Chapter 21 The Attacker (Patreon)

The brakes slammed to full stop before he could finish. Tires shrieked against asphalt, and for a second the whole car felt like it might roll — before somehow righting itself.

"What's going on?" Emma asked, steadying herself after the sudden stop. She turned toward the driver's seat, separated from the back by a partition wall with only a small window of glass between them.

The driver threw the car into reverse. "Ma'am, there are some cars ahead blocking the way."

He'd barely floored the gas before—

BOOM.

One second they were sitting in the car; the next, they were violently thrown around the cabin as something launched the vehicle into the air.

The car rolled multiple times before finally grinding to a halt, upside down. Since none of them were wearing seatbelts, gravity had turned the interior into a tangle of limbs. Marcus had taken the brunt of the impact, pinned against the collapsed roof. Emma was sprawled directly on top of him, her face mere inches from his, while Rogue had her head buried tightly against his chest.

"Fucking—" Emma cursed, scrambling off him. She clutched her head, a trickle of blood seeping through her fingers.

Marcus pushed himself up, keeping an arm around Rogue to help her steady herself, before pulling his leg back and kicking the crumpled car door wide open.

Through the smoke and the pouring rain, four figures advanced on the flipped SUV. They wore unmarked, heavy gray tactical gear and featureless black ballistic masks.

"Targets are in the rear compartment," a flat, mechanized voice crackled through a comms unit.

Still trapped inside the crumpled frame of the SUV, Emma pushed herself up near the shattered window, her face pale but her eyes furious. She pressed her fingers to her temples, locking her gaze on the approaching men.

The second she tried to push into their minds, it happened again.

A violent psychic backlash slammed into her skull, identical to the one she'd suffered against Natasha. Her arms gave out instantly. Her hands flew to her head, eyes squeezing shut in agony as she collapsed backward into the ruined cabin.

Rogue, pinned in the backseat right beside her, caught her before she hit the collapsed roof.

"They're..." Emma gasped, barely able to form the word through the pain.

Before she could finish, gunfire erupted outside. Heavy, suppressed automatic fire echoed across the street as Emma's surviving security detail tried to engage the ambushers. It was a one-sided slaughter. Within ten seconds, the brief firefight completely stopped, leaving only the crackle of burning engines and the hiss of the rain.

Inside the wreckage, Marcus looked back at Rogue. "Keep her down. Don't move," he ordered quietly.

Taking a slow breath, Marcus kicked the jammed door the rest of the way open and climbed out of the SUV, stepping into the open.

He moved deliberately, his hands raised high in the air, palms open and visible. As he came to a stop in the pouring rain, the smoke shifted just enough to reveal the strike team.

Four operatives in featureless black ballistic masks stared back at him. Half a dozen red laser sights snapped to his chest, the glowing dots locking dead-center on his jacket without a single tremor.

"Hold fire," a smooth, voice called out from the darkness.

The four heavily armored operatives slightly lowered their rifles, stepping aside to clear a path. A fifth man walked out from the thick smoke.

Unlike the strike team, this man wasn't wearing tactical gear. He wore a crisp, dark trench coat over a tailored suit. The rain beaded off his completely bald head and the lenses of his glasses. He looked entirely out of place in a warzone, yet he walked with the casual, arrogant stroll of a man who held all the cards.

Jasper Sitwell.

He stopped a few paces away, slipping his hands comfortably into his coat pockets. He didn't even flinch at the sight of the burning vehicles or the bodies of Emma's security detail scattered across the asphalt.

Sitwell barely gave Marcus a passing glance, instantly dismissing him as a non-threat. Instead, he leaned to the side, peering past Marcus into the crumpled, upside-down cabin of the SUV.

His eyes found Emma, who was still leaning heavily against the collapsed roof, and Rogue, who was hovering protectively beside her.

A slow, incredibly smug smile spread across Sitwell's face.

"Well, well," he said, his voice carrying easily over the hiss of the rain. "When Director Fury put me on surveillance duty, I honestly didn't expect the night to be quite this productive."

He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and casually wiped a drop of water from his glasses, thoroughly enjoying the moment.

"The infamous White Queen, and the little runaway from Mississippi," Sitwell chuckled, shaking his head. "Two high-value mutants in one convenient package. My superiors are going to be absolutely thrilled with this."

Inside the wreckage, Emma glared at him. Her eyes burned with pure venom, but the dampening tech on the operatives' belts kept her completely locked out of their minds. She was powerless, and Sitwell clearly knew it.

Sitwell finally turned his attention back to Marcus. He tilted his head, studying Marcus for a second like a piece of trash he'd stepped on.

"And you are... well, you're not on any of my lists," Sitwell noted, his polite smile fading into indifference.