Fifty points left.
He’d need to earn more before the shop reset tomorrow, but this had been worth spending on.
The shower cut off a few minutes later.
Marcus sat up, grabbing the folded bundle off the bed, and knocked twice on the bathroom door.
“Hey. Got something for you.”
He heard a bit of shuffling on the other side.
A few seconds later, the lock clicked, and the door opened just a couple of inches.
A thick cloud of warm steam immediately rolled out through the gap, hitting the cooler air of the bedroom and bringing the heavy scent of cheap hotel soap with it.
Marie peeked out from behind the edge of the door.
Her wet hair clung flat against her forehead, and her face was pink from the heat of the hot water.
She kept the rest of herself firmly hidden behind the wood.
“Yeah?” she asked, her voice quiet and a little hesitant.
Marcus held up the black bundle and pushed it gently through the narrow gap.
“Put these on under your new clothes,” he said.
“It’s a long-sleeve undershirt and a pair of thin gloves. It’s a lot better than those bulky leather ones we grabbed earlier. They’ll keep your skin covered without making you look like you’re heading to a construction site.”
Marie reached a damp arm out and took the bundle.
As her fingers brushed the fabric, she paused.
It didn’t feel like normal cotton or polyester.
It was incredibly soft, almost weightless, yet completely opaque.
“Okay,” she muttered, looking from the clothes up to his face.
“Thanks.”
The door clicked shut again.
Marcus sat back down on the edge of the bed.
A few minutes passed before the lock clicked once more.
Marie stepped out slowly, eyes fixed on the carpet, dressed in the plain shirt and jeans from the store.
Sleeves pushed down over her wrists, thin black gloves covering her hands — from a distance, they just looked like regular gloves.
Nothing bulky.
A few feet in front of him, she stopped, staring down at her own hands.
“Do they actually work?” she asked quietly.
“Like… really work?”
“Yes,” Marcus said.
“They work.”
Fingers flexing slowly, she turned her hands over, studying the fabric.
It was thin enough to feel the texture of her own jeans through it, to feel warmth, pressure — everything except the fear that came with skin touching skin.
Her eyes lifted to his.
“Can I—” She stopped, swallowed.
“Can I try?”
He held out his hand.
For a second, she just stared at it, like she expected something to go wrong the moment she reached for it.
Then, slowly, she closed the distance and slid her gloved hand into his.
Nothing happened.
Just his hand, warm, holding hers. You are reading on g.com, the official source.
Before he could react, arms wrapped around him, her face burying against his chest.
The top of her head barely reached his chin.
She held on tight, shoulders shaking — and this time it wasn’t fear driving the tears, but relief, something close to hope.
Marcus froze for a half-second.
He wasn’t exactly used to being a pillar of emotional support, especially for a mutant fugitive he’d met less than twelve hours ago.
But he wasn’t going to just stand there with his arms at his sides while a traumatized girl finally had a breakdown.
He slowly brought his arms up to return the embrace.
He placed one hand low on her waist and rested the other flat against the middle of her back.
But the second his upper hand settled against her, his palm pressed against a distinct texture through the thin, cheap cotton of her new shirt—the unmistakable ridge of a bra clasp and the raised, delicate pattern of lace.
Marcus blinked.
Right.
Teenage girl.
Moving carefully so he wouldn’t startle her, he slid his upper hand down, completely clearing the clasp and the lace.
He settled both of his hands safely onto the sides of her waist instead.
As he stood there letting her cry it out, a sudden, intensely practical thought hit him.
He was currently hiding a runaway in a cheap motel with forged IDs.
Harboring a fugitive was one thing.
Transporting a minor across state lines was a federal kidnapping charge.
If the cops caught them, he needed to know exactly how much prison time he was looking at.
“How old are you, Marie?” he asked, keeping his voice dead flat.
The question instantly broke the moment.
She stopped shaking and slowly pulled her head back from his chest.
She looked up at him, caught entirely off guard by the sudden interrogation, a trace of awkward embarrassment crossing her face at how close they were standing.
“Eighteen,” she mumbled, quickly stepping back and wiping her eyes with the back of her gloved hand.
“I turned eighteen two months ago. Why?”
Marcus let out a quiet, internal exhale of relief.
Okay.
One less federal crime to worry about.
“Just needed to know for the paperwork,” Marcus said, already turning to grab the extra pillow off the closet shelf, mostly to give her a second to recover from the sudden mood whiplash.
Marie wiped at her eyes one more time, some of the tension finally draining out of her shoulders.
“Oh. Okay.”
“You should get some sleep,” Marcus said, tossing the pillow onto the floor near the wall.
“Long day. You look like you’re about to fall over.”
She nodded, not arguing, and climbed onto the bed, pulling the blanket over her legs.
Marcus grabbed the spare blanket from the closet and dropped down onto the floor, back against the wall, same setup as the night before.
The room went quiet except for the low hum of the air conditioner.
A minute passed.
Then two.
“…Marcus?”
“Yeah?”
“You don’t have to sleep on the floor.
The bed’s big enough.” A pause, then, quieter: “I mean — you literally carried me across a rooftop today.
Marcus glanced over at her.
She wasn’t looking at him, staring resolutely at the ceiling instead, her ears a little pink.
“I’m fine down here,” he said.
“I’m serious. There’s plenty of room.” She shifted over toward the far edge of the mattress, putting as much distance as possible between herself and the middle.
“I trust you. And the gloves work, so it’s not like… you know.”
He hesitated a second, then let out a breath and pushed himself up off the floor, dragging the blanket with him.
He climbed onto the far side of the bed, keeping a solid foot of space between them, and lay back against the pillow.
Silence again.
More comfortable this time.
“Hey, Marcus?”
“What.”
“How old are you? You never actually said.”
He stared up at the ceiling for a second.
“Twenty. Give or take.”
“Give or take?” She turned her head slightly, one eyebrow raised.
“I don’t exactly keep track,” he said, which was at least half true, given the whole situation with his memories.
“Twenty’s close enough.”
Marie let that sit for a moment.
“So only two years older than me.”
“Guess so.”
She didn’t say anything else.
A few minutes later, her breathing evened out, slow and steady, finally asleep.
…
Forty stories above Manhattan, a woman sat behind a desk of polished black glass, a thin folder open in front of her.
Too thin, for what it was supposed to be.
SUBJECT: Marie D’Ancanto (unconfirmed alias)
LAST CONFIRMED SIGHTING: Caldecott County, Mississippi
STATUS: At large.
Suspected Class 3 mutation — dermal absorption/energy transfer.
She turned the page.
A grainy photograph, pulled from some gas station security feed, showed a girl with a white streak of hair ducking her head against the rain.
Beneath it, a second photo.
Blurrier.
A young man, walking a half-step ahead of her, carrying a plastic shopping bag.
She studied his face for a long moment.
Something about it didn’t sit right, though she couldn’t immediately place why.
A manicured hand reached for the intercom, pressing the button with one nail.
“Tell him I’ve found his runaway.”
She leaned back, swirling a glass of champagne once before setting it down, untouched.
“And get me everything there is on the boy standing next to her.”
The intercom clicked off.
On the glass surface of the desk, faint and reflected from the skyline outside, platinum-blonde hair caught the last of the afternoon light.