: HOUSE OF CARDS :
PART FIVE : COLLUSION
(15) - Dealings -
Summer 2011
Six months had passed since the mission with Rifkind. Summer had enveloped New York City with a cloying thickness; the days were longer, but the streets were grimier, somehow compensating for the lack of winter dark.
Rogue stood on a street corner and idly watched a couple of static girls walk into a posh boutique across the road, giggling, joking, oblivious to anything outside their own lives. Overhead, lingering somewhere between the next two blocks, Rogue could make out the looming and expressionless face of a Sentinel, its black and beady eyes scouring the street below for mutants. Ever since the debacle at Trask Technologies there had been a very public and inevitable clampdown on mutant activity.
Rogue felt somewhat guilty about her part to play in the whole thing. The government was now keen to stamp down on any mutant it saw, not just the militant ones - poverty-stricken, homeless mutants were now being sent to internment camps in their droves, never to be seen or heard of again. It was okay for her and the Brotherhood - Forge's nullifying devices were able to cloak the X-gene for short bursts at a time, effectively disguising their mutant status. With that Sentinel on the horizon, Rogue would certainly not have been able to stand where she was right now without it. Sometimes she would ask Forge why he didn't just mass-produce his little devices and hand them out to mutants all over town. He'd always reply that mass-production was impossible unless an underground factory was built and staffed - and besides, the devices were only worthwhile on mutants like her, mutants who could pass as humans. The rest, like the Morlocks, would stand out a mile.
Of course, one good thing had come out of the whole Trask Technologies affair. Two days after the event had become public, she'd been watching TV at headquarters eating breakfast, when she saw that same handsome face on the screen, that same sandy hair and those same baby blue eyes. Troy Rifkind had been walking away from a heaving crowd of press reporters, a hunted look on his face as he'd repeated over and over again: "No comment." He'd been fired from Trask Technologies after it was discovered that it was his keycard that had been used to gain access to the database. Witnesses had even said they'd seen him access the files himself, though he had vehemently denied it through his subsequent trial.
Rogue had watched the news that morning with an odd sense of triumph. No one had asked her why she had hated Troy Rifkind so much. Mystique had even casually pointed out that she had thought Rogue would find him a 'softer touch'. The Brotherhood didn't know what had happened between them that night, and Rogue had no inclination to divulge that information. Mystique had always suspected that it was something to do with the fact that Rogue had only returned the morning after (which Rogue had ended up being thoroughly chastened for), and Rogue had let her think that. It was safer that way.
Still, she wondered whether Rifkind had ever put two and two together and figured out that the source of his downfall had been none other than the mysterious and beautiful Anna Wagner, or whether she was still the winsome Southern gal who'd given him the best night of his life.
Somehow, she hoped it was the former. At least then her revenge on him would have been complete.
Across the street, the static girls were coming out of the boutique again, laughing raucously. Rogue thought she heard the word 'men' as they rounded the corner and disappeared out of sight. She stood with her hands in her pockets and gave a half sigh. What she wouldn't do to be one of those girls even for one day, to live in blissful ignorance once more. She now knew that there was at least something to be said for the stupid and the credulous after all.
It was at that moment that a short, stocky, well-built yet slightly balding man exited from an unmarked building across the street, glanced furtively left to right, and carried on down the sidewalk, walking away from her. Rogue nudged the sunglasses up over the bridge of her nose, pushed herself off the lamppost and followed him, keeping her distance from the other side of the road. The man stumbled down the path - he was overdressed in a suit that seemed to be too small for him, and he was obviously sweating in the summer heat - he kept loosening his tie now and then, and the sparkle of sweat reflected on his forehead. Though strong and stout, he was clearly agitated - he kept looking about him as if he expected someone to jump out at him. Rogue's expression was impassive as she noted every detail of this man. To anyone else she was an outsider, an incidental passer-by on the street - and that was exactly the way she wanted it.
At least this time round her job would be simpler. This insignificant man would be less than likely to have a power disrupter on him, and she would be able to absorb him, knock him out, steal his papers, and make her get-away. Usually, this was a job that would have been done by one of the others, but she'd begun to resent the fact that she was given all the undercover, seduction ops, and she'd begged Mystique to give her something low-key. Reluctantly, Raven had agreed, reminding Rogue pointedly that the undercover ops would still be hers no matter what. Rogue hadn't cared. All she wanted was something halfway decent and respectable for a change, something that she could come out of with even a modicum of self-respect.
The man had slid into a cramped, dingy alleyway, disappearing out of sight. Rogue quickly picked up her pace, crossing the road whilst only narrowly avoiding the traffic. In her best impression of nonchalance, she sauntered past the alley and gave it a quick glance. Empty. Again with calculated insouciance, she backtracked, slipping inside the alleyway as the man had done before her.
