Chapter 22
Rogue stopped just outside the big glass sliding doors of Louis Armstrong International and scanned the long line of cars waiting to meet the passengers from arriving flights. It was, thank goodness, warm. The sky was gray, but the air was rich with humidity and did not make gooseflesh rise on her skin. If she survived this ordeal, she was going to take steps to make sure she was never cold ever, ever again.
"Rogue!"
She whipped her head around, adrenalin hitting her bloodstream automatically even though she recognized and trusted the voice. She was still keyed up.
Her heart twisted a little even as she smiled. The young man who'd called out her name was both Gambit's nearest relation and not related to him at all, not in the least resembling him and yet echoing, in the way he moved and smiled and spoke. Henri Robert LeBeau was leaning against the passenger door of a gleaming black Audi, one ankle crossed over the other, his left hand still toying with the key it held. He was long-limbed and sandy-haired, his face attractive but not striking, and the soft gray knee-length coat he wore hanging more loosely across his shoulders and around his chest than Remy's dark brown one did on him. He wore gloves like Remy used to wear: soft black cotton things, with the fingers cut off at the second knuckle.
Rogue dodged a couple of people maneuvering large and awkward wheeled suitcases and ran to meet him. Utterly without awkwardness or hesitation, he swept her up and hugged her, lifting her easily off her feet with those deceptively slender arms. "Hey, cherie, comment ca va?" He set her on the ground, looked her in the face for a moment, then kissed the air just beside her left cheek and then her right. He came within a hairsbreadth of her skin, but never touched it, accurate as one of his profession and family was expected to be.
"Ah been better, but Ah sure am glad to see you."
"Je le crois," said Bobby earnestly. He took her chin between his thumb and the side of his hand and turned her face to get a good look at the bruises. "You look a treat. Remy been—"
"Beatin' on me?" Rogue finished for him.
"I was gonna say 'wanderin' off when he was supposed to be watching your back.' I never seen him hit a woman in his life." He pulled open the passenger door and ushered her into the car. "C'mon. Shower and food sound all right?"
"Lahk heaven." Rogue slid into the cool leather seat, and Bobby shut the door behind her.
"Well, I hope you're half-starved," he announced as he took the driver's seat and put the car in gear. "Memere's been waiting the better part of a year for de chance t'feed you."
When they were safely out of the complicated start-and-stop driving in front of the airport and into the smooth flow of ten a.m. freeway traffic, Rogue dared to inquire, "Where's Jean-Luc?"
"Out of town," Bobby told her, his voice calm and politely evasive.
"When you say 'out of town' . . ."
"Yep. Business."
"Oh."
"Lucky, really. Havin' you visit might . . . complicated . . . if de wrong people know at de wrong time."
"Why? Ah ain't been blacklisted. Ah don' even live here."
"You busted Père outta Blood Moon. Long time ago, but Pinchers never forget. Dey swears you got Remy outta dey claws, too, but can't figure out how you done it. But all dat aside, you're de petite guildmistress's ex-husband's nouvelle blonde. I'd want to steer clear of dat mess if I was you."
Rogue made a non-committal sound of acknowledgment. She was not, and ever had been, Remy's blonde . . . in his vast lexicon of Cadiens terms of endearment, he'd always reserved that one for Belladonna.
"I'm glad you came, though," Bobby told her, a little shyly. "Whyever an' however it got managed, glad you came. You got a right to dis city, too. It should've been a home to you."
Rogue sighed. "Ah ain't got a home right now."
"Yes, you do, babe. Don't worry about it. You do."
The Audi took them across town so smoothly that if she hadn't glanced at the speedometer Rogue wouldn't have realized how blazingly fast they were going. From the freeway they descended down into city streets, then headed out into narrow two-lane country highways. Finally they turned onto a dirt road that wove into the speckled gray-green shadows of Bayou Bienvenue for as long as there was solid, driveable ground. The road stopped outside a low building; not a house, but a boathouse and three-car garage. They pulled into the middle slot.
"Transfer point," Bobby informed her cheerfully. "Git down."
