All cats are gray in the dark

by ladymaja

Summary: Kitty (22 yo) is spending her summer vacation in Canada at Logan's cottage when suddenly she gets attacked and captured. In order to escape she's gonna need to take a helping hand from a killer.

Chapter Thirteen: Up and away!

Kitty and Victor get dressed quickly. There's no time to think about what they just did.

Thump! Thump! Thump!

They can hear them banging on the door. They're trying to break it in with something heavy.

Victor looks around in the closet. The place is really narrow, and there's not much light, but that's not a problem for his feral eyes.

"Up there!" - he whispers to her ear. She looks up. There's a blowhole above them. Victor kneels down and Kitty steps on his palm, while he helps her to keep her balance by holding her hip with his free hand. Then he stretches his legs and pushes her up to the blowhole. All this without any words.

It's like we've always been a team. - she thinks. Then there's a loud bump on the door. It creaks and it moves from the hinges, but it's still stuck.

Kitty decides there's no time to waste. She phases through the grid. Then she phases her head and arm back and reaches for Victor. He jumps up and grabs her hand. With the same swing she pulls him through till his chest. He's really heavy, that's all she could do. So she keeps him phased by keeping her hand on his shoulder, and lets him pull himself up.

Just as Victor's feet disappear behind the grid, they hear the door creaking and falling out of the wall.

Kitty and Victor don't move. They don't want to risk to get noticed.

"I thought you said they were in here! " - they hear one of the men yelling.

"I thought they were! I swear I heard some groans!" - another one replies. Kitty's face turns red. It's so embarrassing.

"Like you swore the girl was dead?"

"She was! She got stabbed in the heart!"

"She didn't seem to dead to me a minute ago!"

"She. . . she could be a healer too! We found her where Logan was supposed to be! And she didn't escape while we thought she was dead. She stayed to get Sabertooth! There could be some connection!" - Victor's eyes widen. He somehow overlooked that she saved him again. He's gonna have to thank her later.

"She's not a healer!" - his attention goes back to the conversation. "We examinated the blood sample we took before she escaped the first time. There's no way she's a healer!"

"Then what, Will? What do you think she is? A ghost? A freakin' zombie? "

"I think you messed it up!" - they growl. Victor can smell the testosterone in the air. Another man stands between the two.

"Save that for later, boys! We've got work to do! " - he says. The two, Will and the other guy, linger for a second, then they give in and leave the room, to look for the two runaways.

Victor looks at Kitty. She's carefully leaning above the grid, so that she can see if they already left or not. He can still smell himself on her. He can smell the compound of her sweet scent and his manly arousal. He can feel the warmth he left on her skin. The animal inside of him wants to take his mate again. But this isn't time. Still, he can't keep his eyes off her. Her hair falls on the left side of her face as she leans closer to the grid, leaving him a clear view to the right side of her neck. He notices the small bite marks and hickeys he left there. They slowly fade away.

That's not normal – he thinks. Her system should have worked off his blood by now. Or at least most of it, there could be some leftover. But not enough to heal her wounds so fast.

Kitty looks up at him and finds him watching her. He looks concerned.

"What is it?" - she whispers.

"Nothing." - he says. "I'm just glad, they didn't notice us up here."

"Yeah." - she smiles "Idiots." - she looks around the air duct. It' so narrow Victor barley fits in.

"Thank God, the sealing wasn't charged." - she says. Suddenly her eyes widen as if a little bulb just got lit above her head.

"Hey! Do you think we could get out through the roof?"

Victor's eyes widen for a moment then he smiles warmly.
"Smart girl." he says, and smiles again as he sees her blush at the compliment.

They agreed it's worth a try, but they have to be careful.

Kitty slightly phases her head through the ceiling, just as much so that she can take a peek from the floor of the next storey above them. The area seems to be clear.

She phases through and pulls up Victor too. He then quickly and quietly lifts her up to the next air duct above them just like the first time. The next floor seems to be clear too.

How far could the roof be? - Kitty wonders for a moment. This moment is just what the hunters needed to get there and point their guns at her without her noticing. She pulls Victor up.
" Watch it!" - Victor screams.

Just in time! Kitty phases them both so the bullets lose their targets. Victor runs their way on all fours, like an angry lion and jumps at them. Kitty runs after him to help him and that's why she doesn't notice the soldier behind her with a particularly large gun. Victor - still fighting with his enemies - looks up at the running Kitty and yells.
"Behind y. . .!"

Before he could finish, the man fires the gun. To his surprise, it's not bullets that come out of the gun, but some kind of lightning ball.

Luckily Kitty phases in time, so the lightning ball doesn't kill her, but the pressure pushes her against Victor and the soldier, and all of them against the wall. The wall cracks open and water shoots out of a broken pipe. They're all soaked.

Victor stands up and looks around. Kitty seems to be fine; she's sitting on the ground rubbing her head. The hit knocked out the soldiers. There's only the one with the plasma gun thing left at the other end of the hall. Victor runs against him. The poor unfortunate guy tries to fire the gun again, but fails. Seems so it needs some time to recharge.

Victor punches him at the face and he falls on the ground unconsciously. At the very same moment they hear a loud boom, and the ground shakes under their feet.

"What was that?" - Kitty asks. Like an answer they hear a voice coming from the walkie-talkie on the knocked out man's belt.

"We're under attack! Repeat! We're under attack! Every weaponed squad to the south door!"

Kitty and Victor look at each other in disbelief.
"Luck?" - she asks.

"We'll see, I guess." - he says trying to hide the confusion in his voice.

Suddenly there's another explosion right next to them. As Kitty was already on the ground she gets out of it quite lucky. It was a close call though. Victor, on the other hand, is not that lucky.

The explosion throws him against the wall.

His skull crashes, and his blood paints the wall red. He's not moving.

Kitty's senses are blunt. All she hears is a long, loud beeeeeeeeeeep.

She opens her eyes. First, everything seems to be foggy.

Slowly it betters. She can see that there's a huge hole on the wall, still smoking from the explosion.

Someone steps out of the hole.

Oh, God! Another soldier? - She asks herself as she tries not to faint.

The man steps next to her and grabs her by the arm. He pulls her up surprisingly gently. She looks at his face. The fog disappears from her head, and she gasps in surprise. The man smiles and says:
"Gotch'ya, Half-pint!"

Okay, okay this person only calls Kitty "Half-pint" in the cartoon series X-men: Evolution. But it just seemed to fit so nicely! ;) (I could've written "Kiddo" too. Well, whatever!)

Let's see if you know who that is! Review! XD