Wolverine frowned, thoughts racing.
“You can’t actually believe him?” the Widow asked incredulously. “Logan, I saw Sabretooth kill those people. So did Cassidy.”
Wolverine remained silent until Cassidy finally spoke up.
“Logan?” Banshee said.
“Got a little problem, Irish,” Wolverine said. “See, me an’ Creed go back a long way. I know him better than anybody, maybe. He ain’t afraid o’ anyone or anything. You heard him crowin’ about his kills. If he did this thing, he’d want us to know it. He’s got no reason to lie.”
Before anyone could respond, the door opened noisily once more. Five guards came in, heavily armed, boots clacking on the floor. Sabretooth stiffened, growling as electricity shot suddenly through his body. The guards waited patiently until Creed slumped down again, then they released his restraints from the wall, their weapons trained on him at all times. He was escorted from the room, and Logan could see that he was in no shape to fight back.
Wraith stepped in.
“You heard?” Wolverine asked, though it wasn’t really a question.
“We heard,” Wraith replied.
“He didn’t do it,” Logan said. “You know him.”
“Two eyewitnesses said he did. Reliable ones.”
“So what now?” the Widow asked angrily. “What happens now that you know? Now that the senator gets to have his revenge?”
Wraith lowered his eyes a moment.
“Sabretooth will be tortured to death in punishment,” he explained. “The rest of you aren’t guilty of anything, really. So your deaths will be painless.”
“Why that’s mighty nice o’ you, John,” Wolverine sneered. “Thanks so much.”
Wraith lifted his head, all trace of regret gone from his face.
“Don’t mention it.”
* * *
“Well, that’s it, then,” the Black Widow said.
Logan looked up at her, frowning. “That’s what?”
“Who knows how much time we have? An hour? Minutes?” she went on. “If we don’t get out of this right now, we’ll all be executed. Not to mention that we can’t just let them murder Sabretooth, no matter what he’s done.”
“I gotta be honest with you,” Wolverine said, glancing around the room. “The idea o’ Sabretooth bein’ tortured does have a certain appeal. An’ I ain’t gonna shed any tears if somebody wants to execute him for bein’ a homicidal maniac. That’s only a matter o’ time, you want my opinion.”
His gaze stopped on Mystique’s yellow eyes.
“But nice as that all sounds, I don’t feel right about lettin’ him die for somethin’ he didn’t do,” Logan said, eyes narrowing. “If he’s gonna fry, Raven, it shouldn’t be for your crimes.”
“What?” Maverick snapped.
“Come on, kid, who else could it have been?” Wolverine drawled. “Irish and the Widow saw Creed do the killin’ but Creed says he didn’t do it.”
“Aye,” Banshee said, nodding. “I’ve been wonderin’ why Mystique was so passionate in Sabretooth’s defense. I figured that was the answer.”
“I don’t understand,” the Widow said, turning her head to look at Mystique. “With all the death you’ve been responsible for, all the horrible things you’ve done, why hide this one crime? What difference would it make?”
Mystique hung next to Cassidy on the wall opposite where Logan and the Widow were restrained. The side wall between them, across from the door, was where Sabretooth had been held before his removal. Now, Maverick was the sole prisoner clamped to that wall. Wolverine worried about him, but when David North grew angry, a fire blazed in his eyes that Logan didn’t think the Legacy Virus could ever snuff out.
“There’s no love lost between me and Creed, lady,” he said to Mystique, “but I’m with the Widow. Why bother pinning it on him? They’re gonna kill us all anyway.”
Mystique’s frown gave way to a thin, cruel smile. She snickered softly, shaking her head as much as she was able, considering her restraints.
“Not that it’s anybody’s business,” she said, “but that was a long time ago. Can you blame me for wanting to put it behind me?”
“So you pick now to turn over a new leaf?” Maverick sneered. “You’ve done a lot of killing over the years, Mystique. I don’t buy any of this.”
Wolverine heard Maverick’s words, but he wasn’t listening. He was concentrating on Mystique’s face, on her reactions. And he thought he understood.
