Bellwether

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> Bellwether Chapter Twenty Seven
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> Disclaimers Apply
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> A/N Goddess Foxfeather, Queen of Mad Plotbunnies, BUSIEST WOMAN ALIVE ™, Prophetic Muse, Hamster Witch and Uberbeta… *G * That song is working nicely. J Thank you thank you thank you to all my archivists! Big heaping huge thanks. InterNutter, TC, Maxwell Pink, Dracena and Greywolf are murr. J ProPhile: *crickets chirp * Morgan: *loud stalk * Readers/Reviewers: Thank you so much for reading and reviewing as you can! J
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> Theresa inhaled deeply, the familiar scent of Black Tom’s skin and clothes washing over her like a warm, drowning wave. She wanted to cry like a child, fling herself at him and demand he help her, but she managed to restrain herself. She knew the woman doctor was watching, eyes wide and fists clenched, mere feet away. Juggernaut’s rough breath punctuated the still scene with an almost animal undercurrent. Black Tom’s arms dropped away from her, releasing her from the embrace, and she automatically stepped back. Tilting her chin in an attitude of annoyance, she fixed him with an icy glare. “You abandoned me.”
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> “I had to…I was arrested,” he spat the word as if it were the worst possible insult that could have ever been visited upon his person. He smiled briefly at her, a familiar and warm expression, before turning his attentions to Moira and Juggernaut. “I trust you have what you need from her?”
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> Moira hesitated, uncertain. She had the vials of blood but her observations were limited. A pang of conscience made her bite back on her commentary and instead nod. “Yes, I have all I need from her.” Willing subjects were one thing… kidnapped teenaged girls were another. “Are we done here?”
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> Juggernaut snorted, muttering something unintelligible but Moira got the gist of it as pertaining to her nocturnal activities and moral values. Black Tom merely nodded. “Theresa, go gather your things.”
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> “I don’t have *things *,” she replied tartly. “I was taken in just these clothes and unless you want me to take the toothbrush they gave me…” She paused, catching the look on her uncle’s face. “I’ll go double check and make sure I didn’t leave anything behind.” She turned and, realizing that Juggernaut was following her, broke into a quick, long-legged stride, forcing the large man to grunt and speed up to keep pace.
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> Moira waited until the door had shut behind the departing pair before turning her attention back to Tom. “I do not appreciate being forced,” she all but hissed, her voice thick with an annoyed brogue. She pushed past him, mindful of his cane, and headed for her work table. “I have the vials of her blood and that’s it. I refuse to keep her here. If you’re not going to take her, I’ll get her off Muir Island and buy her plane fare home meself.” She felt cold fingers of danger sliding their way across the back of her neck, reaching for the fragile cage of her throat, but she pressed on, heedless of the maniacal voice cackling about suicide in the back of her mind. “This is a research facility, Mister Cassidy. I’m researching the cause of mutations, not the cure. I’m researching how this works, not how to stop it.” She turned to find him in the same place as she had left him, a bemused smile quirking his lips and dark brows arched above glittering eyes. “Mister Cassidy…”
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> “You put me in mind of Maeve,” he said, gently tapping the end of his shillelagh on the tile floor. “She was a very strong woman. I see her every time I look at Theresa…” He paused, twisting the gnarled wooden cane in his hands, his eyes fixed on Moira with a burning intensity that made her take one, then two steps back. “My brother knew Theresa as his own flesh and blood when he first laid eyes on her. There’s no mistaking the Cassidy in her, nor how she looks like her mother as well.”
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> “Why are you telling me this?” Moira demanded, her voice steady and strong despite the curling nervousness in her belly.
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> “Mutants are not as superhuman as most of us would like to think,” he murmured. “Surely you’ve heard the rumblings, you who are so far removed from mutantkind even while you research our blood and bone… You’ve heard tell of the sickness, the twisting little disease that’s cropped up in a handful of our number. An experiment gone wrong, they say. Someone messing about with biological warfare…someone mucking about in a lab… it’s of no matter how it started, just that it has.”
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> Slowly, Moira nodded. “Aye, I’ve heard tell. Rahne mentioned it in a letter once… said there had been rumors through the Brotherhood… That Magneto was ill.” That was a poorly kept secret—almost everyone knew the once mighty mutant leader was more frail than before, weaker in aspect…
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> Tom did not reply to that, instead seeming to focus on some spot just past her, some distant vision that only he could see. “It’s vital to me that you have all you need from Theresa. She’s healthy. She is untainted…”
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> “Untainted?” Anything else she was about to say was swallowed in the sudden, keening wail of alarms and a shuddering sigh that rippled through the building as everything went black, the generators dying with the main power source. “Bugger!” she snarled, fumbling along the wall for the emergency flashlight in it’s charger. She heard Tom move, knocking into something, but the alarms were so head-splitting that she did not care, did not mind if he just destroyed an entire rack of test tubes. “Follow me then!” she shouted over the din. “The weather must have finally reached the cove!”
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> “Hardly,” Tom shouted, very close to her ear.
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> Moira hissed as the flashlight flickered to life, her thumbnail catching in the switch. Tom was inches away but she did not have a chance to demand he give her space or even step away herself. A sharp and painful blow cracked through her skull as his wooden cane bounced off her temple, sending her sprawling to the floor, flashlight clattering away under a desk.
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> “Come along, love,” he murmured. “You’re of no use to me here…” Tucking his cane under his arm, he lifted her as he would a child. “We’ve an appointment in New York.”