Chapter 6
She looks up and down the sidewalk again, making sure to take it all in. It’s the people. It’s the buildings. It’s the sights and smells of New York City, the ones she never got to experience before. The ones that, right now, are absolutely terrifying.
She tries to stay grounded by listening to the sounds of her shoes scuffing the pavement and the sound of Akihiro’s keys jingling with each step. She tries to tune out the conversations around her and she tries really hard not to make any eye contact. Initially, she had begged him to not force her to do this. Ultimately, she didn’t have a choice.
“You know, you’re really gonna draw attention to both of us if you keep looking like a deer caught in headlights,” he says. He pushes sunglasses up the bridge of his nose. “People will think I’m kidnapping you.”
Bellona frowns as she shoves her hands into her pockets. “Well maybe we should turn around if I’m doing everything wrong.”
He scoffs, “Dear God.”
Bellona rolls her eyes.
They stop at an intersection and he grabs her arm, her cue to stop. It’s early in the morning, around 7:30, and she assumed it would be rather quiet this time of day but it isn’t. Traffic is bumper to bumper and countless bodies busy the sidewalks. It’s times like these that make her grateful for not having any heightened senses, because she couldn’t imagine how it would feel to feed off the frustration and stress of those around her. She couldn’t imagine hearing their annoyance and distaste for their own existence. She couldn’t imagine feeling people who feel like her.
“Here we are,” Akihiro waves down a taxi. It’s the third or fourth one to pass, so she isn’t entirely sure why he chose this one, but by this point she knows better than to question him.
The taxi slows to a stop, and she let’s herself be escorted to the backseat of the cab.
Akihiro opens the door and urges her inside.
“Hey,” she says, flinching when he grips her shoulder and pushes her down into the seat. The woman in the driver’s seat looks at them in the mirror.
“Where to?” she asks.
Bellona looks at Akihiro, expecting him to walk to the other side. Instead, he ducks down and leans in over Bellona. She makes a face and pushes herself back against the seat.
“Take her to Seneca Gardens,” he says, reaching to hand the woman a wad of cash.
“What?” Bellona says. “Where are you-?”
He pulls back, but keeps a hand on top of the car. “I’ll be right behind you,” he says. “Just trust me.”
She feels her heart start to race and her hands tremble, turning in the seat and placing one foot on the sidewalk. “No,” she says. “You can’t just make me go by myself.”
He nudges her foot back inside. “Yes,” he says. “I can. You’ll survive.”
She grabs the doorway of the car and starts to stand, but he slides her hand back off.
“Better hurry,” he tells the driver before he shuts the door. She hears the click of a safety lock. She’s trapped.
Bellona watches in an equal blend of terror and shock as Akihiro turns and walks back to the sidewalk. He slides his hands into the pockets of his leather jacket. She can’t see his eyes, but she can see him looking at her. He mouths the words ‘just trust me’ as the taxi eases forward.
She turns completely to her side to stare out the window. She watches him get smaller.
“Don’t worry,” the woman says. “You’ll see your brother soon.”
Bellona scowls. “That,” she hisses. “Is hardly my… what?”
The woman smirks, “Just enjoy the ride. We’re not far. And don’t claw up the seats back there, or he’ll have to pay extra.”
She chews anxiously on her bottom lip, turning around to look out the back window. She can still see him, but he’s walking in the opposite direction. His phone his held against his ear. Several taxis pass, but he doesn’t wave any of them down. She feels a lump in her throat.
They come to a stop at a redlight and she tries to tug the handle. As expected, it doesn’t open. She runs her fingers along the door to feel for the button to roll down the window, all the while looking outside to not draw attention.
“Hmm,” the woman says from upfront. “He was right, you’re a tricky little girl. The window is locked though, he told me you would probably hate this, so I took some extra measures to make sure you wouldn’t go running.”
“Where are you taking me? And who are you?” She grips the seat in front of her, leaning forward. There’s a tremble in her voice that she tries to hide.
The woman glances at her in the mirror. “Relax, darling,” she says almost mockingly. “You’re going to Krakoa, right? The island? I’m just taking you to the gate. Quicker to ride, and less chance of someone seeing you.”
Bellona narrows her eyes. “How do you know where I’m going? And how do you know that I don’t want anyone to see me?” It’s all feeling wildly suspicious. She glances again over her shoulder to see if she can still see him.
