Chapter 8

SANCTUARY… Next day…

"Hey…" Emma walked into the wreck room to find Shalimar perched on the edge of the sofa hugging a small pillow to herself. "Are you alright?" she sat down by the feral who at the moment seemed to be out of sorts.

"Yeah." she replied than immediately took it back when Emma gave her an incredulous look. As if she were saying are-you-kidding-me?

"Ok so I'm not exactly fine."

"You want to tell us why that is." Brennan's voice came from the hallway, he was walking towards them and took a seat across the two young women. "What is this group therapy?" Shalimar said with a tiny smile.

"More like an intervention." Brennan said ducking to avoid Emma's playful slap.

"Don't listen to him. We're just… worried about you is all." Emma said

"Look I'm just a little out of it."

"A little out of it would be you dozing before a cat nap. Shal it isn't like you to skip out on a chance to kick some ass." Brennan said taking a seat in front of the two. "Come on what gives?"

"I don't know." she shrugged her shoulders. "I just… I'm not so sure it's safe for her to be here."

"Why not?" Emma didn't ask whom; it was obvious by now the subject of Shalimar's hesitance this past week. "Come on Shal, talk to us." Emma had felt the tension rising off from Shalimar in waves the minute Jesse and Brennan had brought Cody in.

"Look she wasn't exactly thrilled to come with us in the first place, what if she freaks out and… I'm just saying maybe we should be a lot more careful around her."

This wasn't something new to her, helping out a new mutant letting them stay at sanctuary for a bit until they got back on their feet. But this was different the girl was an Elemental… a Thermal Elemental at that. Unconsciously she rubbed her arm, the one that had nearly gotten burned the week before.

"We don't know anything about her… for all we know she could be a lunatic or something."

From the other side of the room Cody had heard all she needed to hear from them. So she wasn't trusted, what else was knew? Did she expect anything different this time around? It was better that she leaves now before the Feral got any more crazy ideas…

"Shal that is ridicules." Emma said.

"You weren't exactly thrilled to have me on aboard when I first came here remember?" Brennan said.

Shalimar didn't look at either mutant.

"I may not be far off, I mean Emma you can't get a hit off of her… and…"

"Shalimar, come on what is going on with you?"

The Psionic and Elemental (Brennan) exchanged a confusing look with one another, than recognition flashed in both Emma and Brennan's eyes. Of course Shalimar was uncomfortable! Hello? Fire! New Mutant with a hell of Firepower.

The question now was what were they going to with the two?

"Hey where's Jesse?" Shalimar asked breaking Brennan and Emma out of their silent conversation. And changing the subject in an oh so obvious way.

~*~*~*~*~

Adam sat in the laboratory his eyes glued to the computer screen, for days on end he had been trying to decode the darts that had been aimed at his latest mutant. The first one that had been found in the warehouse by Brennan was a control substance, mixed with what looked to be like a new form of a Governor.

From the descriptions of the shooters they were from Genome X.

The second one that had got Cody in her shoulder was beginning to be broken down. Although there seemed to be a part of the dart missing. This one had been shot from the Bounty hunters.

The substance that it had held had already been injected into Cody's system, whatever the effects were it would be making itself known real soon.

~*~*~*~*~

Jesse was sitting in his room quietly contemplating on whether or not he was going to tell the others about his latest incident. It was bad enough that they babied him, Brennan more than the rest but if he told them about this… It'd be a definite that Adam would put him in lock down. Taking great care he walked over to the lengthy mirror and slowly lifted the front of his shirt revealing his stomach. Jesse winced at the sight of what looked like the beginning of a strange looking bruise. It was forming just below his abdomen on his left side and went down the waistband of his jeans. It was tinted blue and red. While the rest of his body was cold that one spot was heated, and it was starting to burn. There was no way he could hide this from them, especially not from Shalimar. With her feral sense she would detect something wrong with him the minute she'd laid her eyes on him.

"It's going to be hard to hide that…" he looked up into the reflection and saw Cody standing in his doorway. "Now I thought I locked that door." he said.

"Nope, it was open I even knocked." she said still standing in the same spot. Jesse looked down at himself and yanked his shirt down in embarrassment. She was still staring at him, 'What the hell was she still staring at?' he thought to himself.

Cody walked over standing by his side and eyed him for a second before reaching out and lifted the front of his shirt. "What are you doing…" He hadn't noticed it yet but her eyes had changed. She placed her left hand flat on the entire area of the bruise, and pressed down as gently as she could. "Relax…" she said.