It was cooler here, and darker. The dank, fetid smell of waste and refuse filled her nostrils, making her nose crinkle in disgust. Carefully, she pulled off her shades, slid them inside her coat pocket. The man was nowhere to be seen.
The alley was littered with rubbish. She had to pick her way through it - she had little doubt this was a place regularly used by junkies, seeing the cooks and hypes that were scattered everywhere. The problem was trying not to make a sound. There was barely any room to manoeuvre, and before she'd got halfway down the path, she'd already stepped on a glass needle. It cracked with an ominous resonance, and she paused with bated breath.
Swish.
She started, looking up. Something had jumped between the buildings over her head, and its shadow had only just fleetingly caught her eye… She froze for a long while, waiting for any sign or signal that it was anything untoward. A minute later, and still nothing. She shook herself.
Musta been a cat…
She began to pick her way through the trash again, until finally it petered out, and on the building to her left she was faced with a set of double doors, one of which had been left slightly ajar. She scaled the surrounding area with her eyes, searching for any other escape routes. Nothing. Then her man must have come through here.
She slipped off her heavy duster - underneath which she wore her usual black bodysuit - rolled it up, and deposited it behind a nearby dumpster along with her pack. Then she edged herself between the double doors, and into the room within.
It was the shell of an old warehouse. Dust flittered in the milky sunlight that poured in from several smashed windows. The rest of the room was wreathed in dark black shadow. Again, her man was not to be seen. At the other end of the room, there was another door, again slightly ajar. Rogue inched her way towards that door, keeping to the shadows. From the adjoining room, she could hear voices, low mutterings in two distinct male voices. She paused. She needed to find a better line of attack. Two against one wasn't good odds at all. She needed to find somewhere that could give her the element of surprise…
She scanned the room, looking for another means of accessing the other room. Looking up, she saw beams. And up in the opposite wall, a hatch, obviously once having been for passing goods from one room to another, the door hanging from one of its hinges.
With skilled and practiced stealth, she tested one of the shelves standing next to her. Finding it strong enough, she clambered up onto it, moving up it with a lithe grace. Once at the top, she swung herself up onto a nearby beam, lying flat on her stomach. The hatch was some twenty yards away, and she had very little time to navigate it. Gritting her teeth, she set to work.
She was grateful for all those hours in the Danger Room, for all the time Mystique had spent honing her physical skills. She crawled the roof-space like some wiry insect. It was only a couple of minutes before she had slipped through the hatch, and was now in the adjoining room. Muscles tense and aching, sweat beading on her brow, she managed to scramble onto a nearby beam without so much as a sound, scaling it until she reached the centre of the room. It was only then, when she was in the safest and most advantageous place she knew she could be in, that she looked down.
There was her man, nervously adjusting his tie, urgently whispering to a taller, lankier, somehow more commanding man in a navy blue suit and a red tie.
"I don't know why," the balding man was saying in a stammer to the taller, more confident man, "but I got the feeling I was being followed when I came down here. I think maybe we should keep our eyes open. You never know with those rebel mutants. For all we know, they could be in this room with us, right now."
"If that was the case," the taller man said in a harsher, yet strangely familiar voice, "you should have doubled up on your way here, and made sure they lost you…"
The man looked up, scanning the ceiling with his eyes and suddenly his gaze seemed to be right on her, boring into her… And in that split second Rogue saw that she was staring into the face of none other than Bolivar Trask.
The force of the revelation was so shocking that she almost slipped off her hiding place; but his gaze swept over her with no sense of recognition or acknowledgement, and the next moment she felt a warm hand press against the small of her back, steadying her, just quickly enough for her to regain her balance…
Startled, but not threatened by this unexpected presence, she jerked her head sideways - and there he was, crouched on the beam right next to her. At the sight of him her heart gave an involuntary palpitation, but he pressed a quick finger to his lips and pointed down to the two men below. Nevertheless she saw his eyes flash in a semblance of greeting, and she half-nodded, reverting her attention back to the small party below.
"The room's clear," Trask was saying in an irritated tone. "But if your instincts are right, we should watch ourselves. I'm taking a great risk coming to see you, Guess. What is it that was so important it required my presence?"
"Golden information, sir," simpered the other man, "for your ears only."
"Really? Then get on with it."
"Well, I went and saw Rifkind, like you asked. He said he didn't remember anything strange about that night, so I used my mutant power on him, like you told me to. And there was something that didn't seem right…"
He paused, wiping sweat from his brow - Trask grunted impatiently.
