Rappaccini's Daughter - Road to Rhode Island

[x-courier.livejournal.com]

Jake and Cammie make their escape. Cammie hits him. Jake finds out why his fingers were cut off. Kurt calls, they pick up Wanda, and then Cammie calls home, only to find that things are as bad as they seem.



Jake had practically had to drag Cammie to his car, a feat made possible only because Cammie was too worn out to put up as much of a fight as she would have otherwise and because his car was parked closer than Angelo's.

He headed for one of the state highways leading out of town--it was small enough that they hopefully wouldn't be seen, but big enough that they didn't have to worry about running into a dead end or getting cornered.

Cammie was muttering swear words under her breath, but he ignored her for the moment. Get away first, deal with her second.

He thumbed a quick text to Wanda once they were on the highway, then turned to the green-haired girl. "Okay. From the beginning. What the hell are you doing here?"

"I'm from here," Cammie snapped, holding her head up slightly. She was so tired that it almost burned, "Why the fuck are you here? This was supposed to be easy, but no, now they're going to start sending me OTHER things!"

"Deep breath, Ishmael," he said, giving her a nervous look out of the corner of his eye. "Don't freak out, okay? I'm on your side here." He took a deep breath himself, trying to remember what had been said in the warehouse.

"You said something about your parents back there--what's going on with them?"

"Are you? Pretty fucking convenient, isn't it?" Cammie returned sitting up, "Pull over, I'm gonna drive."

He rolled his eyes, speeding up a little to discourage her from jumping out of the moving car. "No. Look, they're after me too--that was a set up. They've already taken my arm. I assume they want you because of your whole Poison Arm Thing?"

"You have both arms, you fucker!" Cammie returned, propping herself up with the car door, "Pull. Over. You're going to wrong fucking way! I just wanted to wait until he came crawling out and then I was going to make that fucker talk! Take the next exit if you don't want to switch on the fucking shoulder."

"Shape. Shifter." He held up his left hand. "I have to grow this one back every morning because of those bastards." He took a deep breath. How was it that he wasn't the one freaking out here? "Why, exactly, do you want to walk back into the trap? Because if you didn't notice, that's what it was. We're out, we're safe, and we can call in the cavalry now. There's no reason to go back." Except to pick up Wanda, but he was pretty sure he had to get Cammie to calm down first.

Cammie gave him a look and then hit him. Hard. Her left hand connecting to his shoulder. The only force behind it might have been physical at the moment but that didn't mean Cammie didn't know how to hit someone. "Pull over! You don't fucking get it, do you?! I told you to stop the god damn car!"

"OW!" His flinch caused them to swerve, enough to rock Cammie away from him. "What, kicking me in the balls wasn't enough fun for you? And by the way, told you so." He scowled. He was reaching the end of his already-frazzled patience. "Okay. Just tell me what's going on and then I'll stop. Okay? Why were you at the warehouse?"

"Why was I there? I don't know. Thought I'd show up a few weeks early for the batch of summer parties that place is going to host and start picking off kids in some weird horror movie rip off," she snapped, hitting him again, "It doesn't fucking matter, but we have to go back there!"

He ground his teeth together, resisting the urge to slam on the brakes and let her out so that she could run back into trouble. Except that that would involve letting her run back into the arms of the people that had been carving up his arm, and there were likely to be people at the mansion who would hold him responsible. "I'm not stopping until you tell me why."

"Because, fucker, they have my parents!" Cammie screamed, bringing her hands down on the dashboard, hard.

"There, now, doesn't that feel better?" Jake said sardonically. That explained a lot, and complicated things even further. No wonder Cammie was about to start tearing the car apart with her bare hands. Jake slowed, taking the next exit. Time to go get Wanda. "So George called you up and told you he had your parents. Have you talked to them, or do you have any reason to believe him?"

"A reason?!" Cammie returned, "A reason to believe him? They sent me their fingers! Now, let me drive!" Cammie said.

He looked over just in time to see her open a box and thrust it at him, and it was a good thing he had stopped at the top of the exit ramp, because otherwise he would have wrecked the car. He could see and feel his disembodied fingers rolling around as she waved the box in his direction, and it was giving him a seriously nasty case of vertigo. "Give me--give me those," he managed to say as he reached for the box, stunned and a little queasy.

"No!" Cammie said, closing the box and holding it close like it was something precious, "There's my proof, so let me drive and head back there before I break your face!" It was the only clue she had.

He closed his eyes for a second as the vertigo washed over him again. "Stop doing that, please," he muttered through clenched teeth. "Those are my fingers."

