Water and Blood: Part 3

by Binkeee


 


The morning fell through the windows of the Westchester mansion, spilling the suns rays carelessly unto the floor and into Julio E. Richter's sleepless eyes. He couldn't stand the blood that sleep brought him, the voices, and the pain of the death. Only two days ago he jumped into the below zero temperatures of a lake to save a girl that had yet to wake up, and only a day since the first images of the one called Kipper had invaded his mind. He sat on the edge of his bed all night, refusing to go to sleep, no matter how much his body begged him to. Flipping relentlessly through his pile of magazines, watching late night infomercials and anything that would keep him entertained. Julio's mind was so completely unfocused that the smallest things either made him incredibly angry, or start laughing to himself for minutes on end.

His stomach finally won the battle for food. As he wandered to the kitchen, he saw thick black smoke seeping through the bottom of the door. Voices and the scurrying of feet came from the kitchen. Taking a deep breath he ducked into the smoky room. Waving away the dark cloud, he saw two forms, Tabitha and Roberto, throwing water everywhere. Richter himself got splashed by Tabitha's attempt to put the stove's fire out with milk.

"What is going on in here?" Cable busted through the back door, Julio could see Tabitha blush deeper shades of crimson as more people filed into the room. Hysterical giggles and outbursts of laughter filled the room quicker than the smoke. Taking it as his cue to leave, and avoid trouble, Richter slipped back out the same way he had come. I'm not that hungry, he thought to himself. Cable had been somewhat less willing to but up with nonsense from his team recently. Julio never had any problem having yet another excuse to hate the man, but this time it effected the entire team.

Paying no attention to where his feet were leading him, he keep his head down and listened to the numerous shouts and sounds coming from the kitchen. He could picture what had happened, even though he wasn't there. Tabitha and 'Berto had been busy cooking and then, like so many times in the past weeks, blocked out everything but themselves, and the only thing that broke their activities was the stench of blackened bread and cheese.

Julio hated to admit that he was actually jealous of Roberto. Since he had chased her for some time, while 'Berto had completely ignored her or made rude comments about her. Sam didn't seem to mind, he didn't seem to talk either. In fact, all the time that X-Force was together, working out, watching TV, beating Shatterstar up to get the remote, Samuel seemed to have his lips stitched together.

"What do you think your doing in here?" Julio snapped out of his thoughts, and looked into the face of Cecilia Reyes. He hadn't realized that he was standing in the middle of the Medical lab until then. His first inclination was to run, hard, fast, and as far as he possible could away from her, but she was blocking the doorway. She saw him flinch and rolled her eyes, letting out a long dramatic sigh. "You're so tough fighting the things you do, and are completely scared out of your mind when I show up?"

"Only if you didn't stick me." Cecilia sighed again as she turned away. Julio let his own sigh of relief out, and thanked God that she didn't decide to give him a little something for the pain. The soft beeping of a heart monitor caught his ear, pulling up a steel chair from the corner he sat beside the girl that was attached to the monitor.

Her hair made an auburn crown around her head with curled ends, her skin was pale as if she had never seen the sun, and her hands laid straight by her still body. A sheet was pulled up to her neck were Julio noticed the only article of clothing that was originally hers, was a small ring on a necklace that almost choked her. Choke, that would get rid of her, just to tighten his hands around her neck and simply squeeze and squeeze...

Julio shook his head in disbelief, he didn't want to kill this girl. But something told him that he did. He did want to kill her, by injecting a cleaning substance, maybe Pine-sol or another liquid that would be undetectable in a needle... No! He screamed to himself, he didn't want to hurt her. She had done nothing to provoke him to cause her death.

"Get rid of the girl" Kipper's voice whispered through his thoughts, so clearly he could almost feel her breathe the words into his ear. He shook his head again, attempting to relieve himself of the homicidal ideas. He closed his eyes and leaned his head on his hands. The continuous rhythm of the beeps was like a soft lullaby to his tired ears, his lead like eyelids seemed to lock shut as he began to drift away into sleep.

