"Will you rest upon my little bed?" said the Spider to the Fly.
"There are pretty curtains drawn around; the sheets are fine and thin,
And if you like to rest awhile, I'll snugly tuck you in!"
"Oh no, no," said the little Fly, "for I've often heard it said,
They never, never wake again, who sleep upon your bed!""
(The Spider and the Fly- Poem by Mary Howitt)
Remembered this little poem from school, and felt it summed up this chapter perfectly despite not being an actual song! I even worked a line into the end of the chapter!
*This chapter starts with an attempted rape, so read cautiously*
The man who was Logan-But-Not-Logan threw her back onto the bed. "Who are you?" Maia asked, reaching for her glasses again. He pulled her close to him, growling as he pinned her to the bed, her fingers still grasping for the nightstand. "Get off me!"
He just let out a huff, sniffed her hair, and then he buried his face between her breasts, licking and sucking so hard it hurt. He sniffed her breasts, and licked across a nipple. She planted her hands on his shoulders and pushed, but she barely moved him. His hands were rough, grabbing her firmly and squeezing her breasts too hard. He shifted so he was sitting between her legs, forcing them apart. He lowered his head between her legs.
"Not a chance freak." Maia growled at him, and locked her legs around his head. If he wanted to get up in her business, she'd give him a front row ticket. She may not be able to fight him off, but she could do her damnedest to smother him to death.
A familiar snick sounded in the room, amazingly louder than her ragged breaths and his growls, smothered as they were by her thighs. Maia felt claws against the outside of her thighs, and, at their urging, she released her grip. It wouldn't do anyone any good if she bled to death.
He yanked his shorts down and rutted against her thigh, his dick leaving behind wet trails that felt like acid on her skin. She bit and clawed, and at one point tried to get him still enough to try to lock eyes with him. He was an animal though, completely possessed with rubbing his face all over her and getting himself off. He tried a few times to thrust himself into her, but his cock only grazed painfully over her dry folds. He may have had Logan's figure and strength, but Logan had an almost preternatural ability to find his way inside of her, even if he was half asleep. In the end, the facsimile spilled himself on her from the friction.
Less than three minutes. Maia almost laughed. This creature had the downside of a teenaged libido. She just thanked her lucky stars. She'd gone for years avoiding what had just almost happened. He had been far too close. He collapsed on the bed next to her, breathing heavily, and Maia didn't waste a second, grabbing the lamp off the nightstand. She gave one sharp tug, the plug came away from the outlet, and she looped the cord around his neck. It took him a second to realize what she was doing, but at that point she'd wrapped it twice around his neck and had then pulled both ends, lamp and all, over the post of the bed. Throwing herself off the side of the bed, she used her body weight to pull the cords tight, and scrambled for the bathroom while he clawed at his own neck. She didn't look back, hopefully he'd be stupid enough to claw his own throat up and he'd be the one to bleed to death.
Locking the thin door, Maia looked around desperately, but there wasn't any light. No windows. She hadn't even noticed earlier. She may have avoided being fucked, but she was still screwed. Only she would run to a windowless room trying to find an escape route.
Maia grabbed a fresh towel, wetted it in the sink, and rubbed furiously between her thighs with one hand as she used the other to find and begin to pull on the shirt she'd taken into the bathroom with her. Tossing the towel aside, she pulled on the denim shorts Jean had been so proud to have found for her. He'd cut her right thigh with his claws, but the trio of wounds was only bleeding sluggishly and didn't really hurt at all. Good, superficial wounds were good, muscle damaging ones were not. Her only chance now was that she could outrun the stupid sexually inept copy of her Wild Man. Unfortunately her shoes were by the door…that was a problem. She'd have to run without them.
She heard the lock on the motel door rattle, and for one brief second she imagined Logan returning, or even her new sister. The voice that came wasn't a familiar one though, and her hopes of escape evaporated, "You said he came in here? What the hell caused him to run off to a fucking motel? Thought he was supposed to be better than a bloodhound. They don't run off."
The creature in the room growled, and the bathroom door practically blew apart. Maia ducked, but that left him an opening. One of his hands grabbed her by the hair and slammed her head into the edge of the bathroom counter. Her head felt like it was exploding, and what was left of her vision blurred even worse. She crumpled to the floor, and couldn't move for a second. She wasn't sure she'd ever been quite so stunned in her life, and she'd been tossed around her fair share of times in the last decade.
The male voice whooped in triumph, "Well I'll be damned boys! He found himself a cunt. Sorry to interrupt your fun, Cujo, but we got places to be." The creature growled, "Alright now, it's time to go. Don't make a fuss." There was a zapping noise, and she could feel a body land next to hers. She hissed and forced herself up, staggering over the body on the floor.
