At 6 the next morning, Victor was calling my name persistently. "AGH! It's too early!" I cried.
"We have to go! We gotta find the kid, then take him. We won't know his exact location. I'm gonna let you track him."
I sat up and stretched, moaning as I did it. "Do we have anything to go off of? You don't expect me to track a kid I've never smelt before, do you?"
He threw my clothes as me, answering, "No. Stryker has nearly unlimited resources. The kid left a hat on a bench."
"Why didn't they just apprehend him then?"
"And deny us the chance to hunt him? Never," he said with a smirk.
I got out of the bed and yanked my clothes of the day before off and pulled new ones on. As I did, my anticipation grew. My blood boiled, longing for the chase. I scarfed down a quick breakfast and eagerly went to wait by the door of the building. Victor and Stryker approached a few minutes later. Stryker was clutching a black baseball cap in his hand. "Are you ready, Elena?" he asked.
"As ready as I'll ever be. Let's do this."
"We're going to fly you to the town, then let you loose. On the way, take a good whiff of this hat." He tossed it to me, and I immediately stuck it under my nose and inhaled. The first impression I got was smart-ass. This kid smelled of sarcasm and nonchalance. It bugged me.
As we climbed into a helicopter, I had a strange flashback moment to Vietnam. I could hear everything as if I was there again. "VICTOR! ENOUGH!" my memory sreamed over the roar of the engine. He wouldn't listen. "Logan! Get us out of here!" The medley of bullets firing, people screaming, helicopter blades whirring… it grew in loudness and intensity until my head almost ruptured with it.
"ELENA!!" I jumped as I refocused on the present. Victor was staring at me, both hands on my shoulders.
"Are you with us?" Stryker asked slowly.
"Uh…yeah. Sorry." I sat down, embarrassed. Victor sat next to me and Stryker sat across from us, facing us. I buckled as the pilot took off.
Victor leaned over and whispered, "What was that? Are you ok?" My eyebrows furrowed in confusion as I thought about it. I'd never had nightmares about the wars…so what was that? "Elena?" He poked me.
"Just a minute! I'm thinking!"
"That bodes ill for all," he muttered. I ignored the teasing. What had triggered that memory? And was I in store for more?
I was silent the whole flight to the little town. We landed about 5 miles out, in a hidden glade. I unbuckled and stretched, preparing my muscles to run. Stryker said, "Hunt him down. Stick together though. I'd hate to lose one of you." He cast a meaningful glance in my direction.
I rolled my eyes. "I'm not going anywhere, Stryker."
He nodded. "You apprehend him, but you do not kill. Is that understood?"
"Completely," I answered.
"Victor?"
"Yeah, I got it," he said reluctantly. I took a deep breath with the hat under my nose again, then tossed it away. I stepped out into the glade and breathed deeply, allowing all the scents to seep in my nostrils. So many people, so many fumes…but I only wanted one. And when I found it, a growl of satisfaction rumbled out. Victor pulled up beside me. He too had smelled it. "Don't go too fast," he said in my ear. The animal in me…the beast…had awakened. My mouth watered with the want for blood. My claws ached for the feel of slicing through flesh. The game had begun. I snarled and took off towards the town. Victor kept up with me because I refrained from using super-speed. I would stop every few minutes to check my heading, then speed off again.
Finally, after an hour of tracking the scent, we came upon his house. I stopped, just outside the perimeter of the yard. "He's not here," I said, low and threateningly.
"Then find him, babe. Find him."
I sniffed again and caught his most recent direction. In 15 minutes, we were standing in front of a school. It was only 10 am. "We can't go in there, now," I said.
"Why not?" Victor demanded.
"Let's not make a scene. Besides, half the fun come from stalking your prey. We'll pounce when he's alone and helpless."
Victor grinned. "You're getting right back into the swing of things. You remember who you are now?"
I glared at the school, regret ripping at my heart, and answered, "I've always known."
We waited across the street in a tree at the fringe of the woods. I sat on a relatively horizontal branch, one arm wrapped around the trunk. Victor was on the other side on a slightly lower branch. "So we wait," I said, just to be saying something.
"Yes, we do. And we talk while we wait."
"About what?"
"About what happened earlier. You just zoned out on us."
I shook my head. "I don't know what happened. You know how people say they have nightmares about the wars they fought in?"
"Yeah."
"I…well, I guess it wasn't really a nightmare. I wasn't asleep."
"You can have nightmares when you're awake," he said quietly. "You just don't get to wake up."
I inconspicuously glanced around the tree at him. He didn't see me, so I took the moment to assess his mood. His face was a mask of calm and nonchalance, but his eyes betrayed the inner pain he tired to hide. I moved back to where I couldn't see him. "How many waking nightmares have you had, Victor?"
He waited a beat before answering, "Too many. This conversation isn't about me! Get back to the point."
"Um…I dunno. I suppose it's what you call a flashback…but I got so caught up in it."
"Perhaps if you tell me what 'it' was."
"The day you killed a senior officer in Vietnam, but it was before that. In the helicopter, when you wouldn't stop shooting. All the sounds…they filled up my head…like there were speakers pressed against my ears turned all the way up. When you yelled at me, it broke…the spell for lack of a better term."
