Bury all your secrets in my skin
Come away with innocence, and leave me with my sins
The air around me still feels like a cage
And love is just a camouflage for what resembles rage again...
-Slipknot, Snuff Lyrics by Corey Taylor
The priest fervently hoped that his cohorts would show up before the Punisher could release the troubled young woman. He knew that she was called a mutant. People-real people- called her kind at best a mistake and a demon at worst. From what the Father was told, her so called talent was to steal a person's memory and essence. After talking to her, he truly believed she could steal souls, and that made her a demon to him. /Maybe others were simply misguided. They thought they could use her, steal bank account information, even kill others. I hope they decide to kill her; she's too dangerous to keep around./
She fought them tooth and nail. Her fury was exactly why she was currently locked up in a small box, no bigger than a coffin. Enrico Gnucci told Rogue that she would stay in there until she did agree to cooperate with their plans. So far, no luck, but she had been getting weaker and he knew that she would give in sooner rather than later.
The Father heard Frank's question and analyzed it. He knew exactly what to say. "She's in a small room just off the cellar…" He found himself in the air, feet scrambling for solid purchase, and the Punisher thrust him into the hall. Long, cold and deserted. The other priests were amongst the parish community tonight, helping distribute groceries to the most vulnerable. That was why the rectory, usually bustling with measured activity, seemed deserted. The priest caught a glance of the clock on the wall. 5:30. Thirty more minutes before his company would show up and-hopefully-kill this asshole.
"Take me there. One word, one misstep….well, if I were you, I'd hurry up before I think of something creative to speed you up." The Punisher's voice echoed the calmness of a storm before the full fury hit.
So the priest led him down the hallway and toward a spiral staircase, which gave a little under Frank's weight but didn't cave. His broad shoulders barely fit as they paralleled the width of the stairs. The dark robes ahead of him gracefully mirrored the priest's movements, and the priest risked a glance back at him. The burning cold of Castle's blue eyes spurred him on and he kept quiet.
The priest stopped, pulled a keychain out and pointed toward the door. "She's in ...there. Look, she's…" He paused. He didn't want to let Frank know that Rogue was a mutant and dangerous because, with any luck, she'd kill him.
Frank poked him in the neck with the cold barrel of the gun. "She's what?"
He gulped. "She's…generally…out of it. I don't know what she's been given, but it knocks her out."
Frank felt his body harden and tense with anger. He wondered why she was kept doped up, but figured he'd keep his suppositions to himself for the time being. "You first, God boy." He told the priest to enter the room and unlock the box that held the young woman.
She lay slumped in the box, green eyes dulled like unpolished jade. Most people would have been a lovely woman, except for that slack of expression. Her skin was pale and Frank, with a clinical detachment, leaned over to test for a pulse. It was habit more than anything that made him do it. The woman did not look well; she had the glaze of someone on drugs. And somehow, he didn't think it was her doing. People were going to
As soon as his skin touched hers, he felt as if his testicles were being pulled out of his body by way of his nostrils. He sagged to his knees as the pain receded and numbness took over. He didn't know how to describe what he was experiencing, other than to say what he was, the essence of who he was, seemed to be slipping away.
He watched as the woman jerked into some form of alertness. Her eyes went wide, turned from green to glacier-blue, and screamed, "Maria!" Those hands of hers, slender, turned into talons as she scratched at her shirt. Nails clawed, leaving red marks above her t-shirt.
/Where I was shot./ He realized that she was reliving his memories somehow and that the pain she was going through was his fault, not hers. /Poor girl./ He did not have the time or energy to wonder how this was happening. Time enough later for that, he hoped. Frank was unable to feel anything. Not pain, nor anger, or happiness. Just a soft blanket of utter greyness, lost in blissful apathy.
Though he was barely conscious, he figured out this was why someone must have wanted her. Just for her ability to siphon memories, this young woman would make a powerful weapon. He watched as she fell to the floor—hard. If he were able, sympathy for her would have shot through him. He knew she was caught in the rictus of his memories.
"HIS BRAINS CAME OUT IN MY HANDS!" Rogue screamed with an agony that Frank remembered, but couldn't feel. Her heels dug into the floor and she arched her back, fighting past pain. She writhed on the floor, then went still. Her chest rose and fell with harsh cries. "Lisa, Maria. Frankie…failed you." She cried like that for several minutes, lost and confused in a torrent of personal hell.
Frank's strength ran out and he fell against the wall. He took a quick appraisal of everything at his disposal. /Still semi-upright, that's good. Unable to lift hand to get to my gun, not so good. I'm up shit creek./
Rogue's eyes took in the small room and she sat up, albeit shakily. She still didn't know who she was, still absorbing what memories and skills she received from Frank Castle. She, in other words, thought she was Frank. "Maria?" She croaked. Rogue looked down at her chest, saw that she had a womanly form. Then she noticed who she was supposed to be sitting across from her.
It all snapped into place for her. Who she was. "Ah'm Rogue." She said, hesitantly. "Did you…you touch me?" She already knew the answer, but wanted to know the specifics.
"I did." He said, simply. "You seemed ill."
She scooted closer to him. Her eyes retained the Artic blue of his. "Ah am sorry. Didn't mean ta hurt ya. Ah can't control mah power." Somehow, it was urgent for her to tell him that. She felt as if she had violated his privacy, violated his person, and she hated it.
Rogue's voice was sultry like aged molasses. Her concern for him showed in how she checked him over. She continued to talk to him. "You'll be ok. You didn't touch me long enough for me to do real damage to you."
The Punisher kept an eye on her. His opinion of the situation was that the onus lay on him, not her. Or rather, the blame lay on the priest. Speaking of the priest, Frank's sharp gaze caught him slinking out of the room. "Rogue, stop him!" He barked as she sprang to her feet. She saw, as he did a moment or two before, that the good Father Peter DiMaggio planned to slip out of the room and lock the door. He succeeded. Rogue pounded on the door, furious and desperate to get out.
"Guess what, Punisher," Father Peter DiMaggio called at him through the door. His words were barely audible, but they both heard him. "The Gnuccis are on their way. I'm going to tell them about you and I should get a hefty bonus. You and the demon bitch are going to die." They heard the soft patter of his feet as he ran away, ostensibly to relay the news.