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Chapter Five
“In the fields a dying oath. I’d kill them all to save my own...”


Monday mornings were never truly positive; they just reminded Ororo of the long week she had ahead of her

When she entered Sebastian’s office, she was only mildly surprised to find Tobias there. He stood at Sebastian’s desk, tall and willowy, his sallow skin somehow managing to appear even more washed out in the day’s sunlight. Tobias Reinhold always sent chills of alarm down her spine. He had the smile of the leech and the over courteous manners of an insurance salesman, believing he hid his smarminess behind his smile. What he did for Sebastian, she didn’t know”nor did she care to know”as long as it didn’t concern her.

The hushed conversation between Sebastian and Tobias ceased when she entered the room, not that she expected them to continue their conversation in her presence. Sebastian’s business was private, even to those who were privy to such information. That didn’t bother her. What did bother her was the way both of them were smiling at her like two vipers circling their kill. She didn’t trust Tobias and she didn’t trust Sebastian, so she might as well been stepping into a snake’s den.

She didn’t break her stride, though, as she entered the room. She wouldn’t let them see she was slightly bothered by their lecherous stares. She stopped just a few feet short of Tobias, wanting to keep her distance from him as much as possible. He smiled his tight, deceitful smile at her. “Ororo, looking lovely as always,” he said, nodding his head in her direction.

“Mr. Reinhold, a pleasure to see you again,” she said, though she knew there wasn’t an ounce of sincerity in her expression or her voice. He didn’t seem to mind as his serpent’s smile widened in her direction. Her nerve endings tingled, as if waiting for some decisive strike. She always got that feeling when she was around him, as if she were waiting for him to make some threatening action toward her.

She gripped the papers she was holding tightly in her hands, as his eyes swept over her. He turned back to Sebastian suddenly, his voice low and conspiratorial. Boys only, it said.“We will continue this conversation at another time,” Tobias said to the other man.

“We will,” he said with a firm nod. Ororo saw their eyes connect for a moment in unspoken tête-à-tête. Let the boys play their games, she decided, as long as they didn’t fuck with her. They said their hurried goodbyes, and Ororo made sure to make a wide path between her and Tobias.

The last time she’d saw him, he kissed her hand, and she would’ve swore he lips left behind some filthy, poisonous residue that taken her a week to get off. She hadn’t seen it, but she would’ve sworn she felt it. Or maybe it was just her disgust with him getting the best of her.

Sebastian raised an eyebrow her way once Tobias left the office. “You wanted to speak to me.” A statement, never a question.

“Yes,” she said, taking a seat. She tossed the papers on his desk.

He picked them up, looking them over with mild interest. “Surely not about acquisition reports.” Another statement punctuated with a sarcastic smile. He placed the papers back on the desk without another glance.

“No, I’m here to talk to you about my time with the company, remember?” she said squarely. She didn’t have time to beat around the bush or play whatever head games he had in mind. This wasn’t something new to him. She’d made him aware of her intentions before now.

“Ahh,” he said, sitting down in his plush chair, steepling his fingers together, “yes. Do sit down.” A command, but she took a seat in front of him. She’d done a lot of thinking about this moment and what she would say to him. No scenario played right in her head. “Before we begin, do have a cup of tea.”

She paused, a little thrown by his offer. She wasn’t used to him offering her anything, even if it did come off as a command more than an offer. Usually, Tessa played the part of the willing servant, tending to all needs. She watched him walk to his in-office bar. He poured one cup before turning to look at her with a questioning eyebrow.

“Why not?” she said.

- - -

Manipulating mutant DNA had never been a goal of his, and truth be told he felt like a traitor, a yellow-bellied coward, every time he picked apart the DNA of another mutant in the name of “science.”

He couldn’t say he agreed with his employer’s ethics, but the way provided a means to the end. “Nothing is static. Everything is evolving,” was the motto he always heard from his employer. He agreed with that to a certain extent.

When he was younger, he mapped his adult life out from beginning to end, with the meticulous calculation that his friends joked only he possessed. True, he’d been a calculative teen who’d grown into a an even more calculative man, but his mutation hadn’t made him introverted or any less willing to lead a normal life that didn’t involve a lab.