"Of course there wasn't something right! Idiotic though Rifkind is, there is no way he would've divulged such sensitive information to so many of the wrong people! And yet many witnesses saw him enter the Core at the time the information was accessed and disseminated! There have been rumours that he was being impersonated by a shapeshifter… If such a scandal broke out; if they knew a mutant could break into our most sensitive systems…!" He halted, passing a hand over his brow, and when he next spoke his voice was calm, controlled, yet cold and threatening. "This had better be good, Guess - you know that it's only because of my influence that you are allowed to even walk the streets - and even this I only allow because you are of use to me, and because you can pass for a pure human - mutant scum though you are."
Rogue felt something in her blood boil at these words, and she wanted nothing more than to jump down there and kill those men at that very moment; but again she felt that calming touch on the small of her back, and when she turned, she saw him pointing out two specific corners of the room. Sure enough, there in the blackness, she could make out two looming, stationary shadows, waiting, watchful. Bodyguards. Of course Trask wasn't stupid enough to come in on his own…
Down below, Guess was simpering and fawning.
"I assure you, Mr. Trask, this intelligence will be highly interesting to you." He paused, produced a handkerchief, and wiped his forehead with a shaking hand. "As I was saying… Rifkind didn't recall anything strange about that night, but when I plucked his memories of that evening, there was someone, an incidental and accidental someone who wouldn't have seemed out of the ordinary at all, except that they looked suspiciously familiar…"
"You're rambling, Guess," Trask scowled at him. "Get to the point."
"All right, all right." Guess took a deep breath. "That night he met a girl with a white streak in her hair."
The phrase immediately seemed to catch Trask's interest. Up above on the beams, Rogue froze. Did Trask know about her? Did he know about the Brotherhood? Worse still, was Guess going to tell Trask what had happened that night, with Remy right there beside her…?
"A white streak, hmm?" Trask was stroking his chin thoughtfully. "The description does seem familiar…"
"Five years ago, during the first culling of the super-powered mutants, a girl of the same description went missing - one of the X-Men, I believe. She was never found… Indeed, it isn't even known if she is still alive… There was a flurry of interest, at the time. Of course, this may be of negligible significance… Still, you must admit, the coincidence is there, Mr. Trask…"
"But then," Trask replied shrewdly, "while there aren't many girls with white-streaks running round New York, there are bound to be more than one. There's no evidence that they were one and the same person…"
"No, I'm not suggesting that…But you'll admit, it is interesting…" He halted, dug into his breast pocket, and pulled out a sheaf of papers. "I just got these printed off - they're stills from a duplicate copy of the security video taped at the Ritz that night."
He passed the photos to Trask, who looked at them with interest. From her position, she could make out a few of them - pictures of her that night at the Ritz, checking in, entering her room, heading for the bar that evening… Luckily he stopped short of any that may have shown her with Rifkind.
"She signed in under the name of Anna Wagner," Guess continued. "An assumed name of course… But the funny thing is, there was no record of her ever having signed out that night - nor do any of the security tapes show her leaving the building. It's as if she vanished into thin air."
He paused, leaving a silence loaded with meaning. Trask looked up from the photos, his eyes now glittering.
"Perhaps she left as another guest… Perhaps she's the shapeshifter we're looking for."
"My thoughts exactly," Guess nodded.
By now Rogue was shaking violently, and it was down to more than just fear, or trepidation. It was rage, it was violence… Now her face had been hijacked, as well as her body…
Trask rifled through the photos a little more, then handed them back to Guess, a small smirk on his face.
"Well done, Guess, very well done indeed. You are to be congratulated."
Guess' face beamed, but stopped short of smugness.
"Of course we'll have to check those security tapes again and see if there are any anomalous moments where the same person checked out twice -"
"Naturally."
"- But other than that I do believe we've found our woman."
There was a small, appraising smile on Trask's face - he was nodding slightly, staring at Guess with narrowed eyes. After several moments he broke the silence, saying: "I suppose the copy of that tape is in your possession at this very moment?"
"Of course, Mr. Trask, sir."
"And I take it you would be willing to sell that tape - and these stills - to me? For a price?"
Guess gave a nervous laugh.
"I'm so glad we can understand one another so thoroughly, Mr. Trask…"
Trask looked back over his shoulder, at one of the bodyguards lurking in the corner, and gave him a slight, imperceptible nod. Wordlessly, the man emerged from the shadows, a large black briefcase in his hands. Trask turned back to Guess.
"Show me the tape," he said.
