Disclaimer: I don't own any characters except Irbis and several innocent short-lived bystanders; everything else is Marvel's only.

15. Flushed Out

Riding in the back seat, hands handcuffed in front of her, Irbis knew she couldn't wait for Mister Creed anymore. She would be dead, or way out of his reach, before he could get to her and her captors. Only she didn't have any intention of dying. She had to get her guitar first... and also find out what had held up the killer so long. She was pretty sure he had to be safe; after all he did have a healing factor that took care of a bullet straight through the heart. It occurred to her he might have been pissed at her disobedience and might want to wait for the last minute just to teach her lesson. Whatever. She wasn't going to wait for him, anyway.

The car was driving through a desert of darkness, so she wasn't sure what surrounded them. However, and remembering the landscape she'd seen on the bus, especially in the last hours before arriving to Salt Lake City, she guessed it must be the same rugged terrain, sparse plants and small bushes. It didn't offer the same protection a forested area would have, but the fact there were no lampposts anywhere provided an equally difficult to pierce cover. All she needed was to get some hills in between her and her captors. She silently sent a heartfelt pray to Our Lady of Fatima to watch over her that night.

She took a deep breath to calm herself. Her heart had started beating faster and her breathing had deepened when Miles, after an hour and a half driving, arrived to Fillmore and stopped by an unassuming house with a wide garden. Two people had left the house even before Miles could have killed the engine, and Irbis had been able to see that one was a grown man with a solid build, and the other was a taller but more slender young man, both carrying sports bags. She had known immediately who they were and had offered Our Lady a quick prayer that they didn't recognise her, although not expecting the good Lady to perform any miracle on her account. Indeed they had recognised her at once. Fortunately, they were in a hurry and had decided to leave the real questioning for later. Nevertheless, she had 'zipped her lip', as Mister Creed would sometimes say, and hadn't awarded them a single sound, not even when they had yanked her out of the front seat and kicked her into the back seat, with the young man riding in the front and the sheriff riding behind, next to her.

Her heart hadn't eased since then, nor had her breathing. Now, nearly two hours after their depart, she tightened her thigh muscles and danced a little on her buttocks. Then, with a sharp breath, she blurted out, her voice low and shy.

"I have to oorinate."

The driver asked an annoyed 'what?' at the same time as the sheriff boxed her head with a fist. She felt the impact but not the pain and knew she was about to go numb, as she used to do when Creed blew into a fury and kicked her unconscious. She was actually amazed it hadn't happened earlier and, for once, she welcomed the change.

"I can't stop! I'm going to oorinate."

Her voice was starting to change, loosing the edge and becoming flat, but fortunately they didn't notice it. For what seemed to be an eternity, they discussed what to do. The sheriff saying they should let her piss herself, and the driver saying he was not going to have anyone pissing inside the car. The void, cold and empty, enveloped her and she embraced it completely: it was her only weapon. This time, though, the void wasn't as void as it used to be, for at its very core chirped the cords of a guitar. So instead of threatening to crumble inside, the cold, alien mind that had took over her became harder than steel and diamonds and held her up indomitably.

The car slowed down and got off the road, and the sheriff got out. He pulled her out briskly by an arm but didn't let her get up. Instead he took off her handcuffs.

"Take off your shoes and your socks, and make it snappy. We ain't got all night."

She did as instructed, putting the socks tidily in the shoes, and the shoes neatly side by side. The sheriff, though, kicked them away and again pulled her by an arm. The tar was hard and rough under her bare feet, the earth both lumpy and sandy. She didn't feel any pain, not even when she stepped on a small tuft of dried herbs, but it didn't surprise her: after all she had grown up running barefeet, including over a peeble pathway. That ground offered no challenge. The only challenge was the men and their guns, and the steepness of the hills around her. Nevertheless, she tumbled and acted as if she had princess feet, too delicate for that barefeet ordeal.

"Hurry up already!"

There was a concrete division just outside the road, a couple of feet of earth separating the two. It was waist high and Irbis tumbled quickly towards it and, holding it with both hands, swinged her feet over it to the other side.

"Hey!" And the sheriff was about to follow suit.

"Privity," Irbis said quickly, tugging at her jeans, "privity."