“Well,” the woman begins. “You look like Laura, if a printer ran out of ink, and you look like you fell into a lion’s den at some point in your life.”
She doesn’t see him anymore, and she nearly feels nauseous.
“How do you know X-23?”
“Ugh, so many questions. This is why I personally can’t be around children. Always why this, why that? It’s been arranged for you, all you have to do is be carried around. And trust me, you need to enjoy it, because one thing all the islanders like to do is just throw you to the damn wolves.”
She coughs when she feels her throat start to tighten. She can feel sweat start to bead around her hairline. If the woman notices, she doesn’t let on.
“Where did you get all those scars?” she asks. “I’m gonna ask some questions now, hope you don’t mind. Laura doesn’t have them, but I know the tiny one, what’s her name? She’s got a few on her face. You, though, you’ve got them all over.”
Bellona tries to swallow, but she hardly feels like she can breathe. She nervously runs her fingers back through her hair.
“Surgery,” she croaks. “I had surgery.”
The woman cackles. “I would sue,” she says. “I would definitely get my money back.”
Bellona slides to the other end of the seat and tries the other door. She starts to breathe harder.
“It’s all locked, love,” the woman says. “We’re really not far. Just relax.” She reaches over and turns on the radio. Some talk show crackles over the speakers. “So what kind of surgery?” She asks.
Bellona scoots back to the side she had originally been on. She knocks a fist against the glass.
“You’d better knock it off,” the woman says. “And answer my question.”
“To remove,” she starts to say, but then she stops. She should know better than to answer a stranger’s questions, even if Akihiro was the one who led her here. “I’ve had lots of surgeries,” she says instead.
She reaches up to pat the ceiling, searching for some type of sunroof. Of course, it would be obvious if there was one, but she hopes that maybe it would just be hidden.
“Yeah,” the woman says, signaling a right turn. The clicking of the indicator sounds like the ticking of a timer. A bomb. “I hear Weapon X Facilities and Co. are rather keen on those.”
“Yeah.”
She turns around in her seat and looks for some kind of opening to the trunk. She knows how to break out of one, all she’d have to do is get inside.
“You’re very busy back there,” the woman says. “But trust me, you’re not getting out. And if you did, I would just find you.”
Bellona ignores her. She leans over to touch the floor, seeing if there’s any soft spots anywhere. At this point, she’s only grasping at straws.
“What’s your name again? Akihiro told me, but I already forgot. Hope you’re not offended by that.”
Bellona growls, “I don’t even know who you are.” She sits back up again, feeling a rush of heat wash over her. She tries again to open the door, this time shoving her shoulder into it.
“Don’t break yourself,” the woman says. She clears her throat. “Sorry you're so uncomfortable. Unfortunately, I don’t have the pheromone thing your brother does. I can’t just chill you out.” She looks up in the mirror. “I would if I could though. For both of us. I get why he uses that so much now.”
Bellona furrows her brows. “What are you talking about?” She clicks the window button repeatedly.
“Oh, you didn’t know?” She chuckles. “I mean he’s charming and all, but you didn’t think you just felt safe around him because he has a nice personality, did you?”
Her chest starts to feel tight again. It starts to hurt.
“Can I please just get out?” She asks. “Please?”
“We’re a block away. Sit tight. I didn’t mean to freak you out, he means well by it.”
“I need to get out.”
“I forgot he said you don’t have any mutations. Laura and… Gabby! That’s the other one's name. Anyways, they know when he does that. I forgot that you wouldn’t.”
“I can’t breathe.”
“Me neither,” she reaches over and turns the A.C. up. “That’s better. So anyways-”
“Let me out,” Bellona says louder. Her vision starts to sway and she begins to feel aware of the way her bones are sitting beneath her skin. She feels her heart and she starts to doubt it’s ability to continue on like this. She tries to breath deeper, but her lungs feel like punctured balloons. “Let me out!” she screams, kicking her feet into the back of the seat in front of her.
“Hey!” The woman turns her head to look at her. “Look, I know this is a lot, but don’t go fucking shit up all because-”
“Please,” Bellona groans through gritted teeth. “Let me go,” she beats the side of her fist against the window. “Please let me go!” She feels like she’s choking.
The woman speeds up through another intersection. “Let’s not get excited,” she says. “In literally thirty seconds we’ll be there.”
