This was it. Hours...days...almost two years of work, investigation, and planning had finally brought Quin to this point.

The trafficking ring was large, organized, and very good at what they were doing. Mutant kids were still disappearing, the ones on the street at an almost alarming rate. The police were, “doing their best,” as they always did, but even Quin had to admit that the situation was getting less attention than it should. Either mutant kidnappings were getting lower priority or bribes were involved at a higher level than she wanted to know.

With Nate gone, Quin had dived head first back into the case. Men were too much work for the time being, and the redhead thought that maybe a break from the dating scene would be good.

Over the next several weeks the walls of Quin’s apartment once again became a peg board and strings connected one idea to another. The lines had crissed and crossed and meandered until a pattern had begun to take shape. Quin had taken to the streets, talked to people, tailed cars and added more strings.

Eventually all of the strings converged on a single place.

Hunts Point was an industrial area, but despite the fact that it had a relatively low population when compared with most of the surrounding areas the murder and general crime rate were horrific. It was the kind of place where police response time was abysmal because many saw it as nothing more than clean up duty. People didn’t tell what they knew in the area and sometimes it was just better to call the coroner. The memories of the arguments Quin had had about the place still made her lip curl slightly in disgust. The streets were lined with abandoned and functional bastions to the industrial complex and the empty buildings tended to attract the wrong kind of people.

This was the exact sort of place a trafficking ring would operate.

It was exactly where Quin was heading.

This wasn’t the kind of thing that a smart person, or a good investigator, usually did on their own. A partner was able to watch your back, lend a hand when needed, and call for backup if something went wrong.

Quin was by herself tonight though. By the time she’d made the final leap that led her to this particular building it had been too late to call Michael and she wasn’t about to call Ashton. If her suspicions about the NYPD and their (lack of) involvement in these disappearances were correct the last thing she needed at the moment were cops.

Not unaware of the irony in avoiding police involvement, Quin had dressed in her best snooping gear and headed out to scout. Nothing could be done until she confirmed her suspicions anyway. Taking a look around was low-risk and she’d call the appropriate people once she managed to confirm that the trail was still warm.

Parking anywhere in the area put her car (even as shabby as it was) at risk of being stolen or stripped before she could get back so Quin settled for driving as far as she dared and then taking the bus until she reached the outskirts of the area and walking from there. It also made it easier to make sure nobody was tailing her. A few times over the last week she’d have sworn someone was following her, but it had always turned out to be nothing. Quin had chalked it up to paranoia over getting close to the end of the trail.

The street that Quin had pinpointed was everything a person would expect from a shady operation. The streetlights burned low or not at all and there was absolutely no street traffic. The genuine lack of people made things a bit tougher and Quin found herself walking past the building and continuing down the street, the hood of her jacket pulled up to hide her red hair as she tried to sneak a peek at the operation.

A van passed at one point, slowing as it passed almost enough to make the redhead nervous as it drove by. It was a panel van, again so stereotypical it was difficult to believe that nobody had reported the thing before.

Into the building the van turned and double garage doors in the old building swung outward to admit the vehicle. Quickly it was fine and the street was once again clear and eerily quiet.

It was time to go.

The whole walk and bus ride back to where she had stowed her car Quin tried to decide her next steps. Obviously there were cameras on the building and a way to communicate with the inside or they wouldn’t have been as ready for the van as they obviously had been.

Fiddling with her phone as she exited the bus, Quin pulled her keys from her pocket and pushed down her hood as she unlocked the door and climbed inside. Finally making a decision and pulling up the last conversation she’d had with Ashton, Quin started to type a message to see what he knew.

She didn’t see the man in the backseat until his movement caught her eye in the rear-view mirror.

Too late she turned, trying to duck his arms and grab at her door handle and exit. Too quickly a large hand tangled into Quin’s ponytail and propelled her head forward into the steering column, the impact of the steering wheel against her eyebrow causing stars to erupt in her vision and she twisted, trying desperately to get some leverage in the cramped space of the VW Bug.

The second impact drove the side of her head into the dashboard just above the radio and Quin grunted as the arm not holding her ponytail snaked around her neck, cutting off the blood supply to her head.

Blood from her eyebrow trickled into her eye as darkness quickly started to close in from the edges of her vision and even as she clawed frantically at the arm around her neck, Quin saw a familiar van pull up along-side her car.

The darkness closed in and Quin reminded herself once again why it was so bad to stake anything out without a partner.

The cold was the first thing that Quin felt as consciousness began to return. Cold, rough concrete against her cheek and down her arm. Her jacket and pull-over were gone and she was in the tank top she had worn underneath.

Breathing slowly through her nose and doing her best to assess the situation before moving, Quin determined that she could only currently see out of one eye...the one closest to the pavement. The other was either crusted shut with blood or too swollen to open. To that end it also felt like someone was cracking her head open like an egg for an omelette. Had she managed to get that text off?

Unlikely.

Nobody was coming for her.

Fighting down a surge of panic, Quin focused on where she was and what precious little she had to work with.

