wings ↣ w. worthington iii

17. shhh ✓

"We can't hold hands - someone might see. Won't you please hold toes with me?" (Everything On It by Shel Silverstein)

Word Count: 1597

WARREN AND LILLI had been hiding in the back of the pickup truck for about ten minutes. The air was only getting heavy and more putrid while Lilli's fear was mounting. She knew she wouldn't make it out of the Kezing Headquarters alive, but hopefully Peter would. If he was even still alive.

All Lilli had ever wanted was to have an amazingly wild childhood and amazingly illegal teenagerhood and amazingly well-traveled young adulthood, then settle in an exotic house in an exotic country with an exotic husband and three kids, named James, Cole, and Aurora. Sure, she had an okay childhood and a ridiculously illegal teenhood, but she never thought it would stop there with no well-traveled adulthood. With no adulthood at all. She never imagined it would be cut short by one gene that had decided to be unnatural and turn her into a mutant. Damn that one miniscule thing that had changed her life forever.

Warren nudged Lilli out of her thoughts. The truck had stopped moving.

Lilli and Warren sat up, still invisible. They were in a small room lit both by flickering fluorescent lights and medieval style lanterns. The room contained one other shiny black pickup truck and a stack of boxes lining on side with a very small door on the other.

The men inside the truck stepped out and walked towards the hobbit-sized doorway. Lilli and Warren hopped out of the bed of the truck and tiptoed over to the agents, slinking in behind the two men and entering into a dark, slimy hallway that stretched on with no end. On either side of the hallway was short walls with a torch every ten feet or so. The floor was stone with loose dirt all over it, and the ceiling was earth. Lilli was claustrophobic and her chest started getting tighter and tighter with each crouched step she took into the hallway. The walls seemed like they were closing in and it took all she had to not start breathing heavily and give away the cover she and Warren were currently safe under.

After around five minutes, the four mutants were army-crawling through the hallway in a single file line, and Lilli couldn't breathe. She was about to have a full-fledged panic attack when suddenly, the agents in front of her stood up and moved out of her line of sight. She and Warren army-crawled a few feet further and appeared in a giant, open cave. There was a strange throne in the center and bats crawling all over the ceiling. There was a moat filled with disgusting sewage water and the only point of crossing to the throne was a small stone bridge. The two agents in front both suddenly transformed into bats and fluttered to the ceiling, and Lilli's stomach sank.

She turned to Warren and pointed up to the ceiling filled with bats, and he nodded as well. Every single bat up there was a mutant, and most likely decently powerful. There had to be hundreds, and if Kezing teamed up with Chaos to bring down the X-Men, the X-Men would stand no chance.

Heavy footsteps sounded from Lilli and Warren's left. They looked over and on the same platform they stood on they saw a doorway with steps leading upwards. Daylight shone through, so it was a staircase that probably led up to an alleyway. It would be a quick escape route, and the only one at that.

The footsteps got louder and louder as they echoed off the walls, and then Lilli saw the shoes, then the jeans, then the shirt, and finally the face of the newcomer.

Her eyes widened and she stumbled backwards a bit into Warren. Her stomach dropped even further as she realized who it was.

Cas.

His gaze flickered over to Lilli for a split second before looking away. Lilli suddenly felt her stomach completely leave her. He knew she was there. He could read her thoughts. He could change her emotions and make her resent the X-Men and make her join Kezing suddenly, or he could make Warren want to kill her.