Jesse cringed as he felt the burn become more intense, and it seemed to have spread. It had lasted for a few minutes, but to him it felt a lot longer. He could feel his heart beat speeding up, pounding against his ribs causing a terrible ache. Jesse was beginning to panic, afraid that what had happened to him in the shower the night before was happening again. He cried out in pain. "Stop…" he protested as he gripped her wrist but she told him to hold on a little longer. Cody pressed a kiss to his temple, and slid her right hand behind him underneath his shirt. Pausing at the small of his back, she began stroking him in a soothing manner.

A few minutes later Jesse felt the burn simmer down to an uncomfortable heat. Cody was talking him down in a soft tone. The unbearable heat was than replaced with something cool; it ran through out his entire body. He suppressed a shudder as he leaned against her. The pounding in his heart had subsided, his eyes that had been shut tight the whole time opened up. He looked at her, Cody's normal brown eyes were Silver but not the shade of Silver that he had seen up on the roof. No this was different. He noticed that like him her breathing was heavy. The feel of her gentle strokes on his back had ceased.

Cody slowly removed her hands from his under his shirt and was a little hesitant to step back from him. Closing her eyes she willed the Silver to slide back to its place. Her heart that had been pounding a few moments ago was coming down do it's usual pace. The sound of her blood rushing in her ears was slowly decreasing. She was exhausted from the change in his thermal status.

Jesse lifted his shirt once more to find the bruise was gone. Where it had once been was now a faint tint of pink. Barely noticeable, the pain was gone. His breathing was back to normal, as was his heartbeat. Dropping the front of his shirt he turned to find her sitting on the edge of his bed. "What… How…" he didn't even know what to ask. "Give me a sec…" she was breathless.

Jesse sat besides her. "Are you alright."

She only gave him a slight nod before looking at him. The two sat in silence for a while before she looked at him. Her eyes were their normal dark brown. "Feeling better now?"

Jesse couldn't believe what he had just heard. She was the one who had been out of it and was now asking if he was all right? "Yeah… How 'bout you?"

"Yeah."

"How did you? I mean… what did you do?"

"You're welcome." she snapped 'causing him to blush, and stutter an apology. Which made her feel bad about her attitude. She cut him off trying to apologize herself for her snappiness. "Look I'm sorry… I shouldn't have snapped at yah."

It was a few more minutes before she spoke up again. "The same thing happened to me you know… when I first started exhibiting signs of being Elemental." she started indicating to where his bruise had been. "I had hot spots… that's what dad use to call them. The exact kind you just had."

"Hot spots?"

"When I first started with the whole heat thing, I use to get hot spots sort of like bruises only different colors. Don't know why… but when I first started learning how to control heat it would start with my body.

The only way I could relieve myself with out hurting anyone, was to sit hours on end in a pool or lake or whatever body of water that was at my disposal. Eventually I learned out to regulate my own body heat. They use to hurt like hell though, one time it had gotten so bad I accidentally hiked up the lake's temperature 10 degrees in less than 5 minutes.

When I walked by your room I sensed the heat… I don't know how I did that, cause I've never been able to sense it before. But when I saw you standing there, and saw the bruise… I had a slight case of déjà vu." she paused for a moment her eyes still on her socks. "In laments terms… I adjusted the heat in your body. You won't hurt no more."

"Thank you." his fingers laced with hers, Cody didn't dare look at him, she was afraid of what she would see there. She felt his fingers graze her cheek causing her to facing him, she looked up at him and found he hadn't been afraid of her. His blue eyes locked onto her dark brown's, for a fleeting second she felt as if something had passed between them. What she saw in the young mans blue eyes was something she hadn't see in a long time. It made her feel nostalgic at the same time, it scared the hell out of her. He smiled at her causing her to smile in return. She than shook her head mentally scolding herself for even thinking about where this was heading and turned to look anywhere else but him.

"Here's where it gets confusing to me though," she continued "Unless you're an Elemental, a Thermal at that, there was no way that you could've had a 'hot spot',"

He didn't answer her right away, the guy looked like he was thinking about something. Reluctantly she let his hand drop from hers, and poked his side. "Jesse… you're not. Right? I mean you can't be…"

"No I'm a Molecular…"

"That sounds familiar."

"I can change the density of my body, from impervious to intangible." he held out his arm and took breath, red waves slipped over his arm. Cody reached out touch the massed arm in surprise. "Rock solid."

