Gambit's thoughts, Gambit's memories were
rising with the tide, they were fighting to be recognised, to be given
cognition, but she was fighting back, she was fighting to ignore them, she
didn’t want to know, she had never wanted to know, but his personality was so
strong, so insistent, and she'd only stolen so very little…
Rogue
ignored him with an effort and vaulted the length of the Hound pen's perimeter
fence with all the graceful poise he possessed, clean, effortless - her limbs
had never felt this supple, this agile. It was so easy, so beautiful to be like
him, to move like him… She landed inside
the enclosure, her heart pumping painfully in her chest. Dread, anxiety, exhilaration, passion… too
many conflicting emotions, so much inside her it was going to burst…
Rogue
ran to the nearest building and crouched down low by the wall. She had all of two minutes to get out of
there before the next guard came round on his circuit, but her mind was
swimming, he was dragging her down and a part of her wanted to be dragged down
with him…
I'm an expert at compartmentalisation…
You don’t know who I am, chere. You don’t know what I want, you can't give it
to me and you just don’t get it…
One day I'll work out just exactly why
you keep me around…
I love you, Rogue.
She
resurfaced on a breath, shuddering, quaking, pushing him away. One and a half minutes left. She hugged herself tight, feeling her flesh
goosepimple under the bodysuit, feeling her skin crawl with perverse delight.
She
knew how he felt. She knew…
“Go
away,” she whispered.
One
minute and counting.
You're de flame and I'm de moth…
“Go away,” she hissed under her breath.
Silence.
He
was gone.
Rogue
opened her eyes and got to her feet, her ears pricking at footfalls in the snow
and she hoisted herself up onto a nearby windowsill, swinging up elegantly onto
the roof of the building just as the guard walked past down below her.
She
stretched out, stomach-first, on the flat gravel roof and caught her
breath. The stream of memories was
quieting; his powers were fading. He'd
got her across the fence and into the Hound grounds, but already the codes to
the pens were evaporating.
She
squeezed her eyes shut and sifted through his remaining memories, forcing
herself into the calm composure Mystique had so impressed upon her, but it was
an inhuman effort this time to stay in control.
And despite the fact that his personality was disappearing, he was still
so strong…
Forget de codes, chere. You don’t need 'em. Best t'ing is to draw Rachel to us.
“But
it's dangerous…” she whispered.
Whole fuckin' t'ing was dangerous from de
get-go, chere. I know what you're gonna
do, and you gotta do it before Mystique comes and screws t'ings up for us. Cut all de loose ends, Rogue, we don't need
'em no more. Bring Rachel to us.
“Remy…
Ah'm scared…”
No need to be, not anymore. Focus.
We're gonna get through dis together.
Trust me, chere, gambits are what I'm good at. Just come back to me in one piece…
“Ah
will…”
Silence
again, this time as hollow and empty as she had felt the day she'd woken up
from her coma and thought him dead. He
was gone, and so were his powers, his memories, the codes he'd charmed from
Anton Simmons' secretary the night before.
She couldn’t get in the pens now.
She had no choice.
She
stood, and this time the calm wasn’t a front.
She knew exactly what she had to.
She was resolved to it.
She
closed her eyes, cleared her mind, opened it wide in the way Xavier had once
taught her.
Rachel, it's Rogue. Ah'm here.
Come an' get me.
She
opened her eyes again - the world was still and silent about her, not a sound
to be heard on the horizon, a quietness that would have unnerved a soul less
brave than she.
Rachel, Ah'm outside. Do your job, come out and get me.
Can
telepaths read your mind if you think loud enough? She'd never been able to work it out, but it
was the only strategy she had left.
There was little time left to think now.
She jumped off the roof, missing Remy's fluid agility as she did
so. To have had it now would've been a
blessing, but she had to make do with what she had. She ran between the buildings, her boots crunching
in soft, fresh snow, her breath catching in the air, thick and tangible, life
itself…
Rachel…
Could
she be heard?