The man sucked in a deep breath and followed her as she did her best to run out the motel door. She just had to get out, right? "Damn, Twenty-Four here found Momma. Bitch has been missing for weeks! We're getting paid muchos pesos tonight!" Hands closed over her upper arms, as she lost her footing, "Woah, easy Momma. Glad he didn't cave your head in, but you fight, I'll have to give you a matching crack on the other side." She was completely at his mercy. Blood dripped from her head, or maybe it was from her nose, she really couldn't tell. "Damn, let's go, boys. Grab him, and someone call ahead."
Maia felt herself get picked up, but by the time her body hit the bed of a pickup truck, it was lights out.
She stirred as someone picked her up. A man farther away said, "Sir, one of us could…"
A voice she hadn't missed replied from underneath her, "No, I want to spend some time with her myself."
Dr. Rice Jr. The sick little bastard who'd tried groping her before and had taken great pleasure in her pain. Maia forced her eyes open, pleased to note that her head wound hadn't seemed to have set her vision back any farther. "Fucker."
"Long time no see, right?" Xander goaded, cracking up at his own joke.
Maia ignored his words, focusing as best as she could with a raging headache, "Let me go you asshole."
Rice shook his head, "Sorry, can't do that. You're property, Whisper. My property. You may have dazzled my father in to keeping you whole and reasonably happy, but you're not going to get that same five star treatment here." A metal door clicked closed behind them, and another, and another, "My father delayed experiments that should have happened years ago because he couldn't part with his pretty little pet. I'd only just convinced him to start your treatment course when you were taken and he was put down."
"Can't say I regret that." Maia hissed, taking long deep breaths to calm and steady herself, something Charles had encouraged in the few sessions they'd had to help her pull her mind back together.
"I just regret the weeks of hormone treatments you missed whilst on your little walk about. We do important work here. We're going to save lives. You've seen the result of one of our interim failures, or so I've been told. X-24. He survived longer than the rest of our inorganic subjects though, long enough to get a name." He paused to take a breath, dropping her unceremoniously onto the floor next to a cot, "A copy so far from perfect he's almost useless. Can't even track a Mexican whore without getting sidetracked."
"What?" Maia asked, rolling onto her side. She had no clue who he was talking about. She was such a snowflake she'd been mocked for being an Irish-immigrant for most of her childhood.
"We let a disgruntled employee go, and she stole some of our property on her way out. X-24 was sent after her, but I guess enough of Weapon X's DNA was stable to smell you out though. That's actually a promising development." He hummed, clattering things on a metal tray by the door.
"Glad to be of help." Maia gritted out, her elbow stinging from where she'd hit it on the ground. Ignoring the pain she touched her head injury. She'd been lucky, Frankenstein's monster had been clumsy enough that his attempt to bash her skull in had only ended in a flesh wound. Between her three brothers she'd had enough head wounds as a child to know which ones could get swept under the rug without telling Mom. This one would have been far far under the rug and the brother that gave it to her in her debt.
She'd closed her eyes at some point, and started when he grabbed her arm and injected something in it. He walked away chuckling, "Oh, Maia, you're going to be lots of help." He kept laughing that damnable laugh, "Even more than your sister was, and she was brilliant. In the end it was her heart that got her in trouble. I'm going to guarantee you're more cooperative. You know the basics of what's happening, I've been assured my father told you." He turned to face her, "I"m going to make this very plain: you cooperate, or we use your daughter."
"She's just a kid." Maia whispered, horrified.
Rice shrugged, "I'll let you decide that for yourself. My father may have been a romantic, but I want to see the look on your face when you see her for what she really is."
Maia stared up at him, trying to make out his features out to see his expression. "What?"
Rice moved away, back towards where the last door had clanked closed. "Enjoy your time with her. If you play nice, I may let there be more play-dates as our experiments continue, provided she doesn't gut you. I'm willing to take that chance, and you've survived being gutted by her father so the odds are in my favor either way." The door opened with a mechanical whirr, and Rice stood in the doorway, a small figure at his side, "Alright, X-23, come greet our new guest."
He left, and that was it. For the first time in her life, Maia was alone with her daughter.
"¿Dónde está Gabriella?" A sharp little voice asked. Maia took a step towards the door, hardly breathing. There was a soft snick noise, and two metallic claws glinted in the light from each of her girl's hands, "¿Dónde está Gabriella?" She repeated.