“It was murder,” Logan said. “That’s right, ain’t it, Raven? It was murder, and you don’t like bein’ a murderer, do you?”
“Of course it was murder, Logan!” Cassidy snapped. “Are ye daft?”
But Wolverine ignored him. Ignored them all. When Mystique looked up and met his gaze, he knew he was right.
“I’ve killed,” she admitted. “Of course I have. But there was always a reason. I killed for a cause, or to protect myself, or the secrets entrusted to me when I worked for the Mossad and other agencies. I can live with that.”
“What makes this any different?” the Widow asked. “You had your orders, and you carried them out.”
“Maybe it’s a fine line,” Mystique replied. “But that was different from the others. I’m not a killer for hire or some homicidal lunatic. But that night I killed for nothing. Just because I’d been told to do it.”
“That is a pretty fine line,” Maverick said.
Logan stared at Mystique, then looked, one by one, at the others, his gaze finally coming to rest on Maverick.
“Don’t tell me you believe that crap?” Maverick asked, scowling at Wolverine. “I don’t know what her game is, but Mystique’s always been hard core, Logan. Don’t buy into this.”
“What difference does it make?” Cassidy asked. “It isn’t going to get us out of here any faster. We should be focusing on that.”
Wolverine knew Cassidy was right, but he also knew that he had to give Maverick an answer. It seemed important, somehow. And no matter what Wolverine, or Maverick, thought of Mystique, he had spent the past few days getting to know her better than he’d ever wanted to.
“I don’t know what to believe,” he finally admitted, eyes flicking back and forth between Mystique and Maverick. “But I do know what we were sayin’ before is true. We’ve all changed. Doesn’t excuse the past, but maybe it makes it a little harder to judge what happened then. We all done things we ain’t proud of. Instead o’ worryin’ about the old days, I’d say we oughta be concerned about the next few minutes.”
The silence-that followed was agreement enough.
“You’ve all been here longer than Mystique and me,” Wolverine added after a moment. “I don’t suppose anyone’s figured a way outta here?”
Natasha had, in fact, been trying desperately to escape. She had been trained as a gymnast and a dancer from childhood, and between missions for S.H.I.E.L.D. and running around with the Avengers and the Champions, she had continued to hone those skills.
Since the moment she’d been shackled to the wall, the Widow had spent all but her few minutes’ rest shifting her body, working her muscles, wrenching her bones, trying to slip out of her restraints. She was human, after all, and they wouldn’t be nearly as worried about her as they would about the mutants. After all, they had every piece of information imaginable on the former members of Team X. Wraith and his employers knew the limits of the others, except perhaps for Cassidy.
And one other. For when they had abducted the Black Widow, they had no idea what they were getting themselves into.
Natasha struggled against her bonds once again.
“If I could only get a little slack …” she began, then paused in midsentence and glanced to her right, where Wolverine hung beside her. “They overheard us discussing Creed. We’re being monitored even now, right?”
Wolverine gave a slight nod. “What if I could give you what you need?” he asked.
“Then I have a few ideas,” she replied.
Logan smiled. Wraith and his pals had it all worked out, or at least they thought they did. Maverick’s powers weren’t too useful in trying to get out of this mess. Cassidy and Mystique couldn’t use their genetic gifts. The Widow didn’t have any special powers, and Wolverine, well, his enhanced senses and his healing factor wouldn’t have gotten them out anyway.
But the claws? It wasn’t as if the dampener locked around his neck could make them disappear. Instead, Wraith had made sure his hands were clamped at such an angle that he couldn’t possibly slash into the wall to which his restraints were anchored, or into the restraints themselves.
He looked at them each in turn. Met their eyes, let them know that a plan was coalescing, and that they should be ready for action. Maverick nodded. Cassidy closed his eyes in acknowledgment. Mystique smiled. Then Wolverine looked at the Widow.
“Ready?” he whispered.
She looked at him curiously, then nodded.