Jesse took another breath and his arm looked as if it had disappeared. Curious she poked at his arm and found her hand had gone through. Cody frowned as a thought occurred to her. "You did that on the roof didn't you?" He let his arm go back to normal. Unfortunately she didn't give him a chance to answer. "Do you have any idea how much that hurt!" she had jumped to her feet.

"I'm sorry, I didn't know… if I had…" again he was trying to apologize to her.

"It felt like my entire body was being ripped apart!!!" she cut him off again. "How could you do that?"

"Hey if I hadn't phased us through the roof you'd be in a lab right now." he found it very irritating that she was angry with him for doing what he did every day. Help save lives. Hers in fact.

"I told you I didn't need any help."

"Oh yeah you were doing such a good job what with all those GSA, and bounty hunters after you." his voice dripping with sarcasm. Which only furthered her unexplained anger.

"I was doing just fine on my own until you and your partner Captain lightning came in. I could have taken them down easy if you hadn't gotten in the way."

"Are you kidding me?" Jesse was now in awe as he stood in front of her, she was unbelievable, the nerve of her telling him off... She was crazy that's what she was.

Unbeknownst to the two the room temperature had been slowly increasing. The two mutants could be heard arguing down the hall where at that moment Shalimar, Brennan, and Emma were walking into Jesse's room. The three were in kind of a shock to find the two at each other's throats, and the heat coming from the room was irritating to say the least. It was a wonder they hadn't stripped down to their underwear, what with the room feeling like a hundred degrees.

"What the hell is going on?" Shalimar pulled Jesse back but the younger mutant shrugged her off.

"Another thing if I had known you were going to be such a pain in the ass, I would've left you up there on the roof." Jesse yelled.

"Jesse what the hell are you do you think doing…" Cody cut Brennan short. "Yeah well maybe than I'd a been better off."

"Nice come back." he said with a smirk. "Gutter rat."

"Freak." she retorted with the same tone.

"Have you two totally lost it!" Emma said there was something strange about the way they was acting.

"Cody wait a minute…" this wasn't them talking and Emma knew it, she could feel another personality with them.

"Jess are you crazy?" Shalimar had tried again to pull the molecular back, but he pushed her away.

"You know what fuck you, I don't need this shit." The younger elemental turned on her heels and grabbed her bag off the floor where she had dropped it. "And I don't need you!"

"Fine go on, I don't need you!" as they said simultaneously Cody's eyes flared up as did Jesse's and the shelve beside Cody exploded into flames, 'causing Cody to fly back wards out into the hall and slammed right into the wall.

~*~*~*~*~

Across town in an old shop…

A light haired young man curse loudly his emerald eyes shot open glancing around the musty old storage room. He is dripping with perspiration and is now shaking from head to toe. He had failed, and she wasn't going to like this news at all. The molecular was stronger than he had anticipated. The girl, as hard as he had tried he couldn't even tap into her. Someone was protecting her well. This would not bode well for the others.

"Did it work?" Agent Mora's voice can be heard as she enters the musty old storage room. Her boots echoing through out the catwalk. She walks down the stars with light steps, almost airy steps. She is dressed in a dark leather coat that is skintight. Her eyes dark and ice cold as she glares at the Psionic.

"I…I… I don't know…ma… mam."

"That's not what I want to hear Mr. Javier. You told me that you were sure that you could get a hold of Jesse Kilmartin. Were you not the one filling his head with nightmares these past few weeks? Now I want to know what happened."

"I had him Mora, I did, but that girl she... Ever since she came into contact with them… Something or someone is protecting her really well and it is beginning to effect him. She has a good grip on him."

"A hold? What could she power could she possibly have over him?" she thought out loud. "I need him."

"With all do respect Mora, but I thought you wanted the girl?"

"Silly, I will get the girl when I get Mr. Kilmartin if he is so important to her than she will come to him."

She growled. "Once I have her Eckhart will be please and than maybe I can be rid of this nuisance." she indicated her Governor. "This has to go exactly as I plan it…." an evil grin comes across her face. "Change of plans!"

"Again." he mumbles unintentionally, which earns him a crack in the head from her fist. He goes down hard on the floor. Mora leans down close to his ear. "I can easily replace your sorry ass. There are other Pscionic's to chose from sweetie."

He closed his eyes preparing himself for the worst, but she just hauled him up off his feet. "Come tonight we go hunting for a mutant. Than all will be well again."