This is Joker’s chance to showcase his magician’s apprentice skills at drawing the audience’s attention.
I can sense the excitement through the bond from both Bird and Joker.
We are wearing masks, and for once, it’s fucking thrilling.
This is our joint revenge. We’ll free the Rogues today and through doing that, set us all free.
Mr. Baskerville is seated behind his intimidating desk, which dominates the windowless study.
The shelves that line the walls behind him look at first glance like books but are in fact casefiles. The spines are stamped with the Rogues’ numbers, rather than names, some of them in black to indicate those who have died.
A disturbing number are black.
Underneath the glow of the green banker’s lamp on the desk, lies a metal tray of needles.
I stiffen.
Is that the toxin, which they intend to use to wipe out the Rogues? Have they developed it already?
Have we got here just in time?
My Powers attempt to rise, but the warden has learned from last time. He has flooded the Facility with both scent and pheromone blockers.
The ventilators whir above us.
Neither Joker nor I can surprise Mr. Baskerville or his guards with our Rogue Powers.
Unluckily for the warden, we have other talents.
Mr. Baskerville’s watery gaze scans just once over Bird and me, kneeling and bound, before he dismisses us as caught and harmless.
Big mistake.
The warden chuckles. “Seventy, you can’t say I didn’t warn you that if you escaped, then you’d be hunted. Although, the bounty set was dead or alive. I expected these two mutants would be returned in body bags. You won’t be paid more, Mr. Hunter, for returning these demonic aberrations alive.”
Phantom’s eyes narrow.
Joker smiles charmingly, however, as he perches on the edge of the desk. “Aren’t they more valuable alive?”
“Don’t try and renegotiate the payment. I am already meeting with you, which is a courtesy that I don’t normally extend. When I believed that I could breed them and then experiment on their child, I would have kept them alive briefly. But now that I have this…” Mr. Baskerville waves his hand at the white liquid, which looks innocent in the needle, and his face lights up with a ghoulish glee. “…I am close to fulfilling my pack’s sacred duty to scourge these rats from the?—”
Unexpectedly, a gunshot cracks through the air.
Bird violently flinches.
The bullet hits Mr. Baskerville in the forehead, breaking off his words mid-sentence.
A dark bloom appears in the center of his forehead. Then his body sags forward over the desk. Blood spills in a pool on the polished surface.
I sigh, jumping to my feet and pulling myself free from the ropes that I could have escaped at any time. “So much for sticking to the plan.”
Phantom glares at the warden’s corpse.
The Chief Alpha is still holding the gun in his hand. Then he slips his sidearm back into his holster.
He signals:Dick.
Fair point.