Bellona gasps. She turns to the window and slams both fists against the glass.
She screams, “help,” to the pedestrians walking by. She screams, “let me go,” but the woman only drives faster.
~~~
“I’m glad you’re feeling better,” she said quietly.
“I never felt bad. I never felt anything.”
They were sitting on the floor of the study. The intention was to be completing assignments, but neither had done much of anything related to the facility for the entire hour they’d been there until that point.
Bellona sighed softly and traced the outline of a tile with her finger. It left a waxy residue on her skin.
“You know what I mean,” she said. “I’m glad you’re healed.”
Zelda nodded. “Yeah,” she said. “Me too.”
It had been a week since Zelda was released from the medical bay, and Bellona was beyond relieved. She hadn’t realized how much she depended on her older sister before, especially when it came to managing Gabby. That had proved to be rather difficult. It had proved to be overwhelming, as much as it pained Bellona to admit that.
“So… tell me again what happened?”
She initially didn’t plan on telling Zelda about the accident. She didn’t want her to worry and she certainly didn’t want her older sister to be disappointed in her. She also wanted to think that she could trust Gabby, that there really wasn’t anything going on. And she couldn’t blame Gabby, not entirely, but she also knew better than to take her word.
She told Zelda about it briefly only a few days after she was back. As expected, Zelda didn’t take well to the news.
What made it worse was that Bellona had so few answers. She couldn’t offer much of an explanation and she couldn’t provide anything more in depth other than what she saw and the quick conversation they’d had about it.
“I came back in from training,” she began. “And Gabby was asleep in bed.”
Zelda made a face. “Why were you training so late?” she asked. “And where was Gabby?”
“I told you, Kimura has me doing some side mission and she’s requiring extra training. I’m not sure where Gabby was. I thought she was doing her usual training, but I guess they decided to ramp things up for her.”
Zelda frowned. “Right,” she said. “So then what?”
“So then,” Bellona continued, rearranging they way she’d been sitting. “I got in the bed, realized it was wet, and it looked like blood was everywhere. I asked Gabby about it and she said it was fake, that they used it as a prop. She insisted she wasn’t hurt and I checked her for scratches and bruises. There were none.”
She said it with a fair amount of confidence because she knew it to be true, but somehow she still felt like she was lying. She watched Zelda uncertainly, gaging her reaction as it slowly played across her small features.
“It just doesn’t make sense,” Zelda said. “Why would they use a blood prop for training? What purpose would that serve?”
Bellona shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine. Nothing’s happened since then and she seems totally fine. I just wanted you to know because of the stains.”
“Yeah, they were pretty bad,” Zelda said. “I guess we’ll just have to keep a closer watch on her. As long as she’s okay, that’s all that matters.”
Bellona nodded. She didn’t press the issue anymore because she didn’t want to discuss it anymore. She didn’t want to think about all the possibilities, and she really didn’t want to think about her own responsibility in it. Zelda was back and the three had been united. In her eyes, everything would be okay again. Whatever had happened before no longer mattered. It was no longer relevant.
“So have you found out anything else on our mystery man?”
Bellona smirked. She had started to flip through the pages of a history book, but decided to shut it again.
“Well he’s not much of a mystery now that we have a name,” she said. “But no, unfortunately I haven’t had a lot of free time to do anymore research on Daken.”
Her free time had been preoccupied with Kimura, Gabby, and her usual training. She hardly had time to sleep and eat, much less tuck herself away in the library for an hour or so. She had, however, been thinking extensively about him. She wanted to know more, there were countless questions she had for him. She wondered if he knew of their existence, and if there was a way they could contact him. She wondered what he would think of them. She wondered if he’d killed professionally before, and if he’d be opposed to the idea. She wondered if he would kill Kimura.
“It’s a shame,” Zelda said. “That was kind of an exciting discovery.” She tapped the end of her pencil against a study guide. On it was listed the top ten ways to enter a building illegally. Zelda looked up and smiled. “Oh well,” she said. “I guess it’s nice to know he’s out there, right?”
And Bellona smiled back. “Right,” she said, and she opened her book again.
They spent another hour in the study doing just that, or at least giving the appearance of it. Bellona scanned the pages of her book while Zelda wrote out answers on different papers. It was nice being able to coexist in silence together, but Bellona’s mind felt like it was racing the whole time.
