Sneaking out was going to be hard enough without Clint's ass passed out on the couch every damn night. Menzel gave me a date, but she wouldn't give out the location until closer to the time. She would have all the control. When I showed up, she could just as easily drug me up and subject me to experimentation for the rest of my life as she could hear me out.
For precisely one week, I'd played the part of a dutiful pupil. Wanda didn't exactly begin to teach me, but her ability to keep things so close to the chest was something to appreciate. Clint trained with me a little bit, showing me a few vital moves to keep from getting killed in hand to hand combat. Scott showed me how to use the code and, per my request, demonstrated how to set up a number as untraceable. He really was brilliant and sweet, but if he got in my way, if any of them did, I would have to be willing to take them all out.
Finally, one morning my phone buzzed with a single set of coordinates. I slipped from bed, and silently pulled my escape bag from beneath my mattress. Wanda didn't stir; she had grown accustomed to my late night traversing the apartment. Snoring told me Clint had tapped out on his couch in front of a hockey match. Bare feet allowed me to cross the hardwood floor soundlessly. I would change into my shoes once I was outside. When I opened the door, I was grateful for the advanced system that forgo the need for squeaky hinges.
Not daring to signal the ding of the elevator, I plodded down the building'a stairs. At the bottom, I sat and dug out my sneakers. I twisted my hair up into a bun, forcing my mind off the memory that came with those ponytails. In playing a role, it was important to include genuine aspects of yourself. Sometimes, however it was far too easy to lose yourself in the part. And that day with Scott I could never quite place where Haven ended and where their captive began. I didn't hate them. I most definitely didn't want to hurt them, but I could stay here either.
Trains and buses didn't run at this time of day, so I hailed a taxi and collapsed into the backseat. It had been so simple, almost too easy, so I didn't dwell on it. I counted it as a blessing and focused on the horizon that we chased after. I couldn't risk an airport with zero money or identification. Vegas was hours and hours away, but they could not hope to track every cab leaving Seattle.
With a jolt, I woke from sleep, cursing at myself for letting my guard down. The cabbie glanced back blandly through her mass of red curls and thick glasses. "We've still got a good half, miss. Everything's alright. You looked like you needed the sleep. Your phone's been vibrating something awful, though."
To be expected. I kept it on only in case Menzel needed to contact me. The messages from Clint, Scott, and Wanda were deleted without being read. Then there was one from Bucky, just one, not twelve to twenty three like the others.
'Be safe.'
Everyone was terrified of him, but he just might be the best man I'd ever met—the man with the sad, lonely blue eyes. At least he tried to understand. I might have even offered him some sort of response if another message hadn't come through first.
'Stop.' Menzel sent.
I barked the order at the cab driver and scanned through the glass that was clouded with dust for her. We were stopped just short of Las Vegas in a little town that must have been used as a western movies set many years prior. It was desolate save for a legitimate tumbleweed blowing through a four-way stop. A saloon to the right had swinging red doors flapped in the needy wind, clacking against the concrete in an uneven beat. Up ahead, town hall stood at the end of the T-intersection.
Pushing open the creaky door of the cab, I stepped out into the dry desert heat. The sun blazed at high noon, scorching straight through my layers of clothing. Sweat trickled along my spine, making me itch as I sought out my contact; any other human life would be good, actually.
"I don't think you want to be let off here, honey. Why don't you get back in? I won't even charge the last few miles," the cabbie said.
"She said stop," I muttered, swatting at one of the brave gnats who'd strayed from the swarm of them at a watering trough.
"Oh, Haven."
I spun on my heel, kicking up a cloud of dust. There she was. Dressed in baggy jeans, a thin tank top and golden sneakers. The wind picked at her perfectly combed hair, but did not succeed in musing it. Meanwhile, every spare strand of my hair scratched at my face. She stood on the bottom steps leading down from the saloon and behind her, lining up along the porch railing, were soldiers who were larger than life. While Menzel was almost kidlike in appearance, the men and women behind her pushed seven foot easily. None wore any type of armor or carried a single weapon, yet somehow that didn't set my nerves at ease.
"I came to make an offer," I began.
"And I might have listened had you come alone. I thought we had an agreement, Haven. We've known each other far too long for you to be this foolish."
"She's just a cab driver," I said.
Menzel's faint pink lips curved up and she pulled down her dark tinted sunglasses just enough to look over the rim at me. She turned to the cab driver and signaled her to leave, which she did, peeling off and leaving a mini sand storm in her wake.
"I don't harm innocents," Menzel said with a pointed look at me.
My eyes flashed. "So, you were in Wakanda!"
"Unfortunately. They are foolish to try and harness you."
"You can't kill me."
"I don't think you understand how the Genysis works, my dear. You will not fall prey to illness, but should a bullet enter your heart, it will not repair itself fast enough in order for you to survive."
"I'm your best shot," I said boldly, throwing my theory of her needing me as much as I needed her out there as one last ditch effort.
