Disclaimer—See Chapter One
A/N: Here's the second half of the chapter for you! The beginning is a little abrupt because I originally wrote this with chapter 14 as one long chapter, so sorry about that. I put the ending of part one in italics at the beginning as a reminder, so hopefully that helps. If you're able to, I'd strongly recommend reading chapters 14 and 15 or "parts one and two" together in one sitting so it makes the most sense. But I know they're long, so I tried to split them up at a natural break. Hopefully I didn't lose too much momentum by doing so. Most of the plot lines are wrapped up in this half, so I hope it all makes sense. I had to simplify them or else this story would have gone on forever! So I hope this shortened version doesn't disappoint too much. I'll post the final epilogue as soon as I can! Thank you all so much!
Traveling On—Chapter Fifteen
As if sudden thought conjured reality, the door above suddenly rattled and light flooded the room for a brief moment. Brennan froze, the bright light a flashback to his nightmares. Another rustling sounded across the room, and he realized they weren't alone. He turned his head, seeing owlishly large eyes staring at him through a slitted grate in the shadows.
Danny.
Rage surged through Brennan at the knowledge that the little boy had been subjected to this horror for so long.
A bulky figure stepped through the door, blocking the light, cutting off Brennan's view of Danny. He growled in frustration, freezing again when Nicholas gave a sudden gasp as the figure stepped into the room and under the single bulb dangling from the ceiling.
Numbly, Brennan stared at the man.
It was Alex.
Shocked, he opened his mouth, muscles trembling in outrage as a slow smile spread over the man's face. An unearthly light seemed to emanate from his eyes, glowing brighter and stronger as dark brown swirled and turned violet.
Brennan swore, throwing himself forward, slamming his wrists into the handcuffs.
The grin grew impossibly wider, the light coming from him growing stronger until it blinded Brennan. He refused to look away however, teeth bared, the challenging snarl dying on his lips when Alex's features suddenly twisted grotesquely. Horrified, Brennan watched as the face of his brother started to melt, merging and shifting.
He suddenly stopped his struggle, realizing he was looking into the face of a stranger.
A violet-eyed stranger.
"Who are you?" Brennan's voice demanded an explanation.
Nicholas shook with painful realization.
He had thought it would be more climactic somhow. The moment he learned the name of the killer. Saw the face of the monster. Discovered the identity of the man who had haunted his daughter. He had thought it would mean something, answer some questions or at least tell him why.
He had never thought it would be the face of a friend.
As the mutant ignored Brennan and came to a stop in front of him, Nicholas Fox felt sick indignation that the man he had trusted, the man he had willingly allowed free reign of his office, his company, and whom he had blindly told over the phone they were coming to this compound, was the bad guy. He had led him straight to his daughter, to all of them. He swallowed.
This was not the way it was supposed to happen.
He was supposed to be some demented monster capable of fiendishly horrible acts. A red-eyed, drooling madman frothing at the mouth. He was not supposed to be someone he knew, a man who had sympathized with the father over the past months, who had brought him late night cups of coffee. Who had, Nicholas remembered sickly, sat in his own office and smiled at the picture of Shalimar.
Nicholas Fox's personal assistant Damien Wilson stared down at his hostages, face empty of rage, sorrow…regret. Then he smiled politely.
"Surprised?"
"You used me, you bastard."
Damien read Nicholas' response from his lips. He looked thoughtful for a moment, then shrugged. "I told you that you'd find your daughter again."
Involuntarily Nicholas' eyes went to Brennan, and he immediately regretted it. Damien's face lost its eerie calm and friendly expression as rage boiled up from nowhere. The lack of warning and sheer speed of the transformation was terrifying. As Damien turned to grab the back of Brennan's jacket and hauled him one-handed to his feet, Nicholas realized that this was the true face of the monster. A man who looked rational…and was not.
It was with bitter realization that he finally got what his daughter had been trying to tell him.
Damien backhanded Brennan savagely, pushing him to his knees, then sank his fingers into his hair and wrenched the elemental's head back until his face was clearly visible in the poor lighting. Still drugged, Brennan's body was weak, sluggish, eyes glaring in defiance. For a long moment, Damien stared down into Brennan's face. "Where's Adam?"
Brennan rolled his eyes that the man actually thought he would talk, but the psionic didn't notice. His attention had turned to Emma and then Danny, face reluctantly fascinated as both psionics watched silently, angrily.
"What do you see?"
The odd tone in Damien's voice confused Brennan for a moment, until he identified it. Then he wanted to be sick. Arousal. The bastard was aroused at the thought that someone had a direct line into his head. He growled, attracting the mutant's attention back to himself, finding himself staring into the angry eyes of a madman. His eyes went flat, face blank as he just stared back, silent.