Cammie stared at him like he was suddenly speaking a different language, "No, they're not," she snapped. That wasn't possible, really. They couldn't be. She practically sat on the box to keep it away from him.

"Now. Let. Me. Drive. Or I am going to beat your face in. Especially if there's less of my parents now."

Jake glared at her. "They. Took. My. Arm. Last week, they cut two fingers off of it. I can feel them still. And I'm telling you, they're in the box. Those aren't your parents' fingers--they're mine."

Cammie stared at him, "That's a pretty big fucking coincidence, don't you think?" she snapped, not moving her ass from the top of the box.

"Yes. Amazing," he said dryly. "The people who are trying to kidnap us both used pieces of my arm to lure you out, and the possibility of getting information on my arm to lure me out. Fiendishly clever, that." He sighed and started to drive again, wheeling them back around towards Grand Falls. "Did you talk to your parents, or hear their voices? Did you try calling them at home? When was the last time you talked to them?"

"The last time I talked to them?" Cammie said, here she was a bit cowed, "Um... three years ago? Before I ran away..."

This time he almost did wreck the car. "You're kidding, right?" He actually laughed incredulously. "So all you have are a pair of fingers--my fingers--and a crazy guy in a lab coat who says he's got your parents?!"

"Fuck you!" Cammie returned, "You don't know what the hell I've been through even coming back here right now, for this, is a fucking nightmare! They have my parents' rings on them. They don't look like yours! Don't judge me!"

He drove in silence for a moment, glancing at her out of the corner of his eye from time to time. "Okay," he said finally. "They might have your parents, they might not. They definitely took my fingers, which means they have my arm, or know who does. Either way, we need to check and see if your parents are okay." He looked at her. "Call them. I'll talk to them, if you want. But we need to know."

"I'll call them," Cammie said, pulling out the cell phone. "You just shut up and drive towards the warehouse or I will punch you. She turned on her phone. And it rang.

"Cammie?" Kurt asked in incredulous relief, after the hours of trying to call her without success. "Where are you?"

"Kurt! I uh. are you okay?" she asked. This was why the phone had been off the whole trip, but now that it was on and she was going to call him later anyway she didn't hang up. "I just went to where they told me to. But this guy shot the other guys and now I don't know what the fuck is going on!"

"From the beginning, Cammie", he said, voice patient, steady and obviously back to health. "Where are you exactly, and who shot who?"

"I'm home," Cammie started, not paying attention now to where Jake was driving, "Well, my home. Vermont, and I went to this warehouse and they all started shooting each other and I wasn't the only one there, Kurt!"

"I will have Forge track your phone if I must", he informed her. "Who else was there?"

"Ballle- I mean, fuck, what's your name?" Cammie paused and looked at him and then remembered, "Duh. Jake, I think? He has no balls and ran like a little bitch," Cammie said, "The town is Grand Falls, there was a warehouse and god, Kurt, I think they still have my parents!"

"Then they still want you", Kurt pointed out. "Be nice to Jake, he has shown some sense. Stay there, I will come to you."

She snorted. Jake. Sense. Yeah right, he wasn't even letting her drive. "Yeah, I'm trying to get him to 'least go back to somewhere I know," she said. "Look, I'm sorry I didn't listen to you!" she said, actually meaning it. "It wasn't supposed to go like this."

"It very rarely is." He paused, considering. "Hold the phone up to Jake's ear, please. I want to speak to him."

"Sure, fine," Cammie said, pausing and holding up the phone for Jake, "Hey, Balless, he wants to talk to you."

Jake took the phone, wedging it between his shoulder and his ear. "Hey, Kurt."

"Hello, Jake. I am on the way here on the plane. On no account let Cammie go anywhere near that warehouse again."

Jake actually laughed in reply. "Don't worry. I wasn't planning on it. But I don't think they're at the warehouse, anyway--the guy we met wanted us to leave with him. It's..." He sighed. "It seemed very complicated."

He shifted the phone to his other ear. "We're on our way to pick up Wanda--she's up here with me. Or I came up here with her, I suppose. Regardless, we're not totally without help up here, but I wouldn't turn down backup."

"I will be there within two hours", Kurt promised. "With Lil, Logan and Monet. Where is Wanda now?"

Only the X-Men would have sent the jet to retrieve a loudmouthed runaway, Jake thought to himself with grateful amusement. "Here in town. We'll have her in a couple of minutes. Give us a call when you get here." He was about to say more when Cammie yanked the phone from his ear.

"You came with who?!" Cammie snapped at Jake before putting the phone to her ear, "You didn't tell him he's driving the wrong way! I have to get back there... find out what's going on!"

