“He’s found us.” Her voice was low, filled with quiet desperation as she clutched the bundle in her arms. It was long enough that it ran across her body, legs sticking out the side, oblivious to the commotion taking place around her. Jon threw his arms around them, grasping Elizabeth and the child in a tight embrace.
“Impossible,” Jon said, almost under his breath. The sound had stopped, just for a moment. “We left port over a day ago. No one could track us like this. No meta could find us over open water like—”
The hatch to the cabin opened with a slow, grinding squeak, the mechanism squealing as it turned, in desperate need of oil. Jon stared at it in a kind of fixed horror, trying to figure out his next move. Can I fly them out? The girl, maybe, but not both, he realized grimly. Not in this storm.
Jon looked down at the bundle in the woman’s arms. It squirmed, a little girl, eight years old, looking up at him with wide eyes, still blinking from her sudden awakening.
“Shhhh,” he whispered, and the door creaked again, squealing the lock open the last little bit, popping as it swung wide. The ship was still listing, the waves rocking it in the waters of Lake Superior.
The door swung open, framing a figure silhouetted in the light coming from the corridor outside. There was a shadow at first and that was all, a great silhouette dripping rain onto the carpeting, and then the man took a step over the lip of the hatch threshold, and shut it behind him, turning the heavy wheel to crank it shut. Once it was closed he stepped away, and Jon could see him wearing a coat that was soaked through, black, and boots that oozed water when he took a step. Did he fly all the way out to us from Duluth? That’s a long flight, even for a—
“Hello, there,” the man said, breaking his silence. “I’ve been looking for you, Elizabeth.”
Jon felt iron descend down his back bone, and he stood, ramrod straight. “She doesn’t want to go with you.” He protectively an arm out.
“She doesn’t know what she wants yet,” the man said, staring at Jon with slight mirth in his eyes. “She’s been running from me because of legends that have no basis in reality. I don’t want to hurt her. I’m not here to cause trouble—”
“Then what did you do to the ship?” Jon asked, staring him down. “Because it sounds like you may have caused some trouble.”
“I didn’t do anything to the ship. Yet,” the man said. There was a little hint of darkness in his eyes now, menace and malice. “I have no interest in fighting with either of you. I just want an opportunity to talk with her.”
“You’ve picked an awkward way to go about it,” Jon said. “Chasing her down. You can’t just let her go?”
The man hesitated at that. “I wouldn’t have preferred it this way. I’m a man who doesn’t want ... well, anything, most of the time, honestly. But ... I need to talk to her. I’ve been looking for her for a long time—”
“Hence the reason she’s running,” Jon said. “Not usually a good sign when a man of your reputation is hunting someone down. Tends to be a little ominous.”
The man laughed humorlessly. “What do you know about me?”
“You’re Sovereign,” Jon said without hesitation. “Not just a local legend, but it seems like you’ve spent more than your fair share of time in the Midwest for the last few hundred years.”
The man smirked. “What can I say? I like the Nordic people, and I’m a sucker for a good hotdish.”
“You’ve killed a lot of metas,” Jon went on, “and more than a few humans.”
“Dangerous ones,” Sovereign said darkly. “Ones that were extorting their fellow man, taking advantage. What about you, Jon Traeger?” Jon bristled at the mention of his own name. “You’ve got a little bit of a reputation, too. Working for Alpha, crisscrossing the world, looking to solve other peoples’ problems, even when they haven’t asked—”
“Usually those problems involve Omega,” Jon said, “and let’s face it, when it comes to dealing with them, most folks don’t know there’s any other option.”
Sovereign smiled. He didn’t look terribly sinister, Jon had to admit. “So you’re watching out for your fellow human beings, guarding them against the dangerous and criminal brotherhood of Omega.”
“It’s a sisterhood, too,” Jon said. “Just ... you know, in the name of equality.”
“Right,” Sovereign said. “So here you are, protecting a girl from a dangerous threat.”