Rachel…
There
was a faint sound in the distance, the howl of something human and yet not so,
curdling Rogue's blood, making her halt in her tracks and crouch low against a
wall, sandwiched in-between two low buildings.
At the end of the alley she could see it - the entrance to the compound,
the guard-post rising up out of the snow, looking out over the main gates. If she went out into the open now, she would
be spotted. It didn’t matter which way
she did it, to go out there would be tantamount to suicide, but if it was the
only way to draw her quarry to her so be it.
Rachel, Ah'm out front, come an' get me…
That
sound again, closer, a howl of pain and rage and suffering and torment, and
Rogue blanched, recognising the sound, recognising it in her own self…
It
was the sound of the screams she heard in her head every night.
And
then there were more of them. More and
more, yelps and howls and screams echoing about the barracks… The battle cries
of the Hounds, the cries that made every mutant quake with a fear that touched
their very soul. They could feel her,
they could sense her, they could taste her, they were on the hunt, they were
searching for their prey, thirsting for the kill…
Ah've drawn the whole fuckin' lot out…
Her
mind was searing white-hot, throbbing with a hideous intensity behind her eyes,
telling her to cringe and hide; but she was running into the light, towards the
cold expanse of snow, and destiny, Fate, it was all rushing towards her on some
great tide, and she was screaming, over and over…
RACHEL!
She
was racing for the gate. She didn’t know
how or why - the muscles in her legs were bunching and releasing like the
wiring and circuitry of a cold automaton and as she ran she could hear the wail
of a klaxon begin to rise; they'd detected her, they knew she was here…
Thudding
in the snow behind her, little earthquakes pounding away, thick and fast,
drawing closer… she couldn’t outrun them… She knew it, this was suicide; her
gambit, their gambit had failed…
Whup!
Something
red-hot and sharp had slammed into her back, or so she thought; there was no
pain, just the stark sensation of impact, and she tumbled to the ground
face-first. She gasped for breath,
tasting snow and grit in her mouth, spitting it out, only just managing to
swivel round onto her back, her eyes blinded by sunlight…
Too
late. A shape was flying through the
air, obscuring the sun, a grotesque shadow, human-shaped, no… animal-shaped,
pouncing… What did they do to you…?
She
couldn’t roll away in time. The thing
landed on her with an almighty impact that forced the wind out of her. The body was hard, muscular, solid sinew
working with the titanic force of boulders rolling downhill, crashing into
every obstacle in their path, and no matter how much she struggled it was like
fighting a living, breathing monolith.
There was the hideous cacophony of human baying encircling her, buzzing
through her ears with bloodthirsty clarity and she knew with certainty that the
Hounds were around her, that they were calling Ahab to them, to the kill.
The
glare of the sunlight was fading and she blinked once, twice, her breath
burning in her lungs. There was a face
in front of her - snarling, contorted, every inch the face of the beast; but,
to her horror, it was human…
It
was Rachel.
Rogue
stopped. Everything stopped. The insular, sullen, pretty little face now
maimed, etched with ugly black scars, the stamp of Ahab's property; the once
long, wavy red locks shorn to the scalp; the studded dog collar marking her out
as nothing more than a mere animal, a beast, a nothing.
We are the faceless and the formless,
wanting to become something complete and beautiful and whole, striving to
become human…
“Rachel…”
Rogue breathed, her voice thin, hoarse, barely more than a whisper, and yet she
needed to reach out to her, reach out to the girl that lay hidden within this
monster, at every cost she must…
But
there was no recognition in the twisted face, and this time Rogue felt small
hard fingers gripping her neck, pressing into her throat… But she had to try…
“Rachel…”
The
face spasmed, only briefly, before erupting, flame-like, into the snarling,
spitting, all-consuming rage Rogue had only seen before once, in the eyes of
Anton Simmons. The next thing she knew
she was being lifted clean off her feet, and the Hounds were baying for her
blood, triumph and greed in their voices, calling for their master, calling for
him to come… She couldn’t allow it. She had
to break Rachel's bonds, but those talons were still around her throat, and
stars were puncturing her eyesight, she couldn’t see, she couldn’t breathe…
Rachel, it's me, please, open your eyes,
your mind, your heart, everything you have, please break out of it!
