Chapter Fourteen
Jamie looked around the makeshift hospital room. It was situated in the basement, like at the last house, but this basement was divided up into two rooms. The room with the stairs leading up to the kitchen was a dojo, set up with various pieces of equipment, an impressive array of weapons on one wall, and a large mat for sparring.
The second room was to the left, with a nicely lockable door, and was as sterile as any basement could get. There were two examining tables, a large cabinet filled with medical things, and a sink for washing up. It was notably nicer than the old house, with slightly more room to move, and the walls had at some point been painted a soothing powder blue.
One of the examining tables was currently in use, a white sheet draped over the girl's body. Jamie always preferred to give her patients that little shred of modesty. Sure, she poked and prodded and looked inside their bodies, but she didn't do anything she didn't have to, and if she wasn't working on an area that was usually covered by clothing, she tried her hardest to make sure it was covered. It was simple courtesy.
Realising that she was daydreaming, something she almost never did, Jamie shook her head and walked over to the table. The people who had set the place up had kindly put the table at a low enough height for her to reach comfortably. Apparently, speeding up a person's ageing so that they had grey hair and wrinkly skin at twenty-five was a good threat.
Smiling grimly at the memory, Jamie picked up the small hand-held recorder from the table at her elbow and pushed record.
"Mutant number nineteen, female, approximately five foot five, brown eyes, brown hair, exact powers unknown but is definitely energy-based. She attacked The Mutant Pitt at approximately eleven twenty three on October the third. Was fought by Paradox and Onix, and killed by Animal. The body has been mutilated at the neck area and stomach due to Animal's attack. Scars are visible on her back, appear to be made from some sort of whip, as well as her upper-thighs, from some kind of sharp instrument, jagged, not a knife. Eyes are bloodshot suggesting lack of sleep, probably for an extended period of time. Tips of fingers are bruised, possibly a side effect for her powers. Small puncture wound at bend of her left elbow, probably a needle of some kind, this was not visible on any of the other mutants, suggesting it is not related to her capture."
"Starting the party without me?" a wry voice said, and Jamie turned to see Selene standing in the doorway. The brunette tsked her and moved over to the cabinet to wash her hands and pull on a pair of gloves. "Naughty, naughty."
"I thought you might want to rest," Jamie said, pressing stop on the recorder.
"Why? You healed me and now I'm perfect again."
"Yes, but you had probably been dancing for some time, I detected some fatigue in you when I was healing you."
Selene waved a hand in a dismissive way, walking over to stand opposite Jamie. "Ah, so I was a bit tired. I had a nice long shower, scrubbed myself clean, and now I want to get on with some work. Wow, Ivy really messed her up."
"Indeed."
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Ivy spat out the mouthful of mouthwash and glared at her reflection. Four rounds of toothpaste and mouthwash and she still couldn't get the taste of blood out of her mouth. And not just blood, meat, that soft, tender, fleshy taste of human meat, still warm as she chewed and swallowed…
Ivy gagged and forced her thoughts away from the sensory memory, away from the thought that the phantom taste in her mouth was nice. She loved the taste of meat in her mouth, craved the smooth texture of human skin, hungered for the metallic taste of blood.
The feral mutant gave her reflection one last, disgusted look, and stalked out of the bathroom. As Selene was helping Jamie with the autopsy, the bedroom was blessedly empty, and Ivy threw herself onto her bed.
Dammit, she hated her mutation! Why did she have to be like this? Why did she have to live with these dark impulses? Why must she look at her friends and either think 'threat' or 'food'? Why did she have to dream of chasing down innocent children and tearing at their flesh? Why dammit!
There were no answers to her questions, there never was, and she was left with a bitter anger in the pit of her stomach, burning like a fire. Her hands clenched into fists, her fingernails digging into her palms hard enough to draw blood. The faint coppery scent filled her senses, bringing back the sharp memories of what it tasted like to swirl that thick, warm liquid around her mouth, savouring the delicious taste of it.
Rolling over with a frustrated growl, Ivy buried her face in her pillow, refusing to smell the sweet scent of her own blood.
"I fucking hate me," she mumbled into her pillow, finally giving voice to her tumultuous emotions.
"It's not your fault," a soft voice from the doorway said, and Ivy sat up quickly, muscles tensing as she automatically readied for a fight. When she realised that it was Kar, she relaxed slightly.
"Go away, Kar," she muttered, a growl tracing the menacing tone of her voice.
"No. Look, I am tired of seeing you constantly beat yourself up over the things you do when you go feral. It is not your fault, and I wish you would realise that. So what if you happen to like eating people, I don't give a shit, because it's not you. Or at least, not the real you. It's just the beast inside you that the X-Gene gave you."