It struck Nicholas that the quality of his silence held more of the captured predator and nothing of the victim. Was it training? Experience? Or had he simply made his peace with the thought of death? Damien leaned closer, but not, Nicholas noticed, too close. He turned away, meeting Emma's eyes. Old eyes in a too-young face, and he realized they all knew exactly what would probably happen.
Damien's voice was extremely polite when he spoke again. "Where's the feral?"
"Safe from you." Brennan bared his teeth triumphantly.
Nicholas' whole body stiffened, eyes burning at the quiet answer. Unbidden, tears broke free and slipped unchecked down his face in dimness. In them, he felt grief and anger and loss. But amazingly he also felt hope at the sudden realization.
Shalimar was safe.
No matter what happened from here on out, his only daughter was safe. In the darkness, his own death assured, he somehow thought that Shalimar had known the risk she was taking all along. He looked at the rotting bodies stacked like forgotten dolls along the walls. They had all known the risk. He struggled with overwhelming fear for a moment, just about finding acceptance when Brennan suddenly moved. Every head turned as the elemental climbed back to his knees, swaying slightly.
"Tell me who you are."
The mutant didn't answer, simply tapping his gun against his teeth in silent thought.
Brennan had a sudden flashback of his vision, of Alex whispering in his ear as Naxcon collapsed all around them. I—am—him. His eyes caught Danny's, the little boy watching him intently.
And then it all made sense.
He nodded to Danny, the oversized eyes falling shut in relief that his message had finally been understood.
Eckhart.
Brennan's jaw flexed, turning to Emma and Jesse next.
It had all started because Eckhart wanted to crack the genetic code, had tried to recreate the work done by Adam, Shaw, and Haines. The bones back in the underground caves had been evidence of his experiments, his attempts to create life just to destroy it again.
Made-to-order super mutants.
But all these years, he hadn't been able to perfect the process. When he couldn't get the list, he went after Adam, needing his DNA. They had all known that for a while. But they had forgotten one important thing.
Alex.
Brennan dropped his head, Dr. Shaw's final message playing in his mind. The baby, he didn't die, Adam. We were deceived by Eckhart. He kept him for the prophecy, for his own gain to power. I fear what he plans to do. He remembered Adam's own words back in the caves, now a futile warning. If Eckhart got ahold of that research, those bones we found, all those innocent mutants that were experimented on, would be just the beginning. He would continue to create and play with innocent lives until he perfected the process and then would use it to his advantage.
"I—am—him." He repeated the words aloud, catching the mutant's attention. "Eckhart manufactured you with Alex's DNA. And you used that to get us here."
Startled, Damien's eyes narrowed on Brennan, glancing between him and Danny with something akin to sick fascination. And then he smiled, evil, soulless, and Brennan shivered, realizing that Shalimar's words had been true all along. Michael…Damien…pretending to be human. Though he couldn't explain it, he was convinced he had felt a connection to the souls of those tortured by Eckhart. But these latest creations…Brennan shook his head, meeting Emma's eyes, knowing that she had figured it all out as well. She hadn't been able to sense them. They had been experimented on so much, changed so much, it was as if they had ceased to be human…and became something else instead. Sickened, Brennan couldn't accept the truth in Emma's eyes, the thought too disturbing as it hit too close to home. Where did the line get drawn between human and mutant? Between black and gray? All they wanted was to be left alone, for their own semblance of normal. His expression changed, shifting to one of pity, and then anger. They were monsters, made from the blood of one of his own.
"Why?" He demanded. "Why my brother?"
"Because I could, Mr. Mulwray."
Brennan's eyes closed in frustration at the smooth tones of the voice from above them.
"Eckhart."
"Damien, find the girl."
He disappeared without another word.
Rage, a rolling black mass, built a rapid fire in Brennan, screaming in outrage as he blindly threw himself against the chains, feeling the edge slide closer, howling in his ear.
"Brennan."
His head snapped to the left, and he met Emma's infuriated gaze. For a split second, ice fed fire, meltwater cracking into component atoms, hydrogen and oxygen feeding the flames. Then slowly, sanity prevailed.
He was not alone.
They were not alone.
Defensive anger hesitated, then retreated slowly as ice water cooled the edge of the flames long enough for Brennan to regain his mental footing. Secure in her support, no matter what he chose to do, he paused to think of the consequences.
Secure in his backing, she paused to consider battle plans.
To take another look at the options.
And then the decision was made for them.
A flicker in the shadows, and Brennan again found himself rising to his knees. Damien was armed, but he seemed mesmerized by the darkness emanating from the man. A darkness more than dangerous than he could ever hope to be.