He’d planned to have the good job, the beautiful wife, and the two kids. He did not, however, plan to find himself in some power hungry asshole’s lab, ripping apart another mutant’s DNA, but life hadn’t exactly seen things the same way as he had. Years ago, he did have the beautiful wife and the two beautiful kids.

He didn’t have the job, though, and when he finally did get the job, he didn’t have the wife or the family.

- - -

Tuesday. Sweet goddess was all she could think as she forced her eyes opened. She sat up slowly in her bed; the silk of her sheets seemed to scrape against her skin like nails. She grabbed the sides of her head when everything started spinning, taking slow, controlled breaths. Her parched throat screamed for water.

She reached for the glass of water she kept at her bedside, putting it to her chapped lips hastily, noting the sour taste of the water against her taste buds, but she didn’t stop drinking, even as the water spilled from the sides of her mouth.

She turned slowly in her, putting one foot on the floor. The floor seemed to move up and down like a carousel, as she placed the other foot on the floor gingerly. She stood up, pushing her body from the bed inch by inch, but still found herself a crumpled heap on the floor for her efforts. She would believe she had a hangover if she had been drinking all night.

A couple of hours after her meeting with Sebastian, she’d sat her desk listening to her stomach churn in tumult. She’d gone home early, thinking she’d caught some stomach virus that was floating around. She’d never been much of a believer in medicine, but she found herself searching her medicine cabinets when she arrived home and finding no relief.

For hours, she lay in her bed painfully aware of every sense she possessed, as if she’d taken some drug that left her hypersensitive to everything. She was thankful when sleep finally overtook her, but even in her sleep, she’d felt the prickling of her skin, heard the thudding of her heart, smelled her perfume drifting on the air. And her dreams”goddess, her dreams!”had been a muddle of mass confusion that made her feel as if she truly wasn’t sleep.

Ororo pulled herself from the floor, steadying herself gradually. She dressed for work, pulling herself together as best as she could.

- - -

It was hard enough trying to find a job while hanging on to his integrity and hiding the fact that he was a mutant. Forget that many of his professors called him brilliant; companies weren’t interested in brilliant. They wanted something that would bring in money.

Didn’t matter how it they got it whether it was by employing a gimmick or hiring some rich bastard’s brain dead heir. He didn’t fall into either category. He wasn’t into gimmicks, preferring the trial and error of beneficial research to throwing something together that would sell for a few months before public appeal cooled. And he didn’t come from a rich family by a long shot. Two strikes.

So, they got by on the little two bit jobs he did here and there, living from paycheck to paycheck. Ororo worked a seedy, little diner not far from their apartment, if you could even call it an apartment. It was more like a paper box that Ororo did her best to make cozy, but she didn’t leave, didn’t throw the promises he’d made back into his face.

She stuck by him, and he’d been determined to make their life better”somehow, someway. Pressure like that was enough to break any man down. That was his life, and it was ending one minute at a time. It almost made him want to give up; let fate decide the outcome. He’d never been a quitter, though, and he stopped believing in fate a long time ago. He fought too hard, and he knew that he would have to fight harder to provide for his family.

She was always behind him 100%. He remembered how she would hover around him when she thought he was working too much. He would tell her he was busy; he would try to make her go away. Science stuff, he would say, and she would never listen. “Think of me scientifically,” she often joked, her eyes the deepest color of the winter sky.

He remembered how she would find him wherever he was working in the apartment dressed in nothing but one of his button-down dress shirt, and she would always play that song by Ray Charles, “Night Time Is the Right Time.” Mathematical equations just didn’t hold the same appeal as his young wife slowly stripping to the lazy, bluesy beats of the song.

She would always sing one particular verse to him. “Baby, baby, baby. Oh baby. Do I love you? No one above you. Hold me tight. And make everything all right. Because the night time, oh, is the right time to be with the one you love, now,” he could hear her crooning in his head.

She’d park herself right in his lap. It didn’t matter if he had notes there or not. She’d look into his eyes with nothing but sincerity. “Tease me. Squeeze me. Leave me. Ah, don’t leave me. Lawdy, baby, take my hand, now. I don’t need no other man. Because the night time, oh, is the right time to be with the one you love, now.”

How as he supposed to resist that? They were so young, then; she was so young. God, that was such a long time ago.

- - -

Wednesday proved to be no better than Tuesday. She didn’t wake up feeling drunk after a night of non-drinking, but she did have experience another first of a different kind.