Natasha didn’t know what Wolverine had in mind, but she hoped it wasn’t something completely insane. As if he had sensed the direction of her thoughts, Wolverine turned and smiled at her.
“Trust me?” he asked.
“Oh, completely,” she lied, returning the smile.
“Smart lady,” he replied.
Then his face began to change. The smile disappeared as his lips pulled back into a grimace, then a snarl. Muscles rippled in his neck and shoulders and his left arm—the one closest to her. She looked up as best she could, given how firmly she was restrained, and saw his fingers protruding from the open top of his restraints. But he could never get his hand out. There wasn’t room. Not even enough room for him to push through so that his wrist was free.
Natasha glanced at the door. Any moment now, Wraith and the others would come through. They couldn’t all be watching Creed be tortured. Wraith would have posted a guard, no question.
“Saints, Logan, what’re ye—” Cassidy began, but Maverick hissed him into silence.
The Widow looked at Wolverine again, and her heart skipped a beat in her chest. Blood ran freely down Logan’s left arm from inside his restraints. Sweat had popped out on his forehead, and his face had changed even more, not the way a shapeshifter like Mystique might change. No, this was completely natural. But his face now was more like an animal than a man, and his eyes were no longer focused on her. They burned with a rage she had no desire to look at for long.
Lubricated by his own blood, and with a final, massive thrust, Wolverine’s left hand popped out of the top of his restraints to the wrist. He roared in pain, and blood poured down his arm and over the edges of the restraints. The Widow’s eyes went wide as she stared at the ragged, torn flesh of his hand and wrist. She thought she could see the silvery gleam of the adamantium that was bonded to his bones.
“Holy mother o’ God,” Cassidy whispered.
Snikt!
Adamantium claws spattered with blood popped from their sheaths in his left forearm. With a twitch of his wrist, Wolverine cut into the wall several inches to his left—and just above the Widow’s right hand.
“Hurry,” Mystique snapped suddenly at the Widow. “Without his healing factor, he’ll bleed to death.”
“Not to put any pressure on me,” Natasha mumbled, though she knew that wasn’t the only pressure. The guards would arrive in seconds.
She had been stretched taut against the wall before, unable to get enough leverage even to use the weight of her own body to help her work her hands free. Now she threw her weight to one side, taking advantage of the little bit of space inside her restraints to fold her hand in on itself. She didn’t have time to be gentle. With a huge effort, she hurled herself away, throwing all her weight into pulling her hand free. Either she’d snap her wrist, or…
“Yes!” she hissed, ignoring the pain and her own blood on her chafed wrist.
But that trick wasn’t going to work with her ankles. On the other hand, it might not have to. With all her strength, and fighting the screaming of muscles that had been held in one place for days, Natasha wrapped her left hand around the wrist of her right, the one that was still encased in its restraint. She swung it down like a hammer, but not right at the restraint on her left leg. Instead, she pounded against the spot where the restraint met the wall.
On the third strike, the wall cracked and the restraint on her left leg came loose from it. Seconds later, the right leg was free as well. She still wore restraints on three of her four limbs, but she could move. That’s all she needed.
“Whatever you’ve got in mind…” Wolverine started to say.
But the Widow was already moving. She crossed the room in a heartbeat, just as she heard the ratcheting of bolts in the door behind her. She didn’t have time to remove anyone else’s restraints. Just enough time, maybe, to save their lives.
Natasha reached out and grabbed hold of the genetic dampener collar around Sean Cassidy’s neck. With deft fingers, she worked the catch, and the collar popped open, falling to the ground. Before it landed, Banshee was screaming.
The guards had come in, and Wraith was close behind. But Cassidy’s scream threw the first pair back through the door, and they fell with Wraith in a tangle on the floor of the hallway. It bought them seconds, but the Widow believed that seconds would be enough.
Cassidy turned his scream on Wolverine, and the X-Man’s restraints shattered under the force of the sonic blast. Logan stumbled forward, cradling his bleeding wrist. The claws popped from his right hand, and he turned to start hacking into the restraints holding Mystique and Maverick, even as Banshee looked at the Widow with a smile on his face.