"'ritseeee, 'ritseeee, 'risteeee." Richter's sleep like state was quickly demolished at the abrupt hissing sound. Opening his eyes quickly, the scurried scratches of the day before caught him by surprise. He investigated the room thoroughly for the source, and at length he found small claw marks along the other side of the floor from where he had been sitting. The marks were two inches long, and spaced at least an inch apart, and had four identical sets, like a huge cat had ran on the floor in only one spot.

"This is gettin' creepy." Rictor whispered as he rubbed his fingers over the imprints. He rubbed a hand over his face as he stood up. He knew he should leave. Something inside him told him that he should have let the girl drown. Drown, drown, drown, just to put her in the water and let her slip from his hands. It would've been so easy, it still would, with everyone caught up in the kitchen...

"'risteeee." The snake hiss cried out, as though if it knew what un-Godly things were running through his mind. The thing sounded as if it were pleading with him in a way and its little word echoed gently off the cold metal walls of the room. He had to leave the room before he ended up hurting the girl for no good reason. He wasn't a cold-blooded killer. He wouldn't be one of the people that let "voices" or "visions" get the taste of blood in his mouth.

At the thought, he thoughts of Kipper flashed through his mind, and all the blood. It was everywhere, every shade of red covering everything in his dream. The people that previously owned the blood lay there, gasping through slit throats, saying prayers that they'd never hear again. He couldn't remember any dream that had so much detail as this one, it was too powerful, like a prophet's dream in the Bible. The kind that would scare you into obeying, leaving your conscience as a part of the past.

Rictor left the room in a hurry, the ideas of how easily it would be to kill the girl were getting to intense.


"How long has he been in there?" Domino asked Cable as he watched Rictor thrust his fists into a civilian that had been rushing after him with a fully loaded gun.

"For over an hour." Cable answered as he read over the readouts. His brow knitted with concentration, something wasn't right about Julio's psyche, and the readouts confirmed it. Every time that Richter would think about someone or something, Cable would pick up violent imagery of pain and death. The readouts from Jean Grey confirmed that it was him that was throwing off the disturbing pictures.

"Aren't you going to stop him?" Domino asked crossing her arms across her stomach.

"He'll stop himself, or die trying to stay in there. Either way, it's his choice." Cable walked passed her and left the room in search of Jean.

Domino smiled darkly as she eased into the center control panel chair. She watched with much interest as Rictor brought a building down on top of a defenseless street bum. The blood hunger she recognized, whereas Julio didn't know what he was doing, or why. She had the same hunger in the pit of her stomach since she was "born" seven years ago. Domino's face started to melt away into a blue haze, as her electric blue eyes lit with hidden power, a red cape formed around her shoulders and hit the floor. Kipper's elbows were propped on the control panel, she rested her chin on her interlaced fingers as she watched the young Mexican jump through a rampage of fictitious men. As she waved her hand in front of the control devices, the moisture in the air clung together and fell in a light mist over the electronic devices. Her smile turned darker as the controls sparked and popped sending green shreds of electricity into the air. Kipper reached out to the water in Rictor's body, her control over water complete. As she started to twist his mind into the violent thoughts, she began to feel a familiar and painful burn erupt throughout her body. She screamed out in her own native dialect as she crumpled up in pain.

"I-it's been t-to long" she breathed out, gripping her mid section. She had no stomach or internal organs, however, humans owned those things, and she was far from being mortal. The burning increased as her powers remained around her creator, her powers were lost when the girl was awake and in control. "N-nno not yet." She hissed out, feeling the power starting to slip, the girl was waking. She cursed in her alien tongue and called the waters from the near by lakes to carry her back to the welcoming arms.

"Hey Dom, did you... " Cable looked into the empty room, only a minute ago he hed left her there and now it was empty. He shook his head and left the room, convinced that she must have been passing through when she walked in on him. The corners of a red cape slipped the rest of the way through the cracks of the floor as Cable left the room.


The girl wakes up...so what will happen now?


Part 4

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