"I will tell him no such thing", Kurt told her, voice steely-firm. "And he will not take you back there. You will wait with Jake and Wanda until we arrive and then we will all find out what is going on."

"But there might not be time for all of that!" Cammie returned. Had everyone gone crazy when she wasn't looking? "Fine. Not back to the warehouse. Gotcha. 'Gonna let you go now," Cammie said, hanging up the phone with a twitch in her eye.

"You're all fucking nuts," she said to Jake, "And who the hell did you come with?"

We'd have to be, to be risking our necks for you, Jake thought but didn't say. Instead he pulled the car to a gentle stop and nodded through the windshield at the woman who was approaching. "That's Wanda. We work at Snow Valley." At her look of incomprehension, he sighed, turning to look at her straight on. "Which, in short, means we're good at things like this. Kurt, too, if you didn't already realize it." He held up a hand. "You can hit me when I'm done, okay?" he said with a resigned look. "Look. We've done things like this before, and we want to help you. Can you believe that long enough to let us get a plan figured out? Because charging in blind is going to get us and your parents into worse trouble."

He looked up as the car door opened. "Hi Wanda!" he said brightly. "This is Cammie. She has my fingers--OW!" he flinched as she hit him again.

Wanda was leaning down so she could peer in through the now open driver's side door. She looked as unamused as she possibly could given the situation that seemingly become more and more complicated every time she took a look at it. "Well, she's not one I know," she said after a moment before leaving the front of the car so she could slip into the back. "Right then. If someone could fill me in of what exactly happened back there and why someone from the school has managed to get involved, I would be very grateful. On top of, of course, managing to have your fingers..."

She dropped the binoculars she'd been carrying on the seat next to her - she'd situated herself in a building not far from their current spot. It had allowed her to see as much of the warehouse as possible but it hadn't done much good in the end. Now she was watching Cammie curiously, trying to work out exactly what the potential connection could be.

"Sure, okay, fine whatever. They were sent to me, in a box carried by a delivery boy," Cammie said, staring at the phone for a moment, "Calling home now," she dialed the number nervously. Three years wasn't enough time to erase the number from her mind. And she was still pissed off, but the exhaustion ate at the back of her mind as she put the phone to her ear and listened to it ring. "Just gimme a moment."

The voice that answered was warm, soft and a little distracted with the sound of distant chattering filling the space behind it. "Black residence. Julia speaking."

".Um. Hi Mom," Cammie said, relief washing over her. She couldn't tell who was chatting in the background, only that someone was, ".uh.how're you?"

On the other side of the line, the woman's breath caught for a long moment before she was finally able to ask, "C-Carmilla? Cammie is that really you, sweetheart?" Julia asked, her voice going a bit higher with emotion and disbelief.

"Yeah Mom," Cammie said, shifting a bit in the seat, "Look, this might sound weird but is everything okay there?"

"Everything's fine," she answered. The noise in the background had died down and all the could be heard was the sound of Julia's voice, tight with tears and love. "You you okay, baby?"

"Yeah, Mom. I'm fine," Cammie said. It wasn't a total lie. Physically, right now, she was pretty much okay. "Who's there, Mom?" she said, shifting in her seat.

"Who?" It was clear she was confused by the question but Julia answered her daughter with no hesitation. "Oh. Your father and I. Our friend from school, Monica and -"

"Carrrrrrrrrmilla," came a familiar voice over the phone. "No, wait, that's you. I just love that name. It's not really yours, of course, but I'm getting ahead of myself here."

George Tarleton's voice was remarkably smug-sounding for someone who should have still been in severe distress from receiving a high dose of toxins from Cammie barely an hour before. "We're all here. Your mothers and your father and I. Come on home, Carmilla Maxine. Damn, that sounds like a bad 50's song. Probably the Sha-Na-Nas, maybe the Coasters. Hold on," Again, the phone was muffled and conversation could be barely heard in the background, "-yeah, I know, I know! Sorry about that. Look, you and Junior get your very valuable selves home - and by that I mean here to the Blacks and not back south to Westchester - and we'll all have ourselves a nice little chat. And - oh! - drive safe. You get pulled over, New Son likely has someone in the local police on the lookout for you and Junior's names to pop up in their system. Be a shame if they were to find you first, what with poor Brad and Omar... Marley... dude... whatever, you get the point, right?"

Cammie's blood ran cold when he started talking and she listened, "Yeah. I get you. I got you the first time," she said. She wanted to ask just how he was up and around but right now, that wasn't important. The mothers statement threw her off. Two? "Everyone's still in one piece, I hope." She tried to make it sound threatening. Even though she had next to nothing left.