But that, Nicholas suddenly realized as he helplessly watched the exchange, was exactly who Damien thought he was seeing.
Damien was a man you could pass on the street and never remember you had met him. Even now, Nicholas could barely see the monster. Surrounded by corpses, his mind still wanted to see an ordinary man with an affable smile. He shifted uneasily as Brennan moved among the shadows with a predatory grace that Damien lacked. Emma suddenly rose to her feet as well, hands cuffed behind her back. A weaker Jesse suddenly staggered up as well. Nicholas hadn't even been aware he had woken. Even handicapped, they were a formidable sight. Menace and rage cloaked the trio like black smoke, mocking the madman.
Damien jerked as if he'd been slapped. "Sit down."
The command was weak.
They ignored him.
Hatred spewed from eyes that contained only the fires of pathetic insanity as he lifted his gun. "Sit down!" His voice was a scream of anger and loss. Rage and hatred. His angry pants were the only sounds audible and no one moved. Every eye was fixed on the gun Damien was pointing directly at Brennan's heart. The elemental did nothing for a long moment. Then his head rose slowly and Nicholas found himself holding his breath as awareness flooded hooded eyes and white teeth flashed in a feral grin, a match to the one flaring in the shadows across the room.
"Got you."
Then the shadows grew substance and Damien's astonished face was falling, falling forward, and Nicolas was staring into honey brown eyes twin to his own. The rest of the room was equally still as Shalimar absently brushed the dust from jacket, Alex standing directly behind her, arms crossed tightly across his chest.
Brennan winced as he climbed to his feet. "He threw me down the stairs, Shal."
She looked at the disgusting substances decorating his clothing. "Don't even think of asking me to kiss it better," She warned.
Nicholas' mouth gaped, struggling to understand their mundane words.
Brennan's mouth twitched in reply.
Then both were moving, Shalimar's hands impatiently ripping the bindings away, throwing herself against him as he caught her up, lifting her off the floor and burying his face in her hair as her arms fiercely wrapped around his neck. He held her for long moments, finally turning to greet his brother, following Shalimar again as she caught sight of the grate from her dreams, of the pale face staring solemnly back at her. She silently ripped the grate off, Brennan catching the little boy as he shrank back at the screeching noise.
"Hey, it's ok." Brennan's voice was soothing, and Danny trembled, chin nodding, glasses sliding down his nose as he let himself be picked up.
"You came." He stared at Brennan, little hand patting his cheek as if to reassure himself it was real.
"Yeah." Brennan blinked, eyes stinging, answer hoarse at the knowledge of how closely things could have taken a different path. "We got your message."
Simultaneously Jesse and Emma suddenly winced, raising their hands to rub their ears. Nicholas realized with astonishment that the two still had their comlinks, and that they had been activated the entire time.
"Adam's awake." Jesse sighed as he held his head in his hands. Throbbing pain rumbled in his skull, and he struggled to remember exactly what happened.
"He got Brennan's, but not ours." Emma calmly explained at Nicholas' blank expression. "I just made him think our rings were already gone."
"Uh, Jess?"
Jesse blinked blurrily at Shalimar as she nodded pointedly at him. It took him a moment to figure out she was trying to tell him. It took him another moment to figure out why he was so cold.
Very cold.
He looked down, face turning beat red.
Throughout the whole ordeal, his pants had remained clutched in his fist.
Even Danny smiled, a faint whisper on tiny lips until his eyes again caught sight of the room.
"We better get out of here." Brennan was brought back to reality when Danny trembled in his arms, remembering where they were. He nodded at Shalimar, leading them up the stairs while she set the others free. Jesse quickly pulled on his pants as soon as his hands were loose.
Shalimar leaned down and calmly unlocked the handcuffs holding her father last. She met his eyes, and he suddenly realized that this was the first time she had looked at him since that first glance. His attention went to the long ugly scratch along her forehead. Her eyes held nothing. He looked for something he recognized and whatever she was searching for in his, he didn't think she found it before she turned away.
He did not move to hold her back.
Only Alex remained behind.
His eyes were shadowed, dark as he stared at the bodies left to rot. Human carcasses stacked like corkwood in an abandoned lower tunnel. Based upon the overwhelming intact skulls and still decomposing bodies, the exact number of lost lives was nearly impossible to determine. He stared at the atrocity. Too many of the victims would remain faceless, voiceless, lost in the mists of time. Nameless forever.
No.
He would not let this continue. He would not close his eyes and walk away. No. He would not let them win. Not now. Not ever. Not even if it cost him pain, his life, his soul.