“That was quick thinking, lass,” he said, and then screamed at her.
The pitch of his voice was slightly different than before, but her remaining restraints shattered without doing any damage to her body.
“A long time ago, you saved my life,” she replied. “It was the least I could do.”
“I guess that makes us even,” he said.
“I guess it does.”
And as simply as that, the past was gone. It was a new beginning for them. Then a blaster bolt slammed into the wall next to Banshee, and the Widow looked up in alarm to see that the guards were up again, and Wraith was shouting orders in back.
Face grim once more, the Widow leapt forward, wading into the well-armed men with no weapons but her own prowess. She heard Banshee screaming briefly, but it was such close quarters that soon he was beside her, fighting hand to hand, and doing rather well at it. Eight against two was poor odds for the opposition, and soon the chaos had calmed enough so that only Wraith remained.
Wolverine had succeeded in freeing Maverick and Mystique, and now the five of them stood united against John Wraith, the man who had set them all up from the beginning.
“You can’t kill us all,” Wolverine growled.
“No,” Wraith agreed. “But I’ll kill some of you, and the others will stop you before you can escape. Then you’ll think Creed was lucky.”
Which was when Maverick leapt—a heroic lunge that Natasha would never have thought his diseased body capable of making. Wraith managed to squeeze off two shots before Maverick pounced on him, knocking the weapon skittering across the floor.
When Maverick stood up, the two spent slugs fell from where they’d lodged in his clothing and clattered to the ground. Logan breathed a little easier. North’s skin wasn’t impenetrable, but the X-Factor in his genetic makeup gave him the ability to absorb kinetic energy, effectively stopping the bullets before they broke the skin. He could also rechannel that energy into bio-electric blasts from his hands—normally. But the Legacy Virus was taking a swift toll on his powers as well as the rest of him. Wolverine hadn’t been certain if Maverick was up to taking a bullet.
But he’d taken two.
Now he was weaker than ever.
Wraith slammed an elbow into Maverick’s cheek, and despite North’s mutant abilities, Wolverine heard the clack of bone on bone. Maverick wa
s shoved aside, and Wraith climbed to his knees in an instant.
“Back off, all of you,” he snapped. “You’ll never get out of here. There are guards everywhere.”
Wolverine stared at him, focused on his eyes, found what he was looking for: fear.
“You’re not sure about that, are you, John?” Logan snarled. “They’re all havin’ their fun watchin’ Sabretooth fry, ain’t that right?”
Wraith smiled, opened his mouth to answer. But he never got the chance: the Black Widow hit him, hard, her fist connecting with the thin man’s cheek with enough force to spin him sideways and double him over. And the Widow wasn’t done. With a ferocity that surprised Wolverine, Natasha grabbed Wraith’s head and bent him over, slammed her knee up into his gut, then propelled him with both hands into the wall where she’d been shackled only minutes earlier.
The man who’d given the orders to abduct them all, who had betrayed his former teammates, went down hard and didn’t move at all, save for the gentle rising of his chest that showed he was still alive.
The Black Widow knelt by Wraith’s still form, and when she spoke, it was in a whisper. But Wolverine heard her clearly.
“I had tickets to the ballet last night,” she said.
Then she stood and went to the still open door. She stared at Wolverine, indicating that it was time to go. The others were all still staring at her. Maverick climbed wearily to his feet.
“Much as I hate to say it, Logan …” Maverick began.
Wolverine waved him off. “I know,” he said. “I don’t know as there’s anyone in the world I hate more, but I’m not just leavin’ Sabretooth to die here. Not like this.”
Cassidy laughed a little, and Wolverine frowned.
“What’s so funny, Irish?”
“Oh, aye, it’s a riot,” Banshee replied. “It’s just that I was thinking, here you can’t leave Creed to die, but if we break him out, he’s liable to kill us all for coming to the rescue.”
Christopher Golden Page 27