Her arms were pulled sharply behind her back and both her upper arms and wrists were bound...that explained where her coat and pullover had gone. Her legs were similarly tied and as quietly as possible she tried them for slack. There was none. She also checked...whatever they’d bound her with was completely devoid of polymers of any kind. Something else occurred to Quin and she wiggles her feet...they’d taken away her rubber soles shoes.

Somewhat desperate, Quin reached out with her powers...nothing.

They’d known who she was and what she could do.

She was so very stupid...and probably so very dead. A small, panicked sob escaped and Quin nearly bit her tongue trying to stay quiet.

There had to be something.

“I don’t care what the boss says...we should be going in here to dispose of a mess. She’s too old to make us any money…”

Quin took a deep breath and held herself as still as possible as the voices approached.

“Boss says he’s got a plan. Dead cops start snowing up and people are going to ask questions. Put this on her and shut up. We aren’t here to ask questions.”

Footsteps approached and Quin waited until she could tell someone was crouching over her and kicked out with both feet. She made contact with something very solid and was rewarded with a grunt of pain and a string of curses. Hope flared in Quin’s chest and she readied herself to kick out at the other grunt when she felt something snap closed around her neck.

Almost simultaneously a jolt of electricity surged through her body and Quin doubled in on herself to the exclusion of everything else.

After what seemed like an eternity, but was in reality only a few moments, the shock stopped and Quin lay panting on the floor, muscles twitching. It was one of those collars. The ones the NYPD sometimes used on dangerous criminals. Quin know how they worked.

A swift kick in the ribs doubled her up again and Quin stopped fighting, finally giving in to the panicked sobs that had been trying so hard to escape since she’d awoke.

There really wasn’t anything else for her to do.

Quin didn’t know how far she’d been drug after the two grunts who had come for her had finished making their point about the futility of escape and the consequences of trying.

The point was taken.

Quin wondered if the money the way they’d worked her over would have any effect on the money, “the boss” was planning to make off her. She hoped so. Those types didn’t like losing money. It would be something.

Eventually the stopped moving and Quin was once again deposited on a cold, concrete floor. This place smelled antiseptic though and when Quin chanced a look around she could see a number of tables and what looked to be basic medical eqipment.

“Here you got Doc.” Thing 1 said, giving Quin a nudge in the ribs with his foot that tore an involuntary groan from her throat.

“Was all that really necessary?” Another voice asked and Quin found herself looking at the most unremarkable man she’d ever seen. “Mr Montgomery would have been very displeased if you’d accidentally killed her. She’ll bring a very nice price once we are finished. Put her on the table please.”

Quin was simply too tired and too hurt to fight at this point. It was fine though, whatever happened from here, as long as she was alive she’d have a chance to get away. A chance to not make this mistake again.

A chance.

Quin vaguely noticed her arms and legs being strapped into restraints on one of the tables she had seen and feebly fought to get away from the hands that rendered her even more powerless than she already was.

“You may go now.” The world’s most uninteresting man instructed the grunts and Quin watched their retreating backs exit the room before she tried the restraints. They were right and really did restrict her movement.

“It’s too late for all of that.” The man said, voice thick with amusement as he readied a syringe. Were they going to drug her? In her trainings with the force Quin had learned that traffickers often got their victims addicted to street drugs to make them compliment and addicted...slaves to the need for more.


The man turned and Quin flinched away from him almost involuntary as he approached and he smiled a smile that got nowhere near his eyes.

“Shhh.” He said softly as he reached out to smooth sweaty and matted hair out of her face as he leaned in close. His breath smelled like mint and it made Quin’s stomach clench with nausea.

“We can’t very well get our best price for you if you’re not at your best, can we?” He crooned, then plunged the needle into Quin’s thigh.

The pain from the needle flared and Quin yelled as her body arched away from the table. It felt like she had been injected with pure fire.

And it was spreading.

The restraints made more sense and Quin pulled at them as she screamed, pausing only to take breath as the liquid fire spread through her body. After a few moments she couldn’t see the doctor anymore, she could only feel the spread of whatever it was she’d been injected with.

Then she began to see. She began to see so much.

She saw Nate leaving her apartment for the last time after telling her that he was leaving New York.

She saw the face of the brass when she’d slammed down her badge and service weapon down and taken back control of her life.

She saw Nate at the castle when they’d shared a drink and a few clandestine kisses after he’d been freed from his incarceration. .

She saw Ashton the night they walked through Central Park and talked about the stars, and the night at the hotel in Chicago.

There were so many memories…

Running into Nate on the train when she’d been so angry...snuggling into him in bed after a passionate night together...their first date at the Italian restaurant...meeting Nate inthe park for the first time.

As each memory played through her mind it was like it flittered away, off into bright fluorescent lights that floated over her eyes.

Here was her first day on the job with the NYPD, the scolding she got from Ashton over what she did to their vests…

Here was her graduation from the academy, and the first night she spent in the city.

She was graduating from college, taking her tests, going to her classes…

And then she was staring up at cold fluorescent lights, throat raw and body aching as sweat poured down her face and back.

She was restrained and panic surged through her as she pulled at the restraints. Where was she? Why wasn’t she in her dorm?

”Help…” she whimpered.

No help came.