This had been their lives for years now, as far back as she could remember, and she’d always been okay with it. She was never the one who was opposed to the missions or the training, not to the violence or the reprocussions of doing the jobs that they were being trained to do. So why did it start to feel so different?
A buzzer sounded over the intercom, their cue to finish up their tasks and head to their next assignment. Zelda was quick to collect her things in her arms and stand. Bellona, on the other hand, wasn’t as rushed.
“Zelda,” she said as she rushed to keep up. “You think we’ll get out of here one day, don’t you?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, like, we won’t always have to be intelligent robots for these people?”
Zelda stopped and turned around. She furrowed her brows and tilted her head to the side. “Kimura’s really got you stressed,” she said. “What kind of mission does she have you doing?”
Bellona sighed. “That’s not it. I just feel like we’re trapped, you know? And all that shit with Gabby just had me thinking, what would life be like if we didn’t have to watch our backs so much?” They stepped into the hall and Bellona lowered her voice, wary of the wiretaps that laced the building inside and out. “What if we could actually be normal?”
Zelda frowned and lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “You know X-23 escaped,” she said. “And then they made her kill Dr. Kinney, and she did all kinds of other shit too. There’s no escaping, Bellona. We’re just here. And besides, we don’t know what the nanites will do to us long term. Do you really want to escape now when these assholes are the only ones who could actually help us?”
“Do you think that they would?”
Zelda sighed. Bellona knew that she was right, and she knew that Zelda knew it too. They do this dance often, most of the time trading off which one wants to stay and which one wants to leave. She understood where Zelda was coming from. She’d only recently been released and, even though Alchemax were the ones who hurt her, they were also the ones who nursed her back to health. It was a strange dynamic they shared, and it was often hard to understand it themselves. Many of the handlers and workers seemed to be trapped too. That was what made it difficult.
“Look,” Zelda said. “Let’s just stick it out a little while longer, okay? We all three stick together, same way we have been, you find out more about Daken. Maybe in a few years we can make our sweet escape. How’s that sound?”
Bellona frowned. “Fine,” she said. “But you promise it’ll always be us three, and we’ll always stick together?”
Zelda smiled. “I promise, Bell,” she said. “I’m gonna always be here for you, and for Gabby too.”
~~~
The door flies open when the car parks, and Bellona flies with it. She stumbles out onto the pavement and takes several long strides to the grass before she collapses to her knees, gasping. Behind her, she hears the car engine shut off. She sits back on her heels and runs her hands back through her hair while she tries to regulate her breathing.
“Bellona,” a familiar voice says sofly. “Are you alright?”
X-23 walks over to her uncertainly. Her face is almost unreadable, though her brows are knitted together slightly. She crouches down in front of her. Bellona leans further back.
“I’m fine,” she says. “I just… who was that woman? And why are you here?” She looks over her shoulder. The cab driver is walking towards them. She’s giving X-23 a certain look, making a gesture with her hands.
X-23 sighs. “Oh. That is Mystique.”
“Mystique?”
The woman smiles as she steps onto the grass. “You caught me,” she says. “And I was planning on introducing myself, but you didn’t really let me get that far.”
X-23 reaches out and offers her hands to Bellona. She relunctantly accepts the help, standing with a grunt.
“I’ve heard of you,” she says. “And none of it has been good. Why are you the one he sent me with?”
She brushes the grass from her clothes. Mystique watches with a look of amusement.
“Akihiro owes me some favors,” she begins, “and I owe him some favors. We do this every few years, and somehow we never manage to get even. So I was the one who owed this time.” She starts walking, and X-23 follows. She motions for Bellona to join them. “You’re a fucking handfull though,” Mystique continues. “So now he’s definitely in my debt again.”
As curious as she is, she decides against asking for information now. She hadn’t known that Akihiro had such affiliations, and a part of her is skeptical that he didn’t tell her beforehand. She shoves her hands into the pockets of her jacket and quickens her pace to keep up.
“Where are we going?” she asks. “How far away is the island?”
X-23 is the one who responds. She looks back over her shoulder and tucks a lock of dark hair behind her ear. It’s done messily, and half of the piece falls back in her face. She doesn’t seem to notice.
“We’re going to the island,” she says. “It is not far at all. We’re going to the gate, near the Treehouse.” She pauses. “Where we were a few nights–”
“Yeah, I know.” She looks down to step over the remaining pieces of a broken bottle. “Will Akihiro be there?”