Guess, who now looked anxious, reached inside his breast pocket with a slightly shaking hand, and produced a glimpse of the tape, before very quickly and furtively stuffing it back in his suit. At the very sight of it Rogue's trembling became so violent that her knuckles were white as she gripped the beam, trying to steady herself. Trask was trading in her, exchanging her for money… He was going to be able to see her face, her movements, every moment she'd spent in the bar with Rifkind, every sick second in the elevator up to his penthouse suite … Something white flashed in her mind, raw and pure rage, desperation… At all costs Trask must not know who she was, must never touch that part of her life she wanted no other to touch…
She was stirring, she was moving, and she felt Remy's hand on her back in urgent warning, but she was beyond that, she was beyond all reason, all logic… she was jumping, falling towards her quarry…
And even as she leapt from the beam she felt a wall of static in the air behind her, the faint crackling of energy making every hair on her body stand on end; a sudden flash of blinding, pink eldritch light flooded the room like a starburst, but she didn't stop to heed it, her feet had already slammed into the wooden floor below her and she had grabbed a hold of Guess, her mind flashing black and white, her muscles contracting, bursting with an inhuman effort and…
KA-BOOM!
Dust had filled the room in a dense and smoky cloud and there was coughing behind her, to her left, to her right… She couldn't see… Bits of the beams, of the roof were creaking, crumbling, raining down on them and still, she couldn't see…
…But Guess was still in her grasp and she was hurling him with all the might she possessed, in a titanic display of raw strength she'd never known she possessed, and he flew through the air like a baseball, smashed through the door and into the adjoining room with an almighty CRASH!…
Behind her there were thuds and screams, but Rogue paid it no heed. She was already going after Guess, heading for the splintered door she'd thrown him through and into the room beyond. At some point she came out of the billowing cloud of smoke and dust and onto the other side, and there, sprawled out on the wooden floor, looking terrified and with his nose a broken and bleeding mess, was Guess.
She leapt on him before he could get to his feet, and the next moment she had her hands round his throat, her rage a palpable thing inside her, throbbing in her veins, hammering in her head, pounding behind her eyes…
"Why…" was all she could breathe, over and over, "WHY…?"
His eyes were bulging as he stared up at her, half from fear, half from recognition, and his voice was hoarse, squeaky when he said: "You…"
But she didn't care, she didn't want to care; she was gritting her teeth so hard that it hurt, and her hands were strangling him but she couldn't stop squeezing, she couldn't stop squeezing…
"Why?" she breathed again, her eyes and her throat both stinging, and it wasn't from the smoke but something more… "Why did you do it? You're a mutant too… They hate yah… They'd never letcha stay alive… You're one of us… Why did you betray us, why did you do it…?"
Anguish was spilling into her voice and before she even had time to check herself the tears were tumbling down her cheeks, because everything she'd fought for - for the sake of mutants, for the sake of the X-Men, for the sake of Xavier's dream… Everything she'd ever sacrificed for them, all the terrible things she'd done to protect them… He'd thrown it all back in her face…
But his face, though a pinched and bloody, broken mess, was defiant, his eyes scornful as he looked back at her with something akin to disgust.
"You think I'm a traitor, do you?" he spat. "You think I've betrayed mutantkind? Don't make me laugh! You're the one who's the traitor, stirring things up, creating even more bad blood between the mutants and the baseline humans… Look at the purges going on outside in the city because of people like you! It's the innocent who suffer, the poor, ordinary mutants who can't afford to fend for themselves, the young, the sick, the invalids… Do you think they thank you when the Hounds come knocking round their door, when they're sent to die in internment camps?" He sneered at her, his expression one of pure loathing. "Yeah, maybe I'm a double-crosser, but at least I'm looking out for myself, and at least I have no pretensions, no illusions about who I am and what I do! At least I don't think I'm some sort of mutant freedom fighter, someone who causes even more pain and misery for the people on the streets!"
He halted, shaking under her grasp, but now with rage, not fear. And at his words all her own rage had flooded out of her - it was as if all her anger had gone into him, and all his fear had seeped into her.
"Yah don't know…" she muttered under her breath, blinking back the tears. "Yah don't know what it's like…"
"Bullshit!" he seethed. "I know what it's like to live in pain! All mutants do! Do you think the fact that you're fighting the good fight makes you some sort of martyr to the mutant cause, that it makes you better than the rest of us?" He paused, his expression jeering. "I saw what you did with that guy Rifkind," he hissed derisively. "Watching that video, it didn't take a genius to figure out how you got to him. You're no freedom fighter. You're nothing but a cheap whore."
Shuck.
The sound sliced through his words, through her reeling mind like a hammer blow - it was as if time had stopped and silenced him forever. It took a moment for her to realise that Guess was dead. At first she thought that she had done it, but her fingers had been trembling too much to exert enough force on his throat to kill him… She dropped him suddenly as if contaminated, and it was only when he fell to the floor with a sickening thud that she saw the knife vibrating ominously in his heart.
Shuddering, nauseous, she looked back over her shoulder. Remy was standing in the broken doorway twenty yards behind her, his expression steely. The adjoining room was deathly quiet. She hadn't even noticed that the fight within had ended.