"Isn't it a headache, not being able to drive to your own house?" Rogue asked as she unfastened her seat belt.
"A little, yeah. But it's been useful, too, time out of mind." Bobby jumped from the car and crossed the garage, dodging around a Porsche to the place where the floor opened to the water, and two long, light motor boats were tethered. "Back in de very old days, when t'ievin' was best done on water, it saved trouble. You kin get a boat from here clean out into de harbor, an' from de harbor to Jamaica, Barbados, Cuba, Mexico."
"What, like pirates?"
"Where'd y't'ink de New Orleans Guild come from? T'ieves is just pirates dat grew legs an' learned to walk." He reached up and offered her a steadying hand as she stepped down into the boat, then pulled the engine to life and cast off.
"Ah really appreciate this, Bobby," she told him again, as the motor kicked up a white V of spray behind them and the boat reared out of the water. "Don't know what Ah woulda done otherwise."
"No more a'dat," Bobby ordered her. "It's what family does. We can't raise a finger t'help our Remy, Memere an' me, but we can help you. 'Sides which, I always did want a little sister."
She turned back to look at him. He was grinning. She tried to smile back, then turned her face forward again and watched the green-black water arch away from the prow. To smile at him, when he called her sister, was a lie.
There was no path, no markers that Rogue could see, but Bobby had known the route from childhood. And as the boat wove through the mangrove trees, She started recognizing things: a certain twist of a branch, a gap where a boat could be landed, a safe spot of deep water where adventurous teenage boys could swim on hot summer days. She was gliding through Remy's memories, and his mind rose up inside hers, strong and familiar. She couldn't escape him in the waters of his own bayou.
Then she saw the house, and his longing made her breath catch in her throat.
It gleamed white in the shadows, a tall, noble building with ranks of columns marching across the front of the facade. Magnolia trees, bare of flowers at this season of the year, flanked the building. The lawn of it sloped down to a long wooden dock, where another boat was tethered.
This was his home, and he was worked into her skin and her blood and the roots of her hair, and all of her ached with his sadness. She'd found sanctuary, but it would cost her.
Bobby swung the boat up to the dock and jumped out with a sudden, grasshopper-like spring. "Hand me de painter, will ya?"
Rogue tossed him the line, then dared a quick flare of her powers to jump up onto the dock. Bobby whipped the line around the metal piece bolted into the wood. "Come on, hurry up!"
He raced up the hill, Rogue scrambling after him on the unfamiliar terrain, though her feet kept finding sound footing even when she didn't expect them to.
"I told Memere she shouldn't touch you," Bobby yelled back to her, "but I don't think she took me seriously. You might wanna watch out."
"Ah kin handle it, don't worry," Rogue called up. She hoped she was telling the truth.
The huge double front doors of the house swung open before they could reach them. Out of them poured the most fantastic food-smells that Rogue had ever encountered, accompanied by a woman.
Rogue had only a second to gather an impression of long limbs, gold teeth, and a dark face lit by bright green eyes before Memere was upon her. She shoved Remy's consciousness away from her as hard as she could manage and sank her thoughts and worries down to the bottom of her mind, struggling to return to the calm and clarity she needed to feel and redirect the flow of her powers.
It was a near thing, but she managed it. And within a heartbeat, she was caught up in two soft, gentle, powerful arms that smelled like every good spice that had ever existed, and long fingers were combing through her hair. "Elle est arrivée, notre chère bébé, notre pauvre petite . . . laisse-moi te voir . . ." Memere let her go and took hold of her face in both hands; Rogue let the energy cris-cross through the back of her jaw and flow back through her cheeks and into the old woman's palms. "Ah, qu'elle est belle . . . il y a du feu dans ses yeux. C'est bon. Elle n'est pas belle?"
"Oui, elle est belle, Memere," she heard Bobby consent, laughing, from somewhere behind her head. "Ne la touche pas; je t'ai dit . . ."