There’s a hesitance before X-23 answers.
“Yes,” she says after several long moments. “Eventually.”
Bellona frowns. “What is that supposed to mean? He said he was gonna be right behind me.”
Mystique, still in the form of a taxi driver, lets out a harsh cackle. “And you believed him too, didn’t you? Poor thing.”
Her frown deepens to a scowl. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. What is going on?”
“Nothing,” X-23 says rather quickly, as if to outspeak Mystique. “Do not pay attention to her. Akihiro just had to take care of something else, something work related. He didn’t want this to be delayed, so he sent us here to help you. Mystique has the advantage of easily being able to disguise herself. That is all.”
It isn’t enough of an answer, but she knows it’s the only answer she’ll get for the time being. She gives up with a heavy sigh, letting herself fall half a step behind the other two. She’ll only let herself be as close as she has to be.
They walk for several yards and Bellona begins to take in the scenery. All circumstances set aside, the garden does seem like a peaceful place to be. Several groups of people are either sitting or walking around and admiring the view. The grass is green and plush and the trees are nice and tall. It feels almost impossible to believe that the city is all around them. There’s something sacred about the bubble that they’re kept in here. It feels like an invisible force protecting them.
“Here we are.”
When Bellona looks up, Mystique is in her natural form. A deep shade of blue covers her body and bright locks of red fall around her face. She looks nearly mythical, and the all white dress only enhances it. When she catches her staring, Mystique offers a smirk.
“It’s like a magic mirror,” she says. “Just follow us. Krakoa is on the other side.”
She hadn’t been nervous at first, not just to step foot on the island, but she also thought she’d have a little bit more of a buildup. A quick taxi ride and fast walk through the city didn’t seem like enough travel time to get them there. She swallows hard, pushing down the feeling of helplessness that begins to bubble up inside, glancing once more over her shoulder to see if maybe Akihiro had been trailing behind them after all.
“You will be fine,” X-23 says gently. When Bellona turns back around, she sees her hand extended out. “We will walk through together.”
When she smiles, she looks just like Zelda. Or rather, Zelda had always looked just like her, without the extensive scaring. X-23 had always been the perfect version. The goal. The ideal. And Zelda had always been so close. The realization makes Bellona feel strange.
“Okay,” she says slowly, then reaches her hand out too.
Walking through the gate feels nothing like Bellona thought it would, because she doesn’t feel anything at all. She expects a strange sensation, or maybe just a magical kind of aura to overtake her senses, but it’s just the same as walking through a doorway. When they step through, they’re in a grassy field. Bellona releases the breath she’d been holding, not realizing she had been to start with.
“See?” X-23 says, letting go of Bellona’s hand. “You did great.”
Her soft, flat voice does little for encouragement, but the shimmer in her eyes makes Bellona feel like floating. In a way, she despises herself for feeling anything soft or kind for X-23. For feeling like maybe she isn’t so bad after all.
“It’s just walking,” she says. “Anyone can do that.”
For once, X-23’s eyes linger on her for a second and Bellona starts to wonder if she looks hurt, or maybe just frustrated. If she does, it doesn’t last.
“Okay, do you two know where you’re going from here?” Mystique asks, interrupting the brief moment of tension. She turns and starts walking in another direction. “I wasn’t given any further instruction, so I’m about to go hang out at the Lagoon until I’m needed for something that’s actually important.”
X-23 nods. “Thank you,” she says. “For helping us.”
“Well, whatever. Tell Akihiro he owes me again. I’ll make sure to tell him too.”
Bellona watches as Mystique walks away. She starts to feel exhausted, and she starts to feel the pressure in her skull again.
“I will take you to the Lagoon later, if you’d like,” X-23 says. She holds her hands in front of her, rotating a ring on her pinky finger around and around while she talks. Bellona also notices how she rocks gently from side to side. Is she nervous? “It’s very busy most of the time, so I didn’t think you would want to go there to start with.”
She doesn’t want to go anywhere other than where she needs to go.
“I’ll pass for now,” she says, and X-23 simply nods. Bellona sighs. “But, um… thank you.”
X-23 smiles, just slightly, and only with one corner of her mouth. For a moment, she stops fidgeting.
