"I don't want to hurt you," Carla Manse repeated, pretending that she wasn't terrified, holding the revolver in both hands. There were six dark-suited men backing her up, but these were mutants! They were dangerous! "Just stay calm, and you'll stay alive." Almost as dangerous as Mason Eckhart.
"What do you want?" Adam demanded. He eased himself out of the Rover. If this were going to be a fight, he and Emma couldn't afford to be trapped inside the vehicle. He didn't trust this woman. She was too scared, and scared people didn't react sensibly. He needed to keep control of the situation, keep her from losing her head. There were too many lives at risk, including those of Mutant X.
"I'm trying to keep you alive," was the woman's surprising answer. Adam blinked. "Mr. Eckhart wants you alive, and I intend to honor that wish. So you just come with me." She allowed her gaze to flicker over Emma. "You, too, mutant." She all but spat the word, as a curse.
"We're not going anywhere without an explanation," Adam told her calmly. "I don't care what Mason Eckhart wants. I don't work for Genomex."
"Not now you don't." The chuckle sounded thin. "But, trust me, Dr. Kane, this is for your own good. If you don't come with me and my team,"—indicating the six tall men behind her, similarly armed with weapons—"you'll die. Del Castillo never misses."
"He already has." Emma came up beside Adam.
But Manse was through talking. "Put the sub-dermal governor on her," she directed one of her henchmen. "Step away from the woman," she directed Adam, "or I'll shoot."
"Ah, you're going to shoot me to save me. You'll have to explain the logic of that to me some day."
"I'll shoot her." Manse's weapon shifted focus.
"I really wouldn't make her mad." Adam tried to pull their attention back to him. Could Emma save herself? The empath had been subjected to Brennan's uncontrolled mutant blasts just as he had been, and if Emma felt even half as bad as Adam himself then he wondered why she was still on her feet. Adam himself was still standing only through sheer stubbornness. A fist fight against six of Genomex's finest was out of the question and if Emma were capable of throwing a psychic whammy then she would have done it by now. "What is your connection to Carlos Del Castillo?"
"A mistake," she ground out. One of the dark-suited men spun Emma around to roughly shoot a sub-dermal governor into her neck. Emma cried out, dropping to her knees. The man picked her up with one brawny arm, letting her half-dangle with the gun in the other hand pointed at Emma's head. Carla waved her gun wildly, gesturing to Adam to move out. "A mistake that I am rectifying. Now, come with me to safety."
"Not without the rest of my team," Adam started to say when another henchman simply stepped forward and cracked him across the head. Adam dropped to the ground.
"Adam!" Emma screamed. She jerked her hand to her face, the hand with the comm. ring. "Jesse, Shalimar, help! It's Genomex!"
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Shalimar was focused on one thing, and one thing only: Carlos Del Castillo. But the man was also a feral, with the same ferocity and single-mindedness as Shalimar Fox. His target down, his contract complete—or so he thought—his next response was to fight this foe with similar powers to his own. No longer was he in his nest with walls all around to hamper his movement. Now there was air on five sides of him, only a salt crystal-laden floor beneath them, and he had the high ground on the bluff. The avian was in his element.
Shalimar was a feline feral, well-accustomed to bird antics. That feral in front of her had threatened her pack. And that was unacceptable.
Which is why neither one of them realized that the men of Genomex had come up behind them until two tranquilizer darts sank home.
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"This one's almost dead," the dark-suited man reported to Carla Manse. Jesse lay on the ground, wheezing his last, unable to muster any response to his enemy. Breathing took all the energy he had. Blood seeped redly from his midsection to puddle among the salt crystals on the ground.
Not that Brennan was in any better condition. The men quickly left him alone after the first attempt to approach. The elemental too was writhing on the ground, bolts of energy seeping from his fingertips to splatter against the salt crystals. Brennan had tried to aim some of those sparks but with no effect. And the electricity was starting to consume him. Brennan didn't how much longer he could hold onto his own consciousness.
"Leave them," Carla ordered. "Mr. Eckhart can decided what to do with the bodies later. Let's get these others back to Genomex. Haven't you finished with that governor yet?" she asked irritably. A feral yelp indicated that he had. Shalimar rubbed at her neck, glaring at the man who'd inserted the device and silently promising retribution at the first possible moment. First a tranquilizer dart, now a sub-dermal governor. If the man was smart, he'd quietly disappear at the first chance he got before Shalimar got loose.
Carla watched as another man carefully tied Adam's hands behind him. Adam might not be a mutant, but Carla Manse wasn't taking any chances. She needed this prize safe and sound to bring to Mr. Eckhart. Any damage to this man, she surmised, and she might well end up on the ground next to the two mutants gasping their last and wouldn't that be an interesting ménage a trois for the local police to puzzle out? "Move out," she ordered. "The cars are more than a mile away, and I'd like to get there sometime this week." She pushed the snout of her gun into the small of Adam's back, shoving him forward.