She’d been at her desk, staring at her computer screen blankly, her mind seemed to be concentrating on a million different things at once. Outside, she’d heard the squeal of tires, followed by the sickening sound of metal crushing against metal. Running from her desk, she’d gone to the nearest window, looking out.

She observed a bedlam of cars and bodies, not caused by an accident but by others. Her chest tightened at the sound of screams rising like flames from the floors below her, the sound of forcible entry playing loudly in her ears. Her stomach dropped and she dropped to the floor, as the windows seemed to implode in a fury of glass and metal.

She cut her hand on a piece of glass, trying to scramble to the safety of her desk, when she’d felt a hand wrap in her hair. “Where ya goin’, bitch?” she heard someone say, and then, she floating through the air, not of her own volition. She screamed when she realized she was out the window, and she couldn’t summon up enough power to call the winds to her aid.

She screamed, jolting upright in her chair. She was still at her desk. There were no imploding windows or mass mayhem. Everything around her stood still, as the people who’d been minding their business until she screamed out stared at her in concern. How thoughtless of her. “Sorry,” she muttered. A daymare. She’d just had her first one.

- - -

He’d gotten so close to something, so very close. He started spending his every waking moment working on it. He knew he worked too hard, neglected her, neglected the kids, worked long hours, didn’t sleep enough, but what he created would’ve changed their lives. When he revealed a prototype of his invention, he was suddenly the most coveted man in the city.

He was feeding off the greed of different companies. Who wanted it more? Who was willing to pay the price? But that was the thing about greed. It made men dangerous, especially if they saw their prospects fading. In the end, he ended up running because he believed it would save his family.

- - -

Thursday. “24,” she said to herself, looking at the clock on her nightstand. She’d been up twenty-four hours, and sleep still hadn’t graced her with its presence and did not intend to. Her eyes burned from not sleeping, but nothing brought her relief, not even sleep aids.

Wednesday ended with more waking nightmares. She felt like she was walking in and out of a dreamland. One minute everything was completely normal; the next everything was going to hell.

She moved a large arm from her midsection. She hadn’t wanted to be alone the night before. The week was starting to take its toll on her, and Victor hadn’t missed the opportunity to tell her that she looked like shit. She told him in no uncertain terms that she wasn’t in the mood for brand of honesty, deserved or not.

She quickly answered her phone when it rang, not that it would actually wake Victor. It was Jean, and she sounded perky and ready for the world, as usual. Ororo felt darkness bubble in her chest at the thought, and she just felt like telling Jean that the world wasn’t all roses and fucking puppy dogs. She didn’t know where that random hate came from. Jean wanted to meet for lunch.

“I think it would be in your best interest to stay away,” Ororo said before hanging up the phone.

- - -

He owed his benefactor a debt of gratitude. He saved his life, and he couldn’t think of a better reason to be indebted to someone. He made some stupid decisions, the stupidest was believing that someone would accept him mutation at all. He landed a “dream job,” made plans to send for his family. They would be safe now. Too bad dreams were just that.

The man who employed him before his current boss “loved” him, and he had a rapt fascination with his mutant DNA. He didn’t talk much about that period in his life, not that he had anyone to talk to about it, but he thought about it everyday.

He remembered how the former lab he worked at lay in ruins, and the bodies of countless mutants littered the floor. In their haste to get away, they left behind a mess. Equipment was smashed, and throats were slashed. They tried to burn the lab, as well, but help arrived before that. He remembered the parting words of his former employer.

“You were always my favorite,” the deep voice still rumbled in his head.

He knew that voice, but he hadn’t been able to focus at the time. A heavy hand stroked his head tenderly. He tried to pull away, but he could barely move. His head lolled backward in his drug-induced haze. His vision had blurred more as he tried to focus on the ceiling. He remembered feeling disoriented, unable to recall the last time he’d felt normal.

“Sir, we don’t have much time. They are coming!” a female voice had cried over the dull pounding in his ears. The bitter smell of death”life taken prematurely”hung heavily in the air. The smell had entered his lungs, choking him of life. He’d embraced it. During that brief time in hell, he had longed for death many days, anything that would release him from that prison.