"Oui, oui, tais-toi, elle va bien," Memere shot back dismissively. She combed one of Rogue's stripes back and gave her head a gentle shake. "N'est-ce pas? Il te faut une douche chaude, et quoi a manger, et tous va bien aller, t'inquiete pas." She kissed Rogue's forehead (this nearly cracked her; the whole-hearted affection of the gesture strained her concentration and her calm) and finally let her go. Rogue felt her control go all to pieces; her hungry skin seemed to reach out into the air around her, grasping for energy to devour. She rubbed a hand over her cheek to stifle the sensation.
"Va-t-en, notre Henri. Je m'occupe avec le repas; s'occupe toi d'elle. Va."
"We're gettin' chased outta de kitchen," Bobby translated, taking Rogue gently by the arm. "C'mon an' get yourself cleaned up."
He led her up the curving staircase to the second floor. The LeBeau mansion was not quite as big as the Institute, even disregarding the basement levels, but it was still much too big for only three people to live in comfortably. This was the sort of house that would subside into haunting the second the living turned their backs. And yet the part of her that was Remy remembered it being filled with noise . . . laughter and music, shouting matches, the loud tears of children with scuffed knees and the muffled tears of adults who wept behind closed doors, footsteps pounding up and down stairs and dancing in the big rooms on the main floor. This place had been filled with life, once, good and bad. That was all gone now.
"Dis one's yours," Bobby told her, opening a door to one of the bedrooms. "Washroom's through dere. Take your time, 'cuz de food's still gonna be a while. Memere's put out everyt'in' you need."
"Thanks—" Rogue started, but Bobby cut her off with a flick of his finger at her mouth.
"Je t'ai dit no more a'dat, n'est-ce pas?" His smile was so unguarded, so open, and so kind, that Rogue unthinkingly did as she was told and did not try to thank him again. "I'll holler when dey's food."
As soon as she was alone, Rogue crossed to the bathroom, stripped to the skin, opened the hot water tap all the way and stepped into the claw-footed porcelain bathtub to see what she could do about boiling her skin away. Those stupid, stupid bruises . . . she scrubbed and scrubbed, but they refused to come off. The big one below her ribs had faded from purple to magenta, but didn't appear to be getting any smaller.
It was a bit of a shock to step out of a shower and not be cold. It had been winter for so many long months now, and up in Avalon station it would be cold still. But New Orleans was warm, warm, warm. And as she scrubbed a towel through her hair, she looked out the window of the room she'd been given and saw that the sun had broken through the clouds and was filtering through the trees onto the lawn behind the house.
Sunshine. She wanted sunshine. She pulled on the clothes she found sitting on the dresser—a little big for her, but definitely women's clothes—and hopped out the window, still barefoot and bare-handed. There was a porch swing on the back verandah, and the sun streamed straight down onto it. She sat down on it, kicked off a little to make it swing, then stretched out upon it and soaked up the sunlight with every inch of her skin. She was asleep in minutes.
Scott stuck his hands through the hole in his door and submitted to being cuffed again. "Where am I going this time?" he asked the guard. He couldn't think of a reason for Royal to be talking to him again so soon.
"Exercise," the guard snapped at him.
"You do remember I can't see, right?" Scott asked. He didn't expect an answer, and wasn't disappointed. Well, if the prison's exercise facility was big enough, he could at least do some katas, get the stiffness out of his joints. He was used to hard exercise nearly every day, and days of being locked up had left him with a fidgety, itchy sensation all over, despite the sit-ups, push-ups, and other basic exercises he'd been doing to pass the time.
The guard led him through the building and downstairs, past the ground floor where he'd been allowed to talk to his lawyer to a basement. The space echoed like a gymnasium, reverberating with thumps and squeaks that sent him back to after-school hours in the stands watching Jean's basketball practice. The sound made him stop in his tracks; he hadn't counted on company. He'd figured that he was too dangerous a prisoner to be left with other people.
A door slammed behind him. "Hands," the guard ordered from the other side. Scott felt around behind himself until he found the inevitable slot, and offered his hands to be released. "You got one hour," the guard instructed, and the slot snapped closed.
Scott turned around. The irregular pounding of the basketballs had stopped.
How many paces across was a basketball court? Which way was this one oriented? Without more information about the space, he didn't want to stay away from the relative safety of the wall. Especially since the basketballs were staying silenced.
