Light shown through the cell which the Howlett brothers and Verena were being kept. Dirt was smeared along their faces and clothes. Verena was resting her head against the dirty wall, her cropped hair now an unkempt and curly mess. She was muttering in Italian under her breath, "Ave, o Maria, piena di grazia..."
Logan and Victor were both looking down at their feet, Victor was sharpening his claws against the ground, while Logan fiddled with his dog tags. "il Signore è con te. Tu sei benedetta fra le donne e benedetto è il frutto del tuo seno, Gesù."
As Verena kept muttering, Logan's keen ears picked up every word, and to him, it sounded like a prayer, but on her tongue, it was almost like a melody. "Santa Maria, Madre di Dio, prega per noi peccatori, adesso e nell'ora della nostra morte. Amen." He raised his head when she finished and looked over at her with a raised brow as she made the cross over her heart. He had recognized some of the words that she said, no matter if she had said them in Italian.
"What, we saying Hail Marys now?" Logan asked, his tone somewhere between curiosity and teasing. Verena rolled her eyes at him and Victor chuckles.
"I thought I'd try something."
Victor chuckled, not looking up from his claws. "Ain't that a waste of breath, Vee?"
Logan's half-smile faded into something more serious, "Yeah, I thought you learned praying doesn't work by now kid?"
"I told you to stop calling me kid, we're both over 100 years old, I don't think a decade of a gap matters anymore."
In the midst of their short argument, the cell door starts to squeak open, cutting through the tension. All three looked up, their attention snapping to the intruder. A man, stands there in a polished and ironed military uniform, with a small smirk on his face. His gaze floats around the three of them and eventually lands on Verena, lingering for longer than she was comfortable with. "My name is Major William Stryker. You were charged with killing a senior officer, is that correct?"
Victor looks down, a hint of a smirk on his face "It seems we have some issues with authority."
Verena elbowed Victor in the side, while Logan sighed. "Keep a lid on it, will you?"
"The warden tells me your sentence was carried out by firing squad at 1000 hours. How'd that go?"
"It tickled," Victor responded. Verena lets out a little laugh and Logan shakes his head at his brothers antics.
"You boys, and girl, tired of running? Tired of denying your true nature?" Verena was exceedingly good at hiding the fact that she was a woman in each war that she fought. She trimmed her hair before each deployment, only for her curls to grow back stubbornly. But in Vietnam, there hadn't been time for grooming, and now her hair fell to her shoulders.
Logan looked at Stryker, his same eyebrow raised as before, "And why do you care?"
"Oh, I care. I care because I know how special you are. How valuable. Look, you can stay here locked up like freaks of nature, or you can join me. I'm putting together a special team with special privileges. Now, tell me, how would you like to really serve your country?"
The trio look to each other, Logan and Verena more skeptical of it than Victor. He shrugs at them and turns his head back at Stryker and nods.
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On the plane headed to Lagos, the brothers and Verena were on a mission with Stryker's so called "Team-X". She was sat in the dim light of the plane, her black tactical pants and boots blending into the shadows. Her black tank top revealed the lean, muscular build of her arms and shoulders, where butterfly tattoos adorned her skin—something Logan and Victor hadn't seen before. Her short hair was pulled back into a loose ponytail, out of her face but still slightly tousled. A gun holster rested on her hip, and a knife was sheathed at her side, ready for whatever awaited them in Lagos.
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𝖆𝖓𝖎𝖒𝖆 𝖎𝖒𝖒𝖔𝖗𝖙𝖆𝖑𝖊 ━ 𝖑𝖔𝖌𝖆𝖓 𝖍𝖔𝖜𝖑𝖊𝖙𝖙
FanfictionIn a world full of humans, Verena De Luca is different In a world full of humans, Verena De Luca is a mutant In a world full of humans, Verena De Luca finds people like her But she also finds someone exactly like her... Logan Howlett [©️Fanofadifish...