You love her. You love her and it doesn't matter.

"It is lucky we decided to come and check her room, ja? If we had not seen her in the hall..Kurt hesitated. "Jean believes she will be transferred soon, perhaps tonight. She managed to tell me this."

"Perfect," Scott said. The hall was empty; most of the patients seemed to be downstairs in the recreation room. The nurses' station on this floor was at the other end of the wing. He began walking after Jeff. Kurt followed.

"Scott," he said.

Scott ignored the tension in his friend's voice and said, "How athletic are you now, Kurt?"

Kurt shook his head. "If you are asking me what I think-"

"I am."

"a"then yes, mein freund. I am strong enough."

Scott began to run. He turned the bend in the hall and saw the nurse pushing Jeffa" Jeana"into her cell. Scott did not slow down. Silent, fast, he raced toward the nurse and the man looked up at the last moment, saw it was Mindya"sweet quiet little womana"and brought his hands up too slow. Scott slammed his tiny fist into the man's throat, Jean kicked out the back of his kneesa"and then as the nurse went down hard, choking, Kurt arrived and hit the fallen man hard in the face, again and again, until he went very still. Scott checked his pulse.

"We are still clear," Kurt said, breathing hard as he looked up and down the hall. Scott stood and reached for Jean. He gazed into her unfamiliar face and said, "Are you okay?"

"I am now," she said, and turned around. "Get me out of this thing."

Scott ripped away the Velcro ties and helped Jean slither out of the straitjacket. Kurt attempted to drag the nurse into Jean's cell.

"I could use some help," he muttered. Scott and Jean grabbed arms and legs and hauled the nurse out of the hall, stowing him right up against the wall where he would be out of sight from someone looking in through the observation window. Kurt wrestled him into the straitjacket.

"That won't keep him quiet," Jean said, but Kurt removed the nurse's tennis shoes and stripped off his socks. He stuffed them both in the man's slack mouth. Scott searched his pockets and pulled out a set of keys.

"We need to get Logan and Rogue," he said.

"That is not going to be easy." Kurt stepped back from the nurse and peered through the observation window.

"My life stopped being easy the day I hit p.u.b.erty," Jean said, nudging him aside to carefully open the door. Scott pressed up against her back, listening hard. He heard nothing but the distant echo of voices, the sounds of men and women in motion.

The three X-Men left the cell and hurried back down the hall to the stairs. Logan and Rogue were being held one floor above them, but in a different wing. According to Scott's memories of the hospital blueprints, the only way to reach them required going down to the first floor and past the recreation room to another flight of stairs in the adjoining wing. It was a crowded area; Scott did not like their odds.

"If someone sees me ..." Jean whispered.

"I know," Scott said. "But the only surveillance cameras are near the exits and there are more patients than staff in this place. If we're carefula""

"That might not be enough," Kurt said. "Someone is coming."

There was no time to retreat; they were trapped on the stairs. Taking a deep breath and hoping for the best, Scott pushed forward. Up until now, he and Kurt had relied upon no one paying attention to them. With Jean, that would change. Scott imagined that most of the staff knew that shea"or rather, Jeffa"had been locked up for violence. If anyone questioned why she now walked freea"

It was Nurse Palmer who appeared in front of them. She carried a stack of files and her steps were slow, heavy. The light from the window behind her no longer seemed quite so bright; Scott wondered what time it was. Night would be a better time for escape.

You should have left Jean in her cell until you were ready to leave this place. You just worsened your odds.

But then, Scott preferred to take his chances with Jean at his side, rather than risk a transfer or some other harm to her. The X-Men had no control over their lives in this place.

Scott did not stop walking nor slow his pace; for a moment he thought Nurse Palmer would let them pa.s.s, but at the last possible instant she stepped in front of him. Scott teetered on his heels to keep from running into her. Jean brushed up against his back.

He glanced at Nurse Palmer from under his lashes and found her staring at Jeff. Her forehead creased into a thick frown. "Now, this can't be right. Who let you out of lockup, Jeff?"

"I don't know," Jean said. "One of the nurses. He said he didn't want to take time to feed me, so I should do it myself."

