Note: I apologize for the shortness of this chapter... it's more of a set up for the final gasps, than anything else. Once again, if you haven't read "Feral Bindings" yet, please do. The events between the two stories are tied together
Obsessive
Creed nodded slowly, holding the payphone close to his ear. "Yeah," he muttered into the receiver. "I understand." Two days, it had taken him two full days to recover from the wounds inflicted at the cabin. It wouldn't have taken so long if he hadn't been so hell bent on making it back to Bayville as soon as he'd woken up. He'd failed protecting the kid. The slag and wreckage of her Jeep was still burned into his mind.
Thunder rolled sourly overhead, and rain streamed down the sides of the phone booth. Creed pulled his jacket tighter around him. The rain was cold as it slid down his neck. The scrawny booth offered him little protection from the fury of the storm; sullenly, he lowered his head as Magneto continued to berate him over the phone.
"You will find her." Magneto growled. Creed knew that there was no real signal coming over the phone line. Speakers were nothing more than magnets and wires, and magnetism caused electricity, and vise versa. "Meet me at the Brotherhood house. You and they shall bring back my newest Acolyte, Sabretooth."
Creed grunted into the phone, and returned the cradle to the receiver. He growled softly as he stepped away from the booth. For a beat, he stood with his back to the dark shape, feeling the rain beat down against his skin. Finally, with a roar, something within him snapped. He spun, catching the corner of the phone booth with his heel. The force of impact toppled the stand; glass shattered with a most satisfying crash as it hit the pavement. Creed shook himself slightly, tossing the blond hair from his face as he straightened.
He definitely felt better. Rolling his shoulders, he felt some of the tension ease out. But that still didn't make everything better. He glanced to his side, expecting to see Kylie laughing at him. The grim satisfaction of destruction slipped away slowly, and he was left sullen and hollow once more.
Part of him wanted to glare up at the rain. He'd left his bike in Vermont; all that was left for transportation was his own two feet until he could get back to one of his safe houses. The idea was tempting. He probably had a car at the Bayville flop. No. Turning his collar up against the rain, Creed focused on his present situation.
The X-punks were probably already in Montana looking for their answers. They had no clue Kylie would be somewhere on the grounds of that hospital. His own letter was tucked away safely in his pocket, hopefully protected from the sheeting rain. She'd written him a letter. She had known what was going to happen that night. She'd willingly run, hoping she could save him.
As he walked, he crossed his arms over his chest, and hunched slightly against the driving rain. For once the storm felt entirely natural. The brilliance of lightning illuminated Creed's craggy face, and stung his sharp eyes. But it was the violence of the thunder that echoed deep within him. Rain ran steadily down his neck and contoured the shape of his face. Pietro's pet punks would just have to do in the place of more competent mutants.
"Yo, the roof's leakin' again!" Todd bounced down the hall, shaking the raindrops from his head. "Y'know Lance, if ya'd stop crackin' up the place…"
Lance reached out, grabbed Tolensky by the face, and shoved him away. He was too busy pawing through the empty cupboards, looking for anything that might be considered edible. Freddy had once again eaten through food that would have lasted any group of five other people an entire week. And he'd done it in less than two days!
"Pietro!" Lance shouted, the house rumbling quietly in response to his irritation. "Can't your father at least help us get some food?"
The speed demon zipped into the room, a white blur for a few seconds. Casually appearing as if he was leaning on the wall, he shook his head. "Nope. Said we gotta fend for ourselves."
Todd waited a few tense seconds as the two traded glares. Then, meekly he hopped up behind Lance. "Say, Pietro, can you, like, zip up to the roof and fix that leak, all, like, zippity-zap?"
There came an arched brow. "Zippity-zap?" Pietro echoed incredulously. "Uhm. No. Why don't you get up there and fix it?"
Todd paled, and cowered behind Lance's legs. A flash of lightning dilated Todd's pupils, while the nearly simultaneous crack of thunder rattled the windows. "No way, man. Toad's 'splode when they get hit by lightnin', yo!"
Lance and Pietro both glanced at one another for a brief moment, before they both burst into laughter. That laughter rapidly died as the lights flickered, and plunged the Brotherhood house into complete darkness. Pietro promptly tripped over Toad, who cursed as he caught the silver-haired boy's knee quiet adeptly with his stomach. Freddy was yelling at the television, while upstairs, Wanda's door slammed open. A flash of lightning illuminated everything just long enough to let Todd untangle himself from the sprawl of legs that was Pietro, and hop to the door. The darkness returned, forcing him to peer in the direction he thought Wanda had been.