"I may not have my research, but I still have my mind. I can remember most of the formula."
"Don't you want to know what went wrong? Before you use this, or you give it to someone you love. That's why you made it right?"
"This is your angle then? Distract me with talks of a proper deal with your reinforcements waiting in the rafters?"
"I'm alone. The only thing I want is my dad back. You can have however much of my blood you need to find that cure."
"That's not how it works either," she said slowly. Her eyes darted over my shoulder, but I would not break eye contact with her. Whoever she was seeing was probably some lost tourist.
"You'll figure it out if you want my blood." I held my ground, refusing to buckle even an inch. It was this or I had nothing to fight for. I would be a leaf drifting aimlessly across the earth.
"One condition," Menzel said, rubbing at her pointed chin. "You dispose of your friends for us. They wouldn't be much of a fight for us, anyway, but I just need to know. I need to know where your allegiance lies."
A pair of heavy feet hit the ground brazenly followed by two lighter sets. I knew before I turned who it was: a bird, a witch and an ant. My mouth went dryer than the dessert beneath my feet. How they had followed me invisibly, much less even known I had left was beyond me. I guess they have not survived under the government's radar this long without having at least some good intuition.
"What're you doing, Haven?" Clint sighed with resignation in his gaze. An arrow spun between the fingers of a gloved hand.
I kept my mouth shut tight for once. Wanda stepped forward, eyes blazing red with magic. "Step aside so we can capture Menzel," she instructed.
"She needs me," Menzel sang from behind me.
"You won't hurt us," Scott pleaded softly. I kept my eyes carefully fixed above all their heads. Friendship had no place in this town.
Wanda took another step and my hands fisted at my sides, previous restrained power leaking out almost faster than I could keep track of it. Sand spun wildly into the air, making Clint cover his face; it didn't dare touch me, however. The dust made it nearly impossible to see and even more difficult to breathe. I heard Wanda and Clint hacking as they struggled to stand firm. That's when Scott attacked.
A blow hit my gut with all the force of a toy train set at the speed of a fully functioning locomotive. I hit the ground, and the dust parted around me, providing a little bubble of breathable air. Scott was inside it with me, his knees pressing down against my wrists now that he was normal sized. He tugged his helmet off, a foolish move. I didn't need my hands to manipulate the air. Maybe he knew that and didn't care.
"Ok, I hate when people say this, so just a little forewarning because I'm about to. Just breathe for me. Breathe, Haven."
I laughed in his face, his shadowed, hopeless face. He may have given up on his family, but I would not. "That's all I do," I muttered, directing a blast that knocked him flat on his ass. He was only a few feet away, but the cloud of dust was so thick now that he vanished entirely from my line of sight.
A hand touched my shoulder, heavier than any guilt I could lay on myself. Menzel trained her icy eyes on me and nodded sharply to end it. The air went deadly still as I called it back into me, leaving particles of sand drifting to and fro on the now lazy breeze. Three bodies were on the ground, all breathing but none moved when the onslaught ceased. Wanda had her jacket covering her face and was curled downward to take the brunt on her back. Scott was unconscious and splayed out like a starfish. Clint, originally curled in on himself, quickly jumped to his feet and notched an arrow.
The aim was lethal. I knew it before he even sent it sailing towards my heart. All it took was one small gust to send it off course and impaling the ground at my feet.
"That's quite enough." To the man at Menzel's side, the blonde woman said, "Take us home."
A golden ring of light encased us as if one of the sun's rays had gotten loose and now shone directly down on me. It didn't burn or hurt; it lifted my feet from the ground like a tractor beam. A flash of red cut through the transparent wall and smashed into my gut. The wind was knocked out of me quite literally. But then, me and Menzel and her guards were moving up through the atmosphere, into the pitch black of space and I didn't need to breathe anymore.
Where the hell was home?
Something disrupted the beam and we all went crashing back down to the desert floor. Dust invaded my lungs and wrapped around my throat. A burning ray or light cut through the already blazing sun's relentless gaze, shining right over my shoulder to hit Menzel square in the chest. Instead of carving a hole straight through her, it merely threw her back against the salon and knocked her unconscious. Her guards dropped as a half dozen synchronized bullets made contact with their necks.
The suit of red and gold lowered from the clouds. The eyes glowed earily, almost making it appear possessed. But I knew who was inside the suit—Tony Stark.
Iron Man kept his blaster hand leveled at my chest while the wind tore harmlessly past his armor. "Drop 'em princess, or you drop like your buddies here."
My hands, which I'd raised unconsciously in defense, floated to my sides. I was not bullet proof like Menzel. Tony fired something regardless of my compliancee. I gaped down at the dart protruding from my thigh and looked up just as the mask pulled away from his grim face. How had he found me? I didn't get the chance to voice this question before the coils of darkness wrapped around my mind and pulled me into its recesses.
Well you guys, what do you think? Too late for Haven to choose a different path?