"You killed him," she whispered, her voice sounding high-pitched, alien. She hoped against hope he had not heard Guess' parting words to her…
"He knew too much about you," he explained, quite matter-of-factly; and she felt somehow reassured he'd heard nothing. "You really t'ink we could've let him live?"
Rogue said nothing. She knelt there in the dust and stared at Guess' staring eyes, his words consuming her numb and throbbing mind, over and over, over and over, making her put a hand to her mouth, making her gag…
Remy walked up, placed a foot on Guess' flank, bent down, and pulled the knife out of his chest. It slid out of his body with another thick shuck.
"I took out de bodyguards," he explained in an oddly conversational tone, while he wiped the blade on Guess' suit and slipped it back in the sheath at his thigh. "Trask got away though. I guess we're lucky he was empty-handed. Don't t'ink he saw either of us neither, since I was de one who had de smarts to get up dat smokescreen." He was now casually rifling around inside Guess' pockets, and a second later, he'd produced the videotape. Rogue stared at it, swallowing the gritty lump in her throat.
"Ah'm sorry," she apologised hoarsely. "Ah wasn't thinkin'… Ah just got so scared, so angry… Ah should've been able to keep my cool, it's what Ah was trained t'do. If you hadn't been there…"
She trailed off, staring once more into Guess' vacant eyes. Remy said nothing, but stood, and offered her his hand. She hesitated a moment before taking it, finding she really did need the support when she wobbled a little on unsteady feet. He reached out an arm to stabilise her, touching her waist, but she pushed him away. She didn't want him to touch her, not just yet. She wasn't halfway ready for that yet.
"Ah'm fine," she insisted gruffly, but he shook his head.
"No, you're not. You lost your head back dere, and it could've cost more den jus' lives. If I hadn'ta been dere dey could've captured you, tortured you, made you give up secrets dat could've gotten a whole bunch'a people killed."
She laughed weakly. "Ah would've liked t' see 'em try…"
His eyes narrowed coldly as they perused her.
"It ain't no joke, chere. I seen what those bastards can do. If they got their hands on you…" He trailed off, his eyes burning; then he lifted the videotape in his hand, said: "But now we got de body of evidence b'fore they did. Neat, huh?"
She ignored the comment, peered off into the adjoining room where the bodies of the bodyguards now lay, two formless, shapeless lumps on the floor.
"And the stills? The photos of me?"
"Musta got burnt in de explosion," he said. There was a flash of pink light as he charged the tape - the next moment it had been incinerated and was nothing more than a cloud of soot and ash, floating to the ground. "Dat takes care of dat," he grunted. He paused, raised his eyes, looked at her. "You okay?" he asked, concern finally edging into his voice, into his face. She glanced away, wiping at her eyes. She'd stopped crying, but her cheeks were still tearstained and she rubbed them roughly too.
"Ah- Ah'm fine," she muttered, hating the fact that he'd seen her crying. Then, inexplicably, something hit her. "Remy… Guess mentioned he'd made a duplicate of the original tape… That means the master copy is still back at the Ritz… There's still evidence that Ah was there that night…"
Remy's eyes flashed briefly in the semi-darkness. The next moment he had swung round and was making for the door.
"Remy!" she called, a sudden fear growing tentacle-like inside her. He stopped at the door, swivelled towards her, his face hard.
"I'll go t' de Ritz," he said, his voice low, resolved. "I'll get de master copy, destroy it."
Despite her fear, it was something she knew she couldn't let him do.
"No." She walked up to him, stood within a few inches of him, looked him in the eye and said: "Ah ain't gonna let you do it. This is my call. It was my mission, and Ah fucked it up. It ain't got a thing t' do with you. Ah'm goin' t' the Ritz, and Ah'm gonna get that tape."
He returned her gaze, his eyes flaming red, his mouth a straight, angry line.
"De fuck you are, Rogue," he hissed. "You're a fuckin' mess, you can't expect me t' believe you could go in there right now and keep your head straight. I dunno what got you goin' back there, but whatever it was I suggest you deal wit' it. People like you an' me, in dis line of work - we can't afford t'be goin' and pullin' stunts like you pulled back there."
"All the more reason why Ah have t' be the one to go and sort it out!" she yelled at him, infuriated that he should be speaking to her like this, him, a thief, a womaniser, a cold-blooded killer…!
"All de more reason why you're gonna lay low and get yourself t' calm down," he retorted, his voice wavering with anger. "Now you'd better listen t' what I tell you t' do, b'cause I ain't gonna stand here arguin' wit' you. Trask got away and he's gonna be sendin' people down here real soon, and I want us t' be shot of dis place b'fore dat happens. You and I both know he's gonna be headin' down t' de Ritz right now, aimin' t' get his hands on dat master copy b'fore we do. Now we ain't got a lot of time, and you ain't got your head t'gether yet, so I'm gonna do dis favour for you, and you're gonna shut up and let me do it."