"You don't deserve no privacy, you mutie-lover." He spit on her but didn't jump the division. Instead, he rested his lower back on the concrete division and pulled out a cigarette.

Irbis pulled the jeans down and squatted, forcing some urine out. The night was dark, the moon nowhere to be seen and a light cloud cover hiding what brightness the stars might have bestowed on the landscape. The concrete wall shadowed her from the car lights, which were pointed on another direction anyway, but she still managed to see the stones and rocks around her. She picked up a jagged one.

When she straightened herself, pulling the jeans quickly up and buttoning them, the sheriff looked back at her and barked a command for her to hurry. Then he turned his back on her and puffed on the cigarette a couple of times before throwing it away. The teenager and the driver, Miles, weren't even looking up at them. Her target just a feet away, Irbis threw the jagged rock as hard as she could and the man didn't even say a word. He just hunched forward and fell.

Irbis didn't wait to see it, though; she immediately sprinted away. It was too dark to see very far, but the hill was partially parted by a mini-valley, or better yet, by the bed of a small brook that rains had undoubtedly created. So she followed that path. Up and up, the feet carrying her over tufts and jagged rocks and sensing the upward banks surrounding the now-dry rain-brook bed.

"Dad!"

A shot echoed in the air, but Irbis didn't pay it any attention, nor to the second and the third. The teenager was bound to sit with his wounded father, unless the man wasn't too hurt and told him to get on with the chase; the driver was bound to go after her after trying to shoot her down. Fortunately, he didn't have a good aim... or perhaps Our Lady had sent the bullets astray. Irbis would have liked to look back and see if the man, Miles, would be more concerned over the wounded sheriff or her capture, but the slope was steep and she wouldn't divide her attention. Up and up, her feet carried her; body bent and hands ready to help thrusting herself up and up. And then the barrier was overcome and there was nothing but a pitch dark level path, guarded by steep slopes on each side.

It was not a dry brook-bed, she suddenly realised as the path widened, more dusty than rocky; it was a dirt road. Her footing suddenly made easier, she gained speed. She was aware that the earth was steep on both sides of the path, and that the path itself was not even – for jeeps, she thought – but wavered up and down. Soon, the path bent to the left, and she bent with it, then left again, and right. The banks of the path still steep like mountains. At a certain point she tripped over a bush, right in the middle of the path, and a few steps onwards she nearly didn't avoid tripping over another one. The dirt path couldn't be much frequented if the plants were able to grow strong and thick in its middle, Irbis considered, and strove to gain even more speed.

She could only hear her breathing and her heart, and nothing else – not even shooting – and wondered if the void was playing tricks on her senses. Her common sense wasn't suffering any tricks, though, and she didn't slow down not even to look back. She carried on. Every now and then, small rain-brook beds which had carved little valleys down to the dirt path she kept following offered alternative routes, but she decided to persevere. The main path allowed her to maintain greater speed and she couldn't swear by the others; let the driver, and perhaps the teenager, try and follow that same, easy to track path. Speed was of the essence now, not shaking off her pursuers. It was only when the path started climbing the steep slope of what seemed a mountain that Irbis slowed down. The dirt path must have been made on a dry rain-brook bed, she decided for the last time. When it forked into two not deeply carved valleys but nonetheless too narrow and steep for jeeps, she stopped and looked back.

Darkness.

She wondered if it was possible to see the road from her now higher position. If it were, then the fact there was no light anywhere, meant the car had gone or its lights had been turned off. Anyway, there was no light anywhere. Either she was being pursued without torches, or she wasn't being pursued at all.

Irbis sat down and took a deep breath. Then she closed her eyes and forced herself to pay attention to the smallest sound. The wind, blowing carelessly through the brush. Birds, calling randomly in the night. Ocasional yelping, perhaps barking, in the distance. But no human voices, no coughing, no steps. It didn't mean they weren't there, searching for her even in the dark... or with torches whose brightness she couldn't see from her position. The moon still wasn't out, and the stars were still mostly hidden by the light cloud cover.

"My Our Lady of Fatima," she whispered in Portuguese, "thank you for your help and, please, watch over me till I've reached safety."

Calm and confident, Irbis resumed her path up the steep slope. She didn't bother to think where she was going exactly; she simply had to get away from the road and move back to the city, or closest town. Wherever that was or how far it didn't matter.

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