gripping her arm to stop her in her tracks, spinning her back around. "I never lied to you! Not once! We had an understanding, Kerry. You wouldn't ask questions; I wouldn't ask questions. That's what our relationship is based on."

She heatedly jerked her arm out of his grip. "Wrong! You know everything about me! You know about my life! You know about my powers! Damn it all! I even told you about my mother!" Kerry released his hand and it dropped to his side. Her voice lowered its intensity to almost a tired volume. "And what I thought I knew about you, I don't know if it's even true anymore," she began to back away, "Tell your friends I'm outta here."  She turned and jogged the rest of the way down the hallway.

He stood frozen, watching her leave. She didn't understand. His frustration was so overwhelming; it pushed at every part of him to be released. His hands shook and his muscles tensed. He felt the anger boiling inside of him, growing, rising, bubbling, foaming …

He screamed. Taking in a breath, he slammed his right fist against the wooden divider with all his human strength. His arm retracted as the orange net of molecules disappeared, leaving a fist-size hole in between the smooth, thin boards that he'd only narrowly missed.

 Then, his breathing began to slow as his rage subsided. He looked back to where she'd exited. With a sigh, he glanced at his destruction.

He didn't feel better.

* -Break- *

            Adam gently wrapped the sling around Brennan's arm, buckling the strap around his neck. "Too tight?"

"No." Brennan shook his head with a sigh.

"You're lucky, you know," Adam replied, making the injured mutant grimace as he pulled up on the tough, Velcro strip to give more support to his bandaged shoulder. "She could have sliced your arm off." He stepped away, letting Brennan try the brace out. "Good?"

Brennan nodded, sliding carefully off the examination table. "I thought she did."

Adam smiled as he headed to the keyboard sticking out of the wall. "Close enough without doing any serious damage," He typed in a few letters. On the screen at the far side of the room, a large color image of his wound appeared. Beside it, a three-dimensional cut away shot. "It separated skin, blood vessels, and took a piece out of a tendon. Narrowly missed a bone too."

Brennan examined the picture with slight nausea. His skin had been pulled away, gathering in a clump around the edges of the blood red rectangular patch, revealing the inner workings of his shoulder. "Never seen anything like it."

"Kerry's a Molecular Repulsive. She secretes a film from her skin that, as far as I can tell, repels all organic and inorganic molecules."

"So basically, she displaced my skin away from itself."

"In a word, yes." Adam nodded. 

"Great" the younger man snorted angrily. "So I guess I'm warming the bench."

Adam shrugged his shoulders. "Just until your shoulder heals."

"And how long will that be?" he asked tersely.

The scientist crossed his arms over his chest. "My guess is a few weeks, but I want to get it check out by a friend of mine, Dr. Susan Thoreau. She's a psionic surgeon in town that does free New Mutant check-ups. She'll check you out see if I missed anything."

Brennan sighed. "Fine, but let's go now. I don't wanna be out of the game long."

"Neither do I. In a way, it couldn't have happened at a worse time, with the bounty hunters still out there, and Emma's attacks." Adam's face suddenly changed into an expression of amusement. "But in another, it couldn't have happened at a better time."

"Are you kidding? Jesse's the one that caused this," he scoffed and pointed to his bandaged shoulder. "I mean, what the hell was he thinking, asking us to get his girlfriend for him."

"Knowing Jesse, he probably wanted someone on his side to be here."

"No, Adam. That's the problem. We don't know him anymore. You can't pretend the past year never happened."

"Who's pretending?"

Adam and Brennan looked over at the door. The short blonde feral strode in with a look of interest, which quickly morphed into concern.

"Brennan! What happened?" Shalimar cried, glancing from his arm to his face.

"Emma and I went to go get Jesse's girlfriend. You might know her. Kerry?" Brennan replied sarcastically. "Yeah, well, she ambushed us and took a dent out of my shoulders. Emma had to use a psionic blast."

Shalimar's shocked glare turned to Adam. "I've already talk to her about it. She's resting." He answered calmly.

She looked back at Brennan. "How bad is it?"

"It's not horrible, but I'll be out of commission for a few weeks."

"I don't like this, Adam." Shalimar said, taking a step towards the older man. "We need him to take out the hunters."

"We'll have to do our best without him. Besides, we may not even need him. We won't know until Jesse's done searching the system."

The feral growled. "I can't all those missing New Mutants' lives are on the back of a traitor."