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“Actually, your presence here has already raised some brows,” he says. “No humans besides our fathers have ever been permitted inside these walls.”
“So why did you bring me here?”
“Because we need you.”
“Uh. Flattering, I guess, but I don’t think that’s true.”
“So this is her?”
We are interrupted by a deep, rough voice. Justice’s family has decided to take the introductions into their own hands. I turn and am greeted with what I can only describe as a man-monarch. He is not a moth, but a butterfly. You’d think that might be cute. You’d be wrong.
He has great wings of black and orange, and dark skin marked with white dots across his face and torso. The white dots appear uncannily like eyes, so the overall impression is of being watched by a hundred dangerous things at once. No wonder birds avoid monarch butterflies. I want to scream and run, but I stand still and force a polite smile, as so many people meeting their significant others’ families have done before.
“Are you all based on insects?” I ask Justice the question, but I don't bother to reply to the other mutant’s question. He obviously didn’t like me on sight, and the feeling is fairly mutual.
“Not all of us,” Justice says. “Fury, this is Detective Holmes of the NYPD. She apprehended and subsequently dispatched Rage.”
So much for not telling them I killed Rage.
“May he rest in peace,” Fury says, giving me a look I do not appreciate. The hostility is palpable. I am not only unwelcome, I am grossly unpopular. I can feel the presence of others. They are not here in the room, but I sense them nearby. Listening. Learning.
I notice that Fury does not seem surprised to see me. Obviously, word was sent ahead of time, and not just about Rage. About me. This hive of mutant intelligence has been waiting for me. It has a plan for me. A plan I am not familiar with, and to which I have not been made privy.
Justice still has his grip on my hand. Using that hold, he leads me through the lobby. Fury takes up position on the other side of me. The energy shifts, and in an instant I am suddenly captive, a prisoner walking between two guards.
“Justice, you will regret this. If you are doing what I think you are doing, then you will find yourselves all in a…”
“Does she always talk this much?” Fury asks the question over my head.
“She’s actually much less trouble when she’s talking,” Justice replies. “It’s when she goes quiet that you really need to watch her.”
Fuck it. Before they can get any deeper with me, I yank my hand from Justice, turn and book it toward the exit. I am smaller than them which makes me more nimble, and being more nimble gives me valuable seconds. They can’t turn as fast as I can, but once they’re on a straight path, they can beat their wings and easily overhaul me.
I am almost at the door when eight hands grip me. It’s a lot of hands, and I am swung up and off the ground between the two mutant monsters. I can’t even fight them, because all my limbs are controlled. They have me by my arms and legs, and there’s no escape.
“Justice! Let me go!” I scream. “I do not consent to this. I have done enough. I want to go back to my old life.”
“To the lonely apartment, and to the job that inexorably strips every vestige of innocence and joy from you? The one that turned you from someone who upheld the law into someone who took that law into her own hands and made her judge, jury, and executioner?”
“You said you were fine with that!?”
“I accept that what happened, happened. I understand my role in it. I failed you. And I failed Rage. I intend to stop failing.”
They are carrying me away with long strides. I am being taken back into the bowels of this facility. The waiting room was not the only place where the 50’s reigned supreme. Everything about these inner chambers is built in the style of the 40’s and 50’s. Smooth curves and wood panels, pastel colors and fascinating lines dominate what seems to be my new prison.
“Justice! They’ll come for me! They’ll find me, too. And then you know what will happen? They’ll burn this fucking place to the ground. Let me go, you stupid sonofabitch!”
“Did you get a room ready for her as I asked?” He asks the question over my head.
“Yes,” Fury says. “It’s up here. We imagined you might have some trouble getting a human to agree to captivity.”
Captivity. There’s a fucking trigger word.
“Justice! What are you doing!?” I’m surprised, and I hate that I am surprised, because that means I wasn’t paying attention. How did I not notice his intention to capture me?
“You need some time to think about things,” he says. “This room is unoccupied.”
They push open a door with a curve at the top. I don’t know why that matters, but it does. There’s a faint coziness about everything here being perpetually undermined by the oddness of it all.