Something in his eyes communicated to her that he meant what he said, that this was just a favour to her, just another job; that he had no intention of prying into her affairs, as she had been so afraid he would. She stared up at him dumbly, some form of hope finally allaying the doubt in her heart, and he reached out when she said nothing, placed his hands on her upper arms and said: "All I need is your trust in dis, chere. Do you trust me?"
His eyes, intent on hers, waiting for her answer, taking her breath away…
"More than anythin'," she murmured, as if she had confessed something wonderful and terrible, and his lips had curled into a smile so beautiful, so reassuring that she wanted to lean forward and kiss it…
"Then do what I tell you. There's a place a couple of blocks down from here, a bar called Louis's Place." He reached inside his duster for his wallet, flipped it open and slipped out a worn, battered and cheap-looking business card, handing it to her. "Louis is an old friend o' mine. Give him my name and he'll look after you till I come back for you. And don't worry, Louis is in de business, he knows not to ask any questions." He tucked his wallet back inside his pocket as if having just concluded a transaction. "I'll come an' pick you up around seven. Make sure you lie low and don't spill a word t' anyone till then."
He turned, the matter having been concluded to his mind; but she still wasn't ready, there was still so much she needed to ask him…
"Remy…"
He halted, swung round in the doorway, and the words all surfaced in her mouth in one go and she couldn't get any of it out…
"Good luck."
Please come back t' me alive…
He smiled, and with a swish of his coat he had gone, leaving her alone once more with a cold and silent Guess.
-oOo-
Louis's Place turned out to be a rundown bar on the rough side of the town. Louis himself was a sallow yet somehow sturdy-faced man in his fifties - whether mutant or not she could not tell. When she'd mentioned Remy's name he'd shown no sign of recognition, but had led her wordlessly behind the bar and off into a side corridor, filled with old crates of beer and spirits. At the end of the passageway he'd shoved aside a dusty old box of shot glasses with his foot, and pulled aside a frayed, canvas rug to reveal a well-concealed trapdoor.
Still wordless (she began to wonder whether he was mute), he'd guided her down into another corridor, one that was a far cry from the one they'd just left upstairs. It was bright and well lit - carpeted too, though not lavishly. Many doors lined this corridor, and Louis stopped at a certain one, ignoring all the others, stabbed a key from his overloaded key ring into the lock, and opened it with a kind of flourish. When she made no move, he gave an odd, vexed expression, and gestured for her to enter.
It was exactly as if she'd stepped into a motel room. There was a bed, and a TV, and a mini-fridge, and an en-suite bathroom, all cheaply yet efficiently decorated. Before she could utter a word of thanks Louis had already closed the door behind her, leaving her there, alone. She half expected to hear the key turn in the lock, but all she heard was his heavy footsteps walking back down the corridor and out of earshot. She was free to do whatever she wished.
Finally alone, finally safe, she felt an all-encompassing exhaustion suddenly descend over her. Without thinking, she slumped onto the bed and slept.
The clock read five-thirty when she awoke - on the dresser Louis had left her some food and an impressive array of drinks from wine to water. He was, she thought wryly, a barman after all. She got up and ate rather half-heartedly, though she chugged down as much water as she could. By the time she had finished it was a quarter to six, and she had an hour and fifteen minutes to kill before Remy's return. She wandered the room aimlessly, and while at first she had thought it typical of any old normal motel room, it was, as Remy had suggested, tailored to someone who was in 'the business'. The bathroom cabinet was filled with pills and potions and whatnots; a first aid kit was tucked away inside the dresser. Various weapons had been stashed in a cupboard in the corner; along with gun parts, ammo, knife sharpeners, even old crossbow bolts. Under the bed were various bits of gadgetry she was sure Forge would've killed to get his hands on.
While this amused her for a while, she soon became bored and decided to go for a wander, only to discover that almost all the doors in the corridor outside her room had been locked. No big surprise there. Only a dusty old storeroom had been left open, which contained only mundane food supplies, more crates of beer, and a couple of tool boxes. By the time she'd finished it was still only six thirty and she still had half an hour to kill.
Disheartened, she went back to her room to continue her wait in there. She lay on the bed and twiddled her thumbs; seven O'clock came and Remy didn't appear. Another fifteen minutes passed and still he hadn't arrived. She'd finally been motivated to go up to the bar and ask Louis where he thought he was at that point. Louis, ever the tactician, had courteously pointed to the back passage once more, and she had been left to stomp off to her room feeling less than agreeable.
