Updated May 31st 2016
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Leaning against the fantastically cool metal bars of my prison cell, my head rested on the steel as I rolled the object between my fingers. I looked up slowly to meet the signature dark and round eyes of the person who I was expecting to see.
His appearance was utterly disheveled, a trail of blood was drying on the collar of his rather dusty and dirty shirt. The puncture was caused by the rather thick-tipped dart that had stuck his neck. I returned his smile halfheartedly.
"You okay?" Peter mouthed to me as he tilted his head, reminding me of a curious puppy. I wasn't sure if I wanted to hit him upside the head or hug him, either way our distance apart presented a small issue.
"Of course I'm not okay." I mouthed back with my eyebrows knitted together, but he only grinned at me like he had won some small victory by getting me to notice him. I shook my head against the bars looking down, not able to keep a small smile from my own lips, that kind of thing; a simple smile, was contagious. Especially at a time and place such as this.
"How long?" I asked eventually. I was tapping my wrist to indicate time.
"A day... two." He replied wavering his hand in the air to indicate that the given time was a rough estimate. I nodded and rested back against the bars, keeping my gaze on Peter this time.
At least I knew that he was okay and that he wasn't being poked and prodded off on some crazy scientists lab table.
He was technically next to my own little "cage", one of the guards pathways is what was lay in between us. Even though I was leaning on the side closest to him the walkway created an even bigger gap than if he had been on my left. I watched him do a kind of shuffle-scoot over to the bars closest to me and that was when I realized his wrists were bound, not in the usual crude cloth or zip-ties like that I had seen on various other people, but actual chains.
"Why?" I mouthed again, too afraid to make any actual sounds. I pointed to his wrists. He shrugged, but I knew that he had an idea as to why he was deemed "dangerous" enough to get chains. Not the great thick ones you would see restraining some great giant, but they were still chains nonetheless and made me twitch with slight anger.
"How do we get out of this Josie?" He said in barely a whisper after a long silence, during which I had lowered my gaze. the softness of his tone made my heart sink and my eyes left the small crack on the floor to meet his gaze.
"I don't know." Where the only words I dared to speak aloud. Suddenly a harsh bell rung over the vast room of quiet imprisonment. There was the metallic grinding of a heavy door opening accompanying footsteps and my breath picked up as I searched Peters eyes for some kind of long distance protection I did not know if I would get or not.
"You tied?" He asked, casting a small glance toward the source of the noise, seeing the panic in my eyes as he still tried to be as quiet as he could be.
I shook my head.
"Then kick these guy's ass" he said with a fraction more volume than I would have liked.
Dull eyes and mechanical heads turned toward the doors at the end of the walk way. Ten people in crisp white uniforms walked in at a brisk pace, breaking off to go down different aisles and stopping at various cells. Including mine.
It was a woman who stopped at mine. She had her hair put in a very nurse-like and neat updo. She wore a white cap and kept her eyes down from mine as though she were trying not to startle me.
"Come on love, up you go." She said leaning down to get me up. Her voice was high pitched and soft like talking to a child. I noted her light English accent. I stumbled to my feet. Like everyone else, I was confused. These people didn't seem malicious they seemed gentle and patient.
"Where are you taking her?" I heard Peter demand, his was voice urgent and stiff, the only voice to cut through the entire hall.
People in their cells shifted their gaze to him in random clusters. Like moths just noticing a light. I froze halfway through standing and watched him as well.
"Don't you take her" he said with a warning beginning to panic, struggling with the chains that bound him. I saw them drop to the ground with a loud crash. His eyes were ablaze with an emotion I understood through my mutation, but I could not put to proper words. The closest thing I could think of was a mix of fear, panic and desperation.
"Cell 52, turn on cell 52" the woman said in a louder but controlled voice toward a security person across the hall, he flipped a switch that insistently created a green current through the metal bars of Peter's cell.
"She will be all right dear" the woman I read to be Jenny said.
"Where are you taking me?" I asked slowly, not losing eye contact with Peter.
"Just come along, love, everything will be alright" Jenny said kindly.
I then began to get a rotting feeling in my stomach. It didn't make sense. Why take only some of us? it all seemed too specific. when I tried resisting her grip only hardened on my arm creating a surprisingly strong vice-like hold on me.
She guided me by my arm as if she were helping a person to walk again. Peter began shouting at her, desperately trying to escape the confines of his cell. I was obviously missing some important key here because I didn't understand Peter's panic. He knew something I did not and it scared me.
"Take care of him please" Jenny said softly to a blue-vested guard as we passed him.
"No, Josephine, wait!" was the last painful thing I heard before the heavy doors were shut.
I ripped myself from Jenny's hands for a few short seconds and turn back to catch a small glimpse of Peter before the doors shut entirely. I saw a group of people crowd around him before my view was completely blocked. With shaking hands I refused to move past that point unless I got answers.
"What are you going to do with him?" I asked.
"It's alright dear, he'll be fine. I promise he wont be hurt, he's done nothing wrong. But you need to come along dear."
Along with the 5 others, I reluctantly was led at the front of a single-file line down new and better kept passageways compared to the ones I had been dragged through upon my arrival. I was trying not to panic and was struggling to maintain a steady breath with every step that I took. my mind raced with options: to lash out, break down, to cause some kind of a scene to get the attention I really needed to finally get my questions answered.
"Here we are" Jenny said, smiling at me as she held a pristine white door open for me.
"What did you do with him, with Peter" I asked again bluntly in a low voice before I was going to step a foot in that room, I had managed to find an ounce of courage in my mind, enough to try my hand at intimidation, seeing as though nothing else I was doing seemed to be working. I had to look down to meet her eye since she was a good three or four inches shorter than me.
"Young love never lasts dear trust me and as I said, he will not be hurt" She tutted, patting my arm as she half shoved me through the door.
While her hands were still on my back I grabbed her wrists and slammed her into the nearby wall, pinning her there easily due to her minuscule size, my forearm was against her throat. I didn't care about the others that were behind us.
"I don't give a fuck what you have to say about relationships" I said quietly with a strenuous calm to my voice. "I didn't ask about our future together did I? I asked about where he is right now." I whispered leaning into her windpipe only slightly.
"Now now Josephine, is that anyway to treat such a kind soul?" A rather collected man said,with a smooth english accent said, standing to my right.
My eyes didn't move from Nurse Jenny's for another five seconds and I pushed her away from me and she collapsed to the ground, unharmed but hacking and coughing. She was fine for the most part. If anything, there might be a bruise or two. the fear that was still in my veins still has my hands shaking my the small adrenaline rush had my heart racing.
Turning to face the person who had spoken, I was greeted by a man who was in his early forties, forty-one to be exact, though he looked rather good for his age.
"Who are you?" I asked starting to get tired of having to ask all these questions. But for once this was a question I could answer for myself
"Not an enemy" He said and I narrowed my eyes, but a few milliseconds allowed me to see that he wasn't entirely wrong, nor was he right.
"No really, I'm a mutant as well" He said thinking he needed to prove himself. He held his hand palm facing up in demonstration and I felt the opal ring that I had always worn on my right hand, get tugged off, fly gently through the air and settle nicely in his outstretched hand. "My name is Erik."
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A/N: guys... I'm and idiot... So I totally have the plot all figured out already for this book but I had forgotten about magneto.... I feel ridiculous anyway Thanks for the love!
Question of the day: who's your favorite X-man?
Mine? I've said it before, its Colossus but I also really like Iceman.... mostly because he has the exact same name as my father! Robert Drake... freaky huh? But he's also a pretty good dude.