No.
Death terrified him because of what it could take from him, but it did not offend him. Death was just the other face of life. The men who would seek to pervert death, they offended him. With every brutalized and broken body, they offended him. And in the heart of offense was born rage. Bone deep and ice cold, it sat in judgment of the monsters who wore the faces of men and breathed one word deep in the depths of his soul.
No.
A hand on his shoulder startled him, but he felt his brother's presence like a balm to his wounded soul.
Brennan cleared his throat. "You ok?" He glanced at Alex's face, realizing with sudden shock that silver tracks gleamed on his cheeks as silent tears slipped down his face. Without thought, he turned, pulling him into an embrace.
"Yeah." Alex pulled away after a brief moment, shoving his hands in his pockets. "All those years in a pod, I thought nothing could be worse." He nodded at the evidence of the experiments before them. "Turns out I was one of the lucky ones."
Brennan had a sudden newfound respect for Adam. He had been angry when he had learned what he had done all those years ago when he had separated them as babies. But now, he realized with deep gratitude, he had saved their lives. He cleared his throat again, glancing sideways at Alex.
"So how did you get here anyway?"
Alex smiled. "Shalimar asked me the same thing."
Brennan quirked one eyebrow. "You're the one that took her." It wasn't a question.
"I had to know what was happening… Sorry about that."
"It's ok, I would have done the same thing."
They exchanged brief smiles, a hint of awkwardness returning. It was a strange feeling, being so connected to someone you hardly knew.
"Where's Danny?" Alex's gaze had drifted to the top of the stairs.
"Shal's got him."
"She told me about your dreams."
Brennan nodded silently.
"I followed Eckhart here…I was shocked to find you guys here as well. I was even more shocked to sense the team's apprehension of me."
"I never believed it." Brennan looked at his brother again. "I want you to know that."
"I know."
"Good."
They fell silent again.
"I heard what was said about Damien as well, over Shalimar's comlink." Bitterness filled Alex's voice. "The bastard was impersonating me. He has my blood, and he used his psionic abilities to play with your minds. It was just a sick game to him, messing with you even as he used Shalimar's father to further Eckhart's maniacal goal."
Brennan smiled faintly. "It amazes me how unrelated, but interconnected it all is."
"Choices."
"Yeah."
"That little boy shows promise." Alex started up the stairs suddenly. "He beat Eckhart and Damien at their own game."
"What do you mean?" Brennan glanced back over his shoulder at Damien, but the mutant was still unconscious.
"They knew he was psionic; Damien was monitoring him, keeping him from calling for help. So instead, he sent you dreams that Damien didn't catch. Very subtle and very smart."
Brennan caught Shalimar's eyes as he emerged from the darkness. "Shal's the one that figured it out."
"She was heavy on your mind, Danny picked up on that." Alex leaned his shoulder against the doorframe.
Brennan came to a stop behind Shalimar, resting his hands on her shoulders as she leaned into his chest. Danny had attached himself to her leg, his head barely reaching her chest, her hand holding his. At the tender age of nine when most boys were fighting to show independence, this little boy had been cheated of that opportunity. They would make sure it wouldn't happen again. His eyes, large and solemn, were on Emma, and Brennan knew she must be keeping him calm.
"So now what?" Jesse spoke quietly. Eckhart was still somewhere around them, along with untold numbers of agents he had working here. They had been fortunate that only a handful seemed to be guarding the lower tunnels of the compound.
"Now we finish this once and for all." Alex's voice had lost all inflection.
No one was able to reconstruct exactly what happened next.
Brennan had started back down the stairs to where they had left Damien at the same time that Eckhart reappeared, ghostly smile across his pale features. He was looking more sickly than the last time they had seen him.
It was the only thought Shalimar had time to formulate before all hell broke loose.
Halfway down the stairs, Brennan heard the hiss of the flame the same time he saw movements in the shadows. It occurred to him that the fire at Naxcon hadn't been started by Alex…but by someone impersonating him.
"What are you doing?" His hands had already started to gather a swirl of electricity.
The psionic turned violet-eyes on him and calmly answered. "Hunting."
Running footsteps were suddenly thundering above, but Brennan never broke eye contact. Fire and electricity crackled in tandem and then the room exploded.
A black wave brought Brennan to his knees, passing over him, and he saw it strike the psionic. In the split second before it hit, the man's face twisted in horror as he realized his fatal mistake. He hadn't known about the natural methane, Brennan dimly thought, not seeing Emma behind him, her eyes rolling black before Jesse snatched her back.
But it was too late.
Brennan had a half second to recognize the rumbling vibrations beneath his feet as something odd.