“This will be over soon…”

He could still smell the acrid stench of chemicals burning filled his nostrils, and something cool had touched the base of his throat. He didn’t know what was happening at the time, but he’d cried anyway. After that, everything was blank, he only remembered waking up somewhere he thought he belonged. He swallowed hard. He wouldn’t think about any of that.

- - -

“Thank God, it’s Saturday,” she heard someone, a man, say behind her.

“It’s thank God, it’s Friday, asshole,” someone else said in response.

“Who gives a shit? Do you give a shit? I don’t give a shit. Thank God, it’s the fuckin’ weekend!” the man responded.

She never thought of herself as much of a drinker, but as she sat at her table downing drink after drink, she wondered if perhaps she had some kind of predisposition to alcoholism. No matter, she said to herself, as she ordered another drink. After her meeting with Sebastian, the rest of her week was… weird. So the drinking with Victor was justified… almost…

Inebriation was liberation, she remembered Shinobi telling her once a long time ago when she was young and stupid. Even now, she could remember the sweet smell of his silk sheets, how he’d poured champagne all over her body, while she muttered, “I can’t believe I’m letting you do this to me.” Ugh, the jerk, she said to herself. If she was prone to alcoholism, it was his fault, and that was that.

She felt her head spin a little, and she pressed her fingers to her temple. A fleeting thought crossed her mind, asking her what the hell she was doing. “I’m going crazy!” she said aloud, slamming her glass against the table. She thought she might be losing her mind. Things just didn’t feel right. And yesterday…Goddess, yesterday, she thought she glanced a man who looked like…

No, her mind betrayed her in her desperation, making her believe she’d seen him, reminding her of all his lies. “They don’t love you like I love you…” Son-of-a-bitch, told her what she wanted to hear and… She pulled in a calming breath. She should’ve followed the men she saw the day before, should’ve found out if it was really him. What if that had been her only chance? Did this prove she really didn’t want revenge, that she was still weak?

She swallowed hard, remembering the day before. At five, she prepared to go home as she always did, but Sebastian came out of his office, said he needed to talk to her about “business” before she left. She needed to talk to him about “business,” too. He asked her to walk with him while they talked, saying he needed to visit “the lab.”

Below the company, he housed his own million-dollar lab. In all the years she worked for him, she’d never been down there. She knew that he was always “experimenting” with something or another, but she never witnessed it firsthand. Honestly, she didn’t think she wanted to. She knew whatever went on down there couldn’t be too ethical.

In the elevator, she tried to listen to him, but she kept having visions of cramped, badly lit tunnels with dingy, blood-splattered walls. In her head, she could hear excruciating screams of agony. Her imagination was so vivid that she had visibly flinched. Sebastian asked her what was wrong, sounding almost overly concerned and she laughed it off. Nerves, she said.

When the elevator doors opened, she’d been surprised to see pristine white walls with lights bright enough to blind her. Men and women in white lab coats scurried to and fro, and it actually scared her how much the lab looked like a hospital. She chided herself silently. Why did she ever believe his million-dollar lab would look like a torture chamber out of some horror movie?

She was still slightly bothered. There was something too immaculate about it, something too perfect about the doctors. One doctor smiled at her as he walked by, the smile of faultlessness”the kind that hides all their lies. It was creepy, and she felt herself shudder a little. Maybe she would’ve felt better if the place had looked like a modern day torture chamber. Better the horror she could she than the horror she couldn’t.

Sebastian started going on and on about something he needed her to do after the Rojo mission. He didn’t get to finish because one of the lab rats said she had something important to tell him about something… She believed she heard the woman say God’s Hand…? Sebastian told her that he would be back, as he followed the woman down the hallway.

She stood there feeling out of place in her too-smart business suit, wishing that she were anywhere but there. She turned suddenly with all intentions of following Sebastian and telling him that she had better things to do, but when she turned around she nearly steamrolled some man. “Excuse me,” she’d mumbled, wondering how long he’d been standing behind her.

The hat he wore was pulled too low over his eyes for her to really see his face, but she could see that his skin was the color of bleached bone, vampire white. She felt like she was staring at a statue, and she had to fight the urge to reach out and touch his skin, to see if it was real. Lips the color of bruised cherries seemed to bleed black into his skin. If he smiled, his face would break. He couldn’t be real.

