Nothing Less than Extraordinary

xx10xx

I didn't know what time it was. I didn't know where we were other than in the car. I was leaning against the passenger window and dozing in and out of sleep. The last time I woke, I stretched as much as I could in the front seat and looked around.

Las Vegas in the daytime wasn't like it was at night. I woke up right when we were driving through the strip. I looked at as much of the cliché casinos and hotels that were in movies. It was beautiful, but I knew as well as anyone that it would light up at night and be gorgeous. I knew we weren't going to make any stops, much to my distaste (since we'd been sitting that long), but I was glad because I saw Cheshire shift uncomfortably in his seat.

"What's wrong?" I asked him, but felt that I knew like it was.

"Nothing," he huffed in a lie while shifting once more to drive with his right hand and prop his left elbow on the door frame. We were in traffic now and not worried about drawing attention to our expensive car because there were other rich vehicles around us.

"Chess—"

"You know what I idiotically don't know?" he suddenly questioned.

That you're going to remember every memory you had with Alice here and probably take it out on me unwillingly? I thought, but it came out as: "What?"

"I have no idea where they would keep him," he said. "I've been running it through my head over and over again and...there are hundreds, if not thousands of buildings here. Meeting someplace for an extremist group and keeping it a secret isn't very hard here. I wouldn't know where to begin to find him."

"Well he's with people who take pride in their mutations, right?" I reminded. He nodded. "Where do people go who don't care about showing off their powers? Where did you go?"

"When I was here, I..." he trailed off and I worried that I had reminded him of memories he wasn't ready to have nor talk about. "Magic."

"Magic...?" I repeated with a sort of question at the end. He snapped his fingers.

"When Alice and I were here, if we needed extra cash, I'd always make illusions to slots or cards or money, but just for the fun of it, I'd stage magic shows," Cheshire explained. I remembered Zaine sitting on my bed once, reading Cheshire's file about how he had lived off of gambling and counterfeit for three years. But like he needed to. He was a teenager with magical powers to live off of. "Before any of this mutant and Cure business, magic was just magic or cheap tricks passed down through generations. I could do it out in the open without anyone questioning me."

"So you're saying that they're going to sell a super-speed associate to a mass murderer to a street fair?"

"No," Cheshire said, but by then my eyes had fixated on a sight outside of the strip. It stood out for how ordinary it was—not covered in shimmer or unlit light bulbs. "They're probably exploiting their powers with people who appreciate them—like magicians."

"Cheshire."

"I know, I know, it's stupid, but my dad was a magician and all magicians have to believe in magic and some powers make it seem like—"

"Not that that isn't a plausible lead, but I think you ought to look over there," I interrupted. When Cheshire's gaze met the same as mine, he was more surprised than I had been. It was a given that the streets of Vegas would be packed—not so much in the daytime, but whatever. There were hundreds of people crowding around a plain commercialized drug store. Two lines were separated by police and the ten foot gap that the doors permitted. Cheshire immediately pulled over.