Adam stumbled forward, catching himself. He cast a backward glance at the two they were leaving behind and then closed his eyes in horror. It was going to be a very different world. Brennan and Jesse dead, and there was no doubt in his mind that Mason Eckhart would put Shalimar and Emma into pods as soon as humanly possible. And Del Castillo too, if only the avian feral knew it. Or perhaps he did. The avian feral face was still and unreadable, another sub-dermal governor preventing the assassin from escaping. And Adam? Adam Kane wondered what Mason Eckhart would do to pull the genetic information out of Adam's brain. Whatever it was, Adam was sure that it wouldn't be pleasant. Mason Eckhart had long ago lost any shred of humanity. Adam glanced around. There wasn't even a handy cliff to toss himself off of to ruin those plans. Manse shoved him again to move him forward with the others.
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It was getting hard to breathe. No, it was already hard to breathe, but it was getting harder and harder with each passing moment. Giving up seemed a very enticing option to Jesse Kilmartin.
But his teammate and friend was still on the ground, writhing with the pain of the electrical voltage torturing his nerves. More sparks flew from his fingers, striking the salt crystals to bounce harmlessly off into the air. The syringe lay a few short inches from Jesse's outstretched hand. Crystals crunched in the distance; the rest of the group was moving off.
Not the best scenario to be played out.
Jesse rolled over onto his side, unable to keep back the moan that forced itself out at the movement. But when he came back to himself, the syringe was in his hand. Good. Now for the hard part: getting to Brennan. His breath was getting shorter. Jesse suspected that he didn't have much time.
All right, no dawdling, Kilmartin. You can do this. He crept toward his teammate, syringe ready, pausing only once to mass to keep Brennan's uncontrollable short-circuits from killing him prematurely as Jesse crawled upon the ground. That he was a dead man himself Jesse didn't doubt for a moment. The red stain that he was leaving behind in among the salt crystals was pretty telling. But if he was lucky, very lucky, then he wouldn't take Brennan with him.
Another inch, another. The salt crystals on the ground packed themselves into the wound. It hurt like hell but Jesse refused to stop. Stopping meant stopping forever. Going on meant pain, and pain meant that he was still alive and alive meant that Brennan had a chance. Then Brennan's arm was in Jesse's face, the vein blue and pulsing in front of him. Jesse could barely focus to slide the needle into the skin. He heard a groan, and wondered if it belonged to him or to Brennan, then decided that it really didn't matter. He pushed the plunger home.
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Fire. Brennan was on fire. Every nerve was on fire, every square inch of his skin was being slowly flayed off of his body one electron at a time. It hurt to move, it hurt not to move. Brennan didn't know which was worse.
Someone moved part of him, and his arm responded with renewed efforts at torture. Brennan groaned, the sound forced out of him.
But then a coolness seeped from that arm, a serenity being brought to those flagellated nerves that promised relief—promised and delivered. The relief trickled down into his fingers, and then up through his shoulder and from there to the rest of him. Brennan sighed, the sound escaping just short of a whimper of relief.
It would have felt wonderful just to lie there and bask in the absence of pain but life was never that easy. It took three tries, but Brennan finally managed to roll over onto his hands and knees. Swaying there, he decided to chance opening his eyes.
That hurt almost as much as his nerves had. He remembered where he was, in the middle of an abandoned salt mine, with leftover crystals all around twinkling into the sun and bouncing every single one of those twinkles directly at his eyes. His memory was foggy, but he remembered stumbling here, he remembered releasing several gigawatts worth of energy and feeling a whole lot better.
But Brennan wasn't feeling better at the moment. Something must have happened between then and now, and slowly the memories crept back to him: Del Castillo taking him down like a rank amateur—that smarted even worse than anything else—and then watching as Jesse crept up to him, syringe in hand, pretending to be Adam…
Jesse! The fog in Brennan's mind cleared instantly as he saw the still figure close by. Terror drove away the rest of his lethargy. He scuttled to Jesse's side. "Jesse! Oh, man, you can't die on me! Jesse!"
A shuddering breath reassured him that the worst had not yet happened. Jesse spoke, not opening his eyes. "Welcome back." He coughed, a hand clutching at his torso. Brennan caught at him, easing the molecular back to the cold hard ground. Jesse coughed again. "Damn salt. Got into the wound. Hurts like hell, Brennan."
"I'll wash it out," Brennan promised. He looked around, wondering where the nearest supply of water was.
"No time." Jesse coughed again. A trickle of blood sprang to the corner of his mouth. "Genomex. They've got the others. You have to help them."
"I've got to get some help for you."
"I'll be fine," Jesse lied, trying not to wince. "They need you, Brennan. This was all a Genomex plot. Did you see her? One of Eckhart's lackeys, a woman, hired Del Castillo to kill Adam. She thought that it would drive the rest of us out into the open where she could get at us. Don't know what changed her mind, but now Genomex's goons are taking Adam, Shalimar, and Emma back to their facility. They've already put sub-dermal governors onto Shalimar and Emma. And Del Castillo."
Brennan looked grim. "I guess he's out-lived his usefulness." He stared down at Jesse, not liking the man's color. He shrugged out of his leather jacket, tucking it around Jesse. At least this way he couldn't see the blood leaking out of the man.
"Hurry," Jesse urged, correctly determining what the elemental was thinking. "Go get them. Get them away from Genomex before Eckhart gets hold of them."
