A/N: Sorry for yet another long wait. I promise that this chapter is longer (I think) and definitly more exciting. I'm finally getting into the real plot here. There's no word as of yet on the paternity of Shal's baby, but there will be soon. I swear it. Hope you like this chapter, review and let me know. Or review and let me know if you're still actually reading this. And if you're not it's my own fault for not updating faster. Muc love to all who reviewed already! Enjoy this new installment!
Disclaimer: You know the drill, I don't own 'em, 'cept the ones I make up, then i do!
CHAPTER 6:
"What made you wake up?" Jesse asked, voice husky with sleep as they slipped under their flannel sheets and she snuggled up against him. He hissed softly as her cold feet brushed against his legs. "Burr, cold," He chuckled and rubbed his hands up and down her arms.
"Yeah, well, it is December, and just a dream. A bad dream." He hugged her closer and kissed her temple.
"What about?"
"It's kind of fuzzy now, but it seemed so real before." His eyes met hers and she knew that he wanted her to describe it if she could. "I saw fire… We were in a-a warehouse, I think. We separated, you and Bren went one way, me and Shal went the other… Then, and explosion…fire everywhere, rock falling, beams. I was choking on dust and we couldn't get out… I couldn't find you… It just freaked me out, that's all."
Jesse pressed another kiss against the side of her hair. "Well, try to forget it. Nothing bad will happen to you while I'm here to keep you safe." She smiled and sighed contentedly and they drifted off together in each other's arms. If only Jesse knew how untrue that simple reassurance was.
"God, I'm bored…" Brennan grumbled irritably. Shalimar, seated between his outstretched legs, ran her fingers up and down his arm, smiling at his foul temper.
"I hear that," Lexa chimed in front her position sprawled on the floor under a fan.
"Well, guys, your prayers have been answered by the mutant genie," Jesse announced, striding into the room, grinning from ear to ear with anticipation. The others sat up, trying not to look like they were too desperate for a job. Jesse chuckled. "Hmm, perhaps I shouldn't tell you…"
"JESSE!" Shalimar, Lexa, and Brennan shouted together in exasperation. The other mutant held up his hands in surrender.
"Just kidding, geez, guys, relax." Jesse laughed. "Got a mutant pickup, wants to be put in the underground. Um…" He glanced at the file in his hand. "Water elemental, freezes stuff on contact, that sorta thing. We're meeting her at an old warehouse by the piers in half an hour."
"God, what is it with these guys and old crappy-ass warehouses?" Lexa grumbled irritably.
"Hey, you know what; we could be pickin' this chick up in a space ship for all I care. I'm just happy to have something to do." Brennan reasoned. Lexa and Shalimar nodded in agreement.
"Let's get going, we wanna get there first if we're gonna scope the place out before the girl gets there." Jesse said, heading towards the hangar. The other three members of Mutant X were up on their feet in an instant following him towards the Helix at a run. Jesse laughed at their haste, wondering if he was the only sane one left in Sanctuary.
"I can't sense anyone here. That's weird. Why can't I sense her?" Shalimar pondered aloud as the skin at the back of her neck rose ominously. "Something's off here." Her eyes glowed their luminous feral yellow in the darkness of the warehouse. Suddenly the walls seemed thicker, closer; the tin and steel ceiling seemed lower. "Over here." She breathed as her eyes fell upon a shape in the gloom.
Their feet stopped dead as they realized what the shape was. The mutant girl, arms and legs tied horribly tight behind her, her face a frozen mask of pain. The members of Mutant X gaped at the body in silence, unable to find any words for what they were seeing. Someone had killed their charge. Viciously murdered even as she hoped for the safety of escape. Who could've done something so awful?
Whoever they were, they weren't done yet.
Shalimar's ears pricked at a new sound. Her ears picked up a steady beeping noise beyond her line of sight. She raised a hand to stop her friends and silence their contemplative whispers.
"Shal?" Brennan hissed in the impending silence. She shushed him, inching forward.
"Do you hear that?" She whispered.
"Honey, we're good, but we're not feral." Lexa quipped, voice soft through her gentle sarcasm. "What're we supposed to be hearing here?"
"A beeping…I can hear something beeping."
Suddenly a static-y voice came from out of nowhere, reverberating off of the rusting walls.
"Mutant X, how nice of you to come. Though I knew you would. You always do to help one of your freakish brethren. Well, now that you've arrived, here's what I have to say: You killed someone important to me. Now you're all going to pay. And if you think what's about to come is bad. Remember: this is just the calm before the storm. It will only get worse from here on out…That is, if you survive beyond the next thirty seconds."
The voice snickered, viciously joyful as it reveled in its triumph. "Oh yes, I have a gift for you. Oh, it's not a pretty little parcel wrapped in shiny paper or bedecked in a lovely bow. It's quite the opposite really. I'll give you a hint: It's small, contains a clock, and makes a fiery BOOM." The voice, vaguely female sounding through the terrible connection, cackled with such malice that it made the team mates' skin crawl.
"A bomb!" Jesse stated the blatantly obvious.
"Shit! It's a count down beeping! Shit!" Shalimar shrieked, she so deeply hated fire. Her stomach twisted into a tangle of knots.
"Where? Where is it?" Lexa exclaimed, eyes wide and frantic.
"Ahead of us, go back! Back the way we came!" Shalimar winced as the beeping hastened even as they retreated. "Hurry!" The others ran even as she turned back to grab up the young girl's body. No matter what, she would not let the maimed girl burn because of a vendetta against them.
"Five, four, three, two-," The voice counted down as the booked it for the large steel door. They were still so very far away. The gap between them and the safety of the space outside the warehouse walls seemed to stretch for miles.
"Go! GO!" Brennan shouted, taking the body from Shal's arms and swinging it over his shoulder. He gripped Shalimar's hand tightly within his own and tugged her along with him, his long legs making him faster than her as her fear of fire slowed her down.
"One," the voice cackled viciously.
BOOM!
The members of Mutant X were thrown forward, still several feet from the door as their "gift" exploded, shattering the panicked silence as they ran for their lives. All of the oxygen was sucked from the air as it fed the plume of fire that bit at their heels. Chunks and slabs of steel and tin, nuts and bolts and nails flew everywhere, gashing skin and bruising limbs. Smoke and dirt filled the air and the team mates were buried in the fallout. Several seconds of chaos, then silence. Nothing stirred. Only silence; deep, mind-blowing, ominous, deafening silence.
TO BE CONTINUED...