"Ah ah ah," George chided. "No fishing for details. But trust me, we're all friends here. I even forgive you for that whole 'trying to kill me' thing. You see? That's the kind of guy I am. Think of me like... like part of the family. A particularly peculiar godfather, maybe. I'm looking out for your best interests here, Carmilla."

"Yeah, I bet you are," Cammie said. Like hell he was 'part of the family', "Given what I got in the mail, I just wanted to make sure everyone was okay. So, as long as we're on the same page. I mean I worry. Since we're all 'family.'"

"You... you really think of me like family?" George's voice raised to an almost girlish squeak. "Oh my god, this is so cool! Hey, you know what would be really cool? There was this experiment I read about, seeing just how much blood the human body can actually survive without. It's really fascinating, and you've got to understand - I'm a man of science when it comes down to it. So you can only imagine how absolutely giddy I must be at the thought of actually getting to find out things like that. And I'm sitting right across from a great two-person control group called 'Mom' and 'Dad'. So please, Carmilla, babycakes - stall some more. Really. Because this little suburban homestead could use some redecorating in arterial red, know what I'm saying?"

"Yeah. I'll see you soon then," Cammie said coldly. Just finding out they were okay and now having them threatened again, Cammie was a bit numb to the whole thing at the moment but had no real desire to have her parent's house painted blood read. "Try to hold off on that until then?" The 'so I can kill you' was added silently. Though how she'd go about that right now, she had no idea. Unless it was beating the ugly bastard to death with a board with a nail in it.

She held on to that mental image. "Later," she said, and snapped the phone shut.

"I think I might need a summary," Wanda said calmly from behind Cammie. "What, exactly, is going on?"

"I have no fucking clue. Today has been one of the worst days of my life," and Cammie didn't lightly drop that phrase either. The worst day in her life having been accidentally killing Greg, "But Ballle- I mean Jake had better let me drive because I know where these people are right now. And yes, they really do have my parents."

Wanda rubbed at her face. "And somehow, these people also have Jake's arm." She leaned forward between the two seats. "Jake still gets to drive because you can tell him how to get there." She turned towards Jake. "Any information from you to shed some light on this situation? Also, tell me Cammie actually brought someone with her? A teacher, an X-Man, someone?"

"She was there when I showed up," he said, inclining his head towards Cammie. "And then the New Son guys showed, including our friend George--who I'm guessing is at your parents' house?" At her nod, he continued. "At which point it gets weird. George seems to have resigned rather violently from New Son, and once the shooting started, we got out." He sighed. "The good news is that Kurt is on the way with M, Logan, and your friend Lil. The better news is that she has my fingers, which she thought were her parents' fingers, which means that someone has my arm. Unfortunately, they also have her parents."

"Yeah, and if it's not just you and me, Ballless, they're going to be redecorating my parents' house in about the same way Elizabeth Bathory would," Cammie said dryly. Ah, the things you learned when your taste in reading could be just morbid. "I'd really rather that NOT happen, if you know what I mean. Blood is a bitch to get out of the carpets and then there's the whole thing about them having my fucking parents."

Wanda was starting to get a headache. "I'm going to ask after the crisis is over with why his nickname is Ballless," she sighed. "We're going to your parents house - Jake, get directions from Cammie and start to drive. I'll contact Kurt and tell the others where to meet us."

She turned back to the younger woman. "We will get your parents out of that situation, I promise. But you'll need to work with us - all of us - or this will not end well." Cammie already knew what was at stake and Wanda saw no use in sugar coating anything.

"Yeah, I don't think it's going to end well anyway," Cammie snapped, "I don't think I could convince you to wait outside, with like a sniper rifle? If Ballless and I go in by our little old selves if nothing else we can keep them talking. Besides... he said my mothers were there..."

"Well, I'm certainly not going to let you two be in the area by yourself," Wanda replied promptly. "But the moment more than the two of you walk through that door, you're right, it certainly will go downhill very fast. I am not sure how M, or even Lil, operates considering it has been quite a long time since I donned the leather but I know Logan and Kurt. We will be able to be close enough to the house to do an extraction."

"We'll need to keep them talking," Jake said, giving Cammie a Look. "Try to play along, try to keep it civil, try not to gas anyone." He put the car in drive reluctantly, not even flinching when Cammie hit him again. "Try not to hit anyone, either."

"It's been three years since I've seen my parents," Cammie snapped, "I think they'll be plenty they'll want to talk about. And the only two people there I really plan on hitting are you and Baby Face," she snapped.

"Children. If you do not stop arguing, I am locking you in the trunk of the car."