“We should probably take care of business first anyways,” she says. “And then we can do something different.”
She doesn’t consider it to be a new leaf for them yet, so she doesn’t converse any further as they walk through the island. Instead, they share a comfortable sort of silence. It gives Bellona the chance to relax a little more and take it all in.
The island is massive, and it’s full of many different scenaries. She almost swears it could be subtly shifting and changing with the thin, cool breeze that blows. Its skies are vast and clear and the sun seems to shine just a little bit brighter over the thriving grass and rolling hills. It’s a much larger scale of the Gardens where the Treehouse is. Much larger, and much more giving. Each breath she takes feels renewing and satisfying. Her lungs expand more and she feels lighter and clearer. She feels reborn.
X-23 seems to relax more too, it’s something Bellona notices reluctantly. She let’s her arms swing casually by her sides and she takes longer strides. Her deadpan expression changes from tense to neutral, and then even to something that would might even be called content. To exist comfortably together feels strange to Bellona. It wasn’t something she anticipated, and she still tries to resist the feeling all together. She wonders if X-23 is resisting it too, or if she feels any of this at all.
“I was thinking we could go to the house,” she says when they get closer to what looks to be a more residential area of the island.
The buildings look more like hallowed out trees and hills than brick and mortar. It certainly adds to the ambience of nature and serenity, but it doesn’t seem like it would be easy to adapt to.
“What house?” Bellona asks, hesitant to accept the vague generalization that X-23 implies. It would never be her house. She would go back to prison before she accepts that sort of fate.
“Mine and Gabby’s.” She points off in the distance, and they change their direction a little. “Or we could go to one of the gardens.”
Bellona follows her down a winding dirt path. It begins to almost feel like a fairytale.
“Is Gabby home?”
X-23 pauses. “No. She is at school.”
She feels guilty for feeling relieved. It isn’t that she doesn’t want to see her, but she would need more time to prepare. Maybe for an explanation, maybe for an apology, or maybe for something else entirely, but it would have to require time.
“Will it just be us?” She follows X-23 down the trail, stepping over a twig and kicking a rock to the side. X-23 doesn’t seem to notice those kinds of things.
“Well… no,” she says. “There will be one more person, someone to talk to you about joining us here.”
The thought makes her shudder. Has her mind been made up so soon already?
“Who will be there?” It makes her uncomfortable to think that so much is being left a secret. So much is happening for her without her actually knowing about it, not until she has no choice but to oblige. It feels familiar in a sickening sort of way.
“Jean Grey.”
Bellona lets out a sigh of relief. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad after all, not this first meeting.
“Okay,” she says. “That’s fine.”
“So the house, then?”
She nods. “Yes. The house.”
They walk the remaining distance to a rather nice size home. The closer they get to the door, the more nervous Bellona feels. It makes the experience all the more real, and it makes her feel that much more vulnerable. She clenches her hands into fists and shoves them deeper into her pockets, taking in a deep breath. She starts to count down the hours in her head to going back to New York, back to Akihiro’s apartment.
Back to safety.
Back to security.
Surely this whole ordeal will be over by then.
X-23 eases the door open. “I spent most of yesterday cleaning,” she says as she steps inside, opening it wider for Bellona. “But Gabby tends to live… carelessly. So I apologize if it’s not to your standards.”
Bellona snorts as she steps inside. “Yeah, that sounds like Gabby.”
Inside looks much different than she thought it would. The ceilings are taller and the walls are a light gray color. It smells faintly of citrus. The entryway goes right into a living room that’s decorated minimalistically, although she does notice the array of photos on the walls. Generally speaking, it seems quaint and cozy with just a little more taste than she thought it would have, not from what she’s known of X-23.
“It’s kind of nice in here,” she says as she looks around a second time. “It kind of reminds me of Akihiro’s apartment.”
X-23 smiles a little broader. “Yes, well that would be because he’s a little more in tune with decorating. I don’t care for it, and Gabby gets a little colorful.”
“So he helped you, then?”
The thought alone is strange. She tries to imagine Akihiro and X-23 walking through some higher end deparment store, comparing fabrics and color schemes. It doesn’t seem right. It doesn’t seem like it could be true.
“More or less,” X-23 says. “Some of it comes from things he has bought, and didn’t end up liking, or things he owned and decided to replace for one reason or another.”
Somehow that thought seems even stranger.
