Their conversation was of necessity brief – Raven had no idea how long the guard would be at his toilet, although Erik assured her that Mr. Franklin was a martyr to his hemorrhoids and usually spent a good half hour on his post-prandial visit to the john. She had meant to be business-like and brief, but the second she opened her mouth, she found the words that had been hammering in her head since the day in Dallas falling out.
"Erik, I'm sorry. I did this to you, and I'm so sorry."
She didn't know what she was expecting; it certainly wasn't for Erik to dismiss her agonies of guilt with a wave of his hand.
"You did not. Please don't be stupid, Raven. You told me what had happened at the hotel. I didn't pick up on the threat. I should have; you're new to all this. I'm not. I was sloppy, too excited by the mission to think straight."
She wanted so much to accept this absolution, to feel her soul cleansed. But she couldn't.
"But if I had just thought – if I had chosen any other face-"
Erik cut her off impatiently.
"You can't seriously think that the government could have mobilized all this for my benefit in the time between your appearance to our CIA friend and my capture, can you? Raven, they were already on to us. I just caught them up a step or two."
She felt a chill run down her spine at his words.
"On to us? What do you mean?"
Erik shot her an oblique look, and then said something completely unexpected.
"Tell me, Raven – did you ever wonder what happened to Angel, after Cuba?"
Raven felt a cool anger fill her, or the memory of it.
"No, I never wondered. She was gone, that's all that mattered."
Erik shot her a mildly reproving look.
"You should have. She was one of ours."
Raven's eyes narrowed.
"How can you say that? She went with Shaw. She watched him kill Darwin, kill him for sport, and she still fought for him. She was not one of mine."
Erik shook his head.
"She was one of us. Which is why they took her, I think."
Raven's eyes widened in shock.
"The government has Angel? How do you know?"
"I don't know. I suspect. And I didn't say 'have'; 'had' is more likely if you ask me. I'm pretty certain she's dead."
Raven gasped with shock.
"What makes you think that?"
A shadow fell over Erik's eyes.
"I've had only one visitor while I've been held here. A man called Trask. Bolivar Trask. He has a lot of questions for me. But he knows a lot of things I haven't told him, things he shouldn't be able to know. About Cuba, and about – before that. About me. About us. Things only one of the First Class could have told him."
Raven blinked hard, her mind racing. What did Angel know? What could she have told them that could hurt the Brotherhood – that could hurt Charles? Angel had left them before they went to Westchester – she didn't know where Charles was…
Erik continued.
"It gets worse, Raven. I'm half inclined to believe Trask may have had some dealing with Emma Frost too. Although whether she's a captive or a quisling would depend on whether the Russians hate our kind more than the Americans, whether they'd be willing to give up the technology behind Shaw's helmet to the enemy. Certainly he knows things that even Angel couldn't have known – things I wouldn't think anyone could know. Apart from-" He broke off, then began again with savage intensity.
"He uses it to try and convince me he has captured members of the Brotherhood – you, Azazel. He doesn't seem to know about any of the others. He threatens that he'll have you killed if I don't tell him what he wants to know, do what he wants me to do, if I don't co-operate." Erik's mouth twisted. "But when I called his bluff, told him to produce you if he wants me to believe him, he hedged, told me I was in no position to demand proof. So I knew he was lying. If he really had my people, why not torture them in front of me to get what he wanted? It's what people like him do."
Erik was muttering faster and faster, rambling almost, the anger in his voice rising, specks of spittle flecking the corner of his mouth. Suddenly, he clutched the back of his head with a groan. Raven leant forward in alarm.
"Erik? What's wrong?"
His face was twisted up in agony for a moment; then he took a deep breath, mouthing something indecipherable for a moment, before his face relaxed, his eyes opened.
"I need to try and stay calm. I have an unwelcome guest inside my head now."
She raised a quizzical eyebrow. He raised his fist, tapped lightly on the back of his head with his knuckles.
"Metal plate, my dear. They had to put it in there, my skull was in pieces when they brought me in. Ironic, isn't it? They go to all that trouble to find me a cell miles from anything metal, then send me in with a great big chunk of it – but I can't use it, of course, because if I do I'll split my own head open."
He gave a laugh so dark that it made a mockery of the word. Raven felt a fist of ice-cold fury clamp around her heart. She knew how sensitive Erik was to metal; he could find a single iron filing in a box of sawdust, had been known to do it as a party trick in happier times. She remembered how the earpieces on the roof in Dallas had irritated his power, the metal components inside his ear. How much worse must this be?
"Does – does it hurt?" she murmured, not sure she really wanted the answer.
He looked up at her, and for a single moment, the remarkable poise he still possessed abandoned him, and his eyes shone with a gloss of tears.
"All the time. I keep thinking I'll get used to it. But it's like having a sword hanging over my head suspended by a hair. Like static in my brain, constantly. I can't sleep. I can hardly think straight, sometimes. It's worse when I use my power – or try to. If I reach out, try to feel anything with it – it's like a firecracker going off in my head. And it doesn't stop going off."
Raven winced. She couldn't imagine what that must be like – for the power that was yours, a part of yourself, turning on you like that. The pain in Erik's voice was visceral. But then he sucked in a businesslike breath, blinked hard, and the moment passed.
"But on the bright side, it means there's only so much they can do to me. They want me alive, but they don't really know what for – not yet. I'm sure there are all manner of unpleasant things they want to try out on me, but most of them involve metal objects – and if they happen to think of anything that doesn't, they know I can rip this thing out and steal their prize from them any time I feel like it. You might call it a stalemate, of sorts. The worst Trask can do for the time being is come down here and bore me for hours on end – and make his empty threats."
At this he leant forward.
"You make sure they stay empty, Raven. Don't come here again. Don't do anything stupid. Protect yourself. Disband the Brotherhood and hide. Go back to-"
He broke off sharply, seemed to grope for the right words. When he spoke again, his voice rang with barely controlled fury, his fists clenching.
"I will get out of here one day. And then there will be a reckoning. And when the war comes, Raven, I want you there at my side. But sometimes you have to cede the battlefield to fight another day. A wiser man than I am taught me that. You could do with his protection right now. He could help you."
And there it was, the unspeakable subject between them hobbling out haltingly into the conversation. Raven bowed her head, and whispered:
"Seems like you could do with his help right now as well. Erik – Erik, should I-"
His chin snapped up.
"No. No, Raven. Do not ask him to help me. I forbid it."
"Erik, why? He might be your only chance to get out of here."
Erik shook his head sharply.
"I said no." His shoulders slumped suddenly, and he stared at his feet.
"I already asked. I know that he could have heard me, even at this distance. He knows my mind, he's attuned to it. We used to be able to speak to each other even from miles away, if we had to. When I first woke up down here – alone, trapped - I called to him. I begged him to help me."
She could hear him dragging out the words from some jagged wound deep inside him.
"He said nothing, Raven. Nothing."