As The World Turns Cold

Unlisted

Lily opened her mouth to speak, but Terrance piped up from the back of the vehicle. He shoved the folder of files in front of their faces.

"Behold the riches of the world, my friends." Terrance dropped the folder, letting it fall into Mercy's lap.

She sat up straight and felt Rogue move behind her. They all crowded around her as Mercy opened the flap.

Her fingers skimmed over the pages, flipping through reports and general letters. Her eyes scanned the pages and she paused as she came upon a sheet that caught her attention.

She looked over the profile information. Several words from the page caused her to stop and ponder over the new information; others left her too curious for words. Her gaze lifted to the left corner where a photo had been attached.

A younger boy, no older than Mercy had been when she was taken, stared back at her with black eyes and even blacker hair.

The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe ran through her thoughts as she looked at the boy. His pale skin was flawless, but it took on a corpse-like color that screamed of illness.

For any normal person, this would be devastating and unnatural, but for a superhuman, it was no more than normalcy.

Mercy hesitated a moment more before flipping through more pages. Her eyes scanned over and over again on profiles similar to the boy. Young children, teenagers like themselves, and even a few adults were pictured in the files.

If Mercy were estimating the amount of records she'd skimmed over, she'd say there were at least thirty of them listed.

And if the government had information on this many, then who's to say there weren't far more out there looking for help before it was too late for them?

"Terrance. You were an agent in the facilities. Did you know about this?" Mercy glanced back at her friend who was grinning from ear to ear.

He shook his head with vigor. "I wasn't allowed such clearance. God knows how many of them I could have saved if I had the information."

"They've got locations listed. We could track them down after we finish the mess here." Rogue spoke with a heavy voice, his tongue laced with hope.

"We could save them." He thumbed through the files Mercy had previously glanced through. "There's so many of them."

Lily shivered beside her sister, her cold eyes fixing on the pictures with disbelief. "I never thought there were so many like us out there."

Mercy let out a sigh of relief. There could easily be many more out in the world and if there were that many, then there was a chance that one of them could be suffering the same powers as Mercy. They could learn to use their nature for good together.

If there was such a person out there, Mercy would hunt for however long it took to find them. This new information was enough to give her the drive she had been waiting for.

"Neither did I." She replied to her sister with a smile lighting her face.

"The strangest thing happened as I was searching the files, though." Terrance spoke. His face displayed the epitome of confusion. "I found my file along with Mercy and Lily's. Mine was a shock because I had actually thought I had done a decent job at hiding my powers. But it would appear there really isn't too many ways of keeping secrets from the government."

"Was that what has you in a tizzy?" Lilly smirked back at him.

"Not that exactly." He shook his head and glanced at Rogue with wariness.

Rogue, sensing the change in the atmosphere, kept his attention focused outside of the car windows. Not meeting the gaze of the boy behind him.

"As I thumbed through them, I didn't see any records of Rogue. It was as if he never existed."

Mercy saw his refection as Rogue scowled, his brows bunched together and a nervous tick quaking his lips.

"Why didn't they have files on you?" She asked with hesitancy.

Rogue shrugged and concealed his nervousness with a stone cold façade. "I don't know. I guess I wasn't important enough for them to keep tabs on me."

Mercy growled low in her throat. She knew he was hiding something. She was positive of it now, but he was too good at hiding it to crack under pressure. She would get no more than a tick out of him right now.

"That's not true. They keep tabs on everyone. Certainly they would have something on you." Her cool eyes bore into his and she stood her ground, daring him to speak.

His eyes met hers in the reflection of the glass surface. "Don't tempt me, Mercy. I know as much as you do about it all."

She shook her head. "You're lying. If I'm going to completely put my faith in you, I would like to know you weren't keeping any secrets."

His grin was wicked with malice and the sight made her shiver. As he spoke, his voice filled with a power that terrified her. "We all have dark secrets, Mercy, because they are meant to be kept hidden. I'd like mine to stay that way."