It was another half hour before she heard the tread of familiar feet outside her door, and she'd managed to sit up just in time to greet him when he finally stormed into the room.
"Remy…"
He made no greeting, didn't even look at her, but went straight to the dresser and brought out the first aid kit.
"You're late," she breathed, confused as to why he was being so off with her.
"Do me a favour, chere," he remarked gruffly, ignoring her comment. "Next time we meet, remind me not t' offer t' get involved wit' your affairs."
She held her breath, at first thinking that he'd somehow seen what was on the videotape, seen her in that elevator with Rifkind… But when he finally turned and faced her, shrugging off his coat, she realised what he was talking about.
"Remy, you're bleedin'!" she cried.
"Hmph. Bastards were ready for me." He sank onto the bed and removed his shirt, revealing a myriad of cuts, welts and bruises. "Mission was tougher den I thought, hahn?"
Rogue made no reply, bending over slightly and examining the wounds.
"Remy, maybe you should go see a doctor…"
"Yeah, right - and get asked all de funny questions? Chere, you know better." He opened up the kit, began to toss out disinfectant, sutures, bandages and other paraphernalia. "T'ink I cracked some ribs or somet'ing…but it ain't as bad as it looks - pretty much superficial, lucky me. And besides, my mutant abilities'll make sure I heal up faster den normal… Don't got not'ing to worry 'bout…"
He opened up the bottle of disinfectant, ready to pour it onto the swabs, but she took the bottle off him before he could even begin.
"It's mah fault," she told him in a low voice when he gave her a questioning look. "Let me do it."
"Hmm." He raised an eyebrow. "Dis gon' turn out like one of dose action movies when de guy finally gets de girl?"
She half smiled, snatched the swabs off him too.
"You already had me from act one, scene one, line one, Cajun. So no, Ah don't think this is gonna turn into some movie cliché. Unless you mean the blue kinda movie where the girl gets to inflict judicious pain on her man. Because this is probably gonna hurt."
He grinned.
"So hit me, chere."
-oOo-
He was an obliging patient, for the most part - he never wriggled, never complained, and never winced. The fact that he didn't seem to mind at all made her feel a little less guilty about actually agreeing to send him off on the job in the first place.
"It wasn't too bad, was it?" she asked, while she was busy finishing up taping his ribs - luckily she hadn't needed any of the sutures. He gave a mere ghost of a shrug in reply.
"Coulda been worse. Dey was expectin' me, so naturally I was at a disadvantage."
She didn't know quite how to ask the next question.
"Did you…did you kill them?"
He shrugged again, wincing for the first time when the movement jarred his injuries slightly.
"Had to, chere. Dey'd seen my face. I'm afraid dis whole crazy affair was too big to have any witnesses. God knows what you've gotten yourself into, p'tit."
She grimaced.
Yeah, tell me about it…
"And the tape?"
"Destroyed. Torched it. Torched de warehouse too. T'ink we've covered our tracks pretty well for now, hahn?"
She paused, sitting back to admire her handiwork. Lucky Mystique had taught her first aid too. The wounds had been easy to treat - they hadn't been half as serious as she'd first thought, and his body was already healing nicely.
"You make a good nurse, chere," he noted comically.
"Don't get any funny ideas," she told him archly, getting up to go into the bathroom and wash the utensils.
"I dunno," she heard him remark behind her. "I tend t' get funny ideas about you when you do de most mundane t'ings. Like walk into a room. Or breathe. Or cross your legs. Or when you do dat pouty t'ing wit' your lips."
She couldn't help but smile in spite of herself.
"Ah don't recall yah ever havin' seen me cross mah legs," she rebuked him.
"You used to," he replied, somewhat whimsically. "Back when we were in de X-Men. You used t' do it sometimes when I hit on you. Used t' make you go all prim an' proper, you'd sit dere wit' your legs crossed and give me dat look dat used to say, make one more innuendo and I'll rip your head off, Remy LeBeau."
She laughed.
"That was years ago!"
"Yeah, but for some reason it still sticks in my mind."
There was a short silence, during which she finished cleaning up; when she walked back into the room he was spread out on the bed, staring up at the ceiling with a pensive look on his face.
"So you were de one who was behind dat whole Trask Technologies t'ing," he murmured out of the blue. "Didn't t'ink dat was your brand o' style, chere. You ain't got de vindictive streak."
She snorted. "Wanna bet?"
He looked at her sharply. "So it was you?"
She paused, packed away the first aid kit, wondering just how much she should reveal - but if he hadn't earned her trust by now, he'd never earn it.
"That wasn't me," she returned at last in a low voice, as she put the kit back into the dresser drawer. "Ah was just the one who got the keycard off Rifkind. The night we met outside the Ritz… That was what Ah was doin'."