“Oh,” Bellona says, pausing in front of a framed picture of X-23 and Gabby. “How interesting.”
In the picture, the girls have their backs against each other and they’re looking over their shoulders. Gabby’s face reads of mischief and trouble, and X-23 looks simple and passive. Gabby’s looking directly at the camera, but X-23 is looking at her. The more Bellona looks at it, the more it feels like the rest of the house. Nothing fits the way she thought it would. Everything is so much more different.
“You can sit,” X-23 says from the kitchen. “Make yourself comfortable. Jean will be along shortly.”
Bellona turns away from the picture and walks to the large sofa centered in the room. There are several large throw pillows strategically placed. It looks picture perfect, straight from a catalog. She wonders briefly if this was a part of Akihiro’s job yesterday. He never really elaborates with what it is he does every single day.
She sits on the edge of one of the plush cushions and folds her hands on top of her knees. She doesn’t plan on making herself comfortable, and she certainly would never make herself at home, but she doesn’t mind sitting here for now.
“I could make you some tea.” The hesitance in X-23’s voice would almost make her smile, if this was a different setting. “Although I am no good at it. We do have a variety of sodas though, or water too.”
Bellona turns a little to look at the other girl. “Who says you’re no good?” she asks.
X-23 smirks, “Akihiro says it’s offensive.”
She snorts, but refrains from fully laughing. “Well I wouldn’t be a good judge,” she says. “I will take water. If it isn’t too much trouble.”
“It isn’t.”
X-23 moving around her kitchen hardly seems like something a world renown killer would do. She looks a little awkward as she pulls open the refrigerator door and stares for a moment, and Bellona knows she’s probably scanning the contents to remember how it was she rearranged it yesterday. It would have been interesting to see the homes state before now, to see how they truly live. X-23 leans down after a moment and grabs a bottle. She turns and meets Bellona’s gaze.
“Here you go,” she says as she steps into the living room, holding the chilled bottle out.
Bellona accepts it, but she doesn’t open it. “Thanks,” she mutters, rolling it over in her hands to pretend to read the label.
X-23 sits on another part of the sectional, but she’s closer than what Bellona would prefer. Although, in all fairness, she isn’t quite sure if there is a safe distance she would consider in the time being. She tries her best to not look to rigid sitting there. When she glances from the corner of her eye, she sees X-23 looking out the window. She seems hardly engaged with any of the current tension. Is all of this one-sided?
“So Jean,” Bellona starts, “is she on the way, or…?”
X-23 doesn’t look away from the window. “Yes. She is on her way now from The Treehouse.”
“Oh,” Bellona nods. “Good.”
“Yes.”
Bellona sighs. She slouches down just a little and twists the cap off the water. X-23 seems to be entirely different now than she was a few nights ago with Akihiro. She was so much more relaxed, and definitely more engaged. She almost seemed playful, in a diverse kind of way. And even though it may not be fair to expect the same energy for herself, she can’t help but wonder if X-23 regrets this too.
She takes a sip of water. “So it’ll just be the three of us for this meeting?” she asks.
X-23 turns from the window. Her eyes sparkle in the sun, but they lack the sort of depth that some people tend to possess. They look like only an accessory. “Yes,” she says. “I’m sorry. I’ll let you know as soon as I hear from him though.”
Bellona frowns. “Who?”
“Were you wanting to know if Akihiro was coming?”
She hates that she’s so predictable. “Oh. Yeah, I guess so.”
X-23 nods.
The conversations tend to fall without ever really getting started, but Bellona finds it difficult to think of any other approach. She takes another sip of water before she decides to look out the window too. It looks the same as it did before with clear skies and tall trees and green grass. She can’t hear it now, but imagines the sounds of birds chirping. It feels strange to feel so lost on an island meant to manifest perfection. She almost turns to X-23 to comment on it, to see if perhaps she’s noticed it too, but X-23 speaks before Bellona can even decide what she would say.
“Jean is here,” she says softly. “She has perfect timing.”
Everything here is perfect. Bellona follows X-23’s gaze and watches as a woman, beautiful and tall with vibrant red hair, walks the path they walked only minutes before. She takes one last sip of water before screwing the cap back on tightly. She feels a wave of nervous energy wash over her.
Things, she knows, will change drastically. Nothing fits the way she thought it would. And everything is different.
~~~