"Cuddlebumps? Are yo-" Todd never got the chance to finish, as a blue glow bathed him. Suspended in midair for a moment, dawning horror painted a comical expression in the lightning flashing outside. Then suddenly, he hit the wall with a sharp, distinct splat!
The lights flickered, trying vainly to return. Lance thought he heard another crash of thunder, but a quick glance out into the hall revealed the front door banging freely. As the seismic shaker moved to close it, another forked flash illuminated the figure standing within the open orifice. Soaked to the bone, but no less intimidating, was none other than Sabretooth.
Creed's boots echoed as he stomped inside. Lance stumbled backward as Sabretooth took a moment to shake himself, showering the hallway with a hail of water. As he straightened, Creed shoved his hair from his face.
"Where's Magnus?" he growled softly. Stalking toward Lance, Creed sniffed, deep thought flickering in his yellowed-eyes. "Not here yet. Good."
Sticking his head out of the kitchen doorway, Pietro gasped. "Look, we haven't done anything wrong. We've only done what Father's told us to do."
Creed snarled softly as he stalked deeper into the house. A flash of lightning showed that Lance had gained his feet, while Wanda waited halfway down the stairs, ready to strike. "That's not why I'm here." The kids continued to come out of the woodwork, appearing a little more with every lightning strike. Once he figured they were all paying attention to him, he sighed softly. "Kylie's in trouble."
"What?" Todd yelped, only partially because Freddy trod upon his foot.
"But why come to us?" Lance wondered aloud. "Why not go to the other Acolytes?"
A secondary shape loomed behind Creed as the staccato lightning flashed. "Because," the calm, even tenor answered in Creed's stead. "You five have forged a bond of friendship with the Prophet." Magneto was always a sobering sight; the ultimate pinnacle of mutant evolution floated serenely into the house. Everyone took a conscious step back, making way for the master of magnetism. "She needs to be returned to us. Sabretooth knows where she was taken, but not by whom." Magneto cast his eyes over the feral mutant, watching the man's subtle reaction. Creed refused to challenge his gaze.
Todd shifted uncomfortably. Something caused Magneto to turn his stare over to the amphibian. For a moment, it looked as though the Toad would speak up, but he cowed away at the last second, dropping his yellow eyes.
"Toad?" Magneto suddenly queried. "Do have something to share?"
Glancing around at his fellows, Todd cleared his throat nervously. They all stared back at him, and suddenly, he was sure they'd throw him to the lions if he didn't spill… "Well, Ky…" he began weakly, rubbing his neck. "She told me about this guy… Essex. He needed her for something, like… a science experiment. Sh-she never said exactly what."
Creed scowled. That was still too little information to base any sort of extraction on. He grunted and swung for the door finally. "The sooner we go, the sooner she's safe." As Creed vanished into the rain, the kids looked bewildered at one another.
"Why's he so concerned?" Todd asked derisively as he took half a hop toward the door.
Magneto only smiled, as they all boarded onto his spherical transport modules. Such a limited effort on his part had the orbs skyborn. Even from the ground he could hear the amazed reactions of the Brotherhood boys.
For Victor Creed, Magneto's favorite form of transport was both a blessing, and a curse. It was a blessing for he could use the time to sort himself out, to check how well his injuries had healed, and to reflect on just how upside-down everything had gotten. Yet, in all of the easy silence, he was left alone with his own worst enemy… his mind.
He wanted to do nothing more than picture Kylie's face, and focus on finding her. Yet his mind would not let him rest on one single image. Disjointed images flickered through his head, flashes of his relatively short time with the girl. Had it really only been four days? He didn't, or couldn't, count the two days he'd followed her through New York. No, those had been… empty days. Empty of what?
He didn't dwell on the unknowable, as he pondered just what he would do to those that dared remove her from his life. Ha! She hadn't even agreed to being in his life. Did he really want her there? He had too many enemies, many of them, hidden from even his own memories. His mind tried to follow a hundred different tangents at once.
Creed's temples began to throb; his heart, to race. No, focus! He had to focus. Kylie was his concern; the girl who obsessively sketched him… the girl who seemed so vulnerable that a strong breeze could break her in two, yet was strong enough to have lived solely on the run for more time than she cared to admit. He'd find her.
He's find her even if he had to tear this Essex's spine from his body. Creed's fists began to clench, only to knead his claws into the softer flesh of his palm. The pain was reality, keeping his senses focused, while, in the dark, screaming corners of his mind, he tore apart a faceless horror, again… and again… and again…