That’s when she saw the cluster of men in their white lab coats, seemingly the same in an unnerving way. Then, one looked at her for only a second. Her breath hitched, catching in her throat. Her eyes followed the group of men. It couldn’t be him. If it was him, how could he look her in the goddamn eye and keep walking as if she didn’t exist? The thought alone was enough to make her blood boil. No, couldn’t be him; she was just losing it.

She was vaguely aware that the man in the low hat was talking to her. She felt the whisper of skin against her cheek. She thought he might’ve stroked her cheek, but she was too busy staring after the men as they disappeared through a set of double doors. When she finally pulled herself out of her stupor, the pale man was gone. She thought of a particular verse from a poem she’d read when she was younger, “I think I made you up inside my head.”

She didn’t even wait for Sebastian to return. She left. She thought that if she stayed there another minute she would go completely crazy. Then, they would put her on one of those metal tables and dissect her brain. Case study number 1920151813, Ororo Munroe. She thought she might’ve been overreacting, but she couldn’t fight the feeling that something wasn’t right.

She picked up her cup, nursing the amber liquid. She was starting to feel the dizzying effects of drinking too much too fast. It wasn’t just what happened the day before that bothered her. Some unforeseen storm was brewing in the horizon. She could feel it in her bones. Sometimes, the feeling of dread would wake her at night. Many nights she would wake soaked in her own sweat, but she could never remember what she dreamed about or even if she dreamed at all.

She’d tried to explain this feeling to Victor one night when she’d jerked from her sleep, the last remnants of a dream fading with the fluttering of her eyelids. He hadn’t understood, of course, not that she expected him to. She just needed his comfort. “Go back to sleep,” he’d said. She didn’t find any comfort in his words or his arms, but she did go back to sleep, counting bodies instead of sheep.

She thought about talking to Jean. She didn’t want to bother Jean with petty problems that were probably a figment of her own imagination”some mental fabrication she’d somehow conjured up. How was she supposed to explain her feelings, anyway? They were founded on nothing but feeling. She didn’t completely trust her motives for wanting to speak to Jean about it.

Sure, she told herself that she needed to talk to someone, but deep inside, she was afraid that she wanted Jean to use her mutation to help her somehow. And what if her feelings were nothing more than just some paranoia? But what if they weren’t? What if there was some reason for them and she didn’t want Jean to know? She would not use Jean like that, anyway. Whatever was happening with her she would have to figure out on her own.

She had apologized for the snappy way she’d blown Jean off on Thursday, and Jean had just acted as if it never happened. She didn’t think her hatred was aimed at Jean in particular, though. All that day, she just felt like breaking someone’s face. She remembered how one of her coworkers told her about some random guy she hooked up with, and all she could think about was hitting her in the teeth, just to feel her knuckles slam into another person seemed to be her fascination of the day.

What the hell was wrong with her? She was starting to believe this was the worse case of PMS she’d ever had. She had to get her mind off it. “Do you ever think about what it would be like if we were enemies?” she asked Victor, silently adding, if I joined the X-Men. Not that she was seriously thinking about doing anything like that. She would rather live life finding herself for a change and not worrying about good and evil.

She saw him knit his eyebrows together, his mouth curling into a grimace, and she could almost hear him asking her what her problem was. It’s all he ever asked her lately. The fuck’s your problem? She waited, but it didn’t come. Instead, his expression changed and he said. “We can beat each other’s asses in the day time and fuck at night.”

“Why did I expect you to answer that with any semblance of sincerity? I’m just a pretty piece of flesh to you, anyway,” Ororo said, swirling the liquid in her cup. There was hunger inside of her that wanted more, that needed more. This wasn’t what she was meant to be. Her life was never supposed to fall into this mess.

And what the hell was happening to her? When did everything start going wrong? She didn’t understand. Things were so normal”well, as normal as her life would allow. She couldn’t quite pinpoint when things started becoming this mass confusion. It was all just so sudden. One week, she felt totally normal, had dreams and ambitions. And now she felt like everything was just going into some weird form of depression, and she didn’t know why. No, it definitely started after Monday. Things just got really fucked up after Monday.

It was as if the events from the day before only enhanced her bad mood, like a drug. She let her head sink to the table, her drink slipping from her hand.

