Layla

En Route to CIA HQ

March 16, 1962

(Midnight)

"I'm not in pain," Layla confirmed to the nurse who meticulously wrote on her chart all the things Layla said. "I'm just very tired."

She was tired, she was cold, and more importantly, she was worried that the CIA or god knows what organization this coast guard boat secretly worked for was about to transport her, Pietro, and Erik too. 

They had been rescued from the beach by the men in the boats. They had been kind to her and Pietro, been understanding when Layla had refused to take her hands off her son. She had held him all the way from the beach to the arrival back to the boat. Pietro asking questions all along the way that she didn't have the answers to. All she could do was hold him and pretend that everything was going to be all right. Pretend that she knew what was going to happen to them now that Schmidt had escaped. 

The CIA could have a secret mutant torture assignment that she wasn't aware of. Someone far worse than Schmidt in charge of it ready to torture Layla and Pietro until they either broke down and submitted or died. And all she could do was pray that they say her compliance was enough to avoid torturing her and her dear son. 

She doubted it would be. She knew how it had been with Schmidt, even when she did everything he asked of her, he would find a way to punish her still. She had been forcibly injected with god only knows what type of chemicals. She had been starved. And beaten. And yet she had survived that, perhaps she could survive whatever the CIA had to throw at her. 

They would have her assassinate some South American communists and then lock her away until they next needed her. And she would have to go along with it for fear of what they would do to Pietro. 

"Did you eat or drink anything aboard the ship?" The nurse asked as she picked up her chart that she had set aside to check Layla's vitals. "Anything that smelled or tasted out of the ordinary?" 

Layla nodded. 

"None of it tasted like it wasn't supposed to." She elaborated as she looked at Pietro holding tight to her left arm. "We ate what we were given, I was afraid if we didn't something would happen to us." 

Pietro was just as confused as she was. He stopped asking questions about his "Opa" the moment he realized they upset her. He had stopped asking questions that related to where they were or where they were going? She clearly didn't know. And even though it had been so long since they had last been together, he still remembered he was safe with her. And safe meant if she didn't know, it was best to keep quiet. 

He has always been able to pick up on her moods. Even as a newborn when she was in the throws of the "baby blues", he had kept her company while Erik worked. He had been her only friend for the first year in Munich, sad as it was to say that her own child was her only friend. He had been her anchor keeping her grounded in the reality that was rebuilding her future without hunting down the one who tortured her as a child. 

When he died... When he hadn't died, had been stolen from her, she had been borderline suicidal for the better part of a month. Erik had had to take her back to Frankfurt and quit his job working for BMW just to care for her and make sure she didn't do anything stupid. And all the while her son had been alive and well with that monster who had tortured his parents. 

She hadn't even been able to exact the revenge that she should have on that monster. Instead, she was left scared and compliant like the good little girl she had been in the camps. She was just so stupid as to think that just because she was an adult that anything would have been different. 

She was just a dumb little girl who would forever hide behind the shame that was growing up in a horrid world that didn't give a damn if she lived or died. No, she had been nothing more than a pawn in some nazis game that ultimately ended with her either enslaved once more or dead. And as time passed she was wondering if she were better off dead.