"Of all the ..." Nurse Palmer shook her head, shifting backward. Scott wondered if she was getting ready to run. He did not blame her; she was one solitary woman, outnumbered by three mentally unstable individuals. Scott was surprised she had even bothered confronting them.

"He's hungry," Kurt said. "Can't he have dinner with us?"

Nurse Palmer narrowed her eyes. "No, he cannot. And why do you care so much, Renny? Jeff has always terrified you, and now, suddenly, you're acting like friends? You're spending time with Mindy and looking for Dr. Maguire? Something is wrong here. You're acting out of character." She gave Scott a searching look. "All of you are."

She backed down the stairs and Scott knew they had only moments before she began calling for help. He said, "Wait," but this time Nurse Palmer did not respond or act surprised by his willingness to talk.

And then another woman appeared, running lightly up the stairs from the first floor. She looked vaguely familiar. Her eyes were odd, and she wore the loose uniform of a patient.

"Suzy," said Nurse Palmer, and the woman smiled, stepping so close that Scott felt sure the nurse would say somethinga"a shout, a warninga"but colors shifted in the patient's gaze, whorls of gold and green, and Nurse Palmer shut her mouth.

"Those are real heavy files," said the woman, Suzy.

"And it's been a h.e.l.l of a long day. I think you better move on now and find a place to rest your feet."

Nurse Palmer shook her head, though her gaze never wavered from Suzy's eyes. The woman swayed close, her hips round and soft like her voice, and she said, "Go on now. These people aren't important at all."

"But-"

"No." One word, dropped into the air like stone. "Now go."

Nurse Palmer turned and walked up the stairs. She did not look at Scott or the others as she pa.s.sed. She did not seem to see much of anything at all.

No one else moved. They looked at Suzy, whose smile widened.

"You're so screwed," she said.

"Have we met?" Scott asked.

"No," she said. "You're usually not much of a talker."

Right. He kept forgetting that part.

"Thank you for your help," Kurt said politely. "But forgive me if I question why."

Suzy smiled, nasty. "Renny, Renny, Renny . . . that's your name and don't wear it out, right? You're not shaking in your boots, Renny. You don't act worried at all. You act like a man with b.a.l.l.s."

"And that surprises you?"

Her smile widened. "Bras and toilets, Renny. Remember that nice diversion I created for the nurses?"

"Ah," he said. "Yes- She folded her arms over her chest "You're a terrible liar. You were then, and you are now. Whoever you are."

Scott frowned. "What do you mean by that?"

She merely looked at him, and again he cursed his big mouth. Her eyes swirled like the sun shining through water, light to dark, pupils expanding and contracting like the beating of a heart, subtle and hypnotic. He looked away, concerned about staring too long into that gaze.

"Smart," she said. "Some are more susceptible than others, but they don't always realize it. I'm a b.i.t.c.h, so I warn them."

"You're a mutant," Jean said, and Scott thought about the mission that had brought them here. "Are you being kept at the hospital against your will?"

Suzy laughed out loud. "s.h.i.t, Jeff. I liked you better when you were a thug. No, I'm not being kept here against my will. I say I deserve it. I'm just a little crazy sometimes. Just a little."

"Just a little?"

"Just a little song, just a little dance, nothing at all special. Crazy, I'm just a little crazy." She showed some teeth. "And you all are impostors. You and Renny and Crazy Jane and G.o.d knows who else. Impostors, illusion, wrapped up in shadows. You're all screwed."

"Are you a telepath?"

"That's too big a word for a girl like me," she said, sly. "Use smaller talk, Mister Mindy."

Scott went very still. "How do you know?"

She tapped her head. "I just do. Instinct, maybe. Or the cards." She pulled a stack of them from her pocket, a regular playing deck, well used and rough at the edges. "It took me a while with Crazy Jane, but when I figured her out, the rest of you were easy. I saw you ail talking. That shouldn't be, no matter what Dr. Maguire has been doing with you."

"Do you know anything about that?" Scott stepped closea"too close, maybe, those eyes might be dangerousa"but he needed to know, and if this woman had the answersa"

"No," she said, and he could not tell if she was lying. "I never got a chance to talk to the doctor. Not many did. He came and started seeing only certain patients. And then lie narrowed those patients, and then again, again, until he had you five. You special dirty little five."