"But the beast is me!" Ivy cried in a mixture of frustration and sadness. "It lurks inside me like some horrible creature and I can't escape it and I can't outlive it! It is always there, whispering to me, urging me to do things that I don't want to do! Do you know that whenever I look at you I wonder what you'd taste like? Do you know that I dream about chasing you through the night and eating your flesh? Do you know what that feels like?"
Kar watched helplessly as Ivy collapsed on the floor, her face buried in her hands and her shoulders shaking. He hesitated on what to do, he wasn't really good with the comforting thing, but eventually he knelt down in front of her and tentatively wrapped his arms around her shoulders. She resisted at first, her muscles tensing and she made a few weak efforts at escaping, but Kar knew that it was token resistance and held on until she relaxed in his arms, not returning the hug but not rejecting it either.
Kar closed his eyes as he ran a hand through Ivy's short black hair, letting the silky strands slide through his fingers, watching as they fell back to mesh with the rest, lost in a sea of onyx black. His fingers darted into that dark mass and touched her scalp, trailing down to reach the base of her skull, and then her neck, stopping when the collar of her tee shirt halted his progress.
"Why do you always do this?" Ivy muttered, raising her amber eyes to look at him with a mixture of curiosity and suspicion.
Kar hesitated. Truth was, he didn't know entirely why he always tried to comfort her. It wasn't easy, trying to get close to her, and trying to hug her usually involved a painful rejection, but… something in him just couldn't stand to see her suffer. He had puzzled over that little spark of insistence for hours, trying to understand, but always failed. He liked Ivy, he knew that, but he hadn't thought he liked her that much. Now he was reconsidering.
"You're my friend," he eventually said quietly. "I don't like my friends to be unhappy."
"So you lie to keep me happy."
"No, I tell the truth to try and make you happy."
Ivy frowned at him, trying to detect the falsity in his eyes but failing. He seemed to be telling the truth. Hm.
Kar pulled away, knowing that the hug was officially over, and gently took her deceptively small hands in his and looked at the bloody palms. The cuts were shallow, just a drop or two of blood for each half-moon, but it made something in his gut twitch painfully at the sight.
A faint blush coloured Ivy's cheeks and she tugged her hands out of Kar's, balling them up to hide the marks. She didn't know why, but she didn't want Kar to see them. She frowned at the feeling, not used to having unclear motives and not liking it one bit.
"Dinner should be ready in a few minutes," Kar said quietly, standing up and offering her a hand, which she reluctantly accepted. "Why don't you go wash up and put a little anti-septic cream on those cuts?"
"They don't-"
"Please."
Ivy sighed and nodded. She was only agreeing because she didn't want to waste time arguing with him, of course. Kar flashed her a smile and left, and she stood there for a moment, thinking, before shaking herself and returning to the bathroom.
She hated the bathroom, it was when she could no longer avoid looking in the mirror and seeing the beast that lurked inside her. She could see it in her eyes, a slither of something dark and primitive, waiting for the moment it got released.
After washing her hands in lukewarm water and rubbing a little cream on them, she walked downstairs to find that everyone, minus Selene and Jamie, was in the kitchen. Alistor was checking on dinner, a pasta dish of some sort, while Kar got out plates and cutlery, and Michelle made the various drinks people wanted. Rogue was sitting at the table, absently drumming her fingers on the table.
What was that guilt she had seen in Cathryn's eyes? Why had the other woman been so sad to see her do her job? It didn't make any sense, she had known what Rogue did, had supported it for months, or was it years? When had all this truly started? When she recruited Ivy as the first Dark Rose? When they had killed the first mutant? Or had it started before that? How long had she been a killer? When had she forsaken all her morals and values for her cause?
"Rogue, dinner," Kar said, nudging her shoulder, and she blinked, snapped out of her musings. She mumbled a thanks and began eating, letting the conversation between Alistor and Kar wash over her.
Selene could have died. Had Jamie not healed her, blood and fluid would have seeped into her lungs and she would have died from internal bleeding. She had nearly lost a teammate and friend. She should be sad about that, but she didn't. She was just… numb. When she thought of Selene dying, she thought of Paradox dying. She thought of losing her powers and skills. She thought of having to find and recruit someone else.
Rogue remembered back to when she had tortured Mitchell, when she had felt so calm and empty. She had been scared about that, she hadn't wanted to lose her emotions. But that had been temporary, her emotions had returned and she'd carried on as normal. Only now… now the emptiness was back, and she didn't know how to get rid of it.