There was nothing worse than going on a binger inside your boss’s personal little shop of horrors with a man who could rip your clothes off in a million different ways. She could only imagine what the bottom must really be like. “Victor,” she heard his name being purred from female lips like hot sex in the morning. Okay, so she lied. There are worse things, and Lupa was one of them.

She didn’t lift her head, hoping Lupa would find something else besides Victor to preoccupy her time, but in classic Victor style, if a woman was gushing over him, he was reveling in it. It didn’t matter, anyway, she told herself. She tapped her foot lightly against the leg of the table. The tapping only become louder, more rapid, as she listened to Lupa giggle and flirt like a schoolgirl in heat.

No, I’m not sitting, right here, she angrily said to herself. She sat up in her seat, offering her best glare to both of them. But Victor was too busy enjoying the cheap flirt. Could she really blame him? How old was Lupa again? 22? And she wasn’t a bad looking girl when she wasn’t scowling, but it was the principle of the matter. If a 22-year-old attractive man flirted with her in front of Victor… he’d be having both of their lives for dinner.

Lupa sauntered away from the table, and Ororo nearly slapped Victor when she saw him watching the back of Lupa’s leather’s pants go switching away. She kicked Victor beneath the table, and he snapped back to attention. “What?” he said. Wasn’t she the one who always said that they weren’t doing anything but having fun?

“Why don’t you two just get a room already?” Ororo said, rolling her eyes.

“I was just bein’ friendly.”

“Sure, you were. You could at least wait to flirt with her when I’m not around. Show a little restraint, huh?” He had such a dirty, one-track mind. But wasn’t that what attracted her to him, anyway? So, could she really be angry with him? It wasn’t as if she was surprised by his actions, but she did expect a certain level of subtleness that he obviously didn’t have.

She fingered the mouth of her glass when Victor excused himself to do Goddess knows what. She guessed to bang the bitch in the back room, but she realized she wouldn’t be so lucky when she saw Lupa coming her away. Their eyes locked and she saw mischief and malice there. The girl was up to something.

She sighed internally when Lupa made herself comfortable in the seat that Victor had just abandoned. No good could come of this. No good at all. But she was the veteran here. She’d been around long enough to know better. Lupa placed her drink on the table, locking her fingers. They sat not saying anything at all each other.

“So,” Lupa started. She unlaced her fingers, blatantly picking up Victor’s bottle of beer. Ororo watched as she put her lips to it slowly. Ororo could feel her anger like bile rising in her throat, but she was better than a few cheap shots. “How long do you really think you can hang on to Victor?”

Ororo wanted to tell her to enjoy the drink, considering where Victor’s mouth had been only hours earlier, but she wouldn’t stoop to her level, yet. “If you think you’re going to get me riled up over Victor, you’re wrong. Such games should be left at the schoolyard with the rest of the children.”

Ororo knew she wasn’t very old, but she was years older than Lupa, had seen more life than Lupa had. She wondered if the girl could really see how ridiculous and petty all this was. They were falling into the stereotypical roles of two women fighting over a man, something that was associated with women, a reputation well-deserved at times.

She wouldn’t fight the girl over Victor. There were more important things in life worth fighting for, but Lupa was still young and far too inexperienced to realize that.

“I thought you would’ve come back with a better comeback than that,” but her words were a little angrier. Ororo knew how much Lupa hated it when she didn’t respond with the “proper” amount of anger. “I’m starting to think you really don’t care one way or another.”

Ororo shrugged off Lupa’s subtle threat. It would be silly for her to say that there wasn’t a certain level emotion there for Victor. She realized this, even if she chose to ignore it. He wasn’t some one-night stand that she could sleep with and forget about the next day. Whatever she felt for Victor was based on physical yearning. It had nothing to do with what her heart felt was right.

She couldn’t keep Lupa from pursuing Victor, and she could keep Victor tethered down, if that’s what he wanted. It wouldn’t be the end of the world. She may be a little hurt by it, but she would move on to the next chapter in her life. She was still allowed her anger, though, and Lupa was really starting to piss her off.

“You can believe what makes you feel validated. I don’t know need validation from you, Victor, or anyone else to substantiate myself.” Ororo said, leaning forward. Surprisingly, this little “exchange” with Lupa was making her head feel a little clearer.