In the mirror, she could see him still looking at her with a thoughtful expression, but he didn't ask anything more on the subject. He could guess perfectly well that whoever had orchestrated the Trask Technologies debacle was her superior, the one she took direct orders from. Any more information would break the unspoken rules between them, and even if he'd asked her who it was, she wouldn't have answered him.
"So," she began, turning round to face him, "why exactly were you there at the warehouse today, Remy? It was you, wasn't it, jumping across the roofs like the freakin' Energiser Bunny - right?" Even if Ah did think you were a cat at first…
"Just doin' my job, chere," he replied with a bland smile. She raised her eyebrows, surprised.
"Your guys were tailin' Guess too?"
"Yup. Seems both our guys were justified in their interest, huh? Fuckin' traitor was reportin' direct to Bolivar Trask hisself. Glad I got a clean shot at de bastard. I know you ain't into killin', chere… but he got what he deserved."
Rogue looked away, remembering Guess' words to her, those last hateful words before the knife had penetrated his heart with that thick, sickening thud. The memory of what he had said to her had troubled her since she had left the warehouse - yet she had tried to push them away, refusing to believe his estimation of her and the Brotherhood had been right. They were trying to help mutants, to rescue them from slavery, torture and worse, not give them more misery… And yet something about what he had said had rung true, and she couldn't get it out of her head… And then there was what he'd called her.
A cheap whore…
"What did he say t' you?" Remy asked abruptly, jolting her from her reverie.
"What?" she blurted.
"Guess. Before I snuffed him. He was sayin' somet'ing t' you. Musta been heavy, 'cos you were cryin'…" He paused, gave her a look that was a strange mixture of compassion and curiosity. "Ain't never seen you cry b'fore…"
"It was nothin'," she replied quickly, in a tone that said back off… He didn't take the hint.
"Not'ing?"
"Nothin'. Okay? Let's drop it."
A gulf of silence settled between them and she could feel his eyes boring through her; but she couldn't return the look, knowing what it would cost her. For the first time since they'd met that day, she felt it. That tenuous yet unbreakable connection between them, one that was strengthening with every minute, every second that passed. There, in the silence, each felt it thickening, deepening, making Rogue's throat close and the pit of her stomach stir. She could feel it coming off him too, in waves, making her cheeks burn as she remembered how it had been when they'd last been alone together…
She turned to fiddle awkwardly with some of the items on the dresser, but she could still feel him looking at her; she didn't dare look up into the mirror for fear of seeing his eyes on her own.
It's still there… this thing b'tween us…more than just need, or lust… Somehow it's gotten too deep, too serious… Ah don't even know how it happened, but it's there… And he feels it too…
She wondered whether it bothered him. Whether it bothered him that he'd been willing to help her out of a tight spot, willing enough to kill for her.
Gathering her courage, she turned, walked to the bed and sat down beside him.
"Remy?" she asked softly, reaching out with a hand and absently tickling his navel, nevertheless still unable meet his gaze.
"Hmm?"
"Does it bother you? Killin', Ah mean?"
It was a long while before he finally answered.
"It did, de first couple of times. But after dat I'm sorry t' say… Y'get used to it."
She paused, something in her giving way to - disappointment? - then rested her palm on his stomach.
"Ah don't believe you," she murmured. A laugh rumbled in his chest.
"S'fair enough. I don't want you t' have to figure it out for yourself, Rogue. Not ever."
She looked at him then, seeing something deeper in his eyes than his words had intimated to her. He had been right, and she'd known it from the start - Guess could not have been allowed to live, not if she wanted to stay alive - he'd known too much, seen her face, heard her voice, known what she was willing to sacrifice. She would have had to kill him. Remy had simply done it before she had had to. Because he knew she would never have been able to do it, not without killing her soul first. He'd done the same for her with Kincaid. It was his form of protecting her, shielding her from something far worse than mere physical harm. She wondered how much of his own soul he'd had to kill in order to survive - when she searched his face she thought she saw it, in the dark circles under his eyes, the tiredness of his mouth. He alone knew what killing could cost her, because it had already cost him so much.
But my soul's already tainted, Remy… It's already been spoiled…
Nevertheless she found herself squeezing his hand, just once, when she said: "Thanks." And she meant it. He however, touched her hand with his fingers, stroked the back of it with just a hint of insinuation.
"You really wanna thank me, chere, there are other ways you can do it…" he drawled huskily. He moved his hand, grasping her wrist in a strong, firm grip, communicating to her what he wanted; but she resisted his pull.
Not here… We only belong in one place…
"Remy…"
"Hmmm?"
She released her arm from his grasp, placed a hand on his chest, traced the latticework of scars on his skin with a curious finger…
"Ah wanna go back t' the safe house," she whispered.
-oOo-