Maia fell to her knees, shaking her head, "I don't know Gabriella. But I know you." She took a deep breath, oxygen flooding her starved system, "I know you, Laura."
Her daughter surged forward, and for the second time in one day, she felt metal claws against her skin, "¿Cómo sabes que mi nombre es Laura?" The girl demanded.
Maia reached out with shaking fingers, her knowledge of French helping her figure out the gist of the Spanish her little girl was speaking, "I named you that. I named you Laura. I'm your mother."
The claws moved away slightly, and her little girl's head ticked to the side. "Mama?"
Maia nodded, "Yeah, baby, I'm your Mama."
She heard the claws retract, and felt cool fingers on her face, touching her chin, grazing over her lips and nose and to her eyes. Laura traced around her eyes and across her eyebrows, "My eyes."
Maia smiled, even as tears filled her eyes.
Because, Christ, she could see her little girl. Not clearly, the clarity she'd been used to before Rice Senior had blinded her, but the steady improvement of her vision had come to head in this moment. She didn't give two shits that she couldn't see the wall across the room any clearer than she had before. All that mattered was that when Laura's eyebrows furrowed, she saw her own eyes on a face more precious than any other. "You look a lot like your daddy." She reached up and touched her daughter for the first time, brushing her thumbs under Laura's eyes, "But you have my eyes." She laughed softly, "Past your daddy's coloring, of course." She couldn't stop staring at her daughter, "God, baby, you're perfect."
Laura's face scrunched, and Maia heard her thoughts as she heard her voice, "No. Soy peligroso. Mala."
Maia laughed darkly, "Oh, baby girl, danger runs in the family." Far in the back of her mind, she could almost feel Logan. He would find them. "And you're not bad." Maia wrapped her arms around Laura's neck. The girl stiffened, but didn't skewer her. That was a good sign.
Laura's arms had just started to relax when the door clanged open again. Rice had returned. "Alright, that wasn't near as much fun as I had envisioned. Time to leave Momma, X-23."
Laura spun towards him, claws out in a split second, and Maia had to stifle a gasp at the growl she gave when she hissed, "No". She was certainly her father's daughter.
"Come on, I'd hate for you to hurt her like you hurt your Auntie." Rice taunted.
Through Laura, Maia saw what had happened to her sister. Sarah had opposed coating Laura's bones with the same metal as her father's, and instead of just killing her, they'd made Laura do it. A scent trigger.
Laura hesitated, haunted by the reminder. Maia put a hand on her back, "It's okay, baby."
Maia was shocked when Laura spun again, and threw her arms around Maia's neck, burying her face in her hair and gripping her unclawed hands onto the back of Maia's shirt as she cried, "Mama!"
Glaring at Rice, Maia ran a hand up and down Laura's back to calm her. As softly as she could, she whispered, "He's not going to hurt me. We just need to hang on a little bit longer. Your daddy's coming for us." Maia read her disbelief, "I promise, Laura, I can feel him. We're gonna go home real soon."
Laura nodded against her, taking one more deep breath to memorize her mother's scent before she pulled away and followed a Non-Rice figure out. Her thoughts went with her. Rice remained, and clapped his hands condescendingly, "You're a regular beast tamer, aren't you? She was soft on Sarah and Gabriella, but never like that. You almost made her look like a child. Almost. It's a nifty trick. Maybe I'll let X-24 have some more time with you. Seems he's already gotten a head start on things."
"Oh please. Fucker couldn't nail the broad side of a barn." Maia snapped, that dark energy that came with her power flickering back to life inside of her. It had an outlet now, two that grew stronger with every second. She didn't give a shit that she was standing bloodied in a t-shirt, shorts, and bare feet. For the first time in years, she felt strong.
Rice scoffed at her words, "He's a newer model. Enough about him." He stepped into the room and closed the door. "I want to know about who else was in that motel room with you."
"I'm not going to tell you anything." Maia replied, crossing her arms across her chest.
He stepped closer, and she forced herself to keep her eyes off of him. "Maia, I've already told you. It's you or your daughter. You've seen what we can do to an inorganic mutant with super healing, we can do the same to the brat." He again laughed at his own words before he spoke them, "They always say they grow up so fast! We might make that a true statement." He took another step closer to her. She could almost make out his face, "Stryker's coming soon. I'll put in a good word for him if you're a good girl."
Maia grappled with her emotions before tossing them away entirely. They wouldn't do her any good, only her mutation would, "Well then, good thing I'm already a woman." She let her hands fall to her sides and dipped her head invitingly, "Will you rest upon my little bed?" said the Spider to the Fly.