Crossfire

Chapter 12

As soon as the plane hit the tarmac, the four of us were outside. We had told Moira as quickly as we could what had happened There was a car waiting outside. I was nearest the right door. I was tapping my foot impatiently and trying in vain to get the pit to leave my stomach. We should have seen this coming. We should have known that something was wrong the moment we realised that Shaw wasn't there. It had been almost too easy to learn his "plans". Why hadn't I seen it? Or at least been suspicious from the beginning. And now those still at the facility were going to pay the price. Damn it all to hell! Couldn't this car move any faster?!

Charles looked angry with himself. He was probably thinking the same thing that I was. Moira was trying to call the facility on the car's phone. There was no answer. Shaw had to be there. Either that, or he was gone and they were all dead. Erik was the only one who looked calm about the whole situation. He had even put on his sunglasses. I envied him. I would have loved to have had that frame of mind. I wasn't so lucky, unfortunately. My life kept on taking dark turns. When would it just be stagnant? The feeling in my gut told me never.

The car pulled to the front of the CIA facility. I didn't wait for it to stop before I burst out of the doors. I stopped almost immediately. Bodies of CIA agents were scattered across the grounds. Including the MIB. So far, no mutant bodies. I shivered and took to the air to get a better view of the scene. It wasn't just there. It was everywhere. I held back my horror and focused on the fact that I hadn't seen the other six amongst the dead. I dropped back to the ground. I had seen that the CIA had already dispatched a team to search through the rubble. We walked through the courtyard and I saw them sitting on a bench.

I supposed that I shouldn't have been surprised. Shaw wasn't in the habit of killing his own kind. Not when they didn't attack him, that is. Maybe there was a chance that they were still alive, then. God, I hoped so. I would blame myself if they had gotten hurt. I would, because I had told Charles to leave them here for their safety when they would have been safer with us. Who would have guessed? I shook my head. They were just kids. There was no way that we could have known. When Raven saw Charles, she jumped up from the stone bench she had been sitting on and rushed to him. They embraced. I felt a familiar calm rush over me and I could see how Erik was feeling so calm.

Charles walked away from Raven, keeping a hand on her shoulder. "We've made arrangements for you all to be brought home immediately."

"We're not going home." Sean said.

"What?" Charles turned to face him.

"He's not going back to prison."

"He killed Darwin." Alex responded.

"All the more reason for you to leave. This is over."

"Darwin's dead, Charles." Raven said. "And we can't even bury him."

Charles did look sympathetic, but he didn't know what to do other than to send them home. There really wasn't anything that he could do other than that. But I had this nagging feeling in my chest. A feeling that I got every time that I thought about Monica.

"We can avenge him." Erik said.

Charles and I were both surprised by what Erik had said, but for completely different reasons. I was shocked that he had said what I had been thinking. I supposed that it should have been an obvious solution, as that was something we had both been searching for for quite a long time. I hoped that we hadn't been thinking about using them to get our own revenge. I had an unfortunate feeling that it would mold them into something much darker. But they weren't children anymore. I could see it in their eyes. The fun loving kids that we had seen two days ago. It was strange how quickly people could change.