The
growl that emanated from Rachel's throat was that of the wolf. A second later she had flung Rogue aside with
the gesture of having flung nothing more than a rag-doll - Rogue sailed through
the air, grasping at nothing, stopping only when she felt her back slam with
all the strength of a hurricane against the pen's perimeter gates, metal
buckling behind her with the force of the collision, splintering, giving
way… She was crashing through the gates,
back into the snow, cushioned only by the twisted metal debris, and she felt
something long and hard press against her thigh, puncture it, sliding in smooth
and liquid… molten lava boring its way into her bones, her flesh; veins and
nerves and tendons and atoms erupting as the metal impaled her… …
For
the first time she screamed.
Somewhere
inside the maelstrom of pain she was seized again and flung aside; but she
could barely register it, her mind was still seething with the agony of her
injury. She only vaguely felt herself
colliding with the trunk of some tree, heard the distant whooping of the Hounds
that were still gathered inside the gates watching on from the sidelines, and
her body, slumping into the snow, buckling over the gnarled and twisted roots
of trees, retching, bringing up nothing, sick with a nausea that was surging
through every fibre of her body…
She
felt hands on her collar again, the same small hands that had cradled the head
of the dying Xavier, no tenderness now, no softness. Rachel was the cat and Rogue was the
mouse. This was sport to the Hound -
when Ahab came, he would be the one
to make the kill.
So
precious little time…
Time…
“Rachel…”
Hit them wit' a memory. Any memory dat means somet'ing to them. Better still, hit them wit' as many as you
can. It confuses them, it breaks them…
And somehow it was spilling out…
“It's
Rogue, Rachel. It’s me. Don’t you remember? We were X-Men once. Remember?”
Her
vision shifted, focused slowly - Rachel's face was within inches of hers, the
scarred face seething, frothing, no recollection, nothing behind the rage…
She
dragged the words out of her mouth, syllable by painful syllable.
“Storm…
no… the Christmas party. We were at the
Christmas party… Storm and
The elf likes you kiddo, but you better
watch out… Rogue can get very possessive of her darlin' brother…
She
couldn’t help it. The wetness was
already spilling out of her eyes and onto her cheeks, for everything she had
lost, for everything she had sacrificed, and Rachel's face was contorting with
disgust… A split second later Rogue had been kicked aside, and when she rolled
over onto her back she was on the slope once more, she could see the great
canopies of trees above her, the calm repose of the forest…
Rachel
was standing over her, looking down on her with the bloody grimace of a hunter
closing in on its prey. Rogue tried to
drag herself up into a sitting position, her broken leg blazing, protesting
wildly at every movement, but it didn’t matter.
The moment she made signs of getting up Rachel was upon her again,
pressing her back down into the snow with the taut strength of her body, and…
Thunk.