"I've heard of that happening too. Don't worry about it."
"Don't worry? What if it happens while I'm driving or something? I could kill a lot of people!"
"You already have killed a lot of people."
"Beside the point! And not helping," I added weakly.
He detected my insecurity and looked around the tree at me. "Hey, look at me." I met his eyes. "Between the two of us, you are hardly what I would call a monster. You kill when you need too and not until."
"And you?" I knew the answer, but I wanted to hear him say it.
His eyes hardened a little bit and he said, "You know me. I revel in bloodshed." He said it and moved back behind the trunk.
I couldn't feel any kind of hate or anger or disgust at what he'd said. I could feel nothing but pity. "Victor?"
"Hmm?"
"How did you discover your mutation?"
He sighed deeply. "I don't talk about it a lot."
"I know. I've refrained from asking, but I think it's time."
"Maybe you're right. Ok, here we go." He took another deep breath. "My…dad…was a drunk. We worked for Jimmy's family. The Howlett's. He, um, he was abusive. My dad, I mean. He beat me up a lot. I just took it. Better that than fight back and make it worse. Finally, one night, after a particularly brutal beating, he left me outside and passed out inside. I remember laying there, in the cold, thinking my arm and jaw was broken. I was trying to sit up when the pain started fading. Within a few moments, I could move my arm again. I opened my mouth real wide. My jaw was fixed too. I just sat there, totally dumbfounded. Then, a cat came meandering by. I guess it smelled a predator. As soon as I caught a whiff of its fear…the bloodlust set in. I tore that cat apart. Ever since…yeah. You know."
"Was that a censored version?"
"Yes it was. And don't ask for me to uncensor it."
"I wasn't going to. The fact that you told me any version at all satisfies me."
"Good."
We fell silent. Time went so slow it almost seemed tangible. Finally, people began streaming out of the school building. I nimbly jumped from the tree and trained my eyes and nose on the exits. The kid never left. After the last bus had gone, and the last few stragglers had vacated the area, I moved closer, Victor on my tail. "He's still inside," I deduced after searching for his scent.
"How do you wanna take him?"
I pondered for a moment. "It would stupid for both of us to enter at the same spot. We could ambush him…but we really don't know the layout. My suggestion is one of us flushes him out and the other traps."
"Like lions hunting."
"Exactly."
"Do you want to chase him out or trap him?"
"You're scarier. You chase him out. I'll keep and ear on you so I can find the exit you're going for."
"I'm scarier?"
"Yes you are! Now, are we going to do this, or what? Let's go."
"Alright, alright! Where is he?"
I pointed at a window. "There. That classroom."
"See you in a bit," he said before taking off.
I moved closer to the school, but not where the kid could see me. I watched as Victor tapped on the window, extending his nails. Then he dashed off to the front door to block the kid's escape. Once he was inside, I listened to everything that went on. The kid slid to a stop and fell when Victor burst in the doors. He started scooting backwards. Victor, amusement in his voice, asked, "It's a little dark for sunglasses, don't ya think?" The kid got up and ran away. Victor chuckled and bounded after him on all fours. I quickly determined their destination and ran around to that door and burst in. The kid faltered and Victor consequently crashed into the back of his legs. The kid tripped and flew into the air, his sunglasses spinning off. As soon as the glasses had left his face, a red beam of…something shot out of his eyes, blasting a huge hole in the roof. As he fell to the ground, he squeezed his eyes tightly shut, and the beam disappeared. Victor landed beside him and held him down. I skidded to a stop right in front of Victor, my mouth watering. I wanted blood.
"No, don't! Please!" the kid begged.
"VICTOR!" Stryker called from the doorway. The sound of his voice dispelled the longing in me and bloodlust faded. Victor and I reluctantly looked up at him. He came over and shot a tranquilizer into the kid's back. The kid quit wriggling, so Victor let go. Stryker kept walking down the hallway towards the front door. "All that's left now is Dukes, John, and Logan. I trust you can handle that?" he asked, referring only to Logan.
"I did before, didn't I?" Victor said.
Stryker looked at me and sarcastically said, "Oh yes. You did that."
Victor turned to look at him. "Our deal. It still applies right?"
Stryker's eyes flitted to me again. I raised an eyebrow. He answered, "Of course. Now, bag 'em and tag 'em, Captain."
I glared at Stryker's back as he walked away. Victor turned back to me and we got up. He grabbed the limp body of the boy off the floor. As he did, something fell out of the guy's pocket. I picked it up. It was his driver's license. Scott Summers, it read. I slipped it back in his pocket. "Here, Scott. Just in case you escape that monster's experiments."
Victor glanced at me. "Don't go getting attached."
"I'm not! I gave the kid his driver's license back!"
He shrugged. "Being nice just leads to attachment. Why do you think I'm so mean?"
"Because you've always been mean."
He laughed. "Exactly."
"You make no sense, Victor Creed."
"Oh, I know. The more confused you are the better." We headed out and climbed into the vehicle with Stryker for transport back to the helicopter.