Explosive potential disintegrated the grate on the far end of the tunnel and slammed into the rock and cement room that had been Danny's prison just behind. Only there was no exit, no place for the blast to vent to and the room was already overpressurized with a huge reservoir of pure methane. Liters of high pressure methane spewed back through the door, forced outward by the reservoir's own massive overpressure and the flames howling along behind. Then the flames reached the trailing edge of the vapor cloud now fully formed.
And it detonated.
In an eerily silent explosion of light, Brennan saw the flash first. He dimly registered that reflected light traveled faster than a blast wave, wondering why he was remembering eleventh grade physics at the moment before his death. And then his body was flying backward, eyes seared shut as the encroaching blast followed him up the stairs. Another flash visible behind closed lids and the world blew up.
Eyes burning, Brennan felt more than saw his brother mass in front of him, felt the tip of his hair singeing as the blast blew outward. And he felt it when his brother left him, running headlong into the flame.
"Noooo!" He heard Shalimar's sobs, falling backwards and landing roughly on his back. Lungs burning, eyes swollen, he tried to climb to his feet, only to collapse as the leg beneath him twisted and failed. He gasped and stared in numb horror at the gleam of bone protruding from his thigh…then he started gagging uncontrollably when he realized that the bone was not his.
Jesse unmassed, gasping for air, sobbing in relief when he saw he had managed to get to the others in time.
They were safe.
Shalimar's hands landed on Brennan, cradling his head ever so gently in her lap, fingers gently and impatiently brushing the blackened soot from his face.
"Brennan—," Her broken whisper was painful in the eerie aftermath of the rumbling explosion.
Eckhart was nowhere to be seen.
Neither was Alex.
"Shalimar," Jesse grimly held Danny, pressing the little boy's face into his shoulder to block his view. "We have to get out of here." He looked up nervously at falling chunks of debris. "We don't know how much damage was done to the building."
"Alex—" She started again to her feet.
"Shalimar, we're underwater."
Jesse's pointed reminder gave her pause, glancing up and seeing the jagged cracks running through the walls, the ceiling. There was a good twenty feet or more of additional rock above their head as well, not even counting the building that was above ground.
"Emma?" Shalimar almost whimpered, hesitating.
"I feel him, Shal." Emma's eyes were closed, "He's finally letting me feel him."
Shalimar bit back a sob in relief. "Where?"
"Here." Alex's hoarse voice came out of the darkness.
Sitting in the middle of the debris of the ruined cellar he stared as the mutilated face of his enemy.
He would never hurt anyone ever again.
He rose numbly to his feet, walking away without looking back.
The return to Sanctuary was one of odd moments of lucid clarity and faded confusion for Brennan.
But he remembered the rain.
It fell gently, warm and misted as the storm had finally broken sometime during the night. The sun was rising, turning the horizon a soft glow of pinks and oranges, gray clouds a thin ribbon in the sky.
And he remembered the air.
Fresh and sweet, born from the fierceness of the storm, tradewinds rippled soft currents in a soothing caress.
And Shalimar was whispering softly, pure and gentle tones that lulled him to sleep.
Shalimar watched the emergency painkiller Jesse had administered begin to take effect, finally letting herself relax, finding the reassurance she needed in his closing eyes. The eyes she would need in the back of her head. The eyes that she could trust would be watching intently for anything that would harm her family. All along, she had been so afraid that love would be a distraction; she hadn't stopped to consider it would save them.
"Rest baby." She whispered in his ear. "This time I'll watch for both of us." She soothed his hair back, hearing the crunch of burned edges, pressing a kiss to his lips, knowing how close they had been to the edge.
And survived.
"Ready?"
She nodded up at Jesse, watching as he and Alex lifted Brennan together, loading him onto the boat. Her father came up behind her, hesitantly putting a hand on her shoulder. For a moment, she didn't move, and then rested her hand over his with a touch so light he was reminded of silk. And then she was gone, clamoring aboard the boat to reclaim her position next to the man she loved.
Nicholas Fox felt the tears prickling behind tired eyes, watching his daughter as she stood guard over the misfit bunch she called family.
The sight brought physical pain to his chest.
It was strange, and he didn't know if he would ever fully understand it.
But it was somehow beautiful.
He was the last one to climb aboard, sitting alone in the stern, the borrowed boat churning smoothly through the water until even the wake had dissolved and only their footprints in the sand were left.
It was something basely human that linked them all together, that sense of wanting to belong, of being safe. They had made the choice to travel on…together, and it was in that choice that they found their safe place.
Not in physical walls or conventional understanding, but in the trust and security of each other.
And so they continued, against the odds of it all.
Traveling on.