The
head-butt knocked Rogue onto her back, and the world was yellow, fading in and
out of focus, and there was blood in her mouth… She swallowed back the bile in
her throat, her hands clawing, her arm coming up, her elbow suddenly driving
against Rachel's throat, holding her back…
“Ah
don’t wanna fight you, Rachel…”
Her
voice was broken, pitiful, she didn’t even recognise it anymore…
“Okay,
so we weren't ever friends, but we were comrades… The things we saw… the things
we did… The experiences we had together…”
Rachel
was snarling, but she held her back, held her back with the last bit of
strength she possessed…
Hit them wit' a memory…
It
was all flashing in front of her, her life, the lives of so many, the lives of
the psyches in her head, an infinite stream such as the one she had seen the
moment she'd absorbed Irene's powers, too thick, too fast to pinpoint anything
of any use, but all of a sudden there was someone, there was something…
“Xavier,”
she spat out on a laboured breath. “Xavier… They killed him… Ahab was in on it…
He let them kill Xavier… You were there, Rachel… Ah saw you… You saw them kill
Xavier… He was beggin' them for peace, but they shot him down instead, right
before your eyes… No kid should've had to see that… But you stayed with him…
You stayed with him till Ahab came for you…”
No
recognition, no acknowledgement on the disfigured face; it was snapping,
snarling, but Rogue held it back, searching, scrabbling for a memory, willing it to work…
“Jean
Grey… Your mom. She gave you your
favourite pair of earrings for your…your ninth birthday. Studs like little red stars. Ah never saw you without them. They reminded you of her, didn’t they? After she died. Because you didn’t have anythin' else except
a whole bunch of twisted memories and regrets that you could never change… And
those earrings, they stayed with you, they never changed, they never made you
feel bad about the way things turned out, they were your lucky charm, something
you could remember her by… Ah know. Ah
know, because Ah did the same… Ah hoarded my memories and my little good luck
charm because they were the only things that kept me goin'…” Her vision was
fading again and she raised her head to the sky, closed her eyes and said; “But
it doesn’t change anythin', does it?
We're still broken. You can't get
your mom back, not ever. And Ah can't
get Xavier or his dream back. Ah can't
bring my brother back to life. Ah can't
be innocent anymore, Ah can't start over with the man Ah love and pretend that
either of us are the people we used to be.
The old Rogue's gone. The old Rachel's
gone. But we have a chance, Rae. You just haveta break free…”
There
she'd said it. She'd said it all - and
yet somehow she knew that it would never be enough. Because she didn’t know enough about Rachel;
she'd never cared enough to know. They had
never confided in one another; there was no memory that Rogue could pull from
the past that would ever be enough to break these bonds. She saw that now.
She
was going to die.
Her
hold broke. She felt it give way under
the irresistible pressure of Rachel's own body, felt the vice-like grip of the
Hound on her arm, and then a jerk of the hand and her left shoulder dislocated
like a twig from a branch; she gasped, pain flooding her senses - coloured
lights were flaring across her eyeballs… And the sickening crack of a boot heel
in her ribs, her body rolling into cold, wet, slushy snow, all the fight gone
out of her…
At
last, it was all going to end, it was going to be the way she'd always wanted
it to be. She was going to be free…
Like hell you are.
Her
eyes flew open.
“Remy?”
He's still there…
Behind
her she heard the heavy fall of Rachel's footsteps, closing in on her, second
by precious second...
I'm not lettin' you walk away wit'out
puttin' up a proper fight first, girl.
Been watchin' over you for years, Rogue, and dere's no way you're dyin'
on my watch, not if I've got any say in it.
Forget Rachel now, p'tit. You
only got one option left. You know what
to do. Do it.
He
was already swimming away, back into the depths of her consciousness - but she
needed no more prompting. Just as she
heard Rachel pounce she swivelled round onto her back, her wounds no longer any
obstacle for what she knew she had to
do.
“Ah'm
sorry, Rachel!” she cried, and the moment unfurled before her eyes, millisecond
by millisecond, dragged out into a seeming eternity, and again she had that
feeling, the overwhelming, innate feeling that this moment had always existed - Rachel coming towards
her, her reaching out with her right arm; touching the strange, disfigured face,
flesh-to-flesh contact, and realising that the Hound was human, she was human…
Their
eyes met, and for the first time there was something in that feral stare, a
begging, a pleading, saying… Saying what?
Yes.
Do it.
Save me.
Had there been no other confirmation in that one
stare, Rogue would have done it anyway.
One
deep breath and she pulled.
* * * * *
Go to Chapter 23 : Go to Chapter 25