"Does that make you angry?" Kurt asked.

"Everything makes me angry, Renny. That's why I'm here. Partly, anyway. But you shouldn't be here. You shouldn't at all."

Scott studied her face, that smile, those cold eyes. "Are you offering to help us?"

"I'm offering something," she said. "I got a feeling I should. Crazy jane pulled a bad card and I been pulling more. Five of hearts, Five of diamonds, Five of spades and clubs. Five seems to be the magic number and after seeing you love children all together, all friendly when you've never been friends at all, I got my message loud and clear."

"Which is what?" Scott asked cautiously.

She picked her teeth with a fingernail. "To set you free, little red bird. I'm going to set you free."

6.

AFTER SEVERAL HOURS OF WAITING IN THAT DISMAL little room, with an equally foul-tempered Logan, Rogue was somewhat relieved when the nurses came to fetch her for a meeting with the administrator. They did not remove the straitjacket.

Mr. Beckett was a small man, with a shiny bald scalp surrounded by a thinning ring of brown hair that looked far more youthful than his wrinkled drooping face. He reminded her of a bored hound dog and he sounded like one when he talked, all slow vowels and questions that felt like proclamations.

"Are you a troublemaker?" he said, when she sat down. "I think you are a troublemaker."

"Okay," Rogue said. Mr. Beckett frowned, tapping the file in front of him with a pencil.

"Frankly, I expected more. You made remarkable progress with Dr. Maguire, but several incidents over the past month have demonstrated that your road to recovery is . . . challenged. This latest episode is a vile example of that"

"I was trying to defend that nurse."

"Several of my staff have said that. I was not there, so I cannot verify the veracity of their stories. Either way, it matters little. A patient is dead, which is a kind of permanence that I do not appreciate inside my hospital."

Rogue did not appreciate it, either. She mourned that death. Her heart hurt. Her hands felt dirty.

"But not that dirty," Logan had said, during their brief conversation. "Because your intentions were good. You were trying to help someone. h.e.l.l, darlin', that happens to me all the time. You want to see a screwup when it comes to keeping people alive, just take a good hard look at me. That's the picture they're using in the dictionary."

Which was enough to make her smilea"a good signa" though as far as pep talks went, it was not enough to wash away the guilt. In Rogue's experience, not much could do that except for time.

"What was his name?" she asked, because she had to know, she had to remember this man's death in a personal way and not just as a face, an incident, a mystery.

It was the wrong question. Mr. Beckett snapped his pencil and threw the pieces down on his desk. They bounced; one of them hit Rogue's chest.

"This amuses you, doesn't it?" He leaned back in his chair and placed his hands palm down on the desk.

"No," Rogue protested, but he shook his head.

"I don't want to hear another word out of your mouth. I am transferring you to the mental health ward at the women's correctional facility. You should have been sent there a long time ago, but Dr. Maguire insisted that you remain under his care."

"You must have had a good reason for listening,"

Rogue said, watching his expression harden. She had nothing left to lose; she did not care that her accent crept in. Even if she sounded nothing like Jane, the man in front of her would never imagine the truth.

"Dr. Maguire is highly respected," Mr. Beckett said slowly. "Very."

"So he used his influence to bully you," Rogue said.

Beckett's face flushed an even deeper red. "The nurses will take you back to the quiet room now. If nothing else, you can spend more time with your... therapy mate, before you leave."

"That's very kind of you," Rogue said, thinking, You stinky little weasel.

"I thought so," he said, and gestured at the door.

Logan was propped up against the wall when Rogue returned. He grinned and said to the nurses, "You guys planning on feeding us? I could use some grub."

"Shut up," said the man. "I'm not getting close enough to those teeth to feed you. Chew on each other if you get that hungry."

"Heh," said the other, leering. "I'd like to see that."

"I bet," Logan said. The nurses left, laughing. Rogue gave him a dirty look and slid down the wall, rubbing up against his shoulder.

"They're sending me to prison," she told him. "I'm going to be jail bait."