"Jess…"
"Go," Jesse urged. "Please, Brennan."
Both recognized what neither one would admit to. Brennan set his jaw. "Stay here, man. I'll be back with Adam and the others. You make sure that you're still here. Hear me, Jesse?"
"I hear you." The smile was faint. "Go."
Brennan went.
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Del Castillo had favored high places from which to target his prey, and Brennan Mulwray heartily agreed. There was a certain satisfaction in looking down on the enemy, taking aim and firing. Brennan had positioned himself in a similar spot, able to look down on his prey, watching the group of Genomex goons, Mutant X, and one stray sniper advance along the forest floor.
Brennan could see three black sedans in the distance, lined up on the narrow dirt road looking remarkably out of place among the heavily wooded terrain. Whoever got to service those cars would undoubtedly have something to say when those cars returned full of underbrush in the suspension. And with the amount of scratching of the paint with the narrow paths, Mason Eckhart would be out the cost of three expensive coats of body armor. That in itself made Brennan feel better. Gonna blow the budget on this one show, Eckhart?
Brennan had hustled. He wasn't far behind the group. The crowd was going slow to accommodate the pace of the captives. One or the other contrived to fall at irregular intervals, blaming it on lack balance due to hands being tied behind each back. Even Del Castillo, eyes smoldering each time he had Carla Manse in his sight, put in his share of clumsiness, intuiting that the others had some plan in mind.
Brennan counted: six men with guns, one woman with a pistol. Two men led the way with Mutant X and Del Castillo trailing behind single file. The other four men and the woman brought up the rear, guns at half-mast. The guns weren't needed right now; Brennan had caught sight of the sub-dermal governors on the necks of the New Mutants. He'd better make this good. Let one of the Genomex goons get a moment to think, and a spray of bullets would put the body count beyond repair. He snapped his fingers, noting the high level of control of electrons with satisfaction: yup, ole Sparky was back to normal. And, boy, was he pissed!
Timing would be everything. Brennan waited, waited, watching as the group came closer. Fifty feet away, now forty. Brennan crouched on the slope above the trail, waiting. Thirty feet—breathe silently, don't let them hear. Need 'em close enough to take out at least two with one shot. More would be nice.
Shalimar heard his breath. Brennan could tell by the infinitesimal straightening of her head. She tossed her hair back over her shoulder, ringlets dancing. Del Castillo had caught it, too. Damn ferals and their super-human senses.
Twenty feet. Ten. Brennan summoned the lightning.
He stood up. "Hey!" he shouted.
It was almost worth it to see the look of utter astonishment on the woman's face. She had clearly thought that Brennan was a dead man. It was worth even more to watch the two men behind her get blasted by a lightning bolt and go flying into the trees. They didn't have the grace of Del Castillo in the air, but the sight was more than satisfactory.
Shalimar's powers may have been dampened and her hands were tied behind her back but anyone who considered her to be neutralized was harboring foolish hopes. One of the remaining men whirled around, gun coming up and ready. Shalimar kicked it out of his hands. Her next kick dislocated his jaw, and his consciousness with it. He went down into the bed of pine needles.
Del Castillo too had changed sides, and he too was a feral. And he too was more than a little miffed at this turn of events. He expressed his feelings in detail upon the other man leading the way. Had Shalimar had the hands free to do it, she would have given him the thumbs up.
Both Adam and Emma turned on the remaining pair. One ducked under Emma's long-legged roundhouse kick. Brennan summoned another electrical jolt and dropped the man where he stood. Adam demonstrated the art of le savat, and the final man took a well deserved nap.
Which left the woman. She nervously brandished her pistol, trying to cover all of them at once. "Get walking!" she tried to command. "I'll shoot! I'll shoot!"
"You can't get all of us," Adam pointed out reasonably. He moved in closer to her. The others spread out, encircling her so that she couldn't cover all of them. She shifted from one to the other, aiming the gun at first Shalimar, then Del Castillo, finally settling on the man she'd been told not to harm. "Mason Eckhart told you not to kill me, didn't he? What if your gun goes off, right in my face? Do you think Eckhart is going to listen to excuses?" He moved forward, into the gun's path, and gestured at her fallen companions. "This is what we did with hands tied behind our back. And sub-dermal governors on their necks. Do you really think that a silly little handgun is going to make a difference?"
She didn't. One little sob, and she ran. Moments later they heard the roar of a powerful car engine—needs a tune-up, Brennan sniffed—and they were alone in the woods.
Brennan wasted no time untying his teammates. But he halted at Del Castillo.
Adam shook his head. "I have a suspicion that the contract was cancelled. Right, Carlos?"
Del Castillo shrugged eloquently. "I have half my money. And I doubt very much that I will be permitted to acquire the other half. I think that I will simply move on. Mason Eckhart can look elsewhere for his hired help. I now have significant doubts about the stability of the company retirement plan, even if I don't live past fifty."
Adam rubbed his wrists. "Brennan, you arrived just in time. If we had gotten into those sedans, I don't think Eckhart would have ever let us go." He looked around. "Where's Jesse?"
Cold settled into Brennan's chest. "Not good, Adam."