She could feel Lupa’s anger against her skin. “You think you’re so superior, you””

Ororo cut her off, staring in her eyes coldly. “I believe we’ve had this conversation before. If this is the extent of your conversation, please, feel free to excuse yourself.” Ororo felt the slight movement under the table, moving her leg to block Lupa’s foot before she could push the chair over. Funny how attuned she was to that. When she was that age, she might’ve done the same thing. Lupa narrowed her eyes at Ororo.

“Dismissed.” Ororo said, her stare never faltering. The girl stood from her chair, and Ororo was actually a little disappointed that Lupa hadn’t tested her further. Perhaps, she was smarter than Ororo gave her credit for.

“Oh, and Lupa,” she said, grabbing the girl’s arm before she could escape. “Play pussy, and you’ll get fucked.” Ororo said sweetly, like a mother speaking to her favorite child. Lupa snatched her arm from Ororo, her eyes burning into Ororo.

“What was that all about?” Victor asked, as Lupa pushed past him, nearly causing him to drop a cup of something.

“Nothing.” Ororo muttered. Tonight, she traded insults with a “colleague.” Tomorrow, she was having dinner at the mansion. The story of her life.

- - -

He focused in on the main object of his hate, Sebastian Shaw. Sebastian Shaw was playing with fire. That didn’t surprise him, but Sebastian knew about his past with Ororo. Sebastian knew he had much to do with the events that led to him leaving Ororo. He didn’t believe that Sebastian had forgotten that. He sure as hell hadn’t, but maybe he was so insignificant in Sebastian’s eyes that he’d forgotten how he’d screwed him all those years ago.

Or maybe this was part of some sick game that Sebastian was still playing. Ororo obviously didn’t know the part Sebastian played or maybe she did know Sebastian’s version of the events. He couldn’t be sure what kind of twisted games he’d played with Ororo. He saw the shock in her face when she saw him in the lab. He looked her in the eyes, but he pretended not to know her, turned away from her. He expected her to come running after him, but she didn’t. He didn’t know whether he felt relief or disappointment.

He suggested they take the project to Sebastian because Sebastian had money, and Sebastian could make it happen. Besides, they needed a fool. If anything went wrong, Sebastian would be blamed. At least, that’s what he told his employer. For him, it was the perfect opportunity to destroy Sebastian’s empire from the ground up. He took comfort in the fact that Sebastian’s greed would be his downfall.

He hadn’t expected her to be there, hadn’t even known she worked for him until the day he met Sebastian personally. He didn’t think that Sebastian was stupid enough to make her aware of his presence… or maybe that was a smart move by Sebastian. Depends on how you look at it. She was his pawn, his security, but he would amend his strategy, keeping her in mind. His plans would not be averted. Sebastian had his coming. But he couldn’t think about her, either. He needed his concentration.

“I’m taking mutant evolution to the next level, beyond the next level. To create a race of mutants far superior to humans, to their fellow mutants, this is God’s Hand. This is God’s will. Phase one has begun.” His benefactor said, entering the room with false grandeur. Phase one? They didn’t even have a “subject,” yet.

Then, he remembered he’d spied him with Ororo the day before. “What have you done?” he asked the man, but his answer was only an ominous smile, a smile that spoke many volumes. Not Ororo, he said silently to himself.

- - -

Author’s Notes: Song used 10th Man Down by Nightwish. This chapter turned out to be mega long (try 10,000 words), so I had to split in two parts.

Too many Fight Club (Tyler Durden is my hero), APC, Belle & Sebastian, and Emiliana Torrini influences this chapter. Oh yes, Rob Dougan is love, people… Poem mentioned is Sylvia Plath’s Mad Girl’s Love Song.

I’m glad you all like the Ro/Vic interactions. I’ll see what I can do about giving you all more insight on the relationship without compromising the integrity of the growing RoLo.

Thanks for your review, Draconian Bitchess. I’m too lazy to write out most accents, especially Rogue’s (hey, I’m Southern, deep south Southern at that, and I just don’t like to write it out) and Logan’s.

But for some reason I’ll write out a Cajun accent all day long. I blame this on my friend Nick who has a Cajun accent, just love the way he says New Orleans (Nawlins). That’s why I usually leave a disclaimer stating such, forgot to this time, but maybe, I’ll be less lazy for part two. Special thanks to Sparkle for trying to make me understand what a daymare was like. :)





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