This is not going to end well.
Adrenalin hit his bloodstream hard. And somewhere in the back of his head, he could hear Logan's voice yelling at him. "Come on, Kid! Don't cry to me about how you can't see. Do something about it. Your brain ain't wired into your eyelids; if you can't think with your eyes closed, you've got bigger problems. So block. Block, don't flail around! Listen. Feel. Think. Smell, if that nose works at all. You can find out everything you need to know; you just gotta figure out how to do it."
What do I know? Wall behind me. That gives me one hundred eighty degrees of safety. Sneakers make noise; it's like they're wearing bells. Two people . . . three . . . four . . . five. Yeah, five. They can't fight five-on-one with me against a wall. There's no room.
"Hey, Mutie!"
"It's Scott," said Scott, though he wanted to yell back Hey Flatscan just to get the posturing over and done with. But he had been raised better than that.
"Shoot some hoops?"
He heard the ball coming at him . . . a gentle whoosh of air that left him with barely a split-second to react. Face or groin? Face—he had time for only one guess, and thankfully he guessed right and found himself with a basketball held in his hands a hairsbreadth from his nose. He threw it back at where he'd last heard sneaker-squeaks. "No, thanks."
"You see through your eyelids? That your mutant power?"
"Nope. That's just lots of practice. You don't want to get me started on my power."
"Well, let's see it, hotshot."
Body coming in fast, from the left. He dropped to a steadier stance and blocked, knocking incoming hands away from him. The arms he blocked were thicker than his, and well-muscled. There was an open shot for a counter punch, but he didn't take it. Not yet. "Don't touch me."
In his mind, he saw Rogue quirk a tiny smile as her signature line came out of his mouth.
"I dunno if they brought you up to speed when you got dragged in here," said a voice to his right, "but you don't give orders. You can do exactly squat about anything."
Scott smiled. "You're wrong."
And then the punch came, and he blocked and retaliated, and the fight was on.
The attacks came fast and strong, but they were predictable. Scott had been fighting all his life, and he'd always been outnumbered. He knew how this was done. And he knew he'd never win any battle that really mattered with fists and feet, and that he would never win against so many. But he fought, with his eyes closed, trusting to instinct and training and cosmic justice to land his blows where they needed to fall. They served him well; he downed three opponents before someone caught him hard in the side of the mouth and dropped him at last. Something inside his face went crunch.
He was on all fours, struggling to breathe through a jaw immobilized with pain, when the guards finally broke the scuffle up.
Jean . . .
There was no answer.
Author's notes:
French lessons galore! Sooooo much galore.
Je le crois: I believe it.
Nouvelle: New. (I assume y'all know petite and blonde.)
Elle est arrivée, notre chère bébé, notre pauvre petite . . . laisse-moi te voir . . . She came, our dear baby, our poor little one . . . let me look at you . . .
Ah, qu'elle est belle . . . il y a du feu dans ses yeux. C'est bon. Elle n'est pas belle? Ah, she's beautiful . . . there's fire in her eyes. That's good. Isn't she beautiful?
Oui, elle est belle: Yes, she's beautiful.
Oui, oui, tais-toi, elle va bien: Yeah, yeah, shut up, she's fine.
N'est-ce pas? Il te faut une douche chaude, et quoi a manger, et tous va bien aller, t'inquiete pas. Isn't that right? You need a hot shower, and something to eat, and everything will be fine, don't worry.
Va-t-en, notre Henri. Je m'occupe avec le repas; s'occupe toi d'elle. Va. Go on, our Henri. I'll take care of the meal; you take care of her. Go.
Je t'ai dit: I told you.
N'est-ce pas? Isn't that right?
Whew! That was a lot of French lessons.
I've been so excited to see so many people adding Flight Risk to their favorites! I hate to beg for reviews, but . . . please? Feedback is such a terrific motivator . . . it's what keeps me writing and posting. So let me know what you're enjoying, what you're wondering, where I need to improve. S'il te plait? And mille mercis to all of those who have been reviewing. You're my heroes!