X-Men: Dark Mirror Read Online Free PDF Page B

shrugged, holding Suzy's gaze. The mutant woman was here for a good reason, and if her, then maybe others—if there were other mutants in Belldonne. Rogue had the feeling that Logan's contact was full of it—or else had deliberately misled them. If so, it was the best trap that had ever caught her.
    "C.J.," Suzy said. "You're not acting like yourself."
    "That's because I'm crazy," Rogue said, and shoved the nine of spades back into the lineup of cards. "Did you hear about Patty?"
    Kyle looked relieved by the change of subject. He shook his head, still playing air drums with his fingers. "Dumb girl. She screwed over the wrong guard."
    "What'd they do to her?"
    "Quiet room," Suzy said, still staring, eyes narrowing into pins of shifting color. Pain prickled the spot between Rogue's eyes; watching Suzy's face was enough to give her a headache.
    Kyle slid forward on his chair. "You thinking of busting her while she's down, C.J.?"
    "Only if I can find her," Rogue said, allowing the rough gravel of her voice to pack the menace she needed. "Which quiet room is she in?"
    "Third floor, near the west-wing station." Suzy picked up Rogue's discarded card. She ran the edges over her fingers and palm, and then pressed it to her lips. "You'll need a distraction."
    "You offering one?"
    Again, she smiled. "Interesting that you need to ask."
    Rogue frowned, and glanced around. No one but the nurses and security guards were paying attention to them; most of the other patients slumped in chairs or shuffled across the floor, radiating a dull discontent that seemed borne of boredom, confinement. There were some areas of dynamism—nervous anxiety, scattered bursts of laughter—but beneath even that was an undercurrent of unease and fear. No one wanted to be here. If you did, Rogue thought, then you really were sick.
    She stretched and kicked back her chair. This body still felt strange; an ill-fitting glove, one that had unfamiliar aches, an odd rolling looseness in her joints. She stood and Kyle grabbed her arm. It was startling, for a moment horrifying, to feel his hand on her bare skin.
     
    Not my skin. Not mine. You're nothing but human here, sugah. Remember that.
     
    Still, it did not matter that her skin was safe. Touch was unnatural, wrong. Dangerous. Rogue gave him a look that felt as unfriendly as her thoughts, and his hand flew off her arm. Kyle cowered, like he expected to be hit.
    "It's all right," Rogue said, ashamed that he was so afraid of her, of the woman who had once inhabited this skin. Suzy laughed.
    "You need to learn some things, Kyle," she said, still playing with the nine of spades: the illusion, the dream. "Some bitches you just don't touch."
    Truer words were never spoken. Rogue left to find Patty.
    The hospital surprised her. It was, quite clearly, an asylum of some kind, but none of the hospital employees stopped Rogue as she climbed the stairs to the third floor. No one questioned her movements, or tried to restrain her. So much for having a bad reputation.
    Not that there was much point to restricting anyone's movements; there was no place for the patients to wander other than the halls and other public areas. The facility felt more like a prison than a place of healing.
    Chicken wire—and, occasionally, bars—covered all the window glass, which was often too cloudy and distorted to allow any kind of outside view. The only exits—and Rogue had found them both, first thing that morning—were secured by locked metal doors guarded by security personnel. No security cameras, either, except by those doors. Rogue thought that was poor planning, but the hospital was clearly old and probably underfunded. Good for her and the others, but it did not speak well of the care real patients received, or the kinds of protection the staff had against those same patients. Rogue could not imagine being forced to live here, day after day, perhaps for